queue_music Chapters

• 01 - Ch. 30: The Lorcha Arrow, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 1 of A History of Our Own Times from the Accession of Queen Victoria to the General Election of 1880, Volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Pamela Nagami, MD. A History of Our Own Times from the Accession of Queen Victoria to the General Election

  of 1880, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. Chapter 30, The Lorcha Arrow, Part 1. After the supposed settlement of the Eastern Question at the Congress of Paris, a sort of langer seems to have come over Parliament and the public mind in England. Lord John Russell endeavored unsuccessfully to have something done which should establish in England a genuine system of national education. He

  proposed a series of resolutions, one of which laid down the principle that after a certain appointed time, when any school district should have been declared to be deficient in adequate means for the education of the poor, the quarter sessions of the piece for the county, city, or borough should have power to impose a school rate. This was a step in the direction of compulsory education. It

  anticipated the principle on which the first genuine measure for national instruction was founded many years after. It was of course rejected by the House of Commons when Lord Russell proposed it. Public opinion both in and out of Parliament was not nearly ripe for such a principle then. All such proposals were quietly disposed of with the observation that that sort of thing

  might do well for Prussians but would never suit Englishmen. That was a time when oppression was regarded in England as a dull beer bemused servile creature good for nothing better than to grovel before his half inebriated monarchs and to get the stick from his incapable military officers. The man who suggested then that perhaps someday the Prussians might show that they knew how to fight

  would have been set down, as on par intellectually, with the narrow-minded grumbler who did not believe in the profound sagacity of the Emperor of the French. For a country of practical men, England is ruled to a marvelous extent by phrases and the term un-English was destined for a considerable time to come to settle all attempts at the introduction of any system of national

  education which even touched on the compulsory principle. One of the regular attempts to admit the Jews to Parliament was made and succeeded in the House of Commons to fail as usual in the House of Lords. The House of Lords itself was thrown into great perturbation for a time by the proposal of the government to confer a peerage for life on one of the judges, Sir James Park. Lord

  Lindhurst strongly opposed the proposal on the ground that it was the beginning of an attempt to introduce a system of life peerages which would destroy the ancient and hereditary character of the House of Lords, allow if its being at any time broken up and remodeled according to the discretion of the minister in power, and reduce it in fact to the level of a continental life

  Senate. Many members of the House of Commons were likewise afraid of the innovation. It seemed to foreshadow the possible revival of an ancient principle of crown nomination which might be applied to the representative as well as to the hereditary chamber, seeing that at one time English sovereigns did undoubtedly assume the right of nominating members of the House of

  Commons. The government, who had really no reactionary or revolutionary designs in their mind, settled the matter for the time by creating Sir James Park, Baron Wensley Dale in the usual way, and the object they had in view was quietly accomplished many years later when the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords was remodeled. Sir George Lewis was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was as yet

  not credited with anything like the political ability which he afterwards proved that he possessed. It was the fashion to regard him as a mere bookman who had drifted somehow into Parliament and who, in the temporary absence of available talent, had been thrust into the office lately held by Mr. Gladstone. The contrast indeed between the style of his speaking and that of Mr. Gladstone

  or Mr. Disraeli was enough to dishearten any political assembly. Mr. Gladstone had brought to his budget speeches an eloquence that brightened the driest details and made the wilderness of figures to blossom like the rose. Mr. Disraeli was able to make a financial statement burst into a bouquet of fireworks. Sir George Lewis began by being nearly inaudible and

  continued to the last to be oppressed by the most ineffective and unattractive manner and delivery, but it began to be gradually found out that the monotonous, halting, feeble manner covered a very remarkable power of expression, that the speaker had great resources of argument, humor, and illustration, that every sentence contained some fresh idea or some happy expression. It was not very

  long before an experienced observer of Parliament declared that Sir George Lewis delivered the best speeches with the worst manner known to the existing House of Commons. After a while a reaction set in and the capacity of Lewis ran the risk of being overrated quite as much as it had been undervalued before. In him, men said, was seen the coming Prime Minister of

  England. Time, as it will be seen afterwards, did not allow Sir George Lewis any chance of making good this prediction. He was undoubtedly a man of rarability and refined intellect, an example very uncommon in England of the thinker, the scholar, and the statesman in one. His speeches were an intellectual treat to all with whom matter counted for more than manner. One

  who had watched parliamentary life from without and within for many years said he had never had his deliberate opinion changed by his speech in the House of Commons but twice, and each time it was an argument from Sir George Lewis that accomplished the conversion. For the present, however, Sir George Lewis was regarded only as the sort of statesman whom it was fitting to have an office

  just then, the statesman of an interval in whom no one was expected to take any particular interest. The attention of the public was a good deal distracted from political affairs by the simultaneous outbreak of new forms of crime and fraud. The trial of Palmer in the Rugeley poisoning case, the trial of Dove in the Leeds poisoning case, these and similar events set the popular mind into wild

  alarm as to the prevalence of strychnine poisoning everywhere. The failure and frauds of the Royal British Bank, the frauds of Robson and Redpath gave for the time a sort of idea that the financial principles of the country were crumbling to pieces. The culmination of the extraordinary career of John Sadlier was fresh in public memory. This man, it will be recollected, was the organizer and

  guiding spirit of the Irish Brigade, the gang of adventurers whom we have already described as trading on the genuine grievances of their country to get power and money for themselves. John Sadlier overdid the thing. He embezzled, swindled, forged, and finally escaped justice by committing suicide on Hampstead Heath. So fraudful had his life been that many persons persisted in believing that his

  supposed suicide was but another fraud. He had got possession, such was the theory, of a dead body which bore some resemblance to his own form and features. He had palmed this off as his own corpse done to death by poison and had himself contrived to escape with a large portion of his ill-gotten money. This extraordinary parody and perversion of the plot of Jean-Paul Richter's story of

  really found many faithful believers. It is worth mentioning not as a theory credible in itself but as an evidence of the belief that had got abroad as to the character and stratagems of Sadlier. The brother of Sadlier was expelled from the House of Commons, one of his accomplices who had obtained a government appointment and had embezzled money contrived to make his escape to the

  United States and the Irish Brigade was broken up. It is only just to say that the best representatives of the Irish Catholics and the Irish National Party in and out of Parliament had never from the first believed in Sadlier in his band and had made persistent efforts to expose them. About this time, Mr. Cyrus W. Field, an energetic American merchant, came over to this country to explain to

  its leading merchants and scientific men a plan he had for constructing an electric telegraph line underneath the Atlantic. Mr. Field had had this idea strongly in his mind for some years and he made a strenuous effort to impress the English public with a conviction of its practicability. He was received by the merchants of Liverpool on November 12, 1856 in their exchange rooms and he

  made a long statement explaining his views which were listened to with polite curiosity. Mr. Field had, however, a much better reception on the whole than Monsieur de Lesseps, who came to England a few months later, to explain his project for constructing a ship canal across the isthmus of Suez. The proposal was received with coldness and more than coldness by engineers, capitalists and

  politicians. Engineers showed that the canal could not be made or at least maintained when made. Capitalists proved that it never could pay and politicians were ready to make it plain that such a canal, if made, would be a standing menace to English interests. Lord Palmerston, a few days after, frankly admitted that the English government were opposed to the project because it

  would tend to the more easy separation of Egypt from Turkey and set afloat speculations as to the ready access to India. Monsieur de Lesseps himself has given an amusing account of the manner in which Lord Palmerston denounced the scheme in an interview with the projector. Luckily, neither Mr. Field nor Monsieur de Lesseps was a person to be lightly discouraged. Great projectors are

  usually as full of their own ideas as great poets. Monsieur de Lesseps had in the end perhaps more reason to be alarmed at England's sudden appreciation of his scheme than he had in the first instance to complain of the cold disapprobation with which her government encountered it. The political world seemed to have made up its mind for a season of quiet. Suddenly that happened which

  always does happen in such a condition of things, a storm broke out. To those who remember the events of that time, three words will explain the nature of the disturbance. The Lorcha Arrow will bring back the recollection of one of the most curious political convulsions known in this country during our generation. For years after the actual events connected with the Lorcha Arrow, the very name of

  that ominous vessel used to send a shudder through the House of Commons. The word suggested first an impassioned controversy which had left a painful impression on the condition of political parties and next an effort of futile persistency to open the whole controversy once again and force it upon the notice of legislators who wished for nothing better than to be allowed to

  forget it. In the speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament on February 3rd, 1857, the following passage occurred. Her Majesty commands us to inform you that acts of violence, insults to the British flag, an infraction of treaty rights committed by the local Chinese authorities at Canton, and a pertinacious refusal of redress have rendered it necessary for Her Majesty's officers in

  China to have recourse to measures of force to obtain satisfaction. The acts of violence, the insults to the British flag, and the infraction of treaty rights alleged to have been committed by the Chinese authorities at Canton had for their single victim the Lorcha Arrow. The Lorcha Arrow was a small boat built on the European model. The word Lorcha is taken from the Portuguese settlement at

  the mouth of the Canton River. It often occurs in treaties with the Chinese authorities. Every British schooner, cutter, Lorcha, etc. are words that we constantly find in these documents. On October 8th, 1856, a party of Chinese in charge of an officer boarded a boat called the Arrow in the Canton River. They took off 12 men on a charge of piracy, leaving two men in

  charge of the Lorcha. The Arrow was declared by its owners to be a British vessel. Our consul in Canton, Mr. Parks, demanded from Ye, the Chinese governor of Canton, the return of the men, basing his demand upon the ninth article of the Supplemental Treaty of 1843, entered into subsequently to the Treaty of 1842. We need not go deeper into the terms of this treaty than to say that there could

  be no doubt that it did not give the Chinese authorities any right to seize Chinese offenders or supposed offenders on board an English vessel. It merely gave them a right to require the surrender of the offenders at the hands of the English. The Chinese governor Ye contended, however, that the Lorcha was not an English but a Chinese vessel, a Chinese pirate venturing occasionally

  for her own purposes to fly the flag of England, which she had no right whatever to hoist. Under the treaties with China, British vessels were to be subject to consular authority only. The treaty provided amply for the registration of vessels entitled to British protection, for the regular renewal of the registration, and for the conditions under which the registration was to be

  The Arrow had somehow obtained a British registration, but it had expired about ten days before the occurrence in the Canton River, and even the British authorities who had been persuaded to grant the registration were not certain whether with the knowledge they subsequently obtained, it could be legally renewed. We believe it may be plainly stated at once as a matter of

  fact that the Arrow was not an English vessel, but only a Chinese vessel which had obtained by false pretenses the temporary possession of a British flag. Mr. Consul Parks, however, was fussy, and he demanded the instant restoration of the captured men, and he sent off to our plenipotentiary at Hong Kong, Sir John Bo-Ring, for authority and assistance in the business. Sir John Bo-Ring was a man

  of considerable ability. At one time he seemed to be a candidate for something like fame. He was the political pupil and literary executor of Jeremy Bentham, and for some years was editor of the Westminster Review. He had a very large and varied, although not profound or scholarly, knowledge of European and Asiatic languages. There was not much scientific study of languages in his

  early days. He had traveled a great deal and sat in Parliament for some years. He understood political economy and had a good knowledge of trade and commerce, and in those days a literary man who knew anything about trade and commerce was thought a person of almost miraculous versatility. Bo-Ring had many friends and admirers, and he set up early for a sort of great man. He was full of self-conceit

  and without any very clear idea of political principles on the large scale. Nothing in all his previous habits of life, nothing in the associations and friendships by which he had long been surrounded, nothing in his studies or his writings, warranted anyone in expecting that when placed in a responsible position in China at a moment of great crisis, he would have taken on him to act

  the part which aroused such a controversy. It would seem as if his eager self-conceit would not allow him to resist the temptation to display himself on the field of political action as a great English plenipotentiary, a master spirit of the order of Clive or Warren Hastings, bidding England to be of good sheer and compelling inferior races to grovel in the dust before her. Bo-Ring

  knew China as well as it was then likely that an Englishman could know the huge mummy empire by the hands of custom-wrapped and swathing bands. He had been consul for some years at Canton, and he had held a post of chief superintendent of trade there. He sent to the Chinese authorities and demanded the surrender of all the men taken from the arrow. Not merely did he demand the

  surrender of the men, but he insisted that an apology should be offered for their arrest and a formal pledge given by the Chinese authorities that no such act should ever be committed again. If this was not done within 48 hours, naval operations were to be begun against the Chinese. This sort of demand was less like that of a dignified English official, conscious of the justice of his

  cause and the strength of his country, than like the demeanor of ancient pistol formulating his terms to the fallen Frenchman on the battlefield, I'll fare him and furcum and ferret him, disgust the same and French unto him. Sir John Bo-Ring called out to the Chinese Governor Ye that he would fare him and furcum and ferret him, and bade the same be discussed in Chinese unto

  him. Ye sent back all the men, saying in effect that he did so to avoid the faring and furcum and ferreting, and he even undertook to promise that for the future great care should be taken that no British ship should be visited improperly by Chinese officers. But he could not offer an apology for the particular case of the arrow, for he still maintained, as was indeed the fact,

  that the arrow was a Chinese vessel and that the English had nothing to do with her. In truth, Sir John Bo-Ring had himself written to Consul Parks to say that the arrow had no right to hoist the English flag, as her license, however obtained, had expired. But he got over this difficulty by remarking that after all the Chinese did not know that fact, and that they were therefore responsible.

  Accordingly, Sir John Bo-Ring carried out his threat and immediately made war on China. He did something worse than making war in the ordinary way. He had Canton bombarded by the fleet which Admiral Sir Michael Seymour commanded. From October 23rd to November 13th, naval and military operations were kept up continuously. A large number of forts and junks were taken and destroyed. The

  suburbs of Canton were battered down and ordered that the ships might have a clearer range to fire upon the city. Shot and shell were poured in upon Canton. Sir John Bo-Ring thought the time appropriate for reviving certain alleged treaty rights for the admission of representatives of British authority into Canton. During the parliamentary debates that followed, Sir John Bo-Ring

  was accused by Lord Darby and Mr. Cobden of having a sort of monomania about getting into Canton. Curiously enough, in his autobiographical fragment, Sir John Bo-Ring tells that when he was a little boy he dreamed that he was sent by the King of England as ambassador to China. In his later days he appears to have been somewhat childishly anxious to realize this dream of his infancy. He showed all

  a child's persistent strength of will and weakness of reason in enforcing his demand, and he appears at one period of the controversy to have thought that it had no other end than his solemn entry into Canton. Meanwhile, Commissioner Ye retaliated by foolishly offering a reward for the head of every Englishman. Throughout the whole business, Sir John Bo-Ring contrived to keep himself almost

  invariably in the wrong, and even where his claim happened to be in itself good, he managed to assert it in a manner at once untimely, imprudent, and indecent. End of Section 1

• 02 - Ch. 30: The Lorcha Arrow, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XXX. THE LORCHE ARROW, PART II. This news from China created a considerable sensation in England, although not many public men had any idea of the manner in which it was destined to affect the House of Commons. On February 24, 1857, Lord Darby brought forward in the House of Lords a motion comprehensively condemning the whole of the proceedings of the British authorities in China. The debate

  would have been memorable if only for the powerful speech in which the Venerable Lord Lindhurst supported the motion and exposed the utter illegality of the course pursued by Sir John Boring. Lord Lindhurst declared that the proceedings of the British authorities could not be justified upon any principle, either of law or of reason, that the arrow was simply a Chinese vessel, built in China and owned and manned by Chinamen, and he laid

  it down as a principle which no one will successfully contest, that you may give any rights or privileges to a foreigner or a foreign vessel as against yourself, but you cannot grant to any such foreigner a single right or privilege as against a foreign state. In other words, if the British authorities chose to give a British license to a Chinese pirate boat which would secure her some immunity against British law, that would be altogether an affair for themselves

  and their government, but they could not pretend by any British register or other document to give a Chinese boat in Chinese waters a right of exemption from the laws of China. Perhaps the whole question never could have arisen if it were not for the fact on which Lord Lindhurst commented that when we are talking of treaty transactions with Eastern nations, we have a kind of loose law and loose notion of morality in regard to them.

  The question as to the right conferred by the license, such as it was, to hoist the British flag, could not have been disposed of more effectually than it was by the Chinese Governor Ye himself in a single sentence. A lorcha, as Lay put it, owned by a Chinese, purchased a British flag, did that make her a British vessel? The Lord Chancellor was actually driven to answer Lord Lindhurst by contending that no matter whether the lorcha

  was legally or illegally flying the British flag, it was not for the Chinese to assume that she was flying it illegally and that they had no right to board the vessel on the assumption that she was not what she pretended to be. To show the value of that argument, it is only necessary to say that if such were the recognized principle, every pirate in the Canton River would have nothing further to do than to hoist any old scrap of British

  bunting and sail on, defiant under the very eyes of the Chinese authorities. The Governor of Canton would be compelled to make a formal complaint to Sir John Boling and trust meanwhile that his spirit of fair play would induce the pirates to wait for a formal investigation by the British authorities. Otherwise, neither Chinese nor British could take any steps to capture the offenders. The House of Lords rejected the motion of Lord Darby by a majority

  of 146 to 110. On February 26, Mr. Cobden brought forward a motion in the House of Commons declaring that the papers which had been laid upon the table failed to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the Arrow and demanding that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the state of our commercial relations with China. This must have been a peculiarly painful task for Mr. Cobden.

  He was an old friend of Sir John Boling, with whom he had always supposed himself to have many or most opinions in common, but he followed his convictions as to public duty and despite of his personal friendship. It is a curious evidence of the manner in which the moral principles become distorted in a political contest that during the subsequent elections it was actually made a matter of reproach to Mr. Cobden that while acknowledging his

  old friendship for Sir John Boling, he was nevertheless found ready to move a vote of censure on his public conduct. The debate was remarkable more for the singular political combination which it developed as it went on than even for its variability and eloquence. Men spoke and voted on the same side, who had probably never been brought into such companionship before and never were afterwards. Mr. Cobden found himself supported by Mr.

  Gladston and Mr. Disraeli, by Mr. Roebuck and Sir E. B. Lytton, by Lord John Russell and Mr. Whiteside, by Lord Robert Cecil afterwards the Marquis of Salisbury, Sir Frederick Thessager, Mr. Roundel Palmer afterwards Lord Selvorn, Mr. Sidney Herbert and Mr. Milner Gibson. The discussion lasted four nights and it was only as it went on that men's eyes began to open to its political importance. Mr. Cobden had probably never dreamed of the amount or

  the nature of the support his motion was destined to receive. The government and the opposition alike held meetings out of doors to agree upon a general line of action in the debate and to prepare for the result. Lord Palmerston was convinced that he would come all right in the end, but he felt that he had made himself obnoxious to the advanced liberals by his indifference or rather hostility to every project of reform and he persuaded himself

  that the opportunity would be eagerly caught at by them to make a combination with the Tories against him. In all this he was deceiving himself, as he had done more than once before. There is not the slightest reason to believe that anything but a growing conviction of the insufficiency of the defense set up for the proceedings in Canton influenced the great majority of those who spoke and voted for Mr. Cobden's motion. The truth is that there

  has seldom been so flagrant and so inexcusable an example of high-handed lawlessness in the dealings of a strong with a weak nation. When the debate first began it was quite possible that many public men still believed some explanation or defense was coming forward which would enable them to do that which the House of Commons is always unwilling not to do, to sustain the action of an English official in a foreign country. As the discussion went

  on it became more and more evident that there was no such defense or explanation. Men found their consciences coerced into a condemnation of Sir John Boling's conduct. It was almost ludicrous when the miserable quibblings and evasions of the British officials came to be contrasted with the cruelly clear arguments of the Chinese. The reading of these latter documents came like a practical enforcement of Mr. Cobden's description of the Chinese

  empire as a state which had its system of logic before the time of Aristotle and its code of morals before that of Socrates. The vote of censure was carried by 263 votes against 247, a majority of 16. Mr. Disraeli, in the course of a clever and defiant speech made toward the close of the long debate, had challenged Lord Palmerston to take the opinion of the country on the policy of the government. I should like, he exclaimed, to see the program

  of the proud leaders of the Liberal Party, no reform, new taxes, Canton blazing, Peking invaded. Lord Palmerston's answer was virtually that of Brutus. Why, I will see thee at Philippi then. He announced two or three days after that the government had resolved on a dissolution and an appeal to the country. Lord Palmerston knew his Pappenheimers. He understood his countrymen. He knew that a popular minister makes himself more popular by appealing to

  the country on the ground that he has been condemned by the House of Commons for upholding the honor of England and coercing some foreign power somewhere. His address to the electors of Tiverton differed curiously in its plan of appeal from that of Lord John Russell to the electors of the city, or that of Mr. Disraeli to those of Buckinghamshire. Lord John Russell coolly and wisely argued out the controversy between him and Lord Palmerston

  and gave very satisfactory reasons to prove that there was no sufficient justification for the bombardment of Canton. Mr. Disraeli described Lord Palmerston as the Tory chief of a radical cabinet and declared that with no domestic policy he is obliged to divert the attention of the people from the consideration of their own affairs to the distractions of foreign politics. His external system is turbulent and aggressive that his rule at home may be tranquil

  and unassailed. In later days a charge not altogether unlike that was made against an English prime minister who was not Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston understood the temper of the country too well to trouble himself about arguments of any kind. He came to the point at once. In his address to the electors of Tiverton he declared that an insolent barbarian wielding authority at Canton violated the British flag, broke the engagements of treaties,

  offered rewards for the heads of British subjects in that part of China and planned their destruction by murder, assassination and poison. That of course was all sufficient. The insolent barbarian wasn't itself almost enough. Governor Yeh certainly was not a barbarian. His argument on the subject of international law obtained the endorsement of Lord Lindhurst. His way of arguing the political and commercial case compelled the admiration of Lord Darby. His

  letters form a curious contrast to the documents contributed to the controversy by the representatives of British authority in China. However he became for electioneering purposes an insolent barbarian and the story of a Chinese baker who was said to have tried to poison Sir John Bowring became transfigured into an attempt at the wholesale poisoning of Englishmen in China by the express orders of the Chinese governor. Lord Palmerston further intimated that he and his government had

  been censured by a combination of factious persons who if they got into power and were prepared to be consistent must apologize to the Chinese government and offer compensation to the Chinese commissioner. Will the British nation, he asked, give their support to men who have thus endeavored to make the humiliation and degradation of their country the stepping stone to power? No, to be sure. The British nation would do nothing of the kind. Lord Darby, Lord Lindhurst,

  Mr. Gladston, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Disraeli, Sir E. B. Lytton, Lord Gray, Lord Robert Cecil, these were the craven Englishmen devoid of all patriotic or manly feeling who were trying to make the humiliation and degradation of their country a stepping stone to power. They were likewise the friends and allies of the insolent barbarian. There were no music halls of the modern type in those days. Had there been such, the denunciations of the insolent barbarian and of his still baser

  British friends would no doubt have been shouted forth night after night in the metropolis to the accompaniment of rattling glasses and clattering pint pots. Even without the alliance of the music halls, however, Lord Palmerston swept the field of his enemies. His victory was complete. The defeat of the men of peace and his special was what Mr. Ruskin once called not a fall, but a catastrophe. Cobden, Bright, Milner-Gibson, W. J. Foxx, Layard, and many other leading opponents of the Chinese

  policy were left without seats. There was something peculiarly painful in the circumstances of Mr. Bright's defeat at Manchester. Mr. Bright was suffering from severe illness. In the opinion of many of his friends, his health was thoroughly broken. He had worked in public life with a generous disregard of his physical resources and he was compelled to leave the country and seek rest first in Italy and afterwards in Algeria. It was not a time when even political enmity could with

  a good grace have ventured to visit on him the supposed offenses of his party, but the insolent barbarian phrase overthrew him too. He sent home from Florence a farewell address to the electors of Manchester which was full of quiet dignity. I have esteemed it a high honor, thus ran one passage of the address, to be one of your representatives and have given more of mental and physical labor to your service than is just to myself. I feel it scarcely less an honor to

  suffer in the cause of peace and on behalf of what I believe to be the true interests of my country, though I could have wished that the blow had come from other hands at a time when I could have met face to face those who dealt it. Not long after, Mr. Cobden, one of the least sentimental and the most unaffected of men, speaking in the Manchester Free Trade Hall of the circumstances of Mr. Bright's rejection from Manchester and the leave-taking address which so many regarded as the last public

  word of a great career, found himself unable to go on with that part of his speech. An emotion more honorable to the speaker in his subject than the most elaborate triumph of eloquence checked the flow of the orator's words and for the moment made him inarticulate. Lord Palmerston came back to power with renewed and redoubled strength. The little war with Persia which will be mentioned afterwards came to an end in time to give him another claim as a conqueror

  on the sympathies of the constituencies. His appointments of bishops had given great satisfaction to the evangelical party and he had become for the time quite a sort of church hero, much to the amusement of Lord Darby who made great sport of Palmerston the true Protestant, Palmerston the only Christian prime minister. In the royal speech at the opening of parliament, it was announced that the differences between this country and China still remained unadjusted and that therefore

  Her Majesty has sent to China a plenipotentiary fully entrusted to deal with all matters of difference and that plenipotentiary will be supported by an adequate naval and military force in the event of such assistance becoming necessary. It would be almost superfluous to say that the assistance of the naval and military force thus suggested was found to be necessary. The government however had more serious business with which to occupy themselves before they were

  at liberty to turn to the easy work of coercing the Chinese. The new parliament was engaged for some time in passing the act for the establishment of a court of divorce, that is to say abolishing the ancient jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts respecting divorce and setting up a regular court of law, the divorce and matrimonial causes court, to deal with questions between husband and wife. The passing of the divorce act was strongly contested in both houses of parliament and indeed

  was secured at last only by Lord Palmerston's intimating very significantly that he would keep the houses sitting until the measure had been disposed of. Mr. Gladston in particular offered to the bill a most strenuous opposition. He condemned it on strictly conscientious grounds. Yet it has to be said even as a question of conscience that there was divorce in England before the passing of the act. The only difference being that the act made divorce somewhat cheap and

  rather easy. Before it was the luxury of the rich. The act brought it within the reach of almost the poorest of her majesty's subjects. We confess that we do not see how any great moral or religious principle is violated in the one case any more than in the other. The question at issue was not whether divorce should be allowed by the law but only whether it should be high priced or comparatively inexpensive. It is certainly a public advantage as it seems to us that the change in the

  law has put an end to the debates that used to take place in both houses of parliament. When any important bill of divorce was under discussion the members crowded the house. The case was discussed in all its details as any clause in a bill is now debated. Long speeches were made by those who thought the divorce ought to be granted and those who thought the contrary in the time of parliament was occupied in the edifying discussion as to whether some unhappy

  woman's shame was or was not clearly established. In one famous case where a distinguished peer, orator, and statesman sought a divorce from his wife every point of the evidence was debated in parliament for night after night. Members spoke in the debate who had known nothing of the case until the bill came before them. One member perhaps was taken with a vague sympathy with the wife. He set about to show that the evidence against her proved nothing. Another sympathized with husbands

  in general and made it his business to emphasize every point that told of guilt in the woman. More than one earnest speaker during those debates expressed an ardent hope that the time might come when parliament should be relieved from the duty of undertaking such unsuitable and scandalous investigations. It must be owned that public decency suffers less by the regulated action of the divorce court than it did under this preposterous and abominable system.

  We cannot help adding to that the divorce act judging by the public use made of it certainly must be held to have justified itself in a merely practical sense. It seems to have been thoroughly appreciated by a grateful public. It was not easy after a while to get judicial power enough to keep the supply of divorces up to the ever-increasing demand. Lord Palmerston then appears to be furnished with an entirely

  new lease of power. The little Persian war has been brought to a close. The country is not disposed to listen to any complaint as to the manner in which it was undertaken. The settlement of the dispute with China promised to be an easy piece of business. The peace party were everywhere overthrown. No one could well have anticipated that within less than a year from the general election, a motion made in the House of Commons by one whom it unseated was to compel the government

  of Lord Palmerston suddenly to resign office. End of section two.

• 03 - Ch. 31: Transportation, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 3 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 31. Transportation, Part 1. The year 1857 would have been memorable if for no other reason, because it saw the abolition of the system of transportation. Transportation, as a means of getting rid of part of our criminal population,

  dates from the time of Charles II, when the judges gave power for the removal of offenders to the North American colonies. The fiction of the years coming immediately after took account of this innovation, and one of the most celebrated, if not exactly one of the finest, of Defoe's novels deals with the history of a convict thus sent out to Virginia. Afterwards, the revolt

  of the American colonies and other causes made it necessary to send convicts farther away from civilization. The punishment of transportation was first regularly introduced into our criminal law in 1717 by an Act of Parliament. In 1787, a cargo of criminals was shipped out to Botany Bay on the eastern shore of New South Wales, and near Sydney, the present thriving capital of the colony.

  Afterward, the convicts were also sent to Von Diemansland, or Tasmania, and to Norfolk Island, a lonely island in the Pacific, some 800 miles from the New South Wales shore. Norfolk Island became the penal settlement for the convicted among convicts. That is to say, criminals who, after transportation to New South Wales committed new crimes there, might be sent by the colonial authorities for

  sterner punishment to Norfolk Island. Nothing can seem, on the face of it, a more satisfactory way of disposing of criminals than the system of transportation. In the first place, it got rid of them, as far as the people at home were concerned, and for a long time that was about all that the people at home cared. Those who had committed crimes not bad enough to be disposed of

  by the simple and efficient operation of the gallows were got rid of in a manner almost as prompt and effective by the plan of sending them out in shiploads to America or to Australia. It looked, too, as if the system ought to be satisfactory in every way and to everybody. The convicts were provided with a new career, a new country, and a chance of reformation. They were

  usually, after a while, released from actual durants in the penal settlement and allowed conditionally to find employment and to make themselves, if they could, good citizens. Their labor, it was thought, would be of great service to the colonists. The Act of 1717 recited that, In many of His Majesty's colonies and plantations in America

  there was a great want of servants who, by their labor and industry, might be the means of improving and making the said colonies and plantations more useful to this nation. At that time statesmen only thought of the utility of the colonies to this nation. Philanthropy might, therefore, for a while beguile itself with the belief

  that the transportation system was a benefit to the transported as well as to those among whom they were sent. But the colonists very soon began to complain. The convicts who had spent their period of probation in hulks or prisons generally left those homes of horror with natures so brutalized

  as to make their intrusion into any community of decent persons an insufferable nuisance. Pent up in penal settlements by themselves the convicts turned into demons. Drafted into an inhabited colony they were too numerous to be wholly absorbed by the population and they carried their contagion along with them.

  New South Wales began to protest against their presence. Lord John Russell, when secretary for the colonies in 1840, ordered that no more of the criminal refuse should be carted out to that region. Then Tasmania had them all to herself for a while. Lord Stanley, when he came to be at the

  head of the colonial office, made an order that the free settlers of Tasmania were not to obtain convict labor at any lower rates than the ordinary market price and Tasmania had only put up with the presence of the convicts at all for the sake of getting their labor cheap. Tasmania therefore began to protest

  against being made the refuse ground for our scoundrelism. Mr. Gladstone, while colonial secretary, suspended the whole system for a while but it was renewed soon after. Sir George Gray endeavored to make the Cape of Good Hope a receptacle for a number of picked convicts but in 1849 the inhabitants of Cape Colony

  absolutely refused to allow a shipload of criminals to be discharged upon their shores and it was manifestly impossible to compel them to receive such disagreeable guests. By this time public opinion in England was ready to sympathize to the fall with any colony which stood out against the degrading system.

  For a long time there had been growing up a conviction that the transportation system carried intolerable evils with it. Romilly and Bentham had condemned it long before. In 1837 a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to consider and report on the system. The committee included Lord John Russell,

  Sir Robert Peel, Charles Buller, Sir W. Molesworth, and Lord Howick afterwards, Earl Gray. The evidence they collected settled the question in the minds of all thinking men. The Reverend Walter Clay, son of the famous prison chaplain, Reverend John Clay, says in his memoirs of his father

  that probably no volume was ever published in England of which the contents were so loathsome as those of the appendix to the committee's report. There is not much exaggeration in this. The reader must be left to imagine for himself some of the horrors which would be disclosed by a minute account of what happened in a penal den like

  Norfolk Island where a number of utterly brutalized men were left to herd together without anything like beneficent control, without homes, and without the society of women. In Norfolk Island the convicts worked in chains. They were roused at daylight in the morning and turned out to labor in

  their irons and huddled back in their dens at night. In some rare cases convicts were sent directly from England to Norfolk Island but as a rule the island was kept as a place of punishment for criminals who already convicted in the mother country were found guilty of new crimes during their residence in New South Wales.

  The condition of things in New South Wales was such as civilization has not often seen. In Sydney especially it was extraordinary. When the convicts were sent out to the colony they received each in turn after a certain period of penal probation a conditional freedom, in other words a

  ticket of leave. They were allowed to work for the colonists and to support themselves. Anyone who wanted laborers or artisans or servants could apply to the authorities and have convicts assigned to him for the purpose. Female convicts as well as male were thus employed. There was therefore a large number of

  convicts men and women moving about freely in the active life of Sydney doing business, working in trades, performing domestic service to all appearance occupying the place that artisans and laborers and servants occupy among ourselves. But there was a profound difference. The convict laborers and servants were in reality

  little better than slaves. They were assigned to masters and mistresses and they had to work. Stern laws were enacted and were no doubt required to keep those terrible subordinates in order. The lash was employed to discipline the men, the women were practically unmanageable. The magistrates had the power on the

  complaint of any master or mistress to order a man to be flogged with as many as 50 lashes. Some of the punishment lists remind a reader of the days of slavery in the United States. On every page we come on entries of the flogging of men for disobeying the orders of a master or mistress, for threatening a fellow servant, for

  refusing to rub down the horse or clean the carriage or some such a breach of discipline. A master who was also a magistrate was not allowed to adjudicate in his own case, but practically it would seem that masters and mistresses could have their convict servants flogged whenever they thought fit.

  At that time a great many of the native population, the blacks as they were called, used to stream into the town of Sydney as the Indians now come into Salt Lake City or some other western town of America. In some of the outlying houses they would lounge into the kitchens as beggars used to do in Ireland in old

  days, looking out for any scraps that might be given to them. It was a common sight then to see half a dozen of the native women, absolutely naked, hanging around the doors of the houses where they expected anything. Between the native women and the convicts at large an almost indiscriminate intercourse

  set in. The black men would bring their wives into the town and offer them for a drop of rum or a morsel of tobacco. In this extraordinary society there were those three strands of humanity curiously intertwined. There was the civilized Englishman with his money, his culture, his domestic habits, there was the outcast of English civilization,

  the jailbird fresh from the prison and the hulks, and there was the aboriginal naked savage. In the drawing room sat the wife and daughters of the magistrate. In the stable was the convict, whose crimes had perhaps been successive burglaries crowned with attempted murder. In the kitchen were women servants taken from the convict depot

  and known to be prostitutes, and hanging around the door were the savages men and women. All the evidence seems to agree that with hardly any exceptions the women convicts were literally prostitutes. There were some exceptions which it is well to notice. Witnesses who were questioned on the

  subject gave it as the result of their experience that women convicted of any offense whatever in this country and sent out to New South Wales invariably took to profligacy unless they were Irish women. That is to say it did not follow that an Irish convict woman must necessarily be a profligate woman.

  It did follow as a matter of fact in the case of other women. Some of the convicts married women of bad character and lived on their immoral earnings and made no secret of the fact. Many of these husbands boasted that they made their wives keep them in what they considered luxuries by the wages of their sin.

  Tea and sugar were great luxuries to them at that time and it was a common saying among men of this class that their wives must take care to have the tea and sugar bag filled every day. Convicts soon inoculated the natives with the vilest vices and the foulest diseases of civilization. Many an English lady found that her

  woman servants went off in the night somewhere and came back in the morning and they knew perfectly well that the women had been off on some wild freak of profligacy but it was of no use to complain. In the midst of all this it would appear that a few of the convicts did behave well,

  that they kept to work with iron industry and rose in the world and were respected. In some cases the wives of convicts went out to New South Wales and started farms or shops and had their husbands assigned to them as servants and got on tolerably well. But in general the convicts led a life of utter profligacy

  and they corrupted all that came within their reach. One convict said to a judge, let a man be what he will when he comes out here he is soon as bad as the rest. A man's heart is taken from him and there is given to him the heart of a beast. Perpetual profligacy, incessant flogging, this was the

  combination of the convict's life. Many of the convicts liked the life on the whole and wrote to friends at home urging them to commit some offense, get transported and come out to New South Wales. An idle ruffian had often a fine time of it there. This of course does not apply to Norfolk

  Island. No wretch could be so degraded or so unhappy anywhere else as to find relief in that hideous layer of suffering and abomination. Such was the condition of things described to the committee of the House of Commons in 1837. It is right and even necessary to say that we have passed over almost without

  illusion some of the most hideous of the revelations. We have kept ourselves to abominations which at all events bear to be spoken of. From the publication of the evidence taken before the committee anyone might have seen that the transportation system was doomed. It was clear that if any colony made

  up its mind to declare that it would not endure the thing any longer no English minister could venture to say that he would force it on the colonists. The doomed and odious system however continued for a long time to be put in operation as far as possible. It was most tempting both as to theory

  and to practice. It was an excellent thing for the people at home to get rid of so much of their ruffianism and it was easy to persuade ourselves that the system gave the convicts a chance of reform and ought to be acceptable to the colonists. End of section 3.

• 04 - Ch. 31: Transportation, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  The colonists, however, made up their minds at last in most places, and would not have any more of our convicts. Only in Western Australia were the people willing to receive them on any conditions, and Western Australia had but scanty natural resources and could in any case harbor very few of our outcasts.

  The discovery of gold in Australia settled the question of those colonies being troubled any more with our transportation system, for the greatest enthusiast for transportation would hardly propose to send out gangs of criminals to a region glowing with the temptations of gold. There were some thoughts of establishing a convict settlement on the shores of the Gulf

  of Carpinteria on the north side of the great Australian island. Some such scheme was talked of at various intervals. It always, however, broke down on a little examination. One difficulty alone was enough to dispose of it effectually. It was impossible after the revelations of the Committee of the House of Commons to have

  a convict settlement of men alone, and if it was proposed to found a colony, where were the women to come from? Were respectable English and Irish girls to be enticed to go out and become the wives of convicts? What statesman would make such a proposal?

  The wildest projects were suggested. Let the convicts marry the savage women one ingenious person suggested. Unfortunately, in the places thought most suitable for a settlement, there happened to be no savage women. Let the convict men be married to convict women, said another philosopher.

  But even if any colonial minister could have been found hearty enough to approach Parliament with a scheme for the foundation of a colony on the basis of common crime, it had to be said that there were not nearly enough of convict women to supply brides for even a tolerable proportion of the convict men. Another suggestion it is only necessary to mention for the purpose of showing to what

  lengths the votaries of an idea will go in their effort to make it fit in with the actual condition of things. There were persons who thought it would not be a bad plan to get rid of two nuisances at once, our convicts and a portion of what is euphoristically termed our social evil, by founding a penal settlement on some lonely shore and sending out cargos of the abandoned

  women of our large towns to be the wives of the present and the mothers of the future colonists. When it came to propositions of this kind, it was clear that there was an end to any serious discussion as to the possibility of founding a convict settlement. As late as 1856, committees of both Houses of Parliament declared themselves greatly

  in favor of the transportation system, that is, of some transportation system, of an ideal transportation system, but also recorded their conviction that it would be impossible to carry out the known system any longer. The question then arose what was England to do with the criminals whom up to that time she had been able to shovel out of her way.

  All the receptacles were closed but Western Australia, and that counted for almost nothing. Some prisoners were then and since sent out for a part of their term to Gibraltar and Bermuda, but they were always brought back to this country to be discharged so that they may be considered as forming a part of the ordinary class of criminals kept in detention here.

  The transportation system was found to carry evils in its train which did not directly belong to its own organization. It had been for a long time the practice of England and Scotland to send out to a colony only those who were transported for ten years and upwards, and to retain those condemned for shorter periods in the hulks and other convict prisons.

  In these hideous hulks, the convicts were huddled together very much as in Norfolk Island, with scarcely any superintendents or discipline, and the result was that they became what were called with hardly any exaggeration, floating hells. It was quite clear that the whole system of our dealings with our convicts must be revised and reorganized.

  In 1853 the government took a step which has been well described as an avowal that we must take the complete charge of our criminals upon ourselves. A bill was brought in by the ministry to substitute penal servitude for transportation unless in cases where the sentence was for fourteen years and upwards. The bill reduced the scale of punishment, that is to say, made a shorter period of penal

  servitude supply the place of a longer term of transportation. Lord Palmerston was Home Secretary at this time. It was to ring that curious episode in his career described in a former volume when he adopted, if such an expression may be used, the business of Home Secretary in order as he put it, to learn how to deal with the concerns of the country internally and to be brought

  in contact with his fellow countrymen. He threw all his characteristic energy into the work of carrying through the measure for the establishment of a new system of secondary punishments. It was during the passing of the bill through the House of Lords that Lord Gray suggested the introduction of a modification of the ticket of leave system which was in practice

  in the colonies. The principle of the ticket of leave was that the convict should not be kept in custody during the whole period of his sentence but that he should be allowed to pass through a period of conditional liberty before he obtained his full and unrestricted freedom. Lord Gray also urged that the sentences of penal servitude should correspond in length

  with the sentences for transportation. The government would not accept this latter suggestion but they adopted the principle of the ticket of leave. The bill was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Cranworth, the Lord Chancellor. When it came down to the House of Commons there were some objections made to the ticket

  of leave clauses but the government carried them through. The effect of the measure was to substitute penal servitude for transportation in all cases except those where the sentence of transportation was for 14 years and upwards. Now there can be no doubt that the principle of the ticket of leave is excellent but it proved on its first trial in this country the most utter delusion.

  It got no fair chance at all. It was understood by the whole English public that the object of the ticket of leave was to enable the authorities to give a conditional discharge from custody to a man who had in some way proved his fitness for such a relaxation of punishment and that the eye of the police would be on him even during the period of his conditional release.

  This was in fact the construction put on the Act in Ireland where accordingly the ticket of leave system was worked with the most complete success. Under the management of Sir Walter Crofton, Chairman of the Board of Prison Directors, the principle was applied exactly as anyone might have supposed it would be applied everywhere and as indeed the very conditions endorsed on the ticket of leave distinctly suggested.

  The convicts in Ireland were kept away from the general community in a little penal settlement near Dublin. They were put at first to hard, monotonous and weary labor. They were then encouraged to believe that with energy and good conduct they could gradually obtain relaxation of punishment and even some small rewards.

  They were subjected to a process of really reforming discipline. They got their conditional freedom as soon as they had satisfactorily proved that they deserved and were fit for it. But even then they had to report themselves periodically to the police and they knew that if they were seen to be relapsing into old habits and old companionships they were certain

  to be sent back to the penal settlement to begin the hard work over again. The result was substantial and lasting reform. It was easy for the men who were let out conditionally to obtain employment. A man who had Sir Walter Crofton's ticket of leave was known by that very fact to have given earnest of good purpose and steady character.

  The system in Ireland was therefore all that its authors could have wished it to be. But for some inscrutable reason the act was interpreted in this country as simply giving every convict a right after a certain period of detention to claim a ticket of leave provided that he had not grossly violated any of the regulations of the prison or misconducted himself in some outrageous manner.

  In 1856 Sir George Gray, the Home Secretary, told the House of Commons that there never was a more fallacious idea than the supposition that a ticket of leave was a certificate of good character and that a man only obtained such a ticket if he could prove that he had reformed. The ticket of leave he went on to explain was indeed withheld in the case of very bad

  conduct. But in any ordinary case the convicts, unless they have transgressed the prison rules enacted in such a manner as to incur an unfavorable report from the prison authorities, are after a stated period of imprisonment entitled as a matter of course to a ticket of leave. It would be superfluous to examine the working of such a system as that which Sir George

  Gray described. A number of scoundrels whom the judges had sentenced to be kept endurance for so many years were without any conceivable reason turned loose upon society long before the expiration of their sentence. They were in England literally turned loose upon society, for it was held by the authorities

  here that it might possibly interfere with the chance of a jailbird's getting employment if he were seen to be watched by the police. The police therefore were considerately ordered to refrain from looking after them. I knew you once, says the hero of a poem by Mr. Browning, but in paradise should we meet, I will pass nor turn my face.

  The police were ordered to act thus discreetly if they saw Bill Sykes asking for employment in some wealthy and quiet household. They certainly knew him once, but now they were to pass or turn their face. Nothing surely that we know of, of the internal arrangements of Timbuktu, to adopt the words of Sidney Smith, warrants us in supposing that such a system would have been endured

  there for a year. Fifty percent of the ruffians released on ticket of leave were afterwards brought up for new crimes and convicted over again. Of those who although not actually convicted were believed to have relapsed into their old habits, from sixty to seventy percent relapsed within the first year of their liberation.

  Baron Bramwell stated from the bench that he had instances of criminals coming before him who had three sentences overlapping each other. The convict was set free on ticket of leave, convicted of some new crime, and recommitted to prison, released again on ticket of leave, and convicted once again before the period of his original sentence had expired.

  An alarm sprang up in England, and like all alarms, it was supported both by exaggeration and misconception. The system pursued with the convicts was bad enough, but the popular impression ascribed to the ticket of leave men every crime committed by anyone who had been previously convicted and imprisoned.

  A man who had worked out the whole of his sentence and who therefore had to be discharged committed some crime immediately after. Excited public opinion described it as a crime committed by a ticket of leave man. Two committees sat, as has already been said, in 1856. The result of the public alarm and the parliamentary consideration of the whole subject was the

  bill brought in by Sir George Gray in 1857. This measure extended the provisions of the Act of 1853 by substituting in all cases a sentence of penal servitude for one of transportation. It extended the limits of the penal servitude sentences by making them correspond with the terms of transportation to which men had previously been sentenced.

  It gave power also to pass sentences of penal servitude for shorter periods than were allowed by former legislation, allowing penal servitude for as short a period as three years. It attached to all sentences of penal servitude the liability to be removed from this country to places beyond seas fitted for their reception, and it restricted the range of the remission of sentence.

  The Act, it will be seen, abolished the old-fashioned transportation system altogether, but it left the power to the authorities to have penal servitude carried out in any of the colonies where it might be thought expedient. The government had still some idea of utilizing Western Australia for some of our offenders, but nothing came of this plan or of the clause in the new Act, which was passed to favor

  it, and as a matter of fact, transportation was abolished. How the amended legislation worked in other respects we shall have an opportunity of examining hereafter. Transportation was not the only familiar institution which came to an end in this year. The Gretna Green marriages became illegal in 1857, their doom having been fixed for

  that time by an Act passed in the previous session. Thenceforward such marriages were unlawful unless one of the parties had lived at least twenty-one days previously in Scotland. The hurried flight to the border, the post-chez and the panting steeds, the excited lovers, the pursuing father, passed away into tradition.

  Lydia Languish had to reconcile herself to the license and the blessing, and even the writers of fiction might have given up without a sigh an incident which had grown wearisome in romance long before it ceased to be interesting in reality.

• 05 - Ch. 32: The Sepoy, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 5 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 32, The Sepoy, Part 1. On the 23rd of June, 1857, the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Plassey was celebrated in London. One object of the celebration was to obtain the means of raising a monument to Clive in his

  native county. At such a meeting, it was but natural that a good deal should be said about the existing condition of India and the prospects of that great empire which the genius and the daring of Clive had gone so far to secure for the English crown. It does not appear, however, as if any alarm was expressed with regard to the state of things in Bengal, or as if any of the noblemen and

  gentlemen present believed that at that very moment India was passing through a crisis more serious than Clive himself had had to encounter. Indeed, a month or so before, a Bombay Journal had congratulated itself on the fact that India was quiet throughout. Yet at the hour when the Plassey celebration was going on, the great Indian mutiny was already six weeks old and had already

  assumed full and distinctive proportions, was already known in India to be a convulsion destined to shake to its foundations the whole fabric of British rule in Hindustan. A few evenings after the celebration, there was some cursory and casual discussion in Parliament about the doubtful news that had begun to arrive from India, but as yet no Englishman at home took serious thought

  of the matter. The news came at last with a rush. Never in our time, never probably at any time, came such news upon England as the first full story of the outbreak in India. It came with terrible, not unnatural, exaggeration. England was horror-stricken by the stories of wholesale massacres of English women and children, of the most abominable tortures, the most degrading outrages

  inflicted upon English matrons and maidens. The newspapers ran over with the most horrifying and the most circumstantial accounts of how English ladies of the highest refinement were dragged naked through the streets of Delhi and were paraded in their nakedness before the eyes of the aged King of Delhi in order that his hatred might be feasted with the sight of the

  shame and agony of the captives. Descriptions were given to which it is unnecessary to make any special allusions now of the vile mutilations and tortures inflicted on English women to glut the vengeance of the tyrant. The pen of another Procopius could alone have done full justice to the narratives which were poured in day after day upon the shuddering ears of Englishmen until

  all thought, even of the safety of the Indian Empire, was swallowed up in a wild longing for revenge on the whole seed, breed, and race of the mutinous people who had tortured and outraged our country women. It was not till the danger was all over and British arms had reconquered northern India that England learned the truth with regard to these alleged outrages and tortures. Let us

  dispose of this most painful part of the terrible story at the very beginning and once for all. During the Indian mutiny the blood of innocent women and children was cruelly and lavishly spilt on one memorable occasion with a blood thirstiness that might have belonged to the most savage times of medieval warfare. But there were no outrages in the common

  upon women. No Englishwoman was stripped or dishonored or purposely mutilated. As to this fact all historians of the mutiny are agreed. But if the first stories of the outbreak that reached England dealt in exaggerations of this kind, they do not seem to have exaggerated, they do not seem to have even adequately appreciated the nature of the crisis with which England was

  suddenly called upon to deal. The fact was that throughout the greater part of the north and northwest of the great Indian Peninsula there was a rebellion of the native races against English power. It was not alone the sepoys who rose in revolt. It was not by any means a merely military mutiny. It was a combination whether the growth of deliberate design and long preparation

  or the sudden birth of chance and unexpected opportunity. A combination of military grievance, national hatred and religious fanaticism against the English occupiers of India. The native princes and the native soldiers were in it. The Mohammedan and the Hindu forgot their own religious antipathies to join against the Christian. Hatred and panic were the stimulants of that great

  rebellious movement. The quarrel about the greased cartridges was but the chance spark flung in among all the combustible material. If that spark had not lighted it, some other would have done the work. In fact, there are thoughtful and well-informed historians who believe that the incident of the greased cartridges was a fortunate one for our people, that coming as it did it

  precipitated unexpectedly a great convulsion which occurring later and as the result of more gradual operations might have been far more dangerous to the perpetuity of our rule. Let us first see what were the actual facts of the outbreak. When the improved Enfield rifle was introduced into the Indian army, the idea got abroad that the cartridges were made up in paper greased with a mixture

  of cow's fat and hog's lard. It appears that the paper was actually greased but not with any such material as that which religious alarm suggested to the native troops. Now a mixture of cow's fat and hog's lard would have been above all other things unsuitable for use in cartridges to be distributed among our sepoys. For the Hindu regards the cow with religious veneration and the

  Mohammedan looks upon the hog with utter loathing. In the mind of the former something sacred to him was profaned. In that of the latter something unclean and abominable was forced upon his daily use. It was in 1856 that the new rifles were sent out from England and the murmur against their use began at once. Various efforts were made to allay the panic among the native troops. The use of the

  cartridges complained of was discontinued by orders issued in January 1857. The governor-general sent out a proclamation in the following May assuring the army of Bengal that the tales told to them of offense to their religion or injury to their caste being meditated by the government of India were all malicious inventions and falsehoods. Still the idea was strong

  among the troops that some design against their religion was meditated. A mutinous spirit began to spread itself abroad. In March some of the native regiments had to be disbanded. In April some executions of sepoys took place for gross and open mutiny. In the same month several of the Bengal native cavalry and mirut refused to use the cartridges served out to them although they had

  been authoritatively assured that the paper in which the cartridges were wrapped had never been touched by any offensive material. On May 9th these men were sent to the jail. They had been tried by court-martial and were sentenced 80 of them to imprisonment and hard labor for 10 years, the remaining five to a similar punishment for six years. They had chains put on them in the

  presence of their comrades who no doubt regarded them as martyrs to their religious faith and they were thus publicly marched off to the common jail. The guard placed over the jail actually consisted of sepoys. The following day Sunday, May 10th, was memorable. The native troops in mirut broke into open mutiny. The sumadies, the in iluctabile tempus, had come. They fired upon their

  officers, killed a colonel and others, broke into the jail, released their comrades and massacred several of the European inhabitants. The European troops rallied and drove them from their cantonments or barracks. Then came the momentous event, the turning point of the mutiny, the act that marked out its character and made it what it afterwards became. Mirut is an important military

  station between the Ganges and the Jumna, 38 miles northeast of Delhi. In the vast palace of Delhi, almost a city in itself, a wreaking Alsatia of lawless and privileged vice and crime, lived the aged King of Delhi as he was called, the disestablished but not wholly disendowed sovereign, the descendant of the Great Timur, the last representative of the Grand Mughal. The mutineers fled along

  the road to Delhi and some evil fate directed that they were not to be pursued or stopped on their way. Unchecked, unpursued, they burst into Delhi and swarmed into the precincts of the Palace of the King. They claimed his protection. They insisted upon his accepting their cause in themselves. They proclaimed him Emperor of India and planted the standard of rebellion

  against the English rule on the battlements of his palace. They had found in one moment a leader, a flag, and a cause, and the mutiny was transfigured into a revolutionary war. The sepoy troops in the city and the cantonments on the Delhi ridge two miles off and overlooking the city at once began to cast in their lot with the mutineers. The poor old puppet whom they set up as

  their Emperor was some 80 years old, a feeble creature believed to have a mild taste for poetry and weak debauchery. He had long been merely a pensioner of the East India Company. During the early intrigues and struggles between the English and French in India, the Company had taken the sovereigns of Delhi under their protection, nominally to save them from the aggressiveness of the rival

  power, and as might be expected, the Delhi monarchs soon became mere pensionaries of the British authorities. It had even been determined that after the old King's death, a different arrangement should be made, that the title of King would not be allowed any longer, and that the privileges of the palace, the occupants of which were thus far allowed to be a law to themselves,

  should be restricted or abolished. A British Commissioner directed affairs in the city and British troops were quartered on the Delhi ridge outside. Still the King was living and was called a King. He was the representative of the great dynasty whose name and effigies had been borne by all the coin of India until within some 20 years before. He stood for legitimacy and divine right and

  he supplied all the various factions and sects of which the mutiny was composed or to be composed with a visible and acceptable head. If the mutineers flying from Mirut had been promptly pursued and dispersed or captured before they reached Delhi, the tale we have to tell might have been much shorter and very different. But when they reached unchecked, the Jumna glittering in the

  morning light, when they swarmed across the bridge of boats that spanned it, and when at length they clamored under the windows of the palace that they had come to restore the rule of the Delhi dynasty, they had all unconsciously seized one of the great critical moments of history and converted a military mutiny into a national and religious war. This is the manner in which the Indian rebellion

  began and assumed its distinct character. But this dry statement of facts would go a very short way toward explaining how the mutiny of a few regiments came to assume the aspect of rebellion. Mutinies were not novelties in India. There had been some very serious outbreaks before the time of the greased cartridges. The European officers of the company had themselves mutinied in Bengal nearly a

  century before, and at that time the sepoys stood firm by the company whose salt they had eaten. There was a more general and serious mutiny at Vellore near Madras in 1806, and the sons of the famous Tipu Sahib took part with it and endeavored to make it the means of regaining the forfeited power of their house. It had to be dealt with as if it were a war, and Vellore had to be

  recaptured. In 1849 a Bengal regiment seized a fortress near Lahore. Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sindhi, once protested that 30 regiments of the Bengal army were ripe for revolt. Napier, however, seems to have thought only of military mutiny and not of religious and political rebellion. At Murt itself, the very cradle of the outbreak, a pamphlet was published in 1851 by Colonel Hodgson

  to argue that the admission of the priestly caste too freely into the Bengal army would be the means of fomenting sedition among the native troops. But there was a combination of circumstances at work to bring about such a revolt as Napier never dreamed of, a revolt as different from the outbreak he contemplated, as the French Revolution differed from the mutiny of

  the Noor. These causes affected variously but at once the army, the princes, and the populations of India. The causes and motives for sedition, says Bacon, and the words have been cited with much appropriateness and effect by Sir JWK in his History of the Sepoy War, are innovations in religion, taxes, alteration of laws and customs, breaking of privileges, general oppression,

  advancement of unworthy persons, strangers, deaths, disbanded soldiers, factions grown desperate, and whatsoever in offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause. Not all these various impulses to rebellion were stirring perhaps in India, but assuredly many, possibly the majority of them were at work. As is usual in such cases too, it happened that many changes made, nay,

  many privileges disinterestedly conferred by the ruling power in India for the benefit and pleasure of the native levies, turned into other causes and stimulants of sedition and rebellion. Let us speak first of the army. The Bengal army was very different in its constitution and condition from that of Bombay or Madras, the other great divisions of Indian government at that

  time. In the Bengal army, the Hindu sepoys were far more numerous than the Mohammedans and were chiefly Brahmins of high caste, while in Madras and Bombay the army was made up, as the Bengal regiments are now, of men of all sects and races without discrimination. Until the very year before the mutiny, the Bengal soldier was only enlisted for service in India and was exempted from

  any liability to be sent across the seas, across the black water which the sepoys dreaded and hated to have to cross. No such exemption was allowed to the soldiers of Bombay or Madras, and in July 1856 an order was issued by the military authorities to the effect that future enlistments in Bengal should be for service anywhere without limitation. Thus the Bengal sepoy had not only been

  put in the position of a privileged and pampered favorite, but he had been subjected to the indignity and disappointment of seeing his privileges taken away from him. He was indeed an excellent soldier and was naturally made a favorite by many of his commanders, but he was very proud and was rigidly tenacious of what he considered his rights. He lived apart with his numerous

  and almost limitless family, representing all grades of relationship. He cooked his food apart and ate it apart. He acknowledged one set of governing principles while he was on parade and had a totally different code of customs and laws and morals to regulate his private life. The tide of blood relationship was very strong with the sepoy. The elder sepoy always took good

  care to keep his regiment well supplied with recruits from among his own family. As the Highland sergeant in the British Army endeavors to have as many as possible of his kith and klan in the regiment with himself, as the Irishmen in the New York police force is anxious to get as many of his friends and fellow countrymen as may be into the same ranks, so the sepoy did his best to

  surround himself with men of his blood and of his ways. There was therefore the spirit of a klan and of a sect pervading the sepoy regiments, a strong current flowing beneath the stream of superficial military discipline and esprit de corps. The sepoy had many privileges denied to his fellow religionists who were not in the military ranks. Let it be added that he was very often deeply in debt, that

  his pay was frequently mortgaged to usurers who hung on him as the crimps do upon a sailor in one of our seaport towns, and that therefore he had something of Catiline's reason for desiring a general upset and a clearing off of old responsibilities. But we must above all other things take into account, when considering the position of the Hindu sepoy, the influence of the

  tremendous institution of caste. An Englishman or European of any country will have to call his imaginative faculties somewhat vigorously to his aid in order to get even an idea of the power of this monstrous superstition. The man who by the merest accident, by the slightest contact with anything that defiled, had lost caste, was excommunicated from among the living and was held to be

  forevermore accursed of God. His dearest friend, his nearest relation, shrank back from him in alarm and abhorrence. When Helen McGregor, in Scott's Romance, would express her sense of the degradation that had been put upon her, she declares that her mother's bones would shrink away from her in the grave if her corpse were to be laid beside them. The sepoy fully believed that his mother's bones

  ought to shrink away from contact with the polluted body of the son who had lost caste. Now it had become from various causes a strong suspicion in the mind of the sepoy that there was a deliberate purpose in the minds of the English rulers of the country to defile the Hindus and to bring them all to the dead level of one caste or no caste. The suspicion in part arose out of the fact

  that this institution of caste, penetrating as it did so subtly and so universally into all the business of life, could not but come into frequent collision with any system of European military and civil discipline, however carefully and considerately managed. No doubt there was in many instances a lack of consideration shown for the Hindus' peculiar and very perplexing tenets. The

  Englishman is not usually a very imaginative personage, nor is he rich in those sympathetic instincts which might enable a ruler to enter into and make allowance for the influence of sentiments and usages widely different from his own. To many a man, fresh from the ways of England, the Hindu doctrines and practices appeared so ineffably absurd that he could not believe any

  human beings were serious in their devotion to them and he took no pains to conceal his opinion as to the absurdity of the creed and the hypocrisy of those who professed it. Some of the elder officers and civilians were imbued very strongly with the conviction that the work of open and what we may call aggressive proselytism was part of the duty of a Christian and in the best

  faith and with the purest intentions, they thus strengthened the growing suspicion that the mind of the authorities was set on the defilement of the Hindus. Nor was it among the Hindus alone that the alarm began to spread abroad. It was the conviction of the Mohammedans that their faith and their rights were to be tampered with as well. It was whispered among them everywhere

  that the peculiar baptismal custom of the Mohammedans was to be suppressed by law and that Mohammedan women were to be compelled to go unveiled in public. The slightest alterations in any system gave fresh confirmation to the suspicions that were afloat among the Hindus and Musclemans. When a change was made in the arrangements of the prisons and the native prisoners were no longer allowed

  to cook for themselves, a murmur went abroad that this was the first overt act in the conspiracy to destroy the caste and with it the bodies and souls of the Hindus. Another change must be noticed too. At one time it was intended that the native troops should be commanded for the most part by native officers. The men would therefore have had something like sufficient security, that the religious

  scruples were regarded and respected. But by degrees the clever, pushing and capable Britain began to monopolize the officers' posts everywhere. The natives were shouldered out of the high positions until at length it became practically an army of native rank and file commanded by Englishmen. If we remember that a Hindu sergeant of lower caste would, when off parade, often abase

  himself with his forehead to the dust before a sepoi private who belonged to the Brahmin order, we shall have some idea of the perpetual collision between military discipline and religious principle which affected the Hindu members of an army almost exclusively commanded by Europeans and Christians. End of Section 5.

