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CASSELL'S ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND




    CASSELL'S

    HISTORY OF ENGLAND

    FROM THE DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL TO
    THE ILLNESS OF THE PRINCE OF WALES

    WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS,
    INCLUDING COLOURED
    AND REMBRANDT PLATES

    VOL. VI

    _THE KING'S EDITION_

    CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
    LONDON, NEW YORK, TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
    MCMIX

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_). PAGE

    The Papal Aggressions--The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill--Mr.
    Locke King's Motion on County Franchise--Resignation of
    the Government--The Great Exhibition--The President of the
    French Republic and the Assembly--Preparations for the _Coup
    d'État_--The Barricades--The _Plébiscite_--Weakness of the
    Russell Administration--Independence of Lord Palmerston--The Queen's
    Memorandum--Dismissal of Palmerston--The Militia Bill--Russell is
    turned out--The Derby Ministry--The General Election--Defeat of the
    Conservatives--Death and Funeral of the Duke of Wellington--The
    Aberdeen Administration--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--The Eastern
    Question again--The Diplomatic Wrangle--The Sultan's Firman--Afif
    Bey's Mission--Difficulties in Montenegro--England and France--The
    Menschikoff Mission--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's Instructions--The
    Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour--Menschikoff at Constantinople--The
    English and French Fleets--Arrival of Lord Stratford de
    Redcliffe--Menschikoff's ulterior Demands--Action of the Powers    1


CHAPTER II.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Widening of the Question--The Fleets in Besika Bay--Lord Clarendon's
    Despatch--The Czar and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--Nesselrode's
    "Last Effort"--Military Preparations--Blindness of the British
    Cabinet--Nesselrode's Ultimatum rejected--Occupation of the
    Principalities--Projects of Settlement--The Vienna Note--Its
    Rejection by the Porte---Division of the Powers--Text of
    the Note--Divisions in the British Cabinet--The Fleets in
    the Bosphorus--The Conference at Olmütz--The Sultan's Grand
    Council--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's last Effort--Patriotism of
    the Turks--Omar Pasha's Victories--The Turkish Fleet destroyed
    at Sinope--Indignation in England--The French Suggestion--It is
    accepted by Lord Clarendon--Russia demands Explanations--Diplomatic
    Relations suspended--The Letter of Napoleon III.--The Western
    Powers arm--An Ultimatum to Russia--It is unanswered--The Baltic
    Fleet--Publication of the Correspondence--Declarations of War     19


CHAPTER III.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Attitude of the German Powers--The Lines at Boulair--The Campaign
    on the Danube--The Siege of Silistria--It is raised--Evacuation of
    the Principalities--The British Fleet in the Black Sea--Arrival
    of the Allied Armies--A Council of War--The Movement on
    Varna--Unhealthiness of the Camp--An Attack on the Crimea
    resolved on--Doubts of the Military Authorities--Despatch to Lord
    Raglan--Lord Lyndhurst's Speech--Raglan's reluctant Assent--The
    Expedition sails--Debarkation in the Crimea--Forays of the French
    Troops--Composition of the Allied Armies--The Start--The first
    Skirmish--St. Arnaud's Plan--Slowness of the British--Battle of the
    Alma                                                              35


CHAPTER IV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Two Days on the Alma--Retreat of the Russians--Raglan proposes a
    Flank Movement--Korniloff and Todleben--Death of St. Arnaud--The
    Allies in Position--Menschikoff reinforces Sebastopol--Todleben's
    Preparations--The Opposing Batteries--The Sea--Defences of
    Sebastopol--Doubts of the Admirals--Opening of the Bombardment--The
    French Fire silenced--Success of the British--Failure of
    the Fleets--The Bombardment renewed--Menschikoff determines
    to Raise the Siege--The Attack on Balaclava--Lord Lucan's
    Warning--Liprandi's Advance--Capture of the Redoubts--The 93rd--Lord
    Lucan's Advance--Charge of the Heavy Brigade--Raglan, Lucan, and
    Nolan--Charge of the Light Brigade--The Valley of Death--The
    Goal--End of the Battle                                           50


CHAPTER V.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Effects of Balaclava--Attack on Mount Inkermann--Evans defeats
    the Russians--Menschikoff is reinforced--The Guards to the
    Rescue--Arrival of Lord Raglan--Bosquet's Help refused--The
    Fight at the Sandbag Battery--The Coldstreams--The Guards'
    Charge--Defeat of Cathcart--Charges of the Zouaves--The Russians
    slowly retreat--Canrobert hesitates to pursue--Loss of the
    Allies--Their Plight--The Baltic Fleet--Changed Position of
    the Allies--Determination of the British Nation--Storm of
    November 14th--Destruction of the Transports--Sufferings of the
    Troops--Conduct of the War---Timidity of the Government--Enlistment
    of Boys--Autumn Session--The Paper Warfare--Hostile Motions in
    Parliament--Lord John Russell's Resignation--Palmerston forms a
    Ministry--Resignation of the Peelites                             64


CHAPTER VI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    State of the Army--Food, Clothing, and Shelter--Absence of a
    Road--Want of Transport--Numbers of the Sick--State of the
    Hospitals--Miss Nightingale--Mr. Roebuck's Committee--Military
    Operations--The French Mistake--Improvement of the
    Situation--Arrival of General Niel--Attack upon the Malakoff
    Hill approved--The Russian Redoubt constructed--Death of
    Nicholas--Todleben's Counter-Approaches--Raglan and Canrobert
    disagree--The second Bombardment--Egerton's Pit--Night Attack
    of General de Salles--The Emperor's Interference--Canrobert's
    Indecision--The Kertch Project--Arrival of the Sardinian
    Contingent--The Emperor's Visit to Windsor--The Emperor's Plan
    of Campaign--It is rejected by Raglan and Omar--Resignation of
    Canrobert                                                         80


CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Course of Diplomacy--Austria's Position--The Four Points--The
    Czar agrees to negotiate--Russell's Mission to Vienna--Prince
    Gortschakoff's Declaration--The Third Point broached--Its
    Rejection by Russia--Count Buol's final Proposition--The War
    debated in Parliament--Lord John Russell resigns--Strength of the
    Government--The Sardinian and Turkish Loans--Vote of Censure on
    the Aberdeen Cabinet--Finance of the War--General Pélissier--The
    Fight for the Cemetery--Success of the French--Occupation
    of the Tchernaya--Expedition to Kertch--Description of the
    Peninsula--Sir George Brown's Force--The Russians blow up their
    Magazines--Occupation of Kertch and Yenikale--Lyons in the Sea
    of Azoff--Result of the Expedition--Attack upon Sebastopol
    decided--Ordnance of the Allies--The Attack--The French
    occupy the Mamelon--The British in the Quarries--Lord Raglan
    overruled--New Batteries--Pélissier's Change of Plan--The Fourth
    Bombardment--Preparations for the Assault--Mayran's Mistake--Brunet
    and D'Autemarre--The Attack on the Redan fails--Abandonment of the
    Assault--General Eyre--Losses on both Sides--Death of Lord Raglan 91


CHAPTER VIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Changes in the Allied Camp--Advance upon the Malakoff and
    Redan--Prince Gortschakoff determines to Attack--The Allied Camp
    on the Tchernaya--Gortschakoff's Reinforcements--The Russian
    Plan--Read's Precipitation--Check of the Russian Attack--The
    French Counter-stroke--Gortschakoff changes his Front--The Battle
    is won--Allied Losses--The French sap towards the Malakoff----The
    British Bombardment--Combats before the Malakoff--Gortschakoff
    secures his Retreat--Council of September 3rd--Plan of Attack--The
    Last Bombardment--The Hour of Attack--The Signal--Assault of
    the Malakoff--MacMahon and Vinoy--Failures upon the Curtain
    and Little Redan--MacMahon is Impregnable--Failure to take the
    Redan--Evening--Gortschakoff's Retreat--End of the Siege         113


CHAPTER IX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Gortschakoff clings to Sebastopol--Destruction of Taman and
    Fanagoria--Expedition to Kinburn--Resignation of Sir James
    Simpson--Explosion of French Powder Magazine--The Fleets in the
    Baltic--The Hango Massacre--Attack on Sveaborg--What the Baltic
    Fleet did--Russia on the Pacific Coast--Petropaulovski blown up--The
    Russian Position in Asia--The Turks left to their Fate--Foreigners
    in Kars--Defeat of Selim Pasha--Battle of Kuruk-Dereh--Colonel
    Williams sent to Kars--Mouravieff arrives--His Expeditions
    towards Erzeroum--The Blockade begins--The Assault of September
    29th--Kmety's success--The Tachmasb Redoubt--Attack on the English
    Lines--Victory of the Turks--Omar's Relief fails--Sufferings of the
    Garrison--Williams capitulates--Terms of the Surrender           128


CHAPTER X.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Winter of '55--Visit of the Czar to the Crimea--State of
    the British Army--Sufferings of the French--Destruction of
    Sebastopol--The Armistice--Views of Austria and Russia--And of
    the Emperor Napoleon--Britain acquiesces in Peace--Walewski's
    Circular--Austria proposes Peace--Buol's Despatch--Nesselrode's
    Circular--The Austrian Ultimatum--Russia gives way--The Congress
    fixed at Paris--The Queen's Speech--Speeches of Clarendon and
    Palmerston--Meeting of the Congress--The Armistice--An Imperial
    Speech--The Sultan's Firman--Prussia admitted to the Congress--Birth
    of the Prince Imperial--The Treaty signed--Its Terms--Bessarabia
    and the Principalities--The Three Conventions--The Treaty of
    Guarantee--Count Walewski's Four Subjects--The Declaration of
    Paris--International Arbitration mooted--The Kars Debate--Debates on
    the Peace--General Rejoicings--Cost of the War--First Presentation
    of the Victoria Cross                                            144


CHAPTER XI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Prorogation of 1853--End of the Kaffir and Burmese Wars--The
    Wages Movement--The Preston Strike--The Crystal Palace--Marriage
    of the Emperor of the French--His Visit to England--The Queen's
    Return Visit--Festivities in Paris--Lord Lyndhurst on Italy--Lord
    Clarendon's Reply--Similar Debate in the Commons--Withdrawal of the
    Western Missions from Naples--The Anglo-French Alliance--The Suez
    Canal--The _Arrow_ Affair--Mr. Cobden's Resolution--Mr. Labouchere's
    Reply--Lord Palmerston's Speech--The Division--Announcement of a
    Dissolution--Retirement of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre--Lord Palmerston's
    Victory at the Polls--Mr. Denison elected Speaker--Betrothal of the
    Princess Royal--Abolition of "Ministers' Money"--The new Probate
    Court--The Divorce Bill in the Lords--The Bishop of Oxford's
    Amendments--Motions of Mr. Henley and Sir W. Heathcote--Major
    Warburton's Amendment--The Bill becomes Law--The Orsini
    Plot--Walewski's Despatch--The Conspiracy to Murder Bill--Debate on
    the Second Reading--Defeat of the Government--The Derby Ministry 160


CHAPTER XII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Condition of India--The Bengal Army--The Greased Cartridges--The
    Prudence of Hearsey--The Chupatties--Disarming of the
    19th--Inactivity of Anson--The Sepoys at Lucknow--A Scene at
    Barrackpore--At Meerut--The Rebellion begins--The Rush on Delhi--The
    City is sacked--The Powder Magazine--It is exploded--The Fall of
    Delhi--Sir Henry Lawrence--Energetic Measures at Lahore--Mutiny at
    Ferozepore--Peshawur is saved--Action of the Civil Authorities--The
    Siege Train--Death of Anson--John Lawrence in the Punjab--Cotton
    disarms the Sepoys--The Trans-Indus Region is secure--Mutiny
    supreme elsewhere--Progress of the Rising--Lucknow--Oude ripe for
    Revolt--The first Outbreak suppressed--The Ranee of Jhansi--The Five
    Divisions of Oude                                                182


CHAPTER XIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    March of the British on Delhi--Battles on the Hindon--Wilson
    joins Barnard--Hodson reconnoitres Delhi--The Guides arrive--The
    Delhi Force in Position--An unfulfilled Prophecy--Lord Canning's
    Inaction--Lord Elphinstone's Discretion--Troops from Madras and
    Persia--Benares is saved--So is Allahabad--Cawnpore--Nana Sahib and
    Azimoolah--The Europeans in the Entrenchment--The Mutiny--Sufferings
    of the Garrison--Valour of the Defence--The Well--The Hospital
    catches Fire--Incidents of the Siege--Moore's Sortie--Nana Sahib's
    Letter--The Massacre at the Ghaut--Central India--Lawrence fortifies
    the Residency at Lucknow--The Death of Lawrence.                 203


CHAPTER XIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Havelock to the Front--Nana Sahib's Position--Cawnpore
    reoccupied--Nana Sahib's Vengeance--Havelock pushes on for
    Lucknow--End of Havelock's first Campaign--Lord Canning and Jung
    Bahadoor--Mutiny at Dinapore--Its Effects--Before Delhi--Attempt
    to surprise a Convoy--Death of Barnard--Wilson's Discipline--John
    Lawrence's Perplexities--Disarmament at Rawul Pindee and
    Jhelum--Mutiny at Sealkote--It is avenged by Nicholson--The Drama at
    Peshawur--Reinforcements for Delhi--Nicholson arrives--The Crisis in
    the Siege.                                                       219


CHAPTER XV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Defect of the Delhi Fortifications--The British Advance--Nicholson's
    Column--The Cashmere Gate exploded--Nicholson mortally
    wounded--Failure at the Lahore Gate--The British possess the
    City--Capture of the King--The Princes shot--Effect of the Fall
    of Delhi--Greathed's Column--The Relief of Agra--Affairs at
    Lucknow--The Garrison--Character of the Attack--Explosion of
    Mines--Inglis's Report--Sir Colin Campbell at Calcutta--Havelock
    superseded by Outram--Position of Havelock's Army--Eyre's
    Exploits--Havelock crosses the Ganges--Combat of Mungulwar--Battle
    at the Alumbagh--The Plan of Attack--The Goal is reached--The Scene
    that Evening--Havelock's Losses--Outram determines to remain--Energy
    of the Indian Government--The Force at Cawnpore--Sir Colin to the
    Front--Kavanagh's daring Deed--Campbell retires on Cawnpore--Death
    of Havelock.                                                     233


CHAPTER XVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Windham at Cawnpore--Sir Colin Campbell to the Rescue--Battle
    of Cawnpore--Seaton advances from Delhi--His Campaign in the
    Doab--Hodson's Ride--Campbell at Futtehghur--Condition of
    Central India--Rose at Indore--Oude or Rohilcund?--Plans for
    the Reduction of Lucknow--Waiting for the Nepaulese--Campbell's
    final Advance--Outram crosses the Goomtee--Death of Hodson--The
    Fall of Lucknow--Lord Canning's Proclamation--The Conquest of
    Rohilcund--Nirput Singh's Resistance--Sir Colin marches on
    Bareilly--Battle of Bareilly--The Moulvie attacks Shahjehanpore--It
    is relieved by Brigadier John Jones--Sir Colin returns to
    Futtehghur--End of the Campaign.                                 255


CHAPTER XVII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The State of Central India--Objects of Rose's Campaign--The
    two Columns--Capture of Ratghur--Relief of Saugor--Capture of
    Gurrakota--Annexation of the Rajah of Shahghur's Territory--Capture
    of Chandaree--Rose arrives at Jhansi--The Ranee and Tantia
    Topee--Jhansi is stormed--Battles of Koonch and Calpee--Tantia
    Topee captures Gwalior--Smith and Rose rescue the Place--Lord
    Elphinstone's Proceedings--Flight of Tantia Topee--Lawrence in
    the Punjab--Banishment of the King of Delhi--The Subjugation of
    Oude--Hope Grant's Flying Column--Transference of the Government
    to the Crown--The Queen's Proclamation--Clyde enforces the
    Law--Disappearance of the Begum and Nana Sahib--The Country
    at Peace--The Last Adventures of Tantia Topee--Settlement of
    India--The Financial Question--The Indian Army--Increase of European
    Troops--The Native Levies--Abandonment of Dalhousie's Policy.    270


CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Termination of the Hudson's Bay Monopoly--British Columbia
    and Vancouver--Mr. Locke King's Bill for the Abolition of the
    Property Qualification--Attempt to abolish Freedom of Arrest for
    Debt--Mr. Bright agitates for Reform--The Conservatives propose
    a Reform Bill--Mr. Disraeli's Speeches--Secession of Mr. Walpole
    and Mr. Henley--Lord John Russell's Resolution--Seven Nights'
    Debate--Replies of Lord Stanley and Sir Hugh Cairns--Mr. Bright's
    Speech--Speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--Defeat
    of the Government--Lord Derby announces a Dissolution--The
    General Election--Parliament reassembles--Lord Hartington's
    Amendment--Defeat of the Government--Lord Malmesbury's Statement
    in his "Memoirs"--Union of the Liberal Party--Lord Granville's
    attempt to form a Ministry--Lord Palmerston becomes Premier--His
    Ministry--The Italian Question in Parliament--State of the
    Peninsula--Speeches of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--Ambiguous
    Attitude of Napoleon--Lord Malmesbury's Diplomacy--Lord Cowley's
    Mission--The Austrian Ultimatum--Malmesbury's Protest--"From the
    Alps to the Adriatic"--The Armies in Position--First Victories
    of the Allies--Magenta and Milan--Battle of Solferino--The
    Armistice--Treaty of Villafranca--Lord John Russell's Commentary. 287


CHAPTER XIX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Peace of Zurich--Its Repudiation by Italy--The Idea of a
    Congress--Garibaldi in Central Italy--The Cession of Nice and
    Savoy--The Sicilian Expedition--Garibaldi lands at Marsala--Capture
    of Palermo--The Convention for Evacuation signed--Battle of Milazzo
    and Evacuation of Messina--Garibaldi master of Sicily--Attempts to
    prevent the Conquest of Naples--A Landing effected--The victorious
    March--Flight of the King--Garibaldi occupies Naples--He is warned
    off Venetia--The Sardinian Troops occupy the Papal States--Battle
    of the Volturno--Victor Emmanuel's Advance--His Meeting with
    Garibaldi--Accomplishment of Garibaldi's Programme--Refusal of his
    Demands--He retires to Caprera--Lord John Russell's Despatch.    303


CHAPTER XX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Session of 1860--Debates on Nice and Savoy--Mr. Gladstone's
    Budget--The French Commercial Treaty--The Paper Duties Bill--Lord
    Palmerston's Motion of Inquiry--Mr. Gladstone's Resolution--Lord
    John Russell's Reform Bill--Mr. James Wilson and Sir Charles
    Trevelyan--The Defences of India and Great Britain--The Massacre
    by the Druses--The French Expedition--China once more--Repulse on
    the Peiho--Lord Elgin and Baron Gros--The Advance on Pekin--Capture
    of the Taku Forts--The Summer Palace looted--Release of Mr.
    Parkes--Lord Elgin decrees the Destruction of the Palace--The Treaty
    of Peace--The Prince of Wales in Canada--Death of the Duchess of
    Kent--The American Civil War--Election of Lincoln--Secession of
    South Carolina--The Confederate States--The British Cabinet declares
    Neutrality--Affair of the _Trent_--The Paper Duties Bill and the
    Church Rates Bill--Sidney Herbert and the Volunteers             310


CHAPTER XXI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Queen's Visit to Ireland--The Royal Family at Balmoral--Illness
    and Death of the Prince Consort--The Address in Parliament--The
    Education Code--The American War in Parliament--The _Nashville_--The
    Blockade and the Cotton Famine--The Game Act--Palmerston and
    Cobden--Prorogation of Parliament--The Garotters--The _Alabama_--Mr.
    Adams and Earl Russell--The _Alabama sails_--Progress of the
    War in America--Greece and the Ionian Islands--The Society of
    Arts--The Exhibition of 1862--Jealousy of Prussia and France--The
    Colonial Exhibition--The Cotton Famine in 1863--Engagement and
    Marriage of the Prince of Wales--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--"Essays
    and Reviews"--Obituary of the Year--Russell and Gortschakoff--The
    Polish Revolution--Russell and Brazil--The Coercion of Japan--The
    American War in 1863--The Crown of Mexico offered to the Archduke
    Maximilian--Captain Speke in Central Africa                      326


CHAPTER XXII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Peace and Prosperity in 1864--Birth of an Heir to the Prince of
    Wales--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--Mr. Stansfeld and Mazzini--The
    Government and the London Conference on the Danish Question--Mr.
    Gladstone on Parliamentary Reform--Resignation of Mr. Lowe--Lord
    Westbury on Convocation--Garibaldi's Visit to England--The
    Shakespeare Tercentenary--"Essays and Reviews" again--The
    Colenso Controversy--Mr. Disraeli and the Angels--The Fenians
    in Dublin--Origin of the Belfast Riots--The Ashantee War--The
    Maori War--Waitara Block and its consequences--Suppression of
    the Rebellion--Final Defeat of the Taepings--Bombardment of
    Simonasaki--The Cyclone at Calcutta--Its Ravages.                343


CHAPTER XXIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Schleswig-Holstein Question--The Nationalities of Denmark--The
    Connection between Schleswig and Denmark--The Declaration of
    1846--Incorporation of Schleswig with Denmark--The Rebellion
    and its Suppression--The Protocol of London--Defects of the
    Arrangement--Danification of the Duchies--A Common Constitution
    decreed and revoked--The King's Proclamation--Schleswig
    incorporated in Denmark--Federal Execution voted--Russell's
    high-handed Diplomacy--Death of Frederick VII.--The Augustenburg
    Candidate--Austria and Prussia override the Diet--Russell's abortive
    Conference--The Austrian and Prussian Troops advance--Collapse
    of the Danes--Russell proposes an Armistice--Russell and M.
    Bille--France declines to interfere--Possibilities of Swedish
    and Russian Intervention--The Cabinet divided--An Armistice--A
    futile Conference--The War resumed--Fate of Denmark is sealed--To
    whom do the Spoils belong?--Summary of Events in Mexico and North
    America--Southern Filibusters in Canada--Their Acquittal at
    Montreal--Excitement in America--The Sentence reversed           353


CHAPTER XXIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The National Prosperity in 1865--Debate on the Malt Tax--Remission
    of Fire Insurance Duty--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--The Army and
    Navy Estimates--Academic Discussions of large Questions--Mr.
    Lowe on Reform--The Union Changeability Bill--The New Law
    Courts Bill--Debate on University Tests--The Catholic Oaths
    Bill--Other Ecclesiastical Discussions--The Edmunds Scandal--Mr.
    Ward Hunt's Motion--Lord Westbury resigns--The General
    Election--The Rinderpest--The Fenian Conspiracy--Stephens the
    Head-Centre--His Arrest and Escape from Richmond Gaol--The Special
    Commission--Obituary of the Year--Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden 363


CHAPTER XXV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Quietness of Europe--Debate on Poland--The English Prisoners
    in Abyssinia--Mr. Newdegate and the Encyclical--Visit of the
    French Fleet--Conclusion of the American War--The Death of
    Lincoln--Inflated Prosperity of India--The Canadian Defences--The
    Maori War continues--Mr. Cardwell's Policy--The Jamaica
    Rebellion--Gordon is hanged--The total of Deaths--Excitement in
    England--The Jamaica Committee--Eyre committed for Trial--The Chief
    Justice's Charge--The Bill thrown out--Recovery of Jamaica--Reform
    again--The Bill of '66--Mr. Gladstone's Speech--Mr. Lowe and Mr.
    Horsman--"The Cave"--Lord Grosvenor's Amendment--The Government
    perseveres--The Redistribution Bill--Its Details--Mr. Bouverie's
    Amendment--It is accepted--Captain Hayter's Amendment--Mr.
    Disraeli's Strategy--Lord Stanley's Attack--Mr. Walpole's
    Amendment--Amendments of Mr. Hunt and Lord Dunkellin--Gross
    Yearly Rental and Rateable Value--The Debate on the Dunkellin
    Proposal--Defeat of the Government--Their Resignation--Mr.
    Gladstone's Statement--Earl Russell and the Queen--Lord Derby's
    Conservative Ministry--The Refusals--Mr. Disraeli's Election
    Speech--Peace in Parliament--Indian Finance--The Hyde Park
    Meeting--The Queen's Speech and the Rinderpest                   378


CHAPTER XXVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Cholera--Laying of the Atlantic Cable--Reform
    Demonstrations--Mr. Bright and the Queen--The Government prepares
    a Bill--"Black Friday"--The Overend and Gurney Failure--Limited
    Liability--Royal Marriages--Prize-Money--The Loss of the _London_--A
    bad Harvest--The Fenian Trials--Lord Wodehouse's Letter--Suspension
    of the Habeas Corpus Act--Rapid Legislation--Wholesale
    Arrests--Renewal of the Act--Lord Kimberley's Speech--Sweeny and
    Stephens--The Niagara Raid--Whewell and Keble                    406


CHAPTER XXVII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Schleswig-Holstein Difficulty--Austria favours a
    Settlement--Bismarck's Terms rejected--His high-handed
    Proceedings--Convention of Gastein--Bismarck at Biarritz--The
    Italian Treaty--Question of Disarmament--Fresh Austrian
    Proposals--Bismarck advocates Federal Reform--La Marmora's
    Perplexity--He abides by Prussia--Efforts of the Neutral
    Powers--Failure of the projected Congress--Rupture of the Gastein
    Convention--The War begins--The rival Strengths--Distribution
    of the Prussian Armies--Collapse of the Resistance in North
    Germany--Occupation of Dresden--The Advance of the Prussian
    Armies--Battle of Königgratz--Cession of Venetia--Italian
    Reverses--The South German Campaign--Occupation of Frankfort--The
    Defence of Vienna--French Mediation--The Preliminaries of
    Nikolsburg--Treaty of Prague--Conditions awarded to Bavaria and the
    Southern States--The Secret Treaties--Their Disclosure--Humiliation
    of the French Emperor--His pretended Indifference                418


CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Parliamentary Reform--Mr. Disraeli's Resolutions--Mr.
    Lowe's Sarcasms--The "Ten Minutes" Bill--Lord John Manners'
    Letter--Ministerial Resignations--Mr. Disraeli's Statement--The
    Compound Householder--The Fancy Franchises--Mr. Gladstone's
    Exposure--Mr. Lowe and Lord Cranborne--The Spirit of Concession--Mr.
    Gladstone on the Second Reading--Mr. Gathorne Hardy's Speech--Mr.
    Bright and Mr. Disraeli--The Dual Vote abandoned--Mr. Coleridge's
    Instruction--The Tea-Room Cabal--Mr. Gladstone's Amendment--His
    other Amendments withdrawn--Mr. Hodgkinson's Amendment--Mr.
    Disraeli's _coup de théâtre_--Mr. Lowe's Philippic--The County
    Franchise--The Redistribution Bill--Objections to It--The
    Boundaries--Lord Cranborne and Mr. Lowe--Mr. Disraeli's
    Audacity--The Bill in the Lords--Four Amendments--Lord Cairns's
    Minorities Amendment--The Bill becomes Law--The "Leap in
    the Dark"--_Punch_ on the Situation--The Scottish Reform
    Bill--Prolongation of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act--Irish
    Debates--Oaths and Offices Bill--Mr. Bruce's Education Bill--The
    "Gang System"--Meetings in Hyde Park--Mr. Walpole's Proclamation
    and Resignation--Attempted Attack on Chester Castle--Attack on the
    Police Van at Manchester--Explosion at Clerkenwell Prison--Trades
    Union Outrages at Sheffield--The Buckinghamshire Labourers--The
    French Evacuation of Mexico--The Luxemburg Question--The Austrian
    Compromise--Creation of the Dual Monarchy--The Abyssinian
    Expedition--A Mislaid Letter                                     433


CHAPTER XXIX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    More Coercion for Ireland--The Scottish Reform Bill--The Church
    Rates Bill--Mr. Disraeli succeeds Lord Derby--Reunion of the
    Liberals--The Irish Reform Bill--Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church
    Resolutions--Maynooth Grant and the _Regium Donum_--The Suspensory
    Bill--Lord Stanley's Foreign Policy--General Election--Mr.
    Gladstone's Ministry--Martin _v._ Mackonochie--Obituary of
    the Year--Lord Brougham, Archbishop Longley, and Others--The
    Abyssinian War--Rise of Theodore--The unanswered Letter--Theodore's
    Retaliation--Mr. Rassam's Mission--His Interview with Theodore--The
    King's Charges against Cameron--Dr. Beke's Letter--Rassam's
    Arrest--Mr. Flad's Journey--The Captives' Treatment--Merewether's
    Advice--Lord Stanley's Ultimatum--Constitution of Sir R. Napier's
    Expedition--Friendliness of the Natives--Attitude of the
    Chiefs--Proceedings of Theodore--Massacre of Prisoners--Advance
    on Magdala--Destruction of Theodore's Army--Negotiations with
    Theodore--Release of the Prisoners--A Present of Cows--Bombardment
    of Magdala--Suicide of Theodore--The Return March--The "Mountains of
    Rasselas"--Sketch of Continental Affairs                         464


CHAPTER XXX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    England in 1869--The Irish Church Difficulty--Mr. Gladstone unfolds
    his Scheme--Debate on the Second Reading--A Bumper Majority--The
    Bill passes through the House of Commons--Lord Redesdale and
    the Coronation Oath--The Opposition in the Lords--Dr. Magee's
    Speech--Amendments in Committee--Concurrent Endowment--Danger
    of a Collision between the Houses--The Queen and Archbishop
    Tait--Conference between Lord Cairns and Lord Granville--Their
    Compromise--Its Terms accepted by Mr. Gladstone--The Bill becomes
    Law                                                              493


CHAPTER XXXI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Mr Lowe's Budget--The Surplus disappears--Mr. Lowe creates a
    Surplus and proposes Remissions of Taxes--Cost of the Abyssinian
    Expedition--Sir Stafford Northcote's Explanation--The Endowed
    Schools' Bill--Speech of Mr. Forster--The Commissioners--Religious
    Tests at the Universities--Sir John Coleridge's Bill--Sir Roundell
    Palmer's Speech--The Bill passes through the Commons--It is
    rejected by the Lords--The Mayor of Cork--The O'Sullivan Disability
    Bill--Mr O'Sullivan resigns--The Bill dropped--Life Peerages--Lord
    Malmesbury's Speech--Fenianism in Ireland--Deaths of Lord Derby and
    Lord Gough--European Affairs: the Emperor prophesies Peace--The
    General Election--The _Senatus Consultum_--Official Candidates--The
    Revolution in Spain--Wanted a King--General Grant the President of
    the United States--The _Alabama_ Convention rejected             507


CHAPTER XXXII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Law-making in 1870--The Queen's Speech--The Irish Land
    Problem--Diversities of Opinions--The Agrarian Agitation--Mr.
    Gladstone's Land Bill introduced--Its Five Parts--Grievances of
    the Irish Tenant--Free Contract--The Ulster Custom--Compensation
    for Eviction--The Landlord's Safeguards--The Irish Labourer--Mr
    Gladstone's Peroration--Direct and Indirect Opposition--The
    Second Reading carried--Agrarian Outrages--Mr. Fortescue's
    Coercion Bill--Mr. Disraeli's Amendment to the Land Bill--A Clever
    Speech--Mr. Lowe's Reply--Progress of the Debate--The Bill becomes
    Law                                                              518


CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Elementary Education Bill--Mr. Forster's Speech--Mr. Dixon's
    Amendment--Mr. Forster's Reply--Mr. Winterbotham's Speech and
    the Churchmen--Partial Concessions--Changes in the Bill--It
    becomes Law--Outrage in Greece--Seizure of Tourists by Greek
    Brigands--Murder of the Prisoners--Army and Navy Estimates--The
    Budget--Disaster in the Eastern Seas--Obituary of the Year       529


CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    France in 1870--The Ollivier Ministry--Lull in European
    Affairs--The Hohenzollern Incident--Benedetti at Ems--His Second
    Interview with King William--War declared at Paris--Efforts of the
    British Government--Bismarck divulges a supposed Franco-German
    Treaty--Benedetti's Explanation--Earl Russell's Speech--Belgian
    Neutrality guaranteed--Unpreparedness of the French Army--The
    Emperor's Plans--Saarbrück--Weissenburg--The Emperor partially
    resigns Command--Wörth--MacMahon at Châlons--Spicheren--The
    Palikao Ministry--Bazaine Generalissimo--Battle of
    Borny--Mars-la-Tour--Gravelotte--English Associations for the Sick
    and Wounded--Palikao's Plan--MacMahon's Hesitation--De Failly's
    Defeat--MacMahon resolves to Fight--Sedan--The Surrender--Napoleon
    and his Captors--Receipt of the News in Paris--Impetuosity of
    Jules Favre--A Midnight Sitting--Jules Favre's Plan--Palikao's
    Alternative--Fall of the Empire--The Government of National
    Defence--Suppression of the Corps Législatif--The Neutral Powers:
    Great Britain, Austria, and Italy                                548


CHAPTER XXXV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Vatican Council--The Doctrine of Papal Infallibility--Victor
    Emmanuel determines on the Occupation of Rome--The Popular
    Vote--The Papal Guarantees--The Spanish Throne--The Savoy
    Candidature--Death of Prim--Paris after the Revolution of
    September--Jules Favre's Circular--Bismarck's Reply--The
    Negotiations at Ferrières--The Fortifications of Paris--The
    Investment completed--Thiers and Gambetta--Fall of
    Strasburg--Bazaine in Metz--Regnier's Intrigue--The Army of
    Metz capitulates--Thiers negotiates in vain--The Army of the
    Loire--D'Aurelle de Paladines reoccupies Orleans--Chanzy's Defeat
    and Recapture of Orleans--The Second Army of the Loire--Garibaldi
    in the East--The New Year in Paris--Dispositions of the German
    Armies--Battle of Amiens--Faídherbe's Campaign--Bapaume--St.
    Quentin--An Unpleasant Incident--Le Mans--The Bombardment of
    Paris--The Armistice--Termination of the Siege--Bourbaki's
    Attempt--Action at Villersexel--The Eastern Army crosses the
    Swiss Frontier--The National Assembly at Bordeaux--Prolongation
    of the Armistice--Resignation of Gambetta--Preliminaries of
    Peace--Occupation of Paris--Acceptance of the Preliminaries--The
    Definitive Treaty--German Unity                                  571


CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Army Reform--Mr. Trevelyan's Agitation--The Abolition of
    Purchase--Mr. Cardwell's Bill--History of Purchase--Military
    Opposition in the Commons--Rejection of the Bill by the House
    of Lords--Abolition of Purchase by Royal Warrant--Indignation
    in Parliament--The cost of Compensation--Mr. Lowe's Budget--The
    Match-Tax--Its withdrawal--Mr. Goschen succeeds Mr. Childers--The
    Ballot Bill--The Epping Forest Bill--Rejected Measures--The
    Religious Tests Bill--Marriage of the Princess Louise--Sir Charles
    Dilke's Lecture--The real State of the Civil List--Illness
    of the Prince of Wales--Crises of the Disease--The Prayers
    of the Nation--The Thanksgiving Service--Unpopularity of the
    Government--The 25th Clause--Landing of the ex-Emperor of the
    French--Resignation of Speaker Denison--Riot in Dublin--The
    Home Rule Movement--Mr. Gladstone at Aberdeen--Assassination of
    Mr. Justice Norman--Australian Federation--Russia repudiates
    the Black Sea Clauses--Lord Granville's Despatch--Prince
    Gortschakoff's Reply--A Conference suggested--Meeting of the
    Plenipotentiaries--Their Deliberations--Settlement of the
    Difficulty--Obituary of the Year--Sir John Burgoyne, Lord
    Ellenborough, Grote, Sir William Denison, and others             595




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                    PAGE

    The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, 1851                      1

    Prince Albert                                                      5

    The _Coup d' État:_ Eviction of the Judges                         9

    The Burial of Wellington                                          13

    Chapel of St. Helena, Jerusalem                                   17

    Constantinople                                                    21

    Omar Pasha                                                        25

    The Russian Attack on Sinope                                      29

    Gatchina Palace, St. Petersburg                                   32

    Peers and Commoners presenting the Patriotic Address to the
      Queen on the Eve of the Crimean War                             33

    Zouaves looting a Village in the Crimea                           37

    Skirmish on the Bulganâk: Maude's Battery coming into action      41

    The Highlanders at the Alma                                       45

    Lord Raglan                                                       48

    On the Battle-Field of the Alma: the Mission of Mercy             49

    Plan of Sebastopol, showing the Defence                           53

    Charge of the Heavy Brigade                                       57

    General Todleben                                                  61

    Balaclava                                                         65

    The Guards recovering the Sandbag Battery                         69

    The Hospital and Cemetery at Scutari, with Constantinople in the
      distance                                                        73

    The Late Sir W. H. Russell, Correspondent of the _Times_ in the
      Crimea                                                          77

    The Lady with the Lamp: Miss Nightingale in the Hospital at
      Scutari                                                         81

    The "Block" at Balaclava                                          85

    The Zouaves assaulting the Rifle-pits                             89

    Sebastopol from the Right Attack                                  93

    The Emperor Nicholas                                              96

    Sappers destroying the Russian Trenches                           97

    Volunteers of the Flying Squadron firing the Shipping at Taganrog 101

    Marshal Pélissier                                                105

    The Assault on the Redan                                         109

    Reconnaissance of French Cavalry in the Baidar Valley            113

    General Simpson                                                  117

    The French in the Malakoff                                       121

    The Struggle in the Redan                                        125

    Evacuation of Sebastopol                                         129

    Sir Colin Campbell                                               133

    Kars                                                             137

    The repulse of the Russians at Kars                              141

    Uniforms of the British Army in 1855                             144

    Napoleon III                                                     145

    The Czar renewing his Army at Sebastopol                         149

    Scene during the Preston Strike                                  157

    The Duke of Newcastle                                            161

    The Queen opening the Crystal Palace                             165

    Chinese Officers hauling down the British Flag on the "Arrow"    169

    Victoria, Hong-Kong, from the Chinese Mainland                   173

    Mr. Speaker Denison                                              177

    Outbreak of the Indian Mutiny: High Caste v. Low Caste           185

    General Hearsey and the Mutineers                                188

    The Rebel Sepoys at Delhi                                        189

    Disarmament of the 26th at Barrackpore                           193

    Sir John Lawrence (afterwards Lord Lawrence)                     197

    De Kantzow defending the Treasury at Mynpooree                   201

    Hodson reconnoitring before Delhi                                205

    The Palace, Delhi                                                209

    Sir Henry Havelock                                               213

    Memorial at the Well, Cawnpore                                   217

    The Highlanders capturing the Guns at Cawnpore                   221

    How Major Tombs won the Victoria Cross                           225

    Blowing up of the Cashmere Gate at Delhi                         229

    Hooseinabad Gardens and Tomb of Zana Ali, Lucknow                233

    Sir Hope Grant                                                   237

    Ruins of the Residency, Lucknow                                  240

    The Mausoleum at Akbar, Agra                                     241

    Incident in the Defence of Lucknow                               245

    Lieutenant Havelock and the Madras Fusiliers carrying the
      Charbagh Bridge at Lucknow                                     249

    Sir James Outram                                                 253

    The Slaughter Ghat, Cawnpore                                     257

    The Relief of Lucknow                                            261

    Death of Hodson                                                  265

    The Martinière, Lucknow                                          269

    Sir Hugh Rose (afterwards Lord Strathnairn)                      273

    Proclamation of the Queen as Sovereign of India                  277

    Gwalior, from the south-east                                     281

    Capture of Tantia Topee                                          285

    Lord Canning                                                     288

    Street in Peshawur                                               289

    Earl Russell                                                     293

    Office of the First Lord of the Treasury, 10, Downing Street,
       London                                                        297

    Entry of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel into Milan                 301

    Meeting of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel                         305

    William Ewart Gladstone (1860)                                   312

    Demonstration against the Christians in Damascus                 313

    The Imperial Palace, Pekin, looking north                        317

    Capture of John Brown at Harper's Ferry                          321

    General Robert Lee                                               325

    Funeral of the Prince Consort                                    329

    Hindoos bringing Cotton through the Western Ghauts               333

    Abraham Lincoln                                                  336

    Marriage of the Prince of Wales                                  337

    Mr. Phelps planting the Shakespeare Oak on Primrose Hill, London 345

    Scene in the Belfast Riots                                       349

    Amalienborg Palace, Copenhagen                                   353

    Lord Palmerston                                                  357

    The Fight between the _Alabama_ and the _Kearsarge_              361

    Confederate Raid into Vermont                                    365

    The Foreign Office, London, from St. James's Park                369

    Arrest of Head-Centre Stephens                                   373

    Reception of the French Fleet at Portsmouth                      377

    General Grant                                                    381

    Meeting of Lee and Grant at Appomattox Court-House               384

    The Attack on the Court-House, St. Thomas-in-the-East            385

    Street Scene, Kingston, Jamaica                                  389

    John Stuart Mill                                                 393

    Scene in the House of Commons: a Narrow Majority                 397

    The Lobby, House of Commons                                      401

    Reform Leaguers at the Marble Arch                               405

    Arrival of the "Great Eastern" at Trinity Bay                    409

    Robert Lowe (afterwards Lord Sherbrooke)                         413

    Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin                                          417

    The Battle of Koniggrätz                                         421

    The Battle of Langensalza                                        425

    Count Von Moltke                                                 429

    The Palace, Dresden                                              432

    The Old War Office, Pall Mall                                    433

    Lord Malmesbury                                                  437

    Tea-Room, House of Commons                                       441

    Meeting at the Reformers' Tree, Hyde Park, London                445

    John Bright                                                      449

    "Gang System" of Farming                                         453

    Fenian Attack on the Police Van in Manchester                    457

    Skating Disaster in Regent's Park, London                        461

    Lord Cairns                                                      465

    Scene in the Birmingham "No Popery" Riots                        469

    Coronation of the Emperor of Austria as King of Hungary          473

    King Theodore's House, Magdala                                   477

    Mr. Rassam's Interview with King Theodore                        480

    The Emperor Theodore granting an Audience                        481

    Sir Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala)            485

    Death of the Emperor Theodore                                    489

    St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin                                  493

    Archbishop Trench                                                497

    Dr. Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, addressing the House of Lords 501

    New Palace Yard, Westminster                                     505

    The Quadrangle, Somerset House                                   509

    Sir Stafford Northcote (afterwards Earl of Iddesleigh)           513

    Street-Fighting in Malaga                                        517

    Mr. Chichester Fortescue (afterwards Lord Carlingford)           521

    A Visit from Captain Moonlight                                   524

    An Eviction in Ireland                                           525

    The Duke of Richmond and Gordon                                  528

    Office of the London School Board, Thames Embankment             529

    Mr. W. E. Forster                                                533

    Office of the Education Department, Whitehall                    537

    Capture of English Tourists by Greek Brigands                    541

    The Royal Palace, Athens                                         545

    The Boulevard Montmartre, Paris                                  548

    Émile Ollivier                                                   549

    "À Berlin!" Parisian Crowds declaring for War                    553

    Prince Bismarck                                                  557

    Franco-German War, Sketch-Map of the Campaign in the Rhine
       Country                                                       561

    Sedan                                                            564

    Marshal MacMahon                                                 565

    Camden Place, Chislehurst (Napoleon's Home in England)           569

    The Vatican, Rome                                                573

    Dr. Döllinger                                                    576

    Palace of the Quirinal, Rome                                     577

    Siege of Paris: Map of the Fortifications                        580

    L. A. Thiers                                                     581

    Evacuation of Metz                                               585

    Léon Gambetta                                                    589

    German Troops passing under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris         593

    Mr. (afterwards Viscount) Cardwell                               597

    Procession of Match-Makers to Westminster                        601

    The Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII.) in his Robes as a
       Bencher of the Middle Temple                                  604

    The Thanksgiving Service in St. Paul's Cathedral                 605




LIST OF PLATES


    WINDSOR CASTLE. (_By Alfred W. Hunt, R.W.S._)            _Frontispiece_

    THE OPENING BY QUEEN VICTORIA OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION IN
       HYDE PARK. (_By H. C. Selous._)                      _To face p._ 9

    THE WRECK OF H.M.S. _Birkenhead_. (_By Thomas M. Henry_)      "     14

    SAVING THE COLOURS: THE GUARDS AT INKERMAN.
      (_By Robert Gibb, R.S.A._)                                  "     41

    THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA.
      (_By R. Caton Woodville_)                                   "     62

    "ALL THAT WAS LEFT OF THEM, LEFT OF SIX HUNDRED."
      (_By R. Caton Woodville_)                                   "     86

    QUEEN VICTORIA REVIEWING THE CRIMEAN VETERANS (1854).
      (_By Sir John Gilbert, R.A., P.R.W.S._)                     "     90

    LORD RAGLAN VIEWING THE STORMING OF THE REDAN AT THE SIEGE
      OF SEBASTOPOL. (_By R. Caton Woodville_)                    "    126

    MAP OF INDIA, 1856.                                           "    182

    THE FLIGHT FROM LUCKNOW. (_By A. Solomon_)                    "    217

    THE SECOND RELIEF OF LUCKNOW, 1857. (_By Thomas J. Barker_)   "    262

    THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. (_By Sir J. E. Millais, Bart.,
      P.R.A., D. C.L., etc._)                                     "    287

    QUEEN VICTORIA AT OSBORNE. (_By Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A._)    "    326

    THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, 1863. (_By G. H. Thomas_) "   338

    A COTTAGE BEDSIDE AT OSBORNE. (_Gourlay Steell, R.S.A._)      "    408

    MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS HELENA. (_By C. Magnussen_)              "    412

    THE WHITE TOWER, TOWER OF LONDON. (_By H. E. Tidmarsh_)       "    481

    W. E. GLADSTONE. (_By Sir J. E. Millais, Bart., P.R.A._)      "    500

    REARING THE LION'S WHELPS. (_By W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A._)        "    544

    THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE, 27TH OF FEBRUARY, 1872: THE
      PROCESSION AT LUDGATE HILL. (_By N. Chevalier_)             "    602

[Illustration:

    _Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ltd., Bushey, Herts._

WINDSOR CASTLE.

FROM A WATER-COLOUR PAINTING BY ALFRED W. HUNT R.W.S. IN THE NATIONAL
GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.]

[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL PALACE IN HYDE PARK, LONDON, 1851]




CASSELL'S

ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF ENGLAND.




CHAPTER I.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Papal Aggressions--The Durham Letter--Meeting of
    Parliament--The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill--Debate on the Second
    Reading--Amendments in Committee--The Bill in the Lords--Mr.
    Locke King's Motion on County Franchise--Resignation of the
    Government--The Great Exhibition--Banquet at York--Opening of
    the Exhibition--Success of the Project--The President of the
    French Republic and the Assembly--Preparations for the _Coup
    d'État_--The Army gained--Dissolution of the Assembly--Expulsion of
    the Assembly--Their Imprisonment--The High Court of Justice--The
    Barricades--St. Arnaud and Maupas--The _Plébiscite_--Weakness of the
    Russell Administration--Independence of Lord Palmerston--The Queen's
    Memorandum--Dismissal of Palmerston--The Militia Bill--Russell
    is turned out--The Derby Ministry--Its Measures--The General
    Election--An Autumn Session--Defeat of the Conservatives--Death and
    Funeral of the Duke of Wellington--The Aberdeen Administration--Mr.
    Gladstone's Budget--The Eastern Question again--The Diplomatic
    Wrangle--The Sultan's Firman--Afif Bey's Mission--Difficulties
    in Montenegro--England and France--Attempts to effect direct
    Negotiations--The Menschikoff Mission--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's
    Instructions--The Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour--Menschikoff at
    Constantinople--The English and French Fleets--Arrival of Lord
    Stratford de Redcliffe--The Difficulty settled--Menschikoff's
    ulterior Demands--Action of the Powers.


From the Revolution of 1688, when the Roman Catholic hierarchy was
abolished with the arbitrary power of James II., the government of the
Roman Catholic clergy was maintained in England by "vicars apostolic."
England was divided into four vicariates, and this state of things
continued until 1840, when Gregory XVI. ordained a new ecclesiastical
division of England, doubling the number of vicariates, which were
thenceforward named the London, the Western, the Eastern, the Central,
the Welsh, the Lancastrian, the York, and the Northern districts. In
consequence of the increase of Roman Catholics in Great Britain, and the
removal of their civil disabilities by the Emancipation Act, a desire grew
up for the re-organisation of the regular episcopal system of the Church
of Rome, and Pius IX. resolved to establish it in 1850. England and Wales
were divided by a Papal brief into twelve sees; one of them, Westminster,
was erected into an Archbishopric, and Dr. Wiseman, soon afterwards
created a Cardinal, was appointed to it.

Perhaps there never was a document published in England that caused
so much excitement as this pastoral letter; nor was society ever more
violently agitated by any religious question since the Reformation. The
pastoral provoked from Lord John Russell a counterblast in the shape of
a letter to the Bishop of Durham, in which he gave deep offence to the
Roman Catholics by stating that "the Roman Catholic religion confines
the intellect and enslaves the soul." The Protestant feeling in the
country was excited in the highest degree. The press was full of the
"Papal aggressions." Meetings were held upon it in almost every town in
the United Kingdom. It was alluded to in the Speech from the Throne, and
during the Sessions of 1851 and 1852 it occupied a great portion of the
time and attention of Parliament.