• 06 - Ch. 32: The Sepoy, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  There was, however, yet another influence and one of tremendous importance in determining the set of that otherwise vague current of feeling which threatened to disturb the tranquil permanence of English rule in India. We have spoken of the Army and of its religious scruples. We must now speak of the territorial and political influences which affected the princes and the populations of India. There had been just before the outbreak of the mutiny a

  wholesale removal of the landmarks, a striking application of a bold and thorough policy of annexation, a gigantic system of reorganization applied to the territorial arrangements of the north and northwest of the great Indian peninsula. A master spirit had been at work at the reconstruction of India, and if you cannot make revolutions with rose water, neither can you make them without reaction. Lord Dalhousie had not long left India on the appointment of Lord Canning to

  the governor-general ship when mutiny broke out. Lord Dalhousie was a man of commanding energy, of indomitable courage, with the intellect of a ruler of men and the spirit of a conqueror. The statesmen of India performed their parts upon a vast stage, and yet they are to the world in general somewhat like the actors in a provincial theater. They do not get the fame of their work and their merits. Men have arisen in India whose deeds, if done in Europe, would have ranked them

  at least with the Richelieu's and Bismarck's of history, if not actually with the Caesar's and Charlemagne's, and who are yet condemned to what may almost be called a merely local renown, a record on the role of great officials. Lord Dalhousie was undoubtedly a great man. He had had some parliamentary experience in England and in both houses, and he had been vice president and subsequently president of the Board of Trade under Sir Robert Peel. He had taken great interest in

  the framing of regulations for the railway legislation of the menial season of 1844 and 1845. Toward the close of 1847, Lord Harding was recalled from India, and Lord Dalhousie was sent out in his place. Never was there in any country an administration of more successful activity than that of Lord Dalhousie. He introduced cheap postage in India, he made railways, he set up lines of electric telegraph. Within 15 months, according to one of his biographers, the telegraph

  was in operation from Calcutta to Agra, thence to Attak on the Indus, and again from Agra to Bombay and Madras. He devoted much of his attention to irrigation, to the making of great roads, to the work of the Ganges Canal. He was the founder of a comprehensive system of native education, especially female education, a matter so difficult and delicate in a country like India. He put down infanticide, the odious and extraordinary thug system, and the sati or

  burning of widows on the funeral pyre of their husbands. These are only some of the evidences of his unresting, all-conquering energy. They are but illustrative, as they are far indeed from being exhaustive even as a catalogue. But Lord Dalhousie was not wholly engaged in such works as these. Indeed, his noble and glorious triumphs over material, intellectual and moral obstacles run some risk of being forgotten or overlooked by the casual reader of history

  in the storm of that fierce controversy which his other enterprises called forth. During his few years of office, he annexed the Punjab, he incorporated part of the Burmese territory and our dominions, he annexed Nagpur, Sahara, Jhansi, Berar and Oed. We are not called upon here to consider in detail the circumstances of each of these annexations or to ask the reader to pass judgment on the motives and policy of Lord Dalhousie. It is fair to say that he was not by

  any means the mere imperial procouncil he is often represented to be, thirsting with the ardor of a Roman conqueror to enlarge the territory of his own state at any risk or any sacrifice of principle. There was reason enough to make out a plausible case for even the most questionable of his annexations, and in one or two instances he seems only to have resolved on annexation reluctantly and because things had come to that pass that he saw no other safe alternative

  left to him. But his own general policy is properly expressed in his own words. We are Lord's paramount of India and our policy is to acquire as direct a dominion over the territories and possession of the native princes as we already hold over the other half of India. Such a principle as this could only conduct in the vast majority of cases to a course of direct annexation, let the ruler begin by disavowing it as he will. In the Punjab the annexation was

  provoked in the beginning as so many such retributions have been in India by the murder of some of our officers sanctioned if not actually ordered by a native prince. Lord Dalhousie marched a force into the Punjab. This land, the land of the five waters, lies at the gateway of Hindustan and was peopled by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, the latter a new sect of reformed Hindus. We found a raid against us not only the Sikhs but our old enemies the Afghans.

  Lord Gough was in command of our forces. He fought rashly and disastrously the famous battle of Chilean Walla. The plain truth may as well be spoken out without paraphrases. He was defeated. But before the outcry raised in India and in England over this calamity had begun to subside, he had wholly recovered our position and prestige by the complete defeat which he inflicted upon the enemy at Gujarat. Never was a victory more complete in itself or more

  promptly and effectively followed up. The Sikhs were crushed, the Afghans were driven in wild route back across their savage passes, Lord Dalhousie and next the Punjab. He presented as one token of his conquest the famous diamond, the Kohinoor, surrendered in evidence of submission by the Maharaja of Lahore to the Crown of England. Lord Dalhousie annexed Oud on the ground that the East India Company had bound themselves to defend the sovereigns of Oud against foreign and domestic

  enemies on condition that the state should be governed in such a manner as to render the lives and property of its population safe and that while the Company performed their part of the contract, the King of Oud so governed his dominions as to make his rule a curse to his own people and to all neighboring territories. Other excuses or justifications there were of course in the case of each other annexation and we shall yet hear more of what came of the annexation of Sahara

  and Josie. If however each of these acts of policy were not only justifiable but actually inevitable, nonetheless must the succession of such acts produce a profound emotion among the races in whose midst they were accomplished. Lord Dalhousie wanted one quality of a truly great man. He lacked imagination. He had not that dramatic instinct, that fine sympathetic insight by which a statesman is unable to understand the feelings of races and men differing wholly in education,

  habits, and principles from himself. He appeared to be under the impression that when once a ruler had established among whatever foreign people a system of government or of society better than that which he found existing there, he might count on obtaining their instant appreciation of his work and their gratefulness for it. The sovereign of Oud was undoubtedly a very bad ruler. His governing system, if it ought to be dignified by such a name, was a combination of anarchy and

  robbery. The chiefs of Oud were reavers and bandits. The king was the head reaver and bandit. But human nature, even in the West, is not so constituted as to render a population always and at once grateful to any powerful stranger who uproots their old and bad systems and imposes a better on them by force of arms. A tyrant, but our masters then were still at least our countrymen, is the faithful expression of a sentiment which has embarrassed energetic

  reformers before the days of Lord Dalhousie. The populations of India became stricken with alarm as they saw their native princes thus successively dethroned. The subversion of thrones, the annexation of states, seemed to them naturally enough to form part of that vast scheme for rooting out all the religions and systems of India concerning which so many vague forebodings had darkly worn the land. Many of our sepoys came from Moed and other annexed territories

  and little reason as they might have had for any personal attachment to the subverted dynasties they yet felt that national resentment which any manner of foreign intervention is almost certain to provoke. There were peculiar reasons too why if religious and political distrust did prevail the moment of Lord Canning's accession to the supreme authority in India should seem inviting and favorable for schemes of sedition. The Afghan war had told the sepoy that British troops were

  not absolutely invincible in battle. The impression produced almost everywhere in India by the Crimean war was a conviction that the strength of England was on the wane. The stories of our disasters in the Crimea had gone abroad adorned with immense exaggerations among all the native populations of Hindustan. Any successes that the Russians had had during the war were in Asia and these naturally impressed the Asiatic mind more than the victories of France and England which were one farther off.

  Intelligent and quick-witted Mohammedans and Hindus talked with Englishmen, English officers in India and heard from them the accounts of the manner in which our system had broken down in the Crimea, of the blunders of our government and the shortcomings of our leaders. They entirely misinterpreted the significance of the stories that were so freely told. The Englishmen who spoke of our failures talked of them as the provoking and inexcusable blunders of

  departments and individuals. The Asiatics who greedily listened were convinced that they heard the acknowledgement of a national collapse. The Englishmen were so confident in the strength and resources of their country that it did not even occur to them to think that anybody on earth could have a doubt on the subject. It was as if a millionaire were to complain to someone in a foreign country that the neglect and blunder of a servant had sent his remittances to some wrong

  place and left him for the moment without money enough to pay his hotel bill and the listener were to accept this as a genuine announcement of approaching bankruptcy. The sepoys saw that the English force in northern India was very small and he really believed that it was small because England had no more men to send there. He was as ignorant as a child about everything which he had not seen with his own eyes and he knew absolutely nothing about the strength, the population and the

  resources of England. In his mind, Russia was the great rising and conquering country, England was sinking into decay, her star waning before the strong glare of the portentous northern light. Other impulses too there were to make Sedition believe that its opportunity had come. Lord Canning had hardly assumed office as Governor-General of India when the dispute occurred between the British and Chinese authorities at Canton and a war was imminent

  between England and China. Troops were sent shortly after from England to China and although none were taken from India yet it was well known among the native populations that England had an Asiatic war on her hands. Almost at the same moment war was declared against Persia by the proclamation of the Governor-General at Calcutta in consequence of the Shah having marched an army into Herat and besieged it in violation of a treaty with Great Britain made in 1853. A body of troops was

  sent from Bombay to the Persian Gulf and shortly after General Uttram left Bombay with additional troops as commander-in-chief of the field force in Persia. Therefore in the opening days of 1857 it was known among the native populations of India that the East India Company was at war with Persia and that England had on her hands a quarrel with China. At this time the number of native soldiers in the employment of England throughout northern India was about 120,000 while the European

  soldiers numbered only about 22,000. The native army of the three presidencies taken together was nearly 300,000 while the Europeans were but 43,000 of whom some 5,000 had just been told off for duty in Persia. It must be owned that given the existence of a seditious spirit it would have been hardly possible for it to find conditions more seemingly favorable and tempting. To many a temper of sullen discontent the appointed and fateful hour must have seemed to be at hand.

  There can be no doubt that a conspiracy for the subversion of the English government in India was afoot during the early days of 1857 and possibly for long before. The story of the mysterious chapattis is well known. The chapattis are small cakes of unleavened bread, bannocks of salt and dough they have been termed and they were found to be distributed with amazing rapidity and precision and precision of system at one time throughout the native villages of the north and northwest.

  A native messenger brought two of these mysterious cakes to the watchman or headman of a village and bade him to have others prepared like them and to pass them on to another place. The token has been well described as the fiery cross of India although it would not appear that its significance was as direct and precise as that of the famous Highland War Signal. It is curious how varying and unsatisfactory is the evidence about the meaning of these chapattis.

  According to the positive declaration of some witnesses the sending of such a token had never been a custom either Mohammedan or Hindu in India. Some witnesses believe that the chapattis were regarded as spells to avert some impending calamity. Others said the native population looked on them as having been sent round by the government itself as a sign that in future all would be compelled to eat the same food as the Christians ate. Others again said the intention

  was to make this known but to make it known on the part of the seditious in order that the people might be prepared to resist the plans of the English. But there could be no doubt that the chapattis conveyed a warning to all who received them that something strange was about to happen and bade them to be prepared for whatever might befall. One fact alone conclusively proves that the signal given had a special reference to impending events connected with British rule in

  India. In no instance were they distributed among the populations of still existing native states. They were only sent among the villages over which English rule extended. To the quick suspicious mind of the Asiatic a breath of warning may be as powerful as the crash of an alarm bell or the sound of a trumpet. It may be as some authorities would have us to believe that the panic about the greased cartridges disconcerted instead of bringing to a climax the projects of sedition.

  End of Section 6

• 07 - Ch. 33: The Hundredth Anniversary of Plassey

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XXXIII. THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF PLACI. The news of the outbreak at Myrute and the proclamation in Delhi broke upon Calcutta with the shock of a thunderclap, yet it was not wholly a shock of surprise. For some time there had been vague anticipations of some impending danger. There was alarm in the air. There had long been a prophecy known to India that the hundredth anniversary of the Battle

  of Plassey would see the end of English rule in Hindustan, and now the hundredth anniversary was near. There is a fine passage in Sir Henry Taylor's Philip van Artevelde in which van Rik says to the hero of the drama, If you mark, my lord, mostly a rumor of such things, precedes the certain tidings. And Philip musingly answers, It is strange, yet true, that doubtful knowledge travels with a speed miraculous which certain cannot match. I know

  not why, when this or that has chanced, the smoke outruns the flash, but so it is. The smoke had apparently outrun the flash in many parts of India during this eventful season. Calcutta heard the news of what had happened with wild alarm and horror, but hardly with much surprise. For one or two days, Calcutta was a prey to mere panic. The alarm was greatly increased by the fact that the dethroned King of Oued was established near to the city. At Garden Reach, a few miles down the

  dispossessed King was living. There he lived for many years after, with his host of dependents and hangers on round him. A picturesque writer lately described the grotesque structures in which the old man, with his mania for building, quarters not only his people but his menagerie. Tower after tower rises high above the lower buildings, on the top of each of which, comfortably quartered in a spacious den, abides a huge Bengal tiger, whose stripes glisten in the sun in the sight of

  the passer-by on the river. He owns vast flocks of trained pigeons, which fly or alight at the word of command. Wild but not unmusical shouts of coolies stationed on the housetops who appear to direct their motions by the waving of long bamboos. The inhabitants of Calcutta, when the mutiny came, were convinced that the King of Oued harbored close to their city companions more dangerous than pigeons or even than Bengal tigers. They were sure that the place was the headquarters

  of rebellion and were expecting the moment when from the residence at Garden Reach an organized army of murderers was to be sent forth to capture and destroy the ill-fated city and to make its streets run with the blood of its massacred inhabitants. Lord Canning took the prudent course of having the King, with his Prime Minister, removed to the Governor-General's own residence within the precincts of Fort William. There is no recklessness, no cruelty,

  like the cruelty and recklessness of panic. Perhaps there is hardly any panic so demoralizing in its effects as that which seizes the unwarlike members of a ruling race set down in the midst of overwhelming numbers of the subject populations at a moment when the cry goes abroad that the subjected are rising in rebellion. Fortunately, there was at the head of affairs in India a man with a cool head, a quiet firm will, and a courage that never faltered. If ever the crisis found the

  man, Lord Canning was the man called for by that crisis in India. He had all the divining genius of the true statesman, the man who can rise to the height of some unexpected and new emergency, and he had the cool courage of a practiced conqueror. The greatest trial to which a ruler can be subjected is to be called upon at a moment's notice to deal with events and conditions for which there is no precedent. The second-class statesman, the official statesman, if we may use such an

  expression, collapses under such a trial. The man of genius finds it his opportunity and makes his own of it. Lord Canning thus found his opportunity in the Indian mutiny. Among all the distracting counsels and wild stories poured in upon him from every side, he kept his mind clear. He never gave way either to anger or to alarm. If he ever showed a little impatience, it was only where panic would too openly have proclaimed itself by counsels of wholesale cruelty. He could not perhaps always

  conceal from frightened people the fact that he rather despised their terrors. Throughout the whole of that excited period, there were few names even among the chiefs of rebellion on which fiercer denunciation was showered by Englishmen than the name of Lord Canning. Because he would not listen to the bloodthirsty clamors of mere frenzy, he was nicknamed Clemency Canning, as if clemency were an attribute of which a man ought to be ashamed. Indeed, for some time people wrote and

  spoke not merely in India but in England as if clemency were a thing to be reprobated, like treason or crime. Every allowance must be made for the unparalleled excitement of such a time, and in especial for the manner in which the elementary passions of manhood were inflamed by the stories, happily not true, of the wholesale dishonor and barbarous mutilation of women. But when the fullest allowance has been made for this, it must be said by anyone looking back on

  that painful time that some of the public instructors of England betrayed a fury and ferocity which no conditions can excuse on the part of civilized and Christian men who have time to reflect before they write or speak. The advices which some English journals showered upon the government, the army, and all concerned in repressing the mutiny might more fittingly have come from some of the heroes of the Spanish fury. Nay, the Spanish fury itself was, in express words,

  held up to the English army as an example for them to imitate. An English paper of high and well-earned authority distinctly declared that such mercy as always showed the Netherlands was the mercy that English soldiers must show to the rebellious regions of India. There was for a while but little talk of repression. Everyone in England well knew that the rebellion would be repressed. It has to be remembered to the credit of England's

  national courage and resolve that not at the worst moment of the crisis did it seem to have occurred to any Englishman that there was the slightest possibility of the rebellion being allowed to succeed. It is painful to have to remember that the talk was not of repression but of revenge. Public speakers and writers were shrieking out for the vengeance which must be inflicted on India when the rebellion had been put down. For a while it seemed a question of patriotism

  which would propose the most savage and sanguinary measures of revenge. We shall see farther on that one distinguished English officer was clamorous to have powers given to him to impale, to burn alive, and to flay mutineers who had taken part in the murder of English women. Mr. Disraeli, to do him justice, raised his voice in remonstrance against the wild passions of the hour even when these passions were strongest and most general. He declared that if

  such a temper were encouraged we ought to take down from our altars the images of Christ and raise the statue of Malik there. And he protested against making Nana Sahib, of whom we shall hear more, the model for the conduct of a British officer. Mr. Disraeli did indeed at a later period show an inclination to back out of this courageous and honorable expression of opinion, but it stands at all events to the credit of his first impulse that he could venture at such a time

  to talk of morality, mercy, and Christianity. If people were so carried away in England where the danger was far remote we can easily imagine what were the fears and passions roused in India where the terror was or might be at the door of everyone. Lord Canning was gravely embarrassed by the wild urgencies and counsels of distracted Englishmen who were furious with him because he even thought of distinguishing friend from foe where native races were concerned. He bore

  himself with perfect calmness, listened to everything that anyone had to say where time gave him any chance of doing so, read as far as possible all the myriad communications poured in upon him, regarded no suggestion as unworthy of consideration, but made his own resolves and his own judgment the final arbiter. He was greatly assisted and encouraged in his counsels by his brave and noble wife who proved herself in every way worthy to be the helpmate of such a man at such

  a crisis. He did not for a moment underestimate the danger but neither did he exaggerate its importance. He never allowed it to master him. He looked upon it with the quiet resolute eye of one who was determined to be the conqueror in the struggle. Lord Canning saw that the one important thing was to strike at Delhi which had proclaimed itself the headquarters of the rebellion. He knew that English troops were on their way to China for the purpose of wreaking the wrongs of English

  subjects there and he took on his own responsibility the bold step of intercepting them and calling them to the work of helping to put down the mutiny in India. The dispute with China he thought could well afford to wait but with the mutiny it must be now or never. India could not wait for reinforcements brought all the way from England. In Scott's betrothed the soldier of the knight who owns the frontier castle encourages him when the Welsh are about to attack by the assurance that

  the forces of the constable of Chester will soon come to his aid and that with these reinforcements they will send the Welsh dragon flag flying from the field. The knight sadly answers that it must fly from the field before the reinforcements arrive or it will fly over all our dead bodies. Thus felt Lord Canning when he thought of the strong arms that England could send to his assistance. He knew well enough as well as the wildest alarmist could know that the rebel flag

  must be forced to fly from some field before that help came or it would fly over the dead bodies of those who then represented English authority in India. He had therefore no hesitation in stopping the troops that were on their way to China and pressing them into the service of India at such a need. Fortune too was favorable to him in more ways than one. The Persian war was of short duration. Sir James Uttram was soon victorious and the Persians sued for peace. The Treaty of Peace

  was signed at Paris in March 1857 and was arranged so quickly that Uttram inflicted a crushing defeat on the Persians after the treaty was signed but before the news of its signature had time to reach the seat of war. Uttram therefore and his gallant companions Colonel Jacob and Colonel Havelock were able to lend their invaluable services to the Governor General of India. Most important for Lord Canning's purposes was the manner in which the affairs of the Punjab were managed

  at this crisis. The Punjab was under the administration of one of the ablest public servants India had ever had. Sir John, afterwards Lord Lawrence. John Lawrence had from his youth been in the civil service of the East India Company and when Lord Dalhousie annexed the Punjab he made Lawrence and his soldier brother, the gallant Sir Henry Lawrence, two out of a board of three for the administration of the affairs of the newly acquired province. Afterwards Sir John

  Lawrence was named the Chief Commissioner of the Punjab and by the promptitude and energy of himself and his subordinates the province was completely saved for English rule at the outbreak of the mutiny. Fortunately the electric telegraph extended from Calcutta to Lahore, the chief city of the Punjab. On May 11th the news of the outbreak at Mirut was brought to the authorities at Lahore. As it happened Sir John Lawrence was then away at Rawalpindi in the upper Punjab but Mr. Robert

  Montgomery the Judicial Commissioner at Lahore was invested with plenary power and he showed that he could use it to advantage. Mianmir is a large military cantonment five or six miles from Lahore and there were then some 4,000 native troops there with only about 1,300 Europeans of the queens and the company's service. There was no time to be lost if the spirit of mutiny were to spread the condition of things in the Punjab would be desperate but what did the condition of

  things in the Punjab involve? The possible loss of a province? Something far greater than that it meant the possibility of a momentary collapse of all British authority in India for if anyone will take the trouble to cast a glance at the map of India he will see that the Punjab is so placed as to become a basis of operations for the precise military movements which every experienced eye then saw to be necessary for the saving of our

  Indian empire. The candle would have been burning at both ends so far as regards the northwest provinces if the Punjab had gone with Delhi and Lucknow. While the Punjab held firm it was like a barrier raised at one side of the rebellious movement not merely preventing it from going any farther in that direction but keeping it pent up until the moment came when the blow from the other direction could fall upon it. The first thing to be done to strike effectively at the rebellion

  was to make an attack on Delhi and the possession of the Punjab was of inestimable advantage to the authorities for that purpose. It will be seen then that the moment was critical for those to whose hands the administration of the great new provinces had been entrusted. There was no actual reason to assume that the sepoys in Myanmar meant to join the rebellion. There would be a certain danger of converting them into rebels if any rash movement were to be made for the purpose of guarding

  against treachery on their part. Either way was a serious responsibility a momentous risk. The authorities soon made up their minds. Any risk would be better than that of leaving it in the power of the native troops to join the rebellion. A ball and supper were to be given at Lahore that night. To avoid creating any alarm it was arranged that the entertainments should take place. During the dancing and feasting Mr. Montgomery held a council of the leading officials of Lahore,

  civil and military, and it was resolved at once to disarm the native troops. A parade was ordered for daybreak at Myanmar and on the parade ground an order was given for a military movement which brought the heads of four columns of the native troops in front of 12 guns charged with The artillery men with their port fires lighted and the soldiers of one of the queen's regiments standing behind with loaded muskets. A command was given to the sepoys to pile arms.

  They had immediate death before them if they disobeyed. They stood literally at the cannon's mouth. They piled their arms which were borne away at once in carts by the European soldiers and all chances of a rebellious movement were over in that province and the Punjab was saved. Something of the same kind was done at Wultan in the lower Punjab later on and the province thus assured to English civil and military authority became a basis for some of the most important

  operations by which the mutiny was crushed and the scepter of India restored to the queen. Within little more than a fortnight from the occupation of Delhi by the rebels the British forces under general Anson the commander in chief were advancing on that city. The commander did not live to conduct any of the operations. He died of cholera almost at the beginning of the march. He had lived long enough to come in for much sharp censure. The temper of the

  time both in England and in India expected men to work by witchcraft rather than wit and Anson was furiously denounced by some of the principal English journals because he did not recapture Delhi without having even to march an army to the neighborhood of the city. He was described as a holiday soldier who had never seen service either in peace or war. His appointment was denounced as a shameless job and a tribute altogether to the claims of family and personal acquaintance.

  We cannot venture now to criticize the mode of general Anson's appointment and he had not time to show whether he was any better than a holiday soldier but it would appear that lord canning had no poor opinion of his capacity and was particularly impressed by his coolness and command of temper. He died however at the very outset of his march and we only refer now to the severe attacks which were made upon him to illustrate the temper of the nation and the

  manner in which it delighted to hear itself addressed. We are always rebuking other nations for their impatience and fretfulness under difficulties. It is a lesson of no slight importance for us to be reminded that when the hour of strain and pressure comes we are found to be in most ways very like our neighbors. The siege of Delhi proved long and difficult. Another general died, another had to give up his command before the city was recaptured.

  It was justly considered by lord canning and by all the authorities as of the utmost importance that Delhi should be taken before the arrival of great reinforcements from home. Meanwhile the rebellion was breaking out at new points almost everywhere in these northern and northwestern regions. On May 30th the mutiny declared itself at Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence was governor of Oed. He endeavored to drive the rebels from the place but the numbers of the

  mutineers were overwhelming. He had under his command to a force partly made up of native troops and some of these deserted him in the battle. He had to retreat and to fortify the residency at Lucknow and remove all the European men women and children thither and patiently stand the siege. Lawrence himself had not longed to endure the siege. On July 2nd he had been up with the dawn and after a great amount of work he lay on a sofa not as it has been said to rest but to transact

  business in a recumbent position. His nephew and another officer were with him. Suddenly a great crash was heard and the room was filled with smoke and dust. One of his companions was flung to the ground. A shell had burst. When there was silence the officer who had been flung down called out, sir Henry are you hurt? At first there was no answer. Then a weak voice was heard to reply in just the words that Browning has put into the mouth of the gallant French lad similarly questioned

  by the great Napoleon. I am killed was the answer that came faintly but firmly from sir Henry Lawrence's lips. The shell had wounded him in the thigh so fearfully as to leave surgery no chance of doing anything for his relief. On the morning of July 4th he died calmly and in perfect submission to the will of Providence. He had made all possible arrangements for his successor and for the work to be done. He desired that on his tomb should be engraved merely the words here lies Henry Lawrence

  who tried to do his duty. The epitaph was a simple truthful summing up of a simple truthful career. The man however was greater than the career. Lawrence had not opportunity to show an actual result the greatness of spirit that was in him. The immense influence he exercised over all who came within his reach bears testimony to his strength and nobleness of character better than any of the mere successes which his biographer can record. He was full of sympathy. His soul was alive

  to the noblest and purest aspirations. It is the duad mixture of romance and reality he was himself accustomed to say that best carries a man through life. No professional teacher or philosopher ever spoke a truer sentence. As one of his many admirers says of him what he said and wrote he did or rather he was. Let the bitterest enemy of England write the history of her rule in India and set down as against her every wrong that was done in her name from those which Burke denounced to those which

  the Madras Commission exposed. He will have to say that men many men like Henry Lawrence lived and died devoted to the cause of that rule and the world will take account of the admission. End of section seven.

• 08 - Ch. 34: Cawnpore, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  section 8 of a history of our own times volume 3 by Justin McCarthy this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Pamela Nagami chapter 34 Kanpur part 1 during the later days of Sir Henry Lawrence's life it had another trouble added to it by the appeals which were made to him from Kanpur for a help which he could not give the story of Kanpur is by far

  the most profound and tragic in its interest of all the chapters that make up the history of the Indian mutiny the city of Kanpur stands in the Doab a peninsula between the Ganges and the Yamuna and is built on the south bank of the Ganges there nearly a quarter of a mile broad in the dry season and more than a mile across when swelled by the rains by a treaty made in 1775 the East

  India Company engaged to maintain a force in Kanpur for the defense of a wed and the revenues of an extensive district of country were appropriated to the maintenance of the troops quartered there in 1801 for some of the various reasons impelling similar transactions in India Lord Wellesley closed the mortgage as mr. Trevelyan puts it in his interesting and really valuable

  little book Kanpur and the territory lapsed into the possession of the company from that time it took place as one of our first-class military stations when a wed was annexed to our dominions there was an additional reason for maintaining a strong military force at Kanpur the city commanded the bridge over which passed the high road to Lucknow the capital of our new province

  the distance from Kanpur to Lucknow is about 50 miles as the bird flies at the time when the mutiny broke out in Mirut there were some 3,000 native soldiers in Kanpur consisting of two regiments of infantry one of cavalry and a company of artillerymen there were about 300 officers and soldiers of English birth the European or Eurasian population including women and children numbered

  about 1,000 these consisted of the officials the railway people some merchants and shopkeepers and their families the native town had about 60 thousand inhabitants the garrison was under the command of Sir Hugh Wheeler among the oldest of an old school of Bengal officers Sir Hugh Wheeler was some 75 years of age at the time when the events occurred which we have now

  to describe the revolt was looked for at Kanpur from the moment when the news came of the rising at Mirut and it was not long expected before it came Sir Hugh Wheeler applied to Sir Henry Lawrence for help Lawrence of course could not spare a man then Sir Hugh Wheeler remembered that he had a neighbor whom he believed to be friendly despite of very recent warnings from Sir Henry

  Lawrence and others to the contrary he called this neighbor to his assistance and his invitation was promptly answered the Nana Sahib came with two guns and some 300 men to lend a helping hand to the English commander the Nana Sahib resided at Bitur a small town 12 miles up the river from Kanpur he represented a grievance Bajirao Peshwa of Pune was the last prince of one of the great Maratha

  dynasties the East India Company believed him guilty of treachery against them of bad government of his dominions and so forth and they found a reason for dethroning him he was assigned however a residence in Bitur and a large pension he had no children and he adopted as his heir Sirik Dantupant the man who will be known to all time by the infamous name of Nana Sahib it seems almost superfluous

  to say that according to Hindu belief it is needful for a man's eternal welfare that he leave a son behind him to perform duly his funeral rites and that the adoption of a son is recognized as in every sense conferring on the adopted all the rights that a child of the blood could have Bajirao died in 1851 and Nana Sahib claimed to succeed to all his possessions Lord Dalhousie had shown in

  many instances a strangely unwise disregard of the principle of adoption the claim of the Nana to the pension was disallowed Nana Sahib sent a confidential agent to London to push his claim there this man was a clever and handsome young Mohammedan who had at one time been a servant in an Anglo- Indian family and had picked up a knowledge of French and English his name

  was Azamullah Khan this emissary visited London in 1854 and became a lion of the fashionable season as Haji Baba the barber's son in the once popular story was taken for a prince in London and treated accordingly so the promoted footman Azimullah Khan was welcomed as a man of princely rank in our West End society he did not succeed in winning over the government to take any notice

  of the claims of his master but being very handsome and of sleek and alluring manners he became a favorite in the drawing rooms of the metropolis and was under the impression that an unlimited number of English women of rank were dying with love for him on his way home he visited Constantinople and the Crimea it was then a dark hour for the fortunes of England in the Crimea and

  Azimullah Khan swallowed with glad and greedy ear all the alarmist rumors that were afloat in Istanbul about the decay of England's strength and the impending domination of Russian power over Europe and Asia in the Crimea itself Azimullah had some opportunity of seeing how the campaign was going and it is not surprising that with his prepossessions and his hopes he interpreted everything

  he saw as a threatened disaster for the arms of England Mr. Russell the correspondent of the Times made the acquaintance of Azimullah Khan in Constantinople and afterwards met him in the Crimea and has borne testimony to the fact that along with the young Mohammedans boasts of his conquests of English women were mingled a good many grave and sinister predictions as to the

  prospects of England's Empire the Western visit of this man was not an event without important consequences he doubtless reported to his master that the strength of England was on the wane and while stimulating his hatred and revenge stimulated also his confidence in the chances of an effort to gratify both Azimullah Khan did afterwards as it will be seen make some grim and genuine

  havoc among English ladies the most bloodthirsty massacre of the whole mutiny is with good reason ascribed to his instigation with Azimullah Khan's mission and its results ended the hopes of Nana Sahi for the success of his claims and began we may presume his resolve to be revenged Nana Sahib although his claim on the English government was not allowed was still

  rich he had a large private property of the man who had adopted him and he had the residence at Bituur he kept up a sort of princely state he never visited Kanpur the reason being it is believed that he would not have been received there with princely honors but he was especially lavish of his attentions to English visitors and his invitations went far and wide among the military and

  civil servants of the crown and the company he cultivated the society of English men and women he showered his civilities upon them he did not speak or even understand English but he took a great interest in English history customs and literature he was luxurious in the most thoroughly oriental fashion and oriental luxury implies a great deal more than any experience of Western

  luxury would suggest at the time with which we are now dealing he was only about 36 years of age but he was prematurely heavy and fat and seemed to be as incapable of active exertion as of unkindly feeling there can be little doubt that all this time he was a dissembler of more than common Eastern dissimilation it appears almost certain that while he was lavishing his

  courtesies and kindnesses upon Englishmen without discrimination his heart was burning with a hatred to the whole British race a sense of his wrongs had eaten him up it is a painful thing to say but it is necessary to the truth of this history that his wrongs were genuine he had been treated with injustice according to all the recognized usages of his race and his

  religion he had a claim indefeasible injustice to the succession which had been unfairly and unwisely denied to him it was to Nana Sahib then that poor old Sir Hugh Wheeler in the hour of his distress applied for assistance most gladly we can well believe did the Nana come he established himself in Kanpur with his guns and his soldiers Sir Hugh Wheeler had taken refuge when the

  mutiny broke out in an old military hospital with mud walls scarcely four feet high hastily thrown up around it and a few guns of various caliber placed in position on the so-called entrenchments everything seemed to have been against our people in this hour of terror Sir Hugh Wheeler might have chosen a far better refuge in the magazine in a different quarter of

  Kanpur but it appeared destined that the mutineers should have this chance to as they had every other the English commander selected his place in the worst position and hardly capable of defense within his almost shadowy and certainly crumbling entrenchments were gathered about a thousand persons of whom 465 were men of every age and profession the married women and grown

  daughters were about 280 the children about the same number of the men there were probably 400 who could fight it can never be made quite clear whether Nana Sahib had in the beginning any idea of affecting to help the Englishmen if any object of his could have been served by his assuming such a part for any given length of time or until any particular moment arrived he assuredly

  would not have been wanting inpatient assimilation but almost as soon as his presence became known in Kanpur he was surrounded by the mutineers who insisted that he must make common cause with them and become one of their leaders he put himself at their disposal at first their idea was that he should lead them on to Delhi the recognized center of the revolt but he was urged by some of his

  advisors and especially by Azimullah Khan not to allow all his personal pretensions to be lost in the cause of Delhi and his individual influence to be absorbed into the court of the Grand Mughal he was advised to make himself a great man in the first instance by conquering the country all round Kanpur and overcome by these persuasions and by the promptings of personal ambition he

  prevailed upon the mutineers not to leave the city until they had first scoured these English thence the Nana therefore became the recognized chief of the Kanpur movement let us do justice even to Nana Sahib it will be hard to say a word for him after this let us now observe that he gave notice to Sir Hugh Wheeler that if the entrenchments were not surrendered they would be instantly

  attacked they were attacked a general assault was made upon the miserable mud walls on June 12th but the resistance was heroic and the assault failed it was after that assault that the garrison succeeded in sending a message to Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow craving for the aid which it was absolutely impossible for him to give from that time the fire of the mutineer army on the English

  entrenchments never ceased Kanpur was alive with all the ruffianism of the region it became an Alsatia for the scoundrels and jailbirds of the country round and of the province of Oed all these scoundrels took their turn at the pleasant and comparatively safe amusement of keeping up the fire on the English people behind the mud walls whenever a regular attack was made the

  assailants invariably came to grief the little garrison thinning in numbers every day and almost every hour held out with splendid obstinacy and always sent those who assailed at scampering back except of course for those assailants as perforce kept their ground by the persuasion of the English bullets the little population of women and children behind the entrenchments had no roof to

  shelter them from the fierce Indian Sun they cowered under the scanty shadow of the little walls often at imminent peril of the unceasing sepoy bullets the only water for their drinking was to be had from a single well at which the guns of the assailants were unceasingly leveled to go to the well and draw water became the task of self-sacrificing heroes who might with better chances of safety have

  led a forlorn hope the water which the fainting women and children drank might have seemed to be reddened by blood for only at the price of blood was it ever obtained it may seem a trivial detail but it will count for much in a history of the sufferings of delicately nurtured English women that from the beginning of the siege of the Kanpur entrenchments to its tragic end there was not as mr.

  Trevelyan puts it one sponge full of water to be had for the purposes of personal cleanliness the inmates of that ghastly garrison were dying like flies one does not know which to call the greater the sufferings of the women or the bravery of the men the Nana was joined by a large body of the OED soldiers believed to be among the best fighting men that India could produce

  these made a grand assault on the entrenchments and these two were driven back by the indomitable garrison who were hourly diminishing in numbers in food in ammunition in everything but courage and determination to fight the repulse of the OED men made a deep impression on the mutineers a conviction began to spread abroad that it was of no use attempting to conquer these terrible

  British sahibs that as long as one of them was alive he would be as formidable as a wild beast in his lair the sepoys became unwilling to come too near to the low crumbling walls of the entrenchment those walls might have been leaped over as easily as that of Romulus but of what avail to know that when from behind them always came the fatal fire of the Englishmen it was no longer easy to get

  the mutineers to attempt anything like an assault they argued that when the OED men could do nothing it was hardly of any use for others to try the English themselves began to show a perplexing kind of aggressive enterprise and took to making little sallies in small numbers indeed but with astonishing effect on any bodies of sepoys who happened to be anywhere near utterly

  overwhelmingly preposterously outnumbered as the Englishmen were there were moments when it began to seem almost possible that they might actually keep back their assailants until some English army could come to their assistance and take a terrible vengeance upon Kanpur meanwhile the influence of began sensibly to wane they who accept the responsibility of undertakings like

  his soon come to know that they hold their place only on conditions of immediate success only great organizations with roots of system firmly fixed can afford to wait and to look over disappointment Nana Sahi began to find that he could not take by assault those wretched entrenchments and he could not wait to starve the garrison out he therefore resolved to treat with

  the English the terms that is believed were arranged by the advice and assistance of Tantia topi his lieutenant and Azimullah Khan the favorite of English drawing rooms an offer was sent to the entrenchments the terms of which are worthy of notice all those it said who are in no way connected with the acts of Lord Dalhousie and who are willing to lay down

  their arms shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad and of section 8

• 09 - Ch. 34: Cawnpore, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  The terms had to be accepted. There was nothing else to be done. The English people were promised, during the course of the negotiations, sufficient supplies of food and boats to carry them to Allahabad, which was now once more in the possession of England.

  The relief was unspeakable for the survivors of that weary defense. The women, the children, the wounded, the sick, the dying, welcomed any terms of release. Not the faintest suspicion crossed any mind of the treachery that was awaiting them. How indeed could there be any such suspicion? That for years and years had even Oriental warfare given example of such practice as

  that which Nana Sahib and the graceful and civilized Azimullah Khan had now in preparation. The time for the evacuation of the garrison came. The boats were in readiness on the Ganges. The long procession of men, women, and children passed slowly down, very slowly in some instances because of the number of sick and wounded by which its progress was encumbered.

  Some of the chief among the Nana's counselors took their stand in a little temple on the margin of the river to superintend the embarkation and the work that was to follow it. Nana Sahib himself was not there. It is understood that he purposely kept away. He preferred to hear of the deed when it was done.

  His faithful lieutenant Tantia Topi had given orders, it seems, that when a trumpet sounded, some work for which he had arranged should begin. The wounded and the women were gotten to the boats in the first instance. The officers and men were scrambling in afterwards. Suddenly the blast of a trumpet was heard.

  The boats were of the kind common on the rivers of India, covered with roofs of straw and looking, as some accounts describe them, not unlike floating haystacks. The moment the bugle sounded, the straw of the boat roofs blazed up and the native rowers began to make precipitately for the shore. They had set fire to the thatch and were now escaping from the flames they had purposely

  lighted up. At the same moment there came from both shores of the river thick showers of grapeshot and musketry. The banks of the Ganges seemed in an instant alive with shot, a very rain of bullets poured in upon the devoted inmates of the boats.

  To add to the horrors of the moment, if indeed it needed any addition, nearly all the boats stuck fast in mudbanks and the occupants became fixed targets for the fire of their enemies. Only three of the boats floated. Two of these drifted to the oed shore and those on board them were killed at once. The third floated farther along with the stream, reserved for further adventures and horrors.

  The firing ceased when Tantia Topi and his confederates thought that enough had been done, and the women and children who were still alive were brought ashore and carried in forlorn procession back again through the town where they had suffered so much and which they had hoped that they were leaving forever. There were some 125 in number, women and children.

  Some of them were wounded. There were a few well-disposed natives who saw them and were sorry for them, who had perhaps served them and experienced their kindness in other days and who now had some grateful memory of it, which they dared not express by any open profession of sympathy. Many of these afterwards described the English ladies as they saw them pass.

  They were bedraggled and disheveled, these poor English women. Their clothes were in tatters, some of them were wounded, and the blood was trickling from their feet and legs. They were carried to a place called Savada House, a large building once a charitable institution bearing the name of Salvador, which had been softened into Savada by the

  Asiatic pronunciation. On board the one boat which had floated with the stream were more than a hundred persons. The boat was attacked by a constant fire from both banks as it drifted along. At length, a party of some twelve men or thereabouts landed with the bold object of attacking their assailants and driving them back.

  In their absence, the boat was captured by some of the rebel gangs, and the women and the wounded were brought back to Kanpur. Some sixty men, twenty-five women, and four children were thus recaptured. The men were immediately shot. It may be said at once that of the gallant little party who went ashore to attack the

  enemy hand to hand, four finally escaped after adventures so perilous and so extraordinary that a professional storyteller would hardly venture to make them part of a fictitious narrative. The Nana had now a considerable number of English women in his hands. They were removed after a while from their first prison house to a small building north

  of the canal in between the native city and the Ganges. Here they were cooped up in the closest manor, except that some of them were taken out in the evening and set to the work of grinding corn for the use of their captors. Cholera and dysentery set in among these unhappy sufferers, and some eighteen women and seven children died.

  Let it be said for the credit of womanhood that the royal widows, the relics of the Nana's father by adoption, made many efforts to protect the captive English women, and even declared that they would throw themselves and their children from the palace windows if any harm was done to the prisoners. We have only to repeat here that as a matter of fact no indignities other than that of

  the compulsory corn grinding were put upon the English ladies. They were doomed, one and all, to suffer death, but they were not, as at one time was believed in England, made to long for death as an escape from shame. Meanwhile the prospects of the Nana and his rebellion were growing darker and darker. He must have begun to know by this time that he had no chance of establishing himself as

  a ruler anywhere in India. The English had not been swept out of the country with a rush. The first flood of the mutiny had broken on their defenses and already the tide was falling. The Nana well knew it never would rise again to the same height in his day. The English were coming on.

  Neel had recaptured Allahabad and cleared the country all rounded of any traces of rebellion. Havelock was now moving forward from Allahabad towards Kanpur with six cannon and about a thousand English soldiers. Very small in point of numbers was that force when compared with that which Nana Sahib could even still rally round him, but no one in India now knew better than Nana Sahib what

  extraordinary odds the English could afford to give with the certainty of winning. Havelock's march was a series of victories although he was often in such difficulties that the slightest display of real generalship or even soldiership on the part of his opponents might have stopped his advance. He had one encounter with the lieutenant of the Nana who had under his command nearly

  four thousand men and twelve guns and Havelock won a complete victory in about ten minutes. He defeated in the same offhand way various other chiefs of the mutiny. He was almost at the gates of Kanpur. Then it appears to have occurred to the Nana or to have been suggested to him that it would be inconvenient to have his English captives recaptured by the enemy their countrymen.

  It may be that in the utter failure of all his plans and hopes he was anxious to secure some satisfaction to satiate his hatred in some way. It was intimated to the prisoners that they were to die. Among them were three or four men. These were called out and shot.

  Then some sepoys were sent to the house where the women still were and ordered to fire volleys through the windows. This they did but apparently without doing much harm. Some persons are of opinion from such evidence as can be got that the men purposely fired high above the level of the floor to avoid killing any women and children.

  In the evening five men, two Hindu peasants, two Mohammedan butchers and one Mohammedan wearing the red uniform of the Nana's bodyguard were sent up to the house and entered it. Incessant shrieks were heard to come from that fearful house. The Mohammedan soldier came out of the door holding in his hand a sword hilt from which the blade had been broken off and he exchanged this now useless instrument for a weapon in

  proper condition. Not once but twice this performance took place. Evidently the task imposed on these men was hard work for the sword blades. After a while the five men came out of the house quiet now and locked the doors behind them.

  During that time they had killed nearly all the English women and children. They had slaughtered them like beasts in the shambles. In the morning it appeared indeed that the work however zealously undertaken had not been quite thorough. The strongest arms and sharpest sabers sometimes failed to accomplish a long piece of work

  to perfect satisfaction. In the morning it would seem that some of the women and certainly some of the children were still alive, that is to say, were not dead. For the five men came then and with several attendants to clear out the house of the captives. Their task was to tumble all the bodies into a dry well beyond some trees that grew near.

  A large crowd of idlers assembled to watch this operation. Then it was seen by some of the spectators that certain of the women and children were not yet quite dead. Of the children some were alive and even tried to get away. But the same well awaited them all.

  Some witnesses were of opinion that the Nana's officials took the trouble to kill the still living before they tossed them down into the well. Others do not think they stopped for any such work of humanity and flung them down just as they came to hand, the quick and the dead together. At all events they were all deposited in the well.

  Any of the bodies that had clothes worth taking were carefully stripped before being consigned to this open grave. When Kanpur was afterwards taken by the English, those who had looked down into that well saw a sight the like of which no man in modern days had ever seen elsewhere. No attempt shall be made to describe it here.

  When the house of the massacre itself was entered, its floors and its walls tolled with terrible plainness of the scene they had witnessed. The plaster of the walls was scored and seamed with sword slashes, low down and in the corners, as if the poor women had crouched down in their mortal fright with some wild hope of escaping the blows.

  The floor was strewn with scraps of dresses, women's faded ragged finery, frilling, underclothing, broken combs, shoes and tresses of hair. There were some small and neatly severed curls of hair too which had fallen on the ground, but evidently had never been cut off by the rude weapon of a professional butcher. These doubtless were keepsakes that had been treasured to the last, parted with only when

  life and all were going. There was no inscription whatever on the walls when the house was first entered. Afterwards a story was told of words found written there by some English woman telling of hideous wrong done to them and bequeathing to their countrymen the task of revenge. This story created a terrible sensation in England as was but natural and aroused a furious

  thirst for vengeance. It was not true. Some such inscription did appear on the walls afterwards but it is painful to have to say that it was a vulgar and what could have been called in later times a sensational forgery. Our countrywomen died without leaving behind them any record of a desire on their part

  for vengeance. We may be sure that they had other thoughts and other hopes as they died. One or two scraps of paper were found which recorded deaths and such like interruptions of the monotony of imprisonment but nothing more. The well of horrors has been filled up and a memorial chapel surrounded by a garden built

  upon the spot. It was right to banish all trace of that hideous crime and to replace the house and the well as Mr Trevelyan says by a fair garden and a graceful shrine. Something however has still to be told of the Nana and his fortunes. He made one last stand against the victorious English in front of Kanpur and was completely

  defeated. He galloped into the city on a bleeding and exhausted horse. He fled thence to betour his residence. He had just time left, it is said, to order the murder of a separate captive, a woman who had previously been overlooked or purposely left behind.

  Then he took flight in the direction of the Nepalese marches and he soon disappears from history. Nothing of his fate was ever known. Many years afterwards England and India were treated to a momentary sensation by a story of the capture of Nana Sahib but the man who was arrested proved to be an entirely different

  person and indeed from the moment of his arrest few believed him to be the long lost murderer of the English women. In days more superstitious than our own, popular faith would have found an easy explanation of the mystery which surrounded the close of Nana Sahib's career. He had done, it would have been said, the work of a fiend and he had disappeared as

  a fiend would do when his task was accomplished. End of section 9

• 10 - Ch. 35: Reconquest, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 10 of A History of Our Own Times Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 35. Reconquest. Part 1. The capture of Delhi was effected on September 20th. The siege had been long and difficult, and for some time it did not seem to the general in command, Archdale Wilson, that the small force he had could, with any hope of success, attempt to carry the city by assault. Colonel Baird Smith, who was chief of the engineer department, urged the attempt strongly on him, and at length it was made, and made with success, though not without many moments when failure seemed inevitable. Brigadier General Nicholson led the storming columns, and paid for his bravery and success the price of a gallant life. He was shot through the body, and died three days after the English standard had been planted on the roof of the palace of the Mughals.

  Nicholson was one of the bravest and most capable officers whom the war produced. It is worthy of record as an evidence of the temper aroused, even in men from whom better things might have been expected, that Nicholson strongly urged the passing of a law to authorize flaying alive, impalement, or burning, of the murderers of the women and children in Delhi. He contended that the idea of simply hanging the perpetrators of such atrocities is maddening. He urged this view again and again, and deliberately argued it on grounds alike of policy and principle. The fact is recorded here not in mere disparagement of a brave soldier, but as an illustration of the manner in which the old elementary passions of man's untamed condition can return upon him in his pride of civilization and culture and make him their slave again. The taking of Delhi was followed by an act over which, from that time to the present, a controversy has been arising at intervals. A young officer, Hodson, of Hodson's horse, was acting as chief of the intelligence department. He had once been in civil charge in the Punjab and had been dismissed for arbitrary and high-handed conduct toward an influential chief of the district.

  He had been striving hard to distinguish himself and to regain a path to success, and as the leader of the little force known as Hodson's horse, he had given evidence of remarkable military capacity. He was especially distinguished by an extraordinary blending of cool calculated craft and reckless daring. He knew exactly when to be cautious and when to risk everything on what to other eyes might have seemed a madman's throw. He now offered to General Wilson to capture the king and the royal family of Delhi. General Wilson gave him authority to make the attempt, but stipulated that the life of the king should be spared. By the help of native spies, Hodson discovered that when Delhi was taken, the king and his family had taken refuge in the tomb of Emperor Humayun, a structure which, with the buildings surrounding and belonging to it, constituted a sort of suburb in itself. Hodson went boldly to this place with a few of his troopers. He found that the royal family of Delhi were surrounded there by a vast crowd of armed, and to all appearances, desperate adherents.

  This was one of the moments when Hodson's indomitable daring stood him in good stead. He called upon them all to lay down their arms at once, and the very audacity of the order made them suppose he had force at hand capable of compelling obedience. They threw down their arms, and the king surrendered himself to Hodson. Next day, Hodson captured the three royal princes of Delhi. He tried, condemned, and executed them himself on the spot. That is to say, he treated them as rebels taken red-handed, and borrowing a carbine from one of his troopers, he shot them dead with his own hand. Their corpses, half naked, were exposed for some days at one of the gates of Delhi. Hodson did the deed deliberately. Many days before he had a chance of doing it, he wrote to a friend to say that if he got into the palace of Delhi, the house of Timur will not be worth five minutes' purchase, I wean. On the day after the deed, he wrote, In twenty-four hours I disposed of the principal members of the house of Timur the Tartar. I am not cruel, but I confess that I do rejoice in the opportunity of ridding the earth of these ruffians.

  Sir J.W.K., who comments on Hodson's deed with a just and manly severity, says, I must aver without hesitation that the general feeling in England was one of profound grief not unmingled with detestation. I never heard the act approved. I never heard it even defended. Sir J.W.K. was more fortunate than the writer of this book, who has frequently heard it defended, justified, and glorified, and has a distinct impression that the more general tendency of public opinion in England at the time was to regard Hodson's act as entirely patriotic and laudable. If, in cool blood, the deed could now be defended, it might be necessary to point out that there was no evidence, whatever, of the princes having taken any part in the massacre of Europeans in Delhi, that even if evidence to that effect was forthcoming, Hodson did not wait for or ask for it, and that the share taken by the princes in an effort to restore the dynasty of their ancestor, however it might have justified it, would not be possible. However, it might have justified some sternness of punishment on the part of the English government, was not a crime of that order which is held in civilized warfare to put the life of its author at the mercy of anyone who captures him when the struggle is all over and the reign of law is safe. One cannot read the history of this Indian mutiny without coming to the conclusion that in the minds of many Englishmen a temporary prostration of the moral sense took place under the influence of which they came to regard the measure of the enemy's guilt as the standard for their right of retaliation and to hold that if he had no conscience they were thereby released from the necessity of having any.

  As Mr. Disraeli put it, they were making Nana Saheb the model for the British officer to imitate. Hodson was killed not long after. We might well wish to be free to allow him to rest without censure in his untimely grave. He was a brave and clever soldier, but one who unfortunately allowed a fierce temper to over-crow, as the Elizabethan writers would have put it, the better instincts of his nature and the guidance of a cool judgment. General Havelock made his way to the relief of Lucknow. Sir James Zutrim, who had returned from Persia, had been sent to Owed with full instructions to act as chief commissioner. He had complete civil and military authority. Appearing on the scene, armed with such powers, he would in the natural order of things have superseded Havelock, who had been fighting his way so brilliantly in the face of a thousand dangers to the relief of the beleaguered English in Lucknow. But Zutrim was not the man to rob a brave and successful comrade of the fruits of his toil and peril. Zutrim wrote to Havelock,

  To you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil capacity as commissioner, placing my military service at your disposal should you please, and serving under you as a volunteer. Havelock was enabled to continue his victorious march. He fought battle after battle against forces far superior in numbers to his own, and on September 25th he was able to relieve the besieged English at Lucknow. His coming, it can hardly be doubted, saved the women and children from such a massacre as that at Kanpur. But Havelock had not the force that might have driven the rebels out of the field. His little army, although it had been reinforced by the coming of Sir James Zutrim, was yet entirely inadequate to the task which circumstances had imposed on it. The enemy soon recovered from any momentary panic into which they had been thrown by Havelock's coming and renewed the siege. And if England had not been prepared to make greater efforts for the rescue of her imperiled people, it is but too probable that the troops whom Havelock brought to the relief of Lucknow would only have swelled the number of the victims. Thank you.

• 11 - Ch. 35: Reconquest, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  But in the meantime, the stout soldier Sir Colin Campbell, whom we have already heard of in the Crimean campaign, had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Indian forces and had arrived in India. He received, it was said, the announcement of the task assigned to him one afternoon in London, and before the evening he was on his way to the scene of his command.

  He arrived in Kanpur on November 3, and he set out for Lucknow on the 9th. He had, however, to wait for reinforcements, and it was not until the 14th that he was able to attack. Even then he had under his command only some 5,000 men, a force miserably inferior in number to that of the enemy, but in those days an English officer thought himself in good condition

  to attack if the foe did not outnumber him by more than four or five to one. A series of actions was fought by Sir Colin Campbell and his little force attacking the enemy on the one side, who were attacked at the same time by the besieged garrison of the residency. On the morning of November 17, Utrim and Havelock, with their staff officers, were able to join

  Campbell before the general action was over, and by the combined efforts of both forces the enemy was dislodged. Sir Colin Campbell resolved, however, that the residency must be evacuated, and accordingly, on the 19th, heavy batteries were opened against the enemy's position as if for the purpose of assault, and under cover of this operation, the women, the sick, and the wounded were

  quietly removed to the Dil Kusha, a small palace in a park about five miles from the residency which had been captured by Sir Colin Campbell on his way to attack the city. During some days following, the garrison was quietly withdrawing to the Dil Kusha. By midnight of the 22nd, the whole garrison, without the loss of a single man, had left the residency.

  Two or three days more saw the troops established at Alambah, some four miles from the residency in another direction from that of the Dil Kusha. Alambah is an isolated cluster of buildings with grounds and enclosure to the south of Lucknow. The name of this place is memorable forever in the history of the war.

  It was there that Havelock closed his glorious career. He was attacked with dysentery, and his frame exhausted by the almost superhuman strain which he had put upon it during his long days and sleepless nights of battle and victory could not long resist such an enemy. On November 24th, Havelock died.

  The Queen created him a baronet, or rather affixed that honor to his name, on the 27th of the same month, not knowing then that the soldier's time for struggle and for honor was over. The title was transferred to his son, the present Sir Henry Havelock, who had fought gallantly under his father's eyes.

  The fame of Havelock's exploits reached England only a little in advance of the news of his death. So many brilliant deeds had seldom in the history of our wars been crowded into days so few. All of the fame of that glorious career was the work of some strenuous splendid weeks.

  Havelock's promotion had been slow. He had not much for which to thank the favor of his superiors. No family influence, no powerful patrons or friends had made his slow progress more easy. He was more than sixty when the mutiny broke out. He was born in April 1795.

  He was educated at the Charter House in London, where his grave studious ways procured for him the nickname of Old Floss, the schoolboy short for Old Philosopher. He went out to India in 1823 and served in the Burmese War of 1824 and the Sikh War of 1845. He was a man of grave and earnest character, a Baptist by religion, and strongly penetrated

  with a conviction that the religious spirit ought to pervade and inform all the duties of military as well as civil life. By his earnestness and his example he succeeded in animating those whom he led with similar feelings and Havelock's Saints were well known through India by this distinctive, appropriate title.

  Havelock's Saints showed whenever they had an opportunity that they could fight as desperately as the most reckless sinners and their commander found the fame flung in his way across the which he never would have swerved one inch from that path to seek. Amid all the excitement of hope and fear, passion and panic in England, there was time for the whole heart of the nation to feel pride in Havelock's career and sorrow for

  his untimely death. Untimely? Was it after all untimely? Since when has it not been the crown of a great career that the hero dies at the moment of accomplished victory?

  Sir Colin Campbell left General Uttram in charge of Alambagh for the purpose of keeping watch upon the movements of the insurgents who were still strong in the city of Lucknow. Sir Colin himself advanced toward Kanpur where he soon found that there was some serious work to be done. A large hostile force composed chiefly of the revolted army of Sindhiya, the ruler of

  Gwalior, had been marching upon Kanpur and General Wyndham who held the command there had gone out to attack them. It fared with him, however, very much as it had done with Sir Henry Lawrence near Lucknow. He found the enemy far too strong for him, he was compelled to retreat not without severe loss to his entrenchments at Kanpur, and the enemy occupied the city itself.

  Sir Colin Campbell attacked the rebels at one place. Sir Hope Grant attacked them at another, and Kanpur was retaken. Sir Colin Campbell then turned his attention to the very important work of reconquering the entire city of Lucknow and dispersing the great body of rebels who were concentrated there.

  It was not until March 19, 1858, that Lucknow fell completely into the hands of the English. Our operations had been almost entirely by artillery and had been conducted with consummate prudence as well as boldness. Our loss was therefore very small, while the enemy suffered most severely. About two thousand of the rebels were killed in the final attack, and more than one hundred

  of their guns were taken. Among our wounded were the gallant leader of the naval brigade, Sir William Peel, son of the great statesman, and among the killed was Hodson of Hodson's horse, the executioner of the princes of Delhi. Sir William Peel died at Kanpur shortly after, of smallpox.

  His death remarked and lamented even amid all the noble deaths of that eventful time. One name must not be forgotten among those who endured the siege of Lucknow. It is that of Dr. Brydon, whom we last saw as he appeared under the walls of Jalalabad. No one survivor come back to tell the tale of the disastrous retreat from Kabul. A gifted artist, Mrs. Butler, has lately painted that picture as no words could paint it.

  Dr. Brydon served through the Lucknow defense and was specially named in the dispatch of the governor-general. After passing through the Kabul campaign of 1841 and 1842, the governor-general says of Dr. Brydon, he was included in the illustrious garrison who maintained the position in Jalalabad. He may now, as one of the heroes of Lucknow, claim to have witnessed and taken part in

  an achievement even more conspicuous as an example of the invincible energy and enduring courage of British soldiers. Practically the reconquest of Lucknow was the final blow in the suppression of the great Bengal mutiny. The two centers of the movement were Delhi and Lucknow, and when these strongholds were

  once more in the hands of the English, rebellion in the land had well nigh lost its sway. There was hardly after that any rebel camp left to which it would have been worth carrying a flag of truce. Some episodes of the war, however, were still worthy of notice. For example, the rebels seized Gwalior, the capital of the Maharaja Sindhiya, who escaped

  to Agra. The English had to attack the rebels, retake Gwalior, and restore Sindhiya. One of those who fought to the last on the rebel side was the Rani or Princess of Jahasi, whose territory as we have already seen had been one of our annexations. She had flung all her energies into the rebellion, regarding it clearly as a rebellion and not

  as a mere mutiny. She took the field with Nana Sahib and Tantia Topi. For months after the fall of Delhi, she contrived to baffle Sir Hugh Rose and the English. She led squadrons in the field. She fought with her own hand.

  She was engaged against us in the battle for the possession of Gwalior. In the uniform of a cavalry officer, she led charge after charge, and she was killed among those who resisted to the last. Her body was found upon the field, scarred with wounds enough in the front to have done credit to any hero.

  Sir Hugh Rose paid her the well-deserved tribute, which a generous conqueror is always glad to be able to offer. He said in his general order that the best man upon the side of the enemy was the woman found dead, the Rani of Jahasi. The Maharaja Sindhiya of Gwalior had deserved well of the English government.

  Under every temptation, every threat, and many profound perils from the rebellion, he had remained firm to his friendship. So too had Hulkar, the Maharaja of the Indore Territory. Both these princes were young when the mutiny broke out, some twenty-three years old each of them, at a time of life therefore when ambition and enterprise might have been expected

  to tempt with fullest fascination. Hulkar was actually believed in the beginning to have favored the rebellion. He was deliberately accused of having taken part with it. There are even still those who would argue that he was its accomplice, so closely were his fortunes to all appearance bound up with the cause of the mutineers, and so natural

  did it seem that he should fail to hold out against them. But he disappointed all such expectations on the part of our enemies, and proved himself a faithful friend of England. The country owes much to those two princes for the part they took at her hour of need, and she has not, we are glad to think, proved herself ungrateful.