In both Houses of Parliament this topic occupied a prominent place in
the debates on the Address, and on the 7th of February, 1851, the Prime
Minister introduced his Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, which prevented the
assumption of such titles in respect of places in the United Kingdom.
He referred, in connection with the subject, to recent occurrences in
Ireland. Dr. Cullen, who had spent most of his life at Rome, had been
appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, though his
name had not been returned by the parish priests of the diocese, who were
accustomed to elect three of their number to be submitted to the Pope
as _dignus_, _dignior_, _dignissimus_. He was afterwards transferred to
Dublin as the more influential post, with the powers of legate, which
placed him at the head of the hierarchy. Then there was the Synod of
Thurles, which condemned the Queen's Colleges, and interfered with the
land question, and other temporal matters. He argued from the terms of the
Pope's Bull that there was an assumption of territorial power of which
our Roman Catholic ancestors were always jealous.

The Bill was vehemently opposed by the Irish Roman Catholic members. Mr.
Bright and Mr. Disraeli also opposed the measure, which was supported
by the Attorney-General, Lord Ashley, Mr. Page Wood, and Sir George
Grey. Several other members having spoken for and against the Bill, its
introduction was carried by the overwhelming majority of 395 to 63.

Various alterations were subsequently made in the Bill, to prevent its
interfering unnecessarily with the Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland. The
second reading was moved on the 14th of March. Mr. Cardwell refused his
assent to the second reading, believing that, by supporting the measure,
he would affront Protestant England, and do much to render Ireland
ungovernable. Lord Palmerston supported the Bill, because churches were
like corporate bodies, encroaching; because it would supply an omission in
the Act of 1829; and as the Church of Rome obeyed that Act, she would also
obey this. Sir James Graham, on the contrary, expressed his conviction
that the passing of this Bill would be a repeal of the Emancipation
Act, and then the Dissenters must look about them. Mr. Gladstone ably
criticised the Bill, and concluded as follows:--"For three hundred years
the Roman Catholic laity and secular clergy--the moderate party--had
been struggling, with the sanction of the British Government, for this
very measure, the appointment of diocesan bishops, which the extreme
party--the regulars and cardinals at the Court of Rome--had been all
along struggling to resist. The present legislation would drive the Roman
Catholics back upon the Pope, and, teasing them with a miniature penal
law, would alienate and estrange them. Religious freedom was a principle
which had not been adopted in haste, and had not triumphed till after half
a century of agonising struggles; and he trusted we were not now going to
repeat Penelope's process without her purpose, and undo a great work which
had been accomplished with so much difficulty." Mr. Disraeli expressed
his sentiments, and those of his party, upon the general question and the
particular measure. He denied that the Pope was without power. He was a
prince of very great, if not the greatest power, his army being a million
of priests; and was such a power to be treated as a Wesleyan Conference,
or like an association of Scottish Dissenters? Sir George Grey having
replied to the objections of Mr. Gladstone and others, the House divided,
when the second reading was carried by a still greater majority than the
first, the numbers being--for the bill, 438; against it, 95; majority 343.

Considering that Sir James Graham, Mr. Gladstone, and all the leading
Peelites, as well as Mr. Roebuck, Mr. Bright, and the advanced Liberals,
joined the Roman Catholics on this occasion, the minority was surprisingly
small, showing how deep and wide-spread was the national feeling evoked
by the Papal aggressions. Several amendments were moved in committee; but
they were nearly all rejected by large majorities. On the 27th of June
Sir F. Thesiger proposed certain amendments with a view of rendering the
measure more stringent, when about 70 Roman Catholic members retired from
the House in a body. Lord John Russell, alluding to this "significant
and ostentatious retirement," said it would not save them from the
responsibility, as it would cause the passing of the amendments. They were
accordingly carried against the Government. On the 4th of July, the day
fixed for the third reading, Lord John Russell moved that those amendments
should be struck out. One of them was that it should be penal to publish
the Pope's Bulls, as well as to assume territorial titles; and another to
enable common informers to sue for penalties. There was a division on each
of these clauses. The question was then put by the Speaker, "that this
Bill do now pass." Another long debate was expected; but no one rising,
the division was abruptly taken, with the following result:--For the third
reading, 263; against it, 46: majority, 217.

On the 21st of July the Bill was introduced by the Marquis of Lansdowne,
into the Upper House. The debate there was chiefly remarkable for the
speech of Lord Beaumont, a Roman Catholic peer, who gave his earnest
support to the Bill as a great national protest, which the necessity of
the case had rendered unavoidable. The Duke of Wellington remarked that
"the Pope had appointed an Archbishop of Westminster; had attempted to
exercise authority over the very spot on which the English Parliament was
assembled. And under the sanction of this proceeding, Cardinal Wiseman
made an attack upon the rights of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
That this was contrary to the true spirit of the laws of England, no man
acquainted with them could doubt, for throughout the whole of our statutes
affecting religion we had carefully abstained from disturbing the great
principles of the Reformation." Lord Lyndhurst supported the Bill in an
elaborate and able speech. The second reading was carried in this House
also by an overwhelming majority, the numbers being--for the bill, 265;
against it, 38. On the 29th of July it was read a third time and passed,
and shortly afterwards received the Royal Assent, after occupying nearly
the whole of the Session. So far as the assumption of titles and the
actual establishment and working of the Roman Catholic hierarchy were
concerned, the Act undoubtedly proved a dead letter; but it is not to be
inferred from this fact that it did not substantially answer its purpose
in materially restraining aggression and keeping our jurisprudence clear
of the Roman canon law. Cardinal Wiseman and his suffragans in England,
on the whole, pursued a moderate and conciliatory course. But a very
different course might have been pursued had not the national feeling been
so strongly expressed, and been legally embodied in the Ecclesiastical
Titles Act.

Lord John Russell's Administration had been for some time in a tottering
state. Early in the Session of 1851 the Government was defeated on a
motion by Mr. Locke King, for leave to bring in a Bill to make the
franchise in counties in England and Wales the same as in boroughs; that
is, the occupation of a tenement of the annual value of £10. The motion
was carried against the Government by a majority of forty-eight. The
Budget came on shortly afterwards, and gave so much dissatisfaction, that
there was a general conviction that the Cabinet could not hold together
much longer. It was felt that the times required a strong Government; but
this had become gradually one of the weakest. The announcement of its
resignation, therefore, excited no surprise; but the anxiety to learn
what would be the new Ministerial arrangements was evinced by the crowded
state of the House of Commons on Friday, the 21st of February. On the
order for going into Committee of Ways and Means being read, the Prime
Minister rose and requested that it might be postponed till the 24th.
On the 24th both Houses were full. In the Upper House, Lord Lansdowne
stated that in consequence of divisions which had recently taken place in
the House of Commons, the Ministers had unanimously resigned; that Lord
Stanley had been sent for by the Queen, and a proposal was made to him to
construct a Government, for which he was not then prepared. Lord Stanley
gave an account of his gracious reception by her Majesty, but reserved his
reasons for declining to undertake the task. In the Lower House, on the
same evening, Lord John Russell stated that her Majesty had sent for Lord
Stanley, who had declined to form an Administration, and that her Majesty
had then asked him to undertake the task of reconstructing one, which he
said he had agreed to do. He asked the House to adjourn to the 28th, and
when that day arrived, matters were still in a state of confusion. Lord
John Russell had failed to reconstruct his Cabinet; Lord Aberdeen and Sir
James Graham had refused to concur in forming an Administration. Lord
Stanley had also failed in a similar attempt, owing, according to Lord
Malmesbury's "Recollections of an Ex-Minister," to the feeble counsels
of Mr. Henley and Mr. Herries. From explanations given by Lord Aberdeen,
Lord Stanley, Sir James Graham, and Lord John Russell himself, it appeared
that the attempts to reconstruct the Cabinet, or to form a new one, arose
from two difficulties in the way of any coalition between the leaders of
existing parties--Free Trade, and the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill. There
could be no union between the Whigs and the Peelites on account of the
latter, nor between the Peelites and the Protectionists on account of the
former. Lord Stanley remarked that the Peelites, with all their ability
and official aptitude, seemed to exercise their talents solely to render
any Ministry impossible. A purely Protectionist Administration was out
of the question, as it would have to contend against a large majority
in the House of Commons. In this dilemma the Queen sent for the Duke of
Wellington, and he advised her Majesty that the best course she could
adopt in the circumstances was to recall her late advisers; and Lord John
Russell's Cabinet resumed their offices accordingly in exactly the same
position that they had been before the resignation.

The year 1851 will be for ever memorable by reason of the Great Exhibition
in Hyde Park. The idea is generally said to have originated with Prince
Albert, who took a lively interest in everything that tended to promote
industrial progress and to improve the public taste. As President of the
Society of Arts, his attention had been attracted to the _Exposition_ at
Paris, under the guidance of the Minister of the Department of Commerce
and Industry; and his Royal Highness thought that a similar exhibition in
London, open to competitors from all nations, would be useful in a variety
of ways, especially in uniting together the people of various countries
by the bonds of mutual interest and sympathy. The proposal, from whatever
source it originated, was embraced with alacrity by the British public. On
the 21st of March, 1850, the Lord Mayor of London gave a splendid banquet
at the Mansion House to the chief magistrates of the cities, towns, and
boroughs of the United Kingdom, to stimulate their combined interest in
the proposed Exhibition. The banquet over, his Royal Highness addressed
the guests in an admirable speech, in which the tendencies of the age, the
modern developments of art and science, the rapid intercommunication of
thought, all realising the unity of mankind, were strikingly presented.
The Ministers, past and present, the foreign ambassadors, prelates, and
peers, vied with each other in expressing the high value they attributed
to the design for the Exhibition.

A similar banquet was given by the Lord Mayor of York, when the Prince
Consort and the Lord Mayor of London, the Prime Minister, the Earl of
Carlisle, and many of the nobility were present. The Archbishop of York
and the High Sheriff of Yorkshire headed the provincial guests, while the
Lord Provost of Edinburgh and the Lord Provost of Glasgow appeared as the
chiefs of the municipal magistrates. The ancient capital of the north of
England brought forth upon that occasion a gorgeous display of historical
memorials. There was a collection of maces, State swords, and various
civic insignia belonging to corporate bodies, wreathed with flowers and
evergreens through which gleamed the bosses and incrustations of gold
on the maces that had been wielded by generations of mayors, with the
velvet shields and gaudy mountings of gigantic swords of State. Among the
ornaments appeared the jewel-bestudded mace of Norwich, presented by Queen
Elizabeth. York, on this occasion, surpassed the City of London in the
splendour of the banquet. The Prince, in returning thanks for his health,
paid a well-turned tribute to the memory of Sir Robert Peel.

A Royal Commission was appointed to manage the Exhibition. Hyde Park in
London was fixed upon as the most appropriate site for the building,
and Mr. Paxton, head-gardener to the Duke of Devonshire, though not an
architect, furnished the plan of the Crystal Palace, as the Exhibition
building was called. It was chiefly composed of iron and glass, being
1,848 feet long, 408 feet broad, and 66 feet high, crossed by a transept
108 feet high and also 408 feet in length, for the purpose of enclosing
and encasing a grove of noble elms. Within, the nave presented a clear,
unobstructed avenue, from one end of the building to the other, 72 feet
in span, and 64 feet in height. On each side were aisles 64 feet wide,
horizontally divided into galleries, which ran round the whole of the
nave and transept. The wings exterior to the centre or nave on each side
had also galleries of the same height, the wings themselves being broken
up into a series of courts, each 48 feet wide. The Palace was within 10
feet of being twice the width of St. Paul's and four times the length.
The number of columns used in the entire edifice was 3,230. There were
34 miles of gutters for carrying off the rain-water to the columns,
which were hollow, and served as water-pipes, 202 miles of sash bars,
and 900,000 superficial feet of glass, weighing upwards of 400 tons. The
building covered about 18 acres of ground, and with the galleries gave
an exhibiting surface of 21 acres, with 8 miles of tables for laying out
goods.

[Illustration: PRINCE ALBERT.

(_From a photograph by Mayall and Co., Limited._)]

The plan was accepted on the 26th of July, 1850; and Messrs. Fox,
Henderson, and Co. became the contractors, for the sum of £79,800, if
the materials should remain their property, they being at the expense
of removal; or £150,000 if the materials became the property of the
Commissioners. It actually cost £176,030. The first column was fixed on
the 26th of September, 1850; the contract to deliver over the building
complete to the Commissioners on the 31st of December was virtually
performed; and on the 1st of January, 1851, the Commissioners occupied
the vast space with their carpenters, painters, and various artisans.
The Crystal Palace excited universal admiration, from the wonderful
combination of vastness and beauty, from its immense magnitude united with
lightness, symmetry, and grace, as well as admirable adaptation to its
purpose. And when it was fully furnished and open to the public, on the
1st of May, 1851, the visitor felt as if he had entered a fairy-like scene
of enchantment, a palace of beauty and delight, such as one might suppose
mortal hands could not create. The effect on the beholder far surpassed
all that its most sanguine projectors could have anticipated.

The scene was impressive on the opening on that beautiful May morning by
the Queen and Prince Albert, followed in procession through the building
by a long train of courtiers, Ministers of State, foreign ambassadors,
and civic dignitaries; while the sun shone brightly through the glass
roof upon trees, flowers, banners, and the picturesque costumes of all
nations, the great organ at the same time pealing gloriously through
the vast expanse, which was filled by a dense mass of human beings,
representing the grandeur, wealth, beauty, intelligence, and enterprise
of the civilised world. The number of exhibitors exceeded 17,000, of whom
upwards of 3,000 received medals. It continued open from the 1st of May
till the 15th of October, altogether 144 days, during which it was visited
by 6,170,000 persons, giving an average daily attendance of 42,847. The
greatest number in one day (October 8th) was 109,760. The greatest number
in the Palace at any one time was 93,000, which surpassed in magnitude
any number ever assembled together under one roof in the history of the
world. The charges for admission were half-a-crown on particular days, and
one shilling on ordinary days. The receipts, including season tickets,
amounted to £505,107, leaving a surplus of about £150,000, after paying
all expenses; so that the Exhibition was in every sense pre-eminently
successful. However, it did not, as was anticipated, inaugurate an era of
peace.

We have already seen that Louis Napoleon, when President of the French
Republic, solemnly and vehemently vowed to maintain the Constitution.
These vows were repeated from time to time in his speeches and
declarations, which he was always ready to volunteer. The National
Assembly, however, had suspected him for some time to be entertaining
treasonable designs, and plotting the ruin of the republic. One of the
symptoms of this state of mind was found in the rumours propagated in
France about the failure of Parliamentary government, and the designs of
the Red Republicans. In this way vague fears were generated that another
bloody revolution was impending, and that, in order to save the State,
it was necessary to have a strong Government. In fact, the conviction
somehow gained ground that a monarchical _régime_ was the best fitted for
France. The army was probably inclined the same way. The first thing the
President did, of course, was to sound its disposition, and ascertain how
far he might be able to wield its irresistible power against the liberties
of his country. But however the soldiers might be disposed to aid his
designs, it was well known that its generals would not allow a shot to
be fired without orders from the Minister of War; and the man who held
that post was not a character likely to lend himself as the instrument
of a treasonable plot. Louis Napoleon therefore found it necessary to
enlist others in his service. The principal of these were daring and needy
adventurers, namely--his half-brother M. de Morny, a great speculator in
shares; Major Fleury, a young officer who had squandered his fortune in
dissipation, entered the army as a common soldier, and risen from the
ranks; St. Arnaud, an Algerian officer; M. Maupas, who had been a prefect,
and had been guilty of conspiracy to destroy innocent persons by a false
accusation of treason; and Persigny, _alias_ Fialin, who had entered the
army as a non-commissioned officer. St. Arnaud was made Minister of War,
and Maupas Prefect of Police. General Magnan, the Commander-in-Chief of
the army at Paris, readily entered into the plot which was originally
fixed for September but postponed on the advice of Fleury. On the 27th
of November 1851 he invited twenty generals who were under his command
to meet at his house. There they matured their plans, and after vows of
mutual fidelity, they solemnly embraced one another. In the meantime the
common soldiers were pampered with food and wine, stimulated by flattery
and exasperated by falsehood against the "Bedouins" of Paris. On Monday
night, the 1st of December, the President had an assembly at the Elysée,
which included Ministers and others who were totally ignorant of the
plot. The company departed at the usual hour, and at eleven o'clock only
three of the guests remained--Morny, who had shown himself at one of the
theatres, Maupas, and St. Arnaud.

Meanwhile the State printing-office was surrounded by gendarmerie, and
the compositors were all made prisoners, and compelled to print a number
of documents which had been sent from the President. These were several
decrees, which appeared on the walls of Paris at daybreak next morning,
to the utter astonishment of the population. They read in them that the
National Assembly was dissolved, that the Council of State was dissolved
and that universal suffrage was re-established. They read an attack
upon the Assembly, in which it was charged with forging arms for civil
war, with provocations, calumnies, and outrages against the President.
These things were said to be done by the men who had already destroyed
two monarchies, and who wanted to overthrow the republic; but he, Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte, would baffle their perfidious projects. He submitted
to them, therefore, a plan of a new Constitution: a responsible chief,
named for ten years, Ministers dependent on the executive alone, a Council
of State, a Legislative Corps, a Second Chamber. There was also an appeal
to the army, which told the soldiers to be proud of their mission,
for they were to save their country, and to obey him, the legitimate
representative of the national sovereignty.

At half-past six o'clock in the morning M. de Morny took possession of the
Ministry of the Interior. The army and the police were distributed through
the town and had all received their respective orders. Among these were
the arrest of seventy-eight persons, of whom eighteen were representatives
and sixty alleged chiefs of secret societies and barricades. All
these arrests were effected accordingly. At the appointed minute, and
while it was still dark, the designated houses were entered. The most
famous generals of France were seized and dragged forth from their
beds--Changarnier, Bedeau, Lamoricière, Cavaignac, Leflo--all were placed
in carriages, ready at their doors to receive them, and conveyed to prison
through the sleeping city. Precisely at the same moment the chief members
and officers of the Assembly shared the same fate.

All the trusted chiefs and guides of the people being thus disposed of,
De Morny from the Home Office touched the chords of centralisation, and
conveyed to every village in France the unbounded enthusiasm with which
the still sleeping city had hailed the joyful news of the revolution which
had been effected. When the free members of the Assembly heard of the
arrest of their brethren, they ran to the Hôtel de Ville, the entrance of
which was guarded. Those who had got in by a private passage were rudely
expelled, some of them being violently struck by the soldiers. They then
reassembled at the Mairie of the 10th Arrondissement, at which they passed
a resolution depriving Louis Napoleon of authority, but the Chamber was
not long permitted to deliberate in peace. Two commissaries of police soon
entered, and summoned the representatives to disperse. "Retire," said the
President. After some hesitation the commissaries seized the President
by the collar, and dragged him forth. The whole body then rose, 220 in
number, and declaring that they yielded to force, walked out, two and two,
between files of soldiery. In this way they were marched through the
street, into the Quai d'Orsay, where they were shut up in the barracks,
without any accommodation for their comfort. During the day eleven more
deputies were brought to the barracks, three of whom came for the express
purpose of being incarcerated with their brethren. After being left for
hours on a winter's evening in the open air, the Assembly were driven into
the barrack rooms upstairs, where they were left without fire, almost
without food, and were obliged to lie upon the bare boards. At ten o'clock
most of the 220 members of Parliament were thrust into large prison vans,
like felons, and were carried off, some to the fort of Mont Valérien, some
to the fortress of Vincennes, and some to the prison of Mazas. Before
dawn on the 3rd of December, all the leading statesmen and great generals
of France, all the men who made her name respected abroad, were lying in
prison.

The High Court of Justice met on the 2nd of December, and having referred
to the placards that had been issued that morning, made provision for the
impeachment of Louis Napoleon and his fellow-conspirators. But while the
court was sitting, an armed force entered the hall, and drove the judges
from the bench. Before they were thrust out, they adjourned the court to
"a day to be named hereafter," and they ordered a notice of impeachment to
be served upon the President at the Elysée.

These astounding acts did not produce the alarm that might have been
expected. Hitherto Louis Napoleon was not regarded with terror, as the
inscrutable and the unpitying, but rather with a feeling of contempt and
derision by the citizens of Paris. But the citizens had been disarmed;
the leaders of the Faubourgs had been carried off by the police. In the
absence of such leaders, the members of the Assembly who happened to be
at large called upon the people to resist the usurpers. During the night
of the 3rd, therefore, barricades were rapidly erected along the streets
which lay between the Hôtel de Ville and the Boulevards Montmartre and des
Italiens. But the troops were ready for action, 48,000 strong, including
cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineers, and gendarmes. They had been
supplied with rations, wine, and spirits in abundance. They had been
ordered to give no quarter, either to combatants or to bystanders; but to
clear the streets at any cost. Magnan's conscience, however, caused him to
hesitate long, and was on the point of making a coward of him. There was a
small barricade which crossed the boulevard close to the Gymnase Theatre,
which was occupied by a small advanced guard of the insurgents; and facing
this, fifty yards off, was an immense column of troops, which occupied all
the boulevard, and also the whole way to the Madeleine. The windows and
balconies along the line were filled with ladies and gentlemen gazing at
the grand military spectacle, which seemed only to be a demonstration to
overawe the disaffected, there being no visible enemy to contend with.

Suddenly a few musket shots were fired at the head of the column.
The troops returned the fire so regularly that it seemed at first a
_feu-de-joie_. The column advanced, still firing, and to the utter
consternation of the spectators, the shots were directed at the windows
and balconies, shivering the panes of glass, smashing the mirrors, rending
the curtains, and rattling against the walls. This continued for a quarter
of an hour, the inhabitants endeavouring to save themselves by lying
prostrate on the floor and flying to the back apartments. There is no
doubt that this fusilade was the result of a panic among the troops, who
apprehended an attack from the windows. Many persons were shot down in the
streets, some endeavouring to escape into the houses. Next day pools of
blood were to be seen round the trees along the boulevard. Fortunately the
massacre did not last long. When the barricade of St. Denis had been
carried, the insurrection was at an end; but while it did last, it was
fearful. Many women and children were victims.

In order to save the conspirators from the effects of the universal horror
which these atrocities were calculated to excite, it was necessary to
set forth in a public manner the reasons for the usurpation of power by
Napoleon. St. Arnaud did not hesitate to say all that was thought needful.
There was only one ground on which a shadow of excuse could be offered
for the deeds that had been done--that was, that it was necessary to save
society from Red Republicanism, and this was the topic of his order of the
day. But to give the full appearance of truth to this lying proclamation
to the army, it was necessary that the police should play their part.
Therefore De Maupas sent forth a circular to the commissaries of police,
stating that arms, ammunition, and incendiary writings were concealed to a
large extent in lodging-house, cafés, and private dwellings. The National
Guard was disbanded on the 7th, as another precautionary measure. There
was one order of men, however, which could neither be disbanded nor sent
off in prison vans, but which, if conciliated, could be made powerful
auxiliaries of despotism; while, if alienated and exasperated, they would
be its most dangerous enemies--the Roman Catholic clergy. Therefore Louis
Napoleon hastened to announce the restoration of the Panthéon to its
original use as the Church of St. Geneviève.

The next step was a proclamation to the French people, stating that he
had saved society, that it was madness to oppose the united and patriotic
army, and that the intelligent people of Paris were all on his side. Then
followed the vote by universal suffrage, which was put in this way:--"For
Louis Napoleon and the new Constitution, Yes or No." This was putting
before the nation this alternative--a strong Government or anarchy. The
result of the voting was, for Louis Napoleon, 7,481,231; against him,
640,737. Thus armed, the President met his consultative commission on the
last day of the year, and told them that he understood all the grandeur
of his new mission, that he had an upright heart, that he looked for the
co-operation of all right-minded men.

On the public mind in England, as the facts were made known through
correspondence, the effect produced was a general feeling of alarm. But it
had political consequences of a serious nature, for it caused the fall of
the Russell Administration. That weak-kneed body had not benefited much by
its temporary popularity in the year of the Great Exhibition. The Budget
of 1851 contained a most unpopular proposal for the substitution for the
window tax of a duty of 1s. in the pound on houses, and 9d. on shops,
which had to be considerably reduced, and Mr. Hume, with the assistance of
the Conservatives, carried against the Government the limitation of the
income-tax to a year. Further, Lord Naas, afterwards Earl of Mayo, placed
them in a minority on a resolution connected with the spirit duties. The
Cabinet naturally became divided and dispirited, and not the least source
of its disunion was the boldness and insubordination of Lord Palmerston.
We have already mentioned his rash despatch to Sir Henry Bulwer, which
led to that Minister's dismissal from Madrid. This communication was
written both without the knowledge and against the express orders of the
Prime Minister. The Queen naturally resented this independent action,
and Lord Palmerston speedily found himself at variance with the Prince
Consort, who was in favour of a German Customs Union, whereas the Foreign
Minister resented its formation as injurious to Free Trade. During the
revolution of 1848 Palmerston acted with more than his usual contempt
for control, and remonstrances from the Queen were frequent and strongly
worded. They culminated in a memorandum, which ran as follows follows:--

[Illustration: THE OPENING BY QUEEN VICTORIA OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION IN
HYDE PARK, LONDON, 1ST MAY, 1851.

FROM THE PAINTING BY H. C. SELOUS IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM,
SOUTH KENSINGTON.]

"The Queen requires, first, that Lord Palmerston will distinctly state
what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as
distinctly to what she has given her royal sanction; secondly, having
once given her sanction to a measure, that it be not arbitrarily altered
or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in
sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of
her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be
kept informed of what passes between him and the foreign Ministers before
important decisions are taken based upon that intercourse; to receive the
foreign despatches in good time; and to have the drafts for her approval
sent to her in sufficient time to make herself acquainted with their
contents before they must be sent off. The Queen thinks it best that Lord
John Russell should show this letter to Lord Palmerston."

[Illustration: THE COUP D'ÉTAT: EVICTION OF THE JUDGES. (_See p._ 7.)]

This was sent to Lord Palmerston by Lord John Russell, and it was
acknowledged by Lord Palmerston as follows:--"I have taken a copy of this
memorandum of the Queen's, and will not fail to attend to the directions
which it contains." This occurred in August, 1850, more than twelve months
before the occurrence of the _coup d'état_ in Paris, and in the interval
Palmerston, with difficulty dissuaded from receiving Kossuth who was on
a visit to England, accepted an address from the Radicals of Islington
in which the Emperors of Russia and Austria were stigmatised as despots,
tyrants, and assassins. A few days later he committed a fresh indiscretion
in conversation with Count Walewski, the French Ambassador, to whom he
expressed a strong approval of the _coup d'état_. When Palmerston was
asked to explain his conduct, he evaded the point by a long defence of
the action of Louis Napoleon, and Lord John Russell at last summoned up
courage to dismiss him from his office.

Soon after the opening of Parliament in 1852, Lord John Russell related
to the House what had happened in connection with this matter. Our
Ambassador in France had been instructed to abstain from all interference
with the internal affairs of that country. Lord Palmerston was alleged
to have held a conversation with the French Ambassador inconsistent with
those instructions. The Premier wrote to him on the subject, but his
inquiries had for some days been met with a disdainful silence; Lord
Palmerston having meanwhile, without the knowledge of his colleagues,
written a despatch, containing instructions to Lord Normanby, who had
previously been advised to observe a strict neutrality, which Lord John
Russell considered was putting himself in the place of the Crown and
passing by the Crown; while he gave the moral approbation of England to
the acts of the President of the Republic, in direct opposition to the
policy which the Government had hitherto pursued. In these circumstances
Lord John said he had no other alternative but to declare, that while he
was Prime Minister Lord Palmerston could not hold the seals of office. The
noble Foreign Secretary had been accordingly dismissed.

Lord Palmerston then rose to explain his conduct. He stated that
the French Ambassador had given a highly coloured version of a long
conversation, to the effect that he had entirely approved of what had
been done, and thought the President of the French fully justified. Lord
Normanby wrote for authority to contradict that statement, and, though
Palmerston did not say so, complained of the false position in which
he was placed. Lord Palmerston repeated, however, his opinion that it
was better the President should prevail than the Assembly, because the
Assembly had nothing to offer in substitution for the President, unless
an alternative obviously ending in civil war or anarchy; whereas the
President, on the other hand, had to offer unity of purpose and unity
of authority, and if he were inclined to do so he might give to France
internal tranquillity, with good and permanent Government. Lord Palmerston
retaliated on Lord John Russell by stating that both he and other members
of the Cabinet had also expressed opinions, in conversation with the
French Ambassador, not very different from his own. The defence was
generally regarded as wholly unsatisfactory.

Lord Palmerston had been succeeded as Foreign Secretary by Earl Granville;
but the noble lord soon had his revenge on the Prime Minister. Feelings of
anxiety prevailed at this time with regard to the national defences, and
it was thought necessary to organise a large militia force, which would
constitute a powerful reserve in case of war with any foreign country.
Lord John Russell therefore brought in a Bill on the subject on the 16th
of February. Lord Palmerston suggested that the word "local" should be
left out of the Bill, and the regular militia, which had practically been
suspended since Waterloo, reconstituted. He accordingly moved amendments
in committee. Upon this Lord John Russell stated that if the House decided
to leave out the word "local," the chairman of the committee and Lord
Palmerston must bring in the Bill. Upon a division, however, the word
was left out by a majority of eleven. Lord John Russell then said that
he must now decline the responsibility of the measure. Lord Palmerston
expressed his extreme surprise at this abandonment by the Government of
their functions in that House. Lord John replied that he was stopped at
the threshold, and told by the division that the House had no confidence
in the Government. The cheers with which this statement was received
confirmed its truth. The Ministry therefore resigned. "I have had my
tit-for-tat with John Russell," wrote Palmerston in exultation to his
brother, "and turned him out."

The Queen sent for Lord Derby, formerly known as Lord Stanley, who
succeeded in forming the following Cabinet:--Prime Minister, Lord Derby;
Chancellor, Lord St. Leonards; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Disraeli;
President of the Council, Lord Lonsdale; Privy Seal, Marquis of Salisbury;
Home Secretary, Mr. Walpole; Foreign Secretary, Lord Malmesbury; Colonial
Secretary, Sir John Pakington; Admiralty, Duke of Northumberland; Board
of Control, Mr. Herries; Postmaster-General, Lord Hardwicke; Board of
Trade, Mr. Henley; Public Works, Lord John Manners. Only two members, Lord
Derby and Mr. Herries, had ever held Cabinet rank before. The new Ministry
carried through a Militia Bill, which passed the House of Commons by large
majorities, in spite of the factious opposition of Lord John Russell. In
the Lords, the second reading was moved on the 15th of June. It passed
through all its stages without difficulty, and received the Royal Assent
in due course. By this excellent measure a militia was constituted,
available for service in any part of the United Kingdom, and recruited by
voluntary enlistment, though a compulsory ballot was reserved for seasons
of emergency. Many other useful measures were also passed during the
Session of 1852, among which may be mentioned the New Zealand Constitution
Act, several measures of Law Reform, including the procedure in the Court
of Chancery, and an extension of the jurisdiction of the County Courts.
Lord Lyndhurst, reviewing the Session, said that, "during the four months
that had elapsed since Lord Derby came into office, Bills of greater
importance had passed than in any Session since the commencement of the
present Parliament." On the 1st of July the Queen prorogued Parliament in
person, and delivered a Speech, in which she expressed her satisfaction at
the "final" settlement of the affairs of Holstein and Schleswig. The order
for the dissolution of Parliament appeared next day in the _Gazette_.
The General Election, which took place in due course, left the state of
parties very much as it had found it, though many of the Peelites lost
their seats.

The new Parliament assembled on the 4th of November. Mr. Charles
Shaw-Lefevre was re-elected to the Speaker's chair without opposition.
The Royal Speech was delivered by the Queen in person on the 11th, when
her Majesty announced the existence of the most amicable relations with
all Foreign Powers. The Session was occupied principally with commercial
matters and financial questions, with regard to which the majority of the
House were at issue with the Government. They were suspected of a leaning
towards Protection, though Mr. Disraeli, in producing his preliminary
Budget, jauntily threw over the principle, and dilated in favour of Free
Trade. In vain Mr. Villiers attempted to force his hand by a resolution
expressing unbounded confidence in the Act of 1846; he was saved by Lord
Palmerston's alternative proposal expressing a platonic attachment to the
system, which was carried by a large majority. The Budget, however, when
finally produced, was discovered to be framed on the lines of ingenious
rather than of sound finance, and was held by experts, notably by Mr.
Gladstone, to be unfairly burdensome to the £10 householders. This fact
was brought to the test by a division, after a long debate, on the 10th of
December, when the Government was defeated by 305 to 286. This led to the
resignation of the Derby Cabinet. A coalition between the Whigs and the
Peelites was next tried, with Lord Aberdeen as Prime Minister; after which
the House adjourned to the 10th of February.

The Duke of Wellington, whose name has been so often mentioned in this
history, terminated his long and glorious career at Walmer Castle, on the
14th of September, 1852, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. Foreign
princes united with the Sovereign, and Parliament, and citizens of his
own country, to honour the hero, whom Talleyrand once called "the most
capable man in England," and whom Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the House of
Commons, designated "the greatest man of a great nation--a general who had
fought fifteen pitched battles, captured 3,000 cannon from the enemy, and
never lost a single gun." And he truly added, he was not only the greatest
and most successful warrior of his time, but his protracted civil career
was scarcely less splendid and successful; and when he died, "he died at
the head of that army to which he had left the tradition of his fame."
The Queen was at Balmoral at the time of his death, and she immediately
conveyed her wishes to the Government that his remains should be honoured
by a public funeral. Lord Derby proposed a resolution in reply to her
Majesty's message, which was unanimously adopted; and a Select Committee
was appointed to consider the mode in which the House might best assist
at the ceremony. A similar course was adopted in the Commons. The public
obsequies commenced when the remains were committed to the officers of the
Lord Chamberlain, to be conveyed to the hall of Chelsea Hospital, there to
lie in state. The arrangements for the admission of the public were not
satisfactory, and the consequence was dreadful confusion and crushing,
attended in some cases with fatal consequences. Order was ultimately
restored, and it was calculated that from 50,000 to 65,000 people passed
daily through the hall. Three persons, two women and one man, lost their
lives by the crushing on the 13th.

Late on the night of the 17th of November the corpse was conveyed to the
Horse Guards, escorted by a squadron of cavalry. The procession took
place next day. First appeared the infantry, six battalions, then the
artillery, next the cavalry, five squadrons, and then martial men on foot,
pensioners, trumpets and kettle-drums, deputations from public bodies in
carriages, persons connected with the late Duke's household, military
dignitaries, judges, Ministers and officers of State, archbishops, the
Prince Consort and her Majesty's household, in three carriages drawn by
six horses each, officers connected with foreign armies, pall-bearers,
the funeral car, which weighed twelve tons, drawn by twelve horses, and
decorated by trophies and heraldic achievements, the hat and sword of
the deceased being placed on the coffin. The coffin was borne into St.
Paul's, where nearly 20,000 persons were assembled. At the conclusion of
the dirge the mortal remains were lowered into the crypt, and the great
Duke was buried "with an Empire's lamentation."

The new Ministry was constituted as follows--Lord Aberdeen took the
Treasury, and of the other Peelites Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle,
Sir James Graham, and Mr. Sidney Herbert, became respectively Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Colonial Minister, First Lord of the Admiralty, and
Secretary at War. The new Chancellor was Lord Cranworth, who had been a
member of Lord Melbourne's Administration. Of the leading Whigs, Lord John
Russell was induced, after much persuasion, to accept the Colonial Office,
and after a brief tenure of the Foreign Office, Lord Palmerston, to the
universal surprise, became Home Secretary. Lord Granville was President
of the Council, the Duke of Argyll Privy Seal, Lord Lansdowne entered the
Cabinet without office. Sir Charles Wood went to the Board of Control,
and Sir William Molesworth, who had usually voted with the Radicals,
became First Commissioner of Works. The Cabinet has been stigmatised as a
coalition; as a matter of fact it was composed of moderate free-traders
to the exclusion of Radicals like Cobden and Bright, and on the whole was
fairly homogeneous.

The great event of the Session of 1853 was Mr. Gladstone's Budget, a bold
and sweeping measure which contained an important novelty in the shape
of a succession duty, estimated to produce some £2,000,000 a year, and
a reduction of the income-tax, of which two-sevenths were ultimately to
be abolished. It also contained the reduction of duties on 133 articles,
their total abolition on 123, and, taken altogether, was one of the most
comprehensive financial statements ever produced by a Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Not content with these innovations Mr. Gladstone proposed
a conversion of the National Debt, by which the old 3 per cent. bonds
which stood at par were to be exchanged for Exchequer bonds or for 3-1/2
or 2-1/2 stocks which stood at 163. It was a magnificent Budget, based
however on a false assumption, that the era of peace was to be long
protracted, a sanguine estimate which was very far indeed from being
realised. Moreover the new succession duty did not produce one-fourth of
the sum which its author had anticipated, and owing to the advent of war
the reduction of the income-tax was found to be wholly impracticable. "The
best-laid schemes of mice and men aft gang agley."

Europe was allowed scant breathing-time after the wars which sprang
from the political movements of 1848 had come to an end. An old danger,
one which at intervals, sometimes as a grim shadow, sometimes as a near
reality, had threatened the general peace, appeared once more. In 1852 it
became known that the Emperors of France and Russia, were, in the names of
their respective Churches, wrangling over the Holy Places of Palestine,
where members of both the Latin and Greek Churches had set up rights
of worship. The Prince-President of the French Republic had raised the
demon of the Eastern Question, and the policy which Prince Louis Napoleon
initiated as President, he pursued with fresh vigour when he became
Emperor. That policy was one of the causes which led directly to those
great events which we know under the collective name of the Crimean War.

The first movement of France in this Eastern Question was made in 1850.
The Latin priests in Jerusalem were always clamouring against their
rivals, and a fresh complaint reaching Paris, the Prince-President
directed his ambassador at the Porte, General Aupick, to claim the
fulfilment of a treaty in favour of the Latin Church, obtained in
1740. The gist of the grievance was that, by Russian influence, and by
degrees, the Greeks had gained possession of certain churches and other
holy places, in contravention of this treaty, and by the connivance of
the Porte. And it was natural that as, since 1740, Russia had exercised
a greater pressure on the Porte than France, so she had brought it to
bear to exact concessions in favour of the priests of her faith, and
give them a predominance at the holy shrines. For a century France had
acquiesced; but in 1850 the country had fallen under a ruler more active
in the employment of French power than any ruler since Louis XIV., except
Napoleon I., and for purposes almost personal he determined that France
should acquiesce no longer. The clerical party in France were gratified
by the mere knowledge that General Aupick had raised the question of
the Holy Shrines at the instance of the President. Throughout the year
1850 nothing was done of a serious character. The French Minister made
demands, and the Porte evaded them as best it might. But in the very
beginning of 1851 General Aupick imparted new life to the negotiations.
M. de Titoff, the Russian Minister, struck into the fray, and warned the
Porte that he should insist on the _status quo_. Then General Aupick
grew still warmer in his language, and the Austrian Minister supported
him. In the spring, the Marquis de Lavalette, a more energetic, indeed,
a "zealous" man, replaced General Aupick as the representative of France
at the Porte, and in his hands the business soon began to make progress.
During this period the British Minister, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
acting on instructions from home, held quite aloof from the disputes, and
contented himself with watching closely the contest between the Porte and
the French Minister. He thought that the Porte would not give way unless
forced, and the Emperor of Russia was so fully persuaded of the strength
of his influence at Constantinople that he felt convinced that no change
in the matter of the Holy Shrines would occur. But in this respect, as
in so many others, he was mistaken. In the autumn of 1851 the British
Minister began to see the gravity of the contest going on under his eyes;
for the Marquis de Lavalette, growing impatient at the delay of the Porte
in according his demands, talked in a menacing tone of the use that France
could make of the strong fleet then assembled at Toulon. It was at this
moment, November, 1851, that the quarrel visibly assumed the character of
a struggle between France and Russia for influence at Constantinople and
throughout the East.

[Illustration: THE BURIAL OF WELLINGTON. (_See p._ 11.)]

The Turks, having no interest in the religious question, proposed various
arrangements, which proved agreeable to neither party. When something
like the basis of an agreement had been arranged, a strong letter from
the Emperor Nicholas to the Sultan forced the Porte to retract it.
Learning this, M. de Lavalette said that his Government, having embarked
in the question, could not stop short under the dictation of Russia.
The Russian Emperor would not desist from opposition at the dictation
of France. Each presented himself to the Sultan, one with the treaty of
1740, the Charter of the Latins; the other with documents, antecedent and
subsequent to that date, embodying concessions made to the Greeks. The
Porte, desirous of satisfying both the powerful complainants, exhausted
its ingenuity in devices, yielding now to Russian, now to French menaces,
and looking keenly for assurances of support in the event of danger. The
Turks consulted Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; but he was powerless to aid
them, for his Government had determined to take no part. Nevertheless, he
did his utmost to prevent precipitate action on all sides, on a question
"involving little more than a religious sentiment, and the application
of a treaty permitted to be more or less in abeyance for a century." He
was only partially successful, for M. de Lavalette continued to talk of
breaking off negotiations unless his demands were complied with, and M. de
Titoff stood out against any alteration of the _status quo_. At length, at
the beginning of 1852, by the exertions of M. de Lavalette, the questions
at issue seemed to be settled, and the Porte embodied the whole of the
arrangements respecting the Holy Places in an "imperial firman invested
with a hatti-scherif." The Turkish Ministers hoped that both parties would
be satisfied by concessions. This was a delusion, for the Porte in its
trepidation gave conflicting pledges to the fighting embassies. In giving
the assurance by letter which calmed for a time the abounding zeal of M.
de Lavalette, the Porte promised that the firman should not be publicly
read, but simply registered. The Russian _chargé d'affaires_ got wind of
this, and insisted, with effect, that the firman should be read. M. de
Lavalette, hearing probably that the Porte had promised M. de Titoff,
months before, that the key of the "great door" of the church at Bethlehem
should not be given to the Latins, grew very keen in his instructions to
the French Consul to see that it was given up. M. de Lavalette became
extremely violent. "He more than once," wrote Colonel Rose, the _chargé
d'affaires_, in November, "talked of the appearance of a French fleet off
Jaffa (in case the stipulations were not fulfilled), and once he alluded
to a French occupation of Jerusalem, 'when,' he said, 'we shall have all
the sanctuaries.'"

Nevertheless, the Turkish Government tried to appease France without
offending Russia. In the autumn of 1852 there was a striking spectacle
at Jerusalem. Afif Bey had been sent on a special mission to inform the
contending Churches of the decisions arrived at in Constantinople. But
Afif Bey did nothing except declare how desirous the Sultan was to gratify
all classes of his subjects. The Russian Consul-General demanded the
public reading of the firman, which was understood to declare the Latin
claims to the shrines null and void. Afif Bey pretended not to know what
firman was meant, then said he had no copy of it, then no directions to
read it. Thus both parties were angered: the Latins because the key was
withheld, and they were only allowed to celebrate mass once a year before
"a schismatic altar"; the Greeks because the firman was not read. It was
these proceedings, arising out of the irreconcilable hostility of Russia
and France, which led to fresh threats from their respective envoys at the
Porte. The Grand Vizier, driven hither and thither by the violence of
the disputants, resolved, come what might, to make an end of the business.
He gave up the keys to the Latins, and caused the firman to be read. Had
there been sincerity on the part of the French or Russian Governments,
here the matter should have ended; but neither had triumphed sufficiently
over the other, and the quarrel did not come to a close.

[Illustration: THE WRECK OF H.M.S. "BIRKENHEAD."

FROM THE PAINTING BY THOMAS M. HEMY.

BY PERMISSION OF MESSRS. HENRY GRAVES & CO. LTD., PALL MALL, S.W.]

And here, at the beginning of December, 1852, we find the origin of that
now famous demand for a protectorate over all the Greek Christians in
Turkey, which, when advanced by Prince Menschikoff, led at once to war.
The claim purported to be based on the Treaty of Kainardji, but that
treaty expressly limited the Russian Protectorate to two chapels--one
in the Russian Legation, the other a chapel to be built in Galata. This
baseless demand irritated the French, frightened the Turks, and filled
the English with apprehension. But it was not then pressed. Another
incident occurred, showing the critical temper of the time. The Porte was
at war with the tribes who inhabit Montenegro. Austria, affecting to see
danger to herself in the continuance of a contest so near her frontier,
sent Count Leiningen to Constantinople, with a peremptory demand for
the cessation of the war. It is not improbable that this was a Russian
project; for the Czar felt, or affected to feel, that Austria would do all
he desired in the Eastern Question; and no sooner was the Austrian demand
made, than he supported it. But the Porte, beset by enemies, determined
wisely to satisfy Austria, and thus to deprive Russia of any pretext for
hostilities on that score. Russia was baffled, but not diverted from her
purpose; for the Emperor now began to be impassioned, to feel the sting
of French rivalry, and to commit himself almost too deeply to recede. In
vague, but menacing terms, he declared that the Porte should be required
to fulfil its engagements with him, and to that end he set troops in
motion. "It was necessary that the diplomacy of Russia should be supported
by a demonstration of force," and he prepared for a violent struggle. Two
_corps d'armée_, above 100,000 men, were ordered to march towards the
frontier of the Turkish empire.

It was an anxious moment for statesmen; but the attention of the great
European public was not turned towards the East. In England the strife of
parties had led to the downfall of the Tories, and to the undisguised joy
of the Czar Nicholas Lord Aberdeen became the head of a new Cabinet. The
Emperor conceived vast hopes of support from the new British Government,
with several members of whom, on his visit to England, he had discussed
the Eastern Question; the British public looked for social reforms from
a composite Cabinet which unquestionably included in itself the ablest
servants of the State. If the people thought of danger, it was danger from
France, for the Prince-President, to the intense indignation of the Czar,
had made himself Emperor; and a desire to see a completion of economical
reforms was mingled with a determination to look to the defences of
the nation. Ministers were not, and could not be, blind to the perils
which threatened peace; but, as will be seen, they placed an unfounded
reliance on the personal honour of the Emperor Nicholas, and they did
not appreciate the provocative policy of France. Yet whatever qualms of
apprehension they may have felt, they carefully kept to themselves, and
even so late as April, 1853, Lord Clarendon assured Parliament that as
regarded Turkey there was no danger of the peace of Europe being disturbed.

Yet between the 1st of January and the 30th of April the British
Government had become possessed of facts which should have clouded
their sanguine anticipations. For the conflict, hitherto confined to
Constantinople, was transferred for a time to Paris, London, and St.
Petersburg, and did not improve by its extension. Lord Cowley suggested
direct negotiations between France and Russia. The suggestion was adopted,
but it only served to embitter the relations between the two Courts, and
it was open to the objection that it took out of the hands of the Porte
a question which nearly concerned its sovereignty. This was met by the
device of requesting the Porte to sanction such an arrangement as the two
Courts might recommend in common. It had no other result than the exchange
of sharp observations between Count Nesselrode and General de Castelbajac.
For Russia had determined on a totally different course. The Emperor
resolved to treat directly with Turkey, and obtain from the Porte his
demands.

The real policy of the Czar was steadily developing itself. It was on
the 4th of February, 1853, that Count Nesselrode informed Sir Hamilton
Seymour of the intention of the Czar to send Prince Menschikoff to
Constantinople, and at the same time gave assurances that the Prince
would be provided with instructions of a conciliatory nature; and that
"although bred to arms," the negotiator was "animated by intentions the
most pacific." A few days later Count Nesselrode again declared that the
Prince's instructions, though "necessarily vague," were moderate; and
he volunteered the further information that there would be no question
of attempting to regain from the Latins any privileges which they might
have acquired since the year before. Subsequent events showed what this
studied moderation and vagueness were intended to cover, and how the
Czar was aiming at larger game than the privileges conferred by the
acquisition of keys and the affixing of stars at the Holy Places. At the
same time, the Russian Government, preparing for a grand _coup_, resolved
not to prosecute further the direct negotiation with France opened at St.
Petersburg, but to transact the business in hand at Constantinople. For
the great conflict, the scope of which none but the Russians foresaw, all
the Governments prepared.

England, at the end of February, directed Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
to proceed to Constantinople by way of Paris and Vienna. The Earl of
Clarendon had succeeded Lord John Russell at the Foreign Office, although
the latter still remained in the Ministry. It was Lord Clarendon's duty to
draw up the instructions to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; they were broad
and wise; they left the diplomatist a large discretion; they entrusted to
him the power of ordering Admiral Dundas to hold his fleet in readiness;
but at this stage of the dispute, the Ambassador was not to direct the
admiral to approach the Dardanelles without positive instructions from
her Majesty's Government. Although Austria had interfered between the
Porte and Montenegro, she had told the British Government that she would
not depart from her conservative policy in the East; and although France
had thrust the Porte into so deep a peril, she had in the opening of
1853 officially stated that she regarded her interests in the East as
identical with those of England, and it was everywhere given out that the
two Western Powers were acting in concert. To carry out her objects in
the East, France sent, as successor to M. de Lavalette, M. de la Cour, a
mild diplomatist, who had none of the fiery qualities of his predecessor,
and who was not likely to quarrel with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. The
British Government believed it could neutralise, by moral influence,
the evils springing from the action of France and Russia, and thus, by
imposing moderation on both, stave off a catastrophe involving all. But at
this juncture, as Russia grew more menacing, France grew more moderate:
indeed, for some time to come she hardly appears in the quarrel at all:
the original question of the Holy Places fades rapidly out of sight, and
a new one arises, in which the opponents are Russia and Turkey, with Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe as the supporter of the Sultan. In fact, France,
supposing her ruler desired war, had no need to stir a finger, for the
rage of the Czar had got the better of his judgment, and he was bent on
working out his will.

The Emperor Nicholas, knowing that he was about to enter upon a very
hazardous policy in the East, sought, on the 9th of January, 1853, an
apparently accidental meeting with Sir Hamilton Seymour, at the palace
of the Grand-Duchess Helen. His object was to convey to Sir Hamilton his
opinion how very essential it was, especially at that moment, that Russia
and England should be on the best terms. "When we are agreed," he said,
"I am quite without anxiety as to the West of Europe; it is immaterial
what others may think or do. As to Turkey, that is another question:
that country is in a critical state, and may give us all a great deal of
trouble." Five days later the Czar told Sir Hamilton that, in the event of
a dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, he thought it might be less difficult
to arrive at a satisfactory territorial arrangement than was commonly
believed. "The Principalities are," he said, "in fact, an independent
State under my protection: this might continue. Servia might receive
the same form of government. So again with Bulgaria: there seems to be
no reason why this province should not form an independent State. As to
Egypt, I quite understand the importance to England of that territory.
I can, then, only say, that if, in the event of the distribution of the
Ottoman succession upon the fall of the empire, you should take possession
of Egypt, I shall have no objection to offer. I would say the same thing
of Candia: that island might suit you, and I do not know why it should not
become an English possession." Here, then, was a disclosure implying the
kind of understanding which the Czar desired to arrive at; and it need not
be said that the British Government adhered to its old views, and declined
to be a party to any such understanding. But these conversations had one
effect--they created in the minds of the British Ministers a baseless
confidence in the honour of the Czar.

It was just as the Porte, yielding to the advice of England, had satisfied
the Austrian demands touching Montenegro, and just as the question of
the Holy Places seemed to be dying away, that Prince Menschikoff, at the
end of February, landed at Constantinople. Attended by his showy suite,
but himself plainly attired, the Prince went to the Porte and presented
himself to the Grand Vizier. One of the Sultan's household then invited
him to visit Fuad Effendi, the Foreign Minister, whose offices were next
to those of the Turkish Premier. But the Prince said he should not, as
Fuad Effendi had broken faith with the Emperor; and, having put this
slight on Fuad, he passed by the line of troops and the very door of the
Minister, which had been opened to receive him.

[Illustration: CHAPEL OF SAINT HELENA, JERUSALEM.]

For a moment there was a panic in high places at Constantinople. The Grand
Vizier was indignant and terrified, and, fearing the worst, trembling lest
a mortal blow should be struck before help could arrive, if help were
deferred, he asked Colonel Rose to request Admiral Dundas to bring up the
British squadron to Vourla Bay. Colonel Rose did not hesitate. He knew
how forward were the warlike preparations of the Czar, and he immediately
complied with the wish of the Grand Vizier. But this bold step was
premature. The Czar had not made up his mind to strike a sudden blow, and
Count Nesselrode told Sir Hamilton Seymour that the tendency was rather to
slacken than to push on military preparations--a statement destitute of
truth. Fuad Effendi, of course, refused to hold office any longer, and the
Sultan, for the first time, accepted the resignation of a public servant,
replacing him by Rifaat Pasha. When Admiral Dundas received the request of
Colonel Rose, he declined to act upon it, and his Government approved of
the conduct of the admiral, and disapproved of the bold haste of Rose. But
the French Government, hearing of what had occurred, without consulting
the British Ministers, ordered their fleet at once to set out on a "cruise
in Greek waters." The fleet sailed, and Lord Clarendon instantly expressed
the regret of his Government that France had taken so strong a measure.
Her Majesty's Government, he said, had received from the Czar his most
solemn assurance that he would uphold the Turkish Empire, and not change
his policy without notice of his intention; and, as no such notice had
been received, the British Government were "bound to believe, until they
had proofs to the contrary, that the mission of Prince Menschikoff was not
of a character menacing to the independence and integrity of Turkey."

In the meantime, Prince Menschikoff conducted himself so mysteriously
and so quietly at Constantinople, and Sir Hamilton Seymour received such
positive assurances at St. Petersburg, that no one except the French
_chargé d'affaires_, and perhaps the French Government, suspected the
bad faith of Russia. It seems to have been the common talk in Pera and
Galata that the Russian Minister was intent on obtaining from the Turks
a secret treaty. But Prince Menschikoff went about the business in so
strange a manner, that Rifaat Pasha, with whom he talked, did not appear
to comprehend at what the Prince was driving. It was at this juncture that
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe arrived.

The first step of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was to discover the actual
position of affairs and to learn how far the demands of Prince Menschikoff
were moderate or threatening. On the day after he landed, Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe saw the Grand Vizier and Rifaat Effendi; but while he learnt
that there was some prospect of settling the tiresome question of the Holy
Places, he could gain no distinct statement respecting the ulterior views
of the Czar. Nevertheless they admitted the existence of ulterior demands,
and they were pressing in their requests for advice. Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe gave it willingly. He recommended them to keep the question of
the Holy Places separate from the ulterior proposals, and he set before
them a variety of considerations carrying comfort with them in case the
ulterior demands took an inadmissible form. Next he saw the Sultan and
offered his good offices, and, alluding to the secret Russian demands,
said he was convinced the Sultan, in making reasonable concessions, "would
be careful to admit no innovation dangerous to his independence." This
from Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's lips meant more than the mere words
convey. As a last resource he brought the Russian and Turkish Ministers
face to face, and in a short time sent them away, and with them the
settlement of the dispute, so that nothing remained but to embody the
compromise in a firman. In little more than a fortnight after his arrival
the points raised by Aupick in 1850 were put to rest, but out of them had
grown a huger quarrel, which could only be appeased by an appeal to arms.

It was during the closing days of the combat about the Holy Places that
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe became aware of the arrival of despatches
expressing the dissatisfaction of the Czar at the slow progress made by
his envoy. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, on the 22nd of April, learnt that,
four or five days before, "fresh and pressing instructions" had reached
Menschikoff from St. Petersburg. In fact, Rifaat Pasha placed in the hands
of the English Minister a document called a _note verbale_, which Prince
Menschikoff had put in. In this note the Prince demanded a categorical
answer on certain points, some of which were settled by the agreement
come to in regard to the Holy Places, together with an entirely fresh
demand, that the Porte should accept a treaty from Russia guaranteeing
the Greco-Russian religion from all molestation. The British Government,
it should be remarked, persisted in believing that Prince Menschikoff had
no authority to make these ulterior demands which so disturbed Europe.
The French Government were not deceived. But they affected to regard
the demand of Russia for a protectorate as one concerning all the other
Powers, and they declared themselves ready to consult and act with them,
but not to act alone. The conduct of the British Government is the more
remarkable, for Lord Stratford de Redcliffe pointed out, in a despatch
which reached Lord Clarendon on the 6th of May, that the omission of
Count Nesselrode, in his remarks to Sir Hamilton Seymour, to make any
mention of the ulterior demands corresponded with the endeavours of Prince
Menschikoff to isolate the Porte. The Austrian Minister at the Porte
had no doubts respecting the intentions of Russia, and told the British
Minister that he could only advise the Porte to give its unqualified
assent to the Czar's demands. This drew from Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
the severe remark that he was "not prepared to take part in placing the
last remains of Turkish independence at the feet of any Foreign Power."

In the meantime events had been marching rapidly at Constantinople. Urged
on by the impatient orders of his master, Prince Menschikoff, on the 5th
of May, sent by a common messenger a note to the Porte, having all the
character, though it did not bear the name, of an ultimatum. It embodied
the obnoxious demand for a protectorate in a most offensive form, and
it gave the Porte only five days of grace. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
advised the Porte to reject the ultimatum, and his advice was obeyed.
On the 22nd of May the Prince and his whole suite embarked on board a
man-of-war and steered for Odessa.




CHAPTER II.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Widening of the Question--The Fleets in Besika Bay--Lord Clarendon's
    Despatch--The Czar and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe--Nesselrode's
    "Last Effort"--Military Preparations--Blindness of the British
    Cabinet--Nesselrode's Ultimatum rejected--Occupation of the
    Principalities--Projects of Settlement--The Vienna Note--Its
    Rejection by the Porte--Division of the Powers--Text of the
    Note--Divisions in the British Cabinet--The Fleets in the
    Bosphorus--The Conference at Olmütz--The Sultan's Grand
    Council--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's Last Effort--Patriotism
    of the Turks--Omar Pasha's Victories--The Russian Fleet puts
    forth--Lord Stratford de Redcliffe refuses Support to the Turks--The
    Turkish Fleet Destroyed at Sinope--Indignation in England--The
    French Suggestion--It is accepted by Lord Clarendon--Russia
    demands Explanations--Diplomatic Relations suspended--The Letter
    of Napoleon III.--The Western Powers arm--An Ultimatum to
    Russia--It is unanswered--The Baltic Fleet--Publication of the
    Correspondence--Declarations of War.


When Prince Menschikoff presented his ultimatum the Eastern Question
underwent a complete change. Up to that moment the quarrel had been
confined, first to Russia and France, next to Russia and the Porte; and
the struggle, although supported on one side by the advance of armies,
was still a diplomatic struggle. Prince Menschikoff's formal demand for
a protectorate, the violence of his language, and his imperious request
for an answer in a limited time, converted the question at once into a
European question of the first magnitude.

The earliest news that the Prince had presented an ultimatum to the Porte
created a profound impression in the Courts of Paris and London, and even
in the Courts of Berlin and Vienna, where Russia had so many friends.
The British Government heard of it with "extreme surprise and regret."
They had been wronged by the conduct of the Czar, and a strong revulsion
followed from confidence to mistrust. The Emperor had broken his word.

The intelligence of the last violence offered to the Porte by Prince
Menschikoff reached England on the 30th of May. The British Cabinet took
a decisive resolution. On the 31st of May a despatch went forth from the
Foreign Office, placing the fleet under Admiral Dundas at the "disposal"
of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, to be ordered whithersoever he would,
but not to be allowed to enter the Dardanelles, except on the express
demand of the Sultan. Two days afterwards, by a direct order, Admiral
Dundas was instructed to proceed at once from Malta to the neighbourhood
of the Dardanelles; and three days later, the French Government learning
this, and being desirous of acting in concert, the Emperor sent orders
to his squadron to quit Salamis, and proceed to Besika Bay. It was not
possible--it was not, at that stage of the question, desirable--to do
more. The two fleets were placed within call of the Sultan, and the
treaty of 1841 was not broken or strained.

The temper of the British Government now underwent a great change.
Its trust in the Emperor Nicholas was gone. On the same day that Lord
Clarendon entrusted the fleet to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, he wrote a
despatch to Sir Hamilton Seymour, recapitulating, with trenchant brevity,
those "most solemn assurances" which the Czar had given over and over
again. It is a long catalogue; there are no less than sixteen distinct
pledges that the question of the Holy Places, and that alone, required
to be resolved. Yet at this very time the Czar was urging on Prince
Menschikoff to extort from the Porte a treaty which would have laid
that independence at his feet. The "explicit, precise, and satisfactory
assurances" which came day by day from St. Petersburg were day by day
proved to be worthless at Constantinople. The assurances of the Czar,
and the language and acts of his Minister at the Porte were in flagrant
contradiction. This flagrant "discrepancy," as the British Secretary of
State mildly called it, he did not fail to set forth as the ground of a
demand for explanations; nor did he fail to remark that Prince Menschikoff
had been supported by a display of force, with what object he desired the
Russian Government to explain. At the same time Lord Clarendon distinctly
informed the Russian Government that England was determined to abide
by that policy which held the preservation of Turkish independence and
integrity to be essential to the peace of Europe. Sir Hamilton Seymour
had already confronted Count Nesselrode with his promises. Nothing can
exceed the cool effrontery with which the wily old Chancellor maintained
that he had concealed nothing. His language, he averred, had always
pointed to the exact reparation which Prince Menschikoff had demanded, and
against which the Turkish Ministry and the British Ambassador had raised
such "unaccountable" objections. Well might Sir Hamilton remark that "a
long-cherished object" had been "sought by a tortuous path." Indeed, few
finer specimens of treacherous diplomacy can be found than those which are
furnished by the authentic records of the correspondence between the Czar
and the British Government in the first five months of 1853.

The anger and violence of the Emperor Nicholas at his defeat were
augmented by the fact that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was the British
Envoy at the Porte. In spite of the evidence pouring in upon him from
day to day, the Czar would believe that Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
overawing the Ministers, and coercing the Sultan, had alone been the
cause of the rejection of the treaty. The Czar writhed at the thought.
Count Nesselrode--and in reading his words we read, no doubt, the words
of Nicholas--imputes the failure of Menschikoff to the vehemence of, "the
Queen's Ambassador." Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was accused of displaying
an "incurable mistrust, a vehement activity." Russia was aware of the
efforts he employed with the Sultan and the Council, and how deaf he had
proved to the prayers of Reschid Pasha. No; the rupture had been brought
about by "passion," by "a blind obstinacy," by forcing the Porte "to
brave" Russia by "distrust as unfounded as it was offensive." In short,
the Czar believed, or affected to believe, that he had suffered a moral
defeat at the hands of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; and that he would not
endure.

Lord Clarendon's catalogue of Count Nesselrode's worthless promises was
crossed on its way to St. Petersburg by a despatch from that Minister to
Baron Brunnow, quite as insolent as any Prince Menschikoff had addressed
to the Porte. In the most haughty style of the Russian Foreign Office
Britain was warned not to drive the Porte, by a policy of mistrust, to
the verge of an abyss in which the moderation of the Emperor had alone
prevented her from being swallowed up. This heated language, this avowal
that the Czar regarded himself as the destiny of Turkey, did not open
the eyes of Lord Aberdeen, did not enable him to see that the Czar was
resolved, cost what it would, to have his will obeyed. Nor did the
ultimatum addressed to Reschid Pasha, insolent and peremptory as it was,
reveal to Lord Aberdeen the true state of the case. Declaring that the
Czar had been always friendly and generous and moderate, and that by
opposing his intentions, by showing distrust without cause, by giving
refusals without excuse, a serious offence had been committed against "a
sincere ally and well-disposed neighbour," Count Nesselrode had the tact
to appeal, not only to the wisdom, but to the "patriotism" of the Turkish
Minister, and almost ordered him to surrender without delay, under penalty
of seeing a portion of the dominions of his master taken, and held as a
"material guarantee." Such was the character of the "last effort" made by
this moderate, this conciliatory, this generous potentate, this "sincere
ally and well-disposed neighbour," to extort from a weak Power the essence
of sovereignty over twelve millions of subjects.

The fiery ultimatum went on its way to Constantinople. The force to back
it received fresh marching orders. Baron Manteuffel told Lord Bloomfield
that Prince Gortschakoff had been appointed to command the Russian army on
the frontier of Turkey; and that his horses and baggage had, on the 5th
of June, already reached headquarters. A strong force of gunboats went up
the Danube to Ismail to prepare a means of crossing the river, and the
merchants at Odessa were warned to wind up their affairs. The Turks also
were bent on making ready for the worst. The small squadron of Turkish
men-of-war took up a position in the Black Sea mouth of the Bosphorus.
A flying camp was established between the Black Sea and Kilia, and Omar
Pasha was ordered to Shumla. But Varna was defenceless, and the works at
the mouth of the Bosphorus were out of repair, and the guns worthless; and
except the resistance which the Anglo-French fleet might offer, there was
none which the navy and army of Nicholas could not overcome. The whole
disposable force of the Sultan consisted of 80,000 men, mainly militia. In
the face of the menacing preparation of Russia, the British Government did
nothing but form a camp for 10,000 men at Chobham!

For they did not believe in the outbreak of war. Lord Clarendon's
despatches breathed of nothing but peace. The British Government could
not shake off its old confidence in Nicholas, although he was in arms
at the threshold of Constantinople. The policy of England, it was said,
was "essentially pacific." No hostile feelings were entertained towards
Russia, but every allowance was made for the difficulty in which the
Emperor "had been placed"--by his own acts, in the main, the Foreign
Secretary should have said. The British Government seemed to regard the
threatened occupation of the Principalities as something inevitable, and
while they still hoped to bring about a peaceful settlement, they did
nothing and said nothing to prevent this further violation of right.
It was a matter of course that they should appeal to the German Powers,
telling them that France and Britain, in sending their fleets to Besika
Bay, and in approving of the stand made by the Porte, were actuated by the
sole desire to uphold Turkish independence, and begging them, especially
Austria, to exert their influence upon the Czar in favour of peace. It
is strange, indeed, that the British Ministers did not see the drift and
persistency of Russia; and that, from the temper of the Czar, war was so
probable that they could not do too much to place themselves in a position
to bear a part becoming Britain. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe saw more
distinctly. He told the Ministers that the master view of the Czar was
to obtain a predominant influence over the counsels of the Porte, as a
means of securing, if not hastening, its downfall; and he said rightly
that if Turkey were to be left to struggle single-handed, the sooner
the Porte were apprised of its helpless condition the better. But the
British Government had taken up the weak position of desiring, almost
resolving, to defend the Sultan, yet of neglecting to provide the means
lest that very act should precipitate war. And so, while they went on the
road to war, by thwarting the Emperor's designs over the Ottoman Empire,
they prevented themselves from making war with effect by abstaining from
preparation.

[Illustration: CONSTANTINOPLE.]

When the second Russian ultimatum arrived, the Turkish Government did not
hesitate a moment respecting the answer which it should receive--they
determined at once to reject it. But being now assured, by the coming
of the fleets, of the support of Britain and France, they betrayed no
anxiety in so doing, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had no difficulty
in obtaining the assent of the Sultan to the suggestion that he should
protest, but not declare war, and should, on the contrary, offer to open
fresh negotiations by sending an Ambassador to St. Petersburg. It was
not supposed that the Emperor would assent to this, but the offer was in
unison with the policy of the friendly Powers, and placed the aggressor
still further in the wrong. On the 16th of June, the date of the answer to
Count Nesselrode, when the step taken by the Porte was irrevocable, Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe waited on the Sultan. His ostensible object was
to present a letter from Queen Victoria announcing the birth of Prince
Leopold, and to offer her Majesty's condolence on the severe affliction
the Sultan had sustained in the loss of his mother, the Sultana Validé.
Having accomplished this, he gave the Sultan more substantial comfort, by
informing him with what friendly sentiments and "eventual intentions" the
powerful fleet of Admiral Dundas, then at anchor in Besika Bay, had been
placed at the Ambassador's disposal. At the same time, and in obedience
to his instructions, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe told the Sultan that
peace was the great object of British policy, and that the fleet would be
used only to protect the Sultan from foreign aggression. On the 17th of
June M. Balabine quitted Constantinople, carrying with him to Odessa the
answer to Count Nesselrode's ultimatum, and the whole of the archives and
correspondence of the Russian Legation. The answer was received in St.
Petersburg about the 25th of June. It had been anticipated by the Russian
Court, and orders were at once issued for the troops to cross the Pruth
and occupy the Principalities.

Between the 1st and 30th of July, while the Russians were settling down
in the Principalities and acting like proprietors, projects of settlement
grew and withered apace. The Four Powers were endeavouring to find out
what each thought and what each would do. The idea of a Conference at
Vienna occurred to several persons at once. Lord Clarendon started a
scheme, based on the project of a Convention between Russia and Turkey,
which he drew up. M. Drouyn de Lhuys framed a note to be signed by Turkey,
and accepted by Russia. There was Count Buol's project of a fusion of
Russian and Turkish ideas. Independently of all this, the representatives
of the Four Powers at Constantinople got up a scheme of their own, which
proved to be distasteful to everybody but the Turks. Peace projectors
abounded, while Russia steadily went on with her design, occupied
the Principalities in a military fashion, seized on the post-office,
intercepted the Sultan's tribute, sent gunboats up the Danube, and when
the Porte recalled the Hospodars, induced them to disobey the Sultan's
mandate, and forced him to dismiss them. Nor did Russia stop here. She
sent emissaries into Servia and Bulgaria; she scattered her manifesto
broadcast; she strove to raise a spirit of disaffection; and she replied
with haughtiness to the complaints of the Western Powers. In the dominions
of the Sultan a corresponding spirit arose. The Czar's manifesto had been
read in all his churches; the Ulemas answered by sermons calculated
to raise a spirit of counter-fanaticism. It was manifest that Turkish
ardour was not extinct. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe began to fear more
from the rashness than the timidity of the Divan. Military and naval
preparations went on briskly, and by the middle of August the Sultan had
the satisfaction of knowing that he could defend Shumla, the Balkan, and
the Bosphorus, if pressed by the Czar. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe did not
fail to lay before his Government the real issues at stake, nor did he
disguise his doubts of the possibility of coming to a settlement without
resort to war.

It was in these circumstances that Count Buol exerted himself at Vienna
to frame a plan of conciliation. He took the draft of a note drawn up
by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and by the aid of the representatives of the
Four Powers at Vienna, and after frequent communication with London and
Paris, he constructed out of this draft a note which he hoped would prove
acceptable alike to Russia and Turkey. The design was to ascertain whether
the Czar would accept the note, and if he agreed to do so, to send it to
Constantinople, accompanied by urgent recommendations from the Four Powers
to the Porte advising its acceptance. In taking this course, Austria acted
as mediator at the request, or at least with the assent, of Russia; but
the Russian Ambassador at Vienna would not attend the Conference, and his
master was only represented there by a sort of friend. After great labour
the note was framed, and a copy sent to St. Petersburg. The Powers took
steps immediately to ascertain whether the Czar would accept the note, and
they found that, although it did not give him satisfaction, he was content
to accept it in a spirit of conciliation, as an arrangement devised by
a friendly Government; and he was willing to take it from the hands of
a Turkish Ambassador, provided it were not altered in any way. This was
the famous "Vienna Note" which attracted so much attention, and raised so
many hopes in the summer of 1853. But while Austria and the other Powers
had consulted Russia and learnt her views, they had forgotten Turkey,
for whose benefit the thing was supposed to be devised. They had not
ascertained whether Turkey would or could sign it, and, indeed, in framing
it, the Powers seemed more anxious to devise a form of words satisfactory
to the Czar than safe in the eyes of the Sultan. And so, when it reached
Constantinople, although backed by strong advices from all the Powers,
and not least by England, the Porte declined to sign it, except in an
amended form, which Lord Stratford de Redcliffe drew up, and to which the
representatives of the Four Powers at the Porte agreed. The note, indeed,
was found to confer rights on Russia almost as extensive as those she
claimed through Prince Menschikoff. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, although
he saw this, scrupulously executed the instructions of his Government,
and pressed the note on the Porte. But the Sultan, the Ministers, and the
Grand Council were firm. After much deliberation, the Grand Council, of
sixty members, comprising the most distinguished statesmen of the capital,
adopted a form of note embodying their views, but rather deferring to
the plan suggested at Vienna. "If the decision," wrote Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe, on the 20th of August, "does not completely represent the
feeling of this country, it only fails in being framed with too much
forbearance and moderation."

The news that the Porte would not sign the note, except in a modified
form, vexed both Austria and England. Count Buol was chagrined, Lord
Clarendon was angry. What the Four Powers most interested in preserving
Turkish independence regarded as securing that independence, was surely,
they said, a form of words which the Sultan might accept. They did not
object to the changes made in the note as unreasonable in themselves--M.
Drouyn de Lhuys, indeed, thought they were decided improvements--but they
objected to them as unnecessary. The Four Powers would have assented to
the interpretation put upon the note by the Porte, and Lord Clarendon had
no doubt that Russia would have agreed with the Four Powers. But the Porte
seemed to desire war, and had certainly made peace more difficult by the
course it had pursued. In short, the friends of the Sultan were very angry
with him for exercising his undoubted right, and looking sharply after his
own independence. But if the Powers were angry, the Czar was enraged. He
was beside himself when he thought on the fact that the Porte had refused
what he had accepted. He would not at first discuss the modifications
themselves. He would not think about them. What he objected to was, "any
alteration--to the principle of alteration, to the fact of the Porte
having done that which, out of regard to the wishes of the Allied Powers,
his Imperial Majesty had refrained from doing." Count Nesselrode expressed
his master's views with such asperity as polite diplomatists permit
themselves to indulge in. If the Turks, he said, had had "the faintest
perception of their own interests, they ought to have clutched at the
note with both hands. That which the Emperor received without change or
hesitation in the course of twenty-four hours, should unquestionably have
been received by the Turks with the same expedition." The Emperor again
saw in this defeat the hand of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and felt sure
that the Turks had not been "made sufficiently sensible" of the dangers
they incurred. The Emperor would concede no more. "Concession had reached
its term." Further, a memorandum of Count Nesselrode's to his master was
allowed to find its way into a Prussian paper, from which it appeared that
the Czar placed an entirely different interpretation on the note to its
authors'.

Nothing shows more clearly how far, although still professing identical
views, the German Powers were separated from England and France, than the
fact that Count Buol and Baron Manteuffel, after they were aware of the
interpretation put on it by Russia, moved by the emphatic language of
Count Nesselrode, did once more urge the Porte to sign the original note,
and thus to sign away its independence. Far from being in real concert in
August, they were less in concert with the Western Powers in the middle of
September. The only Power which acted straight through with Britain was
France, and the only divergence of policy apparent was this--the French
Government did not seem to think the pace of the alliance fast enough, and
were constantly urging the transmission of orders to the admirals to enter
the Dardanelles. The plea was that the anchorage at Besika was unsafe.
But this was seen to be absurd, and twice Lord Clarendon resisted the
appeals sent by Louis Napoleon with the view of forcing the fleets upon
the Sultan, and depriving Lord Stratford de Redcliffe of any discretion
in the matter. This occurred during the negotiations on the new aspect
imparted to affairs by the Russian acceptance and the Turkish rejection
of the note. The German Powers, knowing what was the interpretation put
upon the note by Russia, persisted in pressing it upon the Sultan. The
Western Powers, always more respectful to Turkey, would not take part
in this move: indeed, they could not do so. Count Nesselrode's comments
on the modified note, showing that the Emperor of Russia did desire to
seek new rights and extended power in Turkey, had proved to Britain and
France that the apprehensions of the Porte, so far from being groundless,
were justified by the Russian construction. Instead of asking the
Porte, as they were disposed to do before they were in possession of the
Russian views, to reconsider its decision, they now asked the Emperor
to reconsider his. Austria, on the contrary, declared that if the Porte
again disregarded her counsels, she should consider her efforts to effect
a reconciliation at an end: further, that if Britain and France would
not support her in this step, there would be an end to the conference at
Vienna. In this opinion Britain and France agreed, and the conference at
Vienna came to an end accordingly. The German Powers went one way, the
Western Powers another; both professed to be hastening towards the same
goal, but the German Powers went astray, whereas the Western Powers kept
in the straight path. The secret of this was the personal ascendency which
the Czar exercised over the German Courts, and which diverted them from
their true course on the Eastern Question.

It may here be proper to describe in more detail the Vienna Note, on the
terms of which, and on its modification, and the circumstances attending
and following both, the preservation of peace depended. This note began by
setting forth the desire of the Sultan to re-establish friendly relations
between himself and the Czar; and then went on to state the terms of the
proposed compromise. A difference arose on the first practical clause. As
worded at Vienna, the note implied that immunities and privileges of the
Orthodox Church existed as something independent of the Sultan's will,
and declared that the Sultans had never refused to confirm them by solemn
acts. The Turks could not subscribe to this. It was not historically
true. It impeached the sovereign power of the Sultan. It implied that
the Czar was protector by right of the Greek Church. Accordingly, the
Porte, in modifying the note, took care to use words showing that these
immunities and privileges had been "granted spontaneously," and confirmed
spontaneously from time to time by the Sultans. This was the first
amendment. The second practical clause, the origin of which was referred
to the complaints of Prince Menschikoff, needed other corrections. The
Vienna Note made the Sultan say that he would remain faithful "to the
letter and spirit of the Treaties of Kainardji and Adrianople, relative
to the protection of the Christian religion." Here was established an
active protectorate. Now the Treaty of Kainardji applied only to one
church in existence, and to one that was to be built, and gave Russia
no rights to protect the Christian religion. This clause in the note
would then have actually given an extension to that treaty. The Porte
demurred, and rightly, modifying the clause by undertaking to remain
faithful "to the stipulations of the Treaty of Kainardji, confirmed by
that of Adrianople, relative to the protection by the Sublime Porte of the
Christian religion." No one who knows the meaning of words can fail to see
the practical distinction existing between the two forms of expression.
In the Vienna Note the Sultan was made to declare that he would cause the
Greek rite to share in the advantages granted to other Christian rites
by convention or special arrangement. The Porte substituted the words,
"granted or which might be granted to the other communities, Ottoman
subjects," for the last words of the note. This was also an important and
a needful change. Under various treaties Austria enjoyed large rights of
interference respecting the Roman Catholic subjects of the Sultan. The
terms of the original note would have conferred similar rights on Russia.
"Such a concession," wrote Lord Stratford de Redcliffe on the 20th of
August, "when practically claimed by Russia, would leave her nothing to
desire as to the means of exercising a powerful influence on all the
concerns of the Greek clergy, and interfering even on behalf of the Greek
laity, subjects of the Porte.... Confined to Austria, the privilege in
question may be exercised with little inconvenience to the Porte; but
in the hands of Russia, applicable to twelve millions of the Sultan's
tributary subjects, the same right becomes a natural object of suspicion
and well-founded apprehension." In fact the original Vienna Note was as
huge a diplomatic blunder as could possibly have been devised; Count
Nesselrode's comments confirmed the view taken of it by the astute Turks;
and combined with the temper displayed by Russia, convinced Britain and
France that they had been flagrantly in the wrong when they assented to
Count Buol's note and pressed its acceptance on the Porte.

There was, indeed, a peace party in the British Cabinet, prominent among
whom was Lord Aberdeen, who still urged that the discrepancies in the two
drafts were immaterial, and that the note in its original form might well
be pressed on the Porte. They were, however, overruled by the advocates of
a bolder policy, of whom Lord Palmerston was the most prominent, backed up
by Lord John Russell, who, dissatisfied with his subordinate position, was
in a discontented and captious frame of mind. In fact, the Cabinet became
disunited on more than one question. Lord John Russell was pledged to
introduce a Reform Bill, and Lord Palmerston, who disliked the re-opening
of the question particularly in a time of foreign complications, resigned.
He was induced to withdraw his resignation, but the breach thus made was
not easily healed.

[Illustration: OMAR PASHA.]

In the middle of September matters had come to a crisis. On the 22nd
news arrived at Paris, in the shape of a telegraphic despatch from M. de
la Cour, stating that the Porte was apprehensive of a "catastrophe," in
consequence of the excitement among the Turkish population. The lives and
properties of Europeans, and even the throne of the Sultan, were, in the
opinion of the Grand Vizier, in danger. M. de la Cour also reported that
he and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, in order to afford protection to the
Europeans, had ordered up four steamers from Besika Bay. This was very
vague and indefinite news. It was alarming, because it was indefinite.
No account of the affair was sent by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe; and
the British Government, to whom the news was reported, were compelled
to rely upon the view of M. de la Cour. What should they do? The French
Government, always eager for a movement of the fleet, at once proposed
that in addition to the four steamers the whole of the united fleet
should be directed to proceed to Constantinople. Count Walewski was
instructed to request from Lord Clarendon an immediate decision, and was
further to state that the Emperor's Government regarded the advance of
the fleets as "indispensably necessary." The British Government agreed
"without hesitation" to a course which Lord Palmerston had been urging
for weeks, and orders went out at once from both capitals to Admiral
Dundas and Admiral Hamelin. This was undoubtedly a serious step, as by
the treaty of 1841 the Powers were prohibited from sending fleets within
the Bosphorus in time of peace. Had the Government waited for the usual
despatches of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, they would have seen that the
danger reported by M. de la Cour disappeared very rapidly, and that Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, in describing the circumstances, took a cooler
view of the dangers and did not even suggest the advance of the fleet. It
may be doubted whether the British Government did not act with as much
precipitation as M. de la Cour. For it cannot be denied that this fresh
move of the fleet--a move so decisive, so completely pledging the two
Powers to the defence of Turkey, and so irritating to Russia--lessened the
chances of peace, if any were remaining.

At this time there were two contemporaneous sets of incidents going on
which influenced largely the course of events. The scene of the one set
was Olmütz; that of the other, Constantinople. Throughout the summer the
Czar had not neglected to court the German Powers of all dimensions. At
some of the smaller Courts his influence was supreme. At the larger,
after the first shock occasioned by the discovery of Prince Menschikoff's
designs, he attempted to recover the ground lost, and did recover it in
a great degree. September afforded him an opportunity of exerting his
direct personal influence upon the Sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. The
Austrian Emperor, ambitious of military distinction, had assembled about
50,000 men in a camp at Olmütz, for purposes of field exercise on an
extensive scale. The Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia resolved
to be present on the occasion, not only to witness what they had seen
before--a fine military display--but to discuss the affairs of the East,
the Czar hoping to gain thereby. It was here that the Czar disclosed a new
plan of action. The Four Powers were to take upon themselves to transmit
to the Porte "a declaration founded upon assurances given by the Emperor
of Russia." Count Buol and Count Nesselrode drew up a draft of the note,
and sent it to the other Powers. This was a very notable document. The
Czar wished to make the Four Powers his sponsors at the Porte; and, in
fact, as Lord Cowley observed to M. Drouyn de Lhuys, convert the Four
Powers into the advocates of Russia. But it was open to more serious
objections. In the first place, its terms were ambiguous. In the second
place, its value, as far as it had any, was neutralised, if not quite
destroyed, by the famous interpretations placed by Count Nesselrode upon
the Vienna Note. The plan gave Russia the advantage of two documents,
contrary to each other, which she might use as she pleased. When the
project was submitted to the French Government the Emperor would not
decide what he would do. He thought it might be sent to the Porte; but he
could hardly recommend it, and he desired first to know the opinion of the
British Government. No one could be more careful than the Emperor Napoleon
not to commit himself to any course alone. The British Government decided
at once. They rejected the project, because in no circumstances would
they recommend the Porte to accept the Vienna Note; because it would be
useless, as the Turks would not accept it; because Count Nesselrode's
analysis of that note left no doubt that Russia intended through the note
to establish rights and influences she never before possessed in Turkey;
because "no settlement was possible by notes requiring explanations, and
accompanied by vague assurances." Thus this last Russian scheme fell
through, and Austria again, now siding with Russia, advised the Western
Powers to abandon Turkey. The fruit of the Czar's visit to the Emperor at
Olmütz was this further separation of Austria from the Western Powers.

For another incident had occurred during those momentous five days. It
was about the time when the conferences at Olmütz began, and when, at
the urgent request of the French Government, Britain agreed to issue
orders for the fleets to enter the Dardanelles--that is, about the 23rd
of September--that the Porte learnt the refusal of Russia to accept the
modifications of the Vienna Note. The Sultan could bear the suspense no
longer. Notwithstanding the advice of the envoys of the Four Powers, he
summoned his Grand Council to meet on the 25th and 26th and determine
the question of peace or war. Hearing this, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
made a last effort to prevent war. He begged Reschid Pasha to prevail on
the Council, whatever might be its decision, to allow time for one more
appeal to the Four Powers, on the basis of their concurring in the Porte's
interpretation of the Note. It was in vain. The Porte saw no safety
but in war. The Council met. One hundred and seventy-two distinguished
Turks obeyed the summons of the Sultan, and unanimously agreed, on
their first meeting, that the Vienna Note could be by no means accepted
without modifications; and at their second, they adopted a report to the
Sultan, recommending that Omar Pasha should be directed to summon Prince
Gortschakoff to quit the Principalities within fifteen days from the
receipt of the summons, that a refusal should be regarded as a declaration
of war, and that thereupon war should be declared. Within three days the
Sultan assented to the report, and the necessary instruments for executing
the measures resolved on were prepared by the 4th of October. A form of
summons was forwarded the next day to Omar Pasha, a manifesto to the
Empire was issued, and a formal appeal for aid was sent to the Western
Powers. Thus the irrevocable step was taken, and war was certain.

There was scant time for further negotiations. Nevertheless, although
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe regarded the chance of averting war as
hopeless, so desirous was he of preserving peace that he proposed another
mode of extricating all parties from their difficulties. It embraced
the alternative of a new note or arbitration. But although looked upon
favourably in England, the Austrian Government would not take it into
consideration. As the Cabinets of London and Paris, said Count Buol, had
not thought proper to support the Austrian plan--that is, the Czar's
astute scheme--the Austrian Government could not support Lord Stratford
de Redcliffe's plan, especially at a moment when the Porte was declaring
war against Russia. There was, for the time, an apparent breakdown in the
whole diplomatic machinery; but nevertheless the British Cabinet still
persevered in the work of framing notes, and Austria and Prussia did not
fail to give advice which could not be accepted, while Russia and Turkey
prepared for war.

At this period the conduct of the Turks made a favourable impression
on Europe. The manifesto of the Sultan was sensible and temperate, and
still left open a door to negotiations. A spirit of self-devotion,
unaccompanied by fanatical demonstrations, showed itself among the highest
functionaries of the State. The Ulemas offered a large sum of money, and
the Sultan, with reluctance, gave consent to the raising of a loan. The
Egyptian Viceroy prepared to send ships and troops; the Grand Vizier and
the leading Ministers gave many horses for the service of the artillery;
men were forthcoming, and troops were constantly on the march for the
Danube and the Georgian frontier. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, taking a
comprehensive view of the merits of the quarrel, and of the interests at
stake, justified the Turks in having recourse to arms. "Having," he wrote
on the 28th of September, "witnessed the whole course of pretension and
intimidation to which the Sultan and his Ministers have been subjected,
and the conciliatory though firm consistency with which so many vexatious
proceedings have been met, I may be allowed, while lamenting the necessity
for war, to admire the gallant and orderly spirit which has prevailed,
with slight exceptions, in all the proceedings of this Government." On the
9th of October the summons of Omar Pasha reached Prince Gortschakoff at
Bucharest; and on the 10th he answered that he was not empowered to treat
of peace or war, or the evacuation of the Principalities. This reply the
Porte considered as constituting a state of war. The Anglo-French fleet
was in the Dardanelles, and the admirals had instructions to defend the
territory of the Sultan, but their power to operate in the Black Sea was
limited. The Western Powers were as yet committed only to a policy of
resisting any aggression of Russia. The German Powers declared themselves
neutral, and Austria, deeply interested in the issue, assumed for herself
the character of mediator.

The first anxiety of the British Cabinet when they learnt that the Sultan
had determined on war, was to prevent the outbreak of actual hostilities.
But this was no easy task, though the Russians professed moderation. On
the 14th of October, Count Nesselrode, in these words, described the then
position of his country:--"War," he said, "has been declared against us
by Turkey; we shall, in all probability, issue no counter-declaration,
nor shall we make any attack upon Turkey; we shall remain with folded
arms, only resolved to repel any assault made upon us, whether in the
Principalities or on our Asiatic frontier, which we have been reinforcing;
so we shall remain during the winter, ready to receive any peaceful
overtures which, during that time, may be made to us by Turkey: that is
our position." On no account would he take the first step. That, Turkey
must do. But if Austria thought she could induce the Turks to take it,
and the Maritime Powers to accept an Austrian proposition, Austria might
proceed. Acting on this suggestion, and finding the British Cabinet eager
to negotiate once more, Count Buol renewed the lapsed conference at
Vienna. But while these industrious diplomatists were engaged in their
work, and had even prepared bases of negotiation which were formally
embodied in a protocol, to which the Porte agreed, events had occurred,
followed by acts on the part of the Western Powers, which helped to
frustrate their benevolent designs, and put an end, for a time, to their
abounding use of the pen. The Turks had won victories; the Russians had
exacted vengeance; the Western Powers had determined to occupy the Black
Sea.

As soon as the fifteen days of grace accorded by the Porte to Prince
Gortschakoff had expired, and while Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was
urging the Sultan to defer hostilities, Omar Pasha began the war. Drawing
together large forces at points so widely separated as Widin and Turtukai,
a place between Rustchuk and Silistria, he resolved to pass the Danube
in two columns, with the apparent design of marching on Bucharest, where
Prince Gortschakoff had his headquarters. On the 28th of October the Turks
threw a large body of men over the Danube at Widin, and occupied Kalafat,
which they at once entrenched and armed with heavy guns. This secured
them a passage over the river on the flank of Prince Gortschakoff's line
of occupation, and it diverted attention for a moment from operations at
Turtukai. It was here that the Turks obtained their first success in the
campaign, and startled Europe and enraged the Czar by beating his troops
at Oltenitza. During eleven days Omar Pasha held his ground. Diplomacy
forbade him to advance, and perhaps it was as veil for him that it did.
Prince Gortschakoff came down with the largest force he could collect;
but he did not venture to make an attack on the strong Turkish lines.
Rain, however, descended, and the Danube, and the island, and low left
bank became flooded and unhealthy; and Omar Pasha, without being molested,
withdrew his guns and his troops to Turtukai. At the same time a small
force which had crossed from Silistria, repassed the river; but Omar
Pasha knew too well the value of his entrenched camp at Kalafat to give
up that also. On the contrary, he reinforced the garrison, and left that
thorn sticking in the side of the Czar. He also held several islands in
the Danube, and jealously watched the enemy from the Dobrudscha; but his
main army he put into winter quarters. Both sides were suffering from
the sickness incident to all campaigns, and more especially to winter
campaigns, and it is probable that at this time fully one-tenth of the
troops on each side were non-effective. Nevertheless, in January, Omar
Pasha won a further advantage at Zetati. The effect of the operations of
the Turks on the Czar was immediate. He ordered the troops of Osten-Sacken
and Lüders to march towards the Principalities; but their divisions did
not arrive until the end of December.

Nor was his activity confined to the valley of the Danube. He determined
to show his strength in the Black Sea. The Turks had been active on the
Armenian frontier, and had greatly harassed the Russian outposts, but
without obtaining any marked success. Schamyl was also spurred forward by
the calamities which had befallen his old foe; and hence it was resolved
to increase the army in the Caucasus and in the Transcaucasian countries
to 180,000 men. The Czar seems to have believed that the Turks were
reinforcing their posts on the shores of Anatolia, and sending arms and
ammunition to the Circassian tribes. This he resolved to prevent. He was
anxious, also, to strike some blow at sea which should hurt the Turks;
and thus in November the Sebastopol fleet went forth to scour the Euxine.
The Turks were indeed imprudently eager to employ their fleet. Before
the allied squadrons had entered the Bosphorus, the Turkish Ministers
ordered four line-of-battle ships and ten frigates to enter the Black Sea.
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe becoming aware of this, set about preventing
it, and he caused the Porte to be informed that until the enterprise was
abandoned he would not order up the remainder of the allied squadron. He
would not, he said, be drawn into the wake of the Porte; and he caused
Reschid Pasha to be told that, if he wanted the support of the Allies,
he must be content to respect their opinions. The Turkish Ministers
appeared to comply with his earnest request, but in reality they left a
light squadron between the Bosphorus and Trebizond, and hence it happened
that, while the allied fleets were in Beikos Bay, ready at any moment to
move into the Black Sea, the Russians were able to fall upon the Turks at
Sinope.

The Russian squadron went out from Sebastopol about the middle of
November, steering for the Asiatic coast, and so disposed as to intercept
any Turkish ship proceeding from Constantinople to Trebizond or Batoum.
On the 20th they captured a Turkish war steamer, and one or more Turkish
merchant ships. The news of these captures reached Sinope, where a Turkish
squadron lay, and its commander for a moment indulged in the notion
that he would go out and fight the Russians. Better counsels, however,
prevailed, and he remained in port. On the 23rd the enemy's fleet, seven
sail of the line and two steamers, hove in sight ten miles from Sinope;
and the next day part of this squadron looked in at the Turks, but did
not attack. From the manner of their proceeding, it might be judged that
the admiral doubted whether he should attack, and that before doing so
he obtained some order from Prince Menschikoff at Odessa. Such was the
case. The British Consul at Samsoun, and the Turkish admiral, sent off
news of the presence of the hostile squadron to Constantinople, but it
did not reach the Porte in time to prevent the calamity which followed.
On the 29th Nachimoff had received his orders, and had rallied the
whole of his squadron. On the 30th, while the Porte and the ambassadors
were consulting, Admiral Nachimoff sailed into the port of Sinope, and
signalled the Ottoman squadron to surrender. The superiority of the
Russian force would have justified compliance, but the Turks answered
the summons by opening fire. Thereupon the Russians ranged up, and
firing shot and shell, not only into the ships but into the town, soon
set both on fire. The seven poor Turkish frigates and three corvettes,
whose heaviest guns were only twenty-six pounders, were no match for the
line-of-battle ships which poured in broadside after broadside of heavy
shot and Paixhan shells. Nearly 4,000 men had perished! One steamer
alone escaped and fled to Constantinople. Having completed the task of
devastation, and repaired damages, the Russian fleet sailed back to
Sebastopol.

[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN ATTACK ON SINOPE. (_See p._ 28.)]

It would be difficult now to make the reader feel what the people of
Britain felt when, a fortnight after it occurred, they received the news
of this disaster. They asked for what purpose fleets had been sent to
Constantinople if not for the purpose of protecting the Turks. They asked
why Ministers continued, and had continued, to rely upon the equivocal
language of the Czar, and they met with derision the assurance of the
Government that, after the Ottoman squadron had been crushed by a force
of ten times its strength, the allied fleets had entered the Black Sea.
The fact is that the public, in its eagerness to punish Russia, saw more
clearly than the Ministers. The prevailing sentiments in London and in
the embassies at Constantinople were indignation at the bad faith and
violence of Russia, and an almost morbid longing to preserve the peace.
It was the latter sentiment which made Lord Stratford de Redcliffe slow
to send the fleets into the Black Sea. He and his Government were afraid
that some conflict would break the finely spun web of peace negotiations
which they thought promised so fairly, and which, if they failed, would at
least put the Czar utterly in the wrong. Then the French admiral raised
objections and expressed doubts whether his instructions warranted him in
running the risk of an encounter; and the British Ambassador would not
send British ships alone into the Euxine, fearing it might produce a bad
political effect. More than this, supposing the assurance of the Czar that
he would not attack applied to the sea as well as the land, the case did
not seem urgent; and above all there appears to have been a real ignorance
of the fact that there was an exposed Turkish squadron in the Euxine. And,
after all, the fleets would have been ordered out, had not Admiral Hamelin
declined to employ his ships on the weak plea that he could dispose of
fewer than Admiral Dundas. These considerations only palliate, but do not
excuse, the conduct of the Allies in refraining from taking at an earlier
period a decided course.

When the mischief was done they did not fail to adopt the most severe
measures. The French were the first to move. On the 15th of December M.
Drouyn de Lhuys wrote a despatch which reached Lord Clarendon the next
day. In this, after showing that Russia had given out that she would take
the offensive "in no quarter," and how her action had falsified that
assurance, he proposed that Admiral Dundas and Admiral Hamelin should
declare to the Russian admirals, that every Russian ship met at sea by
the Allies should thenceforward be "invited" to return to Sebastopol,
and that every subsequent act of aggression should be repelled by force.
Lord Cowley was desired by the Emperor personally to urge this measure on
the Government, and convey to them a sense of his great disappointment
if the suggestion were not adopted. On the same day, and before he
received Lord Cowley's letter, Lord Clarendon wrote to Lord Stratford de
Redcliffe, informing him that the most effectual means should be taken
to guard against a disaster similar to that of Sinope. He had no doubt,
he said, that the combined fleets had entered the Black Sea. "Special
instructions," he wrote, "as to the manner in which they should act do not
appear to be necessary. We have undertaken to defend the territory of the
Sultan from aggression, and that engagement must be fulfilled." On the
24th of December Lord Clarendon informed Lord Cowley that her Majesty's
Government agreed to the French proposal. It was not until the 27th that
he sent the formal instructions to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, directing
him to inform the Russian admiral of the determination arrived at by
France and Britain. It was not until the same day that Lord Clarendon
instructed Sir Hamilton Seymour to make known to Count Nesselrode the
nature of the orders sent to the East, orders issued with "no hostile
design against Russia," but rendered imperative by Russian acts. Russia
was not to mistake forbearance for indifference, nor calculate on any
want of firmness in the execution of a policy having for its object the
maintenance of the independence and integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

Was it judicious at a moment when the last attempt to obtain peace by
negotiation was making progress, to send the fleet into the Black Sea,
and to send it with such orders? It may be said that this course was
injudicious. The Porte had agreed to terms of peace; the Conference
had signed these terms; they were sent by a special Minister to St.
Petersburg, and arrived on the very day on which the resolution of the
Western Powers was communicated to Count Nesselrode. How could the
Western Powers hope that these terms would be accepted at a time when
they had almost made war upon Russia? The demand for explanations was
made in London on the 23rd, and in Paris on the 24th of January, 1854.
Baron Brunnow placed in the hands of Lord Clarendon a despatch from
Count Nesselrode, in which the Chancellor vindicated the conduct of the
Russian fleet at Sinope, and declared that Russia could not look upon the
exclusion of her flag from the Black Sea in any other light than that of
a violence offered to her belligerent rights. He protested against the
notification, and refused to admit its legality. Baron Brunnow asked, in
writing, whether it was intended to establish a system of reciprocity
in the Black Sea--that is, whether Russian ships as well as Ottoman
ships were to be allowed to keep up communication with their respective
coasts? Lord Clarendon, in answer, while professing peaceful sentiments,
re-stated, in precise terms, the order given to clear the Black Sea of the
Russian flag. But while striving for peace, England would not shrink from
the duty imposed on her by Russia. In a letter written on the same day to
Sir Hamilton Seymour, Lord Clarendon branded the Czar as "the disturber
of the general peace," and traced to his unprovoked conduct all the
evil consequences that had already ensued. On the 4th of February Baron
Brunnow, firing a parting shot, announced his departure; and, on the 7th,
Sir Hamilton Seymour was directed to quit St. Petersburg. The same scenes
had been enacted in Paris. M. de Kisseleff departed, and M. de Castelbajac
was recalled. Whatever may have been the feelings of the French people,
the British nation openly expressed its joy that the season of suspense
was over.