  The administration of Patna by Mr. William Taylor supplied an episode which is still discussed with something like partisan keenness. Patna is the Mohammedan capital of the region east of Benares, and the city was the headquarters of the chiefs of the fanatical warlike Wahhabis. Mr. Taylor was the commissioner of the district.

  He suspected that rebellion was being planned there, and he got the supposed religious leaders of it into his power by a stratagem, something like that which the Duke of Alva employed to make Egmont his prisoner. Did the end justify the means, as the question still asked? Was there a rebellious plot, and if so, was it right to anticipate Oriental treachery

  by a stroke of more-than-Oriental craft? The episode was interesting, but it is too purely an episode to be discussed at any length in these pages. It is not necessary to describe with any minuteness of detail the final spasms of the rebellion. Tantia Topi, the lieutenant of Nana Sahib, held out obstinately in the field for a long

  time and after several defeats. He was at length completely hemmed in by the English and was deserted by the remainder of his army. He was taken prisoner in April, 1859, was tried for his share in the Kanpur massacre, and was hanged like any vulgar criminal.

  The old King of Delhi was also put on trial, and being found guilty, was sentenced to transportation. He was sent to the Cape of Good Hope, but the colonists there refused to receive him, and this last of the line of the grand moguls had to go begging for a prison. He was finally carried to Rangoon in British Burma. On December 20, 1858, Lord Clyde, who had been Sir Colin Campbell, announced to the

  Governor General that the campaign is at an end, there being no longer even the vestige of rebellion in the province of Oed, and that the last remnant of the mutineers and insurgents had been hopelessly driven across the mountains which formed the barrier between the Kingdom of Nepal and Her Majesty's Empire of Hindustan. On May 1, 1859, there was a public thanksgiving in England for the pacification of India.

  End of Section 11.

• 12 - Ch. 36: The End of 'John Company,' Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  While these things were passing in India, it is needless to say that the public opinion of England was distracted by agitation and by opposing councils. For a long time, the condition of Indian affairs had been regarded in England with something like absolute indifference. India was, to the ordinary Englishman, a place where men used at one time to make large fortunes

  within a few years, and where lately, military and civil officers had to do hard work enough without much chance of becoming nabobs. In many circles, it was thought of only as the hated country where one's daughter went with her husband, and from which she had, after a few years, to send back her children to England, because the climate of India was fatal to certain years of childhood.

  It was associated in the minds of some with tiger hunting, in the minds of others with bishop heber and missions to the heathen. Most persons had a vague knowledge that there had been an impeachment of Warren Hastings for something done by him in India, and that Burke had made great speeches about it. In his famous essay on Lord Clive, published only 17 years before the Indian mutiny, Lord

  Macaulay complained that while every schoolboy, as he put it in his favorite way, knew all about the Spanish conquests in the Americas, about Montezuma and Cortes and Pizarro, very few even of cultivated English gentlemen knew anything whatever about the history of England's empire in India. In the House of Commons, a debate on any question connected with India was as strictly an affair

  of experts as a discussion on some local gas or water bill. The House in general did not even affect to have any interest in it. The officials who had to do with Indian affairs, the men on the opposition benches who had held the same offices while their party was in power, these and two or three men who had been in India and who were set down as crotchety because they professed any concern in its

  mode of government. Such were the politicians who carried on an Indian debate and who had the House all to themselves while the discussion lasted. The Indian mutiny startled the public feeling of England out of this state of unhealthy languor.

  First came the passion and panic, the cry for blood, the wholesale executions, the blowing of rebels from guns. Then came a certain degree of reaction and some eminent Englishmen were found to express alarm at the very sanguinary methods of repression and of punishment that were in favor among most of our fellow countrymen in India.

  It was during this season of reaction that the famous discussions took place on Lord Canning's proclamation. On March 3rd, 1858, Lord Canning issued his memorable proclamation, memorable however rather for the stir it created in England than for any great effect it produced in India. It was issued from Allahabad whither the governor general had gone to be nearer to the seat

  of war. The proclamation was addressed to the chiefs of Owed and it announced that with the exception of the lands then held by six loyal proprietors of the province, the proprietary right in the whole of the soil of Owed was transferred to the British government, which would dispose of it in such manner as might seem fitting.

  The disposal however was indicated by the terms of the proclamation. To all chiefs and landholders who should at once surrender to the chief commissioner of Owed, it was promised that their lives should be spared, provided that their hands were unstained by English blood murderously shed, but it was stated that as regards any further indulgence which may be extended to them and the conditions in which they may

  thereafter be placed, they must throw themselves upon the justice and mercy of the British government. And by the light of literalness, this proclamation unquestionably seemed to amount to an absolute confiscation of the whole soil of Owed, for even the favored landowners who were to retain their properties were given to understand that they retained them by the favor of the

  crown and as a reward for their loyalty. This was the view taken of the governor general's act by one whose opinion was surely entitled to the highest consideration from everyone, Sir James Zutrim, chief commissioner of Owed. Sir James Zutrim wrote at once to Lord Canning, pointing out that there were not a dozen landowners in Owed who had not either themselves borne arms against us or assisted the rebels with

  men or money, and that therefore the effect of the proclamation would be to confiscate the entire proprietary right in the province and to make the chiefs and landlords desperate, and that the result would be a guerrilla war for the extirpation, root and branch of this class of men, which will involve the loss of thousands of Europeans by battle, disease and exposure.

  Lord Canning was not ready to admit even in deference to such authority as that of Sir James Zutrim that his policy would have any such effects. But he consented to insert in the proclamation a clause announcing that a liberal indulgence would be granted to those who should promptly come forward to aid in the restoration of order, and that the governor general will be ready to view liberally the claims which

  they may thus acquire to a restitution of their former rights. In truth, it was never the intention of Lord Canning to put in force any cruel and sweeping policy of confiscation. The whole tenor of his rule in India, the very reproaches that had been showered on him, the very nickname which his enemies had given him, that term of reproach that afterwards

  came to be a title of honor, might have suggested to the sharpest critic that it was not likely Clemency Canning was about to initiate a principle of merciless punishment for an entire class of men. Lord Canning had come to the conclusion that the English government must start afresh in their dealings with the Wed.

  He felt that it would be impossible to deal with the chiefs and people of the province so lately annexed as if we were dealing with revolted sepoys. He put aside any idea of imprisonment or transportation for mere rebellion, seeing that only in the conqueror's narrowest sense could men be accounted rebels because they had taken arms against a power which but a moment before had no claim whatever to their allegiance

  or their obedience. Nevertheless, Oed was now a province of the British Empire in Hindustan, and Lord Canning had only to consider what was to be done with it. He came to the conclusion that the necessary policy for all parties concerned was to make of the mutiny and the consequent reorganization an opportunity not for a wholesale confiscation

  of the land but for a measure which should declare that the land was held under the power and right of the English government. The principle of this policy was somewhat like that adopted by Lord Durham in Canada. It put aside the technical authority of law for the moment in order that a reign of genuine law might be inaugurated.

  It seized the power of a dictator over life and property, that the dictator might be able to restore peace and order at the least cost in loss and suffering to the province and the population whose affairs it was his task to administer. But it may be freely admitted that on the face of it, the proclamation of Lord Canning looked strangely despotic.

  Some of the most independent and liberal Englishmen took this view of it. Men who had supported Lord Canning through all the hours of clamor against him felt compelled to express disapproval of what they understood to be his new policy. It so happened that Lord Ellenborough was then president of the Board of Control and Lord Ellenborough was a man who always acted on impulse and had a passion for fine phrases.

  He had a sincere love of justice according to his lights but he had a still stronger love for antithesis. Lord Ellenborough therefore had no sooner received a copy of Lord Canning's proclamation than he dispatched upon his own responsibility a rattling condemnation of the whole preceding. Other conquerors, wrote the fiery and eloquent statesman, when they have succeeded in overcoming

  resistance, have accepted a few persons as still deserving of punishment, but have with a generous policy extended their clemency to the great body of the people. You have acted upon a different principle. You have reserved a few as deserving of special favor, and you have struck with what they feel as the severest of punishments the mass of the inhabitants of the country.

  We cannot but think that the precedents from which you have departed will appear to have been conceived in a spirit of wisdom superior to that which appears in the precedent you have made. The style of this dispatch was absolutely indefensible. A French imperial prefect with a turn for eloquent letter-writing might fitly thus have

  admonished the erring mayor of a village community, but it was absurd language for a man like Lord Ellenborough to address to a statesman like Lord Canning, who had just succeeded in keeping the fabric of English government in India together during the most terrible trial ever imposed on it by fate. The question was taken up immediately in both Houses of Parliament.

  Lord Shaftesbury and the House of Lords moved a resolution declaring that the House regarded with regret and serious apprehension the sending of such a dispatch through the secret committee of the Court of Directors, an almost obsolete piece of machinery we may remark, and its publication, and that such a course must prejudice our rule in India by weakening the authority of the Governor General and encouraging the resistance of rebels still in arms.

  A similar motion was introduced by Mr. Cardwell in the House of Commons. In both Houses the arraignment of the Ministry proved a failure. Lord Ellenborough at once took upon himself the whole responsibility of an act which was undoubtedly all his own, and he resigned his office. The resolution was therefore defeated in the House of Lords on a division, and had to be

  withdrawn in a rather ignominious manner in the House of Commons. Four nights of vehement debate were spent in the latter House. Opinion was strangely divided. Men like Mr. Bright and Sir James Graham condemned the proclamation and defended the action of the Government.

  The position of Mr. Cardwell and his supporters became particularly awkward, for they seemed, under the resignation of Lord Ellenborough, to be only trying to find partisan advantage in a further pressure upon the Government. The news that Sir James Uttram had disapproved of the proclamation came while the debate was still going on, and added new strength to the cause of the Government.

  It came out, in the course of the discussion, that Lord Canning had addressed a private letter to Mr. Vernon Smith, afterwards Lord Livedon, Lord Ellenborough's predecessor as President of the Board of Control, informing him that the proclamation about to be issued would require some further explanation which the pressure of work did not allow its author just then to give.

  Lord Canning wrote this under the belief that Mr. Vernon Smith was still at the head of the Board of Control. Mr. Vernon Smith did not tell Lord Ellenborough anything about this letter, and it was of course very strongly urged that had Lord Ellenborough known of such a document being in existence, he would have held his hand, and waited for further explanation.

  Mr. Vernon Smith, it was explained, was in Ireland when the letter arrived, and did not get it in time to prevent the action of Lord Ellenborough, and Lord Granville stated that he had himself had a letter to a similar effect from Lord Canning, of which he had told Lord Ellenborough, but that that impetuous nobleman did not show the least interest in it, and did not even hear it out to the end.

  Still there was an obvious difference between a letter to a friend and what might be considered an official communication to Lord Ellenborough's predecessor in the very office on behalf of which he issued his censure, and at all events the unexpected revelation tended greatly to strengthen the position of the government. The attack made by Mr. Cardwell broke down or crumbled away.

  Mr. Disraeli described the process of its disappearance in his speech which he delivered a few days after at Slough, and the description is one of his happiest pieces of audacious eloquence. It was like a convulsion of nature rather than any ordinary transaction of human life. I can only liken it to one of those earthquakes which take place in Calabria or Peru.

  There was a rumbling murmur, a groan, a shriek, a sound of distant thunder. No one knew whether it came from the top or the bottom of the house. There was a rent, a fissure in the ground, and then a village disappeared. Then a tall tower toppled down, and the whole of the opposition benches became one great dissolving view of anarchy.

  Assuredly, Mr. Disraeli was entitled to crow over his baffled antagonists. Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph? It must have been a meeker Roman than Mr. Disraeli who would not have triumphed over so complete and unexpected a humiliation of his enemies.

  The debate in the House of Commons was memorable in other ways, as well as for its direct political consequences. It first gave occasion for Mr. Cairns, as he then was, to display the extraordinary capacity as a debater which he possessed, and which he afterwards made of such solid and brilliant service to his party.

  It was also the occasion of the Comte de Montalhombert celebrated pamphlet On débat sur l'Inde, au parlement anglais, for which, and its thrilling contrast between the political freedom of England and the imperial servitude of France, he had the honor of being prosecuted by the French government and defended by Monsieur Berrier.

• 13 - Ch. 36: The End of 'John Company,' Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XXXVI. THE END OF JOHN COMPANY. PART II. Lord Canning continued his policy, the policy which he had marked out for himself, with signal success. The actual proclamation had little or no effect as punishment on the landhold of Owed. It was never intended by Lord Canning that it should have any such. In fact, within a few weeks after the capture of Lucknow, almost all the large landowners had tendered

  their allegiance. Lord Canning impressed upon his officers the duty of making their rule as considerate and conciliatory as possible. The new system established in Owed was based upon the principle of recognizing the talukdars as responsible landholders, while so limiting their power by the authority of the government as to get rid of old abuses and protect the occupiers and cultivators of the soil. The rebellion had abundantly proved that the village

  communities were too feeble and broken to hold the position which had been given with success to similar communities in the Punjab. It should be remembered in considering Lord Canning's policy that a proprietary right, by whatever name it may be distinguished or disguised, has always been claimed by the Government of India. It is only parted with under leases or settlements that are liable to be revised and altered. The settlements which Lord Canning

  effected in India easily survived the attacks made upon their author. They would have been short-lived indeed if they had not long survived himself as well. Canning, like Durham, only lived long enough to hear the general acknowledgement that he had done well for the country he was sent to govern and for the country in whose name and with whose authority he went forth. The rebellion pulled down within a famous old institution, the Government of the East India Company. Before the

  mutiny had been entirely crushed, the rule of John Company came to an end. The Administration of India had indeed long ceased to be under the control of the Company as it was in the days of Warren Hastings. A board of directors, nominated partly by the Crown and partly by the Company, sat in Leadenhall Street and gave general directions for the Government of India. But the Parliamentary Department, called the Board of Control, had the right of reviewing and revising the decisions of

  the Company. The Crown had the power of nominating the Governor General and the Company had only the power of recalling him. This odd and perhaps unparalleled system of double government had not much to defend it on strictly logical grounds and the moment a great crisis came it was natural that all the blame of difficulty and disaster should be laid upon its head. With the beginning of the mutiny the impression began to grow up in the public mind here that something of a sweeping

  nature must be done for the reorganization of India and before long this vague impression crystallized into a conviction that England must take Indian Administration into her own hands and that the time had come for the fiction of rule by a trading company to be absolutely given up. Indeed Lord Ellenborough had recommended in his evidence before a select committee of the Commons on Indian Affairs as far back as 1852 that the Government of India should be transferred

  from the Company to the Crown. As we have already seen the famous system of government which was established by Pitt was really the Government of the Crown. At least Pitt made the Administration of India completely subject to the English Government. The difference between Pitt's measure and that introduced by Fox was that Pitt preserved the independence of the Company in matters of patronage and commerce whereas Fox would have placed the whole commerce and commercial

  administration of the Company under the control of a body nominated by the Crown. By the Act of 1853 the patronage of the Civil Service was taken from the Company and yet was not given to the Crown. It was in fact a competitive system. Scientific and civil appointments were made to depend on capacity and fitness alone. Macaulay spoke for the last time in the House of Commons in support of the principle of admission by competitive examination to the Civil Service

  of India. In the beginning of 1858 Lord Palmerston introduced a bill to transfer the authority of the Company formally and absolutely to the Crown. The plan of the scheme was that there were to be a President and a Council of eight members to be nominated by the Government. There was a large majority in the House of Commons in favor of the bill but the agitation caused by the attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French and Palmerston's ill-judged and ill-timed conspiracy

  bill led to the sudden overthrow of his government. When Lord Darby succeeded to power he brought in a bill for the better government of India at once but the measure was a failure. It was of preposterous construction. It bore on its face curious evidence of the fantastic ingenuity of Lord Allenborough. It created a Secretary of State for India with a Council of 18. Nine of these were to be nominees of the Crown. Nine were to be concessions to the principles of popular election.

  Four of the elected must have served Her Majesty in India for at least ten years or have been engaged in trade in that country for fifteen years and they were to be elected by the votes of anyone in this country who had served the Queen or the Government of India for ten years or any proprietor of capital stock in Indian railways or other public works in India to the amount of two thousand pounds or any proprietor of India's stock to the amount of one thousand

  pounds. The other five members of the Council must as their qualification have been engaged in commerce in India or in the exportation of manufactured goods to that country for five years or must have resided there for ten years. These five were to be elected by the parliamentary constituencies of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast. This clause was Lord Ellenborough's device. Anything more absurdly out of tune with the whole principle of popular

  election than this latter part of the scheme it would be difficult to imagine. The theory of popular election is simply that every man knows best what manner of representative is best qualified to look after his interests in the Legislative Assembly. But by no distortion of that principle can it be made to assert the doctrine that the parliamentary electors of London and Liverpool are properly qualified to decide as to the class of representatives who could best take care of the

  interests of Bengal, Bombay and the Punjab. Again, as if it was not absurd enough to put elections to the governing body of India into the hands of such constituencies, the field of choice was so limited for them as to render it almost impossible that they could elect really suitable men. It was well pointed out at the time that by the ingenious device of the government a constituency might send to the Indian Council any man who had exported beer in a small way to

  India for five years but could not send Mr. John Stuart Mill there. The measure fell dead. It had absolutely no support in the House or the country. It had only to be described in order to ensure its condemnation. It was withdrawn before it had gone to a second reading. Then Lord John Russell came to the help of the puzzled government who evidently thought they had been making a generous concession to the principle of popular election and were amazed to find their advances so coldly and

  contemptuously received. Lord John Russell proposed that the House should proceed by way of resolutions. That is, that the lines of a measure should be laid down by a series of resolutions in committee of the whole House and that upon those lines the government should construct a measure. The suggestion was eagerly welcomed and after many nights of discussion a basis of legislation was at last agreed upon. This bill passed into law in the autumn of 1858 and for the remainder of

  Lord Darby's tenure of power his son Lord Stanley was Secretary of State for India. The bill which was called an act for the better government of India provided that all the territories previously under the government of the East India Company were to be vested in her majesty and all the company's powers to be exercised in her name. One of her majesty's principal secretaries of state was to have all the power previously exercised by the company

  or by the board of control. The secretary was to be assisted by a council of India to consist of 15 members of whom seven were to be elected by the court of directors from their own body and eight nominated by the crown. The vacancies among the nominated were to be filled up by the crown, those among the elected by the remaining members of the council for a certain time but afterwards by the secretary of state for India. The competitive principle for the civil service

  was extended in its application and made thoroughly practical. The military and naval forces of the company were to be deemed the forces of her majesty. A clause was introduced declaring that except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India the Indian revenues should not without the consent of both houses of parliament be applicable to defray the expenses of any military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of her majesty's Indian possessions.

  Another clause enacted that whenever an order was sent to India directing the commencement of hostilities by her majesty's forces there the fact should be communicated to parliament within three months if parliament were then sitting or if not within one month after its next meeting. These clauses were heard of more than once in later days. The viceroy and governor general was to be supreme in India but was to be assisted by a council. India now has nine provinces each

  under its own civil government and independent of the others but all subordinate to the authority of the viceroy. In accordance with this act the government of the company the famed John Company formally ceased on September 1st 1858 and the queen was proclaimed throughout India in the following November with Lord Canning for her first viceroy. It was but fitting that the man who had borne the strain of that terrible crisis who had brought

  our Indian empire safely through it all and who had had to endure so much obloquy and to live down so much calumny should have his name consigned to history as that of the first of the line of British viceroys in India. It seems almost superfluous to say that so great a measure as the extinction of the East India Company did not pass without some protest and some opposition. The authorship of some of the protests makes them too remarkable to be passed over without a word.

  Among the ablest civil servants the East India Company ever had were James Mill and his son John Stuart Mill. Both had risen in succession to the same high post in the company's service. The younger Mill was still an official of the company when as he had put it in his own words it pleased Parliament, in other words Lord Palmerston, to put an end to the East India Company as a branch of the Government of India under the Crown and convert the administration

  of that country into a thing to be scrambled for by the second and third class of English parliamentary politicians. I, says Mr. Mill, was the chief manager of the resistance which the company made to their own political extinction and to the letters and petitions I wrote for them and the concluding chapter of my treatise on representative government I must refer for my opinions on the folly and mischief of this ill-conceived change. One of the remonstrances

  drawn up by Mr. Mill and presented to Parliament on behalf of the East India Company is as able a state paper probably as any in the archives of modern England. This is not the place however in which to enter on the argument it so powerfully sustained. It has been the destiny of the Government of the East India Company, says Mr. Mill in the closing passage of his essay on representative government, to suggest the true theory of the Government of a semi-barbarous

  dependency by a civilized country and after having done this to perish. It would be a singular fortune if at the end of two or three more generations this speculative result should be the only remaining fruit of our ascendancy in India. If posterity should say of us that having stumbled accidentally upon better arrangements than our wisdom would ever have devised, the first use we made of our awakened reason was to destroy them and allow the good which had been in course of being realized

  to fall through and be lost from ignorance of the principles on which it depended. De Meliora, Mr. Mill adds, and we are glad to think that after the lapse of more than 20 years there is as yet no sign of the realization of the fears which he expressed with so much eloquence and earnestness. Mr. Mill was naturally swayed by the force of association with and confidence in the great organization with which he and his father had been connected so long

  and moreover no one can deny that he has in his protests fairly presented some of the dangers that may now and then arise out of a system which throws the responsibility for the good Government of India wholly on a body so likely to be alien, apathetic, unsympathetic as the English Parliament. But the whole question was one of comparative danger and convenience. The balance of advantage certainly seemed, even as a matter of speculation,

  to be with the system of more direct government. It is a mistake too to suppose that it was the will or the caprice of Lord Palmerston that made the change. Rightly or wrongly, it is certain that almost the whole of English public opinion cried out for the abolition of the East India Company. It was the one thing which everybody could suggest to be done at a time of excitement when everybody thought he was bound to suggest something. It would have required a minister,

  less fond of popularity than Lord Palmerston, to resist such an outcry or pretend that he did not hear it. In this, as in so many other cases, Lord Palmerston only seemed to lead public opinion while he was really following it. One other remark it is also fair to make. We have no indications as yet of any likelihood that the administration of India is to become a thing to be scrambled for by second and third class parliamentary politicians. The administration

  of India means, of course, the viceroyalty. Now there have been since Lord Canning five viceroys, and of these three at least were not parliamentary politicians at all. Sir John Lawrence never was in parliament until he was raised to the peerage after his return home from India. Lord Elgin may be fairly described as never having been in parliament unless in the technical sense which makes every man on whom a peer's title is conferred a parliamentary personage, and the same holds true

  of Lord Lytton who had no more to do with parliament than was involved in the fact of his having succeeded to his father's title. Lord Mayo and Lord Northbrook, to whom perhaps an invidious critic might apply the term second or third class parliamentary politicians on the ground that neither had obtained very high parliamentary distinction, proved nevertheless very capable and indeed excellent administrators of Indian affairs and fully justified the choice of the

  ministers who appointed them. Indeed, the truth is that the change made in the mode of governing India by the act which we have just been describing was more of name than of reality. India was ruled by a governor general and a board before, and it has been ruled by a governor general called a viceroy and a board since. The idea which Mr. Mill had evidently formed in his mind of a restless and fussy parliament forever interfering in the affairs of India proved

  to have been a false impression altogether. Parliament soon ceased to take the slightest interest collectively in the affairs of India. Once more it came to be observed that an Indian budget or other question connected with the government of our great empire in the East could thin the house as in the days before the mutiny. Again as before, some few men profoundly in earnest took care and thought on the subject of India and were condemned to pour out the results

  of their study and experience to a listening undersecretary and a chill array of green leather benches. At intervals when some piquant question arose of little importance save to the court official or the partisan like the project for conferring an imperial crown brand new and showy as a stage diadem on the wearer of the great historic emblem of English monarchy then indeed public opinion condescended to think about India and there were keen parliamentary debates and

  much excitement in fashionable circles. Sometimes when there was talk of Russian ambition seeking somehow a pathway into India a sort of public spirit was aroused not perhaps wholly unlike the manly emotion of Squire Sullen and the Beau stratagem when he discovers that a foreigner is paying court to the woman he has so long neglected. But as a rule the English parliament has wholly falsified Mr. Mill's prediction and has not intruded itself in any way upon the political

  administration of India. End of section 13.

• 14 - Ch. 37: The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 14 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibraBox recording is in the Public Domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 37, The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Part 1. The last chapter has told us that Lord Palmerston introduced a measure to transfer to the Crown the Government of India, but that unexpected events in the meanwhile compelled him to resign office and call Lord Darby and Mr. Disraeli to power. These events had nothing to do directly with the general policy of Lord Palmerston or Lord Darby. At midday of January 14, 1858, no one could have had the slightest foreboding of anything about to happen which could affect the place of Lord Palmerston in English politics. He seemed to be as popular and as strong as a minister well could be. There had been a winter session called together on December 3 to pass a bill of indemnity for the government who had suspended the Bank Charter Act during the terrible money panic of the autumn and the failures of banks and commercial firms. The Bank was authorized, by the suspension of the Charter Act, to extend its circulation two millions beyond the limit of that Act. The effect of this step in restoring confidence was so great that the Bank had only to put in circulation some £900,000 beyond the limit of 1844, and even that sum was replaced and a certain reserve established by the close of the year.

  Most people thought the government had met the difficulty promptly and well and were ready to offer their congratulations. Parliament adjourned at Christmas and was to meet early in February. The Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of the Queen, was to be married to the Prince Frederick William, eldest son of the then Prince of Prussia, now German Emperor, and it was to be Lord Palmerston's pleasant task when Parliament resumed in February to move a vote of congratulations to Her Majesty on her child's marriage. Meantime, however, on the evening of January 14, Felice Orsini, an Italian exile, made his memorable attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French. Orsini lost himself and he drew the English government down at the same time. Felice Orsini was well known in England. After his romantic escape from a prison at Mantua, he came to this country and delivered lectures in several towns. He described the incidents of his escape and denounced Austrian rule in Italy and was made a lion of in many places. He was a handsome, soldierly-looking man with intensely dark eyes and dark beard, in appearance almost the model Italian conspirator of romance. He was not an orator, but he was able to tell his story clearly and well.

  One great object which he had in view was to endeavor to rouse up the English people to some policy of intervention on behalf of Italy against Austria. It is almost impossible for a man like Orsini to take the proper measure of the enthusiasm with which he is likely to be received in England. He goes to several public meetings, he is welcomed by immense crowds, he is cheered to the echo, and he gets to be under the impression that the whole country is on his side and ready to do anything he asks for. He does not understand that the crowds go for the most part out of curiosity, that they represent no policy or action whatever, and that they will have forgotten all about him by the day after tomorrow. Of those who went to hear Orsini and who applauded him so liberally, not one in ten probably had a distinct idea as to who he was or what cause he represented. He was an Italian exile who had escaped from tyranny of some sort somewhere, and he was a good-looking man, and that was enough for many or most of his audiences. But Orsini was thoroughly deceived. He convinced himself that he was forming public opinion in England, that he was inspiring the people, that the people would inspire the government, and that the result would be an armed intervention on behalf of Lombardy and Venetia.

  At a meeting which he held in Liverpool, a merchant of that town who sympathized cordially with Orsini's cause had the good sense to get up and tell Orsini that he was cruelly deceiving himself if he fancied that England either would or could take any step to intervene on behalf of the Italian provinces then held by Austria. Orsini at first thought little of this warning. After a while, however, he found out that the advice was sound and just. He saw that England would do nothing. He might have seen that even the English liberals, with the exception of a very few enthusiasts, were entirely against his projects. They were, in fact, just as much opposed to the principle of intervention in the affairs of other states as the conservatives. But Orsini set himself to devise explanations for what was simply the prudent and just determination of all the statesmen and leading politicians of the country. He found the explanation in the subtle influence of the Emperor of the French. It happened that during Orsini's residence in this country, the Emperor and Empress of the French came on a visit to the Queen at Osborne, and Orsini saw in this a conclusive confirmation of his suspicions. Disappointed, despairing, and wild with anger against Louis Napoleon, he appears then to have allowed the idea to get possession of him that the removal of the Emperor of the French from the scene was an indispensable preliminary to any policy having for its object the emancipation of Italy from Austrian rule.

  He brooded on this idea until it became a project and a passion. It transformed a soldier and a patriot into an assassin. On January 14, Orsini and his fellow conspirators made their attempt in the Rue Le Pelletier in Paris. As the Emperor and Empress of the French were driving up to the door of the opera house in that street, Orsini and his companions flung at and into the carriage three shells or bombs shaped like a pear and filled with detonating powder. The shells exploded and killed and wounded many persons. So minute were the fragments into which the bombs burst that 516 wounds, great and little, were inflicted by the explosion. This attempt at assassination was unfavorably distinguished from most other attempts by the fact that it took no account of the number of innocent lives which it imperiled. The murderers of William the Silent, of Henry IV, of Abraham Lincoln could at least say that they only struck at the objects of their hate.

  In Orsini's case, the Emperor's wife, the Emperor's attendants and servants, the harmless and unconcerned spectators in the crowd who had no share in Austrian misgovernment, were all exposed to the danger of death or of horrible mutilation. Ten persons were killed, 156 were wounded. For any purpose it aimed at, the project was an utter failure. It only injured those who had nothing whatever to do with Orsini's cause or the condition of the Italian populations. We may as well dispose at once also of a theory which was for a time upheld by some who would not indeed justify or excuse Orsini's attempt, but who were inclined to believe that it was not made wholly in vain. Orsini failed, it was said, but nevertheless the Emperor of the French did soon after take up the cause of Italy. And he did so because he was afraid of the still-living Confederates of the Lombard Skyvola and wished to purchase safety for himself by conciliating them. Even the Prince Consort wrote to a friend on April 11, 1858 about Louis Napoleon,

  I fear he is at this moment meditating some Italian development which is to serve as a lightning conductor, for ever since Orsini's letter he has been all for Italian independence. Historical revelations made at a later period showed that this is altogether a mistake. We now know that at the time of the Congress of Paris, Count Cavour had virtually arranged with the Emperor the plans of policy which were afterwards carried out, and that even before that time Cavour was satisfied in his own mind as to the ultimate certainty of Louis Napoleon's cooperation. Those who are glad to see Italy a nation may be glad too to know that Orsini's bombs had nothing to do with her success.

  Orsini was arrested. Curiously enough his arrest was made more easy by the fact that he himself received a wound from one of the fragments of shell, and he was tracked by his own blood marks. Great as his crime was, he compelled a certain admiration from all men by the manner in which he bore his fate. He avowed his guilt, and made a strenuous effort to clear of all complicity in it a man who was accused of being one of the conspirators. He wrote from his prison to the Emperor, beseeching him to throw his influence into the national cause of Italy. He made no appeal on his own behalf. The Emperor, it is believed, was well inclined to spare his life, but the comprehensive heinousness of the crime which took in so many utterly blameless persons rendered it almost impossible to allow the leading conspirator to escape.

  As it was, however, the French government certainly showed no unreasonable severity. Four persons were put on trial as participators in the attempt, three of them having actually thrown the bombs. Only two, however, were executed, Orsini and Pieri. The other two were sentenced to penal servitude for life. This on the whole was merciful dealing. Three Fenians, it must be remembered, were executed in Manchester for an attempt to rescue some prisoners in which one police officer was killed by one shot. Orsini's project was a good deal more criminal. Most sane persons will admit than a mere attempt to rescue a prisoner, and it was the cause not of one but of many deaths.

  Orsini died like a soldier, without bravado and without the slightest outward show of fear. As he and his companion Pieri were mounting the scaffold, he was heard to encourage the latter in a quiet tone. Pieri continued to show signs of agitation, and then Orsini was heard to say in a voice of gentle remonstrance, Try to be calm, my friend, try to be calm. France was not very calm under the circumstances. An outburst of anger followed the attempt in the Rue Le Pelletier, but the anger was not so much against Orsini as against England. One of the persons charged along with Orsini, although he was not tried in Paris, for he could not be found there, was a Frenchman, Simon Bernard, who had long been living in London.

  It was certain that many of the arrangements for the plot were made in London. The bombs were manufactured in Birmingham and were ordered for Orsini by an Englishman. It was known that Orsini had many friends and admirers in this country. The imperialists in France at once assumed that England was a country where assassination of foreign sovereigns was encouraged by the population and not discouraged by the laws. The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Count Vilevsky, wrote a dispatch in which he asked whether England considered that hospitality was due to assassins. Ought English legislation, he asked, to contribute to favor their designs and their attempts? And can it continue to shelter persons who by their flagrant acts put themselves outside the pale of common rights and under the ban of humanity? The duke to Persigny, then ambassador of France and England, made a very foolish and unfortunate reply to a deputation from the Corporation of London, in which he took on himself to point out that if the law of England was strong enough to put down conspiracies for assassination, it ought to be put in motion, and if it were not, it ought to be made stronger.

  Persigny did not indeed put this forward as his own contribution of advice to England. He gave it as an expression of the public feeling of France and as an explanation of the anger which was aflame in that country. France, he said, does not understand and cannot understand this state of things, and in that lies the danger, for she may mistake the true sentiments of her ally and may cease to believe in England's sincerity. Talk of that kind would have been excusable and natural on the part of an imperialist orator in the Corps Legislatif in Paris, but it was silly and impertinent when it came from a professional diplomatist. That flavor of the canteen and the barrack room which the prince consort detected and disliked in the emperor's associates was very perceptible in Persigny's harangue. The barrack room and the canteen, however, had much more to say in the matter. Addresses of congratulation were poured in upon the emperor from the French army, and many of them were full of insulting allusions to England as the sheltering ground of assassination.

  One regiment declared that it longed to demand an account from the land of impunity, which contains the haunts of the monsters who are sheltered by its laws. This regiment begged of the emperor to give them the order, and we will pursue them even to their stronghold. In another address it was urged that the infamous haunt, repère en femme, in which machinations so infernal are planned—London, that is—should be destroyed forever. Some of these addresses were inserted in the moniteurs, then the official organ of the French government. It was afterwards explained that the official sanction thus apparently given to the Rattamontades of the French colonels was a mere piece of inadvertence. There were so many addresses sent in, it was said, that some of them escaped examination. Count Vilevsky expressed the regret of the emperor that language and sentiments so utterly unlike his own should have found their way into publicity. It is certain that Louis Napoleon would never have deliberately sanctioned the obstreperous buffoonery of such sentences as we have referred to. But anyhow the addresses were published, were read in England, and aroused in this country an amount of popular resentment not unlikely to explode in utterances as vehement and thoughtless as those of the angry French colonels themselves.

  That was section 14.

• 15 - Ch. 37: The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 15 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 37. The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Part 2.

  Let us do justice to the French colonels. Their language was ludicrous, nothing but the grossness of its absurdity from being intolerably offensive. But the feeling which dictated it was not unnatural.

  Foreign countries always find it hard to understand the principles of liberty which are established in England. They assume that if a state allows certain things to be done, it must be because the state wishes to see them done. If men are allowed to plot against foreign sovereigns in England,

  it can only be, they argue, because the English government likes to have plots carried on against foreign sovereigns. It would be impossible to deny that people in this country are singularly thoughtless in their encouragement

  of any manner of foreign revolution. Even where there are restrictive laws, public opinion will hardly sanction their being carried out. London is, and long has been, the headquarters of revolutionary plot.

  No one knew that better than Louis Napoleon himself. No one had made more unscrupulous use of a domicile in London to carry out political and revolutionary projects. Associations have been formed in London to supply men and money to Don Carlos, to Queen Isabella,

  to the Polish revolutionists, to Hungary, to Garibaldi, to the Southern Confederation, to the Circassians, to anybody and everybody who could say that he represented a defeat or a victory or a national cause or anything.

  In 1860, Lord John Russell admitted in the House of Commons that it would be impossible to put into execution our laws against foreign enlistment because every political party and almost every man was concerned in breaking them at one time or another.

  He referred to the fact that some 40 years before, the cause of Greece against Turkey had been taken up openly in London by public men of the highest mark, and that money, arms, and men were got together for Greece

  without the slightest pretense of concealment. While he was speaking, a legion was being formed in one place to fight for Victor Emmanuel against the pope, in another place to fight for the pope against Victor Emmanuel.

  Every refugee was virtually free to make London a basis of operations against the government which had caused his exile. There were, it is right to say, men who construed the conditions upon which

  they were sheltered in England with a conscientious severity. They held that they were protected by this country on the implied understanding that they took no part in any proceedings

  that might tend to embarrass her in her dealings with foreign states. They argued that the obligation on them, whether declared or not, was exactly the same as that which rests on one who asks

  and obtains the hospitality and shelter of a private house, the obligation not to involve his host in quarrels with his neighbors. Monsieur Louis Blanc, for example, who lived some 20 years in England,

  declined on principle to take part in secret political movements of any kind during all that time. But the great majority of the exiles of all countries were incessantly engaged in political plots and conspiracies,

  and undoubtedly, some of these were nothing more or less than conspiracies to assassinate. Many of the leading exiles were intimately associated with prominent and distinguished Englishmen, and these same exiles were naturally associated

  to some extent with many of their own countrymen of a lower and less scrupulous class. It had therefore happened more than once before this time, and it happened more than once afterwards, that when a plot at assassination was discovered,

  the plotters were found to have been on more or less intimate terms with some leading exiles in London who themselves were well acquainted with eminent Englishmen. Men with a taste for assassination are to be found

  among the camp followers of every political army. To assume that because the leaders of the party may have been now and then associated with them, they must therefore be acquainted with and ought to be held responsible for all their plots

  is not less absurd than it would be to assume that an officer in a campaign must have been in the secret when some reprobate of his regiment was about to plunder a house. But the French colonel saw that the assassin this time

  was not a nameless scoundrel, but a man of birth and distinction like Felice Orsini, who had been received and welcomed everywhere in England. It is not very surprising if they assumed that his projects had the approval

  and favor of English public opinion. The French government indeed ought to have known better, but the French government lost for the moment its sense and self-control. A semi-official pamphlet published in Paris

  and entitled The Emperor Napoleon III and England actually went the ridiculous length of describing an obscure debating club in a Fleet Street public house where a few dozen honest fellows smoked their pipes of a night and talked hazy politics

  as a formidable political institution where regicide was nightly preached to fanatical desperados. Thus we had the public excited on both sides. The feeling of anger on this side was intensified

  by the conviction that France was insulting us because she thought England was crippled by her troubles in India and had no power to resist an insult. It was while men here were smarting under this sense of wrong

  that Lord Palmerston introduced his famous measure for the suppression and punishment of conspiracies to murder. The bill was introduced in consequence of the dispatch of Count Vilevsky.

  In that dispatch, it was suggested to the English government that they ought to do something to strengthen their law. Full of confidence, Count Vilevsky said, in the exalted reason of the English cabinet,

  we abstain from all indication as regards the measures which it may be suitable to take. We rely on them for a careful appreciation of the decision which they shall judge most proper and we congratulate ourselves in the firm persuasion

  that we shall not have appealed in vain to their conscience and their loyalty. The words were very civil. They were words as sweet as those of which Cassius says that they rob the high blebees and leave them honeyless,

  nor was the request they contained in itself unreasonable. Long afterwards, this country had to acknowledge and reply to the demand of the United States that a nation cannot get rid of her responsibility to a foreign people by pleading

  that her municipal legislation does not provide for this or that emergency. If somebody domiciled among us shoots his arrow over the house and hurts our foreign brother, it is not enough for us to say when complaint is made

  that we have no law to prevent people from shooting arrows out of our premises. The natural rejoinder is, then you had better make such a law. You are not to injure us and get off by saying

  your laws allow us to be injured. But the conditions under which the request was made by France had put England in the worst possible mood for exceeding to it. We have all heard of the story of General Jackson

  who was on one occasion very near refusing in wrath for a reasonable and courteous request of the French government because his secretary in translating the letter for Jackson who did not know French began with the words

  the French government demands. Jackson vehemently declared that if the French government dared to demand anything of the United States, they should not have it. It was only when it had been made clear to him

  that the French word de Monday did not by any means correspond with the English word demand that the angry soldier consented even to listen to the representation of France. The English public mind was now somewhat in Jackson's mood.

  It was under the impression that France was making a demand and was not in the temper to grant it. Ominous questions were put to the government in both houses of parliament. In the House of Commons, Mr. Roebuck asked

  whether any communications had passed between the governments of England and France with respect to the Alien Act or any portion of our criminal code. Lord Palmerston answered by mentioning

  Count Volevsky's dispatch, which he said should be laid before the House. He added a few words about the addresses of the French regiments and pleaded that allowance should be made for the irritation caused by the attempt

  on the life of the emperor. He was asked a significant question. Had the government sent any answer to Count Volevsky's dispatch? No was the reply.

  Her Majesty's government had not answered it, not yet. Two or three days after, Lord Palmerston moved for leave to bring in the conspiracy to murder bill. The chief object of the measure was to make conspiracy

  to murder a felony instead of a mere misdemeanor as it had been in England and to render it liable to penal servitude for any period varying from five years to a whole life. Lord Palmerston made a feeble and formal attempt to prove

  that his bill was introduced simply as a measure of needed reform in our criminal legislation and without special reference to anything that had happened in France. The law against conspiracy to murder

  was very light in England, he showed, and was very severe in Ireland. It was now proposed to make the law the same in both countries, that was all. Of course, no one was deceived by this explanation.

  The bill itself was as much of a sham as the explanation. Such a measure would not have been of any account whatever as regarded the offenses against which it was particularly directed. As Lord John Russell said in the debate,

  it would argue great ignorance of human nature to imagine that a fanatic of the Orastini class or any of those whom such a man could fascinate by his influence would be deterred by the mere possibility of a sentence of penal servitude.

  Lord Palmerston, we may be sure, did not put the slightest faith in the efficacy of the piece of legislation which he had undertaken to recommend to Parliament. It was just as in the case

  of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. He was compelled to believe that the government would have to do something, and he came after a while to the conclusion that the most harmless measure would be best.

  He had had an idea of asking Parliament to empower the Secretary of State to send out of the country foreigners whom the government believed to be engaged in plotting against the life of a foreign sovereign,

  the government being under obligation to explain the grounds for their belief and their action to a secret committee of Parliament or to a committee composed of the three chiefs of the law courts.

  Such a measure as this would probably have proved effective, but it would have been impossible to induce the House of Commons to pass such a bill or to entrust such power to any government. Indeed, if it were not certain

  that Palmerston did entertain such a project, the language he used in his speech when introducing the conspiracy bill might lead one to believe that nothing could have been further from his thoughts.

  He disclaimed any intention to propose a measure which should give power to a government to remove aliens on mere suspicion. He was sure it was needless for him to say he had no such intention.

  He had, however, such an intention at one time. His biographer, Mr. Evelyn Ashley, is clear on that point and there cannot be better authority. It must have been only for a moment that Palmerston even thought of making a proposal

  of the kind to an English Parliament. He had not been long enough in the Home Office, it would seem, to understand thoroughly the temper of his countrymen. Indeed, in this instance, he made a mistake every way.

  When he assented to the introduction of the ecclesiastical titles bill, he was right in thinking that English public opinion wished to have something done. But in this case, the inclination of public opinion

  was the other way. It wished to have nothing done, at least just at that moment. Mr. Kinglake moved an amendment, formally expressing the sympathy of the House

  with the French people on account of the attempt made against the Emperor, but declaring it inexpedient to legislate in compliance with the demand made in Count Volevsky's dispatch of January 20th, until further information is before it

  of the communications of the two governments subsequent to the date of that dispatch. A discussion took place in which Mr. Roebuck pointed out very properly that in any new measure of legislation, it was not punishment of crime accomplished

  that was required, but discovery of crime meditated. And he also showed with much effect that in some cases, when the English government had actually warned the government of France that some plot was afoot and that the plotters had left for Paris,

  the Paris police were unable to find them out or to benefit in any way by the action of the English authorities. Mr. Disraeli voted for the bringing in of the bill and made a cautious speech in which he showed himself

  in favor of some sort of legislation, but did not commit himself to approval of that particular measure. This prudence proved convenient afterwards when the crisis of the debate showed

  that it would be well for him to throw himself into the ranks of the opponents of the measure. The bill was read a first time, 299 votes were for it, only 99 against. But before it came on for a second reading,

  public opinion was beginning to declare ominously against it. The fact that the government had not answered the dispatch of Count Vilevsky told heavily against them. It was afterwards explained that Lord Cowley

  had been instructed to answer it verbally and that Lord Palmerston thought this course the more prudent and the more likely to avoid an increase of irritation between the two countries. But public opinion in England was not now

  to be propitiated by councils of moderation. The idea had gone abroad that Lord Palmerston was truckling to the emperor of the French and that the very right of asylum which England had so long afforded

  to the exiles of all nations was to be sacrificed at the bidding of one who had been glad to avail himself of it in his hour of need. End of section 15.

• 16 - Ch. 37: The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 16 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 37, The Orsini Bombs Explode in Paris and London, Part 3. This idea received support from the arrest of Dr. Simon Bernard, a French refugee who was immediately put on trial as an accomplice in Orsini's plot.

  Bernard was a native of the south of France, a surgeon by profession, and had lived a long time in England. He must have been an outward aspect at least, the very type of a French red Republican conspirator, to judge by the description given of him in the papers of the day. He is described as thin and worn, with dark, restless eyes, sallow complexion, a thick moustache and a profusion of long black hair combed backwards and reaching nearly to his shoulders,

  and exposing a broad but low and receding forehead. The arrest of Bernac may have been a very proper thing, but it came in with the most untimely effect upon the government. It was understood to have been made by virtue of information sent over from Paris, and no one could have failed to observe that the loosest accusations of that kind were always coming from the French capital. Many persons were influenced in their belief of Bernac's innocence by the fact,

  which does assuredly count for something, that Orsini himself had almost with his dying breath declared that Bernac knew nothing of the intended assassination. Not a few made up their minds that he was innocent because the French government accused him of guilt, and still more declared that innocent or guilty he ought not to be arrested by English authorities at the bidding of a French emperor. At the same time, the Cantillon story was revived, the story of the legacy left by the first Napoleon to the man who attempted to assassinate the Duke of Wellington,

  and it was insisted that the legacy had been paid to Cantillon by the authority of Napoleon III. The debate was over and the conspiracy bill disposed up before the Bernac trial came to an end, but we may anticipate by a few days and finish the Bernac story. Bernac was tried at the Central Criminal Court under existing law, He was defended by Mr. Edwin James, a well-known criminal lawyer, and he was acquitted.

  The trial was a practical evidence of the inutility of such special legislation as that which Lord Palmston attempted to introduce. A new law of conspiracy could not have furnished any new evidence against Bernac, or persuaded a jury to convict him on such evidence as there was. In the prevailing temper of the public, the evidence should have been very clear indeed to induce an ordinary English jury to convict a man like Bernac, and the evidence of his knowledge of an intended assassination was anything but clear.

  Mr. Edwin James improved the hour. He made the trial an occasion for a speech denunciatory of tyrants generally, and he appealed in impassioned language to the British jury to answer the French tyrant by their verdict, which they did accordingly. Mr. James became a sort of popular hero for the time and consequence of his oration. He had rhetorical talent enough to make him a sort of old Bailey Erskine, a buzz-fuzz barrier.

  He set up for a liberal politician and tribune of the people and was enabled after a while to transfer his eloquence to the House of Commons. He vapored about as a friend of Italy and Garibaldi and oppressed nationalities generally for a year or two, got into money and other difficulties and had to extinguish his political career suddenly and ignominiously. He was indeed heard of after. He went to America and he came back again, but we need not speak of him anymore.

  In the midst of the commotion caused by Bernac's arrest and by the offer of £200 reward for the detection of an Englishman named Alsop, also charged with complicity in the plot, Mr. Milner Gibson quietly gave notice of an amendment to the second reading of the conspiracy bill. The amendment proposed to declare that while the House heard with regret the allegation that the recent crime had been devised in England and was always ready to assist in remedying any proved defects in the criminal law, yet it cannot but regret that Her Majesty's Government, previously to inviting the House to amend the law of conspiracy by the second reading of this bill at the present time,

  have not felt it to be their duty to make some reply to the important dispatch received from the French Government dated Paris, January 20th, 1858, and which has been laid before Parliament. It might have been seen at once that this was a more serious business for the Government than Mr. King Lake's amendment. In forecasting the result of a motion in the House of Commons, much depends on the person who brings it forward. Has he a party behind him? If so, then the thing is important.

  If not, let his ability be what it will, his motion is looked on as a mere expression of personal opinion, interesting perhaps, but without political consequence. Mr. King Lake was emphatically a man without a party behind him. Mr. Gibson was emphatically a man of party and of practical politics. Mr. King Lake was a brilliant literary man who had proved little better than a failure in the House. Mr. Gibson was a successful member of Parliament and nothing else.

  No one could have supposed that Mr. Gibson was likely to get up a discussion for the mere sake of expressing his own opinion or making a display. He was one of those who had been turned out of Parliament when Palmerston made his triumphant appeal to the country on the China question. He was one of those whom Punch made fun of by a new adaptation of the old Iunia Padaqua story. One of those who could not sit because they had no seats. Now he had just been returned to Parliament by another constituency and he was not likely to be the mouthpiece of a merely formal challenge to the policy of the government.

  When the debate on the second reading came on, it began soon to be seen that the condition of things was grave for Lord Palmerston. Every hour and every speech made it more ominous. Mr. Gladstone spoke eloquently against the government. Mr. Disraeli suddenly discovered that he was bound to vote against the second reading, although he had voted for the first. The government, he argued, had not yet answered the dispatch as they might have done in the interval.

  And as they had not vindicated the honor of England, the House of Commons could not entrust them with the measure they demanded. Lord Palmerston saw that in homely phrase, the game was up. He was greatly annoyed. He lost his temper and did not even try to conceal the fact that he had lost it. He attacked Mr. Milner Gibson fiercely, declared that he appears for the first time in my memory as the champion of the dignity and honor of the country.

  He wandered off into an attack on the whole Peace Party or Manchester School and told some story about one of their newspapers which laid it down as a doctrine that it would not matter if a foreign army conquered and occupied England so long as they were allowed to work their mills. All this was in curiously bad taste. For a genial and kindly as well as a graceful man, it was singular how completely Lord Palmerston always lost his good manners when he lost his temper. Under the influence of sudden anger, luckily a rare influence with him, he could be actually vulgar. He was merely vulgar, for example, when on one occasion, wishing to throw ridicule on the Pacific principles of Mr. Bright, he alluded to him in the House of Commons as the honorable and reverend gentleman.

  Lord Palmerston, in his reply to Mr. Milner Gibson, showed a positive spitefulness of tone and temper very unusual in him and especially unbecoming to a losing man. A statesman may rise as he will, but he should fall with dignity. When the division was taken, it appeared that there were two hundred and fifteen votes for the second reading and two hundred and thirty votes against it. The government, therefore, was left in a minority of nineteen. One hundred and forty six conservatives were in the majority and eighty four liberals.

  Besides these, there were such of the P-Lite party as Sir James Graham, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cardwell and Mr. Sydney Herbert. Lord Palmerston at once made up his mind to resign. His resignation was accepted. Not quite a year had passed since the general election sent Lord Palmerston into power triumphant over the routed liberals and the prostrate Manchester School. The leaders of the Manchester School were actually driven from their seats.

  There was not a Cobden or a Bright to face the conqueror in Parliament. Not quite a year, and now on the motion of one of the lieutenants of that same party returned to their position again, Lord Palmerston is ejected from office. Palmerston once talked of having his tit for tat with John Russell. The Peace Party now had their tit for tat with him. Cassio hath beaten thee and thou by that small hurt hast cashiered Cassio.

  Lord Palmerston had the satisfaction before he left office of being able to announce the capture of Canton. The operations against China had been virtually suspended. It will be remembered when the Indian mutiny broke out to adopt the happy illustration of a clever writer. England had dealt with China for the time, as a backwoodsman sometimes does with a tree in the American forests. Girdle it with an axe so as to mark it out for felling at a more convenient opportunity.

  She had now got the cooperation of France. France had a complaint of long standing against China on account of the murder of some missionaries for which redress had been asked in vain. The emperor of the French was very glad to have an opportunity of joining his arms with those of England in any foreign enterprise. It advertised the empire cheaply. It showed to Frenchmen how active the emperor was and how closely he had at heart the honor and the interests of France.

  An expedition to China in association with England could not be much of a risk and would look well in the newspapers. Whereas if England were to be allowed to go alone, she would seem to be making too much of a position for herself in the East. There was therefore an allied attack made upon Canton and of course the city was easily captured. Commissioner Ye himself was taken prisoner, not until he had been sought for and hunted out in most ignominious fashion. He was found at last hidden away in some obscure part of a house.

  He was known by his enormous fatness. One of our officers caught hold of him. Ye tried still to get away. A British seaman seized Ye by his pigtail, twisted the tail several times round his hand and the unfortunate Chinese dignitary was thus a helpless and ludicrous prisoner. He was not hurt in any serious way, but otherwise he was treated with about as much consideration as schoolboys show towards a captured cat.

  The whole story of his capture may be read in the journals of the day, in some of which it is treated as though it weren't exploit worthy of heroes and as if a Chinese with a pigtail was obviously a person on whom any of the courtesies of war would be thrown away. When it was convenient to let loose Ye's pigtail, he was put on board an English man-o-war and afterwards sent to Calcutta where he died early in the following year. Unless report greatly belied him, he had been exceptionally cruel even for a Chinese official. It was said that he had ordered the beheading of about one hundred thousand rebels. There may be exaggeration in this number.

  But as Voltaire says in another case, even if he reduced the total to half, The English and French envoys, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros succeeded in making a treaty with China. By the conditions of the treaty, England and France were to have ministers at the Chinese court on certain occasions at least, and China was to be represented in London and Paris. There was to be toleration of Christianity in China and a certain freedom of access to Chinese rivers for English and French mercantile vessels and to the interior of China for English and French subjects. China was to pay the expenses of the war.

  It was further agreed that the term barbarian was no longer to be applied to Europeans in China. There was great congratulation in England over this treaty and the prospect it afforded of a lasting peace with China. The peace thus procured lasted, in fact, exactly a year. Lord Palmerston then was out of office. Having nothing in particular to do, he presently went over to Compiègne on a visit to the Emperor of the French.

  For the second time, his friendship with Louis Napoleon had cost him his place. End of section 16.

• 17 - Ch. 38: 'On the True Faith of a Christian,' Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 17 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 38. On the True Faith of a Christian, Part 1. When Mr. Disraeli became once more leader of the House of Commons, he must have felt that he had almost as difficult a path to tread as that of him described in Henry IV,

  who has to o'erwalk a current roaring loud on the unsteadfast footing of a spear. The ministry of Lord Darby, whereof Mr. Disraeli was undoubtedly the sense-carrier, was not supported by a parliamentary majority, nor could it pretend to great intellectual and administrative ability. It had in its ranks two or three men of something like statesman capacity and a number of

  respectable persons possessing abilities about equal to those of any intelligent businessman or county magistrate. Mr. Disraeli, of course, became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Stanley undertook the colonies. Mr. Walpole made a painstaking and conscientious home secretary, as long as he continued to hold the office. Lord Momsbury muddled on with foreign affairs somehow. Lord

  Ellenborough's brilliant eccentric light perplexed for a brief space the Indian Department. General Peel was secretary for war and Mr. Henley, president of the Board of Trade. Lord Nace, afterwards Lord Mayo, became chief secretary for Ireland and was then supposed to be nothing more than a kindly sweet tempered man, of whom his most admiring friends would never have ventured to

  foreshadow such a destiny as that he should succeed to the place of a Canning and an Elgin and govern the new India to which so many anxious eyes were turned. Sir John Packington was made First Lord of the Admiralty because a place of some kind had to be found for him and he was as likely to do well at the head of the Navy as anywhere else. A ridiculous story, probably altogether untrue, used to be

  told of President Lincoln in some of the difficult days of the American Civil War. He wanted a commander in chief and he happened to be in conversation with a friend on the subject of the war. Suddenly addressing the friend he asked him if he had ever commanded an army. No, Mr. President, was the reply. Do you think you could command an army? I presume so, Mr. President. I know nothing to the

  contrary. He was appointed commander in chief at once. One might, without great stretch of imagination, conceive of a conversation of the same kind taking place between Sir John Packington and Lord Darby. Sir John Packington had no reason to know that he might not prove equal to the administration of the Navy and he became First Lord of the Admiralty accordingly. No conservative

  government could be supposed to get on without Lord John Manners and luckily there was the Department of Public Works for him. Lord Stanley was regarded as a statesman of great and peculiar promise. The party to which he belonged were inclined to make him an object of a special pride because he seemed to have in a very remarkable degree the very qualities which most of their leading

  members were generally accused of wanting. The epithet which Mr. Mill at a later period applied to the Tories, that of the stupid party, was the expression of a feeling very common in the political world and under which many of the conservatives themselves winced. The more intelligent a conservative was, the more was he inclined to chafe at the ignorance and dullness of many of the

  party. It was therefore with particular satisfaction that intelligent Tories saw among themselves a young statesman who appeared to have all those qualities of intellect and those educational endowments which the bulk of the party did not possess and what was worse did not even miss. Lord Stanley had a calm meditative intellect. He studied politics as one may study as science. He understood

  political economy that newfangled science which so bewildered his party and of which the P-Lites and the Manchester men made so much account. He had traveled much not merely making the old-fashioned Grand Tour, which most of the Tory country gentlemen had themselves made, but visiting the United States and Canada and the Indies East and West. He was understood to know all

  about geography and cotton and sugar and he had come up into politics in a happy age when the question of free trade was understood to be settled. The Tories were proud of him as the democratic mob is proud of an aristocratic leader or as a working men's convention is proud of the cooperation of some distinguished scholar. Lord Stanley was strangely unlike his father in intellect and

  temperament. The one man was almost indeed the very opposite of the other. Lord Darby was all instinct and passion. Lord Stanley was all method and calculation. Lord Darby amused himself in the intervals of political work by translating classic epics and odes. Lord Stanley beguiled an interval of leisure by the reading of blue books. Lord Darby's eloquence, when at its worst,

  became fiery nonsense. Lord Stanley's sank occasionally to be nothing more than platitude. The extreme of the one was rhapsody and of the other common place. Lord Darby was too hot and impulsive to be always a sound statesman. Lord Stanley was too coldly methodical to be the statesman of a crisis. Both men were to a certain sense superficial and deceptive. Lord Darby's

  eloquence had no great depth in it and Lord Stanley's wisdom often proved somewhat thin. The career of Lord Stanley did not afterwards bear out the expectations that were originally formed of him. He proved to be methodical, sensible, conscientious, slow. He belonged perhaps to that class of men about whom Goethe said that if they could only once commit some extravagance we should have

  greater hopes of their future wisdom. He did not commit any extravagance. He remained careful, prudent, and slow. But at the time when he accepted the Indian secretaryship it was still hoped that he would, to use a homely expression, warm to his work. And on both sides of the political contest people looked to him as a new and a great figure in conservative politics. He was not an

  orator. He had nothing whatever of the orator in language or in temperament. His manner was ineffective. His delivery was decidedly bad. But his words carried weight with them and even his commonplaces were received by some of his party as the utterances of an oracle. There were men among the conservatives of the backbenches who secretly hoped that in this wise young man was the

  upcoming statesman who was to deliver the party from the thraldom of eccentric genius and of an eloquence which however brilliantly it fought their battles seemed to them hardly a respectable sort of gift to be employed in the service of gentlemanly like Tory principles. Lord Stanley had been in office before. During his father's first administration he had acted as undersecretary for foreign

  affairs. On the death of Sir William Molesworth, Lord Palmerston had offered the colonial secretaryship to Lord Stanley but the latter, although his moderate and liberal kind, did not see his way to take a seat in a liberal administration. His appearance therefore as a cabinet minister in the government formed by his father was an event looked to with great interest all over the

  country. The liberals were not without a hope that he might someday find himself driven by his conscientiousness and his clear and prejudiced intelligence into the ranks of avowed liberalism. It was confidently predicted of him in a liberal review two or three years after this time that he would one day be found a prominent member of a liberal cabinet under the premiership of Mr. Gladstone.

  For the present however he is still the rising light a somewhat cold and colorless light indeed of conservatism. A raid against the conservatives was a party disjointed indeed for the present but capable at any moment if they could only agree of easily overturning the government of Lord Darby. The superiority of the opposition in debating power was simply overwhelming. In the House of

  Commons, Mr. Disraeli was the only first-class debater with the exception perhaps of the new Solicitor General, Sir Hugh Cairns, and Sir Hugh Cairns being new to office was not expected as yet to carry very heavy metal in great debate. The best of their colleagues could only be called a respectable second class. Against them were Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Mr. Gladstone, Sir James

  Graham, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Cobden, and Mr. Bright, every one of whom was a first-class debater, some of them great parliamentary orators, some too with the influence that comes from the fact of their having led ministries and conducted wars. In no political assembly in the world does experience of office and authority tell for more than in the House of Commons. To have held office

  confers a certain dignity even on mediocrity. The man who was held office and who sits on the front bench opposite the ministry has a sort of prescriptive right to be heard whenever he stands up to address the house, in preference to the most rising and brilliant talker who has never yet been a member of an administration. Mr. Disraeli had opposed to him not merely

  the eloquence of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright but the authority of Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston. It required much dexterity to make a decent show of carrying on a government under such conditions. Mr. Disraeli well knew that his party held office only on sufferance from their opponents. If they attempted nothing, they were certain to be censured for inactivity. If they

  attempted anything, there was the chance of their exposing themselves to the combined attack of all the fractions of the Liberal Party. Luckily for them, it was not easy to bring about such a combination just yet, but whenever it came there was foreshown the end of the ministry. Lord Darby's government quietly dropped the unlucky conspiracy bill. England and France were alike glad

  to be out of the difficulty. There was a short interchange of correspondence in which the French government explained that they really had meant nothing in particular and it was then announced to both houses of parliament that the misunderstanding was at an end and that friendship had set in again. We have seen already how the India bill was carried. Lord Darby's tenure of office

  was made remarkable by the success of one measure which must have given much personal satisfaction to Mr. Disraeli. The son of a Jewish father, the descendant of an ancient Jewish race, himself received as a child into the Jewish community, Mr. Disraeli had since his earliest years of intelligence been a Christian. I am as I have ever been, he said himself when giving evidence once

  in a court of law, a Christian. But he had never renounced his sympathies with the race to which he belonged and the faith in which his fathers worshiped. He had always stood up for the Jews. He had glorified the genius and the influence of the Jews in many pages of romantic, high-flown, and sometimes very turgid eloquence. He had in some of his novels seemingly set about to persuade his

  readers that all good and great the modern world had seen was due to the unceasing intellectual activity of the Jew. He had vindicated with as sweeping a liberality the virtues of the Jewish race. In one really fine and striking sentence he declares that a Jew is never seen upon the scaffold unless it be at an auto-da-fe. 40 years ago, he says in his Lord George Bentink, not a longer

  period than the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, the two most dishonored races in Europe were the Attic and the Hebrew and they were the two races that had done most for mankind. Mr. Disraeli had the good fortune to see the civil emancipation of the Jews accomplished during the time of his leadership of the House of Commons. It was a coincidence merely. He had always

  assisted the movement toward that end, unlike some other men who carried on their faces the evidence of their Hebrew extraction and who yet made themselves conspicuous for their opposition to it. But the success did not come from any inspiration of his and most of his colleagues in power resisted it as long as they could. His former chief, Lord George Bentink, it will be remembered, had

  resigned his leadership of the party in the House of Commons because of the complaints made when he spoke and voted for the removal of Jewish disabilities. It was in July 1858 that the long political and sectarian struggle came to an end. Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, who has but lately died, was allowed to take his seat in the House of Commons on the 26th of that month as

  one of the representatives of the City of London and the controversy about Jewish disabilities was over at last. It is not uninteresting before we trace the history of this struggle to its close to observe how completely the conditions under which it was once carried on had changed in recent years. Of late, the opposition to the claims of the Jews came almost exclusively from the Tories

  and especially from the Tories in the House of Lords, from the high churchmen and from the bishops. A century before that time the bishops were for the most part very willing that justice should be done to the Jews and statesmen and professional politicians looking at the question perhaps rather from the view of obvious necessity and expediency were well inclined to favor the claim made

  for rather than by their Jewish fellow subjects. But at that time the popular voice cried out furiously against the Jews. The old traditions of colony and hatred still had full influence and the English people as a whole were determined that they would not admit the Jews to the rights of citizenship. They would borrow from them, buy from them, accept any manner of service from them,

  but they would not allow of their being represented in Parliament. As time went on all this feeling changed. The public in general became either absolutely indifferent to the question of Jewish citizenship or decidedly in favor of it. No statesman had the slightest excuse for professing to believe that an outcry would be raised by the people if he attempted to procure the representation

  of Jews by Jews in Parliament. We have seen how by steps the Jews made their way into municipal office and into the magistracy. At the same time persistent efforts were being made to obtain for them the right to be elected to the House of Commons. On April 5th 1830 Mr. Robert Grant then a colleague of one of the Gurney family in the representation of Norwich moved for leave to bring in a

  bill to repeal the civil disabilities affecting British-born subjects professing the Jewish religion. The claim which Mr. Grant made for the Jews was simply that they should be allowed to enjoy all those rights which we may call fundamental to the condition of the British subject without having to profess the religion of the state. At that time the Jews were unable to take

  the oath of allegiance passed in Elizabeth's reign although it had nothing in its substance or language opposed to their claims in as much as it was sworn on the evangelists. Nor could they take the oath of abjuration intended to guard against the return of the stewards because that oath contained the words on the true faith of a Christian. Before the repeal of the Test

  and Corporations Act in 1828 the sacrament had to be taken as a condition of holding any corporate office and had to be taken before admission. In the case of offices held under the crown it might be taken after admission. Jews however did obtain admission to corporate offices not expressly as Jews but as all the centers obtained it that is by breaking the law and having an

  annual indemnity bill passed to relieve them from the penal consequences. The Test and Corporations Act put an end to this anomaly as regarded the dissenters but it unconsciously imposed a new disability on the Jew. The new declaration substituted for the old oath contained the words on the true faith of a Christian. The operation of the law was fatal said Sir Erskine May to nearly all

  the rights of a citizen. A Jew could not hold any office civil military or corporate. He could not follow the profession of the law as a barrister or attorney or attorney's clerk. He could not be a schoolmaster or an usher at a school. He could not sit as a member of either House of Parliament nor even exercise the electoral franchise if called upon to take the electors oath.

  Thus although no special act was passed for the exclusion of the Jew from the rights of citizenship he was effectually shut up in a sort of political and social ghetto. The debate on Mr. Grant's motion was made memorable by the fact that McCauley delivered then his maiden speech. He rose at the same time with Sir James McIntosh and according to the graceful usage of the House of Commons

  the new member was called on to speak. We need not go over the arguments used in the debate. Public opinion has settled the question so long and so completely that they have little interest for a time like ours. One curious argument is however worth a passing notice. One speaker Sir John Rusley declared that when it was notorious that seats were to be had in that house to any extent for

  money he could not consent to allow anyone to become a member who was not also a Christian. Bribery and corruption were so general and so bad that they could not with safety to the state be left to be the privilege of any but Christians. If I'd be drunk, says Master Slender, I'll be drunk with those that have the fear of God and not with drunken knaves. The proposal for the

  admission of Jews to Parliament was supported by Lord John Russell, O'Connell, Broom and McIntosh. Its first reading, for it was opposed even on the first reading, was carried by a majority of 18 but on the motion for the second reading the bill was thrown out by a majority of 63, the votes for it being 165 and those against it 228. In 1833 Mr. Grant introduced his bill again and this time

  was fortunate enough to pass it through the Commons. The Lords rejected it by a majority of 50. The following year told a similar story. The Commons accepted, the Lords rejected. Meantime the Jews were being gradually relieved from other restrictions. A clause in Lord Denman's Act for amending the laws of evidence allowed all persons to be sworn in courts of law in the form which they

  held most binding on their conscience. Lord Lindhurst succeeded in passing a bill for the admission of Jews to corporate offices. Jews had, as we have already seen, been admitted to the shrivelty and the magistracy in the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1848 the struggle for their admission to Parliament was renewed but the Lords still held out and would not pass a bill.

  Meanwhile influential Jews began to offer themselves as candidates for seats in Parliament. Mr. Salomon's contested Shorham and Maidstone successively and unsuccessfully. In 1847 Baron Lionel Rothschild was elected one of the members for the City of London. He resigned his seat when the House of Lords threw out the Jews bill and stood again and was again elected. It was not however

  until 1850 that the struggle was actually transferred to the floor of the House of Commons. In that year Baron Rothschild presented himself at the table of the house as O'Connell had done and offered to take the oaths in order that he might be admitted to take his seat. For four sessions he had sat as a stranger in the house of which he had been duly elected a member by the votes

  of one of the most important English constituencies. Now he came boldly up to the table and demanded to be sworn. He was sworn on the Old Testament. He took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy but when the oath of abjuration came he omitted from it the words on the true faith of a Christian. He was directed to withdraw and it was decided that he could neither sit nor vote unless he

  would consent to take the oath of abjuration in the fashion prescribed by the law. In other words he could only sit in the House of Commons on condition of his perjuring himself. Had he sworn on the true faith of a Christian the House of Commons well knowing that he had sworn to a falsehood would have admitted him as one of its members. End of section 17.

• 18 - Ch. 38: 'On the True Faith of a Christian,' Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XXXVIII. ON THE TRUE FAITH OF A CHRISTIAN, PART 2. Baron Rothschild quietly fell back to his old position. He sat in one of the seats under the gallery, a place to which strangers are admitted but where also members occasionally sit. He did not contest the matter any further. Mr. David Salomons was inclined for a rougher and bolder course. He was elected for Greenwich in 1851 and he presented himself as Baron Rothschild

  had done. The same thing followed. He refused to say the words on the true faith of a Christian and he was directed to withdraw. He did withdraw. He sat below the bar. A few evenings after, a question was put to the government by a member friendly to the admission of Jews, Sir Benjamin Hall, afterwards Lord Lanover. If Mr. Salomons should take his seat, would the government sue him for the penalties provided by the Act of Parliament

  in order that the question of right might be tried by a court of law? Lord John Russell replied on the part of the government that they did not intend to take any proceedings, in fact implied that they considered it no affair of theirs. Then Sir Benjamin Hall announced that Mr. Salomons felt he had no alternative but to take his seat and let the question of right be tested in that way. Forthwith, to the amazement and horror of steady old

  constitutional members, Mr. Salomons, who had been sitting below the bar, calmly got up, walked into the sacred precincts of the house and took his seat among the members. A tumultuous scene followed. Half the house shouted indignantly to Mr. Salomons to withdraw, withdraw. The other half called out encouragingly to him to keep his place. The perplexity was indescribable. What is to be done with a quiet and respectable gentleman

  who insists that he is a member of Parliament, comes and takes his seat in the house and will not withdraw? To be sure, if he were an absolute intruder he could be easily removed by the sergeant at arms and his assistants. But in such a case, unless the intruder were a lunatic, he would hardly think of keeping his place when he had been bidden by authority to take himself off. Mr. Salomons, however, had undoubtedly been elected member for Greenwich by a considerable

  majority. His constituents believed him to be their lawful representative and in fact had obtained from him a promise that if elected he would actually take his seat. Even then perhaps something might have been done if the house in general had been opposed to the claim of Mr. Salomons and of Greenwich. When Lord Cochrane escaped from prison and presented himself in the house, from which he had been expelled, he too was ordered to withdraw. He too refused to do so.

  The speaker directed that he should be removed by force. Cochrane had a giant strength and on this occasion he used it like a giant. He struggled hard against the efforts of many officials to remove him and some of the woodwork of the benches was actually torn from its place before the gallant seaman could be got out of the house. But in the case of Lord Cochrane the general feeling of the house was with the authorities and against the expelled member who however happened to be in

  the right while the house was in the wrong. The case of Mr. Salomons was very different. Many members were of opinion and eminent lawyers were among them that in the strictest and most technical view of the law he was entitled to take his seat. Many more were convinced that the principle which excluded him was stupid and barbarous and that the course he was at present taking was necessary for the purpose of obtaining its immediate repeal. Therefore any idea of

  expelling Mr. Salomons was out of the question. The only thing that could be done was to set to work and debate the matter. Lord John Russell moved a resolution to the effect that Mr. Salomons be ordered to withdraw. Lord John Russell it need hardly be said was entirely in favor of the admission of Jews but thought Mr. Salomons course irregular. Mr. Bernal Osborne moved an amendment declaring Mr. Salomons entitled to take his seat. A series of irregular discussions varied and

  enlivened by motions for adjournment took place and Mr. Salomons not only voted in some of the divisions but actually made a speech. He spoke calmly and well and was listened to with great attention. He explained that in the course he had taken he was acting in no spirit of contumacy or presumption and with no disregard for the dignity of the house but that he had been lawfully elected and that he felt bound to take his seat for the purpose of asserting his own rights and those of

  his constituents. He intimated also that he would withdraw if just sufficient force were used to make him feel that he was acting under coercion. The motion that he be ordered to withdraw was carried. The speaker requested Mr. Salomons to withdraw. Mr. Salomons held his place. The speaker directed the sergeant at arms to remove Mr. Salomons. The sergeant at arms approached Mr. Salomons and touched him on the shoulder and Mr. Salomons then quietly withdrew. The farce was over.

  It was evident to everyone that Mr. Salomons had virtually gained his object and that something must soon be done to get the House of Commons and the country out of the difficulty. It is curious that even in ordering him to withdraw the speaker called Mr. Salomons the honorable member. Mr. Salomons did well to press his rights in that practical way upon the notice of the House. It is one of the blots upon our parliamentary system that a great question like that of the

  removal of Jewish disabilities is seldom settled upon its merits. Parliament rarely bends to the mere claims of reason and justice. Some pressure has almost always to be put on it to induce it to see the right. Its tendency is always to act exactly as Mr. Salomons himself formerly did in this case to yield only when sufficient pressure has been put on it to signify coercion. Catholic Emancipation was carried by such a pressure. The promoters of the Sunday Trading Bill yield to a

  riot in Hyde Park. A Tory government turn reformers in obedience to a crowd who pull down the railing of the same enclosure. A Chancellor of the Exchequer modifies his budget in deference to a demonstration of match selling boys and girls. In all these instances it was right to make the concession but the concession was not made because it was right. The Irish home rulers or some of them at least are convinced that they will carry home rule in the end by the mere force

  of a pressure brought to bear on Parliament and their expectation is justified by all previous experience. They have been told often enough that they must not expect to carry it by argument. If parliamentary institutions do really come to be discredited in this country as many people love to predict one a special reason will be this very experience on the part of the public that Parliament has invariably conceded to pressure the reforms which it persistently denied to justice.

  A reform is first refused without reason to be at last conceded without grace. Mr. Salomons acted wisely therefore for the cause he had at heart when he thrust himself upon the House of Commons. The course taken by Baron Rothschild was more dignified no doubt but it did not make much impression. The victory seems to us to have been practically won when Mr. Salomons sat down after having addressed the House of Commons from his place among the members

  but it was not technically won just then nor for some time after. Two actions were brought against Mr. Salomons not by the government to recover penalties for his having unlawfully taken his seat. One of the actions was withdrawn the object of both alike being to get a settlement of the legal question for which one trial would be as good as 20. The action came on for trial in the Court of Exchequer on December 9th 1851 before Mr. Baron Martin and a special jury.

  Baron Martin suggested that as the question at issue was one of great importance a special case should be prepared for the decision of the full court. This was done and the case came before the court in January 1852. The issue really narrowed itself to this. Were the words on the true faith of a Christian merely a form of affirmation or were they purposely inserted in order to obtain a profession of Christian faith? Did not the framers of the measure merely put in

  such words as at the moment seem to them most proper to secure a true declaration from the majority of those to be sworn and with the understanding that in exceptional cases other forms of asseveration might be employed as more suited to other forms of faith? Or were the words put in for the express purpose of making it certain that none but Christians should take the oath? We know as a matter of fact that the words were not put in with any such intention.

  No one was thinking about the Jews when the asseveration was thus constructed. Still the court of Exchequer decided by three votes to one that the words must be held in law to constitute a specially Christian oath which could be taken by no one but a Christian and without taking which no one could be a member of parliament, of that parliament which had had Balingbrook for a leader and Gibbon for a distinguished member. The legal question then

  being settled there were renewed efforts made to get rid of the disabilities by an act of parliament. The House of Commons continued to pass bills to enable Jews to sit in parliament and the House of Lords continued to throw them out. Lord John Russell who had taken charge of the measure introduced his bill early in 1858. The bill was somewhat peculiar in its construction. On a former occasion the House of Lords found another excuse for not passing a measure for the

  same purpose in the fact that it mixed up a modification of the oath of supremacy with the question of the relief of the Jews. In the present measure the two questions were kept separate. The bill proposed to reconstruct the oath altogether. Some obsolete words about the pretender and the steward family were to be taken out. The asseverations relating to succession supremacy and allegiance were to be condensed into one oath to which were added on

  the true faith of a Christian. Thus far the measure merely reconstructed the form of oath so as to bring it into accord with the existing conditions of things. But then there came a separate clause in the bill providing that where the oath had to be administered to a Jew the words on the true faith of a Christian might be left out. This was a very sensible and simple way of settling the matter. It provided a rational form of oath for all sects alike. It got rid of obsolete anomalies

  and it likewise relieved the Jews from the injustice which had been unintentionally imposed on them. Unfortunately the very convenience of the form in which the bill was drawn only put, as it will be seen, a new facility into the hands of the anti-reformers in the House of Lords for again endeavoring to get rid of it. Lord John Russell had no difficulty with the House of Commons. He had brought up his bill in good time in order that it might reach the House of Lords as quickly

  as possible and it passed a second reading in the Commons without any debate. When it came up to the House of Lords the majority simply struck out the particular clause relating to the Jews. This made the bill of no account whatever for the purpose it specially had in view. The Commons on the motion of Lord John Russell refused to assent to the alteration made by the Lords and appointed a committee to draw up a statement of their reasons for refusing to agree

  to it. On the motion of Mr. Duncan it was actually agreed that Baron Rothschild should be a member of the committee, although a legal decision had declared him not to be a member of the House. During the debates to which all this led, Lord Lucan made a suggestion of compromise in the House of Lords which proved successful. He recommended the insertion of a clause in the bill allowing either house to modify the formal vote according to its pleasure.

  Lord John Russell objected to this way of dealing with a great question but did not feel warranted in refusing the proposed compromise. A bill was drawn up with the clause suggested and it was rattled if we may use such an expression through both houses. It passed with the oaths bill which the Lords had mutilated and which now stood as an independent measure. A Jew therefore might be a member of the House of Commons if it chose to receive him and might be shut out of the House

  of Lords if that House did not think fit to let him in. More than that the House of Commons might change its mind at any moment and by modifying the form of oath shut out the Jews again or shut out any new Jewish candidates. Of course such a condition of things as that could not endure. An act passed not long after which consolidated the acts referring to oaths of allegiance, abjuration and supremacy and enabled Jews on all occasions whatever to omit the words on the true

  faith of a Christian. Thus the Jew was at last placed on a position of political equality with his Christian fellow subjects and an anomaly and a scandal was removed from our legislation. About the same time as that which saw Baron Rothschild admitted to take his seat in the House of Commons the absurd property qualification for members of parliament was abolished. This ridiculous system originally professed to secure that no man should be a member of the

  House of Commons who did not own a certain amount of landed property. The idea of defining a man's fitness to sit in parliament according to his possession of landed property was in itself preposterous but such as the law was it was evaded every day. It had not the slightest real force. Fictitious conveyances were issued as a matter of course. Anyone who desired a seat in parliament could easily find some friend or patron who would convey to him by formal deed the fictitious

  ownership of landed property enough to satisfy the requirements of the law. This was done usually with as little pretense at concealment as the borrowing of an umbrella. It was perfectly well known to everybody that a great many members of the House of Commons did not possess and did not even pretend to possess a single acre of land their own property. What made the thing more absurd was that men who were rich enough to spend thousands of pounds in

  contesting boroughs and counties had often to go through this form of having a fictitious conveyance made to them because they did not happen to have invested any part of their wealth in land. Great city magnates known for their wealth and known in many cases for their high personal honor as well had to submit to this foolish ceremonial. The property qualification was a device of the reign of Anne. The evasions of it became so many and so notorious that in George II's time an act

  was passed making it necessary for every member to take an oath that he possessed the requisite amount of property. In the present reign a declaration was substituted for the oath and it was provided that if a man had not landed property it would be enough for him to prove that he had funded a property to the same amount 600 pounds a year for counties and 300 pounds for boroughs. The manufacture of fictitious qualifications went on as fast as ever.

  There were many men in good position earning large incomes by a profession or otherwise who yet had not realized money enough to put them in possession of a property of 600 pounds or 300 pounds a year. It might take 10 000 pounds to secure an income of 300 pounds a year, 20 000 pounds to secure 600 pounds a year. Scores of members of parliament were well known not to have any such means. To make the anomaly more absurd it should be noted that there was no

  property qualification in Scotland and the Scotch members were then as now remarkable for their respectability and intelligence. Members for the university too were elected without a property qualification. Mr. Lock King stated in the House of Commons that after every general election there were from 50 to 60 cases in which it was found that persons had declared themselves to be possessed of the requisite qualification who were notoriously not in possession of it. Many men too it was well

  known were purposely qualified by wealthy patrons in order that they might sit in parliament as mere nominees and political servants. As usual with parliament this anomaly was allowed to go on until a sudden scandal made its abolition necessary. One luckless person who probably had no position and few friends was actually prosecuted for having made a false declaration as to his property qualification. He had been a little more indiscreet or a little more open in his performance than other

  people and he was pounced upon by old father Antic the law. This practically settled the matter. Everyone knew that many other members of parliament deserved in point of fact just as well as he the three months imprisonment to which he was sentenced. Mr. Lock King introduced a bill to abolish the property qualification hitherto required from the representatives of English and Irish constituencies and it became law in a few days. End of section 18.

• 19 - Ch. 39: The Ionian Islands

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 19 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 39, The Ionian Islands. When Lord Ellenbrough abruptly resigned the place of President of the Board of Control, he was succeeded by Lord Stanley, who, as we have seen already, became Secretary of State for India under the new system of

  government. Lord Stanley had been Secretary for the Colonies, and in this office he was succeeded by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. For some time previously, Sir Edward Lytton had been taking Somark to place in parliamentary life as to make it evident that when his party came into power, he was sure to have a chance of distinguishing himself in office. Bulwer's political career had up to this

  time been little better than a failure. He started in public life as a radical and a friend of O'Connell. He was indeed the means of introducing Mr. Disraeli to the leader of the Irish Party. He began his parliamentary career before the reform bill. He was elected for St. Ives in 1831. After the passing of the bill, he represented Lincoln for several years. At the general election of 1841, he lost

  his seat, and it was not until July 1852 that he was again returned to Parliament. This time he came in as a member for the County of Hertz. In the interval, many things had happened, to quote the expression of Mr. Disraeli in 1874. Lytton had succeeded to wealth and to land at the States, and he had almost altogether changed his political opinions. From a poetic radical, he had

  become a poetic conservative. In the parliamentary companion for the year 1855, we find him thus quaintly described by his own hand, it may be assumed. Concurors in the general policy of Lord Darby would readjust the income tax and mitigate the duties on malt, tea, and soap. Some years ago advocated the ballot, but seeing its utter inefficiency in France and America can no longer support that

  theory, will support education on a religious basis, and vote for a repeal of the Manuth grant. It will perhaps be assumed from this confession of faith that Lytton had not very clear views of any kind as to practical politics. It probably seemed a graceful and poetic thing, redolent of youth and earnest maltrevers, to stand forth as an impassioned

  radical in early years, and it was quite in keeping with the progress of earnest maltrevers to tone down into a thoughtful conservative, opposing the Manuth grant and mitigating the duty on malt and soap, as one advanced in years, wealth, and gravity. At all events, it was certain that whatever Lytton attempted he would in the end carry to some considerable success. His first years in

  House of Commons had come to nothing. When he lost his seat, most people fancied that he had accepted defeat and had turned his back on parliamentary life forever. But Lytton possessed a marvelously strong will and had a faith in himself which almost amounted to genius. When he wrote a play which proved a distinct failure, some of the leading critics assured him that he had no

  dramatic turn at all. He believed on the contrary that he had, then he determined to write another play which should be of all things dramatic and which should hold the stage. He went to work and produced The Lady of Lyon, a play filled with turgid passages and preposterous situations, but which has nevertheless in so conspicuous a degree the dramatic or theatric qualities that it has always

  held the stage and has never been wholly extinguished by any change of fashion or a fancy. In much the same way, Sir Edward Lytton seems to have made up his mind that he would compel the world to confess him capable of playing the part of a politician. We have in a former chapter of this work alluded to the physical difficulties which stood in the way of his success as a parliamentary

  speaker and in spite of which he accomplished his success. He was deaf and his articulation was so defective that those who heard him speak in public for the first time often found themselves unable to understand him. Such difficulties would assuredly have scared any ordinary man out of the parliamentary arena forever. But Lytton seems to have determined that he would make a figure

  in parliament. He set himself to public speaking as coolly as if he were a man like Gladstone or Bright, whom nature had marked out for such a competition by her physical gifts. He became a decided and even in a certain sense a great success. He could not strike into a debate actually going on. His defects of hearing shut him off from such a performance and no man who is not a

  debater will ever hold a really high position in the House of Commons. But he could review a previous night's arguments in a speech abounding in splendid phrases and brilliant illustrations. He could pass for an orator. He actually did pass for an orator. Mr. Disraeli seems to have admired his speaking with a genuine and certainly a disinterested admiration

  for he described it as though it were exactly the kind of eloquence in which he would gladly have himself excelled if he could. In fact, Lytton reached the same relative level in parliamentary debate that he had reached in fiction and the drama. He contrived to appear as if he ought to rank among the best of the craftsmen. Sir Edward Lytton as secretary for the colonies seemed

  resolved to prove by active and original work that he could be a practical colonial statesman as well as a novelist, a playwright, and a parliamentary orator. He founded the colony of British Columbia which at first was to comprise all such territories within the Queen's Dominions as are bounded to the south, by the frontier of the United States of America, to the east, by the main chain

  of the Rocky Mountains, to the north, by Simpsons River and the Finley branch of the Peace River, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. It was originally intended that the colony should not include Vancouver's island but her majesty was allowed on receiving an address from the two houses of the legislature of Vancouver's island to annex that island to British Columbia. Vancouver's island

  was in fact incorporated with British Columbia in 1866 and British Columbia was united with the Dominion of Canada in 1871. Something however more strictly akin to Sir Edward Lytton's personal tastes was found in the mission to which he invited Mr. Gladstone. There had long been dissatisfaction and even disturbance in the Ionian Islands. These seven islands were constituted a sort of

  Republic or Commonwealth by the Treaty of Vienna but they were consigned to the protectorate of Great Britain which had the right of maintaining garrisons in them. Great Britain used to appoint a Lord High Commissioner who was generally a military man and whose office combined the duties of commander-in-chief with those of civil governor. The little Republic had a Senate of six members and

  the Legislative Assembly of 40 members. It seems almost a waste of words to say that the islanders were not content with British government. For good or ill the Helenes wherever they are found are sure to be filled with an impassioned longing for Hellenic independence. The people of the Ionian Islands were eager to be allowed to enter into one system with the Kingdom of Greece. It was idle to try

  to amuse them by telling them they constituted an independent Republic and were actually governing themselves. A duller people than the Greeks of the islands could not be deluded into the idea that they were a self-governing people while they saw themselves presided over by an English Lord High Commissioner who was also the commander-in-chief of a goodly British

  army garrisoned in their midst. They saw that the Lord High Commissioner had a way of dismissing the Republican Parliament whenever he and they could not get on together. They knew that if they ventured to resist his orders English soldiers would make short work of their effort at self-assertion. They might therefore well be excused if they fail to see much of the independent

  Republican such a system. It is certain that they got a great deal of material benefit from the presence of the energetic road-making British power but they wanted to be above all things Greek. Their national principles and aspirations, their personal vanities, their truly Greek restlessness and craving for novelty all combined to make them impatient of that foreign

  protectorate which was really foreign government. The popular Constitution which had been given to the Sept Insular Republic some ten years before Sir E.B. Lytton's time had enabled Hellenic agitation to make its voice and its claims more effectual. In England after the usual fashion a great many shallow politicians were raising an outcry against the popular Constitution as if

  it were the cause of all the confusion. Because it enabled discontent to make its voice heard they condemned it as the cause of the discontent. They would have been for silencing the alarm bell immediately and then telling themselves that all was safe. As was but natural local politicians rose to popularity in the islands in proportion as they were loud in their denunciation of foreign

  rule and in their demands for union with the Kingdom of Greece. Anybody might surely have foretold all this years before. It might have been taken for granted that so long as any sort of independent Greek Kingdom held its head above the waters the Greek populations everywhere would sympathize with its efforts and long to join their destiny with it. Many English public men however

  were merely angry with these pestilential Greeks who did not know what was good for them. A great English journal complained with a simple egotism that was positively touching that in spite of all argument the National Assembly the municipalities and the press of the Ionian Islands had now concentrated their pretensions on the project of a union with the Kingdom of

  Greece. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton had not been long enough in office to have become soaked in the ideas of routine. He did not regard the unanimous opinions of the insular legislature, municipalities and press as evidence merely of the unutterable stupidity or the incurable ingratitude and wickedness of the Ionian populations. He thought the causes of the complaints and the

  dissatisfaction were well worth looking into and he resolved on sending a statesman of distinction out to the islands to make the inquiry. Mr. Gladstone had been for some years out of office. He had been acting as an independent supporter of Lord Palmerston's government. It occurred to Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton that Mr. Gladstone was the man best fitted to conduct the inquiry.

  He was well known to be a sympathizer with the struggles and the hopes of the Greeks generally and it seemed to the new colonial secretary that the mere fact of such a man having been appointed would make it clear to the islanders that the inquiry was about to be conducted in no hostile spirit. He offered therefore to Mr. Gladstone the office of Lord High Commissioner extraordinary to

  the Ionian Islands and Mr. Gladstone accepted the offer and its duties. The appointment created much surprise, some anger, and a good deal of ridicule here at home. There seemed to certain minds to be something novel, startling, and positively unseemly in such a proceeding. Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton had alluded in his dispatch to Mr. Gladstone's Homeric scholarship and this was, in the opinion

  of some politicians, an outrage upon all the principles and proprieties of routine. This, it was muttered, is what comes of literary men in office. A writer of novels is leader of the House of Commons and he has another writer of novels at his side as colonial secretary and between them they can think of nothing better than to send a man out to the Ionian Islands to listen to the

  trash of Greek demagogues merely because he happens to be fond of reading Homer. Mr. Gladstone went out to the Ionian Islands and arrived in Corfu in the November of 1858. He called together the Senate and endeavored to satisfy them as to the real nature of his mission. He explained that he had not come there to discuss the propriety of maintaining the English protectorate but only to inquire

  into the manner in which the just claims of the Ionian Islands might be secured by means of that protectorate. Mr. Gladstone's visit, however, was not a successful enterprise for those who desired that the protectorate should be perpetual and that the Ionians should be brought to accept it as inevitable. The population of the islands persisted in regarding him not as the commissioner of

  a conservative English government but as Gladstone the Phil Hellene. He was received wherever he went with the honors due to a liberator. His path everywhere was made to seem like a triumphal progress. In vain he repeated his assurances that he came to reconcile the islands to the protectorate and not to deliver them from it. The popular instinct insisted on regarding him as at

  least the precursor of their union to the Kingdom of Greece. The National Assembly passed a formal resolution declaring for union with Greece. All that Mr. Gladstone's persuasions could do was to induce them to appoint a committee and draw up a memorial to be presented in proper form to the protecting powers. By this time the news of Mr. Gladstone's reception in the islands and in Athens

  to which also he paid a visit had reached England and the most extravagant exaggerations were put into circulation. Mr. Gladstone was attacked in an absurd manner. He was accused not merely of having encouraged the pretensions of the Ionian islanders but even talked of as if he and he alone had been their inspiration. One might have imagined that there was something portentous and even

  unnatural in a population of Hellenic race feeling anxious to be united with a Greek kingdom instead of being ruled by a British protectorate imposed by the arbitrary decree of a Congress of Foreign Powers. National complacency could hardly push sensible men to greater foolishness than it did when it set half England wondering and raging over the impertinence of a Greek population

  who preferred union with a Greek kingdom to dependence upon an English protectorate. English writers and speakers went on habitually as if the conduct of the islanders were on a par with that of some graceless daughter who forsakes her father's house for the companionship of strangers or of some still more guilty wife who deserts her loving husband to associate herself with

  some strolling musician. There can be no doubt that in every material sense the people of the islands were much better governed under England's protectorate than they could be for generations, probably for centuries, to come under any Greek administration. They had admirable means of communication by land and sea, splendid harbors, regular lines of steamers, excellent roads everywhere, while

  the people of the Kingdom of Greece were hardly better off for all these advantages under Otto than they might have been under Codrus. Monsieur Edmond declared that the inhabitants of the Ionian Islands were richer, happier, and a hundred times better governed than the subjects of King Otto. Monsieur Abou detested Greece and all about it, but his testimony thus far is that of the most

  enthusiastic Phil Hellene. Indeed it seems a waste of words to say that where Englishmen ruled they would take care to have good roads and efficient lines of steamers, but Monsieur Abou was mistaken in assuming that the populations of the islands were happier under British rule than they would have been under that of a Greek kingdom. Such a remark only showed a want of the dramatic sympathy

  which understands the feelings of others and which we especially look for in a writer of any sort of fiction. Monsieur Abou would not have been so successful a romanticist if he had always acted on the assumption that people are made happy by the material conditions which in the opinion of other people ought to confer happiness. He would not, we may presume, admit that the people of Alsace

  and Lorraine are happier under the Germans than they were under the French even though it were to be proved beyond dispute that the Germans made better roads and managed more satisfactorily the lines of railway. The populations of the islands persevered in the belief that they understood better what made them happy than Monsieur Abou could do. The visit of Mr. Gladstone, whatever purpose

  it may have been intended to fulfill, had the effect of making them agitate more strenuously than ever for annexation to the kingdom of Greece. Their wish, however, was not to be granted yet. A new Lord High Commissioner was sent out after Mr. Gladstone's return, doubtless with instructions to satisfy what was supposed to be public opinion at home, by a little additional stringency in maintaining the

  connection between Great Britain and the protected populations. Still, however, the idea held ground that sooner or later Great Britain would give up the charge of the islands. A few years after an opportunity occurred for making the cession, the Greeks got rid quietly of their heavy German King Otto, and on the advice chiefly of England they elected as sovereign a brother of the Princess of

  Wales. The Greeks themselves were not very eager for any other experiment in the matter of royalty. They seemed as if they thought they had had enough of it, but the great powers and more especially England pressed upon them that they could never be really respectable if they went without a king, and they submitted to the dictates of conventionality. They first asked for Prince

  Alfred of England, now Duke of Edinburgh, but the arrangements of European diplomacy did not allow of a prince of any of the great reigning houses being set over Greece. In any case, nothing can be less likely than that an English prince would have accepted such a responsibility. The French government made some significant remark to the effect that if it were possible for any

  of the great powers to allow one of their princes to accept the Greek crown, France had a prince disengaged, who she thought might have at least as good a claim as another. This was understood to be Prince Napoleon, son of Jerome, King of Westphalia, a prince of whom a good deal was heard after, as a good deal had been heard before in the politics of Europe. The suggestion then about the Prince of

  the House of Denmark was made either by or to the Greeks, and it was accepted. The second son of the King of Denmark was made King of Greece, and Lord John Russell, on behalf of the English government, then handed over to the Kingdom of Greece the islands of which Great Britain had had so long to bear the unwilling charge and the retention of which, according to some uneasy

  politicians, was absolutely necessary alike to the national safety and the imperial glory of England. This is anticipating by a few years the movement of time, but the effects of Mr. Gladstone's visit so distinctly foreshadowed the inevitable result that it is not worthwhile dividing into two parts this little chapter of our history. Mr. Gladstone's visit, the mistake in

  interpretation put upon it by the islanders, and the reception which chiefly on account of that mistake he had among them, must have made it clear to every intelligent person in England that this country could not long continue to force her protectorate upon a reluctant population over whom it could not even claim the right of conquest. It ought to have been plain to all the world that

  England could not long consent, with any regard for her own professions and principles, to play the part of Europe's jailer or man in possession. The session of the Ionian Islands marked, however, the farthest point of progress attained for many years in that liberal principle of foreign policy, which recognizes fairness and justice as motives of action more imperative than national

  vanity or the imperial pride of extended possession. England had to suffer for some time under the influence of a reaction which the session of the islands, all just and prudent though it was, unquestionably helped to bring about.

• 20 - Ch. 40: The Tory Diogenes Rolling his Tub, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  There was once, we read, a mighty preparation for war going on in Athens. Everybody was busy in arrangement of some kind to meet the needs of coming battle. Diogenes had nothing in particular to do but was unwilling to appear absolutely idle when all else were so busy. He set to work, therefore, with immense clatter and energy, to roll his tub up and down the streets of Athens. The conservative government, seeing Europe, all in disturbance and having

  very particular to do, began to roll a tub of their own and to show a preternatural and wholly unnecessary activity in doing so. The year 1859 was one of storm and stress on the European continent. The war drum throbbed through the whole of it. The year began with the memorable declaration of the Emperor of the French to the Austrian ambassador at the Tuileries that the relations between the two empires was not such as he could desire. This, he said, according to the

  description given of the event in a dispatch from Lord Kavali, with some severity of tone. In truth, Count Kavur had had his way. He had prevailed upon Louis Napoleon and the result was a determination to expel the Austrians from Italy. It seems clear enough that the Emperor, after a while, grew anxiously inclined to draw back from the position in which he had placed himself. Great pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English government and by other

  governments as well to induce him to refrain from disturbing the peace of Europe. He was probably quite sincere in the assurances he repeatedly gave that he was doing his best to prevent a rupture with Austria and he would possibly have given much to avoid the quarrel. The turn of his mind was such that he scarcely ever formed any resolution or entered into any agreement, but the moment the step was taken he began to see reasons for wishing that he had followed a

  different course. In this instance it is evident that he started at the sound he himself had made. It was not, however, any longer in his power to guide events. He was in the hands of a stronger will and a more daring spirit than his own. In the career of Count Kavur, our times have seen perhaps the most remarkable illustration of that great Italian statesmanship which has always appeared at intervals in the history of Europe. There may be very different opinions about the

  political morality of Kavur, rather indeed may it be said that his strongest admirer is forced to invent a morality of his own in order to justify all the political actions of a man who knew no fear, hesitation or scruple. Kavur had the head of a Machiavelli, the daring of a Cesare Borgia, the political craft and audacity of a Richelieu. He was undoubtedly a patriot and a lover of his country, but he was willing to serve his country by means from which

  the conscience of modern Europe, even as it shows itself in the business of statesmanship, is forced to shrink back. If ends were to justify means, then the history of united Italy may be the justification of the life of Kavur. But until ends are held to justify means, one can only say that he did marvelous things, that he broke up and reconstructed political systems, that he made a nation, that he realized the dreams of Dante and some of the schemes of

  Alexander VI, and that he accomplished all this for the most part at the cost of other people and not of Italians. Louis Napoleon was simply a weapon in the hands of such a man. Kavur knew precisely what he wanted and was prepared to go all lengths and to run all risks to have it. When once the French emperor had entered into a compact with him, there was no escape from it. Kavur did not look like an Italian, at least a typical Italian. He looked more like an

  Englishman. He reminded Englishmen, oddly, of Dickens Pickwick, with his large forehead, his general look of moony good nature, and his spectacles. That commonplace homely exterior concealed unsurpassed force of character, subtlety of scheming, and power of will. Kavur was determined that France should fight Austria. If Louis Napoleon had shown any decided inclination to draw back, Kavur would have flung Piedmont single-handed into the fight

  and defied France after what had passed to leave her to her fate. Louis Napoleon dared not leave Piedmont to her fate. He had gone too far with Kavur for that. The war between France and Austria broke out. It was over, one might say, in a moment. Austria had no generals. The French army rushed to success, and then Louis Napoleon stopped short as suddenly as he had begun. He had proclaimed that he went to war to set Italy free from the Alps to the sea,

  but he made peace on the basis of the liberation of Lombardy from Austrian rule, and he left Venetia for another day and for other arms. He drew back before the very serious danger that threatened on the part of the German states, who showed ominous indications of a resolve to make the cause of Austria their own if France went too far. He held his hand from Venetia, because of Prussia. Seven years later, Prussia herself gave Venetia to Italy.

  The English government had made futile attempts to prevent the outbreak of war. Lord Malmesbury had elaborated choirs of heavy commonplace in the vain hope that the great conflicting forces then let loose could be brought back into quietude by the gentle charm of plenteous platitude. Meanwhile, the conservative government could not exactly live on the mere reputation of having given good advice abroad to which no one would listen.

  They had to do something more at home. They began to roll a tub. While Europe was aflame with war passion and panic, the conservatives determined to try their hand at a reform bill. Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the House of Commons, knew that a reform bill was one of the certainties of the future. It suited him well enough to praise the perfection of existing institutions in his parliamentary and platform speeches, but no one knew better than he that the reform bill of 1832

  had left some blanks that must be, one day or another, filled by some government. Lord John Russell had made an attempt more than once and failed. He had tried a reform bill in 1852 and lost his chance because of the defeat of the ministry on the militia bill. He had tried another experiment in 1854, but the country was too eager about war with Russia to care for domestic reform, and Lord John Russell had to abandon the attempt, not without an emotion which he could not

  succeed in concealing. Mr. Disraeli knew well enough that whenever Lord John Russell happened to be in power again, he would return to his first love in politics, a reform bill. He knew also that a refusal to have anything to do with reform would always expose the Tories in office to a coalition of all the liberal fractions against them. At present, he could not pretend to think that his party was strong. The conservatives were in office, but they were not in power. At any moment,

  if the liberals chose, a motion calling for reform or censoring the government because they were doing nothing for reform might be brought forward in the House of Commons and carried in the teeth of the Tory party. Mr. Disraeli had to choose between two dangers. He might risk all by refusing reform. He might risk all by attempting reform. He thought, on the whole, the wiser course would be to endeavor to take possession of the reform question for himself and his party.

  The reappearance of Mr. Bright in politics stimulated no doubt this resolve on the part of the conservative leader. We speak only of the one leader, for it is not likely that the prime minister, Lord Darby, took any active interest in the matter. Lord Darby had outlived political ambition or he had had perhaps all the political success he cared for. There was not much to tempt him into a new reform campaign. Times had changed since his fiery energy went so far to

  stimulate the wigs of that day into enthusiasm for the bill of Lord Grey. Lord Darby had had nearly all in life that such a man could desire. He had station of the highest. He had wealth and influence. He had fame as a great parliamentary debater. Now that Broom had ceased to take any leading part in debate, he had no rival in the House of Lords. He had an easy, buoyant temperament. He was, as we have said already, something of a scholar and he loved the society of his homer and

  his horus, while he could enjoy outdoor amusements as well as any Squire Western or Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistan of them all. He was a sincere man without any pretense and if he did not himself care about reform he was not likely to put on any appearance of enthusiasm about it, nor did he set much store on continuing in office. He would be the same Lord Darby out of office as in. It is probable therefore that he would have allowed reform to go its way for him and never

  troubled and if loss of office came of his indifference he would have gone out of office with unabated cheerfulness. But this way of looking at things was by no means suitable to his energetic and ambitious lieutenant. Mr. Disraeli had not nearly attained the height of his ambition, nor had he by any means exhausted his political energies. Mr. Disraeli therefore was not a man to view with any satisfaction the consequences likely to come to the Conservative

  Party from an open refusal to take up the cause of reform. He had always too measured fairly inaccurately the popular influence and the parliamentary strength of Mr. Bright. It is clear that at a time when most of the Conservatives and not a few of the Whigs regarded Mr. Bright as only an eloquent and respectable demagogue, Mr. Disraeli had made up his mind that the Manchester orator was a man of genius and foresight who must be taken account of as a genuine political power.

  Mr. Bright now returned to public life. He had for a long time been withdrawn by ill health from all share in political agitation or politics of any kind. At one time it was indeed fully believed that the House of Commons had seen the last of him. To many his return to parliament and the platform seemed almost like a resurrection. Almost immediately on his returning to public life he flung himself into a new agitation for reform. He addressed great meetings in the North of England

  and in Scotland and he was induced to draw up a reform bill of his own. His scheme was talked of at that time by some of his opponents as though it were a project of which Jack Cade might have approved. It was practically a proposal to establish a franchise precisely like that which we have now, only that it threw the expenses of the returning officer on the county or borough rate and it introduced a somewhat large measure of redistribution of seats. The opponents of reform were heard

  everywhere assuring themselves and their friends that the country in general cared nothing about reform. Mr. Bright himself was accredited with having said that his own effort to arouse a reforming spirit, even in the North, was like flogging a dead horse. But Mr. Disraeli was far too shrewd to be satisfied with such consolations as his followers would thus have administered. He knew well enough that the upper and middle classes cared very little about a new reform bill.

  They had had all the reform they wanted in 1832. But so did Mr. Disraeli. But so long as the bill of 1832 remained unsupplemented, it was evident that any political party could appeal to the support of the working classes throughout the country in favor of any movement which promised to accomplish that object. In short, Mr. Disraeli knew that reform had to come some time and he was resolved to make his own game if he could. End of Section 20.

• 21 - Ch. 40: The Tory Diogenes Rolling his Tub, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  This time, however, he was not successful. The difficulties in his way were too great. It would have been impossible for him to introduce such a reform bill as Mr. Bright would be likely to accept. His own party would not endure such a proposition. He could only go so far as to bring in some bill which might possibly seem to reformers to be doing something for reform, and at the same time might be commended to conservatives on the ground that it really

  did nothing for it. Mr. Disraeli's reform bill was a curiosity. It offered a variety of little innovations which nobody wanted or could have cared about, and it left out of sight altogether the one reform which alone gave an excuse for any legislation. We have explained more than once that Lord Gray's reform bill admitted the middle class to legislation but left the working class out. What was now wanted was a measure to let the working class in. Nobody seriously pretended that

  any other object than this was sought by those who called out for reform, yet Mr. Disraeli's scheme made no more account of the working class as a whole than if they already possessed the vote every man of them. It proposed to give a vote in burris to persons who had property to the amount of 10 pounds a year in the funds, bank stock, or East India stock, to persons who had 60 pounds in a savings bank, to persons receiving pensions in the naval, military, or civil service amounting

  to 20 pounds a year, to professional men, to graduates of universities, ministers of religion, and certain school masters. In fact, to a great number of persons who either already had the franchise or could have it if they had any interest that way. The only proposition in the bill not absolutely farcical and absurd was that which would have equalized the franchise in counties and in burris, making 10 pounds the limit in each alike. The English working classes cried out for

  the franchise and Mr. Disraeli proposed to answer the cry by giving the vote to graduates of universities, medical practitioners, and school masters. Yet we may judge of the difficulties Mr. Disraeli had to deal with by the reception which even this poor little measure met with from some of his own colleagues. Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley resigned office rather than have anything to do with it. Mr. Henley was a specimen of the class who might have been described as

  fine old English gentlemen. He was shrewd, blunt, honest, and narrow, given to broad jokes and to arguments flavored with a sort of humor which reminded not very faintly of the drollery of Fielding's time. Mr. Walpole was a man of gentle bearing, not by any means a robust politician, nor liberally endowed with intellect or eloquence, but pure-minded and upright enough to satisfy the most exacting. Mr. Walpole wrote to Lord Darby a letter which had a certain simple dignity and

  pathos in it to explain the reason for his resignation. He frankly said that the measure which the cabinet were prepared to recommend was one which they should all of them have stoutly opposed if either Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell had ventured to bring it forward. This seemed to Mr. Walpole reason enough for his declining to have anything to do with it. It did not appear to him honorable to support a measure because it had been taken up by one's

  own party, which the party would assuredly have denounced and opposed to the uttermost if it had been brought forward by the other side. Mr. Walpole's colleagues no doubt respected his scruples, but some probably regarded them with good-natured contempt. Such a man, it was clear, was not destined to make much of a way in politics. Public opinion admired Mr. Walpole and applauded his decision. Public opinion would have pronounced even more strongly in his favor had it known that

  at the time of his making his decision and withdrawing from a high official position, Mr. Walpole was in circumstances which made the possession of a salary of the utmost importance to him. Had he even swallowed his scruples and held on a little longer, he would have become entitled to a pension. He did not appear to have hesitated a moment. He was a high-minded gentleman. He could very well bear to be poor. He could not bear to surrender his self-respect.

  This resignation, however, so honorable to Mr. Walpole and to Mr. Henley, will serve to show how great were the difficulties which then stood in Mr. Disraeli's way. Probably Mr. Disraeli's own feelings were in favor of a liberally extended suffrage. It is not a very rash assumption to conjecture that he looked with contempt on the kind of reasoning which fancied that the safety of a state depends upon the narrowness of its franchise.

  But as Bill bore the character of a measure brought in with the object of trying to reconcile irreconcilable claims and principles, to be the author of something which should give the government the credit with their opponents of being reformers at heart and with their friends of being non-reformers at heart was apparently the object of Mr. Disraeli. The attempt was a complete failure. It was vain to preach up the beauty of lateral extension of the franchise

  as opposed to extension downwards. The country saw through the whole imposter at a glance. One of Mr. Disraeli's defects as a statesman has always been that he is apt to be just a little too clever for the business he has in hand. This ingenious reform bill was a little too clever. More matter and less art would have served its turn. It was found out in a moment. Someone described its enfranchising clauses as fancy franchises. Mr. Bright introduced the phrase to

  the House of Commons and the clauses never recovered the epithet. The savings bank clause provoked immense ridicule. Suppose it was asked, a man draws out a few pounds to get married or to save his aged parent from starvation or to help a friend out of difficulties. Is it fair that he should be immediately disfranchised as a penalty for being loving and kindly? One does not want to make the electoral franchise a sort of montheon prize for the most meritorious of any class,

  but still is it reasonable that a man who is to have a vote, as long as he hoards his little sum of money, is to forfeit the vote the moment he does a kind or even a prudent thing? Even as a matter of mere prudence, it was very sensibly argued. Is it not better that a man should do something else with his money that invested in a savings bank, which is after all only a safer version of the traditional old stocking? It would be useless to go into any of the discussions which

  took place on this extraordinary bill. It can hardly be said to have been considered seriously. It had to be got rid of somehow, and therefore Lord John Russell moved an amendment declaring that no readjustment of the franchise would satisfy the House of Commons or the country, which did not provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in the cities and boroughs than was contemplated in the government measure. Perhaps the most remarkable speech made during

  the debate was that of Mr. Gladstone, who, accepting neither the bill nor the resolution, occupied himself chiefly with an appeal to Parliament and public opinion on behalf of small boroughs. The argument was ingenious. It pointed to the number of eminent men who had been enabled to begin public life very early by means of a nomination for some pocket borough, or who, having quarreled with the constituents of a city or county, might for a while have been exiled from

  Parliament, if some pocket borough, or rather pocket borough's master, had not admitted them by that little posturing gait. The argument, however, went no further than to show that in a civilized country every anomaly, however absurd, may be turned to some good account. If instead of creating small pocket boroughs the English constitutional system had conferred on a few great peers the privilege of nominating members of Parliament directly by their own authority,

  this arrangement would undoubtedly work well in some cases. Beyond all question, some of these privileged peers would send into Parliament deserving men who otherwise might be temporarily excluded from it. The same thing would sometimes happen no doubt if they made over the nomination to their wives or their wives' waiting women, but the system of pocket boroughs taken as a whole was stuffed with injustice and corruption. It worked direct evil in 20 cases for every one case

  in which it brought about indirect good. The purchase of seats in the Parliament of Paris undoubtedly did good in some cases. Some of the men for whom seats were bought proved themselves useful and impartial members of that curious tribunal. Lord John Russell's resolution was carried by a majority of 330 against 291 or a majority of 39. The government dissolved Parliament and appealed to the country. The elections did not excite very much public interest.

  They took place during the most critical moments of the war between France and Austria. While such news was arriving as that of the defeat of Magenta and the defeat of Solferino, the entrance of the Emperor of the French and the King of Sardinia into Milan, it was not likely that domestic news of a purely parliamentary interest could occupy all the attention of Englishmen. It was not merely a great foreign war that the people of these islands looked on with such absorbing interest.

  It was what seemed to be the birth of a new era for Europe. There were some who felt inclined to echo the celebrated saying of Pitt after Austerlitz and declare that we might as well roll up the map of Europe. In the victories of the French, many saw the first indications of the manifest destiny of the heir of Waterloo, the man who represented a defeat. To many, the strength of the Austrian military system had seemed the great bulwark of conservatism in Europe.

  And now that was gone, shriveled like a straw in fire, shattered like a potsherd. Surprise, bewilderment, rather than partisan passion of any kind, predominated over England. In such a condition of things, the general election passed over, hardly noticed. When it was over, it was found that the conservatives had gained indeed, but had not gained nearly enough to enable them to hold office unless by the toleration of their rivals. The rivals

  soon made up their minds that they had tolerated them long enough. A meeting of the Liberal Party was held at Willis's rooms once the scene of Allmac's famous assemblies. There the chiefs of the Liberal Party met to adjust their several disputes and to arrange on some plan of united action. Lord Palmerston represented one section of the party, Lord John Russell another. Mr. Sidney Herbert spoke for the P-Lights. Not a few persons were surprised to find Mr. Bright

  among the speakers. It was well known that he liked Lord Palmerston little, that it could hardly be said he liked the Tories any less. But Mr. Bright was for a reform bill. From whomever it should come. And he thought perhaps that the Liberal chiefs had learned a lesson. The party contrived to agree upon a principle of action and a compact was entered into, the effect of which was soon made clear at the meeting of the new parliament.

  A vote of want of confidence was at once moved by the Marquis of Huntington, Elds's son of the Duke of Devonshire, and even then marked out by common report as a future leader of the Liberal Party. Lord Hardington had sat but a short time in the House of Commons and had thus far given no indications of any eloquence or even of any taste for politics. Nothing could more effectively illustrate one of the peculiarities of the English political system than the choice

  of the Marquis of Hardington as the figurehead of this important movement against the Tory government. Lord Hardington did not then, nor for many years afterwards, show any greater capacity for politics than is shown by an ordinary county member. He seemed rather below than above the average of the House of Commons. As leader subsequently of the Liberal Party in that House, he can hardly be said to have shown as yet any higher qualities than a strong good sense and a

  manly firmness of purpose combined with such skill in debate as constant practice under the most favorable circumstances must give to any man not absolutely devoid of all capacity for self-improvement. But even of the moderate abilities which Lord Hardington proved that he possessed in the Conservative Parliament of 1874, he had given no indication in 1859. He was put up to move the vote of want of confidence as the heir of the Great Whig House of

  Devonshire. His appearance in the debate would have carried just as much significance with it if he had simply moved his resolution without an accompanying word. The debate that followed was long and bitter. It was enlivened by more than even the usual amount of personalities. Mr. Disraeli and Sir James Graham had a sharp passage of arms in the course of which Sir James Graham used an expression that has been often quoted since.

  He described Mr. Disraeli as the red Indian of debate who by the use of the tomahawk has cut his way to power and by recurrence to the scalping system hopes to prevent the loss of it. The scalping system however did not succeed this time. The division when it came on after three nights of discussion showed a majority of 13 in favor of Lord Hardington's motion. The results surprised no one. Everybody knew that the moment the various sections of the

  Liberal Party contrived a combination the fate of the Ministry was sealed. Willis's rooms had anticipated the decision of St. Stephen's. Rather perhaps might it be said that St. Stephen's had only recorded the decision of Willis's rooms. End of Section 21.

• 22 - Ch. 40: The Tory Diogenes Rolling his Tub, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 22 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 40, The Tory Diogenes, Rolling His Tub, Part 3. The Queen invited Lord Granville to form a ministry.

  Lord Granville was still a young man to be Prime Minister, considering how the habits of parliamentary life had changed since the days of Pitt. He was not much over 40 years of age. He had filled many ministerial offices, however, and had an experience of parliament which may be said to have begun with his majority. After some nine years spent in the House of Commons, the death of his father called him in 1846 to the House of Lords.

  He made no assumption of commanding abilities, nor had he any pretense to the higher class of eloquence or statesmanship. But he was a thorough man of the world and of parliament. He understood English ways of feeling and of acting. He was a clever debater and had the genial art, very useful and very rare in English public life, of keeping even antagonists in good humor. Probably a better man could not have been found to suit all parties as Prime Minister of England,

  in times when there was no particular stress or strain to try the energies and the patience of the country. Still, there was some surprise felt that the Queen should have passed over two men of years and of fame, like Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, and have invited a much younger man at such a moment to undertake for the first time to form a ministry. An explanation was soon given on the part of the Queen, or at least with her consent.

  The Queen had naturally thought in the first instance of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. But she found it a very invidious and unwelcome task to make a choice between two statesmen so full of years and honors, and possessing so just a claim to her consideration. Her Majesty therefore thought a compromise might best be got at between the more conservative section of the Liberal Party, which Lord Palmerston appeared to represent,

  and the more popular section, led by Lord John Russell, if both could be united under the guidance of Lord Granville, the acknowledged leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords. The attempt was not successful. Lord John Russell declined to serve under Lord Granville, but declared himself perfectly willing to serve under Lord Palmerston.

  This declaration at once put an end to Lord Granville's chances and to the whole difficulty which had been anticipated. There had been a coldness for some time between Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell. The two men were undoubtedly rivals. At least all the world persisted in regarding them in such a light. It was not thought possible that Lord John Russell would submit to take office under Lord Palmerston.

  On this occasion, however, as upon others, Lord John Russell showed a spirit of self-abnegation for which the public in general did not give him credit. The difficulty was settled to the satisfaction of everyone, Lord Granville included. Lord Granville was not in the slightest degree impatient to become prime minister and indeed probably felt relieved from a very unwelcome responsibility

  when he was allowed to accept office under the premiership of Lord Palmerston. Lord Palmerston was now prime minister for life. Until his death, he held the office with the full approval of conservatives as well as liberals, nay indeed with much warmer approbation from the majority of the conservatives than from many of the liberals. Palmerston formed a strong ministry.

  Mr. Gladston was chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord John Russell had the office of foreign secretary. Sir G.C. Lewis was home secretary. Mr. Sidney Herbert minister for war. The Duke of Newcastle took charge of the colonies.

  Mr. Cardwell accepted the Irish secretaryship and Sir Charles Wood was secretary for India. Lord Palmerston endeavored to propitiate the Manchester liberals by offering a seat in the government to Mr. Cobden and to Mr. Milner-Gibson. Mr. Cobden was at the time on his way home from the United States. In his absence, he had been elected member for Rochdale

  and in his absence, too, the office of president of the board of trade in the new ministry had been put at his disposal. His friends eagerly awaited his return and when the steamer bringing him home was near Liverpool, a number of them went out to meet him before his landing. They boarded the steamer and astonished him with the news that the Tories were out, that the liberals were in, that he was member for Rochdale,

  and that Lord Palmerston had offered him a place in the new ministry. Cobden took the news which related to himself with his usual quiet modesty. He declined to say anything about the offer he had received from Lord Palmerston until he should have the opportunity of giving his answer directly to Lord Palmerston himself. This, of course, was only a necessary courtesy

  and most of Cobden's friends were of opinion that he ought to accept Lord Palmerston's offer. Cobden explained afterwards that the office put at his disposal was exactly that which would have best suited him and in which he thought that he could do some good. He also frankly declared that the salary attached to the office would be a consideration of much importance to him. Mr. Cobden's friends were well aware that he had invested the greater part of his property in American railways

  which just then were not very profitable investments, although in the long run they justified his confidence in their success. At the moment, he was a poor man. Yet he did not in his own mind hesitate a moment about Lord Palmerston's offer. He disapproved of Palmerston's foreign policy,

  of his military expenditure, and his love of interfering in the disputes of the continent, and he felt that he could not conscientiously accept office under such a leader. He refused the offer decisively and the chief promoter of the repeal of the Corn Laws

  never held any place in an English administration. Cobden, however, advised his friend Mr. Milner Gibson to avail himself of Lord Palmerston's offer and Mr. Gibson acted on the advice. The opinions of Mr. Cobden and Mr. Gibson were the same on most subjects, but Mr. Gibson had never stood out before the country in so conspicuous a position as an opponent of Lord Palmerston.

  Perhaps Cobden's advice was given in the spirit of Dr. Parr, who encouraged a modest friend to adopt the ordinary pronunciation of the Egyptian city's name. Dr. Bentley and I, sir, must call it Alexandria, but I think you may call it Alexandria. Mr. Cobden felt really grateful to Lord Palmerston for his offer and for his manner of making it.

  I had no personal feeling whatever he said to his constituents at Rochdale and in the course I took with regard to Mr. Palmerston's offer if I had had any feeling of personal hostility which I never had toward him for he is of that happy nature which cannot create a personal enemy his kind and manly offer would have instantly disarmed me.

  Lord Palmerston had not made any tender of office to Mr. Bright and he wrote to Mr. Bright frankly explaining his reasons. Mr. Bright had been speaking out too strongly during his recent reform campaign to make his presence in the cabinet acceptable to some of the Whig magnets for whom seats had to be found. It is curious to notice now the conviction which at that time seemed to be universal

  that Mr. Cobden was a much more moderate reformer than Mr. Bright. The impression was altogether wrong. There was in Mr. Bright's nature a certain element of conservatism which showed itself clearly enough the moment the particular reforms which he thought necessary were carried. Mr. Cobden would have gone on advancing in the direction of reform as long as he lived.

  It was Mr. Cobden's conciliatory manner and an easy genuine bonhomie worthy of Palmerston himself that made the difference between the two men in popular estimation. Not much difference to be sure was ever to be noticed between them in public affairs. Only once had they voted in opposite lobbies of the House of Commons and that was, if we are not mistaken, on the Manuth Grant.

  And Mr. Bright afterwards adopted the views of Mr. Cobden. But where there was any difference, even of speculative opinion, Mr. Cobden went further than Mr. Bright along the path of radicalism. Mr. Cobden's sweet temper and good humor disposition made it hard for him to express strong opinions and tones of anger. It is doubtful whether a man of his temperament ever could be a really great orator.