At this time the Emperor of the French had taken a remarkable step on
his own account, and without consulting his allies. He wrote a letter
himself to the Emperor Nicholas, in the hope of averting the dangers
which menaced the peace of Europe. It was dated January 29th, five days
after M. de Kisseleff had demanded explanations, but before that envoy
had announced his determination to quit Paris. The Emperor Napoleon
began his letter, "Sire"--not "Sire, my brother," the usual form--for
Nicholas had never addressed him in the usual form. He ended it by styling
himself his Majesty's "good friend," and good friend was long a cant
name at St. Petersburg for the Emperor Napoleon. In this extraordinary
Imperial missive the French Emperor coolly recapitulated the history of
the Eastern Question, not from the beginning, but from the time of the
Menschikoff mission; and he told it in a manner showing, and intended to
show, that the Emperor Nicholas had by his acts caused the Maritime Powers
to adopt what Russia called a system of pressure; but what the Emperor
Napoleon said was a system "protecting, but passive." It was the Czar,
he said, who, by invading the Principalities, took the question out of
the domain of discussion into that of facts. Now, there must be a prompt
understanding or a decisive rupture. He offered the Czar peace or war. Let
him sign an armistice, and let all the belligerents' forces be withdrawn.
Then he politely told the Czar, in direct terms, that, as he desired, he
"should" send a plenipotentiary to negotiate with a plenipotentiary of the
Sultan, respecting a convention to be submitted to the Four Powers. The
letter drew from the Czar a haughty and brief reply.

The diplomatists still talked of peace, and gossipped over schemes of
accommodation; but the Governments of the West and North prepared for
inevitable war. The Western Powers entered upon an intimate alliance;
Sir John Burgoyne and Colonel Ardent were sent on a military mission to
Turkey, and in the middle of February it was notified to the Porte that
Britain and France would send a considerable force to Constantinople.
Greece, which showed a disposition, and more than a disposition, to take
sides actively with the Czar, was told, in so many words, to choose
between the goodwill of France and Britain, and the blockade of Athens.
Servia, where Russian agents invoked the spirit of disaffection, was
warned to be upon her good behaviour. Austria and Prussia were implored to
adopt a bolder policy, and unite with the Maritime Powers. From his vast
resources the French Emperor proceeded to select a choice army, taking by
preference the picked troops which had been seasoned in Algerian warfare;
and Britain, with smaller means, laid hands on whatever regiments were
nearest. The fleet was not forgotten, and seamen were rapidly raised to
man a squadron for service at the earliest moment in the Baltic. Britain,
in fact, grown rusty during a long peace, was ill-prepared for the work
she had undertaken. Neither her military nor her naval establishments
were up to the exigencies of war; while her administration was a painful
chaos of routine and contradiction. But her energy and goodwill were never
doubtful, and with a steadfast heart, but unready hand, she plunged into a
war with that Northern Empire which boasted of its destiny to control the
fortunes of the East of Europe by land and sea.

[Illustration: GATCHINA PALACE, ST. PETERSBURG.]

It was now the policy of Russia to watch the moves of the Western Powers.
She would not declare war, flattering herself she would thereby escape
the responsibility of that momentous decision. Accordingly she held her
peace. Before declaring war, the Western Powers had recourse to one more
step--a step which can be hardly termed peaceful, but one which placed
them in the right, and showed Russia in the wrong. They determined to
summon Russia to evacuate the Principalities within a given time, and they
spared no pains to induce Austria and Prussia to support the summons,
though, somewhat rashly, they did not await their reply. Eventually these
two Powers agreed to support the summons at St. Petersburg, but Prussia
expressly declined to undertake to enforce it if refused, and Austria,
after much shilly-shally, reserved her liberty of action. The summons
was entrusted to a special messenger, who was to pass through Vienna and
Berlin. This document declared, in effect, that unless Russia ordered
Prince Gortschakoff to retire from the Principalities at once, and to
complete the evacuation by the 30th of April, Britain and France would
consider her refusal equivalent to a declaration of war. The bearer was
told to wait at St. Petersburg six days for an answer, and no longer.
Captain Blackwood carried this stringent demand. He arrived at Vienna
just as fresh proposals for peace reached Count Buol from St. Petersburg,
the last effort to detach Austria. Captain Blackwood was detained a few
hours while the Conference at Vienna examined these proposals, and while
the ambassadors informed their Governments, by telegraph, of this new
incident, and requested instructions. These Russian proposals were found
to be as objectionable as ever. Except that Russia ceased to require
that a Turkish Minister should be sent to St. Petersburg, "it was that
same old story," of which even diplomatists had become thoroughly weary.
So the Conference, having duly examined the document, and having found
it utterly inadmissible, recorded the fact after the solemn fashions of
diplomacy; and messenger Blackwood, with his summons and its supporting
despatches, jumped into the train and started for the North. He arrived at
St. Petersburg on the morning of the 13th of March, and Consul Michele,
in charge of British interests, at once sent to the French consul and the
Austrian legate the packets brought for them. On the 14th Mr. Michele and
M. de Castillon waited on Count Nesselrode, who, however, declined to see
them together, and called for the British consul. The interview was short.
The summons was duly delivered, and the positive instructions to the
messenger to return in six days were made known. The Emperor was then in
Finland, whence he did not arrive until the 17th; and it was not until the
19th, the last day of grace, that Count Nesselrode requested Mr. Michele
to wait on him for an answer. "On entering the room," writes the consul,
"his Excellency's greeting was of the most friendly description. He said,
'I have taken his Majesty's commands with reference to Lord Clarendon's
note, and the Emperor does not think it becoming to make any reply to it.'"

[Illustration: PEERS AND COMMONERS PRESENTING THE PATRIOTIC ADDRESS TO THE
QUEEN ON THE EVE OF THE CRIMEAN WAR. (_See p._ 34.)]

The Western Powers having had no misgivings respecting the nature of the
reply their summons would receive, had accelerated their preparations for
war. Before the summons was in the hands of Count Nesselrode, the British
fleet intended for the Baltic had steamed out from Portsmouth, in the
presence of Queen Victoria. This took place on the 11th of March, when
her Majesty witnessed the departure of sixteen steamers, subsequently
augmented to forty-four ships, of which only six were sailers. The whole,
under the command of Sir Charles Napier, mounted 2,200 guns, and were
manned by 22,000 men. Three battalions of the Guards and several regiments
of the line had already embarked for Malta, and cavalry and infantry were
in course of rapid preparation. At the same time the French Government
began to collect troops at Toulon and Marseilles, and in Algeria. The
Commanders-in-Chief of both armies were appointed--Lord Raglan for
Britain, and Marshal St. Arnaud for France. The first had been the comrade
and friend of Lord Wellington, the second was a soldier of Algerian
growth, and Minister of War on the 2nd of December, 1851.

While the British courier was on his way from St. Petersburg with the
contemptuous message of Nicholas to the British Government, an incident
occurred, both of which helped to stimulate the indignation of England.
The _Journal of St. Petersburg_ thought fit to reply to some sharp
language about disturbers of the peace, used by Lord John Russell in
the House of Commons, by charging the British Government with having
stated what was not true when they said Russia had deceived Europe,
and, with incredible audacity, referring, for proof of its statement,
to the secret communications which took place between the Czar and the
Queen's Government in 1853. Lord Derby at once seized the occasion to
assail the Government and demand the production of the correspondence;
and Lord Aberdeen remarked that since Russia had shown no reluctance to
disclose its character, her Majesty's Government had none, and the whole
should come out. And come out accordingly it did, producing effects quite
different from those expected by Russia. Instead of blowing the Ministers
out of their offices and branding them with discredit, the mine, sprung
by the Czar himself, spent its force upon him, and the very means he took
to support the British peace party not only recruited the war party, but
filled all men with a righteous anger.

Thus the flames kindled by the pride of the Czar and the ambition of his
Western rival, grew fiercer, and began to burn with astonishing power and
intensity. Nothing was wanting to war but the formal declaration; and
this was not wanting long. Captain Blackwood had landed with the Czar's
negative defiance. On the 27th of March the Queen sent down a royal
message to Parliament, stating that all the endeavours of her Government
to preserve the peace had failed, and that she relied on the zeal of her
Parliament to support her in protecting the dominions of the Sultan from
Russian encroachments. On the 28th war was declared, and on the 31st
both Houses agreed to an Address, recording the aggressions of Russia,
and expressing a firm determination to resist them. On the 3rd of April
a very large body of peers of all parties, and three hundred members of
the House of Commons, headed by the Speaker, presented the Addresses in
answer to the royal message, to her Majesty at Buckingham Palace, who,
seated on her throne, with Prince Albert on the one hand, and the Prince
of Wales on the other, received these genuine representatives of the
spirit and determination of her whole people. On the day that war was
declared the British fleet anchored in the bay of Kiel. On the 11th of
April the Czar published his declaration of war, in which he again, in a
strain of religious exaltation, declared that Russia took up arms for no
worldly interests, but for "the Christian faith, for the defence of her
co-religionists oppressed by implacable enemies." "It is for the Faith and
for Christendom that we combat! God with us--who against us?"




CHAPTER III.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Attitude of the German Powers--The Lines at Boulair--The Campaign
    on the Danube--The Siege of Silistria--It is raised--Evacuation of
    the Principalities--The British Fleet in the Black Sea--Arrival
    of the Allied Armies--A Council of War--The Movement on
    Varna--Unhealthiness of the Camp--An Attack on the Crimea
    resolved on--Doubts of the Military Authorities--Despatch to Lord
    Raglan--Lord Lyndhurst's Speech--Raglan's reluctant Assent--The
    Expedition sails--Debarkation in the Crimea--Forays of the French
    Troops--Composition of the Allied Armies--The Start--The first
    Skirmish--St. Arnaud's Plan--Slowness of the British--Battle of the
    Alma--Menschikotf's Position--The Disposal of his Troops--Final
    Arrangements of the Allies--A British Blunder--Partial Failure of
    the French--The British Advance--Evans's Division--Exploits of
    Sir George Brown--Lord Raglan on the Hill--The Duke of Cambridge
    hesitates--Attack of the Vladimirs--Crisis of the Battle--Final
    Advance of the Allies--St. Arnaud declines to pursue.


Thus by a series of complex events, beginning in 1850 with the restless
interference of the French, met with corresponding readiness by Russia,
who, out of a political quarrel with the French Emperor, developed a large
and aggressive design against Turkish independence--a series of events
which culminated in 1854--the Czar found himself at war, not with Turkey
only, but with France and Britain. And what was the attitude of the German
Powers, whose arms and influence should have exercised so great a pressure
in this quarrel? The offence committed by Nicholas was an offence not only
against Turkey, but against Europe. By Europe, no doubt, it should have
been met and defeated, and the common disturber should have been punished,
if need were, by the common force. But, although Britain and France
were prompt in pledging themselves to meet force by force, the German
Powers would not pledge themselves to more than the meeting of force by
diplomacy. The concert was incomplete. Austria was more willing than
Prussia to adopt strong measures; but Austria did not do more than take up
a negative and neutral position during the winter and spring of 1853-4.
Yet she could not evade the danger which grew every day; and, therefore,
on the 9th of April, Austria--Prussia going with her so far--signed, in
common with the Western Powers, a protocol taking note of the existence
of war, and declaring that the summons addressed to Russia was "founded
on right;" that the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire was and
remained an essential condition of peace; that means should be found
of bringing that empire within the European system; and that the Four
Powers would not enter into any arrangement with Russia, or any other
Power, which did not accord with these principles, without previously
deliberating in common. So far there was union; but there was no union
in arms. Yet the very requirements of the protocol were those which, as
every fact had shown, Russia would not agree to without an application
of adequate force. A wide chasm separated the Western from the German
Powers--the gulf of war.

The Allies do not appear to have entered on the war with any very definite
notions. Britain and France formed an alliance together, and then allied
themselves with the Sultan. In defending the Sultan, they were to defend a
fundamental principle of European policy in the concrete, and they were to
take no advantage to themselves by the act. But their earlier notions were
limited even from the defensive point of view. They determined to secure
a line of retreat for their ships, and a base of operations from which,
in the event of the Turkish army being driven over the Balkan, they could
effectively defend Constantinople. At this time there was existent an
exaggerated dread of Russian power. The Czar was so strong, the Sultan so
weak, so men thought, that it was deemed possible the Russians might force
both the Danube and the Balkan by the rapid marches of an overwhelming
force, and thus confront the Sultan in his capital. To provide against
this, and also to cover their weakness, the Allies determined to land
their troops at Gallipoli at the mouth of the Dardanelles. Therefore, as
the allied troops began to arrive in March and April, they were employed
in throwing up entrenchments, known as the lines of Boulair, extending
from the Gulf of Saros to the Sea of Marmora. It was in the camps near
Gallipoli that the whole of the French and part of the British army were
organised for active service; but while they were assembling there,
the Turks were fighting so manfully on the Danube, and so effectually
thwarting Russia, that the lines became useless, and the Allies found it
needful to take post on the northern instead of the southern slopes of the
Balkans.

When it grew certain that war would ensue, the Emperor Nicholas reinforced
his army in the Principalities, and raised it to the strength of about
150,000 men, including an immense force of cavalry, and no fewer than 520
guns. Against this mass the Sultan could barely array a nominal force of
120,000 men, and a number of guns far inferior to that of his foe. The
bulk of the Russians were in Wallachia, posted in detachments from Kalafat
to Galatz. Their plan of operations was to concentrate a mass of troops
opposite Silistria, to hold in check the Turks at Kalafat, on one flank,
while on the other they invaded the Dobrudscha. It was then intended that
the main body should cross the Danube at Kalarasch, and joining the troops
coming up the river upon Silistria, invest and capture that fortress. This
done, they hoped to capture or mask Varna, and forcing Shumla, debouch
through the passes of the rugged Balkans upon the plains of Roumelia.
Marshal Prince Paskiewitch had been appointed to command the army, and
such is assumed to have been his plan of operations. But the plan was
essentially vicious. They could not fail to lose men in the pestiferous
Dobrudscha. So long as the Turks held Kalafat the Russians were never
secure on that flank. Then, assuming that they kept the Kalafat army at
bay, and even captured Silistria, it was in the highest degree improbable
that they could force Shumla, and impossible that they could take Varna,
so long as the allied fleets held the Black Sea. Nor were these the only
dangers incurred by the Czar. The plains of Wallachia lie between the
ridges of the Carpathians and the Danube. On their northern slopes Austria
was collecting a formidable army. Austria, though not resolved to fight,
was growing more menacing in her language and in her attitude. It was
true that she trammelled herself by a treaty with Prussia, laying down
the march of the Russians on the Balkans as a _casus belli_. But Russia
had no security that circumstances might not occur to produce a change in
Austrian councils, or that the very success of her preliminary movements
might not bring Austria to act. And if she acted, she would move across
the Russian line of communications, and the mere threat to do that would
almost ruin the Russian plan.

Nevertheless the first operations were successful, and on the 20th of
May Prince Paskiewitch crossed the Danube, and inspected the attack on
Silistria. He brought with him Prince Gortschakoff, who took the command
of the besieging force. It so happened that two Englishmen, Lieutenant
Butler and Lieutenant Nasmyth, travelling for pleasure, had entered
Silistria, and had volunteered to aid in the defence. They took their
posts in the advanced works, and their presence and bearing produced such
an effect on the Turks that the latter never thought of yielding, but
fought with a steadfastness and devotion equal to any troops in the world.
After the failure of the seventh and last assault the Russians began to
mine. By sap and mine they had taken the place in 1829. They fell back
upon the old methods. Unable to storm over the low rampart, they sought
to blow it up from below. Here again the British officers frustrated
them, for they caused the Turks to cut a fresh entrenchment in rear of
the first; and, if need were, another behind that, and then another, but
always, whatever happened, to stand fast and fight with them. The Turks
did as they were bidden, and their coolness under fire, and indifference
to danger, provoked the warm admiration of the British officers whose
confidence was so liberally repaid. And thus the siege went on.

The investment was so imperfect that General Cannon, an Englishman in
the service of the Porte, contrived to pass between the Russian covering
armies, and enter the place, to the great joy of the besieged. In the
meantime the enemy had come so close that a Turk dared not speak above a
whisper without drawing upon himself a Russian bullet. It is to a remark
in too loud a tone that the death of Lieutenant Butler is attributed. He
was speaking to General Cannon, when a Russian bullet, passing obliquely
through the earthwork, gave him a wound, of which he died. Shortly
afterwards General Cannon, obeying, it is supposed, an order, withdrew
from the fortress with the troops he had brought, and carried Lieutenant
Nasmyth with him, but left behind another British officer, Lieutenant
Ballard. The middle of June had now arrived. The siege had lasted five
weeks. The Russian army had lost thousands of men from disease as well as
wounds, yet, except that their works were close to those of the Turks,
nothing had been gained. They resolved to abandon the enterprise. On the
22nd of June they opened a tremendous fire on the place from all their
batteries. When daylight dawned on the 23rd the Turks became aware that
the trenches were tenantless, and soon saw that the bulk of the army had
repassed the bridge, and had encamped about Kalarasch. The siege was at
an end. A fortnight later a chance reconnaissance, which brought Omar
Pasha across the Danube at Giurgevo, induced Gortschakoff to attack him
with another army. But the Turks, supported by British gunboats, beat off
the Russians at every point, and Gortschakoff in despair evacuated the
Principalities. The object of the campaign was won.

[Illustration: ZOUAVES LOOTING A VILLAGE IN THE CRIMEA. (_See p_. 40.)]

The causes which led to this failure of the Russian arms were, first, the
shining valour and noble resolution of the Turkish soldiers, and, next,
the arrival of the Allies at Varna, the operations of their fleets in the
Black Sea, and the new position taken up by Austria. For Austria, eager
for the evacuation of the Principalities, had, on the 14th of June, while
yet the issue of the siege of Silistria was uncertain, made a separate
treaty with the Porte, whereby the Emperor engaged "to exhaust all the
means of negotiation, and all other means, to obtain the evacuation of the
Principalities" by the foreign army which occupied them. In other words,
Austria undertook to occupy the Principalities herself--an engagement
which, if the Russians did not withdraw, rendered it incumbent on Austria
to use force for their expulsion. It is easy to see that, unless the Czar
was ready to incur the hazards of a war with Austria, in addition to a
war with the Allies, this pressure put upon him, coming at the back of a
defeat before Silistria, and the gathering strength of Britain and France
ashore and afloat, would compel him to yield up the material guarantee
which he had so recklessly seized. And it did so. But now we must glance
at the incidents which preceded it in the Black Sea, and on the shores of
the Bosphorus and the Hellespont.

On the Black Sea the combined fleet had ridden triumphant. In a cruise of
twenty days they met no foe, but picked up prizes in considerable numbers.
One incident had occurred which added to the wrath and mortification of
the Czar. The _Furious_ was sent to Odessa to bring away the British
Consul. As her boat, bearing a flag of truce, was returning to the
ship, she was fired upon; and no satisfactory explanation being given,
Admirals Dundas and Hamelin appeared off Odessa on the 21st of April with
a combined squadron and demanded redress. General Osten-Sacken having
refused to grant any redress, the admirals sent in a steam squadron the
next morning and bombarded the war-port, but tried to spare the town. In
twelve hours they had blown up a powder-magazine, destroyed, by shot and
shell, a goodly number of ships, and many buildings containing stores. The
loss of the Allies was three killed and twelve wounded. After inflicting
this chastisement for a breach of the usages of war, the squadron cruised
off Sebastopol, but met no enemy; and on the 5th of May Sir Edmund Lyons
with a squadron steamed away for the Circassian coast, where his presence
caused the Russians to abandon all their forts, except those of Anapa and
Sujak Kaleh, lying at the northern end of the coast, near the straits of
Kertch. The Circassians took immediate advantage of this, and confined
the garrisons of the two forts within the walls; while the Turks occupied
Redut Kaleh and Sukhum Kaleh, in Mingrelia and Abasia.

During the spring the troops of the Allies gradually assembled in
the dominions of the Sultan; and in the month of March, and for many
subsequent months, the blue waters of the Mediterranean were ploughed by
the fleet of transports, under steam and sail, all bound eastward; while
the straits which divide Europe from Asia were almost as crowded as the
Thames. The pressing question at the beginning of May was to organise
the military machine; to put it into fighting and marching order; to
provide more for its future than its present wants; to lay up stores of
provisions and depôts of ammunition; and, above all, to gather together
the means of setting the military machine in motion when it was completed.
This was no easy task. The French, by habit, were better prepared for
war than the British, but the former found it difficult to give legs to
their transport corps. As to the latter, they had been hurried into action
almost totally unprepared. They had neither a military train, nor even
the nucleus of such a corps; they had no effective medical staff; they
had an inexperienced and undermanned commissariat. They had magnificent
regiments, individually perfect; but they had no army. Everything had to
be done on the spot; and being done in a hurry, and by men not accustomed
to the work, it was imperfectly done. The British had not been a week
in Turkey before there was an outcry for transport. Lord Raglan had a
splendid collection of soldiers; but he could not have marched them fifty
miles.

Marshal St. Arnaud was, to judge from his letters, in a state of feverish
impatience for action; but, according to the statements of Kinglake, he
was also in a disturbed as well as ambitious frame of mind. It is said
that he tried first to obtain the command of the Turkish army, next to
effect an arrangement which would have given him a control over that
of Britain. These vagaries of a vain and ambitious man were frustrated
by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and Lord Raglan, and they did not meet
with the approval of the Emperor. But events pressed. The Russians were
certain not to wait until the Allies had devised some plan. It became
imperative to see the facts a little more clearly than they could be seen
at Constantinople; and, in the middle of May, Lord Raglan and the marshal
went to Varna, to meet the Turkish general, and hear from Omar Pasha his
view of the situation, and his conception of its requirements. Omar Pasha
told them he had 45,000 in Shumla, and with these he could defend it. He
had 18,000 in Silistria; but these, he believed, could not hold the place
longer than six weeks, that is, to the end of June. He had about 20,000
at Kalafat. The rest of his forces were scattered in detachments. He
naturally suggested Varna as the point of concentration for the Allies.
The two generals agreed to bring up their troops to Varna.

Owing to St. Arnaud's abrupt changes of plan, the movement on Varna,
begun on the 29th of May, was not completed until the 4th of July. The
camps were pitched in beautiful places. The white tents crowned a green
knoll, or extended along a sandy plateau, and looked out upon broad sweeps
of turf broken by groups of fine trees, and overlooking a shining lake
skirted by meadow lands, and backed by the rugged outlines of the Balkans.
But the peculiarity of the country was the absence of inhabitants. Except
those in the service of the commissariat, drivers of mule carts and
bullock drays, and now and then a wandering Bulgarian, none were to be
seen. Fear had driven them to desert their homes; and it was not one of
the least disadvantages attending the armies of the Allies that they had
to operate in a country practically deserted. The want of transport, felt
even at Scutari and Gallipoli, became a positive evil in Bulgaria. The
porter and ale sent out for the consumption of the troops could not be
carried inland for want of carts and horses; the water was bad, and the
men drank the red wine of the country, and, in consequence, fell victims
to disease. Diarrhœa, dysentery, cholera, made their appearance in the
camps, and the graveyards began to fill. Then the air was polluted with
horrid exhalations, and in addition the men pined for action. So that,
although the sites of the camps looked healthy, bad management, imperfect
food and drink, intemperance, a burning sun by day and chilling dews by
night, and _ennui_, soon reduced the physical and moral stamina of the
troops.

Though the object of the campaign had been gained when the Russians
recrossed the Pruth, the allied Powers, active agents in the war, had
resolved on a mode of reaching Russia. They had determined to carry the
war into the Crimea, and capture Sebastopol. This was no sudden resolve.
It grew naturally, and, one may say, inevitably out of the war itself.
The object of the war was, first, the defence of the Sultan's territory;
next, the placing of the territory in security. But there were other means
essential to complete success. For a quarter of a century all military
observers had seen the military importance of the Crimea. This peninsula,
united to the mainland only by the Isthmus of Perekop, and the sandy ledge
of Arabat, was the seat of enormous power. At its southern extremity,
within a few hours' sail of Constantinople, stood Sebastopol, upon an
inlet of the sea forming an excellent harbour. The Russian Government had
spent millions in constructing here a series of fortresses impregnable to
a maritime attack, and within the harbour and on the shores of a creek
running southward they had built vast docks, overlooked by extensive
barracks for sailors and soldiers. Long before the phrase was used in
Parliament or by statesmen, soldiers had come to regard Sebastopol as a
"standing menace" to the Turkish empire; and at the very outbreak of war,
the Duke of Newcastle, British War Minister, had directed the attention of
Lord Raglan to this point. But the military men, knowing how precarious
are operations based on the sea, were doubtful of success. Very little
trustworthy information respecting the obstacles in the way, and the
numerical strength of the Russian army in the Crimea, could be obtained.
Lord Raglan could get none. The French had none. The British Cabinet,
looking to all the circumstances, seeing that the allied fleets had
entire control of the Black Sea, and that any reinforcements sent to the
Crimea must march thither by Perekop, sure that Austrian battalions would
cover the road to Constantinople, pressed upon their ally the project of
an invasion of the Crimea. The nation went entirely with them in this.
Being responsible, they naturally hesitated longer than those who were
not responsible; but it is not true to say, as Mr. Kinglake says, either
that the _Times_ brought about the decision, or that the Government merely
obeyed the popular voice. Those who were responsible for the expedition
were the Cabinet, the Parliament, the people--in short, the British
nation. And the nation was right. For unless Sebastopol and the naval
power of Russia in the Euxine were destroyed, a treaty of peace would
have been a mere truce devoid of any sound security either to Turkey or
to Europe. It is really puerile to contend that Russia could determine
the war by relinquishing the Principalities. The wrongful act which led
her there was only a symbol, a manifestation of the existence of a state
of things injurious to Europe. When she retired, that state of things was
not changed; Russia was still the domineering Power, and still held in her
hands the means of disquieting, threatening, nay, of attacking Turkey. No
doubt the object of the war enlarged with its progress; but that, within
certain limits, is common to all wars. Having gone to the vast expense of
sending armies and fleets to Turkey, the Allies would have been culpable
had they neglected to obtain the amplest possible security for the
independence and integrity of Turkey.

Towards the end of June the British Cabinet were engaged in considering
the important project submitted by the Duke of Newcastle. After some
deliberation, all parties assented, and the terms of the despatch to Lord
Raglan were finally agreed to on the 28th. In this despatch Lord Raglan
was instructed "to concert measures for the siege of Sebastopol, unless,"
so the terms ran, "with the information in your possession, but at present
unknown in this country, you should be decidedly of opinion that it could
not be undertaken with a reasonable prospect of success.... If, upon
mature reflection, you should consider that the united strength of the two
armies is insufficient for this undertaking, you are not to be precluded
from the exercise of the discretion originally vested in you, though her
Majesty's Government will learn with regret that an attack from which such
important consequences are anticipated must be any longer delayed." He was
further informed that, as no safe and honourable peace could be obtained
until the fortress was reduced, and the fleet taken or destroyed, nothing
but "insuperable impediments" was to prevent an early decision. These are
what have been called the "stringent instructions" directing the invasion
of the Crimea. They were supported by the voice of the nation and its
Parliament. Before the Cabinet had taken its decision, before it was known
that the siege of Silistria had been raised, Lord Lyndhurst in his place,
on the 19th of June, declared that "in no event, except that of extreme
necessity, ought we to make peace without previously destroying the
Russian fleet in the Black Sea, and laying prostrate the fortifications by
which it is defended." And in answer, Lord Clarendon, with more reticence
of language, spoke to the same effect.

The attitude of France was not so precise. Concurring with the British
Cabinet in its views respecting the necessarily enlarged objects of the
war, the slow and cautious character of the Emperor led him to acquiesce
in the proposed invasion of the Crimea rather than urge it forward. His
general in Turkey was instructed to support the decision Lord Raglan
might come to, and not by any means to plead for the invasion; but if the
council of war decided in favour of the British project, then, of course,
Marshal St. Arnaud was to give his amplest co-operation. Practically,
therefore, the decision rested with Lord Raglan; for although Admiral
Dundas was not under his orders, yet it was not to be supposed that he
could or would stand out against the wishes of his Government. Lord Raglan
did not delay his decision. The despatch of the War Minister reached him
on the 16th of July; on the 18th he called a council of war; on the 19th
he wrote to the Duke of Newcastle that he accepted the task imposed upon
him; but accepted it, as he did not fail to express, "more in deference
to the views of the British Government, and to the known acquiescence of
the Emperor Louis Napoleon in those views," than in deference to his own
opinion: for he frankly stated that neither he nor the admiral had been
able to obtain any information upon which an opinion could be founded.
Indeed, there were not in the council any ready supporters of the project
except Admirals Lyons and Bruat. Dundas and Hamelin were both opposed
to it; but, as we have seen, St. Arnaud and his admirals were directed
to acquiesce. Dundas was not likely to do more than express an opinion;
and hence the council took its tone from Lord Raglan, and proceeded to
consider how and when the enterprise should be carried out. After two
months' delay caused partly by the sickness of the troops, partly by the
necessity for preparation, the allied troops sailed. They would never
have started had not Roberts, a master in the navy, devised means for the
transport of the cavalry and artillery, by buying up the boats of the
country and building rafts upon them. Yet this man was allowed to die
unhonoured and unpromoted.

The expedition reached the Crimea on the 13th of September, and the armies
lay four days in position off the points of debarkation. Each day there
was work enough to be done in completing the operation of landing. On
the 15th the wind blew heavily on shore, and sent a rough surf dashing
over the shingle and sand. But, later in the day, the wind went down a
little, and the British were enabled to put on shore more guns and the
greater part of the cavalry; and the French landed more guns and their 4th
division. Lord Raglan also went on shore, and established his headquarters
on a rising ground, and rode round the outposts. The men and officers
slept once more in the open air. They made beds of fern and lavender; but,
although the rain did not descend in steady streams, a heavy dew saturated
beds, and blankets, and kits. On the 16th the tents were landed, in the
hope that transport for them could be found in the country. It was not
found, and all the tents were taken on shipboard before the army marched.

And why could not transport be found? When the Allies first landed, the
country people, simple farmers and shepherds, quiet and inoffensive, came
into the camp; and brought fowls, and eggs, and sheep, and were glad to
sell them. They also were willing to let out their carts and bullocks.
According to the British system, these men were well treated and well
paid. Wellington, even in France, could always secure a well-supplied
market, and even transport, by treating the people civilly and paying them
well. So it would have been here. But the French acted on a different
system. It is allowed in all countries that stores belonging to the
Government of your enemy are good prize. You may, by the strict rules
of war, take private property if you need it. Yet, as a general rule,
it is prudent to respect private property; or, if you take it, to pay
for it. The French took both alike. On going his rounds on the evening
of the 16th Lord Raglan learnt that a body of Zouaves had entered and
plundered the village of Baigaili, within the British lines, and had even
abused the villagers, men and women. Of course a speedy end was put to
such brutalities. At the same time Captain de Moleyns, with a squadron
of Spahis, went out of the French camp, and returned driving before him
flocks of sheep and cattle, a few camels, a number of arabas, or country
carts, and a group of natives, the captives of his spearmen. The effect
of these predatory forays was to reduce to a minimum the supplies of
all kinds, animate and inanimate, to be derived from the country. While
these Zouaves and Spahis were ravaging the villages, it was remarked
that the Turks, who had landed on the 15th and 16th, "the much-abused
Turks, remained quietly in their well-ordered camp, living contentedly
on the slender rations supplied from their fleet." Nevertheless, the
Commissary-General, by aid of military force and money, ultimately managed
to get together about 350 country waggons, with bullocks and drivers, for
the supply of the British section of the invading army.

[Illustration:

SAVING THE COLOURS: THE GUARDS AT INKERMAN (1854).

FROM THE PAINTING BY ROBERT GIBB R.S.A.]

[Illustration: SKIRMISH ON THE BULGANÂK: MAUDE'S BATTERY COMING INTO
ACTION. (_See p._ 42.)]

The operation of landing occupied four entire days, and the fifth was
spent in terminating the preparations for the march. The 4th British
division, under Sir George Cathcart, except two battalions, arrived
and were put ashore. The French landed 26,500 men, 72 guns, and a few
Spahis. The Turks landed 7,000 men, all infantry, and no mention is made
of their field artillery. The British landed 26,800 men, including 2,100
artillerymen, 60 guns, and 1,100 horsemen. The total force was, therefore,
in round numbers, 61,000 men and 132 guns. The French force consisted of
four divisions, under Canrobert, Bosquet, Prince Napoleon, and Forey. The
Turks were under Selim Pasha.

The British army was composed as follows:--

LIGHT DIVISION, SIR GEORGE BROWN.--1st Brigade, 7th, 33rd, 23rd,
Brigadier Codrington; 2nd Brigade, 19th, 88th, 77th, Brigadier Buller; 2nd
Battalion Rifle Brigade.

1ST DIVISION, THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE.--1st Brigade, Grenadier,
Fusilier, and Coldstream Guards, Brigadier Bentinck; 2nd Brigade, 42nd,
93rd, 79th Highlanders, Brigadier Colin Campbell.

2ND DIVISION, SIR DE LACY EVANS.--1st Brigade, 41st, 47th, 49th,
Brigadier Adams; 2nd Brigade, 30th, 55th, 95th, Brigadier J. Pennefather.

3RD DIVISION, SIR R. ENGLAND.--1st Brigade, 4th, 50th, 38th,
Brigadier J. Campbell; 2nd Brigade, 1st, 44th, 28th, Brigadier Eyre.

4TH DIVISION, SIR G. CATHCART.--1st Brigade, 20th, 57th, Rifle
Brigade 1st Battalion, 50th, Brigadier Goldie (who, with 57th, had not
arrived); 2nd Brigade, 21st, 63rd, 46th, Brigadier Torrens.

CAVALRY, THE EARL OF LUCAN.--4th Light Dragoons, 8th and 11th
Hussars, 13th Light Dragoons, and 17th Lancers, Brigadier the Earl of
Cardigan.

ARTILLERY, Colonel Strangways. ENGINEERS, Brigadier
Tylden. Adjutant-General, Estcourt; Quartermaster-General, Airey;
Commander-in-Chief, Lord Raglan.

The French preparations were completed by the morning of the 18th. They
had far less to land than the British. The weather was no real obstacle to
the landing of infantry, or even of stores; but it materially delayed the
debarkation of the horses; and independently of the artillery and baggage
animals, and chargers for the staff of all the divisions and brigades,
the British had to land 1,100 troop horses. In spite of his knowledge
of all these facts, Marshal St. Arnaud grew impatient of the delay. On
the following day the British were ready. The troops arose from their
damp beds at an early hour on the 19th, and paraded in marching order.
Much time was still spent in accommodating the baggage and stores of so
many thousands to the limited number of carts at the disposal of the
Commissariat. Everything not indispensable in a military point of view was
left behind. There was so much scattered on the beach, that Sir George
Cathcart had to part with his only brigadier, Torrens--for Goldie had not
arrived--and also part of his division; and Lord Lucan had to detach the
4th Light Dragoons from his weak brigade of cavalry to guard the beach,
and see all the stores, and tents, and baggage safely on shipboard. Time
wore on, the sun was high in the cloudless heavens before the word was
given to move. It was about nine o'clock. Marshal St. Arnaud, according to
the French writers, had then been two hours on the march.

The French were the first to cross the river Bulganâk. When our troops
came up, the French had halted in position and were at rest. But it was
our lot to fire the first gun. The divisions were crossing the river when
the Cossacks showed themselves on the slope which ascends from its bank.
The cavalry were ordered to look after them; and as they retired over the
ridge, Lord Cardigan followed. As he descended into the next valley, he
found himself face to face with a tolerably strong force of horsemen. The
skirmishers on each side began firing; but, as the Cossacks did not come
on, Lord Lucan ordered our squadrons to retire alternately. Suddenly the
enemy opened fire from horse artillery, and kept it up pretty smartly
upon the British, now halted, waiting for the guns. They had not to wait
long, for over the ridge came bounding Maude's troop of horse artillery.
Famous for rapidity, our gunners instantly came into action, and replied
to the enemy with such spirit and accuracy that the Russians quickly
ceased firing, and sheered off over the next ridge. By this time the
Rifles and part of the leading divisions had crowned the ridge in rear of
our cavalry; and our horsemen, with a loss of five wounded, and the guns
together with the infantry, returned to the position on the Bulganâk,
where they rested for the night. The Russians were a reconnoitring party,
strong in infantry, which kept out of sight. The cavalry present could
not have been less than 2,000. Some of them visited the French, but were
driven off by the artillery. So ended the first day's march. The Allies
bivouacked on the south bank of the Bulganâk; and, in order to guard
against a flank attack, the British divisions faced to the eastward, that
is, nearly at right angles to their line of march.

During the evening Marshal St. Arnaud visited Lord Raglan, whose
headquarters were in a posthouse on the Bulganâk. What passed at this
interview is painfully uncertain. It is said that the French marshal
brought with him a plan for attacking a position he had not seen; that
he proposed to turn both flanks; one division of his own army and the
Turks sweeping round the Russian left, and the whole of the British round
their right, while the remainder of the French fell upon and demolished
the centre. It is said also that Lord Raglan did not assent to or dissent
from this plan, yet that the French marshal left with an impression that
it was to be executed. How he came by the impression, one can never know;
but this one can know, that Lord Raglan ought not to have allowed Marshal
St. Arnaud to leave him with any doubts on his mind. He ought to have
distinctly explained that he could assent to no plan until he knew what
was to be attacked. He ought to have said in plain language--and he could
use plain language--that the plan of a battle must be determined by the
nature of the enemy's position, the number of troops by which it was held,
and the mode in which they were distributed. The allied commanders were
seven miles from the enemy. Neither had seen him, nor his position, nor
how he held his position. In these circumstances the proceeding of Marshal
St. Arnaud was absurd; and in plain, but polite language, he should have
been told so.

The dawn of the 20th of September was soft, balmy, and sunny. The troops
were afoot early, and soon under arms. Far away on the right the smoke
above the cliffs showed that the war-steamers were on the alert, and
prepared to work on that flank. Next to the sea, in execution of that
part of the marshal's plan not open to objection, General Bosquet, about
six o'clock, began to lead forth his division in two columns, followed by
four Turkish battalions. He moved on for an hour, and then halted, just
as the centre should have moved, to be followed by the British. But the
British were not ready. It is said they should have been in line about
seven. Whence arose the delay? Some of it must, no doubt, be set down
to the constitutional slowness of the British temperament; some to that
imperfect concert which is the bane of a divided command. The remainder
was caused, undoubtedly, by the fact that the British, in consequence of
the arrangements made overnight, had to effect a great change in their
array before they could begin to march. Then, that the two armies might be
in close proximity, so as to present an unbroken front, the whole had to
move obliquely to the right. These evolutions necessarily took up a great
deal of time.

Prince Menschikoff was the Commander-in-Chief of the naval and military
forces of the Czar in the Crimea. It seems that Nicholas did not believe
the Allies would venture upon the daring exploit of invading that
peninsula, or else that their rapidity of movement, slow as it seemed to
lookers-on, anticipated the arrival of his reinforcements; or he may have
thought that British and French armies and navies would not long act in
concert, and that some incident would bring about the abandonment of the
expedition. If so, he miscalculated the strength of will of those who held
in their hands the public forces of the Western Powers--the Emperor and
the British people. At all events, the Czar had comparatively few troops
in the Crimea--perhaps not altogether 50,000 men, including the sailors
and marines. These troops, in the early days of September, were partly
encamped at different places around and to the north of Sebastopol. By the
14th the lights of the fleet were visible from the heights of the Alma. He
might take up a position on the left flank of the line of march the Allies
would be compelled to follow, and thus force them to quit the sheltering
sea-coast in search of him; or he might take up the strongest position he
could find across the road they must follow, and thus try to impede their
march until reinforcements could reach him from Odessa. By adopting the
former plan he could have evaded an action or accepted one far from the
sea, for the Allies would not have dared to pass him, and thus he might
have played with them until reinforced. But he adopted the second plan,
believing that he had found a position which he could hold for several
weeks. That position was on the south bank of the Alma, fifteen miles from
Sebastopol; and on this point he directed the march of every disposable
bayonet, sabre, and gun. It was indeed a strong position. Facing the
north, the left seemed secured from attack by the steepness of the cliffs;
the centre afforded excellent ground for artillery on its terraces and
knolls, and the dips in the hills might be used to conceal the defenders;
on the right the Kourgané height overlooked all, and bending backwards,
offered protection to that flank. The lower slopes were quite open, and
fell down to the river with sufficient rapidity to try the fortitude of
an assailant, and yet not so abruptly as to deprive artillery of a full
command of the ascent, the river, and the plain beyond. There was one path
up the cliff practicable for infantry, and where the precipice ended there
were two up which guns could be got with great difficulty. Beyond this
troops of all arms could pass the stream and ascend the position. On a
point of the highest ground, to the west of the post road, and about two
miles from the sea, stood a tower, unfinished, for war had interrupted the
workmen, called the Telegraph station, as the peak became known as the
Telegraph Hill. The strength of the position lay in the wall of cliff,
the steep open downs to the east and west of the road to Sebastopol, and
in the river, with its high banks and enclosures. Its weakness lay in
its extent, compared with the number of troops at Prince Menschikoff's
disposal.

Here the Prince hoped to stop the march of the Allies, with the troops
he had, until the divisions from the army of the Danube came up and
drove them to their ships. To occupy the position he had 42 battalions,
16 squadrons of cavalry, 11 sotnias of Cossacks (1,100 lances), and 96
guns; that is, about 38,000 men of all arms. His infantry was 31,500,
and his cavalry 3,400 strong, including the Cossacks. The remainder were
artillerymen and sappers. In disposing of his forces, Prince Menschikoff
placed the bulk on the right and centre. To strengthen the position the
Prince had devised two fieldworks of the humblest kind. On the extreme
right, just below the brow of the great hill there, he had thrown up an
entrenchment, in the form of a flattened arrow-head; and on the lower
slope of the same hill, nearer to the centre, he had constructed another
fieldwork, the embrasures of which were formed by throwing up the earth
on each hand. This he armed with the twelve (some say fourteen) heavy
guns brought from Sebastopol. These two works were improperly called
redoubts. The regiments were formed in column, chequer-wise, on each flank
of the fieldworks, and were not all visible to the approaching army. The
right of the Russian line was commanded by General Kvetzinsky, the centre
by Prince Gortschakoff, the left by General Kiriakoff. It will be seen
that the bulk of the troops and artillery were in position to the east of
Telegraph Hill, that is, on the Russian right of the great road, while
only one-third of the troops and one-fifth of the guns were on or in front
of the Telegraph Hill, and towards the sea. Against this force and this
position marched, in round numbers, about 63,000 men and 128 guns.

The allied army now came slowly nearer to the Alma, visible in its whole
extent to the Russians. The fleet of war-steamers, eight French and one
British, went on ahead towards Cape Lookout and the mouth of the Alma. The
direction taken by the French brought General Bosquet opposite the village
of Almatamak, towards which one of his brigades wended its way, covered by
skirmishers in thick rows, while the other, with the Turks, under General
Bouat, made for the mouth of the Alma. Next on the left came the divisions
of Canrobert and Prince Napoleon, the latter almost in contact with the
right of our 2nd Division, and a little to the west of Bourliouk. In rear,
as a support, was General Forey. These three divisions of the French
army halted, while Bosquet continued to move on. Lord Raglan had had a
final conference with Marshal St. Arnaud. They had seen the enemy and
the enemy's position. The great accumulation of Russian troops on their
right and centre was manifest. It was plain that the French force was not
adequate to show a front to the whole Russian line, while the British
turned the right, and when the question was pointedly put to him, would he
turn the right or attack in front, Lord Raglan declined to undertake the
flank movement. It was arranged that the French should turn the Russian
left, covered by the fire of the ships, and that when this movement had
shaken the Russian line, the British should assail the right and centre.
The two commanders parted, and the whole line from right to left drew
nearer to the Alma. The steamers opened fire between twelve and one.

While Bosquet's first brigade was ousting the Russian skirmishers from the
river and the clefts in the hills leading upwards, the whole army moved
still nearer to the foe, and halted in readiness to close. The French
divisions remained in columns. They were not to advance until Bosquet's
diversion had made itself felt. The British divisions had deployed into
line, and had moved on until warned, about half-past one, that they had
come within range, when the men were ordered to lie down. It was about
half-past one. The 1st French division was crossing the river and swarming
up the steeps, when the Cossacks simultaneously fired the corn stacks
about Bourliouk. Instantly the waving sheets of flame leaped up, and a
stifling smoke rising on a lazy wind spread over the meadows. For a time
the centre of the Russian position was hidden from view, and the smoke
long continued to curl over the ground. This fiery village and dense
cloud of smoke proved a great inconvenience to Evans's division, in whose
front it was; for, pressed on one side by Prince Napoleon's division, on
the other by the Light, and deprived of a large space in front by the
conflagration, Sir De Lacy Evans was compelled to divide his brigades, and
encroach on the ground occupied by Sir George Brown, so that when they
were deployed, the left front of the 2nd overlapped the right of the Light
Division. This was a great fault. While the regiments lay prone under a
severe fire, the French were executing their share of the plan on the
right.

According to the plan agreed upon, the British were not to attack until
the French columns were firmly established on the heights. Bosquet's 1st
brigade, under D'Autemarre, had easily swept before them the handful of
light troops which alone were placed on the extreme flank of the Russian
line. Having gained the plateau with his infantry, he next brought in
succession two batteries of artillery, and posted them in front of the
brigade which had deployed, resting its left on the verge of the cliff.
Bouat and the Turks were so distant that they could lend no aid, and the
brigade and its guns were thus practically alone. At the same time the
Russian batteries, towards the centre of their position, cannonaded the
bulk of Prince Napoleon's division, which still lingered in the valley on
the left bank, unable to get on. For the want of guns seemed to paralyse
the advance of General Canrobert, and D'Aurelles' brigade of Forey's
division had passed round the right of Prince Napoleon, and had jammed
itself into a steep and narrow track on the left of Canrobert; so that
while Bosquet, although alone on the heights, made play with his batteries
and steadily gained ground, Canrobert and D'Aurelles, and the bulk of
Prince Napoleon's troops, were lying inactive, unable to strike for want
of artillery. For the rest, the Russian guns on the right and centre
continued to pour an incessant storm of shot and shell upon the British
soldiers lying exposed in line upon their faces, and our gunners, it is
said, did not fire because their shot, they found, fell short.

[Illustration: THE HIGHLANDERS AT THE ALMA. (_See p._ 49.)]

At this time Lord Raglan, himself riding up and down near the British
right, and watching the progress of the French, seems to have grown
impatient. We have no very clear account of his views and frame of mind;
but Mr. Kinglake's version, if it be true, leads to the direct inference
that Lord Raglan, who, it seems, had been frequently appealed to by the
French, could no longer bear to see his soldiers prostrate and inactive,
especially as there was an appearance of tardiness and inability to push
forward on the part of his ally. He therefore gave the order to assault
the front of the position; and Captain Nolan, a genuine soldier, swiftly
bore it to the combatants. First the 2nd Division and then the Light
started to their feet, and in a moment the red line, extending far to
the east, was gliding across the meadows which intervened between them
and the stream. As they descended the slope towards its banks, the guns
followed, and, drawing up on both sides of the great road, began to reply
to the fire of the enemy. All the time they moved under a heavy fire from
the Russian batteries, and the Russians were amazed that the islanders
should approach their dark columns and destructive artillery in a two-deep
line. The passage of some vineyards and enclosures disordered the troops,
and the beautiful symmetry of the first advance was soon broken far more
by these inert obstacles than by the bounding shot and bursting shells.
In spite of their disorder they reached the river, and plunging into its
shot-torn waters, scrambled through and gained the shelter of the opposite
bank. Here they halted and hung in clusters, no longer presenting the
fine parade spectacle visible to admiring eyes a short time before. The
bank was eight or nine feet high; and while it afforded shelter from the
artillery, it did not prevent daring Russian skirmishers from approaching
the edge, and firing down into the groups below. Here, under such fiery
leaders as were with them, the British troops could not long remain.