  Indignation is even more effective as an element in the making of great speeches than in the making of small verses. The closing days of the year were made memorable by the death of Macaulay. He had been raised to the peerage and had had some hopes of being able to take occasional part in the stately debates of the House of Lords. But his health almost suddenly broke down and his voice was never heard in the upper chamber. He died prematurely, having only entered on his sixtieth year.

  We have already studied the literary character of this most successful literary man. Macaulay had had, as he often said himself, a singularly happy life, although it was not without its severe losses and its griefs. His career was one of uninterrupted success. His books brought him fame, influence, social position and wealth all at once. He never made a failure.

  The world only applauded one book more than the other, the second speech more than the first. Macaulay the essayist, Macaulay the historian, Macaulay the ballad writer, Macaulay the parliamentary orator, Macaulay the brilliant, inexhaustible talker. He was alike, it might appear, supreme in everything he chose to do or to attempt. After his death there came a natural reaction and the reaction, as is always the case, was inclined to go too far.

  People began to find out that Macaulay had done too many things, that he did not do anything as he might have done, that he was too brilliant, that he was only brilliant, that he was not really brilliant at all, but only superficial and showy. The disparagement was more unjust by far than even the extravagant estimate. Macaulay was not the paragon, the ninth wonder of the world for which people once set him down, but he was undoubtedly a great literary man. He was also a man of singularly noble character.

  He was, in a literary sense, egotistic. That is to say he thought and talked and wrote a great deal about his works and himself, but he was one of the most unselfish men that ever lived. He appears to have enjoyed advancement, success, fame and money only because these enabled him to give pleasure and support to the members of his family. He was attached to his family, especially to his sisters with the tenderest affection. His real nature seems only to have thoroughly shown out when in their society.

  There he was loving, sportive, even to joyous frolicsomeness, a glad schoolboy almost to the very end. He was remarkably generous and charitable even to strangers. His hand was almost always open, but he gave so unostentatiously that it was not until after his death half his kindly deeds became known. He had a spirit which was absolutely above any of the corrupting temptations of money and rank. He was very poor at one time, and during his poverty he was beginning to make his reputation in the House of Commons.

  It is often said that a poor man feels nowhere so much out of place, nowhere so much at a disadvantage, nowhere so much humiliated as in the House of Commons. Macaulay felt nothing of the kind. He bore himself as easily and steadfastly as though he had been the eldest son of a proud and wealthy family. It did not seem to have occurred to him when he was poor that money was lacking to the dignity of his intellect and his manhood, or when he was rich that money added to it. Certain defects of temper and manner rather than of character he had, which caused men often to misunderstand him and sometimes to dislike him. He was apt to be overbearing in tone and to show himself a little too confident of his splendid gifts and acquirements, his marvelous memory, his varied reading, his overwhelming power of argument.

  He trampled on men's prejudices too heedlessly, was inclined to treat ignorance as if it were a crime, and to make dullness feel that it had caused to be ashamed of itself. Such defects as these are hardly worth mentioning and would not be mentioned here, but they serve to explain some of the misconceptions which were formed of Macaulay by many during his lifetime and some of the antagonisms which he unconsciously created. Absolutely without literary affectation, undepressed by early poverty, unspoiled by later and almost unequalled success, he was an independent, quiet, self-relying man who in all his noon of fame found most happiness in the companionship and sympathy of those he loved, and who from first to last was loved most tenderly by those who knew him best. He was buried in Westminster Abbey in the first week of the new year, and there truly took his place among his peers.

• 23 - Ch. 41: The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Chapter 41—The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Part 1 Lord Palmerston's ministry came into power in troublous times. All over the world there seemed to be an upheaving of old systems. Since 1848 there had not been such a period of political and social commotion. A new war had broken out in China. The Peace of Villafranca had only patched up the Italian

  system. Everyone saw that there was much convulsion to come yet before Italy was likely to settle down into order. From across the Atlantic came the first murmurings of civil war. John Brown had made his famous raid into Harper's Ferry, a town on the borders of Virginia and Maryland, for the purpose of helping slaves to escape, and he was captured, tried for the attempt, and executed.

  He met his death with the composure of an antique hero. Victor Hugo declared in one of his most impassioned sentences that the gibbet of John Brown was the calvary of the anti-slavery movement, and assuredly the execution of the brave old man was the death sentence of slavery. Abraham Lincoln had just been adopted by the National Republican Convention at Chicago as candidate for the presidency,

  and even here in England people were beginning to understand what that meant. At home there were distractions of other kinds. Some of the greatest strikes ever known in England had just broken out, and a political panic was further perplexed by the quarrels of class with class. A profound distrust of Louis Napoleon prevailed almost everywhere. The fact that he had been recently our ally did not do

  much to diminish this distrust. On the contrary, it helped in a certain sense to increase it. Against what state, he was asked, did he enter into alliance with us? Against Russia to defend Turkey? Not at all. Louis Napoleon always acknowledged that he despised the Turks and felt sure nothing could ever be made of them. It was to have his revenge for Moscow and the Barasina people said that he struck at Russia, and he made

  us his mere tools in the enterprise. Now he turns upon Austria to make her atone for other wrongs done against the ambition of the Bonaparte's, and he has conquered. Austria, believed by all men to have the greatest military organization in Europe lies crushed at his feet. What next? Prussia perhaps? Or England? The official classes in this country had from the first been in sympathy with Austria, and would, if they could, have had England take up her quarrel.

  The Tories were Austrian for the most part. Not much of the feeling for Italy, which was afterwards so enthusiastic and effusive, had yet sprung up in England among the liberals in the bulk of the population. People did not admit that it was an affair of Italy at all. They saw in it, rather, an evidence of the ambition of Piedmont. When soon after the close of the short war it became known that Sardinia was to pay for the alliance of France by the surrender of Nice and

  Savoy, the indignation in this country became irrepressible. The whole thing seemed a base transaction. The House of Savoy, said an indignant orator in Parliament, had sprung from the womb of those mountains. Its connection with them should be as eternal as the endurance of the mountains themselves. Men saw in the conduct of Louis Napoleon only an evidence of the most ignoble rapacity. It is of no use, they said, talking of alliances and cordial understandings with such a

  man. There is in him no faith and no scruple. Cross me he. Tomorrow he will try to humble and punish England as he has already humbled and punished Austria. His alliance with us will prove to be of as much account as did his alliance with Sardinia. He did not scruple to ring territory from the confederate whose devoted friend and patron he professed to be. What should we have to expect? We against whom he cherished up a national and a family hatred, if by any chance

  he should be enabled to strike us a sudden blow. The feeling, therefore, in England was almost entirely one of revived dread and distrust of Louis Napoleon. There was a good deal to be said for his bargain about Savoy and Nice by those who were anxious to defend it. But taken as a whole, it was a singularly unfortunate transaction. It turned back the attention of conquerors to that old-fashioned plan of partition, which sanguine people were beginning to hope was gone out of

  European politics like the sacking of towns and the holding of princes to ransom. It is likely that Louis Napoleon thought of this himself somewhat bitterly later on in his career when the Germans adopted his own principle, although as they themselves pleaded, with somewhat better excuse. For they only extorted territory from an enemy. He extorted it from a friend. There could be no pretense that it was other than an act of extortion.

  Even the Piedmontese statesmen who conducted the transaction, Kvur cleverly dodged out of it himself, did not venture to profess that they were doing it willingly. It had to be done. Perhaps it had to be done by Louis Napoleon as well as by Victor Emmanuel. Kvur had compelled the emperor of the French to make a stand for Italy, but the emperor could hardly face his own people without telling them that France was to have something for her money and her blood.

  Wars for an idea generally end like this. On the whole, however, let it be owned that the Italians had made a good bargain. Savoy and Nice were provinces of which the Italian nationality was very doubtful, of which the Italian sentiment was perhaps more doubtful still. Louis Napoleon had the worst of the bargain in that, as in most other transactions, wherein he thought he was doing a clever thing. He went very near estranging altogether the friendly feeling

  of the English people from him and from France. The invasion panic sprang up again here in a moment. The volunteer forces began to increase in numbers and in ardor. Plans of coast fortification and of national defenses generally were thrust upon parliament from various quarters. A feverish anxiety about the security of the island took possession of many minds that were usually tranquil and shrewd enough. It really seemed as if the country were looking out for

  what Mr. Disraeli called, a short time afterwards, when he was not in office and was therefore not responsible to public clamor for the defense of our coasts, a midnight foray from our imperial ally. The venerable Lord Lindhurst took on himself in a special the task of rousing the nation. With a vigor of manner and a literary freshness of style well worthy of his earlier and best years, he devoted himself to the work of inflaming the public spirit of England against Louis Napoleon.

  A graceful and acrid lawyer Demosthenes denouncing A. Philip of the Opéra Comique. If I am masked, said Lord Lindhurst, whether I cannot place reliance upon the Emperor Napoleon, I reply with confidence that I cannot, because he is in a situation in which he cannot place reliance upon himself. If the calamity should come, he asked, if the conflagration should take place, what words can describe the extent of the calamity, or what imagination can paint the

  overwhelming ruin that would fall upon us? The most harmless and even reasonable actions on the part of France were made a ground of suspicion and alarm by some agitated critics. A great London newspaper saw strong reason for uneasiness in the fact that at this moment the French government is pushing with extraordinary zeal the suspicious project of the impracticable Suez Canal. We have already remarked upon the fact that up to this time there was no evidence in the public

  opinion of England of any sympathy with Italian independence, such as became the fashion a year later. At least if there was any such sympathy here and there, it did not to any perceptible degree modify the distrust which was felt toward the Emperor Napoleon. Mrs. Barrett Browning's passionate praises of the Emperor and lamentations for the failure of his great deed were regarded as the harmless and gushing sentimentalisms of a poet and a woman. Indeed a poet with many people

  seems a sort of woman. The King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, had visited England not long before and had been received with public addresses and other such demonstrations of admiration here and there, but even his concrete presence had not succeeded in making impression enough to secure him the general sympathy of the English public. Some association in Edinburgh had had the singular bad taste to send him an address of welcome in which they congratulated him on his

  opposition to the Holy See, as if he were another Achille or Gavazzi come over to denounce the Pope. The King's reply was measured out with a crushing calmness and dignity. It coldly reminded his Edinburgh admirers of the fact, which we may presume they had forgotten, that he was descended from a long line of Catholic princes and was the sovereign of subjects almost entirely Catholic and that he could not therefore accept with satisfaction words of reprobation

  injurious to the head of the Church to which he belonged. We only recall to memory this unpleasant little incident for the purpose of pointing a moral which it might of itself suggest. It is much to be feared that the popular enthusiasm for the unity and independence of Italy, which afterwards flamed out in England, was only enthusiasm against the Pope. Something no doubt was due to the brilliancy of Garibaldi's exploits in 1860 and to the romantic

  halo which at that time and for long after surrounded Garibaldi himself, but no Englishman who thinks coolly over the subject will venture to deny that nine out of every ten enthusiasts for Italian liberty at that time were in favor of Italy because Italy was supposed to be in spiritual rebellion against the Pope. The ministry attempted great things. They undertook a complete remodeling of the customs system, a repeal of the paper duties, and a reform bill. The news that a

  commercial treaty with France was in preparation broke on the world somewhat abruptly in the early days of 1860. The arrangement was made in a manner to set old formalism everywhere shaking its solemn head and holding up its alarmed hands. The French treaty was made without any direct assistance from professional diplomacy. It was made indeed in despite of professional diplomacy. It was the result of private conversations and an informal agreement

  between the emperor of the French and Mr. Cobden. The first idea of such an arrangement came we believe from Mr. Bright, but it was Mr. Cobden who undertook to see the emperor Napoleon and exchange ideas with him on the subject. The emperor of the French, to do him justice, was entirely above the conventional formalities of imperial dignity. He sometimes ran the risk of seeming undignified in the eyes of the vulgar by the disregard of all formality with which he

  was willing to allow himself to be approached. Although Mr. Cobden had never held official position of any kind in England, the emperor received him very cordially and entered readily into his ideas on the subject of a treaty between England and France which would remove many of the prohibitions and restrictions then interfering with a liberal interchange of the productions of the two nations. Napoleon III was a free trader or something nearly approaching to it.

  His cousin Prince Napoleon was still more advanced and more decided in his views of political economy. The emperor was moreover a good deal under the influence of Michael Chevalier, the distinguished French publicist and economist who, from having been a member of the socialistic sect of the famous Perron-Fontain, had come to be a practical politician and an economist of a very high order. Mr. Cobden had the assistance of all the influence Mr. Gladstone could bring to bear.

  It is not likely that Lord Palmerston cared much about the French treaty project, but at least he did not oppose it. Mr. Cobden was under the impression, and probably not without reason, that the officials of the English embassy in Paris were rather inclined to thwart than to assist his efforts. But if such a feeling prevailed it was perhaps less a dislike of the proposed arrangement between England and France than an objection to the informal and irregular way of

  bringing it about. Diplomacy has always been mechanical and conventional in its working, and the English diplomatic service has even among diplomatic services been conspicuous for its worship of routine. There were many difficulties in the way on both sides. The French people were, for the most part, opposed to the principles of free trade. The French manufacturing bodies were almost all against it. Some of the most influential politicians of the country were

  uncompromising opponents of free trade. Monsieur Thiers, for example, was an almost impassioned protectionist. It may be admitted at once that if the emperor of the French had had to submit the provisions of his treaty to the vote of an independent legislative assembly he could not have secured its adoption. He had, in fact, to enter into the engagement by virtue of his imperial will and power. On the other hand, a strong objection was felt in this country just then

  to any friendly negotiation or arrangement whatever with the emperor. His schemes in Savoy and Nice had created so much dislike and distrust of him that many people felt as if war between the two states were more likely to come than any sincere and friendly understanding on any subject. As soon as it became known that the treaty was in course of negotiation, a storm of indignation broke out in this country. Most of the newspapers denounced the treaty as a mean arrangement with a

  man whose policy was only perfidious and whose vows were as little to be trusted as dicers oaths. Not only the conservative party condemned and denounced the proposed agreement, but a large proportion of the liberals were bitter against it. Some critics declared that Mr. Cobden had simply been taken in, that the French emperor had bubbled him. Others accused Mr. Cobden of having entered into a conspiracy with the emperor to enable Louis Napoleon to jockey his own subjects,

  such was the phrase adopted by one influential member of parliament, the late Mr. Horseman, then a speaker with a certain gift of rattling metallic declamation. Others again declared that the compromise effected by the treaty was in itself a breach of the principle of free trade. It was observable that this argument usually came from lately converted or still unconverted protectionists, just as the argument founded on the arbitrariness of the imperial action

  was most strenuously enforced by those who at home were least inclined to encourage the principle of government by the people. Thus Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and even Mr. Gladstone found themselves in the odd position of having to repel the charge of renouncing free trade and rejecting the principles of representative government. It is hardly necessary to defend the course taken by Mr. Cobden in accepting a compromise where he could not possibly obtain

  an absolutely free interchange of commodities. The most devoted champion of the freedom of religious worship is not to be blamed if he enters into an agreement with some foreign government to obtain for its non-conforming subjects a qualified degree of religious liberty. An opponent of capital punishment would not be held to have surrendered his principle because he endeavored to reduce the number of capital sentences where he saw no hope

  of the immediate abolition of the death penalty. Nor do we see that there was anything inconsistent in Mr. Cobden's entering into an agreement with the emperor of the French, even though that agreement was to be carried out in France by an arbitrary exercise of imperial will, such as would have been intolerable and impossible in England. To lay down a principle of this kind would be only to say that no statesman shall conclude an arrangement of any sort with the

  rulers of a state not so liberal as his own in its system of government. Of course no one ever thinks of arguing for such a principle in the regular diplomatic negotiations between states. Those who found fault with Mr. Cobden because he was willing to assent to an arrangement which the emperor Napoleon imposed upon his subjects must have known that our official statesmen were every day entering into engagements with one or the other European sovereign

  which were to be carried out by that sovereign on the same arbitrary principle. There was in fact no soundness or sincerity in such objections to Mr. Cobden's work. Some men opposed it because they were protectionists, pure and simple. Some opposed it because they detested the emperor Napoleon. The ground of objection with not a few was their dislike of Mr. Cobden and the Manchester school. The hostility of some came from their repugnance

  to seeing anything done out of the regular and conventional way. All these objections coalesced against the treaty and the chancellor of the exchequer's budget but the eloquence of Mr. Gladstone and the strength of the government prevailed against them all. End of section 23.

• 24 - Ch. 41: The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 24 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami, Chapter 41, The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Part 2. The effect of the treaty, so far as France was concerned, was an engagement virtually to remove all prohibitory duties on all the staples of British manufacture,

  and to reduce the duties on English coal and coke, bar and pig iron, tools, machinery, yarns, flax and hemp. England, for her part, proposed to sweep away all duties on manufactured goods and to reduce greatly the duties on foreign wines. In one sense, of course, England gave more than she got. But that one sense is only the protectionist sense, more properly, nonsense.

  England could not, with any due regard for the real meaning of words, be said to have given up anything when she enabled her people to buy light and excellent French wines at a cheap price. She could not be said to have sacrificed anything when she secured for her consumers the opportunity of buying French-manufactured articles at a natural price. The whole principle of free trade stamps as ridiculous the theory

  that because our neighbor foolishly cuts himself off from the easy purchase of the articles we have to sell, it is our business to cut ourselves off from the easy purchase of the articles he has to sell and we wish to buy. We gave France much more reduction of duty than we got, but the reduction was in every instance a direct benefit to our consumers. The introduction of light wines, for example, made after a while a very remarkable

  and on the whole a very beneficial change in the habits of our people. The heavier and more fiery drinks became almost disused by large classes of the population. The light wines of Bordeaux began to be familiar to almost every table. The portentous branded ports which carried gout in their very breath were gradually banished. Some of the debates, however, on this particular part of the budget recalled to memory the days

  of Colonel Sibthorpe and his dread of the importation of foreign ways among our countrymen. Many prophetic voices declared in the House of Commons that with the greater use of French wines would come the rapid adoption of what were called French morals. That the maids and matrons of England would be led by the treaty to the drinking of claret and from the drinking of claret to the ways of the French novelist's odious heroine Madame Bovary.

  Appalling pictures were drawn of the orgies to go on in the shops of confectioners and pastry cooks who had a license to sell the light wines. The virtue of English women, it was insisted, would never be able to stand this new and terrible mechanism of destruction. She who was far above the temptations of the public house would be drawn easily into the more genteel allurements of the wine-selling confectioner's shop and in every such shop

  would be the depraved conventional foreigner, the wretch with a mustache and without morals, lying in wait to accomplish at last his long-boasted conquests of the blonde Mrs. of England. One impassioned speaker glowing into a genuine prophetic fury as he spoke, warned his hearers of the near approach of a time when a man suddenly entering one of the accursed confectioners' shops in quest of the missing female members of his family would find his wife

  lying drunk in one room and his daughter disgraced in another. In spite of all this, however, Mr. Gladstone succeeded in carrying this part of his budget. He carried, too, as far as the House of Commons was concerned, his important measure for the abolition of the duty on paper. The duty on paper was the last remnant of the ancient system of finance which pressed severely on journalism. The stamp duty was originally imposed with the object

  of checking the growth of seditious newspapers. It was reduced, increased, reduced again, and increased again until in the early part of the century it stood at four pence on each copy of a newspaper issued. In 1836 it was brought down to the penny, represented by the red stamp on every paper which most of us can still remember. There was besides this a considerable duty, six pence or some such sum, on every advertisement in a newspaper. Finally,

  there was the heavy duty on the paper material itself. A journal, therefore, could not come into existence until it had made provision for all these factitious and unnecessary expenses. The consequence was that a newspaper was a costly thing. Its possession was the luxury of the rich. Those who could afford less had to be content with an occasional read of a paper. It was common for a number of persons to club together and take in a paper which they read by

  turns, the general understanding being that he whose turn came last remained in possession of the journal. It was considered the fair compensation for his late reception of the news that he should come into the full proprietorship of the precious newspaper. The price of a daily paper then was uniformly six pence and no six penny paper contained anything like the news or went to a tenth of the daily expense which is supplied in the one case and undertaken in the other by the

  penny papers of our day. Gradually, the burdens on journalism and on the reading public were reduced. The advertisement duty was abolished. In 1855, the stamp duty was abolished. That is to say, the stamp was either removed altogether or was allowed to stand as postage. On the strength of this reform, many new and cheap journals were started. Two of them in London, the Daily Telegraph and the Morning Star, acquired influence and reputation.

  But the effect of the duty on the paper material still told heavily against cheap journalism. It became painfully evident that a newspaper could not be sold profitably for a penny while that duty remained and therefore a powerful agitation was set on foot for its removal. The agitation was carried on not on behalf of the interests of newspaper speculation but on behalf of the reading public and of the education of the people. It is not necessary now to enter upon any

  argument to show that the publication of such a paper as the Daily News or the Daily Telegraph must be a matter of immense importance in popular education. But at that time, there were still men who argued that newspaper literature could only be kept up to a proper level of instruction and decorum by being made factitiously costly. It was the creed of many that cheap newspapers meant the establishment of a daily propaganda of socialism, communism, red republicanism, blasphemy,

  bad spelling, and general immorality. Mr. Gladstone undertook the congenial task of abolishing the duty on paper. He was met with strong opposition from both sides of the house. The paper manufacturers made it at once a question of protection to their own trade. They dreaded the competition of all manner of adventurous rivals under a free system. Many of the paper manufacturers had been staunch free traders when it was a case of free trade to

  be applied to the manufacturers of other people, but they cried out against having the ingredients of the unwelcome chalice commended to their own lips. Vested interests in the newspaper business itself also opposed Mr. Gladstone. The high-priced and well-established journals did not by any means relish the idea of cheap and unfettered competition. They therefore preached without reserve the doctrine that in journalism cheap meant nasty and that the only way to keep the

  English press pure and wholesome was to continue the monopoly to their own publications. The House of Commons is a good deal governed directly and indirectly by interests. It is influenced by them directly as when the railway interest, the mining interest, the brewing interest or the landed interest boldly stands up through its acknowledged representatives in parliament to fight for its own hand. It is also much influenced indirectly.

  Every powerful interest in the House can contrive to enlist the sympathies and get the support of men who have no direct concern one way or another in some proposed measure, who know nothing about it, and do not want to be troubled with any knowledge, and who are therefore easily led to see that the side on which some of their friends are arrayed must be the right side. There was a good deal of rallying up of such men to sustain the cause of

  the paper making and journal selling monopoly. The result was that although Mr. Gladstone carried his resolutions for the abolition of the excise on paper, he only carried them by dwindling majorities. The second reading was carried by a majority of 53, the third by a majority of only nine. The effect of this was to encourage some members of the House of Lords to attempt the task of getting rid of Mr. Gladstone's proposed reform altogether. An amendment to reject the resolutions

  repealing the tax was proposed by Lord Montigal and received the support of Lord Darby and of Lord Lindhurst. Lord Lindhurst was then just entering on his 89th year. His growing infirmities made it necessary that a temporary railing should be constructed in front of his seat in order that he might lean on it and be supported. But although his physical strength thus needed support, his speech gave no evidence of failing intellect. Even his voice could hardly be said

  to have lost any of its clear, light, musical strength. He entered into a long and a very telling argument to show that although the peers had abandoned their claim to alter a money bill, they had still a right to refuse their assent to a repeal of taxation and that in this particular instance they were justified in doing so. There was not much perhaps in this latter part of the argument. Lord Lindhurst fell back on some of his familiar alarms about the condition of Europe

  and the possible schemes of Louis Napoleon and out of these he extracted reasons for contending that we ought to maintain unimpaired the revenue of the country to be ready to meet emergencies and encounter unexpected liabilities. In an ordinary time, not much attention would be paid to criticism of this kind. It would be regarded as the duty of the finance minister, the government, and the House of Commons to see that the wants of the coming year were properly provided for in taxation,

  and when the government and the House of Commons had once decided that a certain amount was sufficient, the House of Lords would hardly think that on it lay any responsibility for a formal revision of the ministerial scheme. Some peer would in all probability make some such observations as those of Lord Lindhurst, but they would be accepted as mere passing criticisms of the ministerial scheme and it would not occur to anyone to think of taking a division on the

  suggested amendment. In this instance, the House of Lords was undoubtedly influenced by a dislike for the proposed measure of reduction, for the manner in which it had been introduced, for its ministerial author, or at least for his general policy, and for some of the measures by which it had been accompanied. It is not unlikely, for example, that Lord Lindhurst himself felt something like resentment for the policy which answered all his eloquent warnings about the

  schemes of the Emperor Napoleon by producing a treaty of commerce with the supposed invader of England. The repeal of the paper duty was known also to have the warm advocacy of Mr. Bright, and it was advocated by the Morning Star, a journal greatly influenced by Mr. Bright's opinions and in which popular rumor said, very untruly, that Mr. Bright was a writer of frequent leading articles. Thus the repeal of the paper duty got to seem in the eyes of many peers

  a proposal connected somehow with the spread of democracy, the support of the Manchester School, and the designs of Napoleon III. The question which the House of Lords had to face was somewhat serious. The Commons had repealed a tax. Was it constitutionally in the power of the House of Lords to reimpose it? Was not this, it was asked, simply to assert for the House of Lords a taxing power equal to that of the Commons? Was it not to reduce to nothing the principle that taxation

  and representation go together? Suppose instead of reenacting the paper duty, the House of Lords had thought fit to introduce into the new budget a new and different tax. What was there to hinder them on their own principle from doing so? On the other hand, those who took Lord Lindhurst's view of the question insisted that when the budget scheme was laid before them for their approval the House of Lords had as good a right constitutionally to reject as to accept any part of it

  and that to strike out a clause in a budget was quite a different thing from taking the initiative in the imposition of taxation. It was contended that the House of Lords had not only a constitutional right to act as they were invited to do in the case of the paper duty, but that as a matter of fact they had often done so and that the country had never challenged their authority. The Conservative Party in the House of Lords can always carry any division and in this instance

  it was well known that they could marshal a strong majority against Mr. Gladstone's proposed remission of taxation, but it was commonly expected that they would on this occasion, as they had done on many others, abstain from using their overpowering numerical strength, that prudent councils would prevail in the end, and that the amendment would not be pressed to a division. The hope however was deceived. The House of Lords was in an unusually aggressive mood.

  The majority were resolved to show that they could do something. Mr. Disraeli in one of his novels had irreverently said of the Lords that when the peers accomplish a division they cackle as if they had laid an egg. On this occasion they were determined to have a division. The majority against the government was overwhelming. For the second reading of the paper duty bill 90 peers voted and there were 14 proxies in all 104. For Lord Montagle's amendment there were 161 votes of peers

  actually present and 32 proxies or 193 in all. The majority against the government was therefore 89 and the repeal of the excise duty on paper was done with for that session. The peers went home cackling. Not a few of them however a little endowed as to the wisdom of the course they had pursued, a little afraid to think on what they had done. The House of Lords had not taken any very active step in politics for some time and many of them were uncertain as to the

  manner in which the country would regard their unwanted exertion of authority. End of section 24. you

• 25 - Ch. 41: The French Treaty and the Paper Duties, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER 41. THE FRENCH TREATY AND THE PAPER DUTIES, PART 3. The country took it rather coolly on the whole. Lord Palmerston promptly came forward and moved in the House of Commons for a committee to ascertain and report on the practice of each house with regard to the several descriptions of bills imposing or repealing taxes. By thus interposing at once, he hoped to take the wind out of the sails of a popular agitation

  which he disliked and would gladly have avoided. The committee took two months to consider their report. They found by a majority of fourteen a series of resolutions to the effect that the privilege of the House of Commons did not extend so far as to make it actually unconstitutional for the Lords to reject a bill for the repeal of a tax. Mr. Walpole was the chairman of the committee, and he drew up the report, which cited a considerable number of

  precedents in support of the view adopted by the majority. Mr. Bright, who was a member of the committee, did not assent to this principle. He prepared a draft report of his own in which he contended for the very reasonable view that if the Lords might prolong or re-impose a tax by refusing their assent to its repeal, when that repeal had been voted by the House of Commons, the House of Commons could not have absolute control over the taxation of the country.

  It seems clear that whatever may have been the technical right of the Lords, or however precedent may have occasionally appeared to justify the course which they took, Mr. Bright was warranted in asserting that the Constitution never gave the House of Lords any power of re-imposing a tax which the Commons had repealed. The truth is that if the majority of the House of Commons in favor of the repeal of the paper duties had been anything considerable, the House of Lords would never

  have ventured to interfere. There was an impression among many peers that the remission was not much liked even by the majority of those who voted for it. Gladstone has done it all, was the Commons saying, and it was insisted that Gladstone had done it only to satisfy Mr. Bright and the Manchester Radicals. Not a few of the peers felt convinced that the majority of the House of Commons would secretly bless them for their intervention. Lord Palmerston followed up the report of the committee

  by proposing a series of resolutions which he probably considered equal to the occasion. The object of the resolutions was to reaffirm the position of the claims of the House of Commons in regard to questions of taxation. That, at least, was the ostensible object. The real object was to do something which should leave a way of retreat open to the Lords in another session and at the same time make those who clamored against their intervention believe

  that the Ministry was not indifferent to the rights of the Representative Chamber. The first resolution affirmed that the right of granting aids and supplies to the Crown is in the Commons alone, as an essential part of their constitution, and the limitation of all such grants as to the matter, manner, measure and time is only in them. The second resolution declared that although the Lords had rejected bills relating to taxation by negativing the whole,

  yet the exercise of such a power had not been frequent and was justly regarded by the House of Commons with peculiar jealousy as affecting the right of the Commons to grant the supplies. The third resolution merely laid it down that, to guard for the future against an undue exercise of that power by the Lords and to secure to the Commons their rightful control over taxation and supply, the House affirmed its right to impose and remit taxes and to frame bills of supply.

  Such resolutions were not likely to satisfy the more impatient among the Liberals. An appeal was made to the people generally to thunder a national protest against the House of Lords. But the country did not, it must be owned, respond very tumultuously to the invitation. Great public meetings were held in London and the large towns of the North, and much anger was expressed at the conduct of the Lords. The Morning Star newspaper led the

  agitation. It had recourse to the ingenious device of announcing every day in large letters and in a conspicuous part of its columns that the House of Lords had that day imposed so many thousand pounds of taxation on the English people contrary to the fundamental principles of the Constitution. It divided the whole amount of the reimposed duty by the number of days in the year and thus arrived at the exact sum which it declared to have been each day

  unconstitutionally imposed on the country. This device was copied by the promoters of public meetings and Monsieur Taine, the French author then in this country, was amused to see placards borne about in the streets with this portentous announcement. Mr. Bright threw his eloquence and his influence into the agitation and Mr. Gladstone expressed himself strongly in favor of its object. Yet the country did not become greatly excited over the controversy. It did not even enter

  warmly into the question as to the necessity of abolishing the House of Lords. One indignant writer insisted that if the Lords did not give way, the English people would turn them out of Westminster Palace and strew the Thames with the wrecks of their painted chamber. Language such as this sounded oddly out of tune with the temper of the time. The general conviction of the country was undoubtedly that the Lords were in the wrong, that whatever their technical right, if they had

  any, they had made a mistake, and that it would certainly be necessary to check them if they attempted to repeat it. But the feeling also was that there was not the slightest chance of such a mistake being repeated. The mere fact that so much stir had been made about it was enough to secure the country against any chance of its passing into a precedent. In truth, the country could not be induced to feel any fear of persistent unconstitutional action on the part of the House of

  Lords. That House is known by everyone to hold most of its technical rights on condition of its rarely exercising them. When once its action in any particular case has been seriously called into question, it may be taken for granted that that action will not be repeated. Its principal function in the state now is to interpose at some moment of emergency and give the House of Commons time to think over some action which seems inconsiderate. This is a very important and maybe a very useful

  office. At first sight, it may appear a little paradoxical to compare the functions of the English House of Lords in any way with those of the Chief Magistrate of the United States. And yet, the delaying power which the President possesses is almost exactly the same as that which our usages even more than our Constitution have put at the discretion of the House of Lords. The President can veto a bill in the first instance, but the Legislature can afterwards,

  if they will, pass the measure in spite of him by a certain majority. Practically this means that the President can say no to the Legislature. I think this measure has not been very carefully considered. I send it back and invite you to think the matter over again. If, when you have done so, you still desire to pass the measure, I can make no further objection. This is all that the House of Lords can now do, and only in exceptional cases will the

  peers venture to do so much. Most people knew in 1860 that the interposition of the House of Lords only meant the delay of a session, and knew too that the controversy which had been raised upon the subject, such as it was, would be quite enough to keep the peers from carrying the thing too far. A course of action which Mr. Gladston denounced as a gigantic innovation, which Lord Palmerston could not approve, which the Liberal Party generally condemned, and which the House of

  Commons made the occasion of a significant warning resolution, was not in the least likely to be converted by repetition into an established principle and precedent. This was the reason why the country took the whole matter with comparative indifference. It was not in the least influenced by the servile arguments with which conservatives and a few feeble liberals employed to make out a constitutional case for the House of Lords. One orator, Mr. Houseman,

  carried his objection to democracy so far as to undertake an elaborate argument to prove that the House of Lords had a taxing power coordinate with that of the House of Commons. It may be imagined to what a depth party feeling had brought some men down when it is stated that this nonsense was applauded by the conservatives in the House of Commons. Luckily for the privileges of the House of Lords, no serious attention was paid to Mr.

  Horseman's argument. If that indiscreet champion of the authority of the Lords could have made out his case, if he could have shown that the peers really had a taxing power coordinate with that of the Commons, there would have been nothing for it but to make new arrangements and withdraw from the hereditary assembly so inappropriate a privilege. For it may be surely taken for granted that the people of this country would never endure the idea of being taxed by a legislative body

  over whose members they had no manner of control. The whole controversy has little political importance now. Perhaps it is most interesting for the evidence it gave that Mr. Gladstone was every day drifting more and more away from the opinions not merely of his old conservative associates but even of his later Whig colleagues. The position which he took up in this dispute was entirely different from that of Lord Palmerston. He condemned without reserve or mitigation the

  conduct of the Lords and he condemned it on the very grounds which made his words most welcome to the Radicals. He did not indeed give his support to the course of extreme self-assertion which some Radical members recommended to the House of Commons, but he made it clear that he only disclaimed such measures because he felt convinced that the House of Lords would soon come to its senses again and would refrain from similar acts of unconstitutional interference

  in the future. The first decided adhesion of Mr. Gladstone to the doctrines of the more advanced liberals is generally regarded as having taken place at a somewhat later period and in relation to a different question. It would seem, however, that the first decisive intimation of the course Mr. Gladstone was thenceforth to tread was his declaration that the constitutional privileges of the representative assembly would not be safe in the hands of the conservative opposition.

  Mr. Gladstone was distinctly regarded during that debate as the advocate of a policy far more energetic than any professed by Lord Palmerston. The promoters of the meetings which had been held to protest against the interference of the Lords found full warrant for the course they had taken in Mr. Gladstone's stern protest against the gigantic innovation. Lord Palmerston, on the other hand, certainly suffered some damage in the eyes of the extreme

  liberals. It became more clear than ever to them that he had no sympathy with any radical movement here at home. However, he might sympathize with every radical movement on the continent. Still, Lord Palmerston's resolutions contained in them quite enough to prove to the Lords that they had gone a little too far and that they must not attempt anything of the kind again. A story used to be told of Lord Palmerston at that time which would not have been out of character if it had

  been true. Someone, it was said, pressed him to say what he intended to do about the Lords and the reimposition of the paper duties. I mean to tell them, was the alleged reply of Lord Palmerston, that it was a very good joke for once, but they must not give it to us again. This was really the effect of Palmerston's resolutions. All very well for once, but don't try it again. The Lords took the hint. They did not try it again. Even in that year, 1860,

  Mr. Gladston was able to carry his resolution while removing, in accordance with the provisions of the French Treaty, so much of the customs duty on imported paper as exceeded the excise duty on paper made here at home. Meanwhile, the government has sustained a severe humiliation in another way. They had had to abandon their reform bill. The bill was a moderate and simple scheme of reform. It proposed to lower the county franchise to 10 pounds and that of the boroughs to 6 pounds

  and to make a considerable redistribution of seats. 25 boroughs returning two members each were to return but one for the future and the representation of several large counties and divisions of counties was to be strengthened. Kensington and Chelsea were to form a borough with two members. Birkenhead, Stallybridge and Burnley were to have one member each. Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham were each to have an additional member. The University of London was

  to have a member. It was also proposed that where there were three members to a constituency, the third should represent the minority, an end to be accomplished by the simple process of allowing each elector to vote for only two of the three. The bill was brought in on March 1st. The second reading was moved on March 19th. Mr. Disraeli condemned the measure then, although he did not propose to offer any opposition to it at that stage.

  He made a long and labored speech in which he talked of the bill as a measure of a medieval character without the inspiration of the feudal system or the genius of the Middle Ages. No one knew exactly what this meant but it was loudly applauded by Mr. Disraeli's followers and was thought rather fine by some of those who sat on the ministerial side. Mr. Disraeli also condemned it for being too homogeneous in its character

  by which he was understood to mean that he considered there was too great a monotony or uniformity in the suffrage it proposed to introduce. Long nights of debate more or less languid followed. Mr. Disraeli with his usual sagacity was merely waiting to see how things would go before he committed himself or his party to any decided opposition. He began very soon to see that there was no occasion for him to take any great trouble in the matter. He and his friends

  had little more to do than look on and smile complacently while the chances of the bill were being hopelessly undermined by some of the followers of the government. The milder Whigs hated the scheme rather more than the Tories did. It was Lord John Russell's scheme. Russell was faithful to the cause of reform and he was backed up by the support of Cobden, Bright and the Manchester and Radical Party in general but the bill found little favor in the cabinet itself.

  It was accepted principally as a means of soothing the Radicals and appeasing Lord John Russell. Lord Palmerston was well known to be personally indifferent to its fate. There was good reason to believe that if left to himself he would never have introduced such a measure or any measure having the same object. Lord Palmerston was not so foreseeing as Mr. Disraeli. The leader of the opposition knew well enough even then that a reform bill of some kind would have to be brought

  in before long. There's not the least reason to suppose that he ever for a moment fell into Lord Palmerston's mistake and fancied that the opinions of the clubs, of the respectable Whigs and of the metropolitan shopkeepers represented the opinions of the English people. Mr. Disraeli probably foresaw even then that it might be convenient to his own party one day to seek for the credit of carrying a radical reform bill. He therefore took care not to express any disapproval of the

  principles of reform in the debates that took place on the second reading of Lord John Russell's bill. His manner was that of one who looks on scornfully at a bungling attempt to do some piece of work which he could do much better if he had a chance of making the attempt. Call that a reform bill, he seemed to say, that piece of homogeneousness and medievalism which has neither the genius of feudalism nor the spirit of the Middle Ages.

  Only give me a chance someday of trying my hand again and then you shall see the genius of the Middle Ages and the later ages and feudalism and all the rest of it combined to perfection. Meanwhile the bill was drifting and floundering onto destruction. If Lord Palmerston had spoken one determined word in its favor it could have been easily carried. The conservatives would not have taken on themselves the responsibility of a prolonged resistance. Those of the liberals

  who secretly detested the measure would not have had the courage to stand up against Lord Palmerston. Their real objection to the proposed reform was that it would have put them to the trouble of a new election and that they did not like the extreme radicals and the Manchester school. But they would have swallowed their objections if they had supposed that Lord Palmerston was determined to pass the bill. Very soon they came to understand or at least to believe

  that Lord Palmerston would be rather pleased than otherwise to see the measure brought into contempt. Lord Palmerston took practically no part in the debates. He did actually make a speech at a late period but as Mr Disraeli said with admirable effect it was a speech not so much in support of as about the reform bill. Sir George Lewis argued for the bill so coldly and sadly that Sir E. B. Lytton brought down the laughter and cheers of both sides of the house when he

  described Lewis as having come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The measure was already doomed. It was virtually dead and buried. Notice was given of amendment after amendment chiefly or altogether by professing liberals. The practice of obstructing the progress of the bill by incessant speech making was introduced and made to work with ominous effect. Some of the more boisterous of the Tories began to treat the whole thing as a good piece of fun. Once an attempt was made to get the

  House counted out during the progress of the debate. It would be a capital means of reducing the whole discussion to an absurdity some members thought if the House could actually be counted out during a debate on the reform bill. A bill to remold the whole political constitution of the country and the House of Commons not caring enough about the subject to contribute 40 listeners or even 40 patient watchers within the precincts of Westminster Palace. When the attempt to count did

  not succeed in the ordinary way it occurred to the genius of some of the conservatives that the object might be accomplished by a little gentle and not unacceptable violence. A number of stout squires therefore got round the door in the lobby and endeavored by sheer physical obstruction to prevent zealous members from re-entering the House. It will be easily understood what the temper of the majority was when horse play of this kind could even be attempted.

  At length it was evident that the bill could not pass that the talk which was in preparation must smother it. The moment the bill got into committee there would be amendments on every line of it and every member could speak as often as he pleased. The session was passing the financial measures could not be postponed or put aside. The opponents of the reform bill open and secret had the government at their mercy. On Monday June 11th Lord John Russell announced that the

  government had made up their minds to withdraw the bill. There was no alternative. Lord Palmerston had rendered to the bill exactly that sort of service which Kemble rendered to the play of Vortigern and Rowena. Kemble laid a peculiar emphasis on the words and when this solemn mockery is o'er and glanced at the pit in such a manner as to express only too clearly the contempt he had for the part which he was coerced to play and the pit turned the piece into ridicule and

  would have no more of it. If Kemble had approved of the play they might have put up with it for his sake but when he gave them leave they simply made sport of it. Lord Palmerston conveyed to his pit his private idea on the subject of the reform bill which he had officially to recommend and the pit took the hint and there was an end of the bill. Lord Palmerston became more unpopular than ever with the advanced liberals. He had yielded so far to public alarm as to propose a vote of two

  millions the first installment of a sum of nine millions to be laid out in fortifying our coast against the emperor of the French. He was accused of gross inconsistency. The statesman who went out of his way to give premature recognition to Louis Napoleon after the coup d'etat, the statesman of the conspiracy bill, was now clamoring for the means to resist a treacherous invasion from his favorite ally. Yet Lord Palmerston was not inconsistent. He had now brought himself

  seriously to believe that Louis Napoleon meditated evil to England and with Palmerston, right or wrong, England was the one supreme consideration. To us it seems to have been wrong when he patronized Louis Napoleon and wrong when he wasted money in measures of superfluous protection against Louis Napoleon but we do not think the latter Palmerston was inconsistent with the former. Henceforward it was understood that Lord Palmerston would have no more of reform.

  This was accepted as a political condition by most of Lord Palmerston's colleagues. Even Lord John Russell accepted the condition and bowed to his leader's determination as George the Third's ministers came to bend to his scruples with regard to Catholic emancipation. There was to be no reform bill while Lord Palmerston lived. End of section 25.

• 26 - Ch. 42: Troubles in the East, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 26 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 42. Troubles in the East, Part 1. The Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament on January 24, 1860, mentioned, among other things, the renewal of disturbances in China. The English and

  French plenipotentiaries, it stated, had proceeded to the mouth of the Pei Hou River in order to repair to Peking and exchange in that city the ratifications of the Treaty of Tianjin. They found their further progress opposed, and a conflict took place between the Chinese forts at the mouth of the river and the naval force by which the plenipotentiaries were escorted. The allied forces were compelled to retire, and the royal speech mentioned that an expedition

  had been dispatched to obtain redress. The Treaty of Tianjin was that which, as was told in a former chapter, had been arranged by Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. The treaty contained a clause providing for the exchange of the ratifications at Peking within a year from the date of the signature, which took place in June, 1858. Lord Elgin returned to England, and his brother, Mr. Frederick Bruce, was appointed in March,

  1859, envoy, extraordinary, and minister plenipotentiary to China. Mr. Bruce was directed to proceed by way of the Pei Hou to Tianjin and thence to Peking to exchange the ratifications of the treaty. In the instructions furnished to him, Lord Malmesbury, who was then foreign secretary, earnestly pressed upon the envoy the necessity of insisting on having the ratifications exchanged at Peking. Lord Malmesbury pointed out that the

  Chinese authorities, having the strongest objection to the presence of an envoy in Peking, would probably try to interpose all manner of delays and difficulties, and impressed upon Mr. Bruce that he was not to be put off from going to the capital. Mr. Bruce was distinctly directed to go to the mouth of the Pei Hou with a sufficient naval force, and was told that unless some unforeseen circumstances should interpose

  to make another arrangement necessary, it would be desirable that he should go to Tianjin in a British man-of-war. Instructions were sent out from England at the same time to Admiral Hope, the naval commander-in-chief in China, to provide a sufficient force to accompany Mr. Bruce to the mouth of the Pei Hou. The Pei Hou River flows from the highlands on the west into the Gulf of Pechile at the northeast corner of the Chinese dominions. The capital of the empire is about 100

  miles inland from the mouth of the Pei Hou. It does not stand on the river, which flows past it at some distance westward, but it is connected with the river by means of a canal. The town of Tianjin stands on the Pei Hou near its junction with one of the many rivers that flow into it and about 40 miles from the mouth. The entrance to the Pei Hou was defended by the Taku forts. On June 20, 1859, Mr. Bruce and the French envoy reached the mouth of the Pei Hou with

  Admiral Hope's fleet, some 19 vessels in all, to escort them. Admiral Hope had sent a message two or three days before to Taku to announce that the English and French envoys were coming, and his boat had found the forts defended and the river staked by an armed crowd, who stated that they were militia men, and said that they had no instructions as regarded the passage of the envoys, but offered to send any message to Tianjin and to bring back any answer which the authorities

  there might think fit to send. Admiral Hope again sent to them and requested them to remove the obstructions in the river and clear a passage for the envoys. They did not appear to have actually refused the request, but they said that they had sent a messenger to Tianjin to announce the approach of the fleet. When, however, the envoys reached the mouth of the river, they found the defenses further increased. Some negotiations and communications took place, and a Chinese official

  from Tianjin came to Mr. Bruce and endeavored to obtain some delay or compromise. Mr. Bruce became convinced that the condition of things predicted by Lord Malmesbury was coming about, and that the Chinese authorities were only trying to defeat his purpose. He also imagined or discovered that there was a want of proper respect for an English envoy shown in the terms of the letter and the rank of the official by whom it was conveyed. After consultation with the French

  envoy, Mr. Bruce called on Admiral Hope to clear a passage for the vessels. On June 25th, the Admiral brought his gunboats close to the barriers and began to attempt their removal. The forts opened fire. The Chinese artillerymen showed unexpected skill and precision. Four of the gunboats were almost immediately disabled. All the attacking vessels got aground. Admiral Hope attempted to storm the forts. The attempt was a complete failure. About 1,000 Englishmen

  and 100 French went into action of whom nearly 450 were killed or wounded. Admiral Hope himself was wounded. So was the commander of the French vessel which had contributed a contingent to the storming party. An American naval captain rendered great service to the English and French in their distress. With magnanimous indiscretion, he disregarded the strict principles of international law, declared that blood was thicker than water, and that he could

  not look on and see Englishmen destroyed by Chinese without trying to lend them a helping hand. The attempt to force a passage of the river was given up and the mission to Peking was over for the present. It will be easily imagined that the news created a deep sensation in England. It soon became known that although the Chinese government did not exactly accept the responsibility of what had occurred on the Pei Hou, yet they bluntly and rudely refused to make any apology for the

  attack on our ships or to punish the officials who had ordered it. People in general made up their minds at once that the matter could not be allowed to rest there and that the mission to Peking must be enforced. At the same time, a strong feeling prevailed that the envoy, Mr. Bruce, had been imprudent and precipitated in his conduct. Lord Elgin had himself stated that we could have no right to navigate the Pei Hou until after the ratification of the treaty and however

  discourteous or even double-dealing the conduct of the Chinese authorities might have been. It was surely a questionable policy to insist on forcing our way to the capital by one particular route to which for any reason they objected. For this, however, it seems more just to blame Lord Momsbury than Mr. Bruce. Lord Momsbury had, of course, no idea of what was likely to happen, but his instructions to the English envoy read as if they were prepared with a view to that very contingency.

  Mr. Bruce might well have thought that they left him no alternative but to force his way. Before the whole question came to be discussed in Parliament, the conservatives had gone out and the liberals had come in. Lord Palmerston's government were only responsible in a technical sort of way for what had happened, and to do them justice, they only defended the proceeding in a very cold and perfunctory manner. But they could hardly condemn their predecessors whose action they had to

  continue and whose responsibilities they had to assume, and there did not seem much use in attacking the conduct of men who were out of office and were no longer amenable to parliamentary censure. On the other hand, it seems only fair to say that the outcry raised in England about the treacherous conduct of the Chinese at the mouth of the Pei Ho was unfounded and even absurd. The Chinese government showed itself as usual crafty, double-dealing, and childishly arrogant for a

  while that the Chinese at the Pei Ho could not be accused of perfidy. They had mounted the forts and barricaded the river openly and even ostentatiously. The English Admiral knew for days and days that the forts were armed and that the passage of the river was obstructed. A man who, when he sees you approaching his hall door, closes and bars it against you and holds a rifle pointed at your head while he parley's with you from an open window may be a very inhospitable and

  discourteous person, but if when you attempt to dash in his door he fires at you with his rifle, you can hardly call him treacherous or say that you had no expectation of what was going to happen. Some of the English officers who were actually engaged in the attempt of Admiral Hope frankly repudiated the idea of any treachery on the part of the Chinese or any surprise on their own side. They knew perfectly well, they said, that the forts were about to resist the attempt to force

  away for the envoys up the river. The English and French governments determined that the men who had made the Treaty of Tianjin, Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, should be sent back to insist on its reinforcement. Sir Hope Grant was appointed to the military command of our land forces and General Cousin de Montauban, afterwards Count Palacao, commanded the soldiers of France. We need not here enter into the military history of the expedition. The English and French made

  short work of the Chinese resistance. The Chinese, to do them justice, fought very bravely as indeed they seem to have done on all occasions when war was forced on them, but of course they had no chance whatever, against such forces as those commanded by the English and French generals. The Allies captured the Taku forts, occupied Tianjin and marched on Peking. The Chinese government endeavored to negotiate for peace and to interpose any manner of delay, diplomatic or

  otherwise, between the Allies and their progress to the capital. Lord Elgin consented at last to enter into negotiations at Tung Chau, a walled town 10 or 12 miles nearer than Peking. The Chinese commissioners were to meet the European plenipotentiaries at Tung Chau. Lord Elgin's secretaries, Mr. Park and Mr. Locke, accompanied by some English officers, by Mr. Bowlby, the correspondent of the Times, and by some members of the staff of Baron Gros, went to Tung Chau

  to make the necessary arrangements for an interview between the envoys and the Chinese commissioners. On their way back, they had to pass through the lines of a large Chinese force, which had occupied the ground marked out by the commissioners themselves for the use of the European Allies. Some quarrel took place between a French Commissariat officer and some Tartar soldiers, and a sort of general engagement was brought on. Mr. Parkes and Mr. Locke and several

  of their companions, French and English, were seized and dragged off to various prisons, despite the fact that they bore a flag of truce and were known to have come for the purpose of arranging a conference requested by the Chinese themselves with a view to peace. 26 British subjects and 12 subjects of France were thus carried off. Mr. Parkes and Mr. Locke were afterwards released after having been treated with much cruelty and indignity. Of the 26 British subjects thus

  seized, 13 died of the horrible ill-treatment they received. The 13 who were released all bore more or less evidence physically of the usage which had been inflicted on them. Lord Elgin refused to negotiate until the prisoners had been returned and the Allied armies were actually at one of the great gates of Peking and had their guns in position to blow the gate in when the Chinese acceded to their terms. The gate was surrendered, the Allies entered the city, and the English and

  French flags were hoisted side by side on the walls of Peking. It was only after entering the city that Lord Elgin learned of the murder of the captives. He then determined to inflict an exemplary and a signal punishment on the Chinese authorities. The Chinese summer palace, a building, or rather a park and collection of buildings of immense extent, had been plundered somewhat efficiently by the French on their march to Peking. The French commander-in-chief had become

  possessed of a magnificent diamond necklace, which according to popular rumor was afterwards an adornment of the festivities of the imperial Tuileries. Lord Elgin now determined that the palace should be burnt down as a means of impressing the mind of the Chinese authorities generally with some sense of the danger of treachery and foul play. What remains of the palace, such was Lord Elgin's stern notification, which appears to be the place at which several of the

  British captives were subjected to the grossest indignities, will be immediately leveled to the ground. This condition requires no assent on the part of His Highness, Prince Kung, the Chinese emperor's brother and plenipotentiary, because it will be at once carried into effect by the commander-in-chief. Two days were occupied in the destruction of the palace. It covered an area of many miles. The palace of Hadrian at Tivoli might have been hidden in one of its courts.

  Gardens, temples, small lodges, pagodas, groves, grottoes, lakes, bridges, terraces, artificial hills diversified the vast space. All the artistic treasures, all the curiosities archaeological and other that Chinese wealth and Chinese taste, such as it was, could bring together had been accumulated in this magnificent plaisance. The surrounding scenery was beautiful. The high mountains of Tartary ramparted one side of the enclosure. It certainly was,

  says a spectator, one of the most curious and also one of the most beautiful scenes I ever beheld. The buildings were set on fire. The whole place was given over to destruction. A monument was raised with an inscription in Chinese setting forth that such was the reward of perfidy and cruelty. Very different opinions were held in England as to the destruction of the imperial palace. To many it seemed an act of unintelligible and unpardonable vandalism.

  Assuredly the responsibility which Lord Elgin assumed was great. It was all the greater because the French plenipotentiary refused to share it. This was not, however, because the French envoy thought it an act of mere vandalism. The French, who had remorselessly looted the palace, who had mated a wreck before Lord Elgin converted its sight into a desert, could hardly have offered any becoming protest in the interests

  of art and of conciliation. The French plenipotentiary was merely of opinion that the destruction of the palace might interfere with the negotiations for peace, which he was naturally anxious to bring to a conclusion. Lord Elgin assumed a heavy responsibility in another way, inasmuch as he did not consider the capture of the Englishmen to have been a deliberate act of treachery on the part of the Chinese authorities. On the whole he wrote,

  I come to the conclusion that in the proceedings of the Chinese plenipotentiaries and commander-in-chief in this instance, there was that mixture of stupidity, want of straightforwardness, suspicion and bluster which characterizes so generally the conduct of affairs in this country. But I cannot believe that after the experience which Tsang Kow-lin-sin, the Chinese general-in-chief, had already had of our superiority in the field, either he or his civil colleagues could have

  intended to bring on a conflict in which, as the event has proved, he was sure to be worsted. Still Lord Elgin held that for the ill-treatment and murder of the men, who ought never to have been touched with unfriendly hand, the Chinese authorities must be held responsible, and that even war itself must become ten times more horrible if it were not one of its essential conditions that the messengers engaged in the preliminaries of peace are to be held sacred from

  harm. In this Lord Elgin was undoubtedly right. The only question was as to his justification in adopting what seemed to be so illogical and barbarous a mode of taking vengeance. Would any breach of faith committed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, when there was such a prince, have justified a foreign conqueror in destroying the Petey Palace? Would any act of treachery committed by a Spanish sovereign justify the destruction of the Alhambra? To such demands

  Lord Elgin would have answered that he had no other way of recording in memorable characters his condemnation of the cruelty perpetrated by the Chinese. He explained that if he did not demand the surrender of the actual perpetrators, it was because he knew full well that no difficulty would have been made about giving him a seeming satisfaction. The Chinese government would have handed over to him as many victims as he chose to ask for, or would have executed as many as he thought fit to

  suggest. They would have selected for vicarious punishment in all probability a crowd of mean and unfortunate wretches who had no more to do with the murders than Lord Elgin had himself, who perhaps had never heard that such murders were done, and who would possibly even go to their death without the slightest notion of the reason why they were chosen out for such a doom. That was the chief reason which determined Lord Elgin. We confess it seems to us to have some

  strength in it. Most of our actions in the war were unjustifiable. This was the one for which perhaps the best case could be made out by a moralist. It is somewhat singular that so many persons should have been roused to indignation by the destruction of a building who took with perfect composure the unjust invasion of a country. The allied powers now of course had it all their own way. A convention was made by which China agreed that representatives of England and

  France should reside, either permanently or occasionally in Peking, according as the English and French governments might decide, and that the port of Tianjin should be open to trade and to the residents of foreign subjects. China had to pay a war indemnity, and a large sum of money as compensation to the families of the murdered prisoners and to those who had suffered injuries, and to make an apology for the attack by the garrison of the Takhu forts. Thus England

  established her right to have an envoy in Peking whether the Chinese liked it or not. The practical result was not very great. Perhaps the most important gain to Europe was the knowledge that Peking was not by any means so large a city as we had all imagined it to be. British geographies have time out of mind taught British children that Peking was the largest city in the world. Now we learned that it was not nearly so large as several other cities, and that it was on the whole

  and that it was on the whole rather a crumbling and tumble down sort of place. There is some comfort in knowing that so much blood was not spilt wholly in vain. End of Section 26

• 27 - Ch. 42: Troubles in the East, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 27 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 42. Troubles in the East, Part 2. The same year, 1860, saw also the troubles in the mountain terraces of the Lebanon,

  which likewise led to the combined intervention of England and France. The disturbances arose out of the rivalries and quarrels between two sects, the Maronites, and those whom Mr. Browning's poem describes as the Druze nation warders on the Mount of the World's Secret since the birth of time. In the month of May, a Maronite monk was found murdered and suspicion fell upon the Druzes.

  Some Druzes were killed, apparently in retaliation. Then there was some killings on each side. On May 28, a general attack was made by the Druzes on the Maronite villages in the neighborhood of Beirut, and some of them were burnt down. A large town under Mount Hermon was attacked by the Druzes.

  The Turkish commander ordered the Maronites to lay down their arms and promised that he would protect them. They did give up their arms, and the Turkish officer had the weapons removed. Then he seems to have abandoned the Maronites to their enemies. The Druzes, animated by such a spirit as might have belonged to their worshiped chief and saint,

  Hakim, poured into the palace and massacred them all. The Turkish soldiers did not make any attempt to protect them, but even, it was stated, in some cases helped the Druzes in their work of butchery. In July, the fanatical spirit spread to Damascus. A mob of Turkish fanatics made a general attack upon the Christian quarter

  and burned the greater part of it down. The consulates of France, Russia, Austria, Holland, Belgium, and Greece were destroyed. Nearly 2,000 Christians were massacred in one day's work. Many of the respectable Muslim inhabitants of Damascus were most generous and brave in their attempts to save and shelter the unfortunate Christians, but the Turkish governor of Damascus,

  although he had a strong military force at his disposal, made no serious effort to interfere with the work of massacre, and as might be expected, his supine-ness was construed by the mob as an official approval of their doings, and they murdered with all the more vigor and zest. The famous Algerian chief, Abdelkader, was then living in Damascus, and he exerted himself nobly in the defense and protection of the Christians.

  France had treated him, when fallen, an a prisoner with something like generosity, and he well repaid in this season of horror to the Christians in Damascus any debt that he may have owed to a Christian people. The news of the massacres in the Lebanon naturally created a profound sensation in England. The cause of the disturbance was not very clearly understood in the first instance,

  and it was generally assumed that it was a mere quarrel of religion between Christians and Mohammedans. The Maronites, being Christians, a sect of Syrian Christians, united to Rome, although preserving their own primitive discipline, the Druzes were assumed to be Muslims. Mr. Urquhart gave an amusing and not altogether exaggerated description of the manner in which English public opinion is made up on Eastern questions. Conversing, he says,

  with a Druze of the Lebanon, long before this particular outbreak, he observed to the Druze, He observed to the Druze, Then the people in London begin to write, who dwell in rooms on the housetop. This, it is to be understood, is Mr. Urquhart's playful way of describing the authors of newspaper articles, whom in accordance with a tradition still prevailing when he was young, he assumes

  to be the occupants of Gerrits. They say these people are very ill off, we must protect them, or we must punish them, or we must convert them. Then they all cry out, we must put down the Turkish government. After this has been written and paid for it is printed, and after it is printed, it is sold. Then all the nation buys it, and after it has bought it, it reads it while it is eating its breakfast. Then each man goes out and meets his friends and talks it. This is the way the

  people of England occupy themselves about their affairs, and they call it by a name which being translated means universal guess. They smile then at each other and say, We are great men, we know all that is doing in the world, we govern the world, like unto us were none since Noah came out of the ark. Mr. Urquhart was a very clever, self-opinionated, and often curiously wrong-headed man. He had seen much of the East and had a knowledge of Eastern ways and

  Eastern history which few Englishmen could equal. But he was under the absolute dominion of a mania with regard to Russia which distorted all his faculties. Men who found that he could entertain as articles of faith some theories about English diplomacy and English statesmen which seemed almost too wild for the ordinary occupant of a madhouse might well begin to doubt whether all his knowledge of the East must necessarily help him to any better conclusions about Asia

  than he had formed about the political men and affairs of his own country. In the passage which has been quoted, he did, however, give a very fair exposition of the confusion of idea that prevailed in England about the disturbances in Syria. He was also able to make it quite clear that whatever the Druzes were, they were not Muslims. The nooks of the mountain, a well-informed writer says, are not more sequestered from the dwellings of man

  than the faith of the Druzes is segregated from that of Christian or Moslem. Mr. Urquhart ascribed the cause of the quarrels to the intervention of the European powers in 1840 and, of course, to the secret influence of Russia working through that intervention. It is probable that the intervention did help in one sense to lead to the dissensions. The great powers started in 1840 and in 1841 a variety of theories about the better government

  of the Lebanon, one of which was that it should have two governors, a Druze and a Maronite. This was found impracticable owing to the fact that in many parts of the Lebanon, the two sects were living in inextricable companionship. The bare idea, however, was probably effectual in starting a new sort of rivalry. The port did finally grant a certain amount of administrative autonomy to the Lebanon and, having granted this under pressure,

  it is not unlikely that they were anxious to reduce it to as little of practical value as possible. Probably the port was not unwilling to make use of any antipathy existing between Druzes and Maronites. The port was also under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the Maronites were planning an attack upon the Druzes with the object of shaking off the Turkish yoke. It may be that Constantinople was anxious to anticipate matters and to call in the fanaticism

  of the Druzes to rid them of the Maronites. Certainly the manner in which the Turkish officials at first seemed to connive at the massacres might have justified any such suspicion in the mind of Europe. England and France took strong and decisive steps. They resolved upon instant intervention to restore tranquility to the Lebanon. A convention was drawn up, to which all the great powers of Europe agreed and which Turkey had to accept.

  By the convention, England and France were entrusted with the duty of restoring order. France undertook to supply the troops required in the first instance. Further requirements were to be met as the intervening powers might think fit. The intervening powers pledged themselves reciprocally not to seek for any territorial advantage or exclusive influence. England sent out Lord Dufferin to act as her commissioner, and Lord Dufferin accomplished his task with

  as much spirit as judgment. The Turkish government, to do it justice, had at last shown great energy in punishing the authors and the abettors of the massacres. The sultan sent out Fuad Pasha, his minister for foreign affairs, to the Lebanon, and Fuad Pasha showed no mercy to the promoters of the disturbances or even to the highly placed official abettors of them. The governor of Damascus and the commander of the Turkish troops suffered death for their part in the transactions,

  and about 60 persons were publicly executed in the city, of whom the greater number belonged to the Turkish police force. Lord Dufferin described what he actually saw in such a manner as to prove that even alarmed rumor had hardly exaggerated the horrors of the time. Lord Dufferin tells that he came to Deir el-Kamar a few days after the massacre. Almost every house was burnt and the street crowded with dead bodies, some of them stripped and mutilated

  in every possible way. My road led through some of the streets. My horse could not even pass, for the bodies were literally piled up. Most of those I examined had many wounds, and in each case the right hand was either entirely or nearly cut off. The poor wretch in default of weapons having instinctively raised his arm to parry the blow aimed at him. I saw little children of not more than four years old stretched on the ground and old men with gray beards. The intervention was

  successful in restoring order and in providing for the permanent peace of Syria. It had one great recommendation. It was thorough. It was in that respect a model intervention. To intervene in the affairs of any foreign state is a task of great responsibility. The cases are few indeed in which it can be justified or even excused. But it has long been to all, seeming a principle of European statesmanship, that Turkey is a country in the government of which it is necessary for other

  powers to intervene from time to time. The whole of the policy of what is called the Eastern Question is based on the assumption that Turkey is to be upheld by external influence, and that being thus virtually protected she is liable also to be rebuked and kept in order. Now there may be some doubt as to the propriety of intervening at all in the affairs of Turkey, but there can be no doubt that when intervention does take place it should be prompt and it should be thorough. The independence

  of Turkey is at an end when a conference of foreign ministers sits round a table to direct what she is to do. It is then merely a question of convenience and expediency as to the extent to which intervention shall go. Nothing can be more illogical and more pernicious in its way than to say we shall intervene just far enough to take away from the Turkish government its domestic supremacy and its responsibility. But out of consideration for its feelings or its convenience

  we will not intervene far enough to make it certain that what we think necessary will be promptly and efficiently done. In the case of the Syrian disturbances the intervention was conducted on a practical principle. The great powers acting on the assumption which alone could justify their interference that Turkey was not in a condition to restore order herself proceeded to do this for her in the most energetic and complete manner. The consent of Turkey was not considered necessary.

  The Sultan was distinctly informed that the interference would take place whether he approved of it or not. When the intervention had succeeded in thoroughly restoring order the representatives of the great powers assembled in Constantinople unanimously agreed that a Christian governor of the Lebanon should be appointed in subordination to the Sultan and the Sultan had of course no choice but to agree to this proposition.

  The French troops evacuated Syria in June 1861 and thereby much relieved the minds of many Englishmen who had long forgotten all about the domestic affairs of the Lebanon in their alarm lest the French imperial troops having once set foot in Syria should not easily be induced to quit the country again. This was not merely a popular and ignorant alarm. On June 26th 1861 Lord Palmerston wrote to the British ambassador at Constantinople Sir Henry Bulwer. I am hardily

  glad we have got the French out of Syria and a hard job it was to do so. The arrangement made for the future government of the Lebanon will I dare say work sufficiently well to prevent the French from having any pretext for returning thither. In the same letter Lord Palmerston makes a characteristic allusion to the death of the Sultan of Turkey which had taken place the very day before. Abdulmejid was a good-hearted and weak-headed man who was running two horses to the goal of

  perdition his own life in that of his empire. Luckily for the empire his own life won the race. Then Palmerston adds, if the accounts we have heard of the new Sultan are true we may hope that he will restore Turkey to her proper position among the powers of Europe. A day or two after Lord Woodhouse on the part of the government expressed to the House of Lords a confident hope that a new era was about to dawn upon Turkey. Another new era. It would hardly be fitting to

  close the history of this stormy year without giving a few lines to record the peaceful end of a life which had through its earlier parts been one of sturt and strife. Quietly in his Kensington home passed away in the late autumn of this year Thomas Cochran the gallant Dundonald the hero of the Basque roads the volunteer who lent his genius and his courage to the cause of Brazil of Chile and of Greece a sort of Peterborough of the waves a Swiss of heaven.

  Lord Dundonald had been the victim of a cruel although not surely intentional injustice. He was accused as everyone knows of having had a share in the famous stock-jobbing frauds of 1814. He was tried found guilty sentenced to fine and imprisonment expelled from the House of Commons dismissed from the service which he had helped to make yet more illustrious than he found it and deprived of all his public honors. He lived to see his innocence believed in as well by his

  enemies as by his friends. William the fourth reinstated him in his naval rank and Queen Victoria had the congenial task of completing the restoration of his well-won honors. It was not however until many years after his death that the country fully acquitted itself of the mere money debt which it owed to Lord Dundonald and his family. Cochran was a radical in politics and for some years sat as a colleague of Sir Francis Burditt in the representation of Westminster.

  He carried on in the House of Commons many a bitter argument with Mr. John Wilson Crocker when the latter was secretary to the Admiralty. It cannot be doubted that Cochran's political views and his strenuous way of asserting them made him many enemies and that some men were glad of the opportunity for revenge which was given by the accusation got up against him. His was an impatient spirit little suited for the discipline of parliamentary life. His tongue was often bitter

  and he was too apt to assume that a political opponent must be a person unworthy of respect. Even in his own service he was impatient of rebuke. To those under his command he was always genial and brotherly but to those above him he was sometimes wanting in that patient submission which is an essential quality of those who would learn how to command with most success. Cochran's true place was on his quarterdeck. His opportunity came in the extreme moment of danger.

  Then his spirit asserted itself. His gift was that which wrenches success out of the very jaws of failure and he saw his way most clearly when most others began to despair. During part of his later life he had been occupying himself with some inventions of his own, some submarine methods for blowing up ships, some engines which were by their terrible destructiveness to abridge the struggles and agonies of war. At the time of the Crimean war he offered to the government to destroy

  Sebastopol in a few hours by some of his plans. The proposal was examined by a committee and was not accepted. It was his death on October 30th 1860 which recalled to the mind of the living generation the hero whose exploits had divided the admiration of their fathers with those of Nelson, of Collingwood and of Sidney Smith. A new style of naval warfare has come up since those days and perhaps Cochran may be regarded as the last of the old sea kings.

  End of section 27

• 28 - Ch. 43: The Civil War in America, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 28 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 43, The Civil War in America, Part 1. Civil war broke out in the United States. The long-threatened had come to pass.

  Abraham Lincoln's election as president, brought about by the party divisions of the Southerners among themselves, seemed to the South the beginning of a new order of things in which they and their theories of government would no longer predominate. They felt that the peculiar institution on which they believed their prosperity

  and their pride to depend was threatened with extinction, and they preferred secession to such a result. In truth, the two sets of institutions were incompatible. A system founded on slavery could not be worked much longer in combination with the political and social institutions of the Northern states.

  The struggle was one for life or death between slavery and the principles of modern society. When things had come to this pass, it is hardly worth stopping to consider what particular event it was which brought about the actual collision. If the election of Mr. Lincoln had not supplied the occasion,

  something else would have furnished it. Those who are acquainted with the history of the great emancipation struggle in America know very well that if the South had not seceded from the Union, some of the Northern states would sooner or later have done so. Every day in the Northern states saw an increase in the number of those

  who would rather have seceded than give further countenance to the system of slavery. It was a peculiarity of that system that it could not stand still. It could not rest content with tolerance and permission to hold what it already possessed. It must have new ground, new fields to occupy. It must get more or die.

  Most of the abolitionists would rather themselves secede than yield any more to slavery. We are chiefly concerned in this history with the American Civil War insofar as it affected England. It becomes part of our history by virtue of the Alabama Question and the Treaty of Washington. It is important to introduce a short narrative of the events which led to the long dispute

  between England and the United States, a dispute which brought us more than once to the very edge of war and which was only settled by the almost unparalleled concession of the Washington Treaty. The Southern states, led by South Carolina, seceded. Their delegates assembled at Montgomery and Alabama on February 4, 1861,

  to agree upon a constitution. A Southern confederation was formed with Mr. Jefferson Davis as its president. Mr. Davis announced the determination of the South to maintain its independence by the final obituary of the sword. If passion or lust of dominion should cloud the judgment or influence the ambition of the North.

  This announcement was made on February 18, 1861, and on March 4, following, the new president of the United States entered formally into office. Mr. Lincoln announced that he had no intention to interfere with the institution of slavery in any state where it existed. That the law gave him no power to do so, even if he had the inclination.

  But that on the other hand, no state could, upon its own mere motion, lawfully get out of the Union. That acts of violence against the authority of the United States must be regarded as insurrectionary or revolutionary. There was still an impression in this country and to some extent in America that an invitation was thus held out by Mr. Lincoln to the Southern states

  to enter into peaceful negotiations with a view to a dissolution of partnership. But if there was any such intention in the mind of Mr. Lincoln, or any possibility of carrying it into effect, all such contingencies were put out of the question by the impetuous action of South Carolina. This state had been the first to secede, and it was the first to commit an act of war.

  The traveler in South Carolina, as he stands on one of the keys of Charleston and looks toward the Atlantic, sees the skyline across the harbor broken by a heavy-looking solid square fort, which soon became famous in the war. This was Fort Sumter, a place built on an artificial island with walls some 60 feet high and 8 to 12 feet thick.

  It was in the occupation of the federal government, as of course were the defenses of all the harbors of the Union. It is perhaps not necessary to say that while each state made independently its local laws, the federal government and Congress had the charge of all business of national interests, customs duties, treaties, the Army and Navy, and the coast defenses.

  The federal government had therefore a garrison in Fort Sumter, and when there seemed a possibility of civil war, they were anxious to reinforce it. A vessel which they sent for the purpose was fired at from a great island in the harbor by the excited secessionists of South Carolina, and on April 12th, the Confederates, who had erected batteries on the mainland for the purpose,

  began to bombard the fort. The little garrison had no means of resistance, and after a harmless bombardment of two days it surrendered, and Fort Sumter was in the hands of the secessionists of South Carolina. The effect of this piece of news on the mind of the North

  has been well and tersely described by a writer of the time. It was as if while two persons were still engaged in a peaceful discussion as to some claim of right, one suddenly brought the debate to a close by giving the other a box on the ear. There was an end to all negotiation.

  Henceforward, only strokes could arbitrate. Four days after, President Lincoln called for 75,000 men to volunteer in reestablishing the federal authority over the rebel states. President Davis immediately announced his intention to issue letters of marque. President Lincoln declared the southern ports under blockade.

  On May 8th, Lord John Russell announced in the House of Commons that after consulting the law officers of the Crown, the government were of opinion that the Southern Confederacy must be recognized as a belligerent power. On May 13th, the Neutrality Proclamation was issued by the government,

  warning all subjects of Her Majesty from enlisting on land or sea in the service of the Federals or the Confederates, supplying munitions of war, equipping vessels for privateering purposes, engaging in transport service,

  or doing any other act calculated to afford assistance to either belligerent. This was, in fact, the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as a belligerent power, and this was the first act on the part of England which gave offense in the North.

  It was regarded there as an act of unseemly and even indecent haste, as evidence of an overstrained anxiety to assist and encourage the Southern rebels. This interpretation was to some extent borne out by the fact that the English government did not wait for the daily expected arrival of Mr. Adams, the new American minister,

  to hear what he might have to say before resolving on issuing the proclamation. Yet it is certain that the proclamation was made with no unfriendly motive. It was made at the instance of some of the most faithful friends the Northern cause had on this side of the Atlantic, conspicuous among whom in recommending it was Mr. W. E. Forster.

  If such a proclamation had not been issued, the English government could not have undertaken to recognize the blockade of the Southern ports. If there was no bellum going on, the commerce of the world could not be expected to recognize

  President Lincoln's blockade of Charleston and Savannah and New Orleans. International law on the subject is quite clear. A state cannot blockade its own ports. It can only blockade the ports of an enemy. It can indeed order a closure of its own ports.

  But a closure of the ports would not have been so effective for the purposes of the federal government as a blockade. It would have been a matter of municipal law only. An offender against the ordinance of closure could be only dealt with lawfully in American waters.

  An offender against the decree of blockade could be pursued into the open sea. In any case, Mr. Lincoln's government chose the blockade. They had previously announced that the crews of Confederate privateers would be treated as pirates.

  But their proclamation of the blockade compelled them to recede from that declaration. It was indeed a threat that modern humanity and the public feeling of the whole Northern states would never have allowed them to carry out,

  and which Mr. Lincoln himself, whose temper always leaned to mercy, would never have thought of putting into effect. The proclamation of a blockade compelled the federal government to treat privateers as belligerents. It could not but compel foreign states

  to admit the belligerent rights of the Southern Confederation. In England, the Friends of the North, or some of them at least, were anxious that the recognition should take place as quickly as possible in order that effect should be given to the president's proclamation. The English government had trouble enough afterwards

  to resist the importunity of those at home and abroad who thought they ought to break the blockade in the interests of European trade. They could have no excuse for recognizing it if they did not also recognize

  that there was a war going on which warranted it. Therefore, whether the recognition of the Southern Confederates as belligerents was wise or unwise, timely or premature, it was not done in any spirit of unfriendliness to the North, or at the spiriting of any Southern partisans.

  It was done at the urgency of Friends of the North and in what was believed to be the interest of President Lincoln's government. It seems to us that in any case the recognition was fully justified. The proclamation began by setting forth

  that hostilities had unhappily begun between the government of the United States and certain states styling themselves the Confederate States of America. Before its issue, Fort Sumter had been taken. Mr. Seward, the new Federal Secretary of State,

  had announced in a dispatch that insurgents had instituted revolution with open, flagrant, deadly war, and that the United States had accepted this civil war as an inevitable necessity.

  Many days before the proclamation was issued, the New York Chamber of Commerce had stated that secession had culminated in war, and the judges of the higher courts had decided that a state of war existed.

  Under such circumstances, it seems hardly possible to contend that England was bound by any principle of law, international or other, to withhold her recognition. With the proclamation of neutrality on the part of Her Majesty's government, began, curiously enough, the long diplomatic controversy

  which was carried on between this country and the United States. The correspondence spreads over years. It is maintained principally by Earl Russell, Mr. Adams, American Minister to London, and Mr. Seward, American Secretary of State.

  The diplomatic correspondence is conducted as might be expected with unvarying courtesy and with at least the outward expression of good temper. But it deepens sometimes in tone and earnestness so that any reader can see that it is reaching attention

  not likely to be long kept up. More than once it becomes evident that the states thus represented are on the verge of a serious quarrel. The impression on the part of the United States evidently is all throughout, that England is the concealed and bitter enemy of the Union

  and is seizing every possible opportunity to do it harm. The first cause of dispute is the recognition of belligerent rights. Then there comes the seizure of the Confederate envoys in the Trent, which England could not permit, and which apparently the public of the United States

  could not forgive her for not being able to permit, and thus putting them in the wrong. Far more serious as a cause of quarrel was the career of the Alabama and her kindred vessels. The Mexican expedition was a grievance to the North,

  connected as it was with the supposed inclination of the English government to follow the promptings of the French Emperor and concede to the Southern Confederates their actual recognition as an independent state. It is necessary to endeavor to follow the course of public opinion in England

  and ascertain, if possible, the meaning of its various changes. Let it be firmly stated at the outset, as a matter of justice, that it was not any feeling of sympathy with slavery which influenced so many Englishmen in their support of the South. No real evidence exists of any change in public opinion of that kind.

  It is true that sometimes a heated champion of the South did, when driven to bay for argument, contend that, after all, perhaps slavery was not quite so bad a thing as people fancied. The Times did once venture to suggest that the Scriptures contained no express interdiction of slavery,

  but no great stress even there was laid upon such an argument, and it might be doubted whether the opinion of any rational man on the slavery question was changed in this country by sympathy with the South. On the contrary, strange as it may seem at first,

  the dislike of many Englishmen to the slave system converted them first into opponents of the North and next into partisans of the South. An impression got abroad that the Northern statesmen were not sincere in their reprobation of slavery

  and that they only used the arguments and the feeling against it as a means of endeavoring to crush the South. Many Englishmen could not understand, some of them perhaps would not understand, that a Northern statesman might very well object to breaking up the Union

  in order to put down slavery, and might yet, when an enemy endeavored to destroy the Union, make up his mind with perfect consistency that the time had come to get rid of the slave system once for all. The statesmen of the North were not to be classed as abolitionists.

  Not many men in office, or likely just then to be in office, were professed opponents of slavery. Most of them regarded it as a very objectionable institution which the Southern states had unfortunately inherited, which no one would think of introducing then

  if it had not been introduced before, but which nevertheless it was not worth risking a national convulsion for the sake of trying to root out at once. They would have been willing to trust to time and education and all the civilizing processes for the gradual extinction of the system.

  Many of them had even known so many good and kindly Southern slave owners that they could not feel a common hatred for all the upholders of the unfortunate institution. Men like Mr. Lincoln himself would have gladly kept to the Union,

  even though for the present and for some time to come, Union meant the toleration of slavery in the South. End of Section 28.

• 29 - Ch. 43: The Civil War in America, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 29 of A History of Our Own Times Volume 3 by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 43, The Civil War in America, Part 2. Two extreme parties there were who would not compromise, the planter faction of the South and the abolitionists of New England. The planters were not content that their institution should be tolerated. They would have it extended and made supreme. The abolitionists took their stand on principle. Slavery was to them simply a crime, and they would have nothing to do with the accursed thing. When at last the inevitable collision came, there was nothing inconsistent or unreasonable in the position of the northern statesman who said,

  I am opposed to all sudden changes in our Constitution, I would not have broken up the Union on the question of southern slavery. But now that the Southerners themselves have chosen to secede and to begin a civil war, I say the time has come to get done with this long-standing cause of quarrel and to decree once for all the extinction of the slave system. That came, in fact, as the war went on, to be the position of Mr. Lincoln and of many other northern statesmen. It was the position which practical statesmen would have been likely to take and might have been expected to take. Yet it seemed to many Englishmen to argue mere hypocrisy, that a man should be intolerant of slavery when it led to secession and civil war, if he had been willing to put up with it for the sake of peace.

  Again Englishmen insisted that the northern statesmen were not going into the war with an unmixed motive, as if any state ever yet went to war with one single and undiluted purpose. A good deal was heard about the manner in which the colored race were excluded from society in New York and the northern states generally. The exclusiveness was assuredly narrow-minded and bad enough, but it is one thing to say a colored man shall not sit next to us in a theater or a church, that he shall not go to school with one's son or marry one's daughter, and it is quite another thing to say that we have a right to scourge the colored man to death, to buy his son for a slave, and sell his daughter at the auction block. A citizen of one of the Canadian provinces might strongly object to the society of the Red Indian in any form, and yet might be willing to arm against a system which would reduce the Red Indian to a condition of slavery.

  Not a few Englishmen condemned boldly and out of hand the whole principle of coercion in political affairs. They declared that the North had no right to put down secession, that the South had a right to secede. Yet the same men had upheld the heaven-appointed right of England to put down the rebellion in India, and would have drenched, if need were, Ireland in blood, rather than allow her to withdraw from a partnership into which, after all, unlike the southern states, she had never voluntarily entered. At first, however, the feeling of Englishmen was almost unanimously in favor of the North. It was thought that the southern states would be allowed quietly to secede, and most Englishmen did not take a great interest in the matter, or when they did, were inclined to regard the southerners as a turbulent and troublesome set, who had better be permitted to go off with their peculiar institution and keep it all to themselves.

  When, however, it became apparent that the secession must lead to war, then many of the same Englishmen began to put the blame on the North for making the question any cause of disturbance to the world. There was a kind of impatient feeling as if we and the world in general had no right to be troubled with these American quarrels, as if it was unfair to us that our cotton trade should be interrupted, and we ourselves put to inconvenience for a dispute about secession. There clearly would have been no war and no disturbance if only the North had agreed to let the South go, and therefore people on the side of the Atlantic set themselves to find good cause for blaming the statesmen who did not give in to anything, rather than disturb the world with their obstinacy and their union. Out of this condition of feeling came the resolve to find the North in the wrong, and out of that resolve came with many the discovery that the Northern statesmen were all hypocrites. Suddenly, as if to decide wavering minds, an event was reported which made hosts of admirers for the South in England.

  The Battle of Bull Run took place on July 21, 1861, and the raw levies of the North were defeated, thrown into confusion, and in some instances driven into ignominious flight. This was not very surprising. The Southern men were infinitely better fitted for the beginning of a war than the men of the North. The Southerners had always a taste for soldiering, and had kept up their state militia systems with an energy and exactness which the businessmen of the North had neither the time nor the inclination to imitate. The Southern militia systems were splendid training schools for arms, and became the nucleus each of an excellent army when at last the war broke out. The Northern government had yielded to a popular cry, and made a premature movement on Richmond in Virginia, now the Southern capital.

  It was not very surprising, therefore, that the South should have won the first battle. It was not very surprising either if some of the hastily raised Northern regiments of volunteers should have proved wretched soldiers, and should have yielded to the sudden influence of panic. But when the news reached England, it was received by vast numbers with exaltation and with derision at the expense of the Yankees. It had been well settled that the Yankees were hypocrites and low fellows before, but now it came out that they were mere runaways and cowards. The English people, for a brave nation, are surprisingly given to accusing their neighbors of cowardice.

  They have a perfect mania for discovering cowardice all over the world. Napoleon was a coward to a past generation, and French for a long time cowards. The Italians were cowards. At the time of the Schleswig-Holstein war, the Germans were cowards. The Russians still are cowards. In 1861, the Yankees were the typical cowards of the earth.

  A very flame of enthusiasm leaped up for the brave South, which though so small in numbers had contrived with such spirit and ease to defeat the Yankees. Something of chivalry there was no doubt in the wish that the weaker side should win. But that chivalry was strongly dashed with the conviction that after all the South had the better fighters and was sure to succeed in the end. That the American Union was in some mysterious way a sort of danger to England, and that the sooner it was broken up, the better. Mr. Cobden afterwards accused the English government of having dealt with the United States as if they were dealing with Brazil or some such weak and helpless state.

  It is important for the fair understanding and appreciation of the events that followed to remember that there was, among all the advocates of the South and England, a very general conviction that the North was sure to be defeated and broken up, and was therefore in no sense of formidable power. It is well also to bear in mind that there were only two European states which entertained this feeling and allowed it to be everywhere understood. The Southern Scheme found support only in England and in France. In all other European countries the sympathy of people and government alike went with the North. In most places the sympathy arose from a detestation of slavery.

  In Russia, or at least with the Russian government, it arose from a dislike of rebellion. But the effect was the same. That assurances of friendship came from all civilized countries to the northern states except from England and France alone. One of the latest instructions given by Kvur on his deathbed in this year was that an assurance should be sent to the federal government that Italy could give its sympathies to no movement which tended to perpetuation of slavery. The Pope, Pius IX, and Cardinal Antonelli repeatedly expressed their hopes for the success of the Northern Cause.

  On the other hand, the Emperor of the French fully believed that the Southern Cause was sure to triumph and that the Union would be broken up. He was even very willing to hasten what he assumed to be the unavoidable end. He was anxious that England should join with him in some measures to facilitate the success of the South by recognizing the government of the Southern Confederation. He got up the Mexican intervention of which we shall have occasion presently to speak and which assuredly he would never have attempted if he had not been persuaded that the Union was on the eve of disruption. He was not without warning.

  Many eminent Frenchmen well acquainted with America urged on him the necessity of caution. His cousin, Prince Napoleon, went over to America and surveyed the condition of affairs from both points of view, talked with the leaders on both sides, visited both camps, and came back impressed with the conviction that the Southern movement for independence would be a failure. The Emperor Napoleon, however, held to his own views and his own schemes. He had afterwards reason to curse the day when he reckoned on the breakup of the Union and persuaded himself that there was no occasion to take account of the Northern strength. Yet in France, the French people in general were on the side of the North.

  Only the Emperor and his government were on that of the South. In England, on the other hand, the vast majority of what are called the influential classes came to be heart and soul with the South. The government was certainly not so, but it can hardly be doubted that the government allowed itself sometimes to be over-born by the clamor of a West End majority and gave the North only too much reason to suspect that its defeats were welcome to those in authority in England. Lord Palmerston made some jesting allusion in a public speech to the unfortunate rapid movements of the Northern soldiers at Bull Run in that Jive was bitterly resented by many Americans. End of Section 29

• 30 - Ch. 43: The Civil War in America, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XLIII. THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA. PART 3. At first, the northern states counted with absolute confidence upon the sympathy of England. The one reproach Englishmen had always been casting in their face was that they did not take any steps to put down slavery. Not long before this time, Lord Brougham, at a meeting of a statistical congress in London where the American minister happened to be present,

  delivered a sort of lecture at him on the natural equality of the black with the white. All England had just been in a state of wild excitement about the case of the fugitive slave Anderson. An escaped slave who had taken refuge in Canada was demanded back by the United States government, at that time, be it remembered, still a southern government, because in trying to escape he had killed one of those who strove to stay his flight and capture him. The idea seemed monstrous to

  Englishmen that any British or colonial court of law should give back as a criminal a man who had only done that which English law would warrant him in doing, resisted even to slaying and attempt to make him a slave. The fugitive was not given up to the United States. The colonial courts discharged him from custody on the ground of some informality in the warrant of detention and he came to England. But the court of Queen's bench here had already issued a writ of habeas corpus

  to bring him before it on the ground that his detention in Toronto, even while waiting the decision of the colonial court, was illegal. And if it had not so happened that he was released from custody before the writ could interfere, some very important and difficult questions in international law might have had to be decided. In this country, public opinion was warmly in favor of the release of Anderson and would have gone any length to save him from being

  surrendered to his captors. Public opinion was expressing itself soundly and justly. It would have amounted to a recognition of slavery if an English court had consented on any ground to hand over as a criminal a man who merely resisted an attempt to drag him back into servitude. This was just before the accession of Mr. Lincoln to office. It was the common expectation of the northern states that England would welcome the new state of things under which the demand for

  the return of a fugitive slave was never likely to insult them. The English government had had for years and years incessant difficulties with the government of the United States while the latter was in the hands of the South. Colored subjects of the Queen had been seized in Charleston and carried off into slavery and it was not possible to get any redress. For years we had been listening to complaints from our governments about the arrogance and insolence of the American

  statesmen in office who were all more or less under the control of the South. It is easy to understand therefore how Mr. Lincoln and his friends counted on the sympathy of the English government and the English people and how surprised they were when they found English statesmen, journalists, preachers, and English society generally deriding their misfortunes and apparently wishing for the success of their foes. The surprise changed into a feeling of

  bitter disappointment and that gave place to an angry temper which exaggerated every symptom of ill will, distorted every fact, and saw wrong even where there only existed an honest purpose to do right. It was while this temper was beginning to light up on both sides of the Atlantic that the unfortunate affair of the Trent occurred. The Confederate government had resolved to send envoys to Europe to arrange if possible for the recognition of the southern states. Mr. W. L. Yancey,

  an extreme advocate of the doctrine of state sovereignty, had already been in Europe with this purpose and now Mr. Davis was anxious to have a regular envoy in London and another in Paris. Mr. Slidel, a prominent southern lawyer and politician, was to represent the South at the court of the Emperor Napoleon provided he could obtain recognition there and Mr. James Murray Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave Law, was to be dispatched with a similar mission to the court

  of Queen Victoria. The two southern envoys escaped together from Charleston one dark and wet October night in a small steamer and got to Havana. There they took passage for Southampton in the English male steamer Trent. The United States sloop of war, San Jacinto, happened to be returning from the African coast about the same time. Her commander, Captain Wilkes, was a somewhat hot-tempered and indiscreet officer. He was cruising about in quest of the Confederate privatier Sumter and

  while at Havana he learned that the Confederate agents with their secretaries were on the way to Europe. He determined to intercept them. 250 miles from Havana he awaited them in the Bahama Channel. The Trent approached. He summoned her to Heave 2 and his summons being disregarded, fired a shot across her bows. An armed party was then sent on board and the Confederate envoys were seized with their secretaries and carried his prisoners on board the San Jacinto despite the

  protest of the captain of the English steamer and from under the protection of the English flag. The prisoners were first carried to New York and then confined in one of the forts in Boston Harbor. Now there cannot be the slightest doubt of the illegality of this proceeding on the part of Captain Wilkes. It was not long to be sure since England had claimed and exercised a supposed right of the same kind but such a claim had been given up and could not in 1861 have been maintained by

  any civilized state. It was a claim which the United States governments had especially exerted themselves to abolish. This was the view taken at once by President Lincoln whose plain good sense served him in better stead than their special studies had served some professors of international law. We have it on the excellent authority of Dr. Draper in his History of the American Civil War that Mr. Lincoln had once declared that the act of Captain Wilkes could not be sustained. He said,

  This is the very thing the British captains used to do. They claimed the right of searching American ships and carrying men out of them. That was the cause of the War of 1812. Now we cannot abandon our own principles. We shall have to give these men up and apologize for what we have done. This was in fact the course that the American government had to take. Mr. Seward wrote a long letter in answer to Lord Russell's demand for the surrender of the prisoners in which he endeavored to make

  out that Captain Wilkes had acted in accordance with English precedents but stated that he had not had any authority from the American government to take such a course and that the government did not consider him to have acted in accordance with the law of nations. It will be seen, Mr. Seward went on to say, that this government cannot deny the justice of the claim presented to us in this respect upon its merits. We are asked to do to the British nation what we have always insisted all

  nations ought to do unto us. He announced therefore that the four prisoners would be cheerfully liberated. On January 1st, 1862, the Confederate envoys were given up on the demand of the British government and sailed for Europe. The question then it might be thought was satisfactorily settled. Unfortunately, however, a great deal of harm had been done in the meantime. Popular clamor in the United States had entirely approved of the action of Captain Wilkes. A mass meeting

  held in Tammany Hall or the Cooper Institute of New York or even in the Les Viam and Faneuil Hall of Boston is not exactly an assembly qualified to give an authoritative decision on questions of international law. The Secretary of the Navy, however, who ought to have known better but did not, had commended the action of the captain of the San Jacinto. A vote of thanks had been passed to Captain Wilkes in the House of Representatives, Washington, for his arrest of the traitors Slidell

  and Mason. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising if people on this side of the ocean should have fancied that the United States were eager to sustain a great act of wrong done against us and against international law. But on the other hand, the arrest was so absolutely without justification that the English government might well have known President Lincoln's cabinet could not sustain it. The governments of all the great European states promptly interposed their good

  advice, pointing out to Mr. Lincoln the impossibility of maintaining Captain Wilkes's act. The foreign envoys in Washington and the Orléans princes then in that city had given the same good advice. Lord Palmerston's government acted, however, as if an instant appeal to arms must be necessary. Lord Russell sent out to Washington a peremptory demand for the liberation of the envoys and an apology and insisted on an answer within seven days. Troops were at once ordered out to Canada

  and a proclamation was issued forbidding the export of arms and munitions of war. All this was done, although on the very day that Lord Russell was dispatching his peremptory letter to Washington, Mr. Seward was writing to London to assure Her Majesty's government that the arrest had been made without any authority from the United States government and that the president and his advisors were then considering the proper course to take. The fact that Mr. Seward's letter

  had been received was, for some reason or other, not made publicly known in England at the time. And the English people were left to believe that the action of Captain Wilkes either was the action of the American government or had that government's approval. Public feeling, therefore, raged and raved a good deal on both sides. American statesmen believed that the English government was making a wanton and offensive display of a force which they had

  good reason to know would never be needed. The English public was left under the impression that the American statesmen were only yielding to the display of force. The release of the prisoners did not seem to our people to come with a good grace. It did not seem to the American people to have been asked or accepted with a good grace. Mr. Seward might as well perhaps, when he had made up his mind to restore the prisoners, have spared himself the trouble of

  what the Scotch would call a long-haver to show that if he acted as England had done, he should not have given them up at all. But Mr. Seward always was a terribly eloquent dispatch writer, and he could not, we may suppose, persuade himself to forego the opportunity of issuing a dissertation. On the other hand, Lord Palmerston's demeanor and language were what he would probably himself have called in homely language, bumptious, if someone else had

  been in question. Lord Palmerston could not deny himself the pleasure of a burst of cheap popularity and of seeming to flourish the flag of England in the face of presumptuous foes. The episode was singularly unfortunate in its effect upon the temper of the majority in England and America. From that moment, there was a formidable party in England who detested the North, and a formidable party in the North who detested England. End of Section 30.

• 31 - Ch. 44: The Cruise of the Alabama, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  The cause of peace between nations lost a good friend at the close of 1861. The Prince Consort died. It is believed that the latest advice he gave on public affairs had referenced to the dispute between England and the United States about the seizure of the Confederate envoys and that the advice recommended calmness and forbearance on the part of the English government. It is not to be supposed, of course, that the Prince Consort even thought of suggesting

  that the English government should acquiesce in what had been done or allow the wrong to remain unredressed. He knew, as every reasonable man might have known, that the error of the American sailor was unjustifiable and would have to be atoned for. But he probably assumed that for that very reason the atonement might be awaited without excitement and believed that it would neither be politic nor generous to make a show of compelling by force what must

  be conceded to justice. The death of the Prince Consort, lamentable in every way, was especially to be deplored at a time when influential councils tending toward forbearance and peace were much needed in England. But it may be said, with literal truth, that when the news of the Prince's death was made known, its possible effect on the public affairs of England was forgotten or unthought of in the regret for the personal loss. Outside the precincts of Windsor

  Castle itself, the event was wholly unexpected. Perhaps even within the precincts of the castle there was little expectation up to the last that such a calamity was so near. The public had only learned a few days before that the Prince was unwell. On December 8th, the court circular mentioned that he was confined to his room by a feverish cold. Then it was announced that he was suffering from fever unattended by unfavorable symptoms but likely from its symptoms to continue

  for some time. This latter announcement appeared in the form of a bulletin on Wednesday, December 11th. About the midnight of Saturday, the 14th, there was some sensation and surprise created throughout London by the tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's. Not many people even suspected the import of the unusual sound. It signified the death of the Prince Consort. He died at 10 minutes before 11 that Saturday night in the presence of the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Princesses

  Alice and Helena. The fever had become fierce and wasting on Friday and from that time it was only a descent to death. Congestion of the lungs set in, the consequence of exhaustion, the Prince fell into utter weakness and died conscious but without pain. He knew the Queen to the last. His latest look was turned to her. The Prince Consort was little more than 42 years of age when he died. He had always seemed to be in good although not perhaps robust health and he had led a singularly temperate

  life. No one in the kingdom seemed less likely to be prematurely cut off and his death came on the whole country with the shock of an utter surprise. The regret was universal and the deepest regret was for the wife he had loved so dearly and whom he was condemned so soon to leave behind. Every testimony has spoken to the singularly tender and sweet affection of the loving home the Queen and Prince had made for themselves. A domestic happiness rare even among the obscurest

  was given to them. It is one of the necessities of royal position that marriage should be seldom the union of hearts. The choice is limited by considerations which do not affect people in private life. The convenience of states has to be taken into account. The possible likings and dislikings of peoples whom perhaps the bride and bridegroom have never seen and are never destined to see. A marriage among princes is in nine cases out of ten a marriage of convenience only.

  Seldom indeed is it made as that of the Queen was wholly out of love. Seldom is it even in love matches when the instincts of love are not deceived and the affection grows stronger with the days. Everyone knew that this had been the strange good fortune of the Queen of England. There was something poetic, romantic in the sympathy with which so many faithful and loving hearts turned to her in her hour of unspeakable distress.

  We have already endeavored to do justice to the character of the prince consort to show what was his intellectual constitution, what were its strong points and what its weaknesses and limitations. It is not necessary to go over that task again. It will be enough to say that the country which had not understood him at first was beginning more and more to recognize his genuine worth. Even those who are still far from believing that his influence in politics

  always worked with good result are ready to admit that his influence socially and morally was that which must always come from the example of a pure and noble life. Of him it might fairly have been said in the classic words that from his mouth Perhaps as we have been considering the influence of the prince consort on the councils of England during the earlier part of the American Civil War, it will be appropriate

  to quote some sentences in which the eminent American historian already mentioned Dr. Draper speaks of him. One illustrious man there was in England, Dr. Draper says, who saw that the great interests of the future would be better subserved by a sincere friendship with America than by the transitory alliances of Europe. He recognized the bonds of race. His prudent counsels strengthened the determination of the sovereign that the Trent controversy should have an honorable and peaceful

  solution. Had the desires of these, the most exalted personages in the realm, been more completely fulfilled, the administration of Lord Palmerston would not have cast a disastrous shadow on the future of the Anglo-Saxon race. Dr. Draper may be thought unjust to Lord Palmerston. He certainly is only just to the prince consort. After the dispute about the Trent, the feeling between England and the United States became one of distrust and almost of hostility. We cannot help

  thinking that the manner in which our government managed the dispute, the superfluous display of force, like a pistol thrust at the head of a disputant, whom mere argument is already bringing to reason, had a great deal to do with the growth of this bitter feeling. The controversy about the Trent was hardly over when Lord Russell and Mr. Adams were engaged in the more prolonged and far more serious controversy about the Confederate privateers. The adventures of the Confederate

  cruisers began with the escape of a small schooner, the Savannah, from Charleston in June 1861. It scoured the seas for a while as a privateer and did some damage to the shipping of the northern states. The sumpter had a more memorable career. She was under the command of Captain Semmes, who afterwards became famous and during her time she did some little damage. The Nashville and the Petrel were also well known for a while.

  These were, however, but small vessels and each had only a short run of it. The first privateer which became really formidable to the shipping of the north was a vessel called in her earlier history the Oretto, but afterwards better known as the Florida. Within three months she had captured 15 vessels. 13 of these she burnt and the other two were converted into cruisers by the Confederate government. The Florida was built in Birkenhead,

  nominally for the use of the Italian government. She got out of the Mersey without detention or difficulty, although the American minister had warned our government of her real purpose. From that time, Great Britain became what an American writer calls, without any exaggeration, the naval base of the Confederacy. As fast as shipbuilders could work, they were preparing in British shipping yards a privateer navy for the Confederate government.

  Mr. Gladstone said in a speech, which was the subject of much comment, that Jefferson Davis had made a navy. The statement was at all events not literally correct. The English shipbuilders made the navy. Mr. Davis only ordered it and paid for it. Only seven Confederate privateers were really formidable to the United States and of these five were built in British dockyards. We are not including in the list any of the actual

  war vessels, the rams and ironclads, that British energy was preparing for the Confederate government. We are now speaking merely of the privateers. Of these privateers, the most famous by far was the Alabama. It was the fortune of this vessel to be the occasion of the establishment of a new rule in the law of nations. It had nearly been her fortune to bring England and the United States into war. The Alabama was built expressly for the Confederate service in one of the dockyards

  of the Mersey. She was built by the House of Laird, a firm of the greatest reputation in the shipbuilding trade and whose former head was the representative of Birkenhead in the House of Commons. While in process of construction she was called the 290 and it was not until she was put to sea and hoisted the Confederate flag and Captain Semmes, formerly commander of the Sumter, had appeared on her deck in full Confederate uniform that she took the name of the Alabama.

  During her career, the Alabama captured nearly 70 northern vessels. Her plan was always the same. She hoisted the British flag and thus decoyed her attended victim within her reach. Then she displayed the Confederate colors and captured her prize. Unless when there was some particular motive for making use of the captured vessels, they were burnt. Sometimes the blazing wreck became the means of decoying a new victim. Some American

  captain saw far off in the night the flames of a burning vessel reddening the sea. He steered to her aid and when he came near enough the Alabama, which was yet in the same waters, had watched his coming, fired her shot across his bows, hung out her flag and made him her prisoner. One American captain bitterly complained that the fire, which seen across the waves at any other time became a summons to every seaman to hasten to the rescue, must thenceforward be a signal to him

  to hold his course and keep away from the blazing ship. The Alabama and her captain were of course much glorified in this country. Captain Semmes was eulogized as if his exploits had been those of another Cochrane or Canaris. But the Alabama did not do much fighting. She preyed on merchant vessels that could not fight. She attacked where instant surrender must be the reply to her summons. Only twice so far as we know did she engage in a fight. The first time was with the Hatteras,

  a small blockading ship whose broadside was so unequal to that of the Alabama that she was sunk in a quarter of an hour. The second time was with the United States ship of war Kearsarge, whose size and armaments were about equal to her own. The fight took place off the French shore near Cherbourg and the career of the Alabama was finished in an hour. The Confederate rover was utterly shattered and went down. Captain Semmes

  was saved by an English steam yacht and brought to England to be made a hero for a while and then forgotten. The cruise of the Alabama had lasted nearly two years. During this time she had contrived to drive American commerce from the seas. Her later cruising days were unprofitable, for American owners found it necessary to keep their vessels in port. All this, however, it will be said, was but the fortune of war. America had not abolished

  privateering and if the northern states suffered from so clever and daring a privateer as Captain Semmes, it was of little use their complaining of it. If they could not catch and capture the Alabama, that was their misfortune or their fault. What the United States government did complain of was something very different. They complained that the Alabama was practically an English vessel. She was built by English builders in an English dockyard. She was manned

  for the most part by an English crew. Her guns were English, her gunners were English. Many of the latter belonged to the Royal Naval Reserve and were actually receiving pay from the English government. She sailed under the English flag, was welcomed in English harbors and never was in or even saw Confederate port. As Mr. Forster put it very clearly and tersely, she was built by British shipbuilders and manned by a British crew. She drew prizes to destruction under a

  British flag and was paid for by money borrowed from British capitalists. Mr. Adams called the attention of the government in good time to the fact that the Alabama was in course of construction in the dockyard of M. Laird and that she was intended for the Confederate government. Lord Russell asked for proofs. Mr. Adams forwarded what he considered proof enough to make out a case for the detention of the vessel pending further inquiry. The opinion of an eminent English lawyer,

  now Sir Robert Collier, was also sent to Lord Russell by Mr. Adams. This opinion declared that the vessel ought to be detained by the collector of customs at Liverpool and added that it appeared difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which if not enforced on this occasion is little better than a dead letter. The English government still asked for proofs. It did not seem to have occurred to our authorities

  that if they set a little inquiry on foot themselves, they might be able to conduct it much more efficiently than a stranger like Mr. Adams could do. What Mr. Adams asked for was inquiry with a view to detention. He did not ask for the infringement of any domestic law of England. He only asked for such steps to be taken as would allow the law of England to be put in force. The argument of the correspondence on our side seemed to be that a stranger had no right to

  the protection of our laws until he could make out a case which would amount to the legal conviction of those against whom he asked to be protected. We cannot better summarize the correspondence than by saying it was as if Mr. Adams had forwarded affidavits alleging that there was a conspiracy to murder him, had named the persons against whom he made the charge, and asked for an inquiry in protection from the government, and the government had answered that

  until he could make out a case for the actual conviction of the accused, it was no part of the business of our police to interfere. Let us dispose of one simple question of fact. There never was the slightest doubt on the mind of anyone about the business for which the vessel in the Birkenhead dockyard was destined. There was no attempt at concealment in the matter. Newspaper paragraphs described the gradual construction of the Confederate cruiser

  as if it were a British vessel of war that Mr. Laird had in hand. There never was any question about her destination. Openly, in the face of day, she was built by the Laird firm for the Confederate service. The Lairds built her as they would have built any vessel for anyone who ordered it and could pay for it. We see no particular reason for blaming them. They certainly made no mystery of the matter then or after. Whatever technical difficulties might have

  intervened, it is clear that no real doubt on the mind of the government had anything to do with the delays that took place. At last, Lord Russell asked for the opinion of the Queen's advocate. Time was pressing. The cruiser was nearly ready for sea. Everything seemed to be against us. The Queen's advocate happened to be sick at the moment and there was another delay. At last, he gave his opinion that the vessel ought to be detained. The opinion came just too late.

  The Alabama had got to sea. Her cruise of nearly two years began. She went upon her destroying course with the cheers of English sympathizers and the rapturous tirades of English newspapers glorifying her. Every misfortune that befell an American merchantman was received in this country with a roar of delight. When Mr. Bright brought on the question in the House of Commons, Mr. Laird declared that he would rather be known as the builder of a dozen Alabamas than be a man who

  like Mr. Bright had set class against class and the majority of the House applauded him to the echo. Lord Palmerston peremptorily declared that in this country we were not in the habit of altering our laws to please a foreign state. A declaration which came with becoming effect from the author of the Abortive Conspiracy Bill got up to propitiate the Emperor of the French. End of Section 31

• 32 - Ch. 44: The Cruise of the Alabama, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  The building of vessels for the Confederates began to go on with more boldness than ever. Two iron rams of the most formidable kind were built and about to be launched in 1863 for the purpose of forcibly opening the southern ports and destroying the blockading vessels. Mr. Adams kept urging on Lord Russell and for a long time in vain that something must be done to stop their departure.

  Lord Russell at first thought the British government could not interfere in any way. Mr. Adams pressed and protested and at length was informed that the matter was now under the serious consideration of Her Majesty's government. At last, on September 5th, Mr. Adams wrote to tell Lord Russell that one of the ironclad vessels was on the point of departure from this kingdom on its hostile errand against

  the United States and added, It would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war. On September 8th, Mr. Adams received the following. Lord Russell presents his compliments to Mr. Adams and has the honor to inform him that instructions have been issued which will prevent the departure of the two ironclad vessels

  from Liverpool. Throughout the whole of the correspondence, Lord Russell took up one position. He insisted that the government could only act upon the domestic laws of England and were not bound to make any alteration in these laws to please a foreign state. Nothing can be more self-evident than the fact that the government cannot infringe

  the laws of the country. During this controversy, the law courts decided sometimes, in the case of the Alexandra, for example, that there was not evidence enough to justify the seizure or the stoppage of a vessel, but it has to be remembered that in regard to the Alabama, what Mr. Adams asked was not the breaking of English law, but the holding, as it were, of the vessel to bail

  until the law could be ascertained. There is, however, a much wider question than this in his views with regard to which Lord Russell seems to have been completely wrong. The laws of a country are made, first of all, to suit its own people. The people have a right to keep their laws unchanged as long as they please.

  They are not bound to alter them to suit the pleasure or the convenience of any other nation. All that is clear. But it is equally clear, on the other hand, that they cannot get out of their responsibility to another state by merely saying, We have such and such laws, and we do not choose to alter them.

  If the laws permit harm to be done to a foreign state, the people maintaining the laws must either make compensation to the foreign state or they must meet her in war. It is absurd to suppose that our neighbors are to submit to injury on our part merely because our laws do not give us the means of preventing the injury. Mr. Adams put it in the fairest manner to Lord Russell.

  This is war. In other words, the American government might have said, You can allow this sort of thing to go on if you like, but we must point out to you that it is simply war and nothing else. You are making war or allowing war to be made on us. You cannot shelter yourselves under an imaginary neutrality.

  If you choose to keep your laws as they are, very good, but you must take the consequences. The extraordinary mistake which Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell made was the assumption that the existence of certain domestic regulations of ours could be a sufficient answer to claims made upon us by our neighbors. Suppose we had no foreign enlistment act.

  Suppose the Confederates were allowed openly to raise armies and equip navies in England, and to fly their flag here and go forth to make war on the United States with the permission of our government. Would it be enough to say to the United States, We are very sorry indeed, we do not like to see people making war on you from our territory, but unluckily we have no law to prevent it,

  and you must therefore only put up with it? The dullest English sympathizer with the cause of the Southern Confederation would not be taken in by a plea like this, or expect the United States to admit it. Yet the case set up by Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell was really not different in kind. It merely pleaded that although our ports were made the basis, and indeed the only basis

  of naval operations against the United States, we could not help it, our laws were not framed as to give our neighbors any protection. The obvious retort on America's side was, then we must protect ourselves. We cannot admit that the condition of your municipal laws entitles you to become with impunity a nuisance and a pest to your neighbors.

  The position which Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell took up was wisely and properly abandoned by Lord Stanley, now Lord Darby, when the conservatives came into office. It was then frankly admitted that every state is responsible for the manner in which the working of its municipal laws may affect the interests of its neighbors. We need not however anticipate just now a controversy and a settlement yet to come.

  Lord Russell, it may be remarked, was mistaken in another part of his case. He was able to show that in some way or other the authorities of the United States had failed to prevent the enlistment of British subjects in this country for the armies of the Union. But his mistake was in supposing that this was a practical answer to the complaints made by Mr. Adams.

  There is some difference between a small grievance and a very great grievance. The grievance to us in the secret enlistment of a few British subjects for the Northern Service was not very serious. The authorities of the United States acknowledged that it was improper and promised to use all diligence to put a stop to it.

  But of course if they had failed to do so, it would be entirely for England to consider what steps she ought to take to obtain a redress of any wrong done to her. But in a practical controversy there was no comparison between the grievances. It is not a reasonable reply to a neighbor who complains that our fierce dog has broken into his house and bitten his children if we say that his cat has stolen into our kitchen

  and eaten our cream. It is strange, too, to observe that Lord Russell and the Chief Baron and other authorities constantly dwell on the fact that a neutral may sell arms to either belligerent and ask triumphantly, if arms, why not an armed vessel? If shot and shell, why not a cruiser or a ram?

  There is at all events one plain reason which would be enough even if there were none other. It is not possible to prove that the shot and shell have done any damage. It is possible to prove that the cruiser has. We cannot follow the rifle or the bullet to its destination. We can follow the Alabama.

  It would be idle to try to prove that a certain lot of gunpowder was discharged against a northern regiment, but it is easy to prove that the Alabama burned American vessels and confiscated American cargoes. The bitterness of the feeling in America was not mitigated, nor the sense of English unfairness made less keen, by the production during the controversy of a dispatch sent from England

  to Washington at the opening of the Crimean War, in which the English government expressed a confident hope that the authorities of the United States would give orders that no privateer under Russian colors should be equipped or victualed or admitted with its prizes into any of the ports of the United States. The controversy was carried on for some years.

  It became mixed up with disputes about Confederate raids from Canada into the States and later on about Fenian raids from the States into Canada, and questions of fishery right and various other matters of discussion. But the principal subject of dispute, the only one of real gravity, was that which concerned the crews of the Alabama.

  Lord Russell at length declined peremptorily to admit that the English government were in any way responsible for what had been done by the Confederate cruisers, or that England was called on to alter her domestic law to please her neighbors. Mr. Adams, therefore, dropped the matter for the time, intimating, however, that it was only put aside for the time.

  The United States government had their hands full just then, and in any case could afford to wait. The question would keep. The British government were glad to be relieved from the discussion and from the necessity of arguing the various points with Mr. Adams, and were under the pleasing impression that

  they had heard the last of it. Surveying the diplomatic controversy at this distance of time, one cannot but think that Mr. Adams comes best out of it. No minister representing the interests of his state in a foreign capital could have had a more trying position to sustain and a more difficult part to play.

  Mr. Adams knew that the tone of the society in which he had to move was hostile to his government and to his cause. It was difficult for him to remain always patient and yet to show that the American government could not be expected to endure everything. It was not easy to retain always the calm courtesy which his place demanded and which

  was indeed an inheritance in his family of stately public men. He was embarrassed sometimes by the officious efforts, the volunteer intervention of some of his own countrymen, who knowing nothing of English political life and English social ways, fancied they were making a favorable impression on public opinion here by the tactics of a fall campaign at home.

  Moreover, it is plain that for a long time, Mr. Adams was in much doubt as to the capacity of the military leaders of the North, and he well knew that nothing but military success could rescue the Union from the diplomatic conspiracies which were going on in Europe for the promotion of the Southern cause. Mr. Adams appears to have borne himself all through with judgment, temper, and dignity.

  Lord Russell does not show to so much advantage. He is sometimes petulant. He is too often inclined to answer Mr. Adams' grave and momentous remonstrances with retorts founded on allegations against the North which, even if well founded, were of slight comparative importance.

  When Mr. Adams complains that the Alabama is sweeping American commerce from the seas, Lord Russell too often replies with some complaint about the enlistment of British subjects for the service of the Union, as if the Confederates making war on the United States from English ports with English ships and crews were no graver matter of complaint than the story, true or false, of some American agent having enlisted Tom Doolan and Sandy Maxneesh to

  fight for the North. Mr. Seward does not come out of the correspondence well. There is a curious evasiveness in his frequent floods of eloquence which contrasts unpleasantly with Mr. Adams' straightforward and manly style. Mr. Seward writes as if he were under the impression that he could palaver Mr. Adams

  and Lord Russell and the British public into not believing the evidence of their senses. At the gloomiest hour of the fortunes of the North, Mr. Adams faces the facts and, confident of the ultimate future, makes no pretence at ignoring the seriousness of the present danger. Mr. Seward seems to think that public attention can be cheated away from a recognition of

  realities by a display of inappropriate rhetorical fireworks. At a moment when the prospect of the North seemed especially gloomy and when it was apparent to every human creature that its military affairs had long been in hopelessly bad hands, Mr. Seward writes to inform Mr. Adams that, Our assault upon Richmond is for the moment suspended and is good enough to add that no

  great and striking movements or achievements are occurring, and the Government is rather preparing its energies for renewed operations than continuing to surprise the world by new and brilliant victories. The Northern commanders had indeed for some time been surprising the world, but not at all by brilliant victories, and the suggestion that the Northern Government might go on winning

  perpetual victories if they only wished it, but that they preferred for the present not to dazzle the world too much with their success, must have fallen rather chillingly on Mr. Adams's ear. Mr. Adams knew only too well that the North must win victories soon or they might find themselves confronted with a European confederation against them.

  The Emperor Napoleon was working hard to get England to join with him in recognizing the South. Mr. Roebuck had at one time a motion in the House of Commons calling on the English Government to make up their minds to the recognition, and Mr. Adams had explained again and again that such a step would mean war within Northern states.

  Mr. Adams was satisfied that the fate of Mr. Roebuck's motion would depend on the military events of a few days. He was right. The motion was never pressed to a division, for during its progress there came at one moment the news that General Grant had taken Vicksburg on the Mississippi, and that General

  Meade had defeated General Lee at Gettysburg, and put an end to all thought of a Southern invasion. This news was at first received with resolute incredulity in London by the advocates and partisans of the South. In some of the clubs there was positive indignation that such things should even be reported.

  The outburst of wrath was natural. That was the turning point of the war, although not many saw it even then. The South never had a chance after that hour. There was no more said in this country about the recognition of the Southern Confederation and the Emperor of the French was thenceforward free to follow out his plans as far as he

  could, and alone. The Emperor Napoleon, however, was for the present confident enough. He was under the impression that he had heard the last of the protests against his Mexican expedition. This expedition was in the beginning a joint undertaking of England, France and Spain.

  Its professed object, as set forth in a convention signed in London on October 31, 1861, was to demand from the Mexican authorities more efficacious protection for the persons and properties of their, the allied sovereign subjects, as well as a fulfillment of the obligations contracted toward their majesties by the Republic of Mexico. Mexico had been for a long time in a very disorganized state.

  The constitutional government of Benito Juarez had come into power, but the reactionary party was still struggling to regain the upper hand, and a sort of guerrilla warfare was actually going on. The government of Juarez, whatever its defects, gave promise of being stronger and better than that of its predecessors.

  It was, however, burdened with responsibility for the debts incurred and the crimes committed by its predecessors, and it entered into an agreement with several foreign states, England among the rest, to make over a certain proportion of the customs revenues to meet the claims of foreign creditors. This arrangement was not kept, and timely satisfaction was not given for wrongs committed

  against foreign subjects, wrongs for the most part, if not altogether, done by the government which Juarez had expelled from power, but for which, of course, he, as the successor to power, was properly responsible. Lord Russell, who had acted with great forbearance toward Mexico up to this time, now agreed to cooperate with France and Spain in exacting reparation from Juarez, but he defined clearly

  the extent to which the intervention of England would go. England would join in an expedition for the purpose, if necessary, of seizing on Mexican custom houses and thus making good the foreign claims. But she would not go a step further. She would have nothing to do with upsetting the government of Mexico or imposing any European

  system on the Mexican people. Accordingly, the second article of the convention pledged the contracting parties not to seek for themselves any acquisition of territory or any special advantage, and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influence of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose and to constitute freely the form of its government.

  The emperor of the French, however, had already made up his mind that he would establish a sort of feudatory monarchy in Mexico. He had long and various schemes and ambitions floating in his mind concerning those parts of America on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, which were once the possessions of France. In his dreamy, fantastic way, he had visions of restoring French influence and authority

  somewhere along the shores of the Gulf, and the outbreak of the Southern Rebellion appeared to give him just the opportunity that he desired. At the time when the convention was signed, the affairs of the federal states seemed all but hopeless, and for a long time after they gave no gleam of hope for the restoration of the Union.

  Louis Napoleon was convinced, and for a long time after, that the Southern states would succeed in establishing their independence. He seems to have been of Mr. Roebuck's way of thinking that the only fear we ought to have is lest the independence of the South should be established without us. He was glad, therefore, of the chance afforded him by the Mexican convention, and at the

  very time when he signed the convention with the pledge contained in its second article, he had already been making arrangements to found a monarchy in Mexico. If he could have ventured to set up a monarchy with a French prince at its head he would probably have done so, but this would have been too bold a venture. He therefore persuaded the Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor of Austria, to accept

  the crown of the monarchy he proposed to set up in Mexico. The Archduke was a man of pure and noble character, but evidently wanting in strength of mind, and he agreed after some hesitation to accept the offer. Meanwhile, the joint expedition sailed. She sent only a line of battleship, two frigates, and 700 marines.

  France sent, in the first instance, about 2,500 men, whom she largely reinforced immediately after. Spain had about 6,000 men under the command of the late Marshal Prim. The Allies soon began to find that their purposes were incompatible. There was much suspicion about the designs of France, although the French statesmen were

  every day repudiating in stronger and stronger terms the intentions imputed to them, and which soon proved to be the resolute purposes of the Emperor of the French. Some of the claims set up by France disgusted the other Allies. The Gécquer claims were for a long time after as familiar a subject of ridicule as our own Pacifico claims had been.

  A Swiss house of Gécquer and company had lent the former government of Mexico $750,000 and got bonds from that government, which was on its very last legs, for 15 millions of dollars. The government was immediately afterwards upset, and Juarez came into power. Monsieur Gécquer modestly put in his claim for 15 millions of dollars.

  Juarez refused to comply with the demand. He offered to pay the $750,000 lent, and 5% interest, but he declined to pay exactly 20 times the amount of the sum advanced. Monsieur Gécquer had by this time become somehow a subject of France, and the French government took up his claim.

  It was clear that the Emperor of the French had resolved that there should be war. At last, the designs of the French government became evident to the English and Spanish plenipotentiaries, and England and Spain withdrew from the convention. England certainly ought never have entered into it, but as she had been drawn in, the best thing then was for her to get out of it as decently and as quickly as she could.

  Nothing in the enterprise became her like to the leaving of it. End of Section 32.

• 33 - Ch. 44: The Cruise of the Alabama, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  The Emperor of the French walked his own wild road whither that led him. He overran a certain portion of Mexico with his troops. He captured Puebla after a long and desperate resistance. He occupied the capital and set up the Mexican Empire with Maximilian as Emperor. French troops remained to protect the new empire.

  Against all this, the United States government protested from time to time. They disclaimed any intention to prevent the Mexican people from establishing an empire if they thought fit, but they pointed out that grave inconveniences must arise if a foreign power like France persisted in occupying with her troops any part of the American continent. The Monroe Doctrine, which by the way was the invention of George Canning and not of President

  Monroe, does not forbid the establishing of a monarchy on the American continent, but only the intervention of a European power to set up such a system or any system opposed to liberty there. However, the Emperor Napoleon cared nothing just then about the Monroe Doctrine, complacently satisfied that the United States was going to pieces

  and that the Southern Confederacy would be his friend and ally. He received the protests of the American government with unveiled indifference. At last, the tide in American affairs turned. The Confederacy crumbled away. Richmond was taken.