The parts of the Russian position they fronted were these. Evans's
division extended across the entrance to the ravine up which ran the
great road. This road passing the river by a wooden bridge, partially
destroyed by the enemy, climbed a low ridge between two higher ridges,
and on these higher ridges were two Russian batteries supported by six
battalions. It was not only their fire, but that of the left shoulder
of the field work on the slope of the Kourgané Hill, to which they were
exposed; for while the guns on each side of the road swept the front, the
heavier metal searched the left flank. The Light Division fronted the
steep sides of the Kourgané Hill itself, and had to bear the fire of the
big guns and of two batteries--that is, sixteen pieces posted on both
sides of the entrenchment,--to meet the musketry and bayonets of sixteen
battalions, and to stand prepared for the dense columns of cavalry which
showed themselves on their left. Before Evans was rough and broken ground;
before Sir George Brown, a bare hill-side. The troops were not allowed to
cling long to the protection of the bank. On the right Evans's colonels
got their men up to the mouths of the ravine; but there were only three
battalions to contend with six; and although they were aided somewhat by
the fire of the artillery massed on the east of Bourliouk, it required all
the fortitude of officers and men to stand fast. For the battalions had
been rent by the heavy artillery fire, and Evans himself had been wounded;
yet he kept his place in the midst, and held his men together as became a
veteran who had ridden in the thick of great battles thirty years before;
and now his weak force was opposed to heavy odds, and had to endure,
without flinching, shot, shell, and musketry.

On their left the four regiments of the Light Division, and the 95th, were
about to perform a most daring exploit. Nearly at the same moment Sir
George Brown, Brigadier Codrington, and Colonel Yea forced their horses
up the bank, and found themselves almost in the midst of the Russian
skirmishers. Their men, unformed as they were, crowded up, and presented
to the view of the Russian gunners an extended line, indeed, but in so
much disorder that the Russian generals, in their reports, described them
as a cloud of skirmishers. Once at the foot of the slope, they were face
to face, not only with the battery, but with two heavy columns, one on
the right, the other on the left of the rude fieldwork, whose weighty
guns had done so much mischief. There was no manœuvring, no order, no
neat soldiership. The advance of the Light Division was the steady rush
of a fierce crowd into and through the jaws of death; for though hundreds
strewed the hill-side, the survivors were not to be dismayed, but were
resolute to win. Such a sight, except at a deadly breach, in some bloody
siege, had rarely been seen in war. The line wavered and surged to and
fro, but it gained ground. And now it reaped the fruits of its daring. The
great battery fired one tremendous volley, and when the smoke grew thin,
it was seen that the enemy were carrying off the guns! The four regiments
had carried the battery, and forced the enemy to hurry away his guns by
sheer hardihood and will; and now came the question--could they keep their
prize, or would the Guards and Highlanders come up in time to relieve or
sustain them?

When Lord Raglan had given the order to advance, he rode off with his
staff along a pathway leading round the western side of Bourliouk, in
the track followed by Brigadier Adams, with the 41st and 49th Regiments
and Turner's battery. Probably the British commander wished to gain a
nearer view of the French operations, and also to get a glimpse of the
Russian line of battle unobscured by the smoke of Bourliouk. While he was
cantering across the meadows the Light and 2nd Divisions were working
up to the river under that heavy fire we have described. Approaching
its banks, he came under a sharp fire from the Russian guns on his left
front, the guns which faced Evans's troops, a fire which became heavier
as the whole staff plunged into the river at the ford, and two officers
were wounded. Lord Raglan had not been unobservant of the country which
rose before him. He saw a hill in the heart of the Russian position, but
unoccupied by the enemy, a hill whence he would see in profile the whole
of our own and of the Russian line opposed to it. The use to which it
could be put occurred to him immediately. Turning to one of his staff,
he was heard to say, "Ah, if they can enfilade us here, we can certainly
enfilade them from the rising ground beyond [pointing to the knoll]. Order
up Turner's battery." His presence on the hill undoubtedly scared the
Russians; at the same time his troops were out of his control.

[Illustration: LORD RAGLAN.]

Now the scene was about to change. The force possessed by the Allies was
about to be applied with irresistible vigour in all parts of the field.
But before this force fell with all its weight upon the enemy, he was
destined to snatch a momentary success. For the four regiments of the
Light Division which had so hardily stormed the breastwork had remained
unsupported! Either because he was too diffident of his own ability, or
because he did not really see that it was time to strike, and strike
hard, the Duke of Cambridge hesitated. General Evans, seeing that the
Light Division was outstripping the supports, sent Colonel Steele to
urge an immediate advance. General Airey himself rode up and explained
how needful it was that the 1st should be within striking distance
of the Light Division. At one moment some officer, whose name is not
mentioned, said, "The brigade of Guards will be destroyed; ought it not
to fall back?" When Sir Colin Campbell, says Mr. Kinglake, "heard this
saying, his blood rose so high that the answer he gave--impassioned and
far-resounding--was of a quality to govern events! 'It is better, sir,
that every man of her Majesty's Guards should be dead upon the field,
than that they should turn their backs upon the enemy!'" Doubts and
questionings ceased. The division went forward, but not soon enough to
prevent a disaster. The four regiments holding the Russian breastwork
were now in the presence of a powerful force of infantry. For the four
battalions of the Vladimir Regiment, marshalled by Prince Gortschakoff,
were descending upon the work and had already begun to open fire. The
British soldiers lying under the parapet, and looking over, were able to
throw a storm of shot into the mighty mass, which, solid and close, came
down the hill. Soon its front ranks began to fire, and officers and men
began to fall. This was a most trying moment for General Evans, waging an
unequal fight, and for Colonel Yea, with his shattered battalion waging a
more unequal fight. General Codrington sent down an aide-de-camp to urge
the advance of the Scots Fusiliers, the central battalion, and soon the
whole brigade rushed up on to the slope. The Grenadiers on the right,
under Colonel Hood, formed up in regular order before they moved. The
Coldstreams did the same. But, urged by Codrington's message, the Scots
Fusiliers sprang forward and began to ascend the hill with eager steps. It
was too late. The Vladimirs had persisted in moving on, regardless of the
fire from our straggling line; and suddenly, none knows exactly why, the
British soldiers rose, and quitting the shelter of the entrenchment, began
to descend the hill. The fire of the Russians redoubled; the disordered
masses of red-coated men, who hate retreating, halted in clusters, more
or less dense, and flung back a dropping shower of bullets. This could
not go on long. Presently the pace became brisker, and the men getting
massed in heavier groups, and hurrying down the hill, came full upon the
Scots Fusiliers, broke the order of the regiment, and compelled what
should have been a support to withdraw with them. But the Grenadiers and
Coldstreams, separated for a time by a wide interval, went on; and farther
on their left came the Highlanders, with what fortune we shall presently
see. For now of the battery ordered up to the knoll by Lord Raglan, two
guns had arrived. The men had not reached the spot, and Colonel Dickson
and other officers loaded, laid, and fired the guns. The effect, it is
said, was instantaneous. The guns were trained to bear upon the batteries
which checked the advance of Evans's men; and it so happened that at the
same time the British artillery of the 2nd, Light, and 3rd Divisions came
powerfully into action against the batteries on the road; so that assailed
at once in front and flank, and uncertain what new strength the flank fire
might gain, the Russian commander limbered up all his guns, and withdrew
them to a higher and distant ridge. Then Sir De Lacy Evans pushed forward
his three battalions, and these, bringing up their right shoulders, came
up to the relief of the 7th just as the Grenadier Guards were approaching
on the other flank. The 7th, which had so nobly stood its ground, and
suffered very great loss, now, by order of Sir George Brown, allowed the
Grenadiers to pass them. The spectacle along the whole line was at this
moment magnificent. For the masses of the French on the Telegraph Hill
were now rapidly coming into action. Bosquet's artillery had shaken the
huge column with which Kiriakoff had threatened the troops of Canrobert.
Bouat and Lourmel showed themselves on the hills towards the sea, ever
gaining on the Russian left rear. Canrobert had got his guns up, and
his lines and columns were moving on to assault the Russians gathered
round the Telegraph. Lord Raglan's presence and Turner's artillery must
have deeply alarmed Prince Gortschakoff and General Kvetzinski for the
safety of their line of retreat. Evans's forward movement, the fire of
thirty guns, many of them over the river, combined with the proud march
of the Grenadiers and Coldstreams and the Highland Brigade--all these
co-operating causes contributed to the catastrophe. It was the crisis
of the battle. In vain the battalions of Suzdal endeavoured to succour
their comrades of Kazan and Vladimir, standing stiffly behind and about
the breastwork. The Highlanders, coming up in succession from the right,
smote each column in flank as it passed its front, while every moment the
rigid line of red coats and black bearskins and busy rifles crept closer
and closer and fired with deadlier effect. The discomfited Light Division
also partially reformed, and the Scots Fusiliers were rapidly filling up
the interval between the Grenadiers and Coldstreams. Active artillery
officers had brought their guns into action nearly on the site occupied
by the Russian batteries which so long vexed the 2nd Division. At length
the Russian battalions, unable to bear any longer the pressure brought
upon them, yielded, when, with a loud shout, the Guards brought down their
bayonets, and came steadily on. In a brief space the breastwork was again
carried; the Highlanders, most skilfully led, disposed of the Russian
reserves; and as Lord Raglan, who had quitted his knoll, came riding up,
he found the field his own and the enemy in retreat.

[Illustration: ON THE BATTLE-FIELD OF THE ALMA: THE MISSION OF MERCY.
(_See p._ 50.)]

By this time, also, the Russian left was getting away from the French.
When the Guards were half way up the hill, and the 2nd Division was
crowning the ridges in its front, Canrobert advanced, and bringing his
guns into play, swept up the bare hill; and after some severe fighting
with the Russian troops, disposed so as to cover the retreat, captured the
Telegraph Station. Prince Napoleon and Marshal St. Arnaud now appeared on
the plateau, and the horse artillery, hurrying to the front, cannonaded
the retreating enemy. The 41st and 49th British Regiments had also moved
up into that part of the field which lies between the great road and the
Telegraph Hill, and thus formed the extreme right of the British line. So
that the whole allied front, from the peak of the Telegraph Station to the
eastern slopes of the Kourgané Hill, crowned the Russian position. The
Russians fell back in pretty good order, although they were pounded in
retreat by the artillery of the Allies, which had hurried up to the front.
Lord Cardigan brought his cavalry over the Alma, and rode in upon the
stragglers who formed the rear, but could effect little, as the Russians
halted on the next ridge, and for a short time showed a bold front. Then
they went about, and, unpursued, disappeared from view.

Lord Raglan had desired an immediate pursuit, such a pursuit as would
have brought the French upon the flank of the yielding columns, while the
British, with horse, foot, and artillery, burst in upon their rear. He
had two divisions which had not fired a shot; he had more than a thousand
lances and sabres; he was ready to go on. But although the French had
suffered comparatively little loss, whether it were that his illness
clouded his mind, or that he feared to compromise his army, or that he did
not relish a request to pursue coming from the English commander, Marshal
St. Arnaud declined to move any men from the field. So the victorious
soldiers took up their quarters on the line of hills, and began to
gather up the wounded. The battle, which reflects little credit on the
commanders-in-chief, had been won by the leaders of divisions. It was not
decisive, and it did not bring about the attainment of the great end of
the invasion--the immediate capture of Sebastopol.




CHAPTER IV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Two Days on the Alma--Retreat of the Russians--Raglan proposes
    a Flank Movement--Korniloff scuttles his Ships--The Russian
    Retreat--Korniloff and Todleben--The Flank March decided--The Armies
    Intersect--Death of St. Arnaud--The Allies in Position--Menschikoff
    reinforces Sebastopol--Todleben's Preparations--The Point of
    Attack--French and English Opinions--The Opposing Batteries--The
    Sea--Defences of Sebastopol--Doubts of the Admirals--Opening
    of the Bombardment--The French Fire silenced--Success of the
    British--Failure of the Fleets--The Bombardment renewed--Wild
    Rumours at Home--Menschikoff determines to Raise the Siege--The
    Attack on Balaclava--Lord Lucan's Warning--Liprandi's
    Advance--Capture of the Redoubts--The 93rd--Lord Lucan's
    Advance--Charge of the Heavy Brigade--A Pause in the Battle--Raglan,
    Lucan, and Nolan--Charge of the Light Brigade--The Valley of
    Death--The Goal--Colonel Shewell--The Retreat covered--The Loss--End
    of the Battle.


The allied armies spent two days on the battle-field of the Alma. There
were the wounded to tend and carry on board ship--the wounded of each
army, for the Russians left hundreds on the ground--and the dead to bury.
All through the evening, nay, throughout the night, our soldiers were
groping about in search of comrades, and carrying water to assuage their
thirst, and at dawn officers and men streamed over the hills and into
the ravines on this errand of mercy. Surgeons were landed from the fleet
to aid the scanty medical staff, and sailors to bear away those whose
wounds had been dressed; but, looking to the resources of the fleet, one
is surprised that these labours should have occupied eight-and-forty
hours. Time was precious; it was always believed that the Allies must
fight at least one battle before they reached Sebastopol, yet the means
of moving swiftly, after it had been won, had not been prepared. So
while the Allies were engaged in tending their wounded, burying their
dead, replenishing their ammunition stores, reorganising the regiments
that had suffered the most, and even taking care of the Russian wounded,
the Russian army, retiring hurriedly and in alarm, had relinquished
successively the strong positions on the Katcha and the Belbek, had
abandoned all the open country north of Sebastopol, and, passing the
bridge of Inkermann, had entered the place itself.

During the halt of the armies there had arisen a grave doubt in the mind
of Lord Raglan. Even on the beach of Kamishli, pondering on the task
before him, he had come to question the practicableness of assailing
Sebastopol from the north, and feared that "a flank movement to the south
side would be necessary." Here, on the heights of the Alma, he seems
to have felt the pressure of doubt more strongly; for on the 21st of
September, probably at his suggestion, Sir John Burgoyne--who shared, if
he did not originate his doubts--drew up a formal memorandum, setting
forth all the advantages of a march round the head of the harbour to
Balaclava on the south coast. And when the short march to the Katcha
ended, a singular incident, reported at headquarters, gave the British
officers fresh arguments. On the 22nd, steamers of both fleets had looked
into Sebastopol harbour, and had reported that all the vessels of war were
still there. They were, however, so posted as to attract the attention
of naval men, who took particular note of a line of ships moored across
the entrance to the harbour, from north to south. The next day, when the
fleet came up from Cape Loukoul to the Katcha, the whole line of Russian
ships was observed to settle down in the water until only their tops were
visible. The enemy, at the suggestion of Admiral Korniloff, had thus
disposed of part of a fleet with which he could not keep the sea, and a
wise measure it proved to be. The news was sent at once to the headquarter
camps on the Katcha, and it probably gave Lord Raglan an additional
argument in favour of a march to the south side. The Allies halted on the
Katcha until late on the 24th, when they advanced to the Belbek.

Meanwhile the Russian army had quitted its position at an early hour.
There was considerable disorder in some parts of the field, where
battalions falling back came under the fire of the Allied guns; but there
were others untouched and unsubdued, and these, with the Hussars and
artillery, had made that show of covering the retreat. The Russians did
not halt. Night overtook them among the hills; still they plodded along.
They left behind them the steep banks of the Katcha, the steeper banks and
rougher ridges of the Belbek, and moving to the head of the harbour of
Sebastopol, crossed the bridge of Inkermann on the morning of the 21st,
and encamped to the south-west of the town. Some battalions were left on
the north side, destined to be the garrison of the largest work on the
plateau, called the Star Fort. There, we are told, all was confusion and
dismay; but this may be doubted. Two or three very firm men were at that
time in Sebastopol--the Admirals Korniloff and Nachimoff, and the German
engineer Todleben. This remarkable soldier had been sent to the Crimea
in the month of August, at a time when the Czar was just beginning to
believe in the probability of a descent. He arrived there at the end of
the month, a few days after the Malakoff, or White Tower, on the south
side had been completed. Prince Menschikoff requested the engineer to
report upon the defences, and it is recorded that the substance of his
report was that with two divisions of infantry, say 24,000 men, and field
artillery, he would undertake to be master of the town in three hours.
This was not a pleasant report, nor does it appear that much was done to
supply the deficiency of defence until the Allies were almost before the
place. On the 21st Prince Menschikoff held a council. It was then that the
sturdy admirals and the great engineer showed their metal. They resolved
to extemporise earthen defences on the south side, and sink a part of the
fleet across the mouth of the harbour--a task which they executed with
promptitude and skill. But Prince Menschikoff seems to have been uncertain
what part his army should play; and had the Allies appeared on the Belbek
on the evening of the 21st they would have found the extra defences not
begun, the army still under the influence of the staggering blow delivered
at the Alma, and its chief perplexed and vacillating. Even at the moment
when they crowned the heights of the Belbek, and could see from the
loftier elevations the white forts on the margin of the water, the works
on the northern side had only just received their garrisons, and were in a
most weak condition. This the Allies knew not, nor did they know that when
they were discussing the propriety of the flank march to the south, Prince
Menschikoff had just begun a flank march from the south, so as to gain the
main road leading to Russia. Had the Allies been quicker, they would have
caught the Russians in their moment of weakness and doubt, and Sebastopol
would have been theirs.

It was the morning of the 25th. The Allied camp spread out over the
plateau, within three miles and a half of the nearest defences of
Sebastopol. The question to be resolved was, Should they at once attack
the northern works, or should they file through the rough woods and
appear suddenly on the southern plateau? We have seen that Lord Raglan,
as early as the 15th or 16th, doubted the ability of the Allies to carry
the northern forts by a _coup de main_, and contemplated the other
alternative; and that, the day after the battle of the Alma, he had set
Sir John Burgoyne to draw up a memorandum, showing the advantages of the
latter course. It is probable that these arguments were first placed
before Marshal St. Arnaud at the bivouac on the Katcha; but the ultimate
decision was not taken until the morning of the 25th, at the bivouac on
the Belbek. After that St. Arnaud had declined to risk an assault. Early
on the 25th Lord Raglan went to the quarters of Marshal St. Arnaud, who
was now attacked by cholera, and too much broken to be able to take an
active part; and in his presence, and that of General Canrobert and
others, debated the project of Sir John Burgoyne. Certainly, all were not
agreed; but Canrobert was not made of that stuff which leads a general to
take upon himself the burden of a heavy responsibility, and he yielded
to the arguments of the English. It was therefore ordered that the flank
march should be undertaken forthwith; and for four-and-twenty hours the
Allied armies were at the mercy of their opponents. Had Menschikoff
possessed a spark of genius, he would have cut his enemies to pieces on
the 25th of September; but he was employed on a movement of his own, when
he ought to have been watching the enemy.

About noon the march began. The artillery--so little was apprehended from
the enemy--took the lead; then the English cavalry and infantry, then the
baggage, and, next, the French. The 4th British Division was left on the
heights "to maintain the communication with the Katcha," until the new
base had been secured. The march was most painful and harassing; but,
leaving the infantry to tear their way through the low forest by compass,
let us follow Lord Raglan. According to his wont, he rode on towards
the front, taking the narrow bridle-path. The guns had halted when he
came up, because they were entirely without support. Half a battalion of
skirmishers might have destroyed all the horses, and killed the gunners.
When Lord Raglan rode up, he sharply ordered them to resume their march,
and passed on to the front. Suddenly he came softly back. As he emerged
from the trees he saw a strange sight--a body of Russians, with a
baggage-train, were moving northward along the road. It was the rear guard
of Prince MenschikofF, on its way to join the army at Batchiserai. Lord
Raglan eagerly inquired for the cavalry, and the cavalry were not to be
found. Some time elapsed; the Russians, ignorant of the nearness of their
foes, continued to march quietly along. Lord Raglan grew impatient, and
sent officers in search of his light horse, while he placed his own escort
and a troop of horse artillery in readiness to act. After some time,
parts of two Hussar regiments were brought up, and the 2nd battalion of
the Rifle Brigade; but the Russians had now detected the presence of an
enemy on their left flank, and had begun to run. Then the guns opened,
and the horsemen and light infantry went at the enemy, who, abandoning
his waggons, fled hastily away. Neither Menschikoff nor Raglan had the
slightest notion of one another's intentions during this extraordinary
chapter of blunders.

Next day the British army took up a position in front of Balaclava; but
the French remained on the Tchernaya. Marshal St. Arnaud, who had been
carried from the Belbek in a carriage captured at the Alma, now became,
in the opinion of those around him, incapable of commanding the army any
longer. He was, indeed, at the point of death, and on the morning of the
26th he formally handed his command over to General Canrobert. In a day
or two he embarked in the _Bertholet_, but died at sea, midway between
Balaclava and the Bosphorus. Marshal St. Arnaud was not a soldier of the
stamp to which our forefathers were accustomed in the great wars against
Napoleon. He was gifted with a showy, yet still genuine courage; he was
impetuous and daring. His long and painful sickness, and the peculiarity
of his position, no doubt, ought to be taken into account when we judge
of his soldiership; but, having made allowance for these obstructions to
the display of military ability, we are bound to say that we do not find
in the marshal any faculties of a high order. His ambition, his vanity,
his assumption, are as conspicuous as his frankness, warmth of heart,
and readiness to yield under pressure, whether it came from Paris or the
British headquarters; but, on the whole, he was a flashy and insubstantial
man. His successor, General Canrobert, came of the same Algerian stock,
and he had at least as much ability as Marshal St. Arnaud, and one quality
the marshal had not--modesty.

The French army crossed the plain on the 28th, and encamped in front of
Balaclava. The day before Lord Raglan had sent the Light and 2nd Divisions
up to the slopes which overlook Sebastopol; on the 29th the French army
followed, and by the 1st of October all the infantry of the Allies, except
the 93rd, the Turks, and some Marines landed from the fleet, were on those
hills. Here, then, for many months, was to be the scene of their mighty
labours and cruel sufferings: these rugged heights, and ravine-riven
plains, and sheltered valleys, were to be the mute witnesses of the
most extraordinary siege of modern times, and one of the most remarkable
recorded in military annals.

[Illustration: PLAN OF SEBASTOPOL, SHOWING THE DEFENCE.]

The Russians had profited by the change in the plans of the Allies. Prince
Menschikoff had moved his army upon Batchiserai on the 24th and 25th, in
order to regain his communications with Perekop and the eastern part of
the Crimea, whence, as he knew, large reserves were approaching to succour
the cherished city of the Czar. He hoped to place himself in rear of the
Allied armies, which, he supposed, would attack the northern works of
Sebastopol, and preserve his position there until he was strong enough
to fight a battle for the relief of the place. When the attack of the
Allies on his rear-guard, and intelligence from Sebastopol of the capture
of Balaclava, revealed to him the change of plan, he was persuaded by
Korniloff's remonstrances to move at once from Batchiserai and take up
a position on the Katcha, whence, on the 1st of October, he marched his
army through the village of Belbek, and rested for the night on the left
bank of the stream. The next morning the army was moved up to the northern
works, and thence transported across the harbour to aid in throwing up the
defences; so that, two days after the Allies had planted their camps on
the southern plateau, 20,000 men of Prince Menschikoff's beaten army had
re-entered Sebastopol.

During the fortnight that had elapsed since the battle of the Alma a
striking change had been made in the landward defences of Sebastopol. When
the Allies landed the defensive works were few and disconnected. On the
eastern face--that is, from the Careening Bay to the great ravine--there
were but three works, the centre of which was the Malakoff tower on its
commanding hillock. On the western face there was a long loop-holed
wall, running from the sea in front of Artillery Bay to a stone tower,
called the Central Bastion, opposite a cemetery, and a second work made
of earth, called the Flagstaff Bastion, crowning a hill at the southern
apex of the town, and on the western side of the great ravine. Not
more than fifty guns were mounted on these works at that time. In the
interval, the genius of Todleben had converted the place into a strongly
entrenched camp. The sailors and soldiers, the civilians, and even women,
were employed, without stint, in throwing up earthworks and in mounting
guns. Inspired by the energy of Korniloff, a tough Russian, directed
by the skill of Todleben, supplied by the vast resources of an arsenal
crammed with means and appliances of all kinds, the workers, in a few
days, surrounded the city with powerful defences. Batteries, connected
by entrenchments, arose on all sides; so that when the Allies sat down
before the place, and looked out over the waste towards the goal of
their efforts, instead of finding an open town, they found an entrenched
camp, which grew stronger under the gazer's eye. They had shrunk from
the northern works, because they were too strong; they marched up to the
southern works, and discovered that these were stronger. They had come
thither to take a town by a _coup de main_, and, in the opinion of Sir
George Cathcart, could have walked into the place on the 28th of September
without the loss of a soldier. They soon found that they were in front of
an entrenched position which no troops could assail and live. Therefore
the siege guns were landed with all practicable speed, and it was resolved
to raise batteries, not to breach the works, but to silence the fire of
the guns, and then to storm in on all sides.

But the more minutely the Allies looked into the ground they would have to
take up, and the works they would have to execute, the less likely did it
appear that they would readily reduce the place. The plateau occupied by
the British sloped down to the Russian works. It was broken into ridges
by five deep ravines, whose sides became more precipitous as they fell
towards the South Bay or Dockyard Creek. The left ravine was the largest
and the most profound. Towards its termination in the South Bay, the two
next ravines towards the right ran into it, leaving flat slopes between.
The second, on the right, was the larger and more important, and along its
bottom ran the Woronzoff road, whence it became known as the Woronzoff
ravine. Next, on the right, was a smaller ravine, called Karabelnaia,
because it led to that suburb; and the next, having its source near
Inkermann, ended in the Careening Bay. The Malakoff tower, with its
surrounding entrenchments, stood between the Careening and Karabelnaia
ravines. Then on the south-west of the Malakoff, but on the opposite bank
of the Karabelnaia, stood the now famous Redan, and the works known as
the Barrack batteries. In order to attack these, the engineers were forced
to trace their parallels on the flats between the ravines; but such was
the nature of the ground that the batteries raised to fire on the Redan
were obliged to be erected, not on the plateau which descended to it, but
on the opposite side of the Woronzoff ravine; while those intended to
batter the Malakoff were placed, not on the plateau which ran down to the
Malakoff, but on that which ran down to the Redan. Thus the two systems of
attack were separated by these deep gullies. They were called the right
and left attacks, and were the scenes of the principal labours and loss of
the British.

It was the opinion of Sir John Burgoyne and the engineers that the proper
point of attack was the Malakoff. On the ridge leading down to this work
was a remarkable mound, first called Gordon's Hill, but afterwards known
as the Mamelon. It afforded a good site for batteries directed against the
Malakoff, and as the hill on which this work was placed commanded the city
and the anchorage, Sir John wished to make this the principal point of
attack, and direct the main efforts of the besiegers to its mastery; while
the French held the enemy in check on their side, and a battery west of
the Woronzoff ravine--that is, our left attack--kept down the fire of the
Redan. But the French engineer, General Bizot, did not agree with Sir John
Burgoyne. In his opinion, the Flagstaff Battery, a bold salient work on
the west of the South Bay, was the key of the position. Sir John desired
to employ our 3rd Division against the Malakoff, but the French objected,
and it could not be done. Wherefore, the imperfect plan of attack which we
have indicated was resolved upon.

The landing of the siege train occupied eight days, and on the 16th of
October, 41 pieces of ordnance, including five 10-inch mortars, had been
mounted in batteries on the left attack, and 32 pieces of ordnance,
including five 10-inch mortars, had been mounted on the right attack. The
guns and mortars in these batteries were to direct a cross fire on the
Malakoff, the Redan, and the Barrack batteries, or to search the flank of
the Flagstaff on one side, and the men-of-war in the Careening creek on
the other. Thus in less than a week the British had put these 73 guns into
position; but in the meantime Todleben had shown such amazing industry and
skill, that he had brought no less than 107 guns to bear upon the British
attack alone, 82 of which were heavy siege guns, and 130 against the
French. The garrison was augmented daily; first by Menschikoff's army,
then by troops from Taman and Kertch, then by battalions from Odessa; so
that in a few days there were in Sebastopol no fewer than 23,000 soldiers,
and 12,000 sailors armed and drilled as soldiers; and about the heights of
Mackenzie's Farm and Inkermann, a corps of observation, numbering 25,000
men, giving a total of 60,000 men, a force equal to that of the Allies.

No place in the world could be more impregnable to an attack from the
sea. At the mouth of the roadstead there were three mighty forts. On a
low point of land, under the cliff on the northern side, rose the immense
work named Fort Constantine, showing 110 guns, in three casemated tiers,
with another tier on the roof. On the south shore, also low down, and
having a good command of the sea, first the Quarantine Fort, with its
sixty guns, and beyond that, Fort Alexander, with its ninety guns, defied
all assailants, so that in first line, an invading fleet would have to
encounter the fire of 260 guns, securely placed in solid works. Looking
from the sea, these three forts impressed the beholder with the strength
of the place. But these were not all. Beyond Alexander rose Fort Nicholas,
armed with 110 guns; and beyond this, Fort Paul, with its eighty-six guns,
standing at the mouth of the south bay. Altogether, there were no fewer
than 700 guns looking towards the sea from their secure casemates. Nor
should the small work, called the Wasp Battery, above Fort Constantine,
improvised on the spur of the moment, be overlooked. It deserved its name.
Such were the formidable defences which the allied fleets were to attack
in wooden ships, and which some sanguine persons expected them to reduce
to helplessness. No greater delusion could exist.

The real hour of trial had now come. The batteries of the Allies were
ready to open fire, and on the night of the 16th of October orders went
forth from both headquarters that the embrasures should be unmasked in the
obscurity of the dawn; that the troops in camp should be held in readiness
to fall in at a moment's notice ready to storm; that the fire of the land
batteries should open soon after six; and that the fleet, moving up,
should assail the great forts overlooking the sea. Both admirals, it is
understood, were opposed to this proceeding. They held the sound opinion
that the fleet could not effect anything against the forts. The safety of
the army, they said, depended on the safety of the fleet, and it would
be imprudent to risk the fleet in an encounter with forts so well placed
and so heavily armed. The mouth of the harbour was closed by the sunken
ships. A shoal, running out in front of Fort Constantine, prevented the
great men-of-war from placing themselves near enough to batter the walls
with effect. The sailing ships must be towed or propelled by steamers, and
would fight at a disadvantage. These arguments did not prevail. Admiral
Hamelin was under the absolute command of General Canrobert, and not at
liberty to disobey. Admiral Dundas was not under the absolute command of
Lord Raglan; but he could not well refrain from executing his wishes, or
look on while the French attacked. The allied generals were pressing in
their orders, as they held that an attack from the sea would operate as a
diversion, and favour the attack from the land. Therefore it was decided
that the ships should go in, take the risk, and do their utmost to damage
the enemy.

The first spectacle that arrested the eye when the first cloud of smoke
rolled away was the broken Malakoff. The 68-pounders, in Peel's battery,
more than 2,000 yards from the work, had dismounted the guns and ruined
the tower. Then it was seen that the French were inferior to their foes.
Their light brass guns and hastily constructed works were no match for
the heavier metal of the Russians. The batteries were beginning to
look deformed, their fire wanted the force and continuity of ours. The
Russians pounded them in front, and sent their heavy shot and shell into
their left flank; and, seeing the effect, redoubled their energy. Our
magazines were small, and the rapid firing soon exhausted the supply; but
the artillerymen drove down to the trenches, under a fierce cannonade;
and their daring was rewarded, for they met with few casualties. Then,
freshly supplied, the gunners went to work with renewed vigour. About
twenty minutes to nine there was an explosion, so loud that it struck
everyone with amazement, and caused a perceptible slackening of the fire.
A Russian shell had broken through the great magazine of the principal
French battery. In a moment all the guns were dismounted, 100 men were
killed and wounded, and the battery rendered absolutely useless. A shout
of triumph arose in the town, and its roar reached even the lines of the
besiegers. The French guns were now nearly silenced, so heavy had been the
storm directed upon them when it was found that they were giving way; and
between eleven and twelve, with one battery destroyed and two silenced,
General Canrobert gave orders to cease firing. Thus before noon the French
had retired from the contest altogether.

The British hardly relaxed a moment. Their batteries were mauled, but
their gunners never ceased to hurl forth their shot and shell. We had, by
this time, so reduced the fire from the Barrack batteries, on the Russian
right of the Redan, and from the earthwork round the Malakoff, that these
batteries were regarded as silenced. But, when the French ceased, the left
flank guns of the Flagstaff and Garden batteries, a little in its rear,
but facing our trenches, and the Redan, went on as furiously as ever. The
Russians fought their guns with a skill and persistence deserving the
greatest praise. They were now testing the worth of all their defences.
The costly casemated forts were replying to the allied ships; two steamers
and a line-of-battle ship in the harbour were exchanging shots with our
Lancaster guns and 68-pounders; while Todleben's extemporised batteries
were in full play. But the British fire was so good that, about three
o'clock, a shell found its way into the magazine of the Redan, and,
setting it on fire, caused an explosion which silenced that work for
half-an-hour. Then they got one or two guns to work, and with these they
kept up a fire all the rest of the day. But this earthwork suffered so
severely that its garrison was replaced three times between sunrise and
sunset. Along the whole line opposed to our batteries we had, by the
evening, established a complete superiority over the fire of the enemy;
and had the French been equally successful, it is probable that an assault
would have been hazarded. During the day we had demolished the Malakoff
tower, exploded its magazine, the magazine in the Redan, and a magazine
in the town; we had killed Admiral Korniloff, and killed or wounded 500
men, and dismounted thirty-five guns; and we had driven the line-of-battle
ships out of the creek, and damaged a steamer in the harbour. In return
our whole loss was 130 men killed and wounded, one Lancaster gun burst,
and seven guns disabled in consequence of injuries to wheels and carriages.

The operation of the fleets had been a glorious display of courage, and
that was all. The fleets were divided into three squadrons. The British
took the left, the Turks the centre, and the French the right. In order
to carry the great sailing ships into action, steamers were lashed to
the side next the offing, and one hour was occupied in turning the
_Britannia_, in order to place her in the proper position. The French were
drawn up in two lines, eight ships of the line with one Turkish ship, in
the first line, and eight, with a Turk, in the second. These were the
first, about 1,800, the second about 2,000 yards from the Quarantine
Fort and Forts Nicholas and Alexander on the south shore of the harbour.
The British fleet consisted of twenty-six ships of war, but some of the
steamers were used to carry the large sailing ships into position. They
had to contend with Fort Constantine and the batteries on the cliff,
notably the Wasp. A shoal running out from the spit on which the fort is
built prevented a nearer approach than 800 yards; but the _Agamemnon_
and _Sanspareil_, the first with only two feet of water under her keel,
did not hesitate to run within that distance of the 130 guns of Fort
Constantine. There was no wind, and the sea was smooth. About a quarter
past one the conflict began, and it did not cease until dark. And what was
the upshot? The forts looked "speckled." It is stated that the gunners
were driven from their guns more than once, and that some pieces were
dismounted; but the Russians again steadily resumed their fire, and fired
on to the end. The superiority of stone forts, and even earthworks, over
ships, remained as firmly established as ever. The fleets did not venture
again to attack the great forts at Sebastopol.

At dawn, on the 18th, the cannonade was resumed. This time it was a duel
between the British and the Russians, for the French had not recovered
from the destructive blows they received on the 17th. The Russian fire
was far heavier than on the preceding day. The batteries round the
Malakoff, the Redan, the Barrack, the Garden, and left face of the
Flagstaff batteries, were more vigorous than ever. But our fire did
not equal in intensity and weight the fire of the first day. Then, our
gunners were lavish of ammunition; now, they hoarded the slender store.
Each gun fired once in ten minutes. But the enemy, having behind them
the best stocked arsenal in the world, pitched in every kind of missile
without stint. Although they could not touch our magazines, again we blew
up one of theirs--this time in the Malakoff. The first day we fired as
fast as we could, in the hope of subduing their fire and storming in;
but on the second day all idea of instant storming had been given up. We
fired to continue the bombardment and enable the French to recover. One
ominous sign marked the 18th--the Russians made a reconnaissance from
the Tchernaya in the forenoon, upon the lines of Balaclava. Their heavy
masses appeared above Tchorgoun, and on the Fedoukine heights, but did not
approach nearer. It was the first instalment of the great bodies on the
road from Bessarabia. The superiority of the Russians was now established.
They had more men, more guns, more supplies of all kinds. On the 19th
they fired more shots; they fired steadily, and they had increased their
number of guns. The artillery of the besieged was double that of the
besiegers. It was all artillery of great weight and great range. The
Russian general had men enough to serve all his guns, and to keep very
strong parties on guard. Each night he more than repaired the damage done
in the day. Todleben seemed to be sleepless. In short, the whole character
of the operation, so far as the Allies were concerned, had become changed,
not by their will, but by time and the will of the Russians. On the
morning of the 20th the British store of ammunition had been so reduced
that very few rounds per gun remained. They had fired 20,000 the first
day. Moreover, the enemy was evidently gathering in force in the valley
of the Tchernaya. Therefore the generals took counsel together, and
determined to await the arrival of reinforcements, both of men and means,
and then to recommence a fresh bombardment, with a greatly increased force
of artillery.

[Illustration: CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE. (_See p._ 60.)]

The expedition to the Crimea was undertaken on the idea that Sebastopol
could be taken by a landing, a battle, a march, and a _coup de main_. The
Allies landed on the 14th. The news of the battle of the Alma reached
Paris and London on the 30th of September. On the 1st and 2nd of October
came a report that the place had been taken on the 25th. This report
was believed by most people, including the British Government, and it
was believed by them because they were cognisant of the real nature of
the plan. Those who felt and expressed doubts respecting the truth of
the story were indignantly silenced. The French Emperor shared in the
general delusion, and it was not until the 4th of October that it was
dispelled by the arrival of Lord Raglan's despatch of the 28th, stating
that he had only just reached Balaclava. In the midst of their labours
in the trenches, and when the grave fact, that Sebastopol could not be
taken without a regular siege, was becoming more apparent every hour,
this wild story reached the allied camp with the English journals, and
excited feelings of the warmest indignation. This incident is narrated to
show how great were the expectations of the people and the Governments,
and how little either knew of the real nature of the enterprise which
they had promoted and sanctioned. In England there was a passion to take
Sebastopol, and it cannot be doubted that the failure of the original
plan, while it intensified that passion, also made the people angry with
the heads of the army and the heads of the State.

The Czar Nicholas was also angry at the invasion of his dominions and
the defeat of his troops; and anger and prudence alike dictated the
reinforcement of Prince Menschikoff and the resumption of offensive
operations. Accordingly, he gave orders for the march of the 3rd and
4th Corps d'Armée to the Crimea, and by the end of October the Russians
outnumbered the Allies by two to one. Prince Menschikoff meanwhile was
meditating a counter-stroke, and devising plans to force the Allies to
raise the siege. Surveying their position, he deemed it assailable on
two points; from the Tchernaya, in front of Balaclava, and from the head
of the harbour on the British right flank opposite Inkermann. Perhaps
the feasibility of the latter operation was then only germinating in his
mind. He was seduced into another operation. The apparent weakness of the
British position about Balaclava made him impatient to attack it. From
the lofty ridge of Mackenzie, on the north, and from the heights to the
east, which on one side look towards the Baidar valley and the road to the
Crimean undercliff, and on the other into Kamara and the Balaclava plain,
he saw the weak-looking defences of the Allies in front and flank. The
little knolls crowned by the Turkish redoubts lay exposed in the plains,
nearly two miles from any support. They ran in a curved line north-west
from Kamara--No. 1, on a mound called Canrobert's Hill, being nearest to
Kamara; and No. 5 being almost under the ridge of Mount Sapoune. Between
them and Balaclava and Kadikoi, and on to the Col and the fortified ridge,
there was nothing except the Marines on the eastern Balaclava heights,
the 93rd in front of the gorge leading to the harbour, the sailors'
gun-battery above Kadikoi, and the camps of the British Cavalry Brigades,
north-west of that village. Could he not by a rapid and vigorous movement
sweep through these defences, expel the Turks, destroy the 93rd, seize
Balaclava, destroy the shipping, and cut off the British from their road
out to the sea? Having won Balaclava and the heights on both sides, could
he not next carry the Col, and so break into the rear of the allied camps,
and place them between his guns and bayonets and those of Sebastopol?
General Liprandi had arrived with the 12th Division and four regiments
of horse and 44 field-guns, and reinforcing these from his over-abundant
garrison, Menschikoff determined to attempt the enterprise.

Sir Colin Campbell, who commanded at Balaclava, feared an attack from
Kamara and on this side, and he had done all that was possible, with the
scanty means at his disposal, to provide against it. As he watched daily,
his keen eye detected the increasing symptoms of the coming storm, but
so weak was our force that we could do little, except place guns in the
Turkish redoubts, a measure which did not meet with general approval; and
in case of attack to rely for safety upon the arrival of troops from the
main body in time to give battle to the assailants. General Liprandi, as
early as the 23rd, had collected on the Tchernaya his own 12th Infantry
Division, and he was then reinforced by seven battalions and fourteen guns
from Sebastopol. This gave him a force of about 21,000 men, including
3,200 cavalry and 52 guns. The 24th was spent in reconnoitring the
position, and Sir Colin Campbell heard the same evening, from a spy, that
an attack in force would be made at dawn; information which Lord Lucan
sent by his own aide-de-camp to headquarters. But it does not appear that
any measures were taken in consequence. Perhaps no trust was placed in
the spy. Perhaps Lord Lucan did not enjoy that confidence at headquarters
which a really good cavalry commander would not have failed to inspire. In
any case it does not appear that special measures were taken to meet the
attack.

Long before dawn of the 25th of October the Russians stood to their arms.
The valley of the Tchernaya, the plain beyond, and the hill sides were
shrouded in a thick clammy mist. This was favourable to the assailants.
The plan of General Liprandi was to move in three separate columns upon
the redoubts occupied by the Turks. The Turks were alarmed. They opened
fire, but as the enemy's troops rolled on towards them they lost heart.
Arrived within a hundred yards, the Russian infantry made a rush over
the intervening space, and the first redoubt was won. The Turks fled,
some over the valley, some into the next redoubt; but some fought, for
the Russian general reports that 170 were slain in the work. The English
artilleryman in charge of the 12-pounders had spiked them. Moving swiftly
forward, bringing up his right and pushing his horsemen along on the
flank, Liprandi forced the Turks to flee from the next two redoubts; and
the Cossacks were soon over the slopes, dashing among the fugitives, and
spearing them as they ran. The Turks still fled. Panic ran along the whole
line. The last redoubt was abandoned, and the Russians occupied the whole
line of outposts, and bringing up their artillery, opened a heavy fire.
But General Liprandi, fearful of thrusting his men under the fire of
the heavy guns about Balaclava and Kadikoi, halted in full career, and
refrained from pressing an attack which, at one moment, seemed likely to
sweep like a tide through the whole valley.

Nevertheless, he resolved to continue his offensive movement, but with
his horsemen alone. When the Russians were first seen advancing through
the mist, Lord Lucan, who expected them, was in one of the redoubts. He
immediately rode off to join his division, and to send the unwelcome news
to Sir Colin Campbell and Lord Raglan. The cavalry were soon in the saddle
and in fighting order, the Heavy Brigade on the right, the Light on the
left. Sir Colin Campbell drew out the 93rd, under Colonel Ainslie, and
posted them on a rising ground in front of the gorge leading to the port.
He had no other force except Captain Barker's 9-pounder foot battery, with
which he covered his right. Some of the fugitive Turks were rallied by
Sir Colin, and placed on his right flank, but no dependence could be put
on them. The only staunch infantry on the plain were the 93rd, drawn up
in line along a little ridge--a mere streak of red compared with the dark
compact masses of the impending foe.

They came down with a gallop and a yell. The few Turks on the right of
the Highlanders fired a volley at once and ran, crying, "Ship, Johnny,
ship!" The Cossacks were elated, and they swung round their left flank as
if they would roll up "the thin, red streak, tipped with a line of steel."
But Sir Colin threw back his right flank company, and when the screaming
horsemen were within 600 yards, he threw in a volley. The guns on the
heights sent in heavy shots, yet the Cossacks were not to be deterred. In
a short space, instead of fleeing, the 93rd poured in another volley from
their rifles, a volley heard afar, as it rang out clear and compact, and
echoed among the hills. The Cossacks found that the men in red were not to
be scared away like Turks, although they stood alone far out in the plain,
and only two deep. So, when the great column was closing with our heavy
horse, the mere fire and steadfastness of the Highlanders drove the lesser
column back to the redoubts, while the guns of Barker's battery smote them
as they fled.

When the British cavalry fell back, Lord Lucan placed them near the two
most westerly redoubts. His object in doing this was twofold. He desired,
first, to give a clear and unobstructed range to Sir Colin Campbell's
guns; and secondly, to post the cavalry at a point whence, if the Russians
moved directly on Balaclava, he could take them in flank. For this reason
he made them front to the east. Now Lord Raglan did not approve of the
disposition of the cavalry, and, being Commander-in-Chief, he had the
audacity to direct a change of position. Lord Lucan was "discomfited." He
seems to have thought that Lord Raglan did wrong to interfere with him.
But he obeyed, and changed the front from east to north. Then Lord Raglan
appears to have thought that the infantry near Balaclava should not be
wholly without the support of the horse, and he directed Lord Lucan to
send eight squadrons of the Heavy Brigade towards Balaclava. He obeyed.
There was a long orchard running north and south, round which, on the
western side, the cavalry had to move. It so chanced that, coincidently
with this order from the English general, Liprandi had also given an
order. He had massed his cavalry behind the redoubts, and he now directed
them, with a force of Cossacks on the left flank, to push over the ridge
and pour the larger body into the cavalry camps that lay to the south-east
of the orchard, and the flanking Cossacks to attack the 93rd. As Lord
Lucan was riding along, he saw, through a break in the fruit-trees, the
head of the huge column of Russian cavalry, some glittering in blue and
silver uniforms, crown the ridge and descend the slope. He rode at speed,
and joined the Greys and Enniskillens, as they were rounding the south end
of the orchard. He wheeled them into line, almost in the cavalry camp, and
placing them under General Scarlett, he directed them to anticipate the
Russian charge. All this was visible to the men and officers who swarmed
on Mount Sapoune. They sat or stood, French and British, looking down with
breathless interest on the scene below. They saw the Russian horse, nearly
3,000 strong, sweep majestically over the rising ground, the front of
their broad and deep column protected by outstretched wings on each flank;
and they saw--at first in something like disorder, apparent not real--the
little squadrons of the Heavy Brigade, which altogether did not equal a
fifth of the force swooping down upon them. No British soldier could have
desired a fairer occasion for a display of valour and skill.

As the Russians rolled over the ridge, they instinctively fronted towards
the tiny squadrons which they saw entangled in their standing camp.
"They," wrote Mr. W. H. Russell, who witnessed the scene, "advanced
down the hill at a slow canter, which they changed to a trot, and at
last nearly halted. Their first line was nearly double the length
of ours, and it was at least three times as deep. Behind them was a
similar line equally strong and compact. They evidently despised their
insignificant-looking enemy, but their time was come. The trumpets rang
out through the valley, and the Greys and Enniskilleners went right at
the centre of the Russian cavalry. The space between them was only a
few hundred yards; it was scarce enough to let the horses 'gather way,'
nor had the men quite space enough for the play of their sword arms.
The Russian line brought forward each wing as our cavalry advanced, and
threatened to annihilate them as they passed on. Turning a little to
their left, so as to meet the Russian right, the Greys rushed on with a
cheer that thrilled every heart. The wild shout of the Enniskilleners
rose through the air at the same instant. As lightning flashes through a
cloud, the Greys and Enniskilleners pierced through the dark masses of
Russians. The shock was but for a moment. There was a clash of steel, and
a light play of sword blades in the air, and then the Greys and dragoons
disappeared in the midst of the shaken and quivering columns. In another
moment we saw them emerging with diminished numbers and in broken order,
charging against the second line." In less than five minutes, by the
vigorous attack in front, and a well-timed assault in flank, and the dash
upon the wings as they were closing in upon our first line less than 700
British swordsmen had beaten 3,000 Russian horse in compact and close
array into a disorderly crowd, and had driven them off so completely that
they did not draw rein until two miles from the scene of the combat and
well behind their own guns and between their own infantry. Fortunately,
General Scarlett, who had the conduct of this brilliant charge, kept his
men in hand, and brought them up before they came under the range of the
enemy's guns. Thus were exemplified before the eyes of our allies the
highest and the rarest qualities of cavalry--the swift, unhesitating
charge, and the faculty for stopping ere it is too late. But the British
general must have seen with regret, as the French officers saw with
astonishment, the inactivity of the Light Brigade. One word from their
leader, a few strides round the north of the orchard, and the brigade
might have buried itself deep in the Russian right rear, and have taken
hundreds of prisoners, if it had not half destroyed Liprandi's cavalry.
But fear of responsibility kept Lord Cardigan's lips closed. He had been
"placed there," and until he was ordered to move, there he must remain.
Few men have ever thrown away a more fortunate moment, and in battle such
moments fly never to return.