  Lee surrendered. Jefferson Davis was a prisoner. Then the United States returned to the Mexican question, and the American government informed Louis Napoleon that it would be inconvenient, gravely inconvenient, if he were not to withdraw his soldiers from Mexico.

  A significant movement of American troops under a renowned general, then flushed with success, was made in the direction of the Mexican frontier. There was nothing for Louis Napoleon but to withdraw. Up to the last, he had been rocked in the vainest hopes. Long after the end had become patent to every other eye,

  he assured an English member of parliament that he looked upon the Mexican empire as the greatest creation of his reign. The Mexican empire lasted two months and a week after the last of the French troops had been withdrawn. Maximilian endeavored to raise an army of his own

  and to defend himself against the daily increasing strength of Juarez. He showed all the courage which might have been expected from his race and from his own previous history. But in an evil hour for himself, and yielding, it is stated, to the persuasion of a French officer,

  he had issued a decree that all who resisted his authority and arms should be shot. By virtue of this monstrous ordinance, Mexican officers of the regular army, taken prisoners while resisting as they were bound to do the invasion of a European prince, were shot like brigands.

  The Mexican general Ortega was one of those thus shamefully done to death. When Juarez conquered and Maximilian in his turn was made a prisoner, he was tried by court-martial, condemned, and shot. His death created a profound sensation in Europe. He had in all his previous career won respect everywhere

  and even in the Mexican scheme he was universally regarded as a noble victim who had been deluded to his doom. The conduct of Juarez in thus having him put to death raised a cry of horror from all Europe. But it must be allowed that by the fatal decree which he had issued,

  the unfortunate Maximilian had left himself liable to a stern retaliation. There was cold truth in the remark made at the time that if he had been only general and not archduke Maximilian, his fate would not have aroused so much surprise or anger. The French empire never recovered the shock of this Mexican failure.

  It was chiefly in the hope of regaining his lost prestige that the emperor tried to show himself a strong man in German affairs. More than three years before the fall of Maximilian, the present writer in commenting on Louis Napoleon's scheme ventured to predict that Mexico would prove the Moscow of the Second Empire.

  Time has not shown that the prediction was rash. The French empire outlived the Mexican empire by three years and a few weeks. From the entering of Moscow to the arrival at St. Helena, the interval was three years and one month. We need not follow any further the history of the American Civil War.

  The restoration of the Union, the assassination of President Lincoln, and the emancipation of the colored race from all the disqualifications as well as all the bondage of the slave system belong to American and not to English history. But the Alabama dispute led to consequences

  which are especially important to England and which shall be described in their due time. Meanwhile, it is necessary for the proper appreciation of the final terms of the settlement that we should see exactly how the dispute arose

  and what was the condition of public feeling in this country at the time when it grew into serious proportions. If the final settlement was felt to be humiliating in England, it must be owned that those who are commonly called the governing classes had themselves very much to blame.

  Their conviction that the Civil War must lead to the disruption of the Union was at the bottom of much of the indifference and apathy which for a long time was shown by English officials in regard to the remonstrances of the United States. The impression that we might do as we liked with the North

  was made only too obvious. The United States must indeed then have felt that they were receiving a warning that to be weak is to be miserable. It is not surprising if they believed at that time that England was disposed to adopt Sir Giles Overreach's way of thinking.

  We worldly men, when we see friends and kinsmen, past hope sunken their fortunes, lend no hand to lift them up, but rather set our feet upon their heads to press them to the bottom. It is not certain that the supporters of the southern side at any time

  actually outnumbered the champions of the North and of the Union, but they seemed for the greater part of the war's duration to have the influence of the country mainly with them. A superficial observer might have been excused at one time if he said that England as a whole was on the side of the secession.

  This would have been a very inaccurate statement of the case, but the inaccuracy would have been excusable and even natural. The vast majority of what are called the governing classes were on the side of the South. By far the greater number of the aristocracy,

  of the official world, of members of parliament, of military and naval men, were for the South. London club life was virtually all southern. The most powerful papers in London and the most popular papers as well

  were open partisans of the southern confederation. In London to be on the side of the Union was at one time to be eccentric, to be un-English, to be Yankee. On the other hand, most of the great democratic towns of the Midland and of the North were mainly in favor of the Union.

  The artisans everywhere were on the same side. This was made strikingly manifest in Lancashire. The supply of cotton from America nearly ceased in consequence of the war and the greatest distress prevailed in that county. The cotton famine, called by no exaggerated name, set in.

  All that private benevolence could do, all that legislation enabling money to be borrowed for public works to give employment could do, was for a time hardly able to contend against the distress. Yet the Lancashire operatives were among the sturdiest of those who stood out

  against any proposal to break the blockade or to recognize the South. Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright and the Manchester School generally, or at least all that were left of them, were for the North. A small but very influential number of thoughtful men, Mr. John Stuart Mill at their head, were faithful to their principles

  and stood firmly by the cause of the North. But the voice of London, that is the voice of what is called society, and of the metropolitan shopkeeping classes who draw their living from society, all this was for the South. It was not a question of liberal and Tory.

  The Tories on the whole were more discreet than the Liberals. It was not from the conservative benches of the House of Commons that the bitterest and least excusable denunciations of the Northern cause and of the American Republic were heard. It was a liberal who declared with exaltation that the Republic bubble had burst.

  It was a liberal, Mr. Roebuck, who was most clamorous for English intervention to help the South. It was Lord Russell who described the struggle as one in which the North was striving for empire and the South for independence. It was Mr. Gladstone who said that the president of the Southern Confederation,

  Mr. Jefferson Davis, had made an army, had made a navy, and more than that, had made a nation. On the other hand, it is to be remarked that among the Liberals, even of the official class, were to be seen some of the staunchest advocates of the Northern cause.

  The Duke of Argyll championed the cause from warm sympathy. Sir George Lewis from cool philosophy. Mr. Charles Villiers and Mr. Milner Gibson were frankly and steadily on the side of the North. The conservative leaders on the whole behaved with great discretion.

  Mr. Adams wrote in July 1863 that the opposition leaders are generally disinclined to any demonstrations whatever. Several of them in reality rather sympathize with us, but the body of their party continue animated by the same feelings to America which brought on the revolution and which drove us into the War of 1812.

  Lord Darby indeed expressed his conviction that the Union never could be restored, but Lord Palmerston had done the same. Mr. Disraeli abstained from saying anything that could offend any Northerner and gave no indication of partisanship on either side. Lord Stanley always spoke like a fair and reasonable man

  who understood thoroughly what he was talking about. In this he was unfortunately somewhat peculiar among the class to which he belonged. Not many of them appeared precisely to know what they were talking about. They took their opinions from the most part from the times and from the talk of the clubs. The talk of the clubs was that the Southerners were all gentlemen

  and very nice fellows who were sure to win, and that the Northerners were low trading shopkeeping fellows who did not know how to fight, were very cowardly, and were certain to be defeated. There was the theory that the Northerners really rather liked slavery and would have had it if they could,

  and that a Negro slave in the South was much better off than a free Negro in the northern states. The geography of the question was not very clearly understood in the clubs. Those who endeavored to show that it was not easy to find a convenient dividing line for two federations on the North American continent were commonly answered that the Mississippi formed exactly the suitable frontier.

  It was an article of faith with some of those who then most eagerly discussed the question in London that the Mississippi flowed east and west and separated neatly the seceding states from the states of the north. The Times was the natural instructor of what is called society in London, and the Times was unfortunately very badly informed all through the war.

  After the failure of General Lee's attempt to carry invasion into the north and the simultaneous capture of Vicksburg by General Grant, anyone, it might have been thought, who was capable of forming an opinion at all, must have seen that the flood tide of the rebellion had been reached and was over. That the South would have to stand on the defensive from that hour,

  and that the overcoming of its defense considering the comparative resources of the belligerents was only a question of time. Yet, for a whole year or more, the London public was still assured that the Confederates were sweeping from victory to victory. That wherever they seemed, even to undergo a check,

  that was only a part of their superior policy, which would presently vindicate itself in greater victory. That the North was staggering, crippled, and exhausted, and that the only doubt was whether General Lee would not at once march for Washington and establish the Southern government there.

  Almost to the very hour when the South, its brave and brilliant defense all over, had to confess defeat and yield its broken sword to the conquerors, the London public was still invited to believe that Mr. Davis was floating on the full flood of success. While the hearts of all in Richmond were filled with despair,

  and the final surrender was accounted there a question of days, the Southern sympathizers in London were complacently bidden to look out for the full triumph and the assured independence of the Southern Confederation. On the last day of December, 1864, the Times complained that Mr. Seward and other teachers or flatterers of the multitude

  still affect to anticipate the early restoration of the Union, and in three months from that date, the rebellion was over. Those who read and believed in such instruction, and up to the very last, their name was Legion, must surely have been bewildered when the news came of the capture of Richmond

  and the surrender of Lee. They might well have thought that only some miraculous intervention of a malignant fate could thus all at once have converted victory into defeat and turned the broken worthless levies of Grant and Sherman into armies of conquerors. In the end, the Southern population were as bitter against us as the North.

  The Southern states fancied themselves deceived. They too had mistaken the unthinking utterances of what is called society in England for the expression of English statesmanship and public feeling. It is proper to assert distinctly that at no time had the English government any thought of acting on the suggestion of the Emperor of the French

  and recognizing the South. Lord Palmerston would not hear of it, nor would Lord Russell. What might have come to pass if the Southern successes had continued a year longer, it would be idle now to conjecture. But up to the turning point, our statesmen had not changed,

  and after the turning point, change was out of the question. There is nothing to blame in the conduct of the English government throughout all this trying time, except as regards the manner in which they dismissed the remonstrances about the building of the privateers. But it is not likely that impartial history will acquit them of the charge

  of having been encouraged in their indifference by the common conviction that the Union was about to be broken up and that the North was no longer a formidable power. End of Section 33.

• 34 - Ch. 45: Palmerston's Last Victory, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Chapter 45. Palmerston's Last Victory, Part 1. During the later months of his life, the Prince Consort had been busy in preparing for another great international exhibition to be held in London. It was arranged that this exhibition should open on May 1st, 1862, and although the sudden death of the Prince Consort greatly interfered with the prospects of the undertaking, it was not thought right that there should be

  any postponement of the opening. The exhibition was erected in South Kensington according to the design of General Folk. It certainly was not a beautiful structure. None of the novel charm which attached to the bright exterior of the Crystal Palace could be found in the South Kensington building. It was a huge and solid erection of brick with two enormous domes, each in shape so strikingly like the famous crinoline petticoat of the period that people

  amused themselves by suggesting that the principal idea of the architect was to perpetuate for posterity the shape and structure of the Empress Eugénie's invention. The fine arts department of the exhibition was a splendid collection of pictures and statues. The display of products of all kinds from the colonies was rich and was a novelty, for the colonists contributed little indeed to the exhibition of 1851, and the intervening 11 years had been a period of immense

  colonial advance. But the public did not enter with much heart into the enterprise of 1862. No one felt any longer any of the hopes which floated dreamily and gracefully round the scheme of 1851. There was no talk or thought of a reign of peace anymore. The Civil War was raging in America, the continent of Europe was trembling all over with the spasms of war just done, and the promontory symptoms of war to come. The exhibition of 1862 had to rely upon its

  intrinsic merits like any ordinary show or any public market. Poetry and prophecy had nothing to say to it. England was left for some time to an almost absolute inactivity. As regards measures of political legislation, after the failure of the reform bill it was quite understood, as we have already said, that there was to be no more of reform while Lord Palmerston lived. At one of his elections for Tiverton, Lord Palmerston was attacked by

  a familiar antagonist, a sturdy radical butcher, and asked to explain why he did not bring in another reform bill. The answer was characteristic. Why do we not bring in another reform bill? Because we are not geese. Lord Palmerston was heartily glad to be rid of schemes in which he had neither belief nor sympathy, and his absence of political foresight in home affairs made him satisfied that the whole question of reform was quietly shelved for another generation.

  It is not perhaps surprising that a busy statesman whose intellect was mostly exercised on questions of foreign policy should have come to this conclusion when cool critics on public affairs were ready to adopt with complacency a similar faith. The quarterly review said in 1863, reform is no longer talked of now, Mr. Bright has almost ceased to excite antipathy. Our statesmen, it went on to say with portentous gravity, have awakened to the fact that the

  imagined reform agitation was nothing but an intrigue among themselves, and that the nation was far too sensible to desire any further approximation to the government of the multitude. Lord Palmerston was free to indulge in his taste for foreign politics. Between Palmerston and the radical party in England there was a growing coldness. He had not only thrown over reform himself, but he had apparently induced most of his colleagues to accept the understanding

  that nothing more was to be said about it. He had gone in for a policy of large expenditure for the purpose of securing the country against the possibility of invasion. He had lent himself openly to the propagation of what his adversaries called, not very unreasonably, the scare that was got up about Napoleonic invasion. When drawn into argument by Mr. Cobden on the subject, Lord Palmerston had betrayed a warmth of manner that was almost

  offensive and had spoken of the commercial treaty with France as if it were a thing rather ridiculous than otherwise. He was unsparing whenever he had a chance in his ridicule of the ballot. He had very little sympathy with the grievances of the nonconformists, some of them even still real and substantial enough. He took no manner of interest in anything proposed for the political benefit of Ireland. Although an Irish landlord, an Irish peer, and occasionally

  speaking of himself in a half-jocular way as an Irishman, he could not be brought even to affect any sympathy with any of the complaints made by the representatives of that country. He scoffed at all proposals about tenant right. Tenant right, he once said, is landlords wrong. And he was cheered for saying this by the landlords on both sides of the House of Commons, and he evidently thought he had settled the question. He was indeed impatient of all views,

  and he regarded what is called philosophic statesmanship with absolute contempt. The truth is that Palmerston ceased to be a statesman the moment he came to deal with domestic interests. When actually in the Home Office and compelled to turn his attention to the business of that department, he proved a very efficient administrator because of his shrewdness and his energy. But as a rule, he had not much to do with English political affairs, and he knew little or

  nothing of them. He was even childishly ignorant of many things which any ordinary public man is supposed to know. He was at home in foreign, that is, in continental politics, for he had hardly any knowledge of American affairs, and almost up to the moment of the fall of Richmond was confident that the Union never could be restored, and that separation was the easy and natural way of settling all the dispute. He gave a pension to an absurd and obscure writer of Dogerill, and when a question

  was raised about this singular piece of patronage in the House of Commons, it turned out that Lord Palmerston knew nothing about the man, but it gutted into his head somehow that he was a poet of the class of Burns. When he read anything except dispatches, he read scientific treatises, for he had a keen interest in some branches of science, but he cared little for modern English literature. The world in which he delighted to mingle talked of continental politics generally,

  and a great knowledge of English domestic affairs would have been thrown away there. Naturally, therefore, when Lord Palmerston had nothing particular to do in foreign affairs and had to turn his attention to England, he relished the idea of fortifying her against foreign foes. This was foreign politics, seen from another point of view. It had far more interest for him than reform or tenant right. There were, however, some evidences of a certain

  difference of opinion between Lord Palmerston and some of his colleagues, as well as between him and the radical party. His constant activity in foreign politics pleased some of his cabinet as little as it pleased the advanced liberals. His vast fortification schemes and his willingness to spend money on any project that tended toward war, or what seemed much the same thing, on any elaborate preparation against problematical war, was not congenial with the temperament and

  the judgment of some members of his administration. Lord Palmerston acted sincerely on the opinion which he expressed in a short letter to Mr. Cobden that man is a fighting and quarreling animal. Assuming it to be the nature of man to fight and quarrel, he could see no better business for English statesmanship than to keep this country always in a condition to resist a possible attack from somebody. He differed almost radically on this point from two at least of his more important

  colleagues, Mr. Gladston and Mr. George Cornwall Lewis. Mr. Evelyn Ashley in his Life of Lord Palmerston has published some interesting letters that passed between Palmerston and these statesmen on this general subject. Palmerston wrote to Sir George Lewis on November 22, 1860, arguing against something Lewis had said and which Palmerston hopes was only a conversational paradox and not a deliberately adopted theory. This was a dissent on the part of Lewis from the maxim,

  that in statesmanship prevention is better than cure. Each had clearly in his mind the prevention which would take security against the perils of war. Lord Palmerston therefore goes on at once in his letter to show that in many cases the timely adoption of spirited measures by an English government would have actually prevented war. Lewis argues that if an evil is certain and proximate and can be averted by diplomacy then undoubtedly prevention is better than cure.

  But if the evil is remote and uncertain then I think it better not to resort to preventive measures which ensure a proximate and certain mischief. The purpose of the discussion is made more clear in Lewis's concluding sentence. It seems to me that our foreign relations are on too vast a scale to render it wise for us to ensure systematically against all risks, and if we do not ensure systematically we do nothing. On April 29, 1862, Lord Palmerston writes

  to Mr Gladstone about a speech that the latter had just been making in Manchester and in which, as Lord Palmerston puts it, Mr Gladstone seems to make it a reproach to the nation at large that it has forced as you say it has on the parliament and the government the high amount of expenditure which we have at present to provide for. Palmerston does not quite agree with Mr Gladstone as to the fact, but admitting it to be as you

  state it seems to me to be rather a proof of the superior sagacity of the nation than a subject for reproach. Lord Palmerston goes on to argue that the country, so far from having as Cobden had accused it of doing, rushed headlong into extravagance under the influence of panic, had simply awakened from a lethargy, got rid of an apathetic blindness on the part of the governed and the governors as to the defensive means of the country compared with the offensive means

  required and acquiring by other powers. We have on the other side of the channel a people who say what they may, hate us as a nation from the bottom of their hearts and would make any sacrifice to inflict a deep humiliation upon England. It is natural that this should be so. They are eminently vain and their passion is glory in war. They cannot forget or forgive Abukir, Trafalgar, the peninsula, Waterloo and

  Saint Helena. Well then, at the head of this neighboring nation, who would like nothing so well as a retaliatory blow upon England, we see an able, active, wary, council-keeping but ever planning sovereign and we see this sovereign organizing an army which including his reserve is more than six times greater in amount than the whole of our regular forces in our two islands and at the same time laboring hard to create a navy equal if not superior to ours.

  Give him a cause of quarrel which any foreign power may at any time invent or create, if so minded. Give him the command of the channel, which permanent or accidental naval superiority might afford him, and then calculate if you can, for it would pass my reckoning power to do so, the disastrous consequences to the British nation which a landing of an army of from one to two hundred thousand men would bring with it. Surely even a large yearly expenditure for army and navy

  is an economical insurance against such a catastrophe. The reader will perhaps be reminded of one of the most effective arguments of Demosthenes. Consider, he says, what even a few days of the occupation of the country by a foreign enemy would mean and then say whether, as a mere matter of economy, it would not be better to spend a good deal of the resources we have in striving to avert such a calamity. There is a great difference, however, in the purpose

  and the application of the two arguments. Demosthenes puts the case in a way that is, from its point of view, perfect. He is speaking of a danger that lies at the gates of an enemy who must be encountered one way or another and he is pleading for instant and offensive war. It is a very different thing to argue for enormous expenditure on the ground that somebody who is now professing the most peaceful intentions may possibly one day become

  your enemy and try to attack you. In such a case, the first thing to be considered is whether the danger is real and likely to be imminent or whether it is merely speculative. Even against speculative dangers, a wise people will always take precautions, but it is no part of wisdom to spend in guarding against such perils as much as would be needed to enable us, actually, to speak with the enemy at the gate. It is a question of proportion and comparison.

  As Sir George Lewis argues, it is not possible for a nation like England to secure herself against all speculative dangers. France might invade us from Boulogne or Cherbourg, no doubt, but the United States might at the same time assail us in Canada. Russia might attack, as she once thought of doing, our Australian possessions or make an onslaught upon us in Asia. Germany might be in alliance with Russia. Austria might at the same time be in alliance with France. These are all

  possibilities. They might all come to pass at one and the same time. But how could any state keep fleets and armies capable of ensuring her against serious peril from such a combination? It would be better to make up our minds to wait until the assault really threatened and then fight it out the best way we could. Lord Palmerston seemed to forget that in the campaign against Russia, it did not prove easy for France to send out an army very much smaller than his one or two hundred

  thousand men, and that Louis Napoleon was glad to finish up prematurely his campaign in Lombardy, even though he had won in every battle. He had also made the mistake of assuming that all these military and naval insurances must insure. If he had lived to 1870, he would have seen that a sovereign may engage himself for years in the preparing of an immense armament, that it may be the armament of a people eminently vain whose passion is glory in war, and yet that the armament may turn out a

  vast failure and may prove at the hour of need a defense like Rotomante's Bridge in Ariosto, which only conducts its owner to ignominious upset and fall. All the resources of France were strained for years and by one who could do as he pleased for the single purpose of creating a great overmastering army. And when the time came to test the army, it proved to be little better than what Prince Bismarck called a crowd of fighting persons. This is surely a matter to be taken account of

  when we are thinking of going to vast annual expense for the purpose of maintaining a great armament. We may go to all the expense and yet not have the armament when we fancy we have need of it. That, Lord Palmerston would doubtless have said, is a risk we must run. Mr. Gladstone and Sir George Lewis would no doubt have thought problematic invasion a risk more safe to run. That had been the view of Sir Robert Peel. Whatever may be thought of the merits of the argument on either side

  and the decision will be made more often probably by temperament than by reasoning, the controversy will serve to illustrate the sort of difference that was gradually growing up between Lord Palmerston and some of his own colleagues. Lord Palmerston had of late fallen again into a policy of suspicion and distrust as regards France. We are convinced that he was perfectly sincere and as has been said already in these

  pages we do not think there was any inconsistency in his conduct. He had for a long time believed in the good faith of the emperor of the French but the policy of the Lombardy campaign and the consequent annexation of Savoy and Nice had come to him as a complete surprise and when he found that his friend Louis Napoleon could keep such secrets from him he possibly came to the conclusion that he could keep others still more important. Lord Palmerston made England his idol. He loved

  her in a pagan way. He did not much care for abstract justice where she was concerned. He was unscrupulous where he believed her interests were to be guarded nor had he any other than a purely pagan view of her interests. It did not seem to have occurred to him that England's truest interests would be to do justice to herself and to other states, to be what Voltaire's Brahmin boasts of being a good parent and a faithful friend,

  maintaining well her own children and endeavoring for peace among her neighbors. Palmerston's idea was that England should hold the commanding place among European states and that none should even seem to be in a position to do her scathe. End of section 34.

• 35 - Ch. 45: Palmerston's Last Victory, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Chapter 45. Palmerston's Last Victory, Part 2. Lord Palmerston's taste for foreign affairs had now ample means of gratification. England had some small troubles of her own to deal with. A serious insurrection sprang up in New Zealand. The tribe of the Waikato, living near Auckland in the northern island, began a movement against the colonists. And this became, before long, a general rebellion of the Māori natives. The Māoris are a

  remarkably intelligent race and are skillful in war as well as in peace. Not long before this, the governor of the colony, Sir George Grey, had written in the warmest praise of their industrial capabilities and their longing for mental improvement. They had a certain literary art among them. They could all or nearly all read and write. Many of them were eloquent and could display considerable diplomatic skill. They fought so well in this instance that the

  British troops actually suffered a somewhat serious repulse in endeavoring to take one of the Māori Palisadeau fortified villages. In the end, however, they were of course defeated. The quarrel was a survival of a long-standing dispute between the colonists and the natives about land. It was in fact the old story. The colonists eager to increase their stock of land and the natives jealous to guard their quickly vanishing possession. The events led to a grave

  discussion in Parliament. The Legislature of New Zealand passed enactments confiscating some nine million acres of the native lands and giving the colonial government something like absolute and arbitrary power of arrest and imprisonment. The government at home proposed to help the colonists by a guarantee to raise a loan of one million to cover the expenses of the war or the colonial share of them, and this proposal was keenly discussed in the House of Commons. It was on

  this occasion that Mr. Roebuck laid down a philosophical theory which gave a good deal of offense to sensitive people. The theory that where the brown man and the white meet, the brown man is destined to disappear. The doctrine is questionable enough even as a theory. No doubt the brown man is destined to disappear if the white man with his better weapons and greater cleverness and resources makes it his business to extirpate him, and it was justly

  pointed out that whatever Mr. Roebuck may have personally meant by his theory, its inculcation at such a moment could only tend to strengthen this idea in the minds of some colonists who were already only too willing to entertain it, but until the brown man has had full, fair play somewhere alongside of the white man, it is rash to come to any distinct conclusions as to his ultimate destiny. Mr. Roebuck always loved theories neatly cut and sharpened. He gave

  them out with a precision which lent them an appearance of power and authority. They seemed to argue a mind that had swallowed formulas, as Mr. Carlyle puts it, and was above the cant of humanitarianism. But such theories are more satisfactorily broached and discussed in scientific societies than in parliamentary debate. The ultimate destiny of the brown man did not particularly help the House of Commons to any conclusions concerning the New Zealand insurrection,

  because even Mr. Roebuck did not put forward his theory as an argument to prove that in every controversy we are bound to take the side of the white man and assist him in his predestined business of extinguishing his brown rival. The government passed their guarantee bill, now without many a protest from both sides of the House, that colonists who readily engaged in quarrels with natives must sometime or other be prepared to bear the expenses entailed by their

  own policy. Trouble, too, arose on the Gold Coast of Africa. Some slaves of the King of Ashanti had taken refuge in British territory. The governor of Cape Coast Colony would not give them up, and in the spring of 1863, the King made threatening demonstrations, invading the territories of neighbouring chiefs, destroying many of their villages, and approaching within forty miles of our frontier. The governor, assuming that the

  settlement was about to be invaded by the Ashantis, took it upon him to anticipate the movement by sending out an expedition into the territory of the King. He ordered troops to be moved for the purpose. The season was badly chosen. The climate was pestilential. Even the black troops from the West Indies could not endure it and began to die like flies. The ill-advised undertaking had to be given up, and the government at home only escaped a vote

  of censure by a narrow majority of seven. Two hundred and twenty-six members supported Sir John Hayes' resolution declaring that the movement was rash and impolitic, and two hundred and thirty-three sustained the action of the government. Much discussion, too, was aroused by the occurrences in Japan. A British subject, Mr. Richardson, was murdered in the English settlement of Japan and on an open road made free to Englishmen by

  treaty. This was in September, 1862. The murder was committed by some of the followers of Prince Satsuma, one of the powerful feudal princes who then practically divided the authority of Japan with the regular government. Reparation was demanded both from the Japanese government and from Prince Satsuma. The government paid the sum demanded of them, one hundred thousand pounds, and made an apology. Prince Satsuma was called on to pay twenty-five thousand pounds and to see

  that the murderers were brought to punishment, the crime having been committed within his jurisdiction. Satsuma did nothing, and in 1863 Colonel Neal, the English Chargé d'affaires in Japan, called upon Admiral Cooper to go with the English fleet to Kagoshima, Satsuma's capital, and demand satisfaction. Admiral Cooper entered the bay on August 11, 1863, and after waiting for a day or two proceeded to seize on some steamers. The Kagoshima forts opened fire on him, and he

  then bombarded the town and laid the greater portion of it in ashes. The town, it seemed, was built for the most part of wood. It caught fire in the bombardment and was destroyed. Fortunately, the non-combatant inhabitants, the women and children, had had time to get out of Kagoshima, and the destruction of life was not great. The whole transaction was severely condemned by many Englishmen who did not belong to the ranks of those professed philanthropists whom

  it is sometimes the fashion to denounce in England as if humanity and patriotism were irreconcilable qualities and as if a true Englishman ought to have no consideration for the sufferings of Japanese and Maori and people of that sort. The House of Commons, however, sustained the government by a large majority. The government, it should be said, did not profess to justify the destruction of Kagoshima. Their case was that Admiral Cooper had to do something, and that there

  was nothing he could very well do and he had been fired upon, but to bombard the town, and that the burning of the town was an accident of the conflict for which neither he nor they could be held responsible. Satsuma finally submitted and paid the money and promised justice, but there were more murders and more bombardings yet before we came to anything like an abiding settlement with Japan. And Japan itself was not far off a revolution, the most sudden, organic, and to all appearance

  complete that has ever yet been seen in the history of nations. In the meantime, however, our government became involved in liabilities more perilous than any disputes in eastern or southern islands could bring on them. An insurrection of a very serious kind broke out in Poland. It was provoked by the Stratford-like thoroughness of the policy adopted by the Russian authorities. It was well known to the Russian government that a secret political agitation was going on in

  Poland, and it was determined to anticipate matters and choke off the patriotic movement by taking advantage of the periodical conscription to press into military ranks all the young men in the cities who could by any possibility be supposed to have any sympathy with it. The attempt to execute this resolve was the occasion for the outbreak of an insurrection, which at one time showed something like a claim to success. The young men who could escape fled to

  the woods, and there formed themselves into armed bands which gave the Russians great trouble. The rebels could disperse and come together with such ease and rapidity that it was very difficult indeed to get any real advantage over them. The frontier of Austrian Poland was very near, and the insurgents could cross it, escape from the Russian troops, and recross it when they pleased to resume their harassing operations. Austria was not by any means so unfriendly to

  the Polish patriots as both Russia and Prussia were. Austria had come unwillingly into the scheme for the partition of Poland and had got little profit by it, and it was well understood that if the other powers concerned could see their way to the restoration of Polish nationality, Austria, for her part, would make no objection. The insurgents counted with some confidence on the passive attitude of the Austrian authorities and the positive sympathy of many officers and

  soldiers in the Austrian army. They converted the Austrian frontier for a while into a military basis of operations against Russia. To some extent, the same thing was attempted on the Prussian frontier, too, but Prussia was still very much under the dominion of Russia and was prevailed upon, or coerced, to execute an odious convention with Russia, by virtue of which the Russian troops were allowed to follow Polish insurgents into Prussian territory. This convention created a

  strong feeling against Prussia through the whole of Western Europe, and for a while made her much more an object of general dislike than even Russia herself. It was plain from the first that the Poles could not under the most favorable circumstances hold out long against Russia by virtue of their own strength. It was evident that wherever the insurrection could be gotten to a corner, Russia could crush it with ease. Nevertheless, the plans of the Poles were not so imprudent as

  they seemed. On the contrary, they had a certain chance of success. The idea, whether clearly or definitely expressed or not, was to keep the insurrection up by any means and at any risk, until some of the great European powers should be induced to interfere. The insurrection was a great drama, a piece of deliberate stage play. We do not say this in any spirit of disparagement. The stage play was got up by patriots with a true and

  noble purpose, and it was the only statesmanlike policy left to the Poles. Let us keep it up long enough. Such was the conviction of the Polish leaders, and Western Europe must intervene. Despite the lesson of subsequent events, the Poles were well justified in their political calculations. Their hopes were at one time on the very eve of being realized. The Emperor Napoleon was eager to move to their aid, and Lord Russell was hardly less eager.

  The Polish cause was very popular in England. It had been the political first love of many a man who now felt his youthful ardor glow again, as he read of the gallant struggle made in the forests of Poland. Russia was hated. Prussia was now hated even more. There was no question of party feeling about the sympathy with Poland. There were about as many conservatives as radicals who were ready to favor the idea of some effort being made on her behalf.

  Lord Ellenborough spoke up for Poland in the House of Lords with poetic and impassioned eloquence. Lord Shaftesbury, from the opposite benches, denounced the conduct of Russia. The Irish Catholic was as ardent for Polish liberty as the London artisan. Among its most conspicuous and energetic advocates in England was Mr. Pope Hennessy, a Catholic and Irish member of Parliament, and Mr. Edmund Beals,

  the leader of a great radical organization in London. The question was raised in Parliament by Mr. Hennessy and aroused much sympathy there. Great public meetings were held at which Russia was denounced and Poland advocated not merely by popular orators, but by men of high rank and grave responsibility. War was not openly called for at these meetings or in the House of Commons, but it was urged that England, as one of the powers which had signed the Treaty of Vienna,

  should join with other states in summoning Russia to recognize the rights such as they were, which had been secured to Poland by virtue of that treaty. In France, the greatest enthusiasm prevailed for the cause of Poland. The eloquent pan of Montalembert pleaded for the nation in mourning. Prince Napoleon spoke with singular eloquence and impressiveness in the French Senate on the justice and necessity of intervention. The same cause was pleaded by Count Wilewski, himself the

  son of a Polish lady. The Emperor Napoleon required little pressing. He was ready to intervene if he could get England to join him. Lord Russell went so far as to draw up and dispatch to Russia in concert with France and Austria a note on the subject of Poland. It urged on the attention of the Russian government six points as the outline of a system of pacification for Poland. These were a complete amnesty, a national representation, a distinct national administration of Poles for the

  Kingdom of Poland, full liberty of conscience with the repeal of all the restrictions of the conscience with the repeal of all the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship, the recognition of the Polish language as official, the establishment of a regular system of recruiting. There was an almost universal impression at one moment that in the event of Russia declining to accept these recommendations, England, Austria, and France would make war to compel her. There was hardly any party

  in England absolutely opposed to the idea of intervention except the Manchester School of Radicals. Some of these were consistently opposed to intervention in any foreign cause whatever. Others had an added impression that Poland had managed her national affairs very badly when she had a chance of managing them for herself and that therefore there was little use in trying to set her on her feet again. Such opposition would however have counted for even less than it did at the time

  of the Crimean War if the government had resolved on going in with France and striking a blow for Poland. End of section 35.

• 36 - Ch. 45: Palmerston's Last Victory, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Chapter 45. Palmerston's Last Victory, Part 3. Looking back now calmly on the events of that day and those which followed them, it does not seem that such a policy would have been unwise. There was much in the claims of Poland which deserved the sympathy of every lover of liberty and believer in the development of civilization. If this were the time or place for such a discussion, it would not

  be difficult to show that the faults found with Poland's old system of government had nothing to do with the condition of the present, and that a new Poland would no more be likely to fall into the errors of the past than a new Irish parliament would be likely to refuse the right of representation to Catholics. There would assuredly have been a distinct advantage to the stability of European affairs in the resuscitation of Poland as a distinct

  and independent part of the Russian state system, even if she were not to be a wholly independent nation once again. This probably could not have been done without war, but it seems more than merely probable that that war would have averted the necessity of many other wars which have since been fought out with less profitable result to European stability. Whether the English alarms about the aggressive designs of Russia be founded or unfounded,

  the legislative independence of Poland would have made it superfluous to take much thought concerning them. The new Poland would undoubtedly have been a state with representative institutions and set in the midst of Russia and of Prussia, her example could hardly have been without a contagious influence of a very salutary kind on each. It soon became known, however, that there was to be no intervention. Lord Palmerston put a stop to the whole idea. It

  was not that he sympathized with Russia. On the contrary, he wrote a letter to Baron Brunau, the Russian ambassador, on February 4th, 1863, in which he bluntly told him that he regarded the Polish insurrection as the just punishment inflicted by heaven on Russia for Russia's having done so much to stir up revolution in the dominions of some of her neighbors. But Lord Palmerston had by this time grown into as profound a distrust of the Emperor

  Napoleon as any representative of the social and democratic republic could possibly entertain. He was convinced that the Emperor was stirring in the matter chiefly with the hope of getting an opportunity of establishing himself in the Rhine provinces of Prussia on the pretext of compelling Prussia to remain neutral in the struggle or of punishing her if she took the side of Russia. Probably Lord Palmerston was mistaken in this instance. It is not likely

  that Louis Napoleon ever cared for any war project or annexation scheme except with the view of making his dynasty popular in France, and he may well have thought that the emancipation of Poland would gain him popularity enough to enable him to dispense with other contrivances for the remainder of his reign. However that may be, Lord Palmerston was firm. He described a proposal of the Emperor for an identical note to be addressed to Prussia on the subject

  of the convention with Russia as a trap laid for England to fall into, and he would have nothing to do with it. After a while it became known that England had decided not to join in any project for armed intervention, and from that moment Russia became merely contemptuous. The Emperor of the French would not and could not take action single-handed, and Prince Gorchakov politely told Lord Russell that England had really better mind her own business

  and not encourage movements in Poland which were simply the work of cosmopolitan revolution. Lord Russell had spoken of the responsibility which the Emperor of Russia was incurring, and Prince Gorchakov dryly replied that the Emperor knew all about that and was quite prepared to accept any responsibility. It used to be said at the time that Prince Gorchakov gently intimated in diplomatic conversation that if the English government were inclined

  to occupy themselves in redressing the grievances of injured nationalities, they would find in Ireland a legitimate and sufficient object for the exercise of their reforming energies. It is certain that England received a snub, and that Prince Gorchakov intended his reply to be thus accepted by England and thus interpreted by Europe. After this, Austria found it necessary to secure her frontier line more carefully and not allow it to be made any longer a basis

  of operations against Russia. The insurrection was flung wholly on its own resources, it was kept up gallantly and desperately for a time but the end was certain. The Russians carried out their measures of pacification with unflinching hand, floggings and shootings and hangings were in full vigor. The Russian authorities recognized the equal rights of women by administering the scourge and the rope and the bullet to them as well as to

  men. Droves of prisoners were sent to Siberia. New steps were taken for denationalizing the country and effecting its moral as well as physical subjugation. After a time, the words of Marshal Sebastiani's famous announcement in 1831 became applicable once more and order reigned in Warsaw. The intervention of England had done much of the same service for Poland that the interposition of Don Quixote did for the boy whose master was flogging him.

  There was to be sure a certain difference in the conditions. Don Quixote did intervene practically and while he remained in sight, the master pretended to be forgiving and merciful. It was only when the hero had ridden away that the master grimly tied up the boy again and flogged him worse than ever. In the case of England, there was no such show of forbearance. The sufferer was tied up under our very eyes and scourged again and more fiercely for the

  express reason that England had ventured to interfere with an unmeaning and ineffectual remonstrance. We have spoken of that school of liberals who would not have intervened at all on behalf of Poland or any other nation. Many perhaps, most persons will refuse to accept their principle. But we can hardly believe there is anyone who will not admit that such a course of policy is wise, manly and dignified when compared with that which

  intrudes its intervention just far enough to irritate the oppressor and not far enough to be of the slightest benefit to the oppressed. The effect of the policy pursued by England in this case was to bring about a certain coldness between the Emperor Napoleon and the English government. This fact was made apparent some little time after when the dispute between Denmark and the Germanic Confederation

  came up in relation to the Schleswig-Holstein succession. We need not go very deeply now into the historical bearings of this dispute, which long tormented philologists, jurist consults and archaeologists as well as statesmen. And a reverend Frenchman once declared that the heavens and the earth shall pass away, but the Schleswig-Holstein question shall not pass away. Practically, however, the Schleswig-Holstein question would seem to have passed away so

  far as our times are concerned. It was in substance a question of the right of nationalities combined of later years with a dispute of succession. Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were duchies attached to Denmark. Holstein and Lauenburg were purely German in nationality and only held by the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein and Lauenburg on much the same tenure as that by virtue of which our King so long held Hanover.

  The King of Denmark sat as Duke of Holstein and Lauenburg in the old Germanic Diet which used to hold its meetings in Frankfurt, the Diet of the Germanic Confederation which was abolished by the Prussian victory at Sedova and which Talleyrand once with grave sarcasm urged not to be precipitated in its decisions. Schleswig was attached more directly to the Danish crown, but a large proportion of the population, much the larger proportion in

  the southern districts were German and there had long been an agitation going on in Germany about the claims and the rights of Schleswig. One of the claims was that Schleswig and Holstein should be united into one administrative system and should be governed independently of the Kingdom of Denmark. The King of Denmark to be the ruler of this state as the Emperor of Austria is There can be no doubt that the heart of the German people was deeply interested in the

  condition of the Schleswigers and Holsteiners. It was only natural that a great people should have been unwilling to see so many of their countrymen on the very edge of Germany itself kept under the rule of the Danish King. The tendency of Denmark always was toward an amalgamation of the duchies into her own state system. The tendency of the Germans was to regard with extreme jealousy any movement that way, to describe evil purpose and even harmless

  innovations on the part of Denmark and to make constant complaint about the tampering of the Danish authorities with the tongue and the rights of the Teutonic populations. In truth, the claims of Germany and Denmark were irreconcilable. Put into plain words the dispute was between Denmark, which wanted to make the duchies Danish, and Germany, which wanted to have them German. The arrangement which bound them up with

  Denmark was purely diplomatic and artificial. Anyone who would look realities in the face must have seen that someday or other the Germans would carry their point and the principle of nationalities would have its way in that case as it had done in so many others. Suddenly the whole dispute became complicated with a question of succession. The King of Denmark, Frederick VII, died in November 1863 and was succeeded by Christian IX. Prince Frederick

  of Schleswig-Holstein, Sonderburg, Augustenburg claimed the succession to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The late King of Denmark had no direct heir to succeed him and the succession had been arranged in 1852 by the great powers of Europe. The Treaty of London then settled it on Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein Sonderberg Glücksburg, the father of the Princess of Wales. The settlement, however, was brought about by persuading the Duke of Augustenburg,

  Prince Frederick's father, heir of Holstein and claimant of Schleswig, to renounce his rights, and now Prince Frederick, the son, disputed in his own case the validity of the renunciation. The previous pretensions of Denmark to encroach on the rights of the German populations and the duchies had roused an angry feeling in Germany, and German statesmen were willing to take advantage of any claim and any claimant to dispute the succession of the King

  of Denmark so far as the duchies were concerned. The affairs of Prussia were now in the hands of a strong man, one of the strongest men modern times have known. Daring, unscrupulous and crafty as Kavur, von Bismarck was even already able to wield a power which had never been within Kavur's reach. The public intelligence of Europe had not yet recognized the marvelous combination of qualities which was destined to make their owner famous and to prove a dissolving force in the settled

  systems of Germany and indeed of the whole European continent. As yet the general opinion of the world set down Herr von Bismarck as simply a fanatical reactionary, a coarse sort of Metternich, a combination of bully and buffoon. The Schleswig-Holstein question became however a very serious one for Denmark when it was taken up by von Bismarck. There does not seem the slightest reason to suppose that Bismarck ever had any idea of maintaining the pretensions of

  the Prince of Augustenburg. Bismarck had always ridiculed them without any affectation of concealment. From first to last the mind of Bismarck was evidently made up that the duchies should be annexed to Prussia. But for the time the claims of the Augustenburg prince came in conveniently and Prussia put on the appearance of giving them her sanction and support. The result of all this was that the Germanic Diet and the King of Denmark could not come to

  any terms of arrangement and to cut preliminary short and get to what strictly concerns our history, war became certain. The Germanic Diet entrusted the conduct of the war to the hands of Austria and Prussia who entered into joint agreements for the purpose. The German troops entered first Holstein which under the command of the Diet they had a legal right to do and then Schleswig and war began. Denmark one of the smallest and weakest kingdoms in the world found herself

  engaged in conflict with Austria and Prussia combined. The little Danish David had defied two Goliaths to combat at one moment. Were the Danes and their sovereign and their government mad? Not at all. They well knew that they could not hold out alone against the two German great powers but they counted on the help of Europe especially they counted on the help of England. For a long time they had got it into their heads that England was pledged to defend them against

  any assault from the side of Germany. Lord Russell in multitudinous dispatches had very often given the Danish government sound and sensible advice. He had constantly admonished them that they must for their own sakes deal fairly with the German populations. He had urgently recommended them to leave to the Germans and the German governments no fair ground for complaint. He had never countenanced or encouraged any of the acts which tended to the enforced absorption of German

  populations into a Danish system. He had on the contrary more than once somewhat harshly rebuked the Danish government for neglect or breach of engagements and sternly pointed out the certain consequences of such a policy. But he had at the same time implied that if Denmark took the advice of England England would not see her wronged. He had at all events declared that if Denmark did not follow England's advice England would not come to her assistance in case she were attacked by

  the Germans. Denmark interpreted this as an assurance that if she followed England's councils she might count on England's protection and she insisted that she had strictly followed England's councils for this very reason. When the struggle seemed approaching Lord Palmerston said some words in the House of Commons at the close of a session which seemed to convey a distinct assurance that England would defend Denmark in case she should be attacked by the German powers. On July 23rd 1863

  he was questioned with reference to the course England intended to pursue in the event of the German powers pressing too hardly on Denmark and he then said we are convinced I am convinced at least that if any violent attempt were made to overthrow the rights and interfere with the independence of Denmark those who made the attempt would find in the result that it would not be Denmark alone with which they have to contend. These words were afterwards explained as intended

  to be merely prophetic and to indicate Lord Palmerston's private belief that in the event of Denmark being invaded France or Russia or some state somewhere would probably be generous enough to come to the assistance of the Danes but when the words were spoken it did not occur to the mind of anyone to interpret them in such a sense. The part of Lord Palmerston's speech which contained them was dealing distinctly and exclusively with the policy of England. It was not supposed that an

  English minister could expect to satisfy the House of Commons by merely giving a specimen of his skill in forecasting the probable policy of other states. Everyone believed that Lord Palmerston was answering on behalf of the English government and the English people. The Danes counted with confidence on the help of England. They refused to accept the terms which Germany would have imposed. They prepared for war. Public opinion in England was all but unanimous in favor of Denmark.

  Five out of every six persons were for England's drawing the sword in her cause at once. Five out of every six of the small minority who were against the war were nevertheless in sympathy with the Danes. Many reasons combined to bring about this condition of national feeling. In the first instance very few people knew anything whatever of the merits of the controversy. Even professed politicians hardly understood the question.

  The general impression was that it was purely the case of two strong powers oppressing in wanton and wicked combination a weak but gallant people. Austria was not popular in England. Prussia was detested. Many Englishmen were angry with her because her government had made the convention with Russia which has already been mentioned and because she had a reactionary minister and a half despotic king. A large number of persons did not like the Germans they met in

  the city and in business generally. Some had disagreeable reminiscences of their travels in Prussia and had been unfavorably impressed by the police systems of Berlin. Moreover it was then an article of faith with most Englishmen that Prussians were miserable fellows who could only smoke and drink beer and who being unable to fight with any decent adversary were trying to get a warlike reputation by attacking a very weak power. Punch had a cartoon representing the

  conventional English soldier and sailor regarding with looks of utter contempt an Austrian and oppression and agreeing that Englishmen ought not to be called on to fight such fellows but offering to kick them if it were thought desirable. In England at this time military strength meant the army of the emperor of the French and political sagacity was represented by the wisdom of the same sovereign. A certain small number of persons in England sympathized

  with Denmark for another reason. The Prince of Wales had been married to the Princess Alexandra on March 10th 1863. The Princess Alexandra was as has been already said the daughter of the King of Denmark. She was not a Dane except as we may if we like call the Emperor of Brazil a Brazilian but her family had now come to rule in Denmark and she became in that sense a Danish Princess. Her youth, her beauty, her goodness, her sweet and winning ways had made her more popular than any

  foreign Princess ever before was known to be in England. It seemed even to some who ought to have had more judgment that the virtues and charms of the Princess Alexandra and the fact that she was now Princess of Wales supplied ample proof of the justice of the Danish cause and of the duty of England to support it in arms. Not small therefore was the disappointment spread over the country when it was found that the Danes were left alone to their defense

  and that England was not to put out a hand to help them. End of section 36.

• 37 - Ch. 45: Palmerston's Last Victory, Pt. 4

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER 45 PALMERSTON'S LAST VICTORY, PART FOUR Yet it was as impossible as it would have been absurd for England to maintain in arms the cause of Denmark. To begin with, the cause was not one which England could reasonably have supported. The artificial arrangements by which the duchies were bound to Denmark could not endure.

  They were the device of an era and a system of policy from which England was escaping as fast as she could. It was not a controversy which specially concerned the English people. England was only one of the parties to the diplomatic arrangements which had bound up the duchies and the Danish kingdom together.

  Lord Russell was willing at one moment to intervene by arms in support of Denmark if France would join England, and he made a proposal of this kind to the French government. The Emperor Napoleon refused to interfere. He had been hurt by England's refusal to join with him in sustaining Poland against Russia, and now was his time to make a return.

  Besides, he had, after the attempt at diplomatic intervention between Poland and Russia, issued invitations for a Congress of European Sovereigns to assemble in Paris and make a new settlement of Europe. The governments to which the invitation was addressed had for the most part returned a civil acceptance, well knowing the project would come to nothing.

  Lord Russell refused to have anything to do with the Congress and gave some excellent reasons for the refusal. The Emperor Napoleon was somewhat hurt by the chill common sense of Lord Russell's reply. The Emperor's invitation was evidently meant to be a document of historical and monumental interest.

  It was drawn up in the spirit of what Burke calls a proud humility. It made allusion to the early misfortunes and exile of the writer and put him forward as the one sovereign of Europe on whose face the winds of adversity had severely blown. It must have been painful to find that so much eloquence and emotion had been put into a state paper for nothing.

  The Emperor's turn had now come and he would not join with England in sustaining the cause of Denmark. There was absolutely nothing for it but to leave the Danes to fight out their battle in the best way they could. Lord Palmerston put the matter very plainly in a letter to Lord Russell.

  The truth is, he wrote, that to enter into a military conflict with all Germany on continental ground would be a serious undertaking. If Sweden and Denmark were actively cooperating with us, our 20,000 men might do a great deal. But Austria and Prussia could bring 200,000 or 300,000 into the field and would be joined by the smaller German states.

  At a later period of the struggle, Lord Palmerston spoke with full frankness to Count Appenie, the Austrian ambassador. He explained that the English government had abstained from taking the field in defense 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. But Lord Palmerston pointed out, 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.

  Therefore, Lord Palmerston warned the Austrian ambassador that a collision between England and Austria might happen if an Austrian squadron were to enter the Baltic in order to help the operations against Denmark. The Austrian ambassador explained that his government did not intend to send a squadron into the Baltic.

  This was an unofficial conversation between Palmerston and Count Appenie and had no effect on the fortunes of the war or on the diplomacy that brought it to an end. The Danes fought with a great deal of spirit, but they were extravagantly outnumbered and their weapons were miserably unfit to contend against their powerful enemies. The Prussian needle gun came into play with terrible effect in the campaign, and it soon

  made all attempts at resistance on the part of the Danes utterly hopeless. The Danes lost their ground and their fortresses. They won one little fight on the sea, defeating some Austrian vessels in the German ocean of Heligoland. The news was received with wild enthusiasm in England.

  Its announcement in the House of Commons drew down the unwonted manifestation of a round of applause from the Strangers' Gallery, but the struggle had ceased to be anything like a serious campaign. The English government kept up active negotiations on behalf of peace and at length succeeded in inducing the belligerents to agree to a suspension of arms in order that a conference

  of the great powers might be held in London. The conference was called together. The populations of the duchies about whom the whole dispute had taken place were beginning now to suspect that their claims to independent existence would very probably be overlooked altogether and that they were only about to be passed from one ruler to another.

  They sent a deputation to London and claimed to be represented directly at the conference. Their claim was rejected. They, the very people whose national existence was the question in dispute, were informed that diplomacy made no account of them. They had no right to a voice or even to a hearing in the councils which were to dispose

  of their destinies. The Saxon minister, Count Boyst, who afterwards transferred his abilities and energies to the services of Austria, did the best he could for them and acted so far as lay in his power as the representative of their claims, but they were not allowed any acknowledged representation at the conference.

  The deliberations of the conference came to nothing. Curiously enough, the final rejection of all compromise came from the Danes. Whether they had still some lingering hope that by prolonging the war they could induce some great power to intervene on their behalf, or whether they were merely influenced by the doggedness of sheer desperation, we cannot pretend to know.

  But they proved suddenly obstinate. At the last hour they rejected a proposal which Lord Palmerston described as reasonable in itself, and the conference came to an end. The war broke out again. The renewed hostilities lasted, however, but a short time.

  It was plain now even to the Danes themselves that they could not hold their ground alone and that no one was coming to help them. The Danish government sent Prince John of Denmark direct to Berlin to negotiate for peace, they had had enough, perhaps, of foreign diplomatic intervention, and terms of peace were easily arranged.

  Nothing could be more simple. Bismarck gave up everything she had been fighting for, and agreed to bear part of the expense which had been entailed upon the German powers by the task of chastising her. The duchies were surrendered to the disposal of the Allies, and nothing more was heard of the claims of the heir of Augustinburg.

  That claimant only got what is called in homely language the cold shoulder when he endeavored to draw the attention of the heir von Bismarck to his alleged right of succession. A new war was to settle the ownership of the duchies and some much graver questions of German interest at the same time. It was obviously impossible that the conduct of the English government should pass unchallenged.

  They were quite right, as it seems to us, in not intervening on behalf of Denmark, but They were not right in giving Denmark the least reason to believe that they ever would intervene in her behalf. It would have been a calamity if England had succeeded in persuading Louis-Napoleon to join her in a war to enable Denmark to keep the duchies.

  It would not be to the credit of England that her ministers had invited Louis-Napoleon to join them in such a policy and had been refused. We cannot see any way of defending Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell against some sort of censure for the part they had taken in this transaction. It would have been a discredit to England if she had become the means of coercing the

  duchies into subjection to Denmark, supposing such a thing possible in the long run. But her ministers could claim no credit for not having done so. They would have done it if they could. They had thus given Europe full evidence at once of their desire and their incapacity. Their political opponents could not be expected to overlook such a chance of attack.

  Accordingly, in the two Houses of Parliament, notices were given of a vote of censure on the government. Lord Malmesbury, in Lord Darby's absence, proposed the resolution in the House of Lords, and it was carried by a majority of nine. The government made little account of that.

  The Lords always had a Tory majority. As Lord Palmerston himself had put it on a former occasion, the government knew when they took office that their opponents had a larger pack of cards in the Lords than they had, and that whenever the cards came to be all dealt out, the opposition pack must show the greater number.

  In the House of Commons, however, the matter was much more serious. On July 4th, 1864, Mr. Disraeli himself moved the resolution condemning the conduct of the government. The resolution invited the House to express its regret that while the course pursued by Her Majesty's government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the integrity

  and independence of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence of this country and the capitals of Europe and thereby diminished the securities for peace. Mr. Disraeli's speech was ingenious and telling. He had a case which even a far less capable rhetorician than he must have made impressive, but he contrived more than once by sheer dexterity to make it unexpectedly stronger against the

  government. Thus, for example, he went on during part of his opening observations to compare the policy of England and France. He proceeded to show that France was just as much bound by the Treaty of Vienna, by the London Convention, by all the agreements affecting the integrity of Denmark as England

  herself. Some of the ministry sitting just opposite the orator caught at this argument as if it were an admission telling against Mr. Disraeli's case. They met his words with loud and emphatic cheers. The cheers meant to say, just so, France was responsible for the integrity of Denmark as

  much as England. Why then do you find fault with us? This was precisely what Mr. Disraeli wanted. Perhaps he had deliberately led up to this very point. Perhaps he had purposely allured his opponents on and to the belief that he was making an

  admission in order to draw from some of them some note of triumph. He seized his opportunity now and turned upon his antagonists at once. Yes, he exclaimed, France is equally responsible and how comes it then that the position of France in relation to Denmark is so free from embarrassment and so dignified that no word of blame is uttered anywhere in Europe against France for what she has done in regard to

  Denmark, while your position is one of infinite perplexity, while you are everywhere accused and unable to defend yourselves. How could this be but because of some fatal mistake, some terrible mismanagement? In truth, it was not difficult for Mr. Disraeli to show mistakes in abundance. No sophist could have undertaken to defend all that the ministers had done.

  Such a defense would involve sundry paradoxes, for they had in some instances done the very thing today which they had declared the day before it would be impossible for them to do. The government did not make any serious attempt to justify all they had done. They were glad to seize upon the opportunity offered by an amendment which Mr. Kinglake

  proposed and which merely declared the satisfaction with which the House had learned that at this conjuncture her majesty had been advised to abstain from armed interference in the war now going on between Denmark and the German powers. This amendment, it will be seen at once, did not meet the accusations raised by Mr. Disraeli. It did not say whether the ministry had or had not failed to maintain their avowed policy

  of upholding the integrity and independence of Denmark, or whether their conduct had or had not lowered the just influence of England in the capitals of Europe and thereby diminished the securities for peace. It gave the go-by to such inconvenient questions and simply asserted that the House was at all events glad to hear there was to be no interference in the war.

  Many doubted at first whether the government would condescend to adopt Mr. Kinglake's amendment, or whether they would venture upon a distinct justification of their conduct. Lord Palmison, however, had an essentially practical way of looking at every question. He was of O'Connell's opinion that, after all, the verdict is the thing. He knew he could not get the verdict on the particular issues raised by Mr. Disraeli,

  but he was in good hope that he would get it on the policy of his administration generally. The government therefore adopted Mr. Kinglake's amendment. Still the controversy was full of danger to Lord Palmison. The advanced liberals disliked him strongly for his lavish expenditure in fortification schemes and for the manner in which he had thrown over the reform bill.

  They were not coerced morally or otherwise to support him, merely because he had not gone into the war against Germany, for no responsible voice from the opposition had said that the conservatives, if in office, would have adopted a policy of intervention. On the contrary, it was from Lord Stanley that there came during the debate the most unwarlike sentiment uttered during the whole controversy.

  Lord Stanley bluntly declared that to engage in a European war for the sake of these duchies would be an act not of impolicy, but of insanity. There were members of the Peace Society itself probably who would have hesitated before adopting this view of the duties of a nation. If war be permissible at all, they might have doubted whether the oppression of a small

  people is not as fair a ground of warlike intervention as the grievance of a numerous population. When however such sentiments came from a leader of the party proposing the vote of censure, it is clear that the men who were for non-intervention as a principle were left free to vote on one side or the other as they pleased.

  Mr. Disraeli did not want to pledge them to warlike action any more than Lord Palmerston. Many of them perhaps would rather have voted with Mr. Disraeli than with Lord Palmerston if they could see their way fairly to such a course, and on the votes of even a few of them, the result of the debate depended. They held the fate of Lord Palmerston's ministry in the hollow of their hand.

  Lord Palmerston seems to have decided the question for them. His speech closing the debate was a masterpiece not of eloquence, not of political argument, but of practical parliamentary tactics. He spoke as was his fashion without the aid of a single note. It was a wonderful spectacle, that of the man of eighty, thus in the growing morning

  pouring out his unbroken stream of easy, effective eloquence. He dropped the particular questions connected with the vote of censure almost immediately, and went into a long review of the whole policy of his administration. He spoke as if the resolution before the House were a proposal to impeach the government for the entire course of their domestic policy.

  He passed in triumphant review all the splendid feats which Mr. Gladstone had accomplished in the reduction of taxation. He took credit for the commercial treaty with France, and for other achievements in which at the time of their accomplishment he had hardly even affected to feel any interest. He spoke directly at the economical liberals, the men who were for sound finance and freedom

  of international commerce. The regular opposition, as he well knew, would vote against him. The regular supporters of the ministry would vote for him. Nothing could alter the course to be taken by either of these parties. The advanced liberals, the men whom possibly Palmerston in his heart rather despised as

  calculators and economists, these might be affected one way or the other by the manner in which he addressed himself to the debate. To these, and at these, he spoke. He knew that Mr. Gladstone was the one leading man in the ministry whom they regarded with full trust and admiration, and on Mr. Gladstone's exploits he virtually rested his case.

  His speech said in plain words, If you vote for this resolution proposed by Mr. Disraeli, you turn Mr. Gladstone out of office. You give the Tories who understand nothing about free trade, and who opposed the French commercial treaty, an opportunity of marring all that he has made.

  Some of Lord Palmerston's audience were a little impatient now and then. What has all this to do with the question before the House? Was murmured from more than one bench. It had everything to do with the question that was really before the House. That question was, shall Palmerston remain in office or shall he go out and the Tories

  come in? The advanced liberals had the decision put into their hands. As Lord Palmerston reviewed the financial and commercial history of his administration, they felt themselves morally coerced to support the ministry which had done so much for the policy that was especially the offspring of their inspiration.

  When the division was taken, it was found that there were 295 votes for Mr. Disraeli's resolution and 313 for the amendment. Lord Palmerston was saved by a majority of 18. It was not a very brilliant victory. There were not many votes to spare.

  But it was a victory. The conservative miss by a foot was as good for Lord Palmerston as a miss by a mile. It gave him a secure tenure of office for the rest of his life. Such as it was, the victory was won mainly by his own skill, energy and astuteness, by the ready manner in which he evaded the question actually in debate and rested his claim to

  acquittal on services which no one proposed to disparage. The conclusion was thoroughly illogical, thoroughly practical, thoroughly English. Lord Palmerston knew his time, his opportunity and his men. That was the last great speech made by Lord Palmerston. That was the last great occasion on which he was called upon to address the House of

  Commons. The effort was worthy of the emergency and at least in an artistic sense deserved success. The speech exactly served its purpose. It had no brilliant passages. It had no hint of an elevated thought.

  It did not trouble itself with any profession of exalted purpose or principle. It did not contain a single sentence which anyone could care to remember after the emergency had passed away. But it did for Lord Palmerston what great eloquence might have failed to do. What a great orator by virtue of his very genius and oratorical instincts might only

  have marred. It took captive the wavering minds and it carried the division. End of Section 37.

• 38 - Ch. 46: Ebb and Flow, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XLVI. Ebb and Flow, Part 1. One cannot study English politics, even in the most superficial way, without being struck by the singular regularity with which they are governed by the law of action and reaction. The succession of ebb and flow in the tides is not more regular and more certain. A season of political energy is sure to come after a season of political apathy. After the sleeping

  comes the waking, after the day of work the night of repose. A liberal spirit is abroad and active. It carries all before it for a while. It pushes great reforms through. It projects others still greater. Suddenly a pause comes, and a whisper is heard that we have had too much of reform, and the whisper grows into a loud remonstrance and the remonstrance into what seems to be an almost universal declaration.