So far the conflict. The Russians had surprised a line of outposts, and
had taken seven guns, and now held the greater part of the line they
had surprised; but their cavalry had suffered a deep disgrace, and had
been driven in, and their general was compelled to form a strong line of
battle, not for offence, but defence. He placed seven battalions and eight
guns on the south and south-west slopes of the Fedoukine heights. In the
valley leading to the Tchernaya were the rallied horse, with their flanks
thrown forward, and guns in their front; and on the redoubt ridge, and
on both sides of it, and in three of the redoubts, was the remainder of
the infantry in column, as far as Kamara, supported by strong lines of
guns. He seemed to wait an opportunity, and was tempted again, by the weak
appearance of the defence of Balaclava, to try and debouch from Kamara;
but the steady fire of Barker and the Marines daunted him effectually.
Thus stood the aspect of the field between nine and ten o'clock, when the
action cooled down to a cannonade, and the Russians, who were proud of
their victory over the Turks seemed to entertain no desire whatever for a
further acquaintance with their other foes at close quarters.

[Illustration: GENERAL TODLEBEN.]

Lord Raglan, from his post of vantage, had watched the enemy's
disposition, and he thought he saw a chance of recapturing the redoubts.
He gave an order to Cathcart to that effect, but it was executed with
great slowness. He, therefore, no doubt again to the discomfiture of
Lord Lucan, directed him to move his cavalry, and take advantage of any
opportunity that might present itself to prevent the removal of the
guns. The infantry divisions had not yet entered the valley. The order
sent to Lord Lucan was not well constructed, but the sense was plain. It
ran thus:--"Cavalry to advance, and take any opportunity to recover the
heights. They will be supported by the infantry, which have been ordered.
Advance on two fronts." Lord Lucan, who resented interference with him,
put upon it the construction that he was to attack the guns at the eastern
end of the valley, and being out of humour, asked for no explanation. Soon
afterwards, feeling that Lord Lucan had not advanced far enough according
to his view, Lord Raglan directed Quarter-master-General Airey to send
the following instructions to Lord Lucan: "Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry
to advance rapidly to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the
enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of horse artillery may accompany.
French cavalry is on your left. Immediate." These instructions were placed
in the hands of Captain Nolan, a far-famed cavalry officer, who believed
British horsemen, well led, could ride over anything. Nolan galloped
swiftly down the slope and over the plain, and drawing rein, presented the
paper to Lord Lucan. "After carefully reading this order," writes Lord
Lucan to Lord Raglan afterwards, "I hesitated, and urged the uselessness
of such an _attack_, and the dangers attending it. The aide-de-camp
[Nolan], in a most authoritative tone, stated that they were Lord Raglan's
orders, that the cavalry should attack immediately. I asked [in a very
complaining tone] 'Where, and what to do?' [a sensible question], neither
enemy nor guns being in sight. He [Nolan] replied, in a most disrespectful
but significant manner, pointing to the farther end of the valley, 'There,
my lord, is your enemy; there are the guns!'" Here is a dramatic interlude
on a bare plain in the Crimea; Nolan's blunder had confirmed Lucan's
misconception.

After the fierce dialogue we have recorded, Lord Lucan rode over to the
Light Brigade. He found them dismounted, and orders were given to mount.
"Lord Lucan," says Lord Cardigan, in a sworn affidavit, "then came to our
front and ordered me to attack the Russians in the valley. I replied,
'Certainly, sir; but allow me to point out to you that the Russians have
a battery in our front, and batteries and riflemen on each flank.' Lord
Lucan said, 'I cannot help that; it is Lord Raglan's positive order that
the Light Brigade attacks immediately.'" Well might a thrill of horror run
through the spectators on the heights, when they saw the Light Cavalry
speed off to their glorious doom.

For at this moment the Russians presented a strong line of battle. The
Fedoukine hills were black with heavy masses of infantry, no fewer than
sixteen guns looked into the valley, and a body of foot Cossack riflemen
were extended as skirmishers on the lower slopes; all this force of
artillery and musketry being on the left flank of the valley down which
Lord Lucan was about to hurl the Light Brigade. Across the mouth of the
valley leading to the bridge over the Tchernaya and to Tchorgoun, with
both flanks thrown well forward, stood the cavalry defeated by the Heavy
Brigade, having in front, and parallel to the line of attack, a battery of
guns belonging to a Cossack regiment. On the right of the line of advance
two redoubts were occupied, and more than half the Russian infantry and a
body of lancers were in position. Riflemen were extended along both sides
of the valley. But, on our right flank, the artillery, except that in the
second redoubt, fronted towards Balaclava. It was through a valley thus
defended on the flanks, and thus barred at the end, that our Light Brigade
were ordered to ride. The feat they accomplished is, perhaps, unparalleled
in war.

Lord Cardigan had formed his ten squadrons in two lines, numbering from
the right, the 13th Light Dragoons, the 17th Lancers, and the 11th
Hussars; in the second, the 8th Hussars and the 4th Light Dragoons. Lord
Lucan did not approve of this arrangement, and, drawing the 11th Hussars
from the first line, he placed them in the left rear of the 17th Lancers.
Thus the brigade formed three lines. The whole did not amount to many more
than 600 men. Lord Cardigan took post in front of the centre of the first
line. He was conspicuous, for he wore the uniform of the 11th Hussars,
with its bright cherry-coloured trousers and gorgeous jacket, and he rode
a strong and beautiful chestnut horse, with white heels. The signal was
given, and--

    "Into the valley of death
    Rode the six hundred."

The brigade went over the shoulder of the hill at a trot. At once they
came under the fire of the guns on the Fedoukine heights. The brave Nolan
was in the van. He had not gone far when a piece of shell struck him,
ripping open his chest. On went the brigade. In the race of death they
had to run the course was more than a mile long. The guns on their left,
the battery in front, served by Cossacks--who only sponged out after
every sixth round, so that their fire might be rapid--the guns from the
redoubt on their right, sent shot, and shell, and grape into the brilliant
and swiftly gliding lines, the thunder of whose trampling hoofs was
heard afar. The ranks were broken. The valley was strewn with heroes. The
mere sight of this steadfast band swooping down upon them, made upon the
Russians an impression so terrible that they instinctively drew back.
"Their fierce attack," wrote Liprandi, "forced General Rijoff to retire
by the road that leads to Tchorgoun." The infantry on the left went back
nearer to Kamara, and ran into squares. "The enemy's attack," continued
Liprandi, "was most pertinacious. He charged our cavalry in spite of the
grape fired with great precision from six guns of the light battery, No.
7, in spite of the fire of the skirmishers of the regiment 'Odessa' [on
the Russian left], and of a company of riflemen on the right wing, and
even unheeding the guns of General Yabrokritski," on the slopes of the
Fedoukine heights. Ignoring all this mass of destructive machinery, the
Light Brigade swept on. The steadfast artillerymen fired their last round
as the first line, rent and torn, closed upon the muzzles and, with a
fierce cheer, dashed in. The gunners were caught before they could retire,
and only those escaped who crept under the guns and waggons. Some Cossacks
charged to save their guns. Lord Cardigan had encounters with several, but
escaped with a lance thrust through his sleeve, and then he "rode away
apparently unhurt." After the first line came Colonel Douglas, with the
11th, and then the 4th and 8th. In a short space, the first line, which
had charged home so impetuously, was now broken into groups, and began to
straggle back; but, some of them meeting the 11th, faced about once more
and went on. All the regiments had passed the battery. Some of the men
were even galloping right into the Russian cavalry, who had fallen back
towards Tchorgoun.

[Illustration: THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA.

BY R. CATON WOODVILLE

(BY PERMISSION, FROM THE ENGRAVING PUBLISHED BY MESSRS H. GRAVES &
CO., LTD., PALL MALL, S.W.)]

The British horse were thus for a moment far within the enemy's position.
The Russians were almost stunned by the hardihood of the charge. But
General Liprandi, who was watching the fight, gathered up a body of
Lancers on his own left, and poured them into the space in front of the
battery, between our troopers and their line of retreat. Fortunately,
Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, had kept his regiment well in hand
throughout. He had come on at a steady, deliberate pace, on the right
of the 3rd line, but not so fast as the 4th. He had charged through the
battery, and had shown front to the Russians beyond; but, like a good
officer, he still kept his men in hand. His skill was rewarded. Across
the rear came the Russian Lancer regiment, and some of our men and some
officers thought for a moment it was the 17th, and proposed to form
upon it. They were soon undeceived. Colonel Shewell did not hesitate. He
wheeled about his squadrons just as Major Mayou, who had brought back a
knot of the 17th from their charge towards Tchorgoun, joined him; and,
leading the way, Shewell carried his men clear through the Russians, and
thus removed the worst danger from the path of the little groups and
single men, some wounded, some with wounded horses, some without horses,
who were struggling back over the corpse-strewn valley, still under that
terrible cross-fire.

Lord Lucan had brought up the Heavy Brigade to the crest of the ridge
to protect the retreat, and they came under fire and lost men, and his
lordship himself was slightly wounded. The Chasseurs d'Afrique had made
a most daring and skilful charge on a battery on the Fedoukine heights,
and had silenced its fire, with great loss to themselves. This was an
admirable feat, deserving all the praise it received. While the Heavy
Brigade was under fire, Lord Cardigan rode up and began to complain. At
this time the remnants of his brigade were still in the Russian position,
or just passing from it; for he had passed Lord Lucan, who was in advance
of _his_ brigade, before the returning heroes of the Light Cavalry were
within Lord Lucan's sight. So deponeth Lord Lucan and his statement was
amply confirmed. From which, taken in connection with Lord Cardigan's
sworn statements, we learn that Lord Cardigan rode well into the battery,
and fought with the Cossacks, but that he never had the brigade well in
hand, and though alive, was not in the midst of his men at the moment when
they required a guide and leader to extricate them from the heart of the
Russian position.

Far from the guns of the enemy, the remnant of that valorous band
re-formed. Lord Cardigan rode up to the front, and said, "Men, this is
a great blunder; but it is no fault of mine." And the men cheered and
replied, "Never mind, my lord, we are ready to go back again." And this
was the charge of the Light Brigade, such a grievous waste of life, yet so
sublime, and of such sterling quality, that its fame has rung through all
lands, and its influence still permeates all armies. Out of the 670 who
rode into the valley, there were left only 195 mounted men. The brigade
had lost 12 officers killed and 11 wounded; 147 men killed and 110 wounded
or missing; and 325 horses killed in the charge. All this devotion and
daring had been shown, all this havoc wrought, within the short period of
twenty minutes! Well might Lord Raglan say to Lord Lucan, "Why, you have
lost the Light Brigade!" Let us be just. The responsibility, whatever it
may be, for ordering that dreadful charge must be divided between three
men. The whole blame should not fall on Lord Lucan. General Airey and
Captain Nolan must share it with him.

The charge of the Light Brigade virtually terminated the battle. The
Guards, indeed, the 4th Division, and a French division did advance
farther eastward, and this, with the fire of the British guns, forced the
Russians successively out of all the redoubts, and compelled Liprandi
to take up a contracted position on the high ground between Kamara and
Tchorgoun. Lord Raglan and General Canrobert debated the propriety of a
further attack; but decided that it would be undesirable to waste life in
the attempt, as, if regained, the heights could not be reoccupied. So the
battle ended about one o'clock with a cannonade. At dusk the French troops
and the British infantry divisions, save the Highland Brigade, which
remained to reinforce the garrison of Balaclava, returned to the plateau.
The Russians admit a loss of 550 men in their cavalry alone, but admit
also that this was a hasty report. There is no other. The whole British
loss in cavalry was 37 officers and 353 men killed, wounded, and missing.




CHAPTER V.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_.)

    Effects of Balaclava--Attack on Mount Inkermann--Evans defeats
    the Russians--Menschikoff is Reinforced--His Plan of Attack--The
    Advance in the Fog--Soimonoff and Pauloff--Pennefather's
    Mistake--Repulse of Soimonoff--The Guards to the Rescue--Arrival of
    Lord Raglan--Bosquet's Help refused--The Guns ordered up--The Fight
    at the Sandbag Battery--The Coldstreams--The Guards' Charge--Defeat
    of Cathcart--Ammunition falls short--Arrival of the French--Charges
    of the Zouaves--The Russians slowly retreat--Canrobert hesitates
    to pursue--Loss of the Allies--Their Plight--The Baltic Fleet--Its
    real Objects--Capture of Merchant Vessels and Destruction of
    Stores--Sveaborg and Cronstadt reconnoitred--Bomarsund--Capture
    of the Fortress--End of the Naval Campaign--Changed Position
    of the Allies--Determination of the British Nation--Storm of
    November 14th--Destruction of the Transports--Sufferings of the
    Troops--Conduct of the War--Unpreparedness of the Army--The Duke of
    Newcastle--Timidity of the Government--Enlistment of Boys--Autumn
    Session--The Paper Warfare--Hostile Motions in Parliament--Lord John
    Russell's Resignation--His factious Conduct--Palmerston forms a
    Ministry--Resignation of the Peelites.


The lower range of heights in front of Balaclava, and the seven British
guns taken from the Turks, were the only material advantages gained by
the enemy on the 25th of October. Moral advantages, beyond those implied
in the capture of guns, he gained none. In order to strike a severe
blow, Liprandi should have carried Balaclava as well as the Turkish
redoubts; and had the British cavalry or the 93rd Regiment shown the
least hesitation, the slightest symptom of wavering, it is most probable
that the Russians would have instantly overrun the valley, and have swept
like a torrent through the gorge into the little port. The charges of the
cavalry and the steadfastness of the 93rd balked the Russian general. The
Russian horse and Russian infantry fell again under that moral ascendency
established at the Alma, and never lost. Therefore the moral advantages of
the combat of Balaclava were with the Allies.

Prince Menschikoff, who still commanded the Russian army, seems to have
had no clear, decisive views of the course he ought to adopt; for,
having alarmed the Allies at Balaclava, he now determined to rouse their
suspicions on the side of Inkermann. On the 26th, accordingly, the very
day after the capture of the Turkish redoubts, he directed a force of
5,000 or 6,000 men, and abundance of guns, to attack the 2nd Division.
These troops quitted the fortress by the Russian left of the Malakoff, and
ascended the right bank of the Careening ravine. Their skirmishers were
soon heard exchanging shots with the pickets of the 49th and 30th. These,
falling back to a good defensible post, kept the Russians at bay for some
time; so that the whole of the 2nd Division, under Sir De Lacy Evans,
had time to form. But numbers prevailed, and the pickets were driven in;
and the Russians soon showed a mass of columns on and about Shell Hill,
and presently eighteen or twenty guns were brought to the front on that
height. By this time the regiments of the 2nd Division were lying down
in line on the crest in front of their camp; and their twelve guns were
in action, while the skirmishers were busy on the slope between the two
hills. At first the Russians threw some spirit into their advance. Under
cover of their artillery on the hill they sent a heavy column down the
slope which, by its steadiness and weight, looked as if it intended to
sweep all before it. But a great calamity befell these brave men. The
fire of our artillery, concentrated on the Russian guns, was so quick,
precise, and severe, that the whole of the Russian batteries disappeared
over the brow. Then the British artillerymen, with ready energy, turned
their eighteen pieces full on the column of infantry which had so manfully
come forward towards our line. The effect of the fire was immediate. The
Russian infantry, thus deserted by their artillery, and exposed to the
shot from our guns and to the bullets of our skirmishers, turned to the
left and hurriedly sought the shelter of one of the many deep hollows.
While they were thus concealed, the second column was seen to rise above
the brow, and on them the guns poured their shot and shell. The officer
commanding, observing what had befallen the first column, immediately
withdrew his second over the ridge. All this time the Russian skirmishers
in the scrub which roughened the hill side kept up the conflict. Presently
the column which had fled into the ravine on the left emerged in broken
order, and was seen climbing the slopes to rejoin the main body in
rear of Shell Hill, and our artillery once more visited them with shot
and shell and quickened their pace; while our right skirmishers, under
Colonel Herbert, plied them with musketry. The 2nd Division, led by Major
Mauleverer and Major Champion, Major Eman, and Major Hume, were now let
loose upon the skirmishers in the space between the ridges; and they fell
on with so much vigour and effect, and with such eagerness, that General
Pennefather had great difficulty in arresting their fiery march. In an
hour the action was over, and the enemy in full retreat.

[Illustration: BALACLAVA.]

Signs of the presence of the enemy in great strength were now visible
almost daily. The two remaining infantry divisions of Dannenberg's corps
arrived at Batchiserai on the 28th of October. The 10th Division, under
General Soimonoff, entered Sebastopol on the 3rd of November, and on the
same day, the 11th, under General Pauloff, took up its quarters among the
hills about the ruins of Inkermann. The arrival of these troops had been
seen by the Allies, and the generals became convinced that, it might be
in a few hours, the enemy would make an attack upon some point or points.
Yet not a single change was made in the arrangements, except that the
British cavalry--the wreck of two splendid brigades--were marched up
to the plateau, and posted in the rear of the French lines upon Mount
Sapoune. The Allies, had, for all purposes, little more than 60,000 men.
Prince Menschikoff had under his orders, exclusive of the sailors, 70,000
infantry, 9,000 horse, 3,000 artillery, and 282 guns. What use should he
make of a force which exceeded that of the Allies by one-fourth?

According to the Russian accounts, Prince Menschikoff had been informed
that the Allies intended to open fire once more upon the place from all
their batteries, and, after a short and sharp bombardment, storm. His
information was correct. In order to anticipate the Allies, he determined
to assume the offensive himself, and, if possible, force them to raise
the siege. Two Grand-Dukes, sons of the Czar, were on their way to the
army, hoping to arrive in time to witness the total defeat of the arrogant
Western Powers. It was decided that there should be one real and two
false attacks--the real attack from Inkermann, the false attacks from the
Tchernaya valley upon Mount Sapoune, and from the Quarantine Bay upon the
left of the French siege works. Thus, to begin with, Prince Menschikoff
divided his disposable force into three parts, separated from each other
by such wide intervals that neither could aid the other. Thus, it will
be seen, Prince Menschikoff devised a very wide plan for the destruction
of the Allies. He hoped that the attacks from the town and from the
Tchernaya would entirely occupy the French; and that General Dannenberg
would be able to catch the British alone and unaware, and deliver the
fortress by passing over their bodies. Had Prince Gortschakoff attacked
the French with energy, this might have happened, for there were, counting
everything, only 22,343 British troops effective, and of these 16,308
were infantry, rank and file--that is, in technical language, bayonets.
The consequence was that the immense lines they had to guard were thinly
manned, and so scarce were labourers that there were none to repair the
trenches in the night attack.

In November the sun rises earlier in the Crimea than it does in England.
The rays of the dawn shoot up behind the snows of the Caucasus about five
o'clock; hence this hour was selected for the movement of the Russian
troops on the 5th of the month. But although the upper air was growing
brighter, a thick white fog overspread the hills around Sebastopol, and
settled down in heavier masses in the valleys. Hidden within its folds
the Russian columns stole unobserved out of Sebastopol, and Pauloff began
to throw a bridge over the Tchernaya, close to its mouth. As soon as it
was completed, the infantry poured over and the guns followed. The fog
deadened the sound of the hundreds of wheels emerging from the east and
west, and the grey-coated infantry, in silence and obscurity, tramped
along. The pickets of the 2nd Division were in the hollow between their
camp and Shell Hill and on the old post road, and those of the Light
Division were in the Careening ravine and on both its banks. There was
not more than usual watchfulness, for the Russian secrets had been kept,
and no attack was expected that morning more than any other. General
Codrington had ridden out at dawn to visit the outposts, and was riding
back to camp when the report of a rifle struck on his ear, and he halted
and listened. A sputter of musketry followed, and seemed to come from the
Careening ravine; and soon after the same ominous sound, its natural,
sharp, angry note being muffled by the fog, was heard on the right. The
skirmishers of the two Russian columns had touched the line of British
pickets. Codrington galloped off to turn out the Light Division. The
battle of Inkermann had begun.

Soimonoff, moving out of the Russian lines, had quitted the plateau on
which stood the Malakoff, and instead of resting his left on the Careening
ravine, by some mistake, crossed; and thus carried his twenty-nine
battalions along the proper right bank of the ravine towards the heights,
where Pauloff's troops had begun to assemble. It was his advanced parties
who came in contact with the outposts of the Light Division, whom they
drove into and over the Careening ravine, and whom they followed. Pauloff
had not got all his force up the heights; but as soon as the British
pickets were thrust back, he had hastened to put his heavy guns in battery
on the highest ground, and his lighter guns on the slopes beneath them,
within twelve hundred yards of the camp of the 2nd Division. He at once
opened fire to cover an assault of infantry and thus it happened that
Evans's British regiments had no sooner formed than they were exposed to
an iron shower of shot, shell, and grape. Evans, who had been disabled by
an accident, was on board a ship at Balaclava, and Sir John Pennefather
commanded the division. Protected by the fire of fifty guns, Soimonoff
directed a strong column to cross the Careening ravine; while Pauloff
threw forward by the old post road the two rifle regiments of Borodino and
Taroutino; so that both flanks of the English position were about to be
assailed at once.

The British troops at this moment in the front line were those of the
2nd and Light Divisions. General Pennefather, instead of relying on his
artillery, rashly rushed to the support of the pickets, sending Adams's
Brigade to the right of the post road with three guns, and keeping his
own on the left of the road. Sir George Brown brought up the Light
Division. Codrington's gallant soldiers were arrayed on the left bank of
the Careening ravine, not far from the 68-pounder battery, and Buller
moved up into the space between the left of Pennefather and the right
of Codrington. The front was contracted; but narrow as it was, the
troops were so few that there were gaps between the four brigades. At
the first onset of the enemy, the other brigades were not present. Soon
after six an orderly rode into headquarters with the news that the right
flank was assailed in force; and, indeed, the sound of cannon, not only
at Inkermann, but from the fortress and from the Balaclava front, told
the Allies with emphasis that the enemy was upon them. Lord Raglan soon
convinced himself that the real attack was at Inkermann, and he determined
to ride thither after issuing such orders as seemed expedient. The Guards
had not even reached the front when the Russian columns began to surge up
against our thin, straggling line.

The British guns had come into action on the crest as fast as they
arrived, and were at once exposed to an unequal combat with the heavier
guns of the enemy. And now the dense fog was made more dense by the
volumes of smoke which, breaking out from the guns in clouds, unfolded
itself, and lay almost motionless close to the surface of the miry ground.
Through this thick atmosphere the opposing troops made their dubious
way, and thus it happened that our men, hastening up to the front,
came suddenly upon enemies, who seemed to spring out of the hill side.
Soimonoff, on reaching the scene of action, found himself trenching upon
the ground apportioned to the columns of Pauloff. The huge masses had
converged upon a comparatively narrow front, and the Russians complain
that they had not room to range their men for a powerful and simultaneous
onset. Soimonoff had taken the wrong road, and instead of effecting a
junction with Pauloff at the head of the Careening ravine on the site of
the 2nd Division camp, he had joined Pauloff on the east of the ravine,
and found that hollow way between him and the troops he had been directed
to overwhelm--the Light Division. An ambiguous order had caused this
mistake. To retrieve his error, while the Taroutino and Borodino regiments
were climbing the hills to attack the Sandbag Battery, Soimonoff plunged
into the ravine, and led his men to the charge. Thus he came full on the
front of Codrington's Brigade, deployed on the left bank. The heroes of
the 7th, 19th, and 23rd were not dismayed by the masses which loomed large
and portentous in the fog, but opened upon them such a heavy fire that the
Russians heaped together in the deep hollows, and descending the steep
sides, never reached the opposite bank, but fell into disorder, recoiled,
and receded from view. These early combats rudely disarranged the Russian
plans.

In the centre the regiments of the 2nd Division had come upon enemies as
soon as they had formed. These were the leading companies of the Borodino
battalions, and they were at once set upon by Pennefather's brigade,
and pushed back. On the extreme right, half-way down the spur, whose
crags drop on one side into the Tchernaya valley, and on the other into
the Quarry ravine, Pennefather had posted the 41st and 49th, with three
guns, under Captain Hamley. They had no sooner arrived than heavy Russian
columns were seen indistinctly moving down the opposite slope. The guns
opened on them, but the Russians turned their artillery to that side, and
our guns, though steadfastly served, were too weak to contend with the
heavy metal opposed to them. The columns went down into the hollow, and
soon reappeared, flocking up the British side of the hill. The Taroutino
regiment turned upon the Sandbag Battery, and part of the Borodino went
with them up the road to break against Pennefather's brigade. The Russians
came on without faltering. Our troops were outnumbered and outflanked;
our guns were in danger of being taken. The 41st and 49th, quitting the
Sandbag Battery, fell back, and the hill seemed in danger of being lost;
but at this moment the bearskins of the Guards were becoming visible. The
Duke of Cambridge, when he had turned out his brigade, moved it to the
right of Pennefather, and went to succour the hardly-pressed 41st and
49th. The Guards came steadily down the slope of the spur, and, passing to
the right and left of the guns, cheered and charged, checked the advance
of the enemy, and recovered the battery. Hitherto they had only used the
bayonet; they now brought their rifles into play, and smote the retreating
Russians with deadly precision. The regiment Taroutino was so broken that
it retired even into the Inkermann valley to re-form. The brigade was not
complete when the Guards charged into the battery; but the Coldstreams
came up at once, and the three regiments took ground, the Grenadiers on
the right, the Coldstreams in the centre, and the Fusiliers on the left of
the recovered work.

It was at this time--about seven o'clock--that Lord Raglan arrived. The
fog had cleared somewhat, but the smoke of battle had taken its place.
He rode down the spur towards the Sandbag Battery just as the Guards had
recovered it; and he sought to penetrate the thick mist, and discern
the numbers and intentions of the foe. He could see but little through
the rifts in the smoke. He saw enough to make him feel the peril of his
position, and that of the whole army. Upon his tenacity hung the fate
of every soul on the plateau. Lord Raglan was a calm and steadfast man.
If danger rose high, his resolution rose higher; and knowing that his
soldiers were like himself, children of a proud and obstinate race, he
felt that he could do his duty, and hold fast to that narrow strip of
rugged ground, which formed, as it were, the gate into the lines drawn
about the southern defences of Sebastopol. He therefore resolved to stand
on the defensive, and dispute for the gate with the enemy until he won
or his troops were destroyed. The British soldiers actually before the
enemy at the end of this first heavy onset of Soimonoff and Pauloff did
not number more than 6,000 men. The 4th Division on the march would bring
the number up to 8,000, and beyond this he could not array a bayonet,
for the 3rd Division had to guard the trenches, and the Highland Brigade
was at Balaclava. Lord Raglan knew he could rely on aid from General
Bosquet. That officer at the first had offered several battalions to the
Duke of Cambridge and Sir George Brown, but these two, though ignorant of
the serious character of the attack, took upon themselves to refuse. Had
it not been for this proud unwillingness to accept French aid, or this
fear of responsibility, Bosquet would have been earlier in the field;
for Gortschakoff had so feebly acted on the side of Balaclava that the
quick Frenchman soon saw through his weak devices. As soon as he received
a request for troops from Lord Raglan he at once put three battalions in
motion. But he had two miles to march; the earth was soaked with a night's
rain, and part of the way lay through thick scrub. Some time, therefore,
was required to force the troops along. Two battalions were directed upon
the right rear of the 2nd Division, and the third was ordered to take post
near the Canrobert Redoubt at the extremity of the entrenchments on the
Sapoune ridge.

During the pause of the fight, while the artillery maintained the combat
and the infantry were merely keeping up a brisk skirmish in the bush,
Lord Raglan became sensible that his 9-pounders were over-matched by
the Russian guns, which, besides being many of them of heavier metal,
were nearly twice as numerous. Moreover, as fast as guns were disabled
the Russians supplied their places with fresh pieces from their immense
train of artillery. Lord Raglan soon remembered that there were in the
artillery park two 18-pounders, the same guns which had been used in the
Sandbag Battery to crush the Russian guns, mounted among the Inkermann
ruins. These he ordered to be brought up. Before they came into action the
infantry battle had been renewed. As Codrington's brigade of the Light
Division, fighting on the left bank of the Careening ravine, often within
it, and sometimes over it, protected effectually the left of Buller, and
as the occupation of the spur, on which was the Sandbag Battery, covered
the right flank of Pennefather, General Dannenberg saw that he could
not force the centre and break through on to the plateau until he had
cleared the Sandbag Battery spur. Between eight and nine he had rallied
two of Soimonoff's regiments, Tomsk and Kolyvan, and he counted on these,
supported by the Boutirsk regiment in reserve, to maintain the fight with
the left of Buller and the whole of Codrington. Then he sent forward the
infantry of the 11th Division--three regiments, each of four battalions,
Yakutsk, Okhotsk, and Selenginsk--with two rifle companies, to act as
skirmishers. They were ordered to carry the Sandbag Battery, clear the
whole of the slope, and sweep up the post road into the camp. Gallant
soldiers, and opposed to the British for the first time, they made their
way up to the battery with great spirit and unusual speed. It may be
remembered that the Guards occupied the battery, and the ground to the
right and left of it, and that Cathcart, with Torrens's brigade, was in
support on the right rear.

[Illustration: THE GUARDS RECOVERING THE SANDBAG BATTERY. (_See p._ 70.)]

Now began a contest about the battery which has been truly called sublime.
The Russians were nearly 6,000 strong, quite fresh, full of fight, and
very resolute. They came on in successive columns of regiments, making
loud and rude noises which our men called yells. The first to rush at the
battery were the Okhotsk men. As they came up the rifles of the Guards
told severely upon them, but did not arrest their course. A fierce combat
ensued, first heavy firing, then hand to hand fights, then a fearful
pressure of men on both flanks of the battery which it was hard to resist.
The heavy guns on Shell Hill took the British defenders almost in reverse,
yet they still clung to the ground. The regiment in the battery was the
Coldstreams. And now the enemy had swept round the flanks. For a moment
the Coldstreams fronted their foes on all sides, and kept them at bay on
the open rear of the battery. Then, with a cheer and a rush, they dashed
through, scattering their enemies right and left, and, bleeding, broken,
but unconquered, made their way up the slope to rejoin the British line.
But they had fourteen officers killed or wounded in that bloody Sandbag
Battery, and one or two, simply wounded, were murdered by the enraged
enemy. They had, however, slain many of the barbarous Okhotsk, and wounded
their colonel; and better than this, they had maintained their good name.

The fight at this time seemed going dead against the handful of British.
The other two regiments were coming on, Yakutsk up the post road, and
Selenginsk in reserve. On their right the rallied battalions of Soimonoff
were fighting with the British centre; while the fifty or sixty Russian
cannon on the heights never ceased hurling their iron shower into the
British lines. Unless the new attack were repelled at once, the Russians
would emerge from the ravines, and gaining the more open ground, deploy
their masses and sweep over the plateau. To prevent this, the Guards were
led once more to regain the Sandbag Battery. The three regiments formed a
line of no great length, but they went into the fight with their usual
decision. With a steady rush they came down upon their foes. The Russians
met them bayonet to bayonet. There was a brief conflict at close quarters.
Steel glistened in the air and muskets were brandished as clubs, and men
loaded and fired on the flanks, but still the Guards bored their way into
and through the mass, and passing over the slain, cheered as they stood
once more in the battery--now a charnel-house--and resumed their deadly
fire.

During this charge part of the Yakutsk regiment had halted on the post
road, and had turned to its left to aid its comrades. The Selenginsk men
had moved also to their left and had passed down the slope to outflank
the battery on the Inkermann side. The Russians were resolute to win.
The fierce charge of the Guards had made them angry, and they desired
revenge. While these two bodies were moving upon the little redan, the
Okhotsk rallied, so that the Russians renewed the contest for the battery
with a larger force than ever. It so chanced that Sir George Cathcart,
thinking he could take the enemy in flank, of his own accord carried
Torrens's brigade down the slope to the right. Thus the hostile forces
were converging on the same point, Selenginsk intent on the same object
as Cathcart. But Selenginsk mustered 3,000 men and Cathcart 400, for part
of Torrens's brigade was on the flank of Pennefather. And now, while the
Guards once more withstood the shock of the Russian infantry in front,
the Selenginsk men suddenly discovered the little band that Cathcart had
led below them. They at once opened a crushing fire on our men. Instead
of flanking the Russians, Sir George found himself in danger of being cut
off and destroyed. His men, too, were short of ammunition. To extricate
himself from this position, Cathcart ordered the men to charge, but the
ground did not admit of that, and the men fell back. Torrens then rallied
the 68th, and prepared to try once more a charge up hill. Sir George
called out to him, "Nobly done, Torrens; nobly done!" But it availed
nothing. Torrens was shot down, and the men halted. Indeed, the movement
was hopeless. The fire of the Russians was so close that Sir George
Cathcart was shot dead, and Colonel Seymour, who rushed up to him, was
shot also. The men were led back through the greatest perils.

Simultaneously with the defeat of Cathcart, the Russians had rolled in
heavy masses on the Guards. It was only the fringe of the left of the
Selenginsk battalions which had slain and driven the men of the 4th
Division. The right of that regiment, the Okhotsk, and the left of the
Yakutsk, were pressing upon the Guards in numbers that were irresistible.
Our men fell sullenly back. At this crisis the Duke of Cambridge rode
along in front of the line of the Guards, and between them and the foe,
and urged his soldiers to stand firm and fire. "We have no ammunition,"
was the unanswerable reply; and without ammunition, but with a firm
countenance, and slowly, the Guards gave ground until they reached the
line of the 2nd Division. Had the enemy then come resolutely on, he might
have won the day, for the spur at length was his. He had now room to
deploy. He might ascend the post road, and the slope he had conquered,
and burst out upon the plain. We were in great straits, but the soldiers
were as stubborn as ever, and the officers as cheerful and daring. But
the loss had been terrible. The only cheering feature in the battle at
this time, apart from the pluck of the men, was the execution done by the
two 18-pounders which had been brought into action and were hammering
effectually the Russian guns on Shell Hill. Bosquet, too, was approaching,
and General Canrobert was at Lord Raglan's side. Fresh ammunition had
been served out to the men; and although they were in disorder, men of
different regiments being mixed together, yet fight they did, and in the
crisis of the engagement held fast.

The two French battalions, the 6th and 7th Light Infantry, which had been
sent forward by Bosquet at the request of Lord Raglan, were now brought
over the crest to support the right. It is said that when they came first
into the storm of shot and shell which fell upon the ridge they blenched,
as if amazed, halted, wavered and gave ground. But the hesitation of the
Frenchmen did not last long. Recovering their presence of mind, they went
over the ridge and into the battle, and, side by side with our men, and
sometimes mixed with them, stood as stoutly and charged as bravely as the
best. Behind them came other French battalions. Dannenberg was preparing
for a thundering attack along the whole line; but before he could assume
the offensive with decision he found himself assailed. The French were
about to win back the Sandbag Battery spur, which innumerable foes had
torn from the grasp of our exhausted men. The clarion of the Zouaves and
the drums of the Light Infantry were heard; 3,000 Frenchmen were about to
prolong the line to the right, and contend with the enemy for possession
of the ground, now strewn thickly with British and Russian dead.

Three French batteries had come up, and had taken their places in line
with ours; but still the worst enemies of the Russian gunners were our two
18-pounders, fired with steadiness and deadly precision. The Russians were
forming for an assault in force, when Bourbaki took them in flank by an
impetuous charge. The gallant Russians were surprised, and thrust right
and left. The British centre, still in front of their camp, had quite
enough to do to keep back the foes who were pressing up the road; and,
as the Russians had been smitten but not subdued, driven over the brow
but not defeated, they turned, extended, and enveloped the flanks of the
French in turn, so that those had to give ground. At this time D'Autemarre
came up with his brigade, a regiment of Zouaves, one of Algerians, and
one of the Line. These fresh troops brought the enemy to a stand, and as
Bosquet pushed them into the thick of the combat, they fought their way
down the spur beyond the Sandbag Battery. The charge of the Zouaves was a
magnificent spectacle; they swept the Russians from the hill. But on their
left the enemy held his ground. The French light infantry regiments of
Bourbaki, and the little groups of British soldiers, could scarcely keep
their place, under the fire of artillery and musketry from Shell Hill and
the post road. For a moment the Russians wrested a gun from the 6th French
Regiment, and its colours; but Colonel Camas roused his men, and by a
desperate charge, in which he fell, Camas recovered both colours and gun.
Bosquet was nearly captured; and the resistance of the Russians was so
fierce that the French had to fall back a pace, and re-form. The Chasseurs
d'Afrique had been brought up, and our light cavalry approached within
fire, but both were sent back and held in reserve.

But practically the battle was won. The Russian infantry only resisted
in order to cover the retreat of the heavy guns, which could no longer
bear up against the 18-pounders. According to the French accounts, the
Russian regiments made one more charge, in which they were repelled, but
it was only the effort of men determined to prevent a close pursuit.
General Dannenberg had still several untouched battalions, and these he
formed up to protect the retreat of the brave men who had so nobly borne
the brunt of this bloody battle. Two war-steamers at the head of the
harbour also began to throw huge shells into the allied position. As the
French followed the retreating enemy, he turned repeatedly and fired with
both cannon and musketry. The slowness and order of the Russian retreat
had, at its commencement, an air of majesty in its movement which drew
expressions of admiration from those who witnessed it. But as the fire
of their artillery slackened, the Russian masses nearest the Allies fell
into confusion and hurried away; followed at a distance by a crowd of
skirmishers in similar confusion, Guards and Zouaves, French Linesmen and
English Linesmen, all mingled together. The battle was at an end.

The Russians fell back as fast as they could. Part of their infantry
and artillery took the road to Sebastopol; the remainder crossed the
Tchernaya bridge. Lord Raglan, it is said, was anxious that the enemy
should be pursued as soon as the artillery left Shell Hill. He had not a
man to spare for this purpose himself, for our troops were worn out with
their tough, enduring struggle, and all the more so as officers and men
alike had gone into action fasting. But General Canrobert had Monet's
brigade of Prince Napoleon's division, which had been sent up from the
Siege Corps, and kept up to this time in reserve. Not a man had seen or
felt the enemy. But Canrobert hesitated to use them. He is said to have
asked that the Guards should go with them, if they went, for his troops
had great confidence in "_les Black Caps_." But to this Lord Raglan, of
course, could not consent, for the Guards were a mere handful. At length
Canrobert agreed to push forward two battalions of Zouaves and a battery
of 12-pounders, and these, with the two Commanders-in-chief, ascended
the heights abandoned by the Russians, and arrived in time to see that
the enemy had escaped beyond range. The guns opened fire and did some
mischief to the stragglers; but the main force had made good its retreat.
The Russian Grand Dukes and Prince Menschikoff had the mortification to
witness the ruin of those splendid dreams in which they had indulged with
such confidence when their great army moved out at dawn. The battle of
Inkermann won for Lord Raglan the _bâton_ of a British Field Marshal,
which he deserved for his valour, though hardly for his strategy. The
losses of the Allies were very great. The British lost 2,816 men of all
ranks. Of these three generals and 43 officers were killed, and six
generals and 100 officers were wounded; 586 men were killed, and 2,078
were wounded. The French lost 1,800 men killed and wounded at Inkermann
and in front of their trenches. Their exact loss at Inkermann is not
stated, but is roughly put at 900 men. Among the wounded was Canrobert.
The Russian loss was some 12,000. Prince Menschikoff was slightly hurt.
The field of battle presented a more than usually horrible spectacle, for
the dead and wounded lay within a space about a mile and a half long and
half a mile deep, while about the Sandbag Battery the corpses were piled
in heaps.

No one alive on that bloody field, except Lord Raglan, had ever seen so
sad a spectacle. The Duke of Cambridge was so deeply affected by the loss
of the Guards alone that he fell sick, and shortly afterwards went home.
Sir De Lacy Evans, ill though he was, had come up from Balaclava in time
to see the crisis and the close of the fight; and he is said to have taken
the gloomiest views of the prospects of the Allies, and even to have
advised the abandonment of the whole enterprise. And, indeed, the Allies
were in a dreadful plight. They had won a victory, but at a cost which
forbade all further progress with the siege for some time.

But now we must quit the Black Sea and its shores for a space, and
narrate the proceedings of the fleet in the Baltic; and then proceed to
blend together the winter incidents in the Crimea and the astonishing
proceedings of the British Parliament and the British people.

The British nation is naturally and justly proud of its navy; but,
considering that they are a maritime people, they are--or were in
1854--singularly ignorant of the true functions of a fleet. When Queen
Victoria led the squadron under Sir Charles Napier out of Spithead, on the
11th of March, the popular impression was that the admiral, with eight
screw line-of-battle ships, four screw frigates, and three paddle-wheel
steamers, would be able, not only to keep the Russian fleet in harbour,
but demolish Cronstadt and Sweaborg, and this impression Ministers and
admiral did their best to strengthen by vainglorious speeches at a public
banquet.

The real fact is, that the Government prescribed to themselves very
limited and reasonable but highly useful objects. The Russian fleet in
the Gulf of Finland consisted of no less than twenty-seven sail of the
line, seventeen lesser men-of-war, frigates, and corvettes, and an unknown
number of gunboats--perhaps one hundred and fifty. These ships and boats
were well manned, and mounted upwards of 3,000 guns; but their situation
was peculiar. They were all in the Gulf of Finland, except a few gunboats;
and the Gulf of Finland was frozen. Supposing they could get out of the
Gulf of Finland, they would have been able to cruise in the Baltic, menace
both Copenhagen and Stockholm (if that were deemed expedient policy), and
send their lighter ships, and some of the heavier, through the Great Belt
or the Sound into the North Sea, to prey on the commerce of the Allies.
It was therefore of the last importance that this Russian fleet should be
prevented from leaving the Gulf of Finland. That was the primary object of
the occupation of the Baltic to be effected by Sir Charles Napier. If he
did this, and could do no more, much would be done.

It would be tedious and profitless to follow the British men-of-war in
their wanderings to and fro in these northern seas. As the Russians would
not come out and fight, all that could be done, even after the French
arrived, was to maintain a blockade of the ports, and inflict such damage
on the coasts of the enemy as the means at the disposal of the admirals
would permit. Before the French arrived Admiral Plumridge had reconnoitred
the Åland Islands, and had swept the Finnish coast of the Gulf of Bothnia,
taking within a month forty-six merchant ships, and destroying immense
quantities of pitch and tar and naval stores. He had visited the important
ports, and, by the aid of his boats, had done this damage between Abo and
Brahestad. The stores destroyed were public property, for private property
he respected.

In the meantime Sir Charles Napier went up the Gulf of Finland to look
at Sweaborg. On the 13th of June Admiral Parseval-Deschenes joined him
at Bomarsund, bringing twenty-eight ships, of which six were sailing
line-of-battle ships and only one a screw line-of-battle ship. The allied
fleet, exclusive of the ships doing duty as blockaders, now amounted
to forty-seven sail. The Russian fleet lay in two divisions, one at
Cronstadt, the other at Sweaborg; and although Sir Charles gave them
plenty of opportunities, neither of them would come out and fight him
together or singly. As there was so great a clamour in England for an
attack upon the fortresses, it is supposed that the Russians hoped the
admirals would attack one or the other, so that while they were suffering
from the fire of the forts, the Russian fleets might sail out, fall upon
and destroy them. The two admirals, however, were not to be so caught.
They went together, in the middle of June, to reconnoitre Cronstadt,
and, as was anticipated, found it out of their reach. The water was so
shallow and so commanded by forts that a direct attack would have been a
criminal folly, while the enemy had blocked up with sunken obstructions
the passage on the northern side by which, it was just possible, the
lighter ships might have got into the rear of the place. The fact is, that
without gunboats and light ships, and, above all, without an army, neither
Cronstadt nor Sweaborg could be attacked with success.

[Illustration: THE HOSPITAL AND CEMETERY AT SCUTARI, WITH CONSTANTINOPLE
IN THE DISTANCE.]

But there was one place within their power. At the southern end of the
Gulf of Bothnia, over against Stockholm, and within a few miles of the
Swedish coast, lie the Åland Islands. On one of these islands, the Czar,
at great cost, had built the fortress of Bomarsund. It was to Stockholm
what Sebastopol was to Constantinople--a "standing menace." Built on an
island, it lay within reach of the Allies, and they resolved to capture
and destroy it. But this could not be done without troops. So the French
Government agreed to supply 10,000 men; and they were embarked at Boulogne
in British ships, and commanded by General Baraguay d'Hilliers. The plan
of the Allies was to land the troops, and, taking the outworks, breach the
main fort from the rear. This was practicable, with the force in hand,
because our ships commanded the sea and no army could march to succour the
place.

The Allies resolved to land on the western shore of the bay and on the
northern shore of the island on the 8th of August. Day breaks early in
those high latitudes, and at two o'clock some French and British ships
opened fire on the woods to cover the landing, while others attacked the
battery and shelled Fort Tzee to occupy their attention. In a short time
the battery was abandoned, and the Allies were in possession of it. All
this time the troops had been pouring ashore, and by eight o'clock 10,000
men were marching through the woods, turning the enemy's works. They
encamped about two miles from Fort Tzee, on the north of a glen affording
plenty of water, while the fir groves furnished wood. The French battery
opened fire on Fort Tzee on the 13th; and while the shot from the heavy
guns and the shells from the mortars tore down the walls, the riflemen
lying among the rocks threw into the embrasures a fire so searching,
that the enemy's gunners found it difficult to load their pieces. In the
afternoon the Russians hung out a white flag. It is said they asked an
hour to bury their dead, and that the boon being granted, they used the
time to replenish their store of ammunition. The fire was renewed, and
later another flag of truce was displayed. This time General Baraguay
d'Hilliers refused to parley, because of the abuse of the previous
suspension of the cannonade. The next morning, the guns of the fort being
silent, the French riflemen dashed in and captured the work with fifty
prisoners. The British battery had been constructed under a heavy fire. It
was finished on the 14th, but not being wanted, its guns were turned upon
Fort Nottich on the 15th; and at six in the evening, one side of the tower
being demolished, the garrison surrendered. On the morning of the 16th
the main fort and the Presto tower alone held out. They had been under
the fire of the ships for some days, and now the great fort was entirely
commanded from the rear by the shore batteries. General Bodisco, having
no hope of succour, was without warrant for a bloody defence. So at noon
he hung out a white flag and surrendered. It was resolved to blow up all
the works--a resolution carried out very completely by the beginning of
September.

With this exploit the showy work of the naval campaign in the Baltic
ended. The blockade was maintained until the ice interposed an utterly
impassable barrier; Sweaborg was reconnoitred, and very antagonistic
schemes were propounded for its capture; some misunderstandings arose
between Admiral Napier and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James
Graham; but in the end the ice and the fierce tempests came, and arrested
the cruising of ships, although they could not stop the squabbling of men.
The British fleet was the first to enter and the last to leave the Baltic,
and the frigates did not reach home until November.

We have already stated that after the battle of Inkermann the British
general found himself compelled, with diminished forces, to maintain a
purely defensive attitude in the face of a weakened, but still numerous
and vigilant enemy. The character of the expedition had wholly changed. It
was intended to be a temporary operation, swift and complete. It became a
permanent invasion. Not only the enemy, but the winter had to be fronted.
The Czar counted on his generals, January and February, as well as on
Todleben and Gortschakoff. He trusted to rain, mud, and snow to weaken
the forces, and wear out the hardihood of the British, and exhaust the
spirit of the French. Like many others he cradled himself in delusions.
For, whatever may have been the effect of suspense on the French soldier,
the French Emperor could not afford to fail; and it so happened that the
British nation, with astonishing unanimity, had set its heart on the
destruction of Sebastopol; and rarely in history can you find an instance
of failure to accomplish a settled purpose really formed by the British
nation. In this present case they were severely tried; but, though they
were truculent, and angry, and irrational because Sebastopol had not been
taken in October; though they turned furiously upon the Government at home
and the general in the Crimea; yet not for one moment did they relent or
shrink from their fixed resolve; rather did they insist, with a vehemence
without parallel, on the full achievement of the main object, until the
phrase--"vigorous prosecution of the war," heard on every lip, became a
tedious but still vital commonplace.

The general and the troops who were working out their resolve in the
Crimea were tried more severely than they. With November had come, not
only a bloody battle, but a painful change in the climate. The soft,
calm, sunny days of October faded away. The Black Sea began to show the
appropriateness of the name it bore. Thick mists covered the surface of
its dark grey waters; heavy clouds overspread the clear blue sky. Rain
fell, sometimes in drenching showers, sometimes in thick, small drops; and
the earth absorbing the moisture, began to change into mud. Then, with a
fierceness gathered from a triumphant rush over the whole breadth of the
Black Sea, there came swooping upon the southern shores of the Crimea a
tempest memorable for its potency and destructiveness--the famous storm of
the 14th of November.

The wind came from the south. First came heavy squalls and pelting rain;
then the wind became more continuous and stronger, and the rain thicker,
beating on the earth with a hoarse sound, and forcing its way through
the canvas of the tents. It was early morning, and weary sleepers were
awakened by the uproar. In a few minutes nearly every tent on the plateau
was down. No fires could be lighted, no food cooked. All around was one
common desolation; for the hospital tents had shared the fate of the
others, and the sick lay exposed to all the violence of the tempest. The
wooden structures erected by the French for their sick went down before
the gale, and only a few planks remained. Generals, officers, soldiers,
sick and wounded, hale and well, were in a like predicament. And when the
wind fell a little--that is, became a little less violent--the air became
colder, and the rain became sleet and snow, men and horses perished from
exposure.

But the horrors of that day were most horrible off Balaclava. There
hundreds of lives were lost in a few hours. Outside the port, at
anchor in deep water, were twenty-two ships. Among them were the four
war-steamers _Retribution_, _Niger_, _Vulcan_, and _Vesuvius;_ four fine
steam transports, including the _Prince_, whose hold was filled with warm
clothing for the troops; ten sailing transports, and four freight ships.
Caught by the full violence of the storm, some were washed ashore, others,
including the _Prince_, went down.

This terrible tempest was the climax of our misfortunes. The battle
of Inkermann had proved that the army must winter on those desolate
hills; the effects of the storm made it manifest that the troops would
have to face the winter without adequate supplies. No fewer than 2,500
watch coats, 16,000 blankets, 3,700 rugs, 53,000 woollen frocks, 19,000
lamb's-wool drawers, 35,700 socks, 12,880 pairs of boots, 1,800 pairs
of shoes, and stores of drugs and other necessaries were lost in the
_Prince_. Fourteen of the wrecked transports were laden with forage and
provisions--namely, 359,714 pounds of biscuit, 74,880 pounds of salt meat,
157 head of cattle, 645 sheep, 8,000 gallons of rum, 73,986 pounds of
rice, 11,200 pounds of green coffee, 1,116,172 pounds of forage corn, and
800,000 pounds of pressed hay. With the _Resolute_ were engulfed several
million rounds of ball cartridge, and the reserve ammunition for the
artillery. Even these losses do not measure the extent of the calamity,
for many ships were injured so much that the army was for a long time
deficient in sea transport, and consequently in the means of repairing
the ravages inflicted by the storm on stores of all kinds. Although the
harbour of Balaclava was, after the 25th of October, in danger of being
seized by the enemy, there seems to have been no good reason why that risk
should not have been incurred, and the _Prince_ and the _Resolute_ allowed
to anchor inside. Lord Raglan, immediately after the battle of Inkermann,
had taken steps to obtain clothing and shelter, and ample supplies of
food. But in the interval the troops suffered greatly. For the remainder
of November it rained almost without cessation, and the plains became one
vast quagmire. So the road to the camps became a track of liquid mud; the
valley of Balaclava desolated and melancholy; the town as muddy as the
plains, and the tideless harbour a common sewer. For several weeks the
men were without proper clothing, fuel, or food, and the result was an
outbreak of cholera. In the camp hospitals men lay down to die upon the
bare ground; in the hospitals at Scutari, ignorance, dirt, and confusion
prevailed, besides a want of ambulance to carry the invalid soldier from
camp to port, and of accommodation on board ship.

When the people heard of the sufferings of their soldiers in the Crimea
and at Scutari they became indignant and unreasonable: they ascribed the
failure of the expedition and the distresses of the troops to the wrong
causes, and they demanded the recall of the general and the dismissal
of the Government. To understand how this came about, we must consider
how the Government conducted the war, and the means at hand wherewith to
conduct it.

For nearly forty years the British nation had not taken any part in a war
in Europe. The vast expense of the war against the first Napoleon, the
suffering it caused, the habits of despotic government which it induced,
the obstinate resistance of a great party to needful reforms, had all
served to inspire a dread of a standing army. The consequences were most
serious. The nation was in danger of having no army at all. At no period
subsequently to 1815 was Britain in a condition to go to war. The pith
of the army, the infantry, consisted of a number of very fine regiments,
kept down at the lowest numerical condition. The cavalry regiments were
good, but in numbers they were each barely equal to two good squadrons.
There were in England but a very few guns in fighting order. There was a
weak commissariat; there was no land transport corps or military train.
Such a thing as a camp of exercise was unknown until 1853. There were no
opportunities for handling large masses of all arms. The militia even was
suffered to fall into abeyance for many years. There were men in England
fully alive to the consequences of this neglect of the military machine;
but their voices were not heeded until the revolutions of 1848 and the
success of Louis Napoleon in 1851 roused the whole nation from its apathy.
An improved tone in public feeling, a better estimate of the real value
of a good army, and a real dread of danger from without, led to some
improvements. The militia force was revived. Lord Hardinge had the courage
to insist on the adoption of the Minié rifle, and Mr. Sidney Herbert
prevailed on his colleagues to establish a camp. The artillery was placed
in a state of great efficiency. But that man would, in 1852-3, have been
regarded as mad who proposed a military train, an ambulance corps, and an
effective military staff. These necessary parts of an army were not in
existence.

The army in 1853 consisted of little more than 102,000 men for the service
of the British Empire, exclusive of India. In 1854 Ministers proposed
and carried, in February, an augmentation of 10,000, bringing up the
total to 112,000. These men they had to obtain by enlistment, for the
militia then was young, and little more than a paper force. It was not
embodied, nor had the Government power to embody a single regiment; for
the militia had been raised to resist invasion only, so jealous were the
Commons; and Ministers, before they could call out a man, except for the
annual training, were obliged to obtain an Act of Parliament. Moreover,
just on the threshold of war, so rotten was the system of promotion
and retirement, that they were compelled to appoint a Royal Commission
to report on the best mode of enabling the Queen to avail herself of
the services of officers in the full vigour of life. Thus Europe was
astonished at the spectacle of a great Power remodelling its military
system, enlarging it, and strengthening it, on the brink of a conflict
with the vast and well-appointed armies of Russia. For it was soon found
that the Ministry of War must be separated from that of the Colonies; and
when this was done, no minute defining the powers and functions of the
new department was framed; so that the Duke of Newcastle, who left the
Colonies for the new War department, had to grope his way towards the
vital work he had undertaken to do. The duke was a man of some hardihood,
and great energy and industry; but he was new to the business, he had
not sufficient weight in the Cabinet; one at least of his colleagues
envied him the place he filled; and it may be surmised that with all his
good intentions, Lord Aberdeen's innate repugnance to war exercised,
unconsciously, a paralysing influence over the whole Cabinet. A more
vigorous and decided mind at the head of the executive would have begun
in 1853 to make those preparations which, made then, would have prevented
so much suffering in the winter of 1854. A man of greater weight at the
War Office would, even in 1854, have been able to impress his colleagues
with a sense of the magnitude of the impending conflict, and have obtained
their assent to the most vigorous exertions, made with a distinct
perception of all that was required to enable Britain to carry on her
share of the war in a manner consistent with the wishes of the people and
her character as a great Power.

The Government doubted--at least the Aberdeen section--if the House of
Commons would sanction the policy which they had pursued. There was one
man in the Cabinet who had what the first Napoleon called "popular fibre"
in his constitution, but he was in the Home Office. Lord Palmerston
understood the crisis better than any of his colleagues, and would,
in 1853, have taken means to back up his diplomacy. Lord Aberdeen was
afraid of appearing to threaten, or to do anything which might lay him
open to the factious charge of provoking hostilities. So timid were the
Government that, as we have said, they allowed 1853 to slip by without
obtaining power to embody the militia, except in the improbable event of
an invasion; and when Parliament met, they only asked for an addition to
the army of 10,000 men, because they thought the House of Commons should
sanction their policy before they brought the army, even on paper, up to a
reasonable strength. Such was the fruit of an unwholesome dread of war, a
lingering belief that peace was still probable, and a misapprehension of
the character of the Czar.

Yet, although at the opening of the Session it was manifest that the
Ministry had nothing to fear from the Opposition beyond the usual
criticism, and that, as a set-off against this, they had the cordial
support of the people, it was not until March that they asked for 15,000
more men, and not until May that they demanded an additional 15,000,
and obtained the ready assent to the embodiment of the militia, and
power to accept the offer of their services for the Mediterranean and
colonial garrisons. But this was too late, for it was found that only boys
enlisted; and although, in two months, so far as mere drill goes, you can
make a good infantry soldier, in two months a boy does not grow into a
man. The Duke of Newcastle drew off from the colonies every man he could
lay his hands on, and formed a reserve, which, in June, went to the East
under Sir George Cathcart. He then formed another reserve, by abstracting
more regiments from the colonies, and denuding the Mediterranean
fortresses of regular troops. This second reserve went to the Crimea after
the battle of Inkermann. Then the supplies of real soldiers were quite
exhausted. We had nothing to send but raw youths, unfit to sustain the
hardships of a winter campaign. We could only send gristle, instead of
bone and sinew. This was the consequence of not augmenting the army in
1853. Correctly speaking, it was a consequence of the neglect to maintain
an efficient and numerous army for many years.

[Illustration: THE LATE SIR W. H. RUSSELL, CORRESPONDENT OF THE "TIMES" IN
THE CRIMEA.]

The violence of national feeling was rising, thanks chiefly to the graphic
reports sent home by the correspondent of the _Times_, Mr. Russell, when
Ministers found it necessary to summon Parliament that they might obtain
power to raise a Foreign Legion, and power to accept the offers of militia
regiments to do garrison duty abroad--two measures due to suggestions
of the Prince Consort. The two Houses met on the 12th of December, and
sat until the 23rd. The whole policy of the war was discussed as well as
the state of the army in the Crimea; but although the Opposition, led by
Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, tried to defeat both measures, they were
carried by considerable majorities. The speeches delivered during this
short Session served to herald the storm that was about to burst over the
Government in January.

The virulence of the paper war at home increased during the recess. Every
victim on the muddy and half-frozen plains of the Crimea sent home doleful
and indignant accounts of his sufferings. Many of these terrible stories
were pure inventions; but everything, without discrimination, was printed
and believed. Many were the pieces of foolish advice tendered to the
Government. But next to a genuine desire to relieve the suffering of the
soldiers, was a desire to punish somebody. The attacks in the newspapers
became more fierce when it was known or surmised that there were members
of the Cabinet who reeled under this storm of public censure; and it was
soon manifest that when Parliament again assembled the Ministers would be
driven from power.

Parliament met on the 23rd of January, 1855, and Lord Ellenborough,
Mr. Roebuck, and Lord Lyndhurst at once put hostile notices of motion
on the paper. Mr. Roebuck proposed an inquiry, by a committee of the
House, into the condition of the army in the Crimea, and the conduct
of the departments whose duty it was to minister to the wants of that
army. Lord Ellenborough intended to ask for returns showing the number
of the force sent out, and the number of killed, wounded, and sick. Lord
Lyndhurst's notice of motion embodied a censure on the Government. These
were symptoms of the exasperated state of public feeling. More than this,
there was a statesman who flinched from sharing with his colleagues the
responsibilities of the moment. On the very day, the 25th, set apart
for the discussion of Mr. Roebuck's motion, it became known that Lord
John Russell had resigned. From that moment the fate of the Ministry was
decided. On the 26th Lord John stated why he had abandoned his colleagues.
His reasons were twofold:--First, he could not resist Mr. Roebuck's
motion for inquiry, because it was notorious that the condition of the
army in the Crimea was melancholy--nay, horrible and heart-rending; but
he failed to show how inquiry would better its condition. Next, in a
tone of complaint, he insinuated that he had long been dissatisfied with
the management of the War department, and that his suggested reforms had
not been adopted. It appeared that, although he had concurred in the
appointment of the Duke of Newcastle, he had, in November, that is, when
the tide seemed flowing against the Allies, thought that there should
be a strong Minister of War, and that Lord Palmerston should be that
Minister. To this Lord Aberdeen demurred. Lord John gave up his point
at the suggestion of Lord Palmerston, and dropped the subject. But when
Mr. Roebuck made his motion, he saw the danger it involved and ran away.
Lord Palmerston very properly said that the course taken by his noble
friend was not in correspondence with the usual practice of public men.
He ought to have given his colleagues the option of considering whether
they would accept his views or lose his services. Lord John had attended
in his place on the 23rd; he had walked from the House with a colleague,
giving no hint of his intention. At midnight he sent a note tendering
his resignation. The Government, he added, would not run away from Mr.
Roebuck's motion. "It would be disgraceful not to meet it standing in
the position which we now occupy--minus my noble friend." They did meet
it, and it was carried by 305 to 148. Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues
immediately resigned, and, as it was justly and shrewdly said, the Duke of
Newcastle was made the "Byng" of the day. The sole object of the motion
was to turn out the Ministry, and that object was accomplished. The public
demanded a victim, and, as usual, one was provided. In the meantime those
measures which remedied the evils in the Crimea were already in operation,
and the committee about to sit became a committee for the gratification
of curiosity, and for the raking together of materials to form a bill of
indictment against the Duke of Newcastle and the Aberdeen Government.
It was absolutely powerless to do a single act for the bettering of the
condition of the soldier, or the promoting of the success of our arms.

Lord John Russell's conduct on this occasion was a blot upon a very bright
escutcheon. He had all along been jealous of the Duke of Newcastle.
He had, and it was a right thing to do, forced on a division of the
Ministries of War and the Colonies, but he had done so without providing
a definite plan for the conduct of the new department. When the Cabinet
determined to separate the two secretaryships, he was annoyed that the
Duke of Newcastle selected the post of danger--the War department. He
had actually thought of occupying it himself, thus justifying the famous
remark of Sydney Smith, that Lord John would not hesitate to take the
command of a Channel fleet. When the duke was seated, with the full
consent of his colleagues, Lord John pursued him with foolish criticisms,
which were immediately disposed of as they deserved. When all seemed to
be going well, Lord John wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, "You have done
all that could be done, and I am sanguine of success." When calamity began
to fall upon the army, Lord John revived the old exploded criticisms, and
wished to substitute Lord Palmerston for the duke. But the whole Cabinet
dissented. Lord John retained his opinion, and intended to insist upon it;
but before Parliament met in December, he told Lord Aberdeen that, having
consulted his friends, he had changed his views, and no longer wished to
oust the duke from his office. From that time to the meeting of Parliament
in January he gave no sign. But public opinion was loud and fierce, and
Lord John could not bear its anger; and in the dead of the night, from
his domestic hearth, he wrote the hurried and brief announcement of his
intention to fly from a sinking ship.

There were some difficulties in forming a new Ministry. The Queen sent
for Lord Derby; he accepted her Majesty's commission to frame a Cabinet,
and he invited the co-operation of Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, and
Mr. Sidney Herbert--the very Ministers whom his party had just censured!
They declined; and as Lord Derby, much to the chagrin of Mr. Disraeli,
would not venture without them, he threw up his commission. Lord Lansdowne
declined the Premiership. As the contingent led into the Opposition ranks
by Lord John formed part of the majority, her Majesty then commanded him
to form a Cabinet. But in the circumstances he could get no one to back
him, and then her Majesty called in Lord Palmerston. But few days had
elapsed since he and others had fallen under a vote of censure. Yet he now
was able to construct a new Ministry out of old materials. Lord Aberdeen,
Lord John Russell, and the Duke of Newcastle, of course, could not well
form part of the new Cabinet. Lord Palmerston succeeded Lord Aberdeen;
Lord Panmure replaced the Duke of Newcastle; Earl Granville succeeded
Lord John as President of the Council; and Lord Canning obtained a seat
in the Cabinet. These were the only material changes. It was understood
that the policy of the new Cabinet should be the policy of the old one.
So that nothing was gained except the exclusion of two men by a vote of
the House, and the self-exclusion of a third. This Government, however,
lasted only a few days. Lord Palmerston declared that he was still
opposed to the Committee of Inquiry as unconstitutional and inefficient
for its purpose. The Government, he said, had already begun the needed
reforms--had remodelled the War department, established a transport board
at the Admiralty, and were about to send commissioners to the Crimea
and reorganise the medical department at home. But Mr. Roebuck insisted
on appointing his committee; and as Lord Palmerston was not willing to
run counter to the desire of the public, which found expression in Mr.
Roebuck's motion, and would no longer resist the appointment of the
committee, Mr. Sidney Herbert, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Cardwell, and Sir James
Graham resigned. So the committee was appointed, and Lord Palmerston
formed a fresh Ministry.

The new members were Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Chancellor of the
Exchequer; Lord John Russell, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Vernon Smith,
India Board; the Earl of Harrowby, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster;
while Sir Charles Wood, quitting the India Board, became First Lord of
the Admiralty, and Lord Carlisle went to Ireland in the room of Lord
St. Germans. The object of the original movers in this business had now
been accomplished: the Peelites had been driven out of the Government
altogether. So much of the home history of England it seemed needful
to introduce here. We must now return to the Crimea, and endeavour to
describe what really happened there, and show how far the popular outcry
was justified.




CHAPTER VI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    State of the Army--Food, Clothing, and Shelter--Absence of a
    Road--Want of Transport--Numbers of the Sick--State of the
    Hospitals--Miss Nightingale--Mr. Roebuck's Committee--Military
    Operations--The French Mistake--Improvement of the
    Situation--Arrival of General Niel--Attack upon the Malakoff
    Hill approved--The Russian Redoubt constructed--Attacks
    and Counter-Attacks--Death of Nicholas--Todleben's
    Counter-Approaches--The 23rd of March--Raglan and Canrobert
    disagree--The second Bombardment--Egerton's Pit--Night Attack
    of General de Salles--The Emperor's Interference--Canrobert's
    Indecision--The Kertch Project--Orders and Counter-Orders--Recall of
    the Expedition--It is finally abandoned--Arrival of the Sardinian
    Contingent--The Emperor's Visit to Windsor--The Emperor's Plan
    of Campaign--It is rejected by Raglan and Omar--Resignation of
    Canrobert.


The state of the army in the Crimea after the battle of Inkermann was
most painful. The troops had to preserve their own existence, and to
defend the ground they occupied in the face of a watchful enemy. Their
base of operations, their source of supply, was Balaclava; and the road,
or, rather track, from that place to the camp was a mere quagmire. As
we have already stated, the numbers of the army were inadequate to the
work imposed upon them, and the suffering they endured arose in a great
part from that cause, but not entirely. The men were not "starved," as
stated at the time. Up to the middle of November no army had ever been
better fed. The rations were large and varied, and the troops received
them just as regularly as if they had been at home. After November,
parts of the extra rations were not always delivered; but not a day
passed on which the men did not obtain a good supply of the necessaries
of life. But then it was said they were not clothed. Now, although the
Government did not anticipate that the army would winter in the Crimea,
they did, in the summer, make provision for supplying that army, which
must winter somewhere, with winter clothing. The requisitions were made
upon proper departments as early as July. The ships freighted therewith
sailed from England in October, and of these the _Prince_ only was lost.
When the news of that calamity arrived in England, while Lord Raglan had
sent to Constantinople for warm clothing, the Duke of Newcastle issued
fresh orders at home, and saw that they were executed. There never was a
time after the end of November when there was not more warm clothing at
Balaclava than the means at the disposal of the army could carry to the
front. In the same way there was a deficiency of shelter. The troops, when
covered, were covered only by single canvas, except in some rare instances
where old campaigners had made themselves imperfect huts out of stones
and branches of trees. But from the end of November there was a large
quantity of wood at Balaclava. It was the same with fuel. There was always
charcoal to be had at Balaclava by those who could fetch it. Moreover,
there were enormous magazines of provisions and large herds of cattle at
Constantinople. Nor were forage and chopped straw ever deficient; and
even the supply of hay, which had to be sent all the way from England,
was only interrupted for a short time. So that the supplies of these
essentials--food, clothing, shelter, fuel, forage--were duly provided for
the army. Private benevolence had come in to supplement public exertion;
and Balaclava, in the winter, was choked up with luxuries and essentials.

But there were two things which had not been provided, and these were
also essentials. No road had been made; and, in the absence of a road,
no transport able to overcome the tremendous difficulties of the transit
from Balaclava to the camp had been collected. Here were the sources of
the greater part of the suffering and loss endured by the army. What was
called the road was a mere track across the open country. While the fine
weather lasted, it was hard and sound. When the rain fell continuously,
it broke up; that is, became a strip of deep mud, varied by deep holes
full of water, impassable to carts and waggons, passable only by men and
horses with great labour and fatigue. But why not repair it? The thing was
tried and failed. Turks were employed to mend this road, but they could
not do it. The truth is that the road required to be made; that is, built
upon a good foundation, and kept in order by constant attention. Why was
this not done? For a plain and sufficient reason. It is usual for an army
to find its own labourers. An army makes its own roads, builds its own
bridges, erects its own batteries, constructs its own depôts. The army in
the Crimea was too weak to make a road from Balaclava to the front, and
no one had sufficient resource to send for labourers from England.

[Illustration: THE LADY WITH THE LAMP: MISS NIGHTINGALE IN THE HOSPITAL AT
SCUTARI.

(_After the Picture by Henrietta Rae_ [_Mrs. Normand_].)]

In these circumstances the horrors of the winter could only be mitigated
by an ample supply of mules and horses. By the breaking up of the road,
the land transport at the disposal of Commissary-General Filder was
reduced to one-sixth; for whereas a horse and cart could transport six
hundred pounds' weight to the front, a horse alone could only carry two
hundred pounds'. It follows that the supplies could only be maintained by
extra work on the part of the animals, or by an extra number of animals.
At a critical moment, when he wanted more horse power, Mr. Filder sent a
steamer to fetch animals from his depôt; but, by some cause unexplained,
the steamer was detained at Constantinople for three weeks. Then, although
there was a large park of ponies and horses on the Bosphorus, they not
being forthcoming, the valuable chargers of the cavalry, and even the
teams of the artillery and the horses belonging to the officers, were
put in requisition. Still all this was not enough. The horses, from hard
usage by their drivers and keepers, from overwork and exposure, from
neglect to feed them, although forage was at hand, died by scores. The
drivers, imported from Turkey, died, deserted, refused to work: they could
not stand the exposure and fatigue. The consequence was that, during the
most critical period, there was never more transport than was sufficient
to feed the troops irregularly and from hand to mouth, and to keep the
men and guns supplied with the minimum of ammunition consistent with
safety. The burden of responsibility, the amount of work required from
the commissariat, was too heavy and too vast for a body so imperfectly
organised and so undermanned. The harbour of Balaclava was too small,
its shores were too confined, for the service demanded at an emergency.
Months of labour were required to make it suitable. But making every
allowance--and the exceptional position of the commissariat, with large
extra labours imposed upon it, requires in justice large allowance--it
is plain that, from some cause never fully explained, the commissariat
failed to import and keep in the Crimea a supply of transport adequate to
the extraordinary demands of the army. When the perilous position of the
army dawned upon them, Ministers thought of an Army Works Corps, employed
Messrs. Peto & Co. to make a railway, and instructed Colonel M'Murdo to
raise a Land Transport Corps. But then it was too late. So we come round
again to the original sources--not of all the suffering, for war and
suffering are inseparable--but of the peculiar kind of suffering endured
by the army in the Crimea, namely, inadequate and unorganised military
establishments; and the responsibility for this rested not upon one
Government alone, but upon all Governments from 1830 up to that time, and
not upon all Governments only, but also upon the nation.

Had there been a good road from Balaclava to the camp--had there been
plenty of transport, plenty of clothing, plenty of shelter, plenty of
fuel--the sufferings of the army from hard work and exposure would have
been very great; for war is not a condition of existence conducive to
health and long life, even in the most favourable circumstances; and
when war is carried on through the winter, when the form of that war is
a siege, when the army carrying on the siege is itself besieged by the
enemy, and restricted to one narrow pass leading to a little bay for all
its supplies, for everything to keep it alive except water, the ordinary
miseries and hardships of war become intense, terrible, and destructive.
So it was in the Crimea. Scantily clothed, irregularly fed, existing,
when on duty, in the mud and water of the trenches, sleeping, when they
returned to their tents, in wet clothes on a wet floor, improvident of
the little means within their reach which would have lessened their
sufferings, none but the most iron constitutions could endure this and
live. Our brave, obstinate, hardy soldiers were like children in all
that lies beyond the range of their regular duties, and many perished
because they were ignorant and reckless. But the bulk of the sickness and
mortality was caused by overwork and exposure, necessarily consequent
upon the discharge of their duty. A few figures will suggest better than
pages of writing how much this army suffered. On the 1st of October--that
is, just after the arrival of the army before Sebastopol--the number of
men and officers in a state fit for duty was 23,000; and the number sick,
including the wounded, was 6,713. On the 3rd of November the number fit
for duty had fallen to 22,343, the number of sick had increased to 7,116.
Then came the battle of Inkermann. On the 14th of November the effective
force was 20,780, the number of sick and wounded 8,366. The force of
"bayonets"--that is, privates and corporals of infantry, "rank and file,"
as the technical term is--had fallen to 14,874; and it is on the bayonets
that a quartermaster-general relies for his working and fatigue parties.
But now reinforcements began to trickle in. Troops to the number of
3,480 men arrived. Yet so severe was the pressure, even in the middle of
November, that this augmentation only raised the effective force from
20,780 to 22,825. The next item explains this. The roll of sick had risen
from 8,366 to 9,170, an increase of 804 in one week. A week later, on the
30th of November, in spite of the reinforcements, the effective force
had fallen to 21,895; the sick had increased to 10,095, although 640 men
had landed in the interval. Let us pass over a month--a month in which
nearly 5,000 men landed at Balaclava. What do we find? That on the 1st of
January, 1855, the effective force stands at only 21,973, or 78 more than
it stood on the 30th of November; while the number of sick had increased
to 13,915. A fortnight later, and the effective force was 20,444; the
sick 16,176; while the force of bayonets was actually fewer by 36 than it
was on the 14th of November, before any of the 10,000 reinforcements had
arrived. Nor must it be forgotten that all this time the dead were being
buried, and the convalescents were returning to duty, and going again into
the hospital. These figures are the measure of the unspeakable sufferings
of the army in the Crimea, the main and unavoidable causes of which we
have described.

But these figures do not convey a full idea of the agonies of that winter
campaign, except to those gifted with a lively imagination. It was the
treatment of the sick and wounded, both in and out of the Crimea, that
occasioned the worst of these agonies. The medical department utterly
broke down under the burden thrown upon it. Although more medical men
and more medicines and medical comforts were sent out to the East than
ever were supplied to a force of similar strength, yet, in consequence
of want of foresight, want of faculty, want of administrative skill, the
medicines and medical comforts were so badly arranged and distributed,
that, especially in the Crimea, they were not at hand when most required.
The state of the hospitals at Scutari was the first thing that roused
the public indignation. Government, having failed to organise a medical
staff corps, had recourse to Miss Nightingale and a number of trained
nurses collected by her, and sent them to the East; and the brightest
picture in the dark story of the winter of 1854-5 is that of Florence
Nightingale bringing order out of chaos, and tending the sick and wounded
soldiers of England, in those far-off hospitals on the Asiatic shore of
the Bosphorus. That was the work of Government. The public feeling showed
itself in another form. Sir Robert Peel proposed to raise £10,000 for
supplying the sick with comforts, to be called the _Times_ Fund, and put
down £200 towards it; and in a few days the whole amount demanded had
reached Printing House Square. Three gentlemen were sent to superintend
the expenditure, and it is to Miss Nightingale principally, and to these
private persons, that we are bound to attribute the alleviation of the
sad state of the sick and wounded at Scutari in the winter of 1854-5. The
truth is, that Government had been kept in the dark as to the condition
of the hospitals. Knowing that amply sufficient supplies had been sent to
the East, they were confounded when they heard that not comforts only,
but actual necessaries, were wanting. When we look into the facts, it
is manifest that the medical department in the East had not been well
organised on a scale sufficiently large, and that it had not been governed
by men of energy, foresight, and decision. Hence the horrible condition
of the tent-hospitals in the Crimea, and the various hospitals on the
Bosphorus. It is impossible to exonerate Government from censure, but it
is equally impossible not to see the evil influence of a system adapted
to a state of peace suddenly applied to a state of war. By slow degrees
all the hospitals were improved, and finally brought up to a state of
high efficiency; but in the meantime thousands had died, and hundreds
had become permanent invalids; and it is this loss of life which is the
heaviest charge that lies at the door of the Aberdeen Administration.

Hence grew the demand for the Select Committee on the Army before
Sebastopol. Those who originated it used, throughout the inquiry, the
great power it gave them as a means of obtaining grounds, real and
colourable, to sustain the preconceived conclusions with which they began
their inquisition. It was a most imperfect investigation. "The fulness
of the investigation," as the Committee had the candour to confess, "has
been restricted by considerations of State policy, so that in the outset
of this report, your Committee must admit that they have been compelled to
aid an inquiry which they have been unable satisfactorily to complete."
Indeed, to have probed the matter to the bottom, the Committee should have
called at least General Canrobert and the Emperor of the French from the
ranks of our allies, and in no case could any investigation be fair which
did not include the evidence of Lord Raglan, General Airey, Mr. Filder,
Miss Nightingale, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. Yet, without having
examined any of these, Mr. Roebuck coolly asked the Committee to endorse
the most sweeping and arrogant charges against the principal persons
concerned, including those who were absent, and unable to say a word in
their own defence. And although the report drawn up by Mr. Roebuck and
Mr. Layard was rejected by all the other members of the Committee, by
his casting vote Mr. Roebuck was enabled to append a paragraph replete
with epigrammatic assertions that were untrue. By the time this Committee
had ended an inquiry that they could not, from the very character of the
investigation, complete, the army had recovered its health, strength, and
efficiency, and the new Minister of War, Lord Panmure, had, in his place,
candidly ascribed the change in the army, in great part, to the measures
of the very Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, who had been made the victim
of the national fury.

It is a relief to turn from party conflicts and the exhibition of national
wrath, not in the wisest form, to the military operations of that grievous
winter campaign. The first renewed sign of military activity was seen on
the 20th of November. In the vicious plan of siege adopted the British
played a wholly secondary part. The French theory was, that by assailing
and carrying the Flagstaff Bastion at the southern apex of the town, they
would obtain possession of a commanding position, which would necessitate
an abandonment of the place by the enemy. To this end they worked. But
as the batteries on the eastern face of the enemy's lines took their
approaches almost in flank, our engineers had to construct batteries
intended to draw off and keep down the fire of these Russian works. Thus
the British attacks were subordinate and supplementary to the great French
attack. The British theory was that the Malakoff was the key of the
whole position on the southern side of the great harbour; but the French
engineers could not see the justness of this theory, and General Canrobert
was not a man of sufficient moral strength to overrule his engineers, even
supposing that he had sufficient military insight to comprehend the views
of Sir John Burgoyne. Therefore the French persisted in their original
error; and a dreary period ensued, during which the Russians made frequent
sorties with partial success, while on the side of the Allies the chief
success was the capture of the Russian rifle-pits by Lieutenant Tryon on
the 20th of November. And so the winter wore away.

January, during which the troops suffered most from disease, was
nevertheless the turning-point from gloom to brighter days. For huts and
warm clothing had arrived in superabundance, and transport was improved.
The shores of Balaclava bay had been rendered passable by roads on both
sides, and wharves had been built. The railway was creeping out of the
port and ascending the hills towards the front; and as the French had
at last sent a brigade to reinforce the right at Inkermann, our men got
less labour and more rest. The French had as yet no huts. They were still
sheltered only in dog-tents. But they were tolerably fed and clothed,
and large reinforcements, including a brigade of the new Imperial Guard,
had brought their numbers up to 80,000 men. The resolve of the Allies to
take Sebastopol, far from suffering any abatement, had become stronger,
and every energy and resource was applied to secure its fulfilment. The
Russian Emperor, the cause of this heroic conflict, was not less resolute,
and day and night his thoughts were bent upon frustrating at any and
every cost the designs of the Allies. The government of Lord Aberdeen had
obtained from the King of Sardinia the promise that he would join the
alliance, and furnish 15,000 men for service in the Crimea, and there
was some reason to suppose that Austria would at length take the field;
but whether it was that Austria resented the entry of Sardinia into the
Western league, or whether timid counsels prevailed at Vienna, Austria did
not change her position from that of a passive to that of an active ally.

The month of February was marked by many important incidents. On both
sides there were renewed vigour and activity, in spite of the severity of
the weather. For the French Emperor, discontented with General Canrobert,
who had failed to realise the expectations formed of him, had sent out the
Duke of Montebello to examine the state of the siege, and report thereon.
The consequence was that General Niel, one of the first engineers in the
French service, received orders to hasten to the Crimea and direct the
engineering operations. Niel had not been long in the French camp before
he justified the early and oft-repeated counsels of Sir John Burgoyne, and
declared that the Malakoff Hill was the key of Sebastopol. It was at once
determined to break ground on that side. By every fair consideration, the
right of doing so should have been made over to the English. But no. There
were two overmastering reasons. The British had fewer numbers by almost
one-half, and the French are always greedy of glory. Lord Raglan could not
insist--the alliance depended on submission. The French Emperor was bent
on reaping the lion's share of the glory. He needed it for himself and
his army. Thus, by force of circumstances, the British were left in their
old positions, one of which, the left attack, led no whither, the other
led to the Redan, which it was impossible to reach; while the French took
up their ground on the plateau leading to the Malakoff, and on the heights
on the right of the Careening Ravine.

[Illustration: THE "BLOCK" AT BALACLAVA. (_See p._ 80.)]

Having once determined on the right point of attack, the French began
to work with their usual industry, and by the middle of the month they
had formed their first parallel from the Careening Ravine to the steep
cliffs of the Great Harbour, had connected that parallel with the British
right, and had constructed a strong redoubt and place of arms, called
the Victoria Redoubt, on the upper part of the slope running down to the
Malakoff. The Russians, seeing these works in progress, began to pull down
the ruined tower on the Malakoff Hill, and to construct around its site
that enormous redoubt which so long defied its assailants. On its right
and left they were equally busy, and soon they took the daring and wise
resolution of constructing counter-approaches in this quarter.

In the middle of the month, while these works of preparation were in
progress, Omar Pasha won fresh laurels by repelling a vigorous attack on
Eupatoria. The Allies lost 107 killed and 294 wounded. The Russian loss
was estimated at 500 men. This success served to raise the reputation of
the Turks and dispirit and vex the enemy, who could not feel altogether
at ease with 20,000 good soldiers within two or three marches of his
great north road. The day after this combat, and while the news of it was
ringing through the allied camp, Lord Raglan and General Canrobert agreed
upon a plan for surprising the Russians on the Tchernaya at Tchorgoun; for
Prince Gortschakoff had again sent only small bodies over the river, and
it was believed that the whole force on both sides of the stream might
be captured. It was therefore arranged that on the 20th, while yet dark,
General Bosquet should lead 12,000 men from the French camp, to co-operate
with 3,000 from the British force at Balaclava, under Sir Colin Campbell,
in this enterprise. But Bosquet did not move, and the affair miscarried.
Nothing of importance took place during the remainder of February.

On the 2nd of March an event occurred which sanguine men thought would
bring the war to a speedy end; and they thought this the more because
negotiations for peace were at that moment pending in Vienna. The event
was the rather sudden death of Nicholas, Czar of all the Russias. He
died in the middle of the day, and five hours afterwards the news had
been flashed along the electric wire to every European capital. His
heir, Alexander II., who immediately ascended the throne, was described
as mild and pacific by nature; nevertheless, he did not fail to tell
his awe-stricken subjects that he would incessantly pursue the aims of
Peter, of Catherine, of Alexander I., and of his father; aims incompatible
with the peace of Europe, and the independence and integrity of Germany,
Sweden, and Denmark, as well as Turkey. The news reached the allied camp
on the 6th, and perhaps the "sensation" in this quarter was greater than
in the capitals of Europe, for here were men engaged in frustrating one
of the grandest of the comprehensive aims of Catherine and Nicholas. But
really, it was not the Czar only with whom Europe was contending; it was
the ambition of the Russian nobles and the traditional policy of the house
of Romanoff. There was a kind of poetical justice in this sudden death of
the man whose arrogance had brought calamity on his subjects.

The month of March was spent by the Allies in making preparations for a
second bombardment, and by the enemy in prodigious efforts to meet and
frustrate it. Far from reviving operations against the new Russian works
on the Careening Ridge called by the Allies the White Works, the French
allowed the enemy to strengthen and complete them. General Todleben
had devised a system of counter-approaches. As the operations against
Sebastopol were mainly of the nature of an attack by one army on another
posted in a strongly entrenched position, the Russian engineer saw the
great assistance he would derive from solid outposts, as by that method
he would not only anticipate the Allies in the occupation of commanding
points, but would seriously injure and annoy them. Knowing also the
importance of the Mamelon, which was higher than the Malakoff Hill, the
Russian general caused the Mamelon to be occupied in greater strength,
and began to dig and delve upon its crest. First making rifle-pits and
then connecting and enlarging these, he soon raised the nucleus of a very
formidable work right in the path of the French advance on the Malakoff.
Had the army been under one commander, this hill would have been seized in
October. Now the French could not even sap up to it, much less assault it,
because the enemy had been allowed to become so strong on our right of the
Malakoff Ridge. The British immediately framed a battery with guns bearing
on the Mamelon; but although they obstructed the working parties by day,
at first, their fire at night was little heeded, and this outpost, set up
in the face of the Allies with great hardihood, grew into a stronghold.

Having plenty of men--for they, too, had been reinforced--the Russians
supported their system of counter-approaches by energetic sorties. In
the month of March these fell principally upon the French. In addition
to the redoubt on the Mamelon, the enemy had formed his rifle-pits in
advance, like skirmishers in front of a column. The riflemen within them
were very troublesome; and two or three nights in succession the French
assaulted these pits. Two or three companies of Zouaves would leap out of
the trenches, dash into the pits, and drive off the defenders. Then the
supports would hurry up on the Russian side, and the Zouaves would have to
fly before they could make good their hold. From the French trenches more
men would issue. The rattle of musketry would raise the camp; horses would
be saddled at headquarters, and aides would stumble hither and thither
in the gloom. Suddenly the firing would die away and cease. The French
had been frustrated. Determined to succeed, they began to sap towards the
rifle-pits and took the outworks on the 21st. This led to something like a
general action on the night of the 23rd of March.

It was about eleven o'clock when the Russians, issuing from both flanks of
the Mamelon, dashed into the lodgments held by the French. They came on
in such numbers and with so much resolution that the French were forced
out of the pits and chased into the parallel. The Russians followed,
leaping over the parapet and forming up within the trench, and continuing
the fight. At the same time the batteries of the place opened a hot fire
upon our lines, by way of diversion, and the right of Chruleff's heavy
column of counter-assault burst in on the extreme right of our line. Then
the French supports, coming down with suddenness and decision, drove the
enemy over the parapet. Surprised, but not discouraged, the Russians
charged again, and deadly hand to hand combats followed along the
whole front. This fierce combat, lighted up by the incessant flashes of
opposing musketry, and rendered bloody by the free use of the bayonet, was
maintained for nearly two hours. The French not only kept the Russians at
bay, but perceiving signs of yielding, they assumed the offensive and,
charging, forced their foes to retire into the Mamelon. Towards the close
of this fight the second and third Russian columns fell suddenly, one
on the left of the right, the other on the left of the left attack. In
both cases they forced their way into the British trenches. After a rough
contest the enemy was driven out of our lines. This was the most severe
action that had yet been fought in the trenches. The Russians lost 1,500
men killed and wounded, according to their own returns. The Allies lost
727, of whom 85 were British, so that the French must have borne the brunt
of the fighting.

[Illustration: "ALL THAT WAS LEFT OF THEM, LEFT OF SIX HUNDRED."

FROM THE PAINTING BY R. CATON WOODVILLE.

By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves & Co., Ltd., Pall Mall, S.W.]

After the fierce combat on the 23rd of March the Allies busied themselves
with preparations for a second bombardment of Sebastopol. Enormous masses
of shot and shell and powder were brought up from Balaclava and Kamiesch,
and deposited in the magazines. The forwardness of the railway had greatly
diminished the labours of the British, and the French were so numerous
that they found no difficulty in getting fatigue parties to carry on the
works of approach, and to supply their guns with ample store of munitions.
It was about this time that Lord Raglan and General Canrobert began to
disagree on essential points. The French commander, naturally afraid of
responsibility, was also much embarrassed by the perpetual interference
of the Emperor Napoleon in the conduct of the war. That potentate, newly
seated on the throne, was ambitious of commanding an army in the field.
He had formed the plan of proceeding himself to the Crimea. The news
thereof was bruited abroad throughout Europe, and of course it was known
in the camp of the Allies, where, creating a state of expectation, it did
not tend to impart vigour to the proceedings at the French headquarters.
General Canrobert leaned to his master's views, and was afraid of doing
anything which might be disapproved of at Paris. The Emperor wanted to
operate in the field, and the French general, apparently desirous of
keeping the army in a high state of numerical efficiency, was indisposed
to thorough measures before the place. So from day to day the opening of
the bombardment was deferred; sometimes at the instance of the French,
sometimes at the instance of the English general. The first would be
desirous of reinforcing the army by bringing up 14,000 Turks from
Eupatoria, and the second, having acquiesced in the necessary delay, would
begin fresh batteries, and then require further time to complete them.
At length, on the 8th, Omar Pasha and his troops landed at Kamiesch, and
Lord Raglan, although two of his newest and most advanced batteries were
not complete, willingly gave his consent to the opening of the second
bombardment on Easter Monday, the 9th of April, exactly six months from
the date of the first bombardment.

During the morning of the 9th, while it was yet dark, the batteries and
trenches were manned. There were in the magazines 500 rounds per gun,
and 300 per mortar. The orders were to fire as soon as the enemy's works
became visible. At half-past five the officers in command decided that the
moment had come, and five minutes later the report of a solitary gun gave
the signal so eagerly desired. In a moment the whole of our guns were in
action; and in another the French began to fire; so that by a quarter to
six on that dreary morning, the missiles of five hundred guns, showing
a line of fire from the head of the Quarantine Bay to Inkermann, were
pouring into the defences and the town of Sebastopol. No second elapsed
without a shot or shell. Day after day, night after night, for a whole
week, the bombardment went on with a dreadful monotony; and although our
fire inflicted evidently serious damage upon the enemy, he managed to
repair his works and mount fresh guns at night. The Russian writers admit
a loss of fourteen guns disabled every day; yet this was comparatively
of little moment to him, as he had such a boundless store of artillery.
Besides the guns in the arsenal, there were all the guns of the fleet, and
these resources were used unsparingly. On our side the resources of the
Allies in guns and ammunition were limited. The object of the bombardment
was definite. It was to reduce the fire so far as to permit of an assault.
Very early in the week this effect had been produced to the utmost extent
possible. Still the assault was delayed. The British alone had fired
47,000 projectiles into the enemy's works, and the French must have fired
three times that number. Yet the enemy, though shattered and weakened, was
unsubdued, and it was plain that this duel of opposing ordnance might go
on till doomsday without a decisive result. Lord Raglan, from the first,
had always proposed a heavy bombardment to be followed by a prompt and
unflinching assault. To this the French general could not be got to agree.

In the meantime the British had pushed on towards the Redan. There were
three large rifle-pits on the left of the third parallel of the right
attack, whence the enemy annoyed our working parties and our gunners.
Colonel Egerton, with a party of the 77th, was directed to carry these
pits, and on the night of the 19th he moved his men out of the parallel,
followed by some companies of the 33rd in support. Egerton was a very
fine soldier; and although his movement was detected by the enemy, he did
not give his own men time to reply to their fire, but led them on with
the bayonet. The Russians, surprised, turned and hurried away; and our
working parties at once began to turn the faces of the pits towards the
Redan, and to connect them by the sap with the third parallel. This labour
was carried on under a smart fire of shot and musketry, but it was quite
successful. Colonel Egerton unhappily was killed. We retained one pit, and
the next night destroyed the other two, carrying a demi-parallel in rear
of them through Egerton's pit. Equally brilliant was the storming on May
1st of the pits in front of the central bastion by a French force under
General de Salles. Both sides lost many hundred officers and men; but the
gain of ground on the part of the French was the more important to them
because it put a limit to the daring system of counter-approaches on that
side. The Russians showed great jealousy of the progress of the British
attacks, and on the 9th and 11th of May they made two sorties upon our
parallels. The first was directed against the right attack, the second
against the left. On both occasions they were met stoutly by the British
troops on guard, and after a good deal of firing, driven away. In the
second sortie, however, they got into one battery, and had to be expelled
by the bayonet. These sorties presented splendid pyrotechnic spectacles,
as they usually finished with a boisterous cannonade. They cost both sides
many men, but did not stay the advance of the assailants.

We have now cleared the way for the narration of a series of very
remarkable facts which occurred between the last week in April and the
middle of May, and ended in a change of the chief command of the French
army.

The French Emperor desired to take the most conspicuous place in the
allied camp. He desired to command the allied army, and to try his skill
in strategy. Early in the year he sent part of his Guard to the Crimea,
and later, giving out that he intended to join the army, he directed
the whole of the Guard, except the depôts, to proceed to Maslak, near
Constantinople, and hold themselves ready for active service. The
dominant idea in the mind of the Emperor at this time was sound enough
in principle. He thought that Sebastopol could best be taken after an
army operating in the field had driven the Russians beyond the Putrid
Sea, and enabled the Allies to invest the place on all sides. There
can now be no doubt he designed to lead that army in person. General
Canrobert was allowed to have some, perhaps not very complete, glimpse
of this plan. He was warned not to neglect a favourable moment, but
not to risk anything. The knowledge that the Emperor was planning and
scheming in Paris how he could compass the command of the Allies, weighed
upon the mind of Canrobert, and greatly increased his natural shrinking
from responsibility. Lord Raglan was decidedly for a general assault of
Sebastopol. For a moment, on the 24th of April, Canrobert gave way before
his arguments, and General Pélissier, nothing loth, received orders to
prepare a force sufficient to storm the principal works, and the British
plan of attack was decided on in detail. But no sooner had this been
settled in council, than Canrobert recurred to his secret instructions;
his doubts began as soon as he left the presence of Lord Raglan. Moreover
he got fresh news from Paris that the Emperor would certainly arrive in
the Crimea early in May. On the 25th, therefore, he sent two generals to
Lord Raglan, to tell him that he no longer agreed with the plan of an
assault, and, in consequence, all the orders given were withdrawn, and the
siege relapsed into its ordinary posture.

While General Canrobert was in this dubious and painful frame of mind,
Lord Raglan proposed a subsidiary project. He asked his colleague to
join in an expedition having for its object the capture of the town and
straits of Kertch, with the ulterior aim of naval operations in the Sea of
Azoff. This project had the hearty support of Admiral Bruat and Admiral
Lyons. General Canrobert unable to resist the force of the arguments
addressed to him, yielded his assent, then recalled it, then, on the
1st of May, once more fell in with Lord Raglan's views. It was arranged
that General d'Autemarre should take 8,000 French, and that the British
should furnish 3,000, including a troop of horse, with one British and
two French batteries; the whole under Sir George Brown, who was nominated
for the command by Canrobert himself. These troops were collected,
marched to Kamiesch, and embarked on the 3rd. They sailed away with great
ostentation, going north, to bewilder the enemy; and, at night, or when
out of sight of land, they went about and steered for Kertch. But, in
the evening, just as our headquarters were congratulating themselves
on the fact that the expedition was well on its way, General Canrobert
appeared, and said he must recall the French troops at once. Why? Because
he had received a peremptory order from the Emperor's Cabinet, direct by
electric telegraph, to concentrate his troops. Lord Raglan said that the
Emperor, when he gave that order, was not aware that the expedition had
sailed, and for a moment the French general consented reluctantly to take
the view it implied. But two hours later, that is, about midnight, he
sent Colonel Trochu, the chief of his staff, to say that, on considering
the dispatch once more he must recall and had recalled the French part
of the expedition by a special steamer. Lord Raglan was vexed at this
vacillation, but he could show no resentment. The expedition, if it
returned, would reveal its object. The enemy might prepare to parry a
similar blow. Feeling this, in his despatches to Admiral Lyons and Sir
George Brown, he informed them of the falling off of their allies; but
he told them they might go on alone, if they deemed it expedient, and he
would shoulder the responsibility. The French steamer caught up the fleet
just as it sighted Kertch, and General d'Autemarre, with some chagrin,
found he must desert his comrades. Then the British steamer came up,
and Lyons and Brown, considering Lord Raglan's hardy offer, thought it
inexpedient to go on alone. So, to the amazement of both armies, and the
profound astonishment of the Russians, the expedition returned, after
revealing its object.

[Illustration: THE ZOUAVES ASSAULTING THE RIFLE-PITS. (_See p._ 86.)]

The French Emperor, finding he had unwittingly spoiled a fine design, sent
another telegraphic message, ordering Canrobert to resume the expedition,
if Lord Raglan assented. Lord Raglan, thinking the enemy, apprised of the
intended attack, might have strengthened the place, said it would now be
prudent to employ a larger force. To this Canrobert demurred. The fact
was, he had lost a good many men in the trenches, and he was employing
a whole division in perfecting the lines at Kamiesch, that essential
prelude, according to Imperial views, of the Imperial plan of campaign.
Omar Pasha was willing to spare 14,000 of his best troops for the Kertch
expedition, but Lord Raglan did not deem it expedient to accept this
offer. About this time the Sardinian contingent, under General la Marmora,
landed in the Crimea. The far-sighted policy of Count Cavour had led him
to join the Western League. Austria, who had not fulfilled her qualified
pledge to engage in active war, was now less inclined than ever to do
so. By sending her contingent to the Crimea, under the flag of Italian
unity, Sardinia took rank among the effective Powers of Europe, and won
that place in the general councils of Europe which Cavour knew so well
how to use for the profit of his country. The Sardinian troops were under
the orders of Lord Raglan. The British force now numbered 32,600 men,
effective; the arrival of the Sardinian troops raised it to 47,600 men,
not counting the sick.