  Then sets in a period of reaction during which reform is denounced as if it were a treason and shuttered at as though it were a pestilence. For a season people make themselves comfortable and say to each other that England has attained political perfection, that only fools and traitors would ask her to venture on any further change, and that we are all going now to have a contented rest. Just as this condition of things seems to have become

  a settled habit and state of existence, the new reaction begins, and before men can well note the change, the country is in the fervor of a reform fit again. It is so in our foreign policy. We seem to have settled down to a Washingtonian principle of absolute isolation from the concerns and complications of foreign countries, until suddenly we become aware of a rising sea of reaction, and almost in a moment we are in the thick of a policy which

  involves itself in the affairs of every state, from Finland to Sicily, and from Japan to the Caspian Sea. It is the same with our colonies. We are just on the eve of a blunt and cool dismissal of them from all dependence on us, when suddenly we find that they are the strength of our limbs and the light of our eyes, and that to live without them would be only death in life. And for another season, the patriotism of public men consists in professions of unalterable

  attachment to the colonies. It is so with regard to warlike purpose and peaceful purpose, with regard to armaments, fortifications, law reform, everything. An ordinary observer ought to be able almost always to forecast the weather of the coming season in English politics. When action has run its course, pretty nearly reaction is sure, and it ought not to be very difficult to foresee when the one has had its season and the other is to succeed. The explanation of this

  phenomenon is not to be found in the fact that the people of these countries are, as Mr. Carlyle says, mostly fools. They do not all thus change their opinions in sudden mechanical springs of alternation. The explanation is not to be sought in any change of national opinion at all, but rather in a change in the ascendancy between two tolerably well-balanced parties in politics and thought. The people of these countries, or perhaps it should be said of England especially,

  are born into liberalism and conservatism. In Ireland and in Scotland the condition of things is modified by other facts, and the same general rule will hardly apply. But in England this is, roughly speaking, the law of life. Men, as a rule, remain in the political condition—we can hardly speak of the political convictions—to which they were born. But the majority give themselves little trouble about the matter. If there is a great stir made by those

  just above them in politics and to whom they look up, they will take some interest and will exhibit it in any desirable way. But they do not move of themselves, and when their leaders appear to acquiesce in anything for a season, they withdraw their attention altogether. Many a man is hardly conscious of whether he is liberal or conservative until he gets into a crowd somewhere and hears his neighbors shouting. Then he shouts with those whom he knows to be of the opinions

  he is understood to hold, and he shouts himself into political conviction. This is the condition of the majority on both sides. It takes immense trouble on the part of the leaders to rouse the mass of their followers into a condition of genuine activity. The majority are like some of the heavy-winged insects who hardly ever use their wings, and who when, for some reason, they are anxious to hoist themselves into the air, may be seen of a summer twilight,

  making their preparations so long and slowly that a passing observer would never suppose they meant any such unwanted movement as a flight. The political leaders and the followers immediately within hearing of their voices have for the most part the direction of affairs in their hands, these and the newspapers. The leaders, the House of Commons, and the active local men in cities and boroughs, these and the newspapers make up what we commonly understand

  to be public opinion. The change in public opinion, or what seems to be such, is when one set succeeds for a time in getting predominance over the other. The predominance is usually transferred when one set has done or said all it is quite prepared to do or say for the moment. Then the other, having lost patience or gained courage, rushes in and gets his turn. It is like a contest in some burlesque echelon in which each singer has his chance only when the rival is out

  of breath and can strike in and keep singing until he too feels his lungs fail him and has to give way. The liberals are in power and they carry some measures by the strength of their parliamentary majority. The moment comes when they go further than the patience of their opponents will bear or when they have nothing more to suggest at the moment. In either case, the managers of the opposition rouse themselves and they say, we cannot endure any more of this, or they ask each other

  why they have endured so much. They stir up their whole party with all the energy they can muster, and at last, after tremendous effort, they get their shard-born beetle hoisted for his drowsy flight. The others have sunk into comparative languor. They have done what they wanted to do. They have, according to the French phrase, exhausted their mandate, and there is nothing by which they can call the whole strength of their party into action. They do not any longer see

  their way as well as their opponents do. They are not so angry or so resolute. Perhaps they think they have gone a little too far. The conservative newspapers are all a stir in a flame. The conservative passion is roused. The conservative lungs are fresh and strong. Their rivals are out of breath. In a word, the conservatives get what American politicians call the floor, and this is conservative reaction. All the time it is probable that not one man in every 10,000

  of the population has really changed his opinion. The conservatives hold their place for a certain time until their opponents have recovered their energies and have lost their patience, until their passion to attack is more thorough and genuine than the power of the men in possession to resist. Then the liberal beetle has got upon his wings, and liberalism has its time again. During all these changes, however, the liberal movement is necessarily gaining ground. Reaction

  in English politics never now goes the length of undoing what has been done. It only interposes a delay and a warning against moving too far and too fast in the same direction. Therefore, after each flux and reflux, it is a matter of practical necessity that the cause which means movement of some kind must be found to have gained upon the cause which would prefer to stand still. It is almost needless to say that the liberal party have not always been the actual means of

  carrying a liberal movement. All great conservative leaders have recognized in good time the necessity of accepting some principle of reform. In a practical country like England, the conservatives could not maintain a party of any kind if it were absolutely certain that their mission was to oppose every reform and the mission of the liberals to promote it. As a principle, the business of liberalism is to cry forwards, that of conservatism to cry back. The action and reaction of which we

  speak is that of liberalism and conservatism, not of the leaders of liberal and Tory administrations. The movement of reaction against reform in domestic policy was in full force during the earlier years of Lord Palmerston's government. In home politics and where finance and commercial legislation were not concerned, Palmerston was a conservative minister. He was probably on the whole more highly esteemed among the rank and file of the opposition in the House of Commons than by the

  rank and file on his own side. Not a few of the conservative country gentlemen would in their hearts have been glad if he could have remained prime minister forever. His thoroughly English ways appealed directly to their sympathies. His instincts went with theirs. They liked his courage and his animal spirits. He was always ready to fling cheery defiance in the face of any foreign foe, just as they had been taught to believe that their grandfathers used to fling

  defiance in the face of Bonaparte in France. He was a faithful member of the Church of England, but his certainly was not an austere Protestantism, and he allowed religion to come no further into the affairs of ordinary life than suited a country gentleman's idea of the fitness of things. There were among Tory country gentlemen also a certain doubt or dread as to the manner in which eccentric and exoteric genius might manage the affairs of England when the conservatives came to have a

  government of their own and when Lord Darby could no longer take command. These therefore all liked Palmerston and helped by their favor to swell the sails of his popularity. Many of those who voted with their characteristic fidelity to party for Mr. Disraeli's resolution of censure were glad in their hearts that Lord Palmerston came safely out of the difficulty. But as the years went on there were manifest signs of the coming and inevitable reaction. One of the most striking of these

  indications was found in the position taken by Mr. Gladston. For some time Mr. Gladston had been more and more distinctly identifying himself with the opinions of the advanced liberals. The advanced liberals themselves were of two sections or fractions, working together almost always but very distinct in complexion, and it was Mr. Gladston's fortune to be drawn by his sympathies to both alike. He was of course drawn toward the Manchester School by his economic views, by his agreement with

  them on all subjects relating to finance and to freedom of commerce. But the Manchester liberals were for non-intervention in foreign politics, and they carried this into their sympathies as well as into their principles. They had never shown much interest in the struggles of other nations for political liberty. They did not seem to think it was the business of Englishmen to make demonstrations about Italians or Poles or French Republicans. The other section of the advanced

  liberals were sometimes even flightily eager in their sympathies with the liberal movements of the continent. Mr. Gladston was in communion with the movements of foreign liberals as he was with those of English free traders and economists. He was therefore qualified to stand between both sections of the advanced liberals of England and give one hand to each. During the debates on Italian questions of 1860 and 61, he had identified himself with the cause of Italian unity and

  independence. In the year 1864, Garibaldi came on a visit to England and was received in London with an outburst of enthusiasm, the like whereof had not been seen since Cochute first passed down Cheapside and which perhaps was not seen even then. It was curious to notice how men of opposing parties were gradually swept or sucked into this whirlpool of enthusiasm and how aristocracy and fashion, which had always held aloof from Cochute, soon crowded round Garibaldi. At first,

  the leading men of nearly all parties held aloof except Mr. Gladston. He was among the very first and most cordial in his welcome to Garibaldi. Then the liberal leaders in general thought they had better consult for their popularity by taking Garibaldi up. A lady of high rank and great political influence frankly expressed her opinion that Garibaldi was nothing more than a respectable brigand, but she joined in doing public honor to him nevertheless, acknowledging

  that it would be inconvenient for her husband to keep aloof and risk his popularity. Then the conservative leaders too began to think it would never do for them to hold back when the prospect of a general election was so closely overshadowing them and they plunged into the Garibaldi welcome. Men of the class of Lord Palmerston cared nothing for Garibaldi. Men like Lord Darby disliked and despised him, but the crowd ran after him and the leaders on both sides, after having looked on for

  a moment with contempt and another moment with amazement, fairly pulled off their hats and ran with the crowd, shouting and hallowing like the rest. The peerage then rushed at Garibaldi. He was beset by dukes, mobbed by countesses. He could not by any possibility have so divided his day as to find time for accepting half the invitations of the noble and new friends who fought and scrambled for him. It was a perpetual trouble to his secretaries and his private friends

  to decide between the rival claims of a prince of the blood and a prime minister, an archbishop and a duchess, the Lord Chancellor and the leader of the opposition. The Tories positively outdid the liberals in the competition. The crowd in the streets were perfectly sincere, some acclaiming Garibaldi because they had a vague knowledge that he had done brave deeds somewhere and represented a cause, others perhaps the majority because they assumed that he was somehow opposed to the Pope.

  The leaders of society were for the most part not sincere. Three out of every four of them had always previously spoken of Garibaldi, when they spoke of him at all, as a mere buccaneer and filibuster. The whole thing ended in a quarrel between the aristocracy and the democracy, and Garibaldi was got back to his island somehow. Had he ever returned to England, he would probably have found himself unembarrassed by the attentions of the

  Windsor uniform in the Order of the Garter. The whole episode was not one to fill the soul of an unconcerned spectator with great respect for the manner in which crowds and leaders sometimes act in England. Mr. Gladsten was one of the few among the leaders who were undoubtedly sincere, and the course he took made him a great favorite with the advanced radicals. Mr. Gladsten had given other indications of a distinct tendency to pass over altogether,

  from conservatism and even from peolism, into the ranks of the radical reformers. On May 11, 1864, Mr. Baines brought on a motion in the House of Commons for the reduction of the Borough franchise from ten pounds rental to six pounds. During the debate that followed, Mr. Gladsten made a remarkable declaration. He contended that the burden of proof rested upon those who would exclude 49 fiftieths of the working classes from the franchise. It is for

  them to show the unworthiness, the incapacity, and the misconduct of the working class. I say, he repeated, that every man who is not presumably incapacitated by some consideration of personal unfitness or political danger is morally entitled to come within the pale of the Constitution. The bill was rejected, as everyone knew it would be. A franchise bill introduced by a private member on a Wednesday is not supposed to have much prospect of success. But the speech of

  Mr. Gladsten gave an importance to the debate and to the occasion which it would not be easy to overrate. The position taken up by all conservative minds, no matter to which side of politics their owners belonged, had been that the claim must be made out for those seeking an extension of the suffrage in their favor, that they must show imperative public need, immense and clear national and political advantage to justify the concession, that the mere fact of their desire

  and fitness for the franchise ought not to count for anything in the consideration. Mr. Gladsten's way of looking at the question created enthusiasm on the one side, consternation and anger on the other. This was the principle of Rousseau's social contract, many voices exclaimed. The principle of the rights of man, the red republic, the social and democratic revolution, anything, everything that is subversive and anarchical.

  Early in the following session there was a motion introduced by Mr. Dilwyn, a staunch and persevering reformer, declaring that the position of the Irish state church was unsatisfactory and called for the early attention of Her Majesty's government. Mr. Gladsten spoke on the motion and drew a contrast between the state church of England and that of Ireland, pointing out that the Irish church ministered only to the religious wants of one-eighth or one-ninth of the community

  amid which it was established. In reply to a letter of remonstrance, Mr. Gladsten explained, not long after, that he had not recommended any particular action as a consequence of Mr. Dilwyn's resolution regarding the question as yet remote and apparently out of all bearing on the practical politics of the day. It was evident, however, that his mind would be found to be made up at any time when the question should become practical, and it was highly probable that his

  own speech had greatly hastened the coming of that time. The eyes of all radical reformers, therefore, turned to Mr. Gladsten as the future minister of reform in church and state. He became from the same moment an object of distrust and something approaching to detestation in the eyes of all steady-going conservatives. End of Section 38

• 39 - Ch. 46: Ebb and Flow, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  Section 39 of A History of Our Own Times, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 46. Ebb and Flow, Part 2. Meanwhile, there were many changes taking place in the social and political life of England. Many eminent men passed away during the years that Lord Palmerston held his almost absolute

  sway over the House of Commons. One man we may mention in the first instance, although he was no politician, and his death in no way affected the prospects of parties. The attention of the English people was called from questions of foreign policy and of possible intervention in the Danish quarrel by an event which happened on Christmas Eve, 1863. That day it became known throughout London that the author of Vanity Fair was dead. Mr. Thackeray died suddenly at the House

  in Kensington which he had lately had built for him in the fashion of that Queen Anne period which he loved and had illustrated so admirably. He was still in the very prime of life. No one had expected that his career was so soon to close. It had not been in any sense a long career. Success had come somewhat late to him, and he was left but a short time to enjoy it. We have already spoken of his works and his literary character. Since the publication of the Newcombs, he had not added to

  his reputation. Indeed, it hardly needed any addition. He had established himself in the very foremost rank of English novelists with Fielding and Goldsmith and Miss Austin and Dickens. He had been a literary man and hardly anything else, having had little to do with politics or political journalism. Once indeed he was seized with a sudden ambition to take a seat in the House of Commons, and at the general election of 1857 he offered himself as a candidate for the city of

  Oxford in opposition to Mr. Cardwell. He was not elected and he seemed to accept failure cheerfully as a hint that he had better keep to literary work for the future. He would go back to his author's desk, he said good-humoredly, and he kept his word. It is not likely that he would have been a parliamentary success. He had no gift of speech and had but little interest in the details of party politics. His political views were sentiments rather than opinions. Most of his admirers would

  probably have been sorry to see him involved in the partisan debates of the House of Commons, where any practiced official trained to glibness or any overbearing declaimer would have been far more than a match for him, and where he had no special need or call to go. It is not true that success in Parliament is incompatible with literary distinction. Macaulay and Grote, and two of Thackeray's own craft, Lord Beckinsfield and Lord Lytton, may be called as recent

  witnesses to disprove that common impression. But these were men who had a distinctly political object or who loved political life and were only following their star when they sought seats in the House of Commons. Thackeray had no such vocation and would have been as much out of place in parliamentary debate as a painter or a musician. He had no need to covet parliamentary reputation, as it was well said when the news of his defeat at Oxford reached London, the Houses of Lords and

  Commons together could not have produced Barry Lyndon and Pandenas. His early death was a source not only of national but of worldwide regret. It eclipsed the Christmas gaiety of nations. Thackeray was as much admired and appreciated in America as in England. Mr. Russell, the correspondent of the Times, has given an amusing account of a Southern Confederate leader engaged in an attempt to run the Northern blockade who kept talking all the time and even at the most

  exciting and perilous moments about the various characters in Thackeray's novels. If Thackeray died too soon, it was only too soon for his family and his friends. His fame was secure. He could hardly with any length of years have added a cubit to his literary stature. A whole group of statesmen had passed prematurely away. Sir James Graham had died after several years of a quiet career, still a celebrity in the House of Commons but not much in the memory of the public outside

  it. One of his latest speeches in Parliament was on the Chinese War of 1860, on the last day of the session of 1861 and when almost all the other members had left the House, he remained for a while talking with a friend and former colleague and as they were separating, Sir James Graham expressed a cheery hope that they should meet on the first day of the next session in the same place. But Graham died the following October. Sidney Herbert had died a few weeks before in

  the same year. Sidney Herbert had been raised to the peerage as Lord Herbert of Lee. He had entered the House of Lords before his breaking health rendered it impossible to stand the wear and tear of life in the Commons and he loved politics and public affairs and could not be induced to renounce them and live in quiet. He was a man of great gifts and was looked upon as a prospective Prime Minister. He had a graceful and gracious bearing. He was an able administrator and a very skillful

  and persuasive debater. His style of speaking was what might be called, if it is lawful to coin an expression for the purpose, the pointed conversational. He never declaimed, never even tried to be what is commonly called eloquent, but his sentences came out with a singularly expressive combination of force and ease, every argument telling, every stroke having the lightness of an Eastern champion's swordplay. He had high social station and was in every way fitted to stand at the head of English

  public affairs. He was but 51 years of age when he died. The country for some time looked on Sir George Lewis as a man likely to lead at administration, but he too passed away before his natural time. He died two years after Sir James Graham and Sidney Herbert and was only some 57 years old at his death. Lord Elgin was dead and Lord Canning and Lord Dalhousie had been some years dead. The Duke of Newcastle died in 1864. Mr. Gladstone, speaking at Glasgow, said of these that they had been swept

  away in the full maturity of their faculties and in the early stages of middle life. A body of men strong enough of themselves and all the gifts of wisdom and knowledge, of experience and of eloquence, to have equipped a cabinet for the service of the country. Nor must we omit the mention of the death of Cardinal Wiseman on February 15, 1865. Cardinal Wiseman had outlived the popular clamor once raised against him in England. There was a time when his name would have set all the pulpit drums of no

  potpourri rattling. He came at length to be respected and admired everywhere in England as a scholar and a man of ability. He was a devoted ecclesiastic whose zeal for his church was his honor and whose earnest labor in the work he was set to do it shortened his busy life. During the time from the first outbreak of the Civil War in the United States to its close all these men were removed from the scene and the Civil War was hardly over when Richard Cobden was quietly laid

  in an English country churchyard. Mr. Cobden paid a visit to his constituents of Rochdale in November 1864 to address them on public affairs. He was at the time struggling against a bronchial attack which made it imprudent for him to attend a public meeting, especially imprudent to try to speak in public. He had to travel a long way in bad weather. His friends endeavored to dissuade him from going to Rochdale but he was convinced that the condition of political affairs was so

  full of seriousness that he could not consistently with his strong sense of duty put off addressing his constituents. He had had probably some presentiment of his death for not long before he had passed in company with his friend Mr. Bright the place where his only son lay buried and he told Mr. Bright that he should soon be laid beside him. He went to Rochdale and spoke to a great public meeting and he did not appear to have lacked any of his usual ease and energy.

  This speech, the last he ever made, contained the famous passage so often quoted and criticized which compared the undergraduate's knowledge of Chicago with his knowledge of the Ulysses. I will take any undergraduates at Cobden, now at Oxford or Cambridge, and I will ask this young gentleman to walk up to a map of the United States and put his finger upon the city of Chicago and I will undertake to say that he will not go within a thousand miles of it.

  When I was at Athens I sallied forth one summer morning to see the far-famed river the Ulysses and after walking some hundred yards up what appeared to be the bed of a winter torrent I came up to a number of Athenian laundresses and I found that they had dammed up this far-famed classic river and that they were using every drop of the water for their linen and such sanitary purposes. I say why should not the young gentleman who are taught all about the geography

  of the Ulysses know something about the geography of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Missouri? Mr. Cobden has always been charged on the faith of this contrast with a desire to throw contempt on the study of the classics and with an intention to measure the comparative value of ancient and modern literature by the relative commercial importance of Chicago and the Ulysses. He had no such purpose. He merely meant to show that the men who dogmatized about modern countries and politics

  ought to know something of this subject before they spoke and wrote. He contended that it is ridiculous to call a modern political writer educated because he knows something about classic Greece and nothing about the United States. The humorous illustration about the Ulysses Mr. Cobden had used in a former speech and curiously enough something to much the same purpose had been said by Byron about the Ulysses before without anyone falling foul of the author

  of Child Herald and accusing him of disparaging the culture of Greece. Byron wrote that places without a name and rivers not laid down on maps may one day when more known be justly esteemed superior subjects for the pencil in the pen to the dry ditch of the Ulysses and the bogs of Boeotia. Cobden had been a good deal provoked as most sensible persons were by the flood of writing poured out on the country during the American Civil War in which citations from Thucydides

  were habitually introduced to settle questions of military and political controversy in the United States. That was the day for public instructors of the inspired schoolboy type who sometimes to say the truth knew little of the Greek literature from which they paraded their quotations but who knew still less about the geography and the political conditions of America who were under the impression that the Mississippi flowed east and west and talked complacently of

  English war steamers getting into Lake Erie apparently making no account of so considerable an obstacle as the Falls of Niagara. This was Cobden's last speech. He did not come up to London until the March of 1865 and the day on which he traveled was so bitterly cold that the bronchial affection from which he was suffering became cruelly aggravated. One of the last private letters he ever wrote enclosed to a friend an unsolicited contribution for the relief

  of a poor young English woman whose husband, an American seaman, had just died in London leaving her with a newly born infant. He sank rapidly and on April 2nd he died. The scene in the House of Commons next evening was very touching. Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli both spoke of Cobden with genuine feeling and sympathy but Mr. Bright's few and broken words were as noble an epitaph as friendship could wish for the grave of a great and good man.

  Some critics found fault with Lord Palmerston for having spoke of Cobden's as Demosthenic eloquence. That simple conversational style it was asked, does Lord Palmerston call that Demosthenic? Did he not use the word as a piece of unmeaning praise merely because it came first to his lips? On the contrary, it is probable that Palmerston thought the word expressed exactly what he wished to say. We are apt to think of the eloquence of Demosthenes as above all things energetic,

  commanding, overbearing by its strength and its action. But this is a superficial way of regarding the great orator. What is the essential characteristic of the oratory of Demosthenes in which it differs from that of almost every other orator ancient and modern? Surely its intensely practical nature, the fact that nothing is spoken without a present and determinant purpose, that no word is used which does not bear upon the argument the speaker would

  enforce. Cobden had not the power or the polish of Demosthenes, nor can his manner have been at all like that of the Athenian. But his eloquence was always molded naturally and unconsciously in the true spirit of Demosthenes. It was the eloquence of one who claimed only to be heard for his cause and for the arguments with which he should commend it to the intelligence of his audience. Those who found fault with Lord Palmerston's epithet only failed to understand

  its application. The Liberal Party then found themselves approaching a general election with their ranks thinned by many severe losses. The government had lost one powerful member by an event other than death. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Westbury, had resigned his office in consequence of a vote of the House of Commons. Lord Westbury had made many enemies. He was a man of great capacity and energy into whose nature the scorn of forms and of lesser intellects entered far

  too freely. His character was somewhat wanting in the dignity of moral elevation. He had a tongue of marvelous bitterness. His sarcastic power was probably unequaled in the House of Commons while he sat there, and when he came into the House of Lords, he fairly took away the breadth of stately and formal peers by the unsparing manner in which he employed his most dangerous gift. His style of cruel irony was made all the more effective by the peculiar suavity of the tone in

  which he gave out his sarcasms and his epithets. With a face that only suggested soft, bland benevolence, with eyes half closed as those of a medieval saint, and in accents of subdued mellifluous benignity, the Lord Chancellor was wont to pour out a stream of irony that corroded like some deadly acid. Such a man was sure to make enemies, and the time came when in the scriptural sense they found him out. He had been lax in the manner of using his patronage.

  In one case, he had allowed an official of the House of Lords to retire and to receive a retiring pension, while a grave charge connected with his conduct in another public office was to Lord Westbury's knowledge impending over him, and Lord Westbury had appointed his own son to the place thus vacated. Thus at first sight, it naturally appeared that Lord Westbury had sanctioned the pensioning off of a public servant against whom a serious charge was still awaiting decision,

  in order that a place might be found for the Lord Chancellor's own son. In the other case, that of an appointment to the Leeds Bankruptcy Court, the authority of Lord Westbury had been made use of by a member of his family to sanction a very improper arrangement. In this case, however, it was shown that Lord Westbury knew nothing of the proposal and had never had any idea of assisting any member of his family by his influence in the matter.

  No one believed that even in the former case he had been influenced by any corrupt motive. He had been led into error by a too easy good nature towards certain members of his family, and by a carelessness which the engrossing character of his other duties might at least have excused if it could not have justified. Still there could be no doubt that the manner in which he had exercised his patronage or allowed it to be exercised was deserving of reprehension.

  End of section 39.

• 40 - Ch. 46: Ebb and Flow, Pt. 3

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER 46 EBBEN FLOW, PART 3 The question was taken up by the House of Commons, and somewhat unfortunately taken up in the first instance by a strong political opponent of the Government. On July 3, 1865, Mr. Ward Hunt moved a distinct vote of censure on the Lord Chancellor. The House did not agree to the resolution, which would have branded the Lord Chancellor's

  conduct as highly reprehensible and calculated to throw discredit on the administration of the high offices of the State. It however accepted an amendment, which, while acquitting Lord Westbury of any corrupt motive, declared that the granting of the pension showed a laxity of practice and a want of caution with regard to the public interests on the part of the Lord Chancellor.

  The Government were not able to resist this resolution. Lord Palmerston made the best effort he could to save the Lord Chancellor, but the common feeling of the House held that the words of the resolution were not too strong and the Government had to bow to it. The Lord Chancellor immediately resigned his office.

  No other course was fairly open to him. The Government lost a man of singular ability and energy. Lord Westbury's fall was not perhaps so much the result of the one or two transactions for which the censure was passed, as of the growing dislike, which both Houses had come to feel for an intellect too keen to be scrupulous, and a nature which brought even to the uninspiring

  business of law reforms some of the fierce animosities to which the tongue of Swift would hardly have given a more bitter expression. Many thought, when all was done, that he had been somewhat harshly used. He would perhaps have been greatly surprised himself to know how many kindly things were said of him.

  The hour of political reaction was evidently near at hand. Five years had passed away since the withdrawal of Lord John Russell's reform bill, and five years may represent, in ordinary calculation, the ebb or flow of the political tide. The dissolution of Parliament was near. Lord Darby described the speech from the throne at the opening of the session of 1865 as a

  sort of address very proper to be delivered by an age administered to a more abundant Parliament. The Parliament had run its course. It had accomplished the rare feat of living out its days and having to die by simple efflux of time.

  On July 6, 1865, Parliament was dissolved. Mr. Disraeli's address to the electors of Buckinghamshire, sent out before the dissolution, distinctly declared that the issue which the country would have to decide concerned the national church and the franchise. The maintenance of a national church, he said, involves the question whether the principle

  of religion shall be an element of our political constitution, whether the state shall be consecrated, or whether, dismissing the sanctions that appeal to the higher feelings of man, our scheme of government should degenerate into a mere system of police. I see nothing, he proclaimed, in such a result, but the corruption of nations and the fall of empires.

  As regards the franchise, he was vaguely grandiloquent, and both the vagueness and the grandiloquence were doubtless deliberate and to serve a purpose. On the extension of the electoral franchise, he observed, depends the distribution of power. He was of opinion that the primary plan of our ancient constitution, so rich in various wisdom, indicates the course we ought to pursue.

  What that course was, Mr. Disraeli took good care not to explain too clearly. The ancient constitution, he showed, had secured our popular rights by entrusting power not to an indiscriminate multitude, but to the estate or order of the commons, and a wise government should be careful that the elements of that estate should bear a due relation to the moral and material development of the country.

  Public opinion, he suggested, might not be yet ripe enough to legislate on the subject, but the country might ponder over it with advantage, so that when the time comes for action we may legislate in the spirit of the English constitution, which would absorb the best of every class and not fall into a democracy which is the tyranny of one class and that one the least enlightened.

  Translated into plain English, these pompous generalities meant clearly enough, although perhaps men did not all see it just then, that Mr. Disraeli would be prepared, if his turn should arrive, to bring in a reform bill, and that he still had hopes of being able to satisfy the country without going too far in the direction of popular suffrage. But it seems evident now that he had left it open to him to take even that course should

  it come in his way. No matter how wide the extension of the franchise which he found himself driven to make, he could always say that in his opinion it only absorbed the best of a class and did not allow us to fall into democracy. Which spills the foremost fullman's life that party conquers in the strife?

  The first blow was struck in the city of London and the liberals carried all the seats. Four liberals were elected. In Westminster the contest was somewhat remarkable. The constituency of Westminster always had the generous ambition to wish to be represented by at least one man of distinction.

  Westminster had been represented by Fox. It had more lately had Sir Francis Burditt for one of its representatives and Cochrane for another. Byron's friend Hobhouse long represented Westminster. More lately still it had had Sir Dalacy Evans, not much of a politician to be sure, but a

  very gallant soldier, a man whose name was at all events to adopt the French phrase in the playbill. This time Mr. Mill was induced to come out of his calm retirement in Avignon and accept the candidature for Westminster. He issued an address embodying his well-known political opinions.

  He declined to look after local business and on principle he objected to pay any part of the expenses of election. It was felt to be a somewhat bold experiment to put forward such a man as Mill among the candidates for the representation of a popular constituency. His opinions were extreme.

  He was not known to belong to any church or religious denomination. He was a philosopher and English political organizations do not love philosophers. He was almost absolutely unknown to his countrymen in general. Until he came forward as the leader of the agitation in favor of the Northern cause during the Civil War, he had never, so far as we know, been seen on an English political platform.

  Even of the electors of Westminster, very few had ever seen him before his candidature. Many were under the vague impression that he was a clever man who wrote wise books and died long ago. He was not supposed to have any liking or capacity for parliamentary life. More than ten years before, it was known to a few that he had been invited to stand for

  an Irish county and had declined. That was at the time when his observations on the Irish land tenure system and the condition of Ireland generally had filled the hearts of many Irishmen with delight and wonder. It was a delight and wonder to find that a cold English philosopher and economist should form such just and generous opinions about Irish questions and should express them with

  such a noble courage. Since that time he had not been supposed to have any inclination for public life, nor we believe had any serious effort been made to tempt him out of his retirement. The idea now occurred to Mr. James Beale, a popular Westminster politician, and he pressed it so earnestly on Mill as a public duty that Mill did not feel that liberty to refuse.

  Mill was one of the few men who have only to be convinced that a thing was incumbent on them as a public duty to set about doing it forthwith, no matter how distasteful it might be to them personally or what excellent excuses they might offer for leaving the duty to others. He had written things which might well make him doubtful about the prudence of courting

  the suffrages of an English popular constituency. He was understood to be a rationalist. He was a supporter of many political opinions that seemed to ordinary people much like fads or crotchets or even crazes. He had once said in his writings that the working classes in England were given to lying.

  He had now to stand up on platforms before crowded and noisy assemblies where everything he had ever written or said could be made the subject of question and of accusation, and with enemies outside capable of torturing every explanation to his disadvantage. A man of independent opinions and who has not been ashamed to change his opinions when he thought them wrong or afraid to put on record each opinion in the time when he held

  it is at much disadvantage on the hustings. He will find out there what it is to have written books and to have enemies. Mill triumphed over all the difficulties by downright courage and honesty. When asked at a public meeting chiefly composed of working men whether he had ever said the working classes were given to lying, he answered straight out, I did a bold blunt admission

  without any qualification. The boldness and frankness of the reply struck home to the manhood of the working men who listened to him. Here they saw a leader who would never shrink from telling them the truth. Mr. Mill has himself described what followed his answer.

  Scarcely were these two words out of my mouth when vehement applause resounded through the whole meeting. It was evident that the working people were so accustomed to expect equivocation and evasion from those who sought their suffrages that when they found instead of that a direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to them, instead of being affronted, they concluded

  at once that this was a person they could trust. The first working man who spoke after the incident I have mentioned, it was Mr. Roger, said that the working classes had no desire not to be told their faults. They wanted friends, not flatterers, and felt under obligation to anyone who told them anything in themselves which he sincerely believed to require amendment.

  And to this the meeting heartily responded. One is in doubt whether to admire more the frankness of the speaker or the manly good sense of those to whom he spoke. As much to my surprise, says Mr. Mill, as to that of anyone, I was returned to Parliament by a majority of some hundreds over my conservative competitor.

  In many other instances there was a marked indication that the political tide had turned in favor of liberal opinions. Mr. Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown's School Days, a radical of the muscular Christianity order, as it was called, was returned for Lambeth. Mr. Duncan Mulleran, brother-in-law of Mr. Bright and an advanced radical, was elected

  for Edinburgh, unseating a mild wig. Mr. Gio Trevelyan, a brilliant young radical, nephew of Macaulay, came into Parliament. In Ireland some men of strong opinions, of ability and of high character found seats in the House of Commons for the first time. One of these was Mr. J.B. Dillon, a man who had been concerned in the Irish Rebellion

  of 1848. He had long opposed the idea of an armed rising, believing it inopportune and hopeless. But nevertheless, when the movement was precipitated by events, he went and took his place in the front of it with his leader. Mr. Dillon had lived for some years in the United States and had lately returned to Ireland

  under an amnesty. He had once re-assumed a leading part in Irish politics and won a high reputation for his capacity and his integrity. He promised to have an influential part in bringing together the Irish members and the English liberals.

  But his untimely death cut short what would unquestionably have been a very useful career. Wherever there was a change in the character of the new Parliament, it seemed to be in favor of advanced reform. It was not merely that the Tories were left in a minority, but that so many mild wigs had been removed to give place to genuine liberals.

  There seemed to be little doubt that this new Parliament would do something to make its existence memorable. No one surely could have expected that it would vindicate its claim to celebrity in the peculiar manner that its short history illustrates. Mr. Disraeli himself expressed his opinion of the new Parliament after it had been but

  a short time sitting. He spoke of it as one which had distinctly increased the strength and the following of Mr. Bright. No one could fail to see, he pointed out, that Mr. Bright occupied a very different position now from that which he held in the late Parliament.

  New men had come into the House of Commons. Men of integrity and ability, who were, above all things, advanced reformers. The position to Mr. Gladstone was markedly changed. He had been defeated at the University of Oxford by Mr. Gathorne Hardy, but was at once put in nomination for South Lancashire, which was still open and he was elected there.

  His severance from the University was regarded by liberals as his political emancipation. The reformers, then, would have at their head the two great parliamentary orators, one of them undoubtedly the future Prime Minister, and the greatest philosophical writer and thinker of the day. This liberal triumvirate, as they were called, would have behind them many new and earnest

  men to whom their words would be law. The alarmed Tories said to themselves that between England and the democratic flood there was left but one barrier, and that was in the person of the old statesman, now in his 81st year, of whom more and more doubtful rumours began to arrive in London every day.

• 41 - Ch. 47: The Death of Lord Palmerston, Pt. 1

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER 47. THE DEATH OF LORD PALMASTON. PART 1. UNARM IRAS. A LONG DAY'S TASK IS DONE AND WE MUST SLEEP. A LONG, VERY LONG DAY'S TASK WAS NEARLY DONE. A MARVELOUS CAREER WAS FAST DRAWING TO ITS CLOTHES. DOWN IN HARTFUTURE, LORD PALMASTON WAS DYING. AS MIRABO SAID OF HIMSELF, SO PALMASTON MIGHT HAVE SAID,

  HE COULD ALREADY HEAR THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE FUNERAL OF ACHILLES. HE HAD ENJOYED LIFE TO THE LAST AS FULLY AS EVER CHURCHILL DID, ALTHOUGH IN A DIFFERENT SENSE. LONG AS HIS LIFE WAS, IF COUNTED, BY MERE YEARS, IT SEEMS MUCH LONGER STILL, WHEN WE CONSIDER WHAT IT ACCOMPASSED AND HOW ACTIVE IT HAD BEEN FROM THE EARLIEST TO THE VERY END. MANY MEN WERE OLDER THAN LORD PALMASTON. HE LEFT MORE THAN ONE SENIOR BEHIND HIM.

  BUT THEY WERE FOR THE MOST PART MEN WHOSE WORK HAD LONG BEEN DONE, MEN WHO HAD BEEN CONSIGNED TO THE ARM CHAIR OF COMPLETE INACTIVITY. PALMASTON WAS A HARD WORKING STATEMENT UNTIL WITHIN A VERY FEW DAYS OF HIS DEATH. HE HAD BEEN A MEMBER OF PARLAMENT FOR NEARLY SIXTY YEARS. HE ENTERED PARLAMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE YEAR WHEN BYRON, LIKE HIMSELF A HEROBOY,

  PUBLISHED HIS FIRST POEMS. HE HAD BEEN IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FOR THIRTY YEARS WHEN THE QUEEN CAME TO THE THRONE. HE USED TO PLAY CHESS WITH THE UNFORTUNATE CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, WIFE OF THE PRINCE REGENT, WHEN SHE LIVED AT KENSINGTON AS PRINCESS OF WALES. IN 1808, BEING THEN ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE ADMIRALTY, HE HAD DEFENDED THE COAPENHAGON EXPEDITION OF THE YEAR BEFORE AND INSISTED THAT IT WAS A STROKE INDISPENSIBLE TO THE DEFEAT OF THE

  DESIGNS OF NAPOLEON. DURING ALL HIS POLITICAL CAREER, HE WAS ONLY OUT OF OFFICE FOR RARE AND BRIEF SEASONS. TO BE A PRIVATE MEMBER OF PARLAMENT WAS A SHORT OCCASIONAL EPISODE IN HIS SUCCESSFUL LIFE. IN THE WORDS OF SADI, THE PERSIAN POET, HE HAD OPTAINED AN EAR OF CORN FROM EVERY HARVEST. IT WAS ONLY DURING THE SESSION OF 1865 THAT LORD PALMASTON BEGAN TO GIVE EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS SUFFERING SEVERELY AT LAST FROM THAT EFFLICTION WHICH HAS BEEN CALLED THE MOST

  TERRIBLE OF ALL DISEASES, OLD AGE. UP TO THE BEGINNING OF THAT YEAR, HE HAD SCARCELY SHOWN ANY SIGNS OF ACTUAL DECAY. HE HAD INDEED BEEN FOR A LONG TIME A SUFFERER FROM OCCASIONAL FITS OF GOUT LATELY IN HANDS AS WELL AS FEET. DURING THE WINTER OF THE TRENT SEIZURE, HE HAD BEEN MUCH DISABLED AND TORTURED BY A VISITATION OF THIS KIND WHICH ALMOST ENTIRELY CRIPPLED HIM. BUT IN THIS COUNTRY THE GOUT HAS LONG CEASED TO BE AN EVIDENCE OF OLD AGE.

  IT ONLY TOO COMMONLY ACCOMPANIES MIDDLE LIFE AND INDEED LIKE BLACK CARE IN THE POET'S VERSE SEEMS ABLE TO CLING ON TO ANY HORSEMAN. BUT DURING THE SESSION OF 1865, LORD POMLESTON BEGAN TO SHOW THAT HE WAS RECEIVING THE WARNINGS WHICH DEATH, IN MISSES THRAIL'S PRETTY POEM, IS MADE TO GIVE OF HIS COMING. HE SUFFERED MUCH FOR SOME OF THE LATER MONTHS. HIS EYE SIGHT HAD BECOME VERY WEAK AND EVEN WITH THE HELP OF STRONG GLASSES HE FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO READ.

  HE WAS GETTING FEABLE IN EVERY WAY. HE CEASED TO HAVE THAT JOY OF THE STRIFE, WHICH INSPIRED HIM DURING PARLAMENTARY DEBATE EVEN UP TO THE ATTAINMENT OF HIS 80TH YEAR. HE HAD KEPT UP HIS BODYLY VIGOUR AND THE YOUTHFUL ELASTICITY OF HIS SPIRIT SO LONG THAT IT MUST HAVE COME ON HIM WITH THE SHOCK OF A PAINFUL SURPRISE WHEN HE FIRST FOUND THAT HIS FRAME AND HIS NERVES WERE BEYOND DOUBT GIVING WAY AND THAT HE TOO MUST SUCCUM TO THE CRUEL

  INFLUENCE OF YEARS. THE COLLAPSE OF HIS VIGOUR CAME ON ALMOST AT A STROKE. ON HIS 80TH BIRTHDAY, IN OCTOBER 1864, HE STARTED, MR. ASHLEY TELLS US, AT HALF PAST EIGHT FROM BROADLANDS, TAKING HIS HORSES BY TRAIN TO FERRAM, WAS MET BY ENGINEER OFFICERS, AND RODE ALONG THE PORTS DOWN IN HILL SEA LINES OF FORTS GETTING OFF HIS HORSE AND INSPECTING SOME OF THEM, CROSSING OVER TO THE ANGLESTE FORTS IN GASPORT, AND NOT REACHING HOME TIL SIX IN THE EVENING. EARLIER IN THE SAME

  YEAR, HE RODE ONE DAY FROM HIS HOUSE IN PICCADILLI TO HERO, TROTTING THE DISTANCE OF NEARLY 12 MILES WITHIN ONE HOUR. SUCH PERFORMANCES TESTIFY TO AN ENERGY OF WHAT ONE WOULD ALMOST CALL YOUTHFUL VITALITY, RARE INDEED, EVEN IN THE HISTORY OF OUR LONG LIVING TIME. BUT IN 1865, THE CHANGE SET IN ALL AT ONCE. LORD PALMASTON BEGAN TO DISCONTINUE HIS ATTENDANCES AT THE HOUSE. WHEN HE DID ATTEND, IT WAS EVIDENT THAT HE WENT THROUGH HIS PARLIMENTARY DUTIES WITH

  DIFFICULTY AND EVEN WITH PAIN. THE TIVERTON ELECTION ON THE DISSOLUTION OF PARLIMENT WAS HIS LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. HE WENT FROM TIVERTON TO BROCKET AND HARTFORDSHURE, A PLACE WHICH LADY PALMASTON HAD INHERITED FROM LORD MELBURN HER BROTHER, AND THERE HE REMAINED. THE GOUT HAD BECOME VERY SERIOUS NOW. IT HAD FLOWN TO A DANGEROUS PLACE, AND LORD PALMASTON HAD MADE THE DANGER GREATER BY VENTURING WITH HIS TWO YOUTHFUL ENERGY TO RIDE OUT BEFORE HE HAD NEARLY

  RECOVERED FROM ONE SEVERE ATTACK. ON OCTOBER 17TH, A BULLETIN WAS ISSUED ANNOUNCING THAT LORD PALMASTON HAD BEEN SERIOUSLY ILL IN CONSEQUENCE OF HAVING TAKEN COLD, BUT THAT HE HAD BEEN STETTLY IMPROVING FOR THREE DAYS, AND WAS THEN MUCH BETTER. SOMEHOW THIS ANNOUNCEMENT FAILED TO REASURE PEOPLE IN LONDON. MANY HAD ONLY THEN FOR THE FIRST TIME HEARD THAT PALMASTON WAS ILL, AND THE BARE MENTION OF THE FACT FELL OMINOUSLY ON THE EAR OF THE PUBLIC.

  THE VERY NEXT MORNING THESE SUSPICIONS WERE CONFIRMED. IT WAS ANNOUNCED THAT LORD PALMASTON'S CONDITION HAD SUDDENLY ALTERED FOR THE WORSE, AND THAT HE WAS GRADUALLY SINKING. THEN EVERYONE KNEW THAT THE END WAS NEAR. THERE WAS NO SURPRISE WHEN THE NEWS CAME NEXT DAY THAT PALMASTON WAS DEAD. HE DIED ON OCTOBER 18TH. HAD HE LIVED ONLY TWO DAYS LONGER, HE WOULD HAVE COMPLETED HIS EIGHTY-FIRST YEAR. He was buried in Westminster Abbey with public

  honors on October 27th. No man, since the death of the Duke of Wellington, had filled so conspicuous a place in the public mind. No man had enjoyed anything like the same amount of popularity. He died at the moment when that popularity had reached its very zenith. It had become the fashion of the day to praise all he said and all he did. It was the settled canon of the ordinary Englishman's faith that what Palmerston said England must feel. To stand forward as the

  opponent or even the critic of anything done or favored by him was to be unpopular and unpatriotic. Lord Palmerston had certainly lived long enough in years, in enjoyment, in fame. It seems idle to ask what might have happened if a man of more than eighty could have lived and held his place in active public life for a few years more. But if one were to indulge in such speculation, the assumption would be that in such an event there must have been some turn in the tide of

  that almost unparalleled popularity and success. Fortunate in everything during his later years, Lord Palmerston was withdrawn from chance and change just when his fortune had reached its flood. It is hardly necessary to say that the regret for Palmerston was very general and very genuine. Privately he can hardly have had any enemies. He had a kindly heart which won on all people who came near him. He had no enduring enmities or capricious dislikes and it was therefore very

  hard for ill-feeling to live in his beaming friendly presence. He never disliked men merely because he had often to encounter them in political war. He tried his best to give them as good as they brought, any borne no malice. There were some men whom he disliked, as we have already mentioned in these volumes. But they were men who for one reason or another stood persistently in his way and who he fancied he had reason to believe had acted treacherously toward him.

  He liked a man to be English and he liked him to be what he considered a gentleman. But he did not restrict his definition of the word gentleman to the mere qualifications of birth or social rank. His manners were frank and genial rather than polished and his is one of the rare instances in which a man contrived always to keep up his personal dignity without any stateliness of bearing in tone. He was a model combatant. When the combat was over he was ready to sit down by his

  antagonist's side and be his friend and talk over their experiences and exploits. He was absolutely free from affectation. This very fact gave sometimes an air almost of roughness to his manners. He could be so plain spoken and downright when suddenly called on to express his mind. He was not on the highest sense of the word a truthful man. That is to say there were episodes of his career in which for purposes of statecraft he allowed the House of Commons and the country to

  become the dupes of an erroneous impression. Personally truthful and honorable of course it would be superfluous to pronounce him. A man of Palmerston's bringing up is as certain to be personally truthful as he is to be brave and to be fond of open air exercise and the cold bath. But Palmerston was too often willing to distinguish between the personal and the political integrity of a statesman. The distinction is common to the majority of statesmen.

  So much the worse for statesmanship. But the gravest errors of this kind which Palmerston had committed were committed for an earlier generation. The general public of 1865 took small account of them. Not many would have cared much then about the grim story of Sir Alexander Burns's dispatches or the manner in which Palmerston had played with the hopes of foreign liberalism conducting it more than once rather to its grave than to its triumph. These things lived only in the minds of

  a few at the time when the news of his death came and even of that few not many were anxious to dwell upon them. It was noticed at the time that the London newspaper which had persistently attacked his policy and himself since the hour when it came into existence appeared in deep mourning the day after his death. Some thought this show of regret inconsistent, some declared it hypocritical. There is no reason to think it either the one or the other. Without retracting one word of

  condemnation uttered concerning Palmerston's policy it was surely natural to feel sincere regret for the death of one who had filled so large a space in the public eye, a man of extraordinary powers and whose love for his country had never been denied. Dead? That quits all scores, is the exclamation of the gypsy in Guy Manoring. Only a simple untaught version of the Virgil which Fox quoted to explain his feelings when he grieved for the death of the rival

  whose public actions he could not even at such a moment pretend to approve. Whether Lord Palmerston belonged to the first order of statesmen can be only matter of speculation and discussion. He was not afforded any opportunity of deciding the question. It was the happy fortune of his country during all his long career to have never been placed in any position of organic danger. Not for one moment was there any crisis of the order which enables a man to prove that he

  is a statesman of the foremost class. It would be almost as profitable to ask ourselves whether the successful captain of one of the canard steamers might have been a Nelson or a Columbus as to ask whether under the pressure of great emergency Palmerston might have been a really great statesman. If we were to test him by his judgment in matters of domestic policy, we should have to rate him somewhat low. The description which Gratton gave of Burke would

  have to be reversed in Lord Palmerston's case. Instead of saying that he saw everything, he foresaw everything. We would have to say that he saw nothing, he foresaw nothing. He was hardly dead when the great changes which he had always scoffed at and declared impossible came to pass. Marshall McMahon once said that in some given contingency the chassepo of the French soldiers would go off of themselves. Such seemed to be the condition of the very reforms which Palmerston had

  persuaded himself to regard as un-English and impossible. They went off of themselves one might say the moment he was gone. Nor was it that his strength had withstood them. If he had been ten years younger they would have probably gone off in spite of him. They waited out of courtesy to him, to his age, and to the certainty that before long he must be out of the way. But of course Lord Palmerston is not to be judged by his domestic policy. We might as well judge Frederick the Great

  by his poetry or Richelieu by his play. Palmerston was himself only in the Foreign Office and in the House of Commons. In both alike the recognition of his true capacity came very late. His parliamentary training had been perfected before its success was acknowledged. He was therefore able to use his faculties at any given moment to their fullest stretch. He could always count on them. They had been so well drilled by long practice that they would instantly come at call. He understood the

  moods of the House of Commons to perfection. He could play upon those moods as a performer does upon the keys of an instrument. The doctor in one of Dickens's stories contrives to seem a master of his business by simply observing what those around the patient had been doing and wished to do and advising that just those things shall be done. Lord Palmerston often led the House of Commons after the same fashion. He saw what men were in the mood to do and he did it and they were

  clear that he must be a great leader who led them just whither they fell inclined to go. The description which Burke gave of Charles Townsend would very accurately describe what Lord Palmerston came to be in his later days. He became the spoiled child of the House of Commons. Only it has to be added that as the spoiled child usually spoils the parent so Palmerston did much to spoil the House that petted him. He would not allow it to remain long in the mood to tolerate

  high principles or any talk about them. Much earnestness he knew bored the House and he took care never to be much in earnest. He left it to others to be eloquent. It was remarked at the time that the Prime Minister who is now and has been for years far more influential in England than ever Bolingbroke was, wielding a political power as great as any ever owned by Chatham or Pitt, as supreme in his own country as Cavour was in Sardinia, holding a position such as no French

  statesman has held for generations in France, has scarcely any pretension whatever to be considered an orator and has not during the whole course of his long career affixed his name to any grand act of successful statesmanship. Lord Palmerston never cared to go deeper in his speeches than the surface in everything. He had no splendid phraseology and probably would not have cared to make any display of splendid phraseology even if he had the gift. No speech of his would be read except for the

  present interest of the subject. No passages from Lord Palmerston are quoted by anybody. He always selected and doubtless by a kind of instinct, not the arguments which were most logically cogent but those which were most likely to suit the character and the temper of the audience he happened to be addressing. He spoke for his hearers, not for himself, to affect the votes of those to whom he was appealing, not for the sake of expressing any deep irrepressible

  convictions of his own. He never talked over the heads of his audience or compelled them to strain their intellects in order to keep pace with his flights. No other statesman of our time could interpose so dexterously just before the division to break the effect of some telling speech against him and to bring the house into a frame of mind for regarding all that had been done by the opposition as mere piece of political ceremonial gone through in deference to the traditions or

  the formal necessities of party on which it would be a waste of time to bestow serious thought. A writer quoted by Mr. Ashley has remarked upon Lord Palmerston's habit of interjecting occasionally a sort of guttural sound between his words which must necessarily have been fatal to anything like true oratorical effect but which somehow seemed to enhance the peculiar effectiveness of his unprepared easy colloquial style. The writer goes on to say that this occasional hesitation

  often did much to increase the humor of some of the jocular hits in which Lord Palmerston so commonly delighted. The joke seemed to be so entirely unpremeditated the audience were kept for a moment in such amusing suspense while the speaker was apparently turning over the best way to give the hit that when at last it came it was enjoyed with the keener relish. End of section 41.

• 42 - Ch. 47: The Death of Lord Palmerston, Pt. 2

  play_arrowPlaymenu_bookRead

  CHAPTER XLVII. THE DEATH OF LORD PALMISTON, PART II. Nothing is more rash than to attempt to convey in cold words an idea of the effect which a happy phrase from Lord Palmerston could sometimes produce upon a hesitating audience, and how it could throw ridicule upon a very serious case.

  Let us, however, make one experiment. Mr. Disraeli had once made a long and heavy attack on the ministry, opened quite a battery of argument and sarcasm against them for something they had done or had left undone. Toward the close of his speech, he observed that it was no part of his duty to suggest to the ministry the exact course they ought to pursue.

  He would abstain from endeavoring to influence the House by offering any opinion of his own on that subject. Lord Palmerston began his reply by seizing on this harmless bit of formality. The right honorable gentleman, he said, has declared that he abstained from endeavoring to influence the House by any advice of his own.

  Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that is indeed patriotic. The manner in which Palmerston spoke the words, the peculiar pause before he found the exact epithet with which to commend Mr. Disraeli's conduct, the twinkle of the eye, the tone of the voice, all made this ironical commendation more effective than the finest piece of satire would have been just then.

  Lord Palmerston managed to put it as if Mr. Disraeli, conscious of the impossibility of his having any really sound advice to offer, had, out of combined modesty and love of country, deliberately abstained from offering an opinion that might perhaps have misled the ignorant. The effect of Mr. Disraeli's elaborate attack was completely spoiled. The House was no longer in a mood to consider it seriously.

  This, it may be said, was almost in the nature of a practical joke. Not a few of Palmerston's clever instantaneous effects partook to a certain extent of the nature of a good-humored practical joke. But Palmerston only had recourse to these oratorical artifices when he was sure that the temper of the House and the condition of the debate would make them serve his momentary

  purpose. It was hardly better than a mere joke when Palmerston, charged with having acted unfairly in China by first favoring the Great Rebellion and then indirectly helping the Chinese government to put it down, blandly asked what could be more impartial conduct than to help the rebels first and the government after.

  It was a mere joke to declare that a member who had argued against Palmerston's scheme of fortifications had himself admitted the necessity of such a plan by saying that he had taken care to fortify himself with facts in order to debate the question. These were not, however, the purely frivolous jests that one thus told they may seem to be.

  They had all of them the distinct purpose of convincing the House that Lord Palmerston thought nothing of the arguments urged against him, that they did not call for any serious consideration, that a careless jest was the only way in which it would be worth his while to answer them. It is certain that not only was the opponent, not only were other possible opponents disconcerted

  by this way of dealing with the question, but that many listeners became convinced by it that there could be nothing in the case which Lord Palmerston treated with such easy levity. They had all and more than all the effect of Pitts throwing down his pen and ceasing to take notes during Erskine's speech, or O'Connell's smile and amused shake of the

  head at the earnestness of an ambitious young speaker who thought he was making a damaging case against him and compelling a formidable and elaborate reply. The jests of Lord Palmerston always had a purpose in them and were better adapted to the occasion and the moment than the reparties of the best debater in the House. At one time, indeed, he flung his jests and personalities about in somewhat too reckless

  a fashion and he made many enemies, but of late years, whether from growing discretion or kindly feeling, he seldom indulged in any pleasantries that could wound or offend. During his last Parliament, he represented to the full the average head and heart of a House of Commons singularly devoid of high ambition or steady purpose, a House peculiarly intolerant of eccentricity, especially if it were that of genius, impatient of having

  its feelings long strained in any one direction, delighting only in ephemeral interests and excitements, hostile to anything which drew heavily on the energy or the intelligence. Such a House naturally acknowledged a heavy debt of gratitude to the statesmen who never either puzzled or bored them. Men who distrusted Mr. Disraeli's antitheses and were frightened by Mr. Gladstone's earnestness

  found as much relief in the easy, pleasant, straightforward talk of Lord Palmerston as a schoolboy finds in a game of marbles after a problem or a sermon. We have not now to pronounce upon Lord Palmerston's long career. Much of this history of our own times is necessarily the history of the life and administration of a statesman who entered Parliament shortly after Austerlitz.

  We have commented so far as comment seemed necessary on each passage of his policy as it came under our notice. His greatest praise with Englishmen must be that he loved England with a sincere love that never abated. He had no predilection, no prejudice that did not give way where the welfare of England

  was concerned. He ought to have gone one step higher in the path of public duty. He ought to have loved justice and right even more than he loved England. He ought to have felt more tranquilly convinced that the cause of justice and of right must be the best thing which an English minister could advance even for England's sake in

  the end. Lord Palmerston was not a statesman who took any lofty view of a minister's duties. His statesmanship never stood on any high moral elevation. He sometimes did things in the cause of England which we may well believe he would not have done for any consideration in any cause of his own.

  His policy was necessarily shifting, uncertain, and inconsistent, for he molded it always on the supposed interests of England as they showed themselves to his eyes at the time. His sympathies with liberty were capricious guides. Sympathies with liberty must be so, always where there is no clear principle defining objects and guiding conduct.

  Lord Palmerston was not prevented by his liberal sympathies from sustaining the policy of the coup d'etat, nor did his hatred of slavery, one of his few strong and genuine emotions apart from English interests, inspire him with any repugnance to the cause of the Southern slaveholders. But it cannot be doubted that his very defects were a main cause of his popularity and his

  success. He was able always with a good conscience to assure the English people that they were the greatest and the best, the only good and great people in the world, because he had long taught himself to believe this and had come to believe it. He was always popular because his speeches invariably conveyed this impression to the

  English crowd whom he addressed in or out of Parliament. Other public men spoke for the most part to tell English people of something they ought to do which they were not doing, something which they had done and ought not to have done. It is not in the nature of things that such men should be as popular as those who told

  England that whatever she did must be right. Nor did Palmerston lay on his praise with coarse and palpable artifice. He had no artifice in the matter. He believed what he said and his very sincerity made it the more captivating and the more dangerous.

  A phrase sprang up in Palmerston's days which was employed to stigmatize certain political conduct beyond all ordinary reproach. It was meant to stamp such conduct as outside the pale of reasonable argument or patriotic consideration. That was the word un-English.

  It was enough with certain classes to say that anything was un-English in order to put it utterly out of court. No matter to what principles, higher, more universal, and more abiding than those that are merely English, it might happen to appeal, the one word of condemnation was held to be enough for it.

  Some of the noblest and the wisest men of our day were denounced as un-English. A stranger might have asked in wonder at one time whether it was un-English to be just, to be merciful, to have consideration for the claims and the rights of others, to admit that there was any higher object in a nation's life than a diplomatic success. All that would have made a man odious and insufferable in private life was apparently

  held up as belonging to the virtues of the English nation. It would self-assertion, blunt disregard for the feelings and the claims of others, a self-sufficiency which would regard all earth's interests as made for England's special use alone, the yet more outrageous form of egotism which would fancy that the moral code, as it applies to others, does not apply to us.

  All this seemed to be considered the becoming national characteristic of the English people. It would be almost superfluous to say that this did not show its worst in Lord Palmerston himself. As in art, so in politics, we never see how bad some peculiar defect is until we see it in the imitators of a great man's style.

  A school of Palmerstons, had it been powerful and lasting, would have made England a nuisance to other nations. Normally a statesman's first business is to take care of the interests of his own country. His duty is to prefer her interests to those of any other country. In our rough and ready human system, he is often compelled to support her in a policy,

  the principle of which he did not cordially approve in the first instance. He must do his best to bring her with honor out of a war, even though he would not himself have made or sanctioned the war if the decision had been in his power. He cannot break sharply away from the traditions of his country. Mr. Disraeli often succeeded in throwing a certain amount of disrepute on some of his

  opponents by calling them the advocates of cosmopolitanism. If the word had any meaning, it meant we presume that the advocates of cosmopolitanism were men who had no particular prejudices in favor of their country's interests and were as ready to take an enemy's side of a question as that of their own people. If there were such politicians, and we have never heard of any since the execution of

  anarchist clutes, we could not wonder that their countrymen should dislike them and draw back from putting any trust in them at a critical moment. They might be held to resemble some of the pragmatical sentimentalists who at one time used to argue that the ties of family are of no account to the truly wise and just, and that a good man should love all his neighbors as well as he loved his wife and children.

  Such people are hopeless in practical affairs. Taking no account of the very springs of human motive, they are sure to go wrong in everything they try to do or to estimate. An English minister must be an English minister, first of all. But he will never be a great minister if he does not, in all his policy, recognize the

  truth that there are considerations of higher account for him and for England, too, than England's immediate interests. If he deliberately or heedlessly allows England to do wrong, he will prove an evil counselor for her. He will do her harm that may be estimated someday even by the most practical and arithmetical

  calculation. There is a great truth in the fine lines of the Cavalier poet, which remind his mistress that he could not love her so much, loved he not honor more. It is a truth that applies to the statesman as well as to the lover. No man can truly serve his country to the best of his power who has not in his mind

  all the time a service still higher than that of his country. In many instances, Lord Palmerston allowed England to do things which, if a nation had an individual conscience, he and everyone else would say were wrong. It has to be remembered, too, that what is called England's interest comes to be defined according to the minister's personal interpretation of its meaning.

  The minister who sets the interest of his country above the moral law is necessarily obliged to decide according to his own judgment at the moment what the interests of his country are, and so it is, not even the state which is above the moral law, but only the statesman. We have no hesitation in saying that Lord Palmerston's statesmanship on the whole lowered the moral tone of English politics for a time.

  This consideration alone, if there were nothing else, forbids us to regard him as the statesman whose deeds were equal to his opportunities and to his genius. To serve the purpose of the hour was his policy. To succeed in serving it was his triumph. It is not, thus, that a great fame is built up, unless, indeed, where the genius of the

  man is like that of some Caesar or a Napoleon, which can convert its very ruins into monumental records. Lord Palmerston is hardly to be called a great man. Perhaps he may be called a great man of the time. End of the third volume. End of Section 43.

  Recording by Pamela Nagami, M.D. in Encino, California, February 2020. End of A History of Our Own Times from the Accession of Queen Victoria to the General Election of 1880, Volume 3, by Justin McCarthy.