The troubles of General Canrobert now reached a climax. His Emperor found
that he could not go to command the allied army in the Crimea. The "voice"
of the French people, the "prayers" of the French people, and we suspect
something more potent than either, showed the Emperor that he must abandon
this dream of ambition. But he was eminently gratified by the realisation
of another. Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French, and Eugénie, his
Empress, became the guests of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Windsor
Castle--recognition of royalty more precious than the glory of commanding
a huge army in the Crimea.

When it was decided that his Imperial Majesty must refrain from his
projected adventure in the East, he sent an aide-de-camp with a grand plan
of campaign; and poor General Canrobert, already harassed by Imperial
interference, had to submit this scheme of operations to Lord Raglan,
and press it upon his acceptance. This he did about the 12th of May. The
Emperor's proposal was to divide the armies into three. One he proposed
should consist of 60,000 men, half French and half Turks. This, under
Pélissier, was to hold Kamiesch and the trenches, not with the object of
continuing the siege, but of blockading the south side. The French were to
guard their own batteries; the Turks were to hold ours. The second army,
55,000 strong, composed of the British, with the Sardinians and certain
French and Turks, the whole under Lord Raglan, was to hold the Tchernaya
in front of Balaclava. Behind these, 40,000 Frenchmen were to gather ready
to pour into the valley of Baidar, while 25,000 from Maslak landed at
Alouchta, forced the pass of Ayen, and being joined by the 40,000 men
from the valley of Baidar, moved in a compact body upon Simpheropol.
Then, if the Russians advanced towards Batchiserai, Lord Raglan was to
storm the heights of Mackenzie, and seize the "position" of Inkermann;
but if the Russians awaited an attack on the north side, then Lord Raglan
was to file through the Baidar valley, and joining Canrobert at Albat,
the combined force was to advance and throw the Russians into Sebastopol
or into the sea. If the pass of Ayen could not be forced, the 25,000
men sent to Alouchta were to return to Balaclava, and in that case the
whole disposable force of 65,000 men was to enter the Baidar valley, and
break through the mountain chain by Albat. Such was the pretty paper plan
sent by the Emperor. The alternative plan was an advance from Eupatoria
upon Simpheropol; but this he only discussed to destroy by numberless
objections. Napoleon early in his reign acquired the habit of meddling in
matters of which he was ignorant.

When General Canrobert unfolded his scheme before Lord Raglan and Omar
Pasha, both the English and the Turkish chief deemed it impracticable. The
immense extent of the works before Sebastopol rendered it impossible of
execution in their eyes; for they rightly judged that 60,000 men, one-half
Turkish, could not hold the trenches, now crowded with artillery. Lord
Raglan would not entrust British guns to the guardianship of the Turks.
He preferred to go on with the siege; but if he adopted any plan of field
operations, he would have chosen an advance from Eupatoria or the mouth of
the Alma, and, failing that, an attempt to turn the heights of Mackenzie
by Baidar and Albat. The council of war broke up without coming to any
decision. On the 16th, unable to face the difficulties that beset him,
General Canrobert resigned; the Emperor accepted his resignation, and
General Pélissier was appointed to the command of the army of the East. By
carrying out the will of the Emperor, Canrobert felt, as he said, that he
had got into a false position, and he withdrew, much to his credit. But,
more to his credit, he begged that he might remain with the army and that
he might be reinstated in the command of his old division. This request
was granted. From the 19th of May to the end of the siege, Pélissier
commanded the French army in the Crimea and Canrobert resumed his position
of general of division.

[Illustration:

    _By permission of F. Vincent Brooks, Esq._ _Reproduced by André &
       Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._

QUEEN VICTORIA REVIEWING CRIMEAN VETERANS (1854).

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR JOHN GILBERT, R.A., P.R.W.S.]




CHAPTER VII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Course of Diplomacy--Austria's Position--She becomes a
    Peace-maker--The Treaty of the 2nd of December--The Four Points--The
    Czar agrees to negotiate--Russell's Mission to Vienna--Opening of
    the Conference--Prince Gortschakoff's Declaration--The Third Point
    broached--Its Rejection by Russia--Count Buol's Compromise--A
    Diplomatic Farce--Count Buol's final Proposition--Resignation of
    Drouyn de Lhuys--The War debated in Parliament--Lord John Russell
    resigns--Strength of the Government--The Sardinian and Turkish
    Loans--Vote of Censure on the Aberdeen Cabinet--Finance of the
    War--General Pélissier--The Fight for the Cemetery--Success
    of the French--Occupation of the Tchernaya--Expedition to
    Kertch--Description of the Peninsula--Sir George Brown's
    Force--The Russians blow up their Magazines--Occupation of
    Kertch and Yenikale--Lyons in the Sea of Azotf--Result of the
    Expedition--Attack upon Sebastopol decided--Ordnance of the
    Allies--The Attack--The French occupy the Mamelon--The British in
    the Quarries--Lord Raglan overruled--New Batteries--Pélissier's
    Change of Plan--The Fourth Bombardment--Preparations for the
    Assault--Mayran's Mistake--Brunet and D'Autemarre--The Attack on the
    Redan fails--Abandonment of the Assault--General Eyre--Losses on
    both Sides--Death of Lord Raglan.


While the armies in the Crimea had been occupied in holding their ground,
and recovering from the effects of the winter campaign, the political
action of the allied Governments had been directed into a channel of
negotiations opened by Austria and conducted at Vienna.

Austria had not approved of the expedition to the Crimea. She had, to a
certain extent, joined the Western Powers; and although Russia might not
deem it expedient to turn upon Austria and make war upon her, still that
was possible; for Austria had given a cause of war to Russia by exerting
that pressure--severe, though distant and indirect--which impelled the
Czar to raise the siege of Silistria, and then abandon the Principalities.
Then the troops of Austria, by slow degrees, occupied the country as
far as the Pruth, and thus enabled the Western Powers to divert their
armies upon Sebastopol. But when they took that direction, and left
Austria alone face to face with Russia, supported only by a few Turks,
and having a very doubtful ally in Prussia, Austria was discontented. She
had, however, gone too far to recede. She was committed to the course of
armed neutrality, verging always upon open war. Becoming aware of her
situation, and having, just before the war broke out, reduced her army
by 90,000 men, she now spent £16,000,000 sterling in order to place her
public force on an effective war footing. For a moment, in the victory
of the Alma and the first bombardment of Sebastopol, she saw prospects
of a speedy termination of the war. The dark cloud of Inkermann and the
failure of the bombardment suddenly hid those prospects from her view.
The Allies had not been beaten, but they had been frustrated; and Austria
saw in the new circumstances an opening for a new effort to bring about
peace. Her special object had been gained when the Russian monopoly of
the Lower Danube had been removed, and she did not appear to appreciate
the larger objects of the Allies, namely, a definite reduction of Russian
power in the Black Sea; or she did not feel capable of aiding in their
accomplishment by a direct participation in hostilities. She therefore
renewed her part of peacemaker.

In order to place herself in a better position as regards the Western
Powers, she agreed to sign a treaty known as the Treaty of the 2nd
of December, 1854. This document stated that the Three Powers, being
desirous of bringing the war to an end as speedily as possible, and of
re-establishing peace on a solid basis, and being convinced that nothing
would be more conducive to this result than the complete union of their
efforts, they had resolved to conclude this treaty. By it they undertook
not to make peace without first deliberating in common. Austria engaged
to defend the frontier of the Principalities against any return of the
Russian forces; in case war ensued between Austria and Russia, the Three
Powers mutually promised to each other their offensive and defensive
alliance; and in case peace should not be re-established before the 1st
of January, 1855, the Three Powers agreed "to deliberate, without delay,
upon effectual means for obtaining the object of their alliance." Here,
then, it seemed, were fetters binding Austria to the fortunes of the
alliance; and the Western Powers believed that at last they had a fair
prospect of aid from Austrian arms, especially when she concluded a
defensive alliance with Prussia. The object of Austria, however, was not
war, but negotiation. By giving what seemed a proof of her willingness to
share the fortunes of the Allies, she took up a position which enhanced
the value of any peace proposals she might devise. Accordingly, she set
to work, contriving how, upon the bases of the negotiations carried
on in the summer, which took the shape of the Four Points, she could
present a scheme which Russia would be willing to consider. These four
points were a further definition of the Protocol signed by the Powers at
the beginning of the war, by which the purpose of the contest was set
forth. If she succeeded, she would relieve herself from the obligation
of fighting imposed by the treaty; if she failed, some excuse might be
evolved in the process of failure. Thereupon negotiations were quietly
resumed at Vienna between Count Buol and the Ministers of the Allies.
Prussia, having declined to accede to the treaty of December 2nd, had
no part in these proceedings. By the 28th of December the Ministers had
agreed to a paper defining the sense of the Four Points. Those points were
first, the cessation of the Russian protectorate in the Principalities,
and the substitution therefor of a European protectorate; second, the
free navigation of the Danube; third, an arrangement having "for its
object to connect the existence of the Ottoman Empire more completely
with the European equilibrium, and to put an end to the preponderance
of Russia in the Black Sea;" fourth, renunciation by Russia of her
pretentions to exercise a protectorate over the Christian subjects of the
Sultan. These bases of negotiation were presented to Prince Gortschakoff,
Russian Minister at Vienna, and by him transmitted to the Cabinet of St.
Petersburg. The Emperor of Russia was not at all disinclined to treat. He
had nothing to lose by negotiations, and, as it was possible something
might occur at a conference to disturb the harmony of the Allies, he
might have something to gain. Then it may well be that he counted on the
presence of a Prussian envoy, and consequently of a backer; and therefore
in December he gave his Minister at Vienna conditional, and on the 7th of
January definite, power to negotiate. But the British Ministry falling
under the shock of a popular tempest, it became impossible to send any
plenipotentiary to Vienna until the Government of England was once more in
such a position, as regarded Parliament, that it could act with authority.
Lord Palmerston adopted the resolution of sending Lord John Russell to
attend a conference at Vienna. While at Paris Lord John received and
accepted an offer of the post of Colonial Secretary. He had been sent
off so hurriedly that his written instructions were not prepared until
two days after he had sailed. Passing through Paris and Berlin, and
conferring in each capital with the highest personages of the State, he
did not reach Vienna until the 4th of March, and even then ten more days
passed before the Conference held its first sitting.

This took place on the 15th of March, in the Austrian Foreign Office. The
Plenipotentiaries were, for Austria, Count Buol-Schauenstein and Baron
Prokesch-Osten; for France, Baron de Bourqueney; for England, Lord John
Russell and the Earl of Westmorland; for Turkey, Aarifi Effendi; and for
Russia, Prince Gortschakoff and M. de Titoff. Count Buol, as a matter of
course, became the President of the Conference. At the very outset there
was a faint foreshadowing of the discussion which subsequently occurred.
The Czar Nicholas had just died, but his successor had declared with
emphasis that he should pursue the policy of Peter, Catherine, Alexander,
and Nicholas. When, therefore, the mild tones of conciliation in which
Count Buol opened the Conference had died away, and Baron de Bourqueney
and Lord John Russell had, on behalf of their Governments, reserved the
right of making special conditions over and above the four guarantees,
Prince Gortschakoff seemed to regard this as a challenge. At all events,
he took it up as such, and answered promptly. He hoped, he said, they
all had a common object, the object of arriving at an honourable peace.
"If," he added, "from whatever quarter they come, conditions of peace were
wished to be imposed on Russia which should not be compatible with her
honour, Russia would never consent to them, however serious might be the
consequences." He did not contest the right of the belligerent Powers to
add new demands according to the chances of the war; but, for his part, he
considered himself under the obligation to keep within the limits of the
Four Points. Having thus broken ground, the Conference went at once into
the details of the First Point, and determined to debate them in the order
laid down. We need not enter into these details. It is sufficient to state
that in five sittings the plenipotentiaries had agreed upon a form of
words, fully embodying the spirit of the original basis of the first two
Points. It was on the third, the key-stone of the whole, that they split
asunder.

It was on the 26th of March that Count Buol broached the question. It
may be remembered that the object in view was to connect Turkey with the
European system, and, in the words used by Lord Clarendon's instructions
to Lord John, to abrogate the supremacy of Russia in the Black Sea. For
this, indeed, three fleets and three armies were thundering against the
stronghold of the Czar. It was this supremacy and the temptation it held
out to Russia which had led her Sovereign into arrogant courses, and had
brought on the war. In opening the debate on this now famous Third Point,
Count Buol, speaking not only for himself but his allies, suggested that
it would be the better course for the Ministers of Russia and Turkey to
state to the Conference what means they thought adequate to accomplish the
ends desired. The French and British Ministers supported this suggestion,
Lord John enforcing it with the courteous remark, called forth by Prince
Gortschakoff's early declaration touching the honour of his country, that
England and her allies deemed "the best and only admissible conditions
of peace would be those which, being the most in harmony with the honour
of Russia, should at the same time be sufficient for the security of
Europe." Of course, Prince Gortschakoff could only be gratified, and could
not do less than agree to ask his Cabinet whether they would act on the
suggestion of Count Buol. The Turks did the same. As it was unavoidable
that some time should elapse before answers were received, Count Buol
proposed to pass to the Fourth Point; but to this neither the Cabinet of
Britain nor that of France, and both were consulted, would consent. Thus
several days were wasted, during which the French and Turkish Ministers
for Foreign Affairs were hurrying towards Vienna to take part in these
very critical negotiations.

[Illustration: SEBASTOPOL FROM THE RIGHT ATTACK.]

At the ninth sitting, on the 9th of April, these two, M. Drouyn de Lhuys
and Aali Pasha, were formally introduced. But no other business was
transacted, because Prince Gortschakoff had not received instructions
from his Court in regard to Count Buol's suggestion touching the views of
Russia on the Third Point. On the 17th the Conference again assembled.
Would Russia take the initiative and propound a plan for the abrogation
of her preponderance? The question was answered at once, and all the
more readily, perhaps, because the second bombardment of Sebastopol had
failed. Russia would _not_ take the initiative; moreover, "Russia would
not consent to the strength of her navy being restricted to any fixed
number, either by treaty or in any other manner." The Allies were, or
affected to be, in consternation. They had no plan, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys
suggested that they should meet at once to decide what they should demand.
Lord John Russell blurted out the opinion that the refusal of Russia had
diminished the chances of peace. Prince Gortschakoff rejoined that Russia
would consider any mode except that of limitation. That was not consistent
with honour. The high spirit and bold front maintained by the new Czar are
shown in nothing more than the arrogance with which, at this period, his
Ministers endeavoured to prevent the Allies from meeting to consult on and
arrange the terms to be offered to Russia! Of course, the Allies would not
suffer such arrogant pretensions. They retired to debate among themselves,
and a singular debate it was. The Austrian Cabinet clearly wished to
shrink out of the engagement of the 2nd of December. Although in favour
of the complete neutralisation of the Black Sea, preferring limitation to
counterpoise, and agreeing to support the plan of limitation, Count Buol
not only declined on behalf of Austria to make a refusal by Russia of the
two former a _casus belli_, but suggested the extravagant plan of simply
binding Russia not to increase her naval force in the Black Sea beyond
the point at which it stood _before_ the war! To this, strange to say,
Lord John Russell assented, telling his Government that if this system of
settlement could be made an ultimatum by Austria, the Western Powers ought
to accept it. But when, a few days afterwards, Count Colloredo, in London,
submitted the scheme to Lord Clarendon, the Minister did not hesitate a
moment in rejecting it.

In the meantime, with this tendency to give way on the side of the
Allies, the Conference had become a farce. They met on the 19th, after
consulting, and propounded a plan. The first proposition declared that
the Powers undertook to respect, as an essential condition of the
general equilibrium, the independence and integrity of the Ottoman
Empire. The Russians concurred, but--did not intend thereby to pledge
their Court to a territorial guarantee! So the virtue of the article
vanished at once. Then came the proposal intended to take away Russian
preponderance by limiting the number of her ships in the Black Sea.
Prince Gortschakoff demanded time to consider the project, and M. de
Titoff took the liberty of regretting that Russia had not the option
of settling the whole question by discussion with a State "free in its
movements and resolutions"--meaning Turkey, which he knew, as well as
the other Ministers, was, like Britain and France, bound to act on the
basis of a common understanding. The taunt is of no moment, except as
an illustration of the assurance of the Russian envoys. They had not
exhausted the ample stock of that commodity they brought to Vienna.
Indeed, it seemed to increase under the influence of Austrian vacillation
and timidity. The Conference held two more sittings. On the 21st of April
Prince Gortschakoff refused point-blank to accede even to the mild and
inadequate proposal of limitation, and brought forward an alternative
plan for throwing open the Black Sea and, of course, the Dardanelles
and Bosphorus to the war ships of all nations--a very startling mode
of liberating Turkey from menace, and preserving her independence. The
Ministers of Britain and France at once declined to discuss such a
proposal, and declared their instructions to be exhausted; and Lord John
Russell started for London. M. Drouyn de Lhuys lingered to attend another
conference, and to hear Prince Gortschakoff, as if in mockery of the
Allies, put forth a proposition to maintain the old plan of keeping the
Strait closed, and--admirable benevolence!--giving the Sultan the right,
a right he already possessed, of opening the Strait, and calling up the
ships of his Allies when he was menaced. The Conference closed, leaving
the Russians exulting at the skill with which they had done what they were
sent to do--that is, to feel the pulse of Austria, to find out whether she
would actively join the war or only make a brave show of resolution before
all Europe.

Although the Conference had closed, Count Buol persisted in thinking
that he could devise terms of peace. He had pledged himself to discover
such terms, and when the British Government pressed upon Austria the
fulfilment of the treaty of December, the answer was that Count Buol was
engaged in his search after a satisfactory measure of pacification. Now
it happened that, although the Western Powers were not averse from an
honourable peace, which they did not believe Russia would grant, they
were extremely desirous to obtain the active support of Austria in the
war. Therefore Count Buol went on with his search, and by the middle of
May he had hit upon a scheme so weak and ineffective that the Allies
warned him beforehand they could not assent to it. This scheme contained
the guarantee of independence and integrity for Turkey; maintained the
principle that the Strait should be closed, but gave the contracting
Powers the right of keeping two frigates in the Black Sea; laid it down
that Turkey and Russia should agree as to what force they would maintain
there, the amount not to exceed, on either side, the force of Russian
vessels then (May, 1855) afloat in the Euxine; and stipulated that this
agreement should form an integral part of the treaty. Subsequently an
article was added whereby Austria bound herself to regard as a _casus
belli_ such additions to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea as would bring
it up to the number existing in 1853! As the Western Powers would not
agree to any such proposals, Austria declared that she had fulfilled her
part; that Russia was now no longer exclusively to blame for the failure
of negotiations; that Austria regarded herself as absolved from her pledge
in the treaty of December 2nd, and that she had nothing to do but wish
success to the Allies. So the great central German Power shuffled out of
her engagements; and it cannot be doubted that one of her reasons for so
acting was to be found in the fact that the flag of Italy was waving in
the breezes of the Crimea. There was a meeting of the Conference on the
4th of June, called solely that Austria might record her propositions, and
place herself in a position to say that she had redeemed her promises.
The only result of it was this: it enabled Prince Gortschakoff to boast
that Austria had proposed bases which she deemed sufficient, but which
her Allies deemed insufficient, and thus to publish the dissension in
the allied camp. Such were the conferences at Vienna in 1855. The Allies
had agreed to them solely at the instance of Austria, and because she
had made her active co-operation in the war depend upon the failure of
attempts to conclude peace on the terms agreed upon between the Three
Powers. The Allies were, therefore, discredited in the eyes of Europe by
their complaisance towards Austria; but although she gained her end, which
was to evade the obligations she had undertaken of her own free will, the
conferences served to show Europe more clearly than ever that Alexander
was as obstinately bent as Nicholas upon maintaining Russian preponderance
in the Black Sea.

There was something enervating in the atmosphere of Vienna; for, as the
Conference proceeded, the spirit and firmness with which M. Drouyn de
Lhuys and Lord John Russell began their task diminished visibly. Lord John
became painfully conscious that Austria would not propose or support any
efficacious plan to abrogate Russian preponderance in the Black Sea if the
support she gave led her into war. "The occupation of the Principalities
by Russia," he wrote to his Cabinet, "she felt to be dangerous to her
existence as a great Power, and she risked a war to put an end to it.
But that point accomplished, I fear we must not count upon her aid to
save Constantinople from the encroaching ambition of Russia." This is
the language of despair. Britain and France could continue the war, "but
the waste of life and money would be enormous." This was written on the
16th of April. On the 17th Lord John had become so down-hearted that he
consented to support the Austrian proposal fixing the Russian maximum at
the force possessed by Russia before the war. If this, which would have
sacrificed the whole of the exertions of the Allies, could have been made
an ultimatum by Austria, he thought the Western Powers should accept it.
The Western Powers had resolved not to sink so low. M. Drouyn de Lhuys,
who was equally despondent and submissive, went home and resigned, because
he had compromised his Government by giving even a qualified assent to
terms so disastrous. Lord John Russell went home, pleaded his cause in
the Cabinet, and being overruled, did not resign. He remained in office,
and, on the first opportunity, made a speech, not in favour of his Vienna
views, but in favour of "the vigorous prosecution of the war."

The resignation of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs did not pass
without comment. The reason soon became apparent, and it was broadly
stated that Lord John Russell himself had participated in the line of
action adopted by M. Drouyn de Lhuys at Vienna. Count Buol himself,
resenting the publication of the protocols of the Conference, issued a
circular in which he stated that the English Plenipotentiary had supported
the Austrian scheme of pacification. Then followed the publication by
the British Government of several despatches, showing clearly the course
taken by the British Plenipotentiary and the British Cabinet; and in July
Mr. Milner Gibson brought the conduct of Lord John under the notice of
the House, and demanded explanations. Lord John explained and defended
the course he had taken; but not to the satisfaction of any one. The
public feeling was strong; and the Opposition, taking advantage of the
incident, Sir Edward Lytton gave notice of a motion censuring the whole of
the Government. In the meantime there was commotion in the Ministerial
ranks. The Minister then offered to resign, and in answer Lord Palmerston
frankly said that it was for Lord John to judge; but if he determined not
to resign, then the Cabinet would stand by him. But Lord John was informed
that a large number of the Liberals could not resist the motion, and, to
save himself from censure, and the Government from defeat, he resigned.
Thus the Opposition was foiled. The resignation did not prevent a debate,
although it prevented a division; and Lord John, having six months before
broken up one Ministry by a rapid retreat, now saved another by a similar
manœuvre. This may be called the climax of the ill-fated Vienna Conference
of 1855.

[Illustration: THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.]

During the course of the Session the Opposition had done what it
considered to be its duty as a body of critics on the proceedings of
the Government. It was well known to Mr. Disraeli that, independently
of the purely party votes he could command, a number of gentlemen of
various opinions, if they did not vote with him, would at least help him
to damage the Cabinet. When, therefore, in the middle of May, Mr. Milner
Gibson gave notice of a motion in favour of peace, Mr. Disraeli promptly
took it out of his hands with his full consent, and framed a resolution
which, while it censured the Government for its ambiguous language and
uncertain conduct in reference to the great question of peace or war, yet
promised to give her Majesty every support in the prosecution of the war
until a safe and honourable peace had been obtained. Mr. Disraeli's motion
was rejected by 319 to 219; and when Lord Grey made a similar motion
in the House of Peers, Lord Derby would not even divide the House upon
it, so plainly was the general conviction against it. Nevertheless the
debates in the House of Commons--debates raised upon amendments to Mr.
Disraeli's motion--went on for several days, revealing the true character
of the different sections, and showing the inadequate views which many
had formed of the objects at stake. Mr. Bright and Mr Cobden thought
Russia had a claim to preponderance in the Black Sea. Mr. Sidney Herbert,
Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and their friends declared that the
negotiations had been broken off on a question of "terms," mere phrases,
a few ships more or less; that enough had been done to show that Russia
could not be dominant in Europe; and that the propositions of Count Buol
were adequate bases of a safe and honourable peace.

[Illustration: SAPPERS DESTROYING THE RUSSIAN TRENCHES. (_See p._ 99.)]

But while we lament the defective judgment and blindness of the Peelites,
and the utter incapacity to understand the dynamics of the question
displayed by the peace-at-any-price party, we are bound to admire and
applaud the courage of both. They did their duty bravely--for it is the
duty of the chief men of a nation to speak out; and no nation is well
served in which the chief men, yielding to menace or succumbing to apathy,
withhold their opinions in moments of great trial. The debates on the
policy of the war, on the conduct of the war and of the negotiations,
ended by rallying a larger support than ever to the Government; for even
the leading Tories admitted that the war was so just that the Government
ought not to have avoided it if they could, and so necessary that they
could not have avoided it if they would, while no less a person than Lord
Derby, allowing his judgment to get the better of his party feeling,
insisted that it would be humiliation for Britain and France to retire
from the contest baffled before Sebastopol.

Nevertheless, when the Government proposed to become a joint guarantee
with France for a loan of £5,000,000 to be contracted by Turkey, Mr.
Disraeli, who had earlier in the Session cavilled at a loan of £2,000,000
to Sardinia, now, seeing a prospect of obtaining a majority by a surprise,
divided the House against the project and was only defeated by a majority
of three. Yet the propriety of both measures was manifest. We wanted
the aid of 15,000 Sardinian troops, and it was not too much for so small
a State to ask us to lend her the means of placing them fairly on the
theatre of war. In the same way the war had disordered more deeply the
deeply involved finances of Turkey. By giving a guarantee, in conjunction
with France, that the interest should be paid to the lenders, we enabled
the Sultan to raise the money at smaller cost to the Turkish Treasury, and
by so doing we were, of course, aiding her as effectually, in kind but not
in degree, as we were by our fleets and armies. But a Turkish loan was a
good subject for a hostile division. Mr. Disraeli saw his chance, seized
it, and nearly surprised the Ministry. He would have been content to
imperil the alliance and the war at the price of a Parliamentary victory.

Mr. Disraeli pursued a similar course, but with a divided party and no
chance of success, upon another occasion. Mr. Roebuck, the head and front
of the incomplete and abortive Sebastopol inquiry, moved on the 17th of
July a vote of censure on all the members of the Aberdeen Cabinet, whose
counsels led to what he was pleased to term the disastrous results of the
winter campaign in the Crimea. General Peel, as one of the committee,
moved the "previous question," on the ground that the inquiry was
incomplete, and that the greater part of the sufferings of the army arose
in the very nature of the duty which it fell upon them to perform. Mr.
Disraeli and the bulk of his supporters made the motion a party question.
But the course of the debate was decidedly against them, and they and Mr.
Roebuck failed utterly in procuring from the House, either a retrospective
censure on a dead Administration, or an endorsement of the Sebastopol Blue
Books. The House decided, by 289 to 182, that the question should not even
be put from the chair. Thus ended an attempt, first to discover evidence
which would bear out the fierce accusations advanced during the winter,
and then to base upon the imperfect and conflicting evidence discovered a
censure not deserved.

The Government had, since January, 1855, effected considerable changes
in the machinery for carrying on the war, chiefly, however, in the
concentration of power in the War Department. They had raised the total
force of the army to 193,595 men, including 14,950 who formed the Foreign
Legion; and they had increased the number of sailors to 70,000. They had
embodied fifty militia regiments, some of whom were in the Mediterranean
garrisons; and from the whole militia force they had drawn 18,000 recruits
for the army. Having found that the expenses of the war were outrunning
the estimates of the spring, they increased those estimates, making the
total for the whole service of the army, navy, transport, commissariat,
and ambulance purposes, £49,537,692, bringing up the total estimated
expenditure for the year to more than £88,000,000; to cover which they
provided £96,339,000, leaving a large margin for contingencies. Among the
ways and means were a loan of £1,600,000, and power to issue £10,000,000
Exchequer bills or bonds. The active navy consisted almost wholly of
steamers, and among the supplementary votes of August was one to provide
for the cost of a host of steam gunboats to be used, if required, in 1856.

General Pélissier, the new Commander-in-Chief of the French army, was a
hardy soldier, who had taken part in many campaigns, and had gained in
Algeria a name not only for military ability in the field, but for skill
in the cabinet as an administrator. A cloud hung over his reputation
for a time, because he had caused a number of obstinate Arabs, who
would not surrender, to be suffocated in the caves of Dahra. But when
he went to the Crimea, men only faintly remembered this dreadful act,
while all recognised the stern energy, sound military judgment, and
stout moral courage of the new chief. Henceforth they felt there would
be no faltering, no hesitation, no undue deference for opinions formed
in Paris, no terror of responsibility. Pélissier brought to his task a
will quite as firm as that of the Emperor Napoleon, and a reputation for
soldiership higher than that of his Imperial Majesty. He was told to
abide as nearly as possible by his instructions; and if he modified them,
he was to do so in concert with Lord Raglan. We have already pointed
out that these two officers did not differ on the question before them.
General Pélissier differed from the Emperor, not from Lord Raglan. He
recognised the soundness of the measures recommended over and over again
by Sir John Burgoyne; and he resolved to take Sebastopol by capturing the
key of the place--the Malakoff. It was more arduous now than it was two
months before, because the Russians had been allowed to develop their
hardy system of counter-approaches on the Malakoff ridge, and above the
Careening Bay, consisting of the Mamelon Redoubt on the former, and what
were called the White Works on the latter. These it was essential to
capture and hold before the final blow could be levelled at the Malakoff.

It was on the 19th of May that he took command. On the 22nd, three days
afterwards, the expedition to Kertch sailed, and on that very night
Pélissier began a bloody contest for the possession of the ground about
the cemetery to the west of Quarantine Bay. The Russians had seen the
advantage which works of more pretension than rifle-pits would give them
on this quarter. They, therefore, began to connect the pits with the
place by sinking a covered way across the ravine, and by connecting the
pits with each other by a gabionade, that is, a parapet made of large
baskets filled and then covered with earth. The incipient stages of this
design were observed by the French on the 21st of May. General Todleben's
object went further than the mere establishment of a series of strong
rifle screens. He had in view the construction of a regular battery on the
Russian left of the line, which would have poured a raking flanking fire
through the principal works of the besiegers. To prevent this, Pélissier
ordered General de Salles, now commander of the Siege Corps, to storm and
hold the new Russian line.

This line was of very great extent, stretching from flank to flank for
nearly three-quarters of a mile along the broken ground. The whole of
it was under the fire of the place, and the conformation of the ground
between the Cemetery and Sebastopol, a ravine widening towards its mouth,
gave the enemy great facilities for bringing up troops to feed the combat.
The French general placed upwards of 4,000 men, including two battalions
of the Light Infantry of the Guard, under the orders of General Paté. At
nine o'clock the signal was given, and, dashing out of the trenches, the
two columns fell upon the enemy so impetuously that he was driven out at
the first shock. But it so chanced that at this very moment the troops,
the battalions destined to furnish and cover the working parties of the
enemy, had paraded in front of the place, under the orders of General
Chruleff. Therefore the French had no sooner driven off the Russians who
held the lines, than these fresh troops, moving rapidly across the ravine,
first smote them with a crushing fire, and then coming on with lowered
bayonets, engaged in a combat so close, and fierce, and vehement, that
the French were overthrown on their right, and forced back into their
trenches; while on their left General Brunet sustained with difficulty
the forward position he had won. General la Motterouge, who commanded
the French right column, was not the man to yield so easily. Re-forming
his men, and bringing up his reserves, he flung them once more into the
fight. The combat now raged along the whole line. As the French poured in
fresh troops, the enemy, resolved to win, brought up eight battalions, our
old foes at the Alma, the regiments of Minsk and Uglitz. And thus through
the night the battle continued, sometimes dying away into a faint flicker
of fire, and then bursting out again with sudden and appalling fury. When
the French gained an advantage and pushed the enemy, their sappers in the
rear of the confused roar of struggling men began to destroy the Russian
lines; and then in the midst of their work, the battle would roll back
upon them and sweep over the disputed ground. Just before daybreak the
masses on both sides retired under shelter from the cannon of the opposing
batteries; but General Brunet kept the line he had won, and turned the
face of the rifle-pits and gabions towards the enemy.

Throughout the next day there was a brisk cannonade kept up on both sides,
each intent on preventing the other from occupying in force the contested
ground. At night the combat was renewed. General Couston, with four
battalions, reinforced General Brunet's position, in order to defend it
against any attack, and to complete the works of approach begun on that
side. General Duval, with six battalions, issuing from the French trenches
and assailing the Russian left, drove out the enemy's troops posted there,
and held the ground in front, while the working parties, in the midst of
a heavy fire from the main batteries of Sebastopol, rapidly transformed
the Russian trench into a parallel of attack, giving ample shelter to the
besiegers. Thus, in two nights, the French won this important ground, and
connecting all their works together, showed a united front, and left but a
comparatively narrow space, formed by the ravine across which they could
not work their way, between them and the town. This line on the ridge a
little east of the Cemetery was the limit of their regular approaches in
that quarter.

Another result of the change of commanders was the occupation of the line
of the Tchernaya by a combined force of French, Sardinians, and Turks.
This was effected on the 25th. General Canrobert led his own division and
that of General Brunet across the valley, and took post on the Fedoukine
heights. General la Marmora and his Sardinians took up a position on
the Hasfort Hill, above Tchorgoun. Sir Colin Campbell moved the Marines
out of their lines near the sea to the ridge looking down on Kamara on
one side, and the Baidar valley on the other. Omar Pasha, with 16,000
Turks, occupied the whole line of low hills on which stood the redoubts
on October 25th. The whole force was about 43,000 strong. There were but
few Russian troops on the river, and these gave way and retired up the
opposite hills as soon as they felt the advance guard of the Allies. Thus
the line of the Allies now extended from the sea on the right, through
Kamara and Tchorgoun to the Fedoukine heights, just out of range of the
Russian batteries, east of the Inkermann ruins. There were many who
thought this a beginning of operations in the field. They were doomed to
be disappointed. The Allies had now very large forces in the Crimea, but
while Lord Raglan could not assent to the Emperor's plan of a regular
campaign, the Emperor could not concur in Lord Raglan's suggestions; and
thus, as a compromise, the Allies continued the siege, and undertook no
other operation except one which we are now about to narrate--the naval
and military expedition to the inhospitable and foggy regions of Kertch
and the Sea of Azoff.

The Russian forces in the Crimea were dependent chiefly for their supplies
upon the mainland itself, for the Crimea is a peninsula, projecting from
the steppes of Southern Russia, and joined on to it only by the narrow
neck of land at Perekop. The road through Perekop was the chief line of
communication, leading as it did to Nicolaieff and Odessa. But there were
other roads by which the enemy received supplies. At the eastern part
of the Crimea was a small peninsula, called the Peninsula of Kertch,
from the town of that name. In order to deprive the enemy of at least
one road, and to ruin all his depôts within reach, and deprive him of
the waterway over the Sea of Azoff to Yenikale and Arabat, and force him
upon a more circuitous route, it was determined to seize Kertch, push
through the Strait into the Sea of Azoff, and destroy the ships on its
waters and the magazines in its ports. In order to accomplish this, it
was deemed expedient that a military force should occupy the towns of
Kertch and Yenikale, which are within the Strait, and thus, by taking
the land defences in reverse, open a road into the Sea of Azoff for the
light steamers. The Strait is narrow, especially where the waters of the
Sea of Azoff pour into it. In 1854 the Russians had sunk many ships in
the channel below Kertch, but in the winter, the waters of the Sea of
Azoff, fed by the swollen streams of Southern Russia, rushing through the
confined space in full volume, and at the rate of between three and four
miles an hour, swept away the wreck; so that what was not possible in
1854 became possible in 1855.

What the Allies required was to get command of the Strait; and to put
all resistance out of the question, it was determined, on the very day
after General Pélissier assumed command, that the force sent should
be overwhelming. Sir George Brown was again to take command of the
expedition. The French supplied 6,800 men, including fifty Chasseurs
d'Afrique and three batteries, under D'Autemarre; the Turks furnished
5,000 men and one battery; and the British 3,800 men, namely--the 42nd,
71st, 79th, and 93rd Highlanders, a battalion of Marines, fifty men of
the 8th Hussars, and a battery. The force thus amounted to 15,600 men
and thirty guns. The naval force consisted of twenty-four French ships,
including three sail of the line, under Admiral Bruat; and thirty-four
British vessels, including six sail of the line, under Admiral Lyons.
The gunboats and light steamers were organised into a flying squadron,
consisting of fourteen British and five French steamers, the whole
under Captain Lyons, son of the admiral, and, like his sire, a bold and
resourceful sailor.

Starting from Kamiesch and Balaclava on the 22nd, though obstructed by a
dense fog, the ships were, on the morning of the 25th, off Cape Takli, the
south foreland of the Strait; and soon after daylight the ships having
troops on board rounded the cape and running as near the shore as the
water would allow, proceeded to disembark the men. No enemy appeared,
and the troops speedily got ashore; the French taking the right, and the
British the left or exposed flank, while the Turks were held in reserve.
But the enemy, though not in sight, was audible enough on land; for the
troops had no sooner stepped ashore than the air was rent with the noise
of repeated explosions, and tall pillars of white smoke rose up on the
right of the allied forces. All along the coast, from Fort Paul towards
Yenikale, the Russians were blowing up their magazines. On the sea a
British gunboat, followed by another, was seen chasing the Russian ships
and engaging the batteries, not yet abandoned, on both sides of the
Strait. At the same time other vessels came up and silenced the battery
on the spit opposite Yenikale; and the Russians, feeling resistance to be
hopeless, blew up one magazine after another on both sides of the Strait;
so that by the morning of the 25th there was not a gun or a man to resist
the Allies. General Wrangel, who, with 6,000 men, had charge of the
peninsula, retired to Argin, midway between Kertch and Kaffa, and in no
way molested his opponents.

[Illustration: VOLUNTEERS OF THE FLYING SQUADRON FIRING THE SHIPPING AT
TAGANROG. (_See p._ 102.)]

Therefore, on the 25th, the steamers of light draught went up to Yenikale;
and the troops, quitting their bivouacs, set out to march on the same
place. They proceeded in three columns, the French on the right next the
sea, the British on the left, covering their flank, and the Turks in the
rear. When they came to Kertch, the whole broke into one column and filed
through the town, and by mid-day the troops reached Yenikale. The fleet
had come up, and the generals and admirals held a consultation in the
afternoon. The sailors having buoyed the channel into the Sea of Azoff,
Captain Lyons led his flying squadron at once into those waters. Already,
in two days, the Allies had captured upwards of a hundred heavy guns, many
new; had destroyed immense stores of corn and flour; had seized a mass of
naval stores, and had forced the enemy to burn or wreck thirty or forty
ships. By day clouds of smoke rose upward on all sides, and at night the
sky was lurid with flames. The strength of the Allies, and the swiftness
with which it was applied, soon completed the work and dismayed the enemy.
It is with pain that we record the shameful fact that the allied soldiers
and sailors disgraced themselves by plundering the houses and public
buildings of Kertch and Yenikale. The predatory instincts of our troops
were repressed severely, but Sir George Brown had no real control over
our allies, and the French generals and Turkish pashas did nothing to
restrain their men. The plunder of Kertch and Yenikale is a blot upon this
brilliant expedition.

The flying squadron under Captain Lyons really deserved its name.
Speed was essential to success, for delay would have given the mass of
shipping employed in feeding the Russian army time to run up the Don,
or enter the Strait of Genitchi and push into the Putrid Sea. Captain
Lyons was as swift as a spirit of fire. It was his business to destroy
every sail afloat, to visit and burn all the public magazines of the
Russian Government within the reach of his guns and boats, and to bombard
every fortified place on the shore. He fulfilled his task. Within
four-and-twenty hours he was off Berdiansk, the best port in the sea.
Here he landed his small-arm men, and burnt stores worth £50,000, and
many merchant ships. Then detaching ships to watch Genitchi and the mouth
of the Don, he steamed with the rest of the squadron to Arabat. Here
the Russians had a fort, mounting thirty guns, and Lyons and the French
shelled the place and blew up the magazine. In three days he had destroyed
a hundred transports laden with provisions for the enemy. Without delay
he made for Genitchi. Lyons bombarded the place in order to cover the
passage of his boats through the Strait into the Putrid Sea. The boats'
crews worked through, fired the shipping and corn depôts, and returned;
but the wind shifting, it became necessary to go in again and complete the
work. This was done by three volunteers: Lieutenant Buckley, Lieutenant
Burgoyne, and Mr. John Roberts. These men had the hardihood to land alone,
and, in the face of the Cossacks, performed the duty they undertook; and
then the boats, under a fire of field-pieces, set fire to the shipping
which had escaped before. At the end of the 29th of May the squadron had
destroyed, in the Sea of Azoff, four war steamers, 246 merchant ships, and
corn and flour worth £150,000. On the 2nd of June the indefatigable Lyons
was off Taganrog. The governor would not accept terms of surrender, which
would have saved private property; and under cover of the gunboats, in the
face of 3,000 troops, Lieutenant Buckley and a band of volunteers landed
repeatedly and performed the desperate service of firing the stores and
Government buildings. Marioupol shared the fate of Taganrog. Thus Captain
Lyons made a tour of the Sea of Azoff. Not one place escaped him or his
able lieutenants, Sherard Osborn, Cowper Coles, Horton, Hewett, M'Killop,
and his French coadjutors. The Russians lost not only the command of this
sea, but masses of corn, forage, fish, and marine stores, and ships which
it is impossible to estimate. Hewett and Lambert effectually destroyed all
the means of connecting the spit of Arabat with the Crimea; and, after
Captain Lyons had left, to meet an untimely death before Sebastopol,
Sherard Osborn kept the sea, and left the enemy not a moment's rest.
But ere this the French and British troops, leaving the Turks to hold a
fortified camp at Yenikale, had returned to the camp at Sebastopol.

The losses inflicted by the flying squadron were not the only losses
sustained by the enemy. When he quitted Kertch on the 24th of May, he
destroyed himself 4,166,000 pounds of corn, and 508,000 pounds of flour;
and it was estimated that this, with the quantity destroyed in the Sea
of Azoff, would have furnished four months' rations for 100,000 men.
The amount of supplies drawn from Kertch is shown by the fact that just
before the Allies landed, the Russians had been sending off daily convoys
of 1,500 waggons, each containing half a ton weight of grain or flour.
Besides this, the fortress of Anapa, on the appearance of an allied fleet,
was blown up by the garrison, and 245 guns rendered useless thereby. The
garrison retired across the Kuban River, abandoning the last post held by
them in that part of Circassia. Thus the expedition to Kertch and the Sea
of Azoff surpassed in its effects the most sanguine expectations of its
designers, and struck a severe blow at the vitals of the Russian army.

Once more the tide of war carries us back to the trenches before
Sebastopol. General Pélissier had, on taking command, accepted Lord
Raglan's proposals for carrying on the siege by vigorous and direct
attacks. The two officers being of one mind, and recognising the Malakoff
as the true key of the place, determined, in council by themselves, that
the Russians should be immediately deprived of their counter-approaches,
and forced back into the body of their works. They agreed that on one and
the same day, by simultaneous assault, the Quarries under the Redan, the
Mamelon in front of the Malakoff, and the White Works above the Careening
Bay, should be wrested from the enemy. This comprehensive operation was
a necessity, for these three works supported each other. The Mamelon
flanked, and was flanked by, the other two, and hence all three had to
be taken together. Having determined to take them, they requested their
generals to submit plans for the execution of their resolve. Accordingly,
a council of war was held for this purpose. There were still in the
French camp officers who were strongly in favour of operations in the
field, and as strongly opposed to an assault, even of the outworks. The
chief of these were Niel, Bosquet, and Martimprey, all able men. But at
the council, when Pélissier announced the decision of the generals, and
named the day for the assault, and General Bosquet ventured to dissent,
the Commander-in-Chief stopped him with the peremptory statement that the
attack was "decided." The French generals had no choice but to obey.

The main points being settled, the work of preparation finished, the
magazines well filled, the troops all eager, orders went forth that
the bombardment should begin on the morning of the 6th of June, and
should continue four-and-twenty hours, and that then the works should be
carried by storm. By dint of great exertions, and drawing from our large
resources, we were able to put in battery 157 pieces of ordnance. All the
lighter pieces, the siege guns of an older period, the famous 24-pounders
of the early years of the century, were withdrawn. The 32-pounder was the
lightest gun in the trenches. So heavy an armament had never before been
arrayed at any siege. There were in battery no fewer than twenty-seven
13-inch, seventeen 10-inch mortars, and forty-nine 32-pounders. The
remainder were 68-pounders, and 10-inch and 8-inch guns. The French
batteries, were armed with 300 pieces, but the bulk of these were opposed
to the western face of the town, and, for some unexplained reason, did
not maintain a fire equal in intensity to those on the east front.
According to the plan laid down, our left attack, while pouring a torrent
of missiles into the Redan, was also to keep up a combat with the Barrack
and Garden Batteries, in which they were to be supported by the French on
their left. Our right attack was to devote nearly the whole of its might
upon the Mamelon and Malakoff, in aid of the direct fire of the French,
and these latter were to pound at the White Works, as well as the Malakoff
and Mamelon. Thus it will be seen that the fire of at least a hundred and
fifty guns and mortars was to be concentrated on these works.

The 6th of June was a clear, sunny day, and the mighty lines of the enemy
stood out in bold relief against the western sky. About half-past two
in the afternoon, at a given signal, the allied batteries opened all at
once, with a roar that rent the air and shook the earth. In two hours
the effects of the ceaseless shower of shot and shell upon the Malakoff
and Mamelon were visible to practised eyes; and the comparatively rare
responses made by the enemy showed that his guns had suffered as well
as his earthen parapets. From that time until nightfall, the complete
superiority of the allied fire was secured; but as the French on the
left fired feebly, the Barrack and Garden Batteries, and some of the
guns in the Redan, stoutly maintained the combat with our left attack.
When darkness set in, the firing did not cease; for the huge shells from
our big mortars rushed upward all night, and fell crashing and exploding
within the enemy's works. At daybreak on the 7th the smoke and the mists
of the morning hung over the hills and ravines. The growing light showed
that, although the enemy had worked hard in repairing damages, yet the
outlines of the great entrenchments were less shapely and trim than
heretofore. Once more the batteries on both sides put forth their might,
and the deafening roar was renewed. The enemy showed some vigour at first,
but the Malakoff and Mamelon were soon forced to succumb. It was plain,
however, to all eyes and ears that, on the vital points, the enemy was the
weaker, and that the attack had got the mastery over the defence. Late
in the afternoon, and for an hour or two preceding the assault, the fire
of our guns became quicker than ever. The men in the batteries put forth
their whole energies, and for an hour before the assault the cannonade was
fiercer and more deadly than at any preceding period.

The British had told off about 3,200 men of the Light and 2nd Divisions
to carry the Quarries. Two small columns, each 200 strong, were to turn
the flanks of the work, and then advancing towards the Redan, lie down,
and cover by their fire a working party, 800 strong, whose duty it was to
turn the face of the work towards the Redan. About 1,000 men were held in
support in the trenches, and two battalions were posted in the Woronzoff
Road to cover the flank of both our attacks. The French, having a more
serious operation, and being more accustomed to act in masses, detailed
about 28,000 men for the two assaults. General Mayran had the direction
of the operations against the White Works--redoubts on the Careening
Ridge, one more advanced than the other, and standing between the Great
Harbour and the Careening Ravine. Two of his brigades--the right under De
Lavarande, the left under De Failly--were to storm the redoubts, while
General Dulac held an entire division in reserve to support both; and
besides these, there were two battalions in the Careening Ravine, intended
to push down it, and cut off the retreat of the enemy. General Camou was
entrusted with the attack on the Mamelon. One brigade, under Wimpfen, was
to carry that work; while another brigade and an entire division were
drawn up in the middle ravine between the French left and our right.
Behind them were two battalions of the Imperial Guard, and in rear of all,
near the Inkermann battle-field, was a complete division of Turks. The
whole operation was under the control of Bosquet, who proved himself quite
equal to the occasion. The fire of the allied batteries was at its height
when three rockets fired from the Victoria Redoubt, at 6.45 p.m., let
loose the excited soldiers, who dashed at once upon the enemy.

The brigades on the extreme right went up to the White Works at a run,
Lavarande's men first storming the redoubt on the right at the point of
the bayonet, and De Failly rushing past this work, and being equally
successful in carrying its counterpart; while the battalions in the ravine
marched down it, and swept up a number of the flying garrison. Led away
by a furious impulse, the troops even entered a third work, just above
the Careening Bay, but this they could not hold. The other two redoubts,
however, were firmly grasped and held in spite of the fire of the
batteries on the north.

At the same time Wimpfen's brigade issued from the trenches in three
columns, and went impetuously up the slope of the Mamelon, led by Colonel
Brancion, of the 50th Regiment of the line. On his left were the 3rd
Zouaves, on his right Algerian Native Light Infantry. Soon they were at
the ditch, firing into the embrasures, and receiving from the parapets a
telling fire. Then the 50th dashed into the ditch, and began to scramble
up the slope of the work, and Zouave and Algerine closed bodily with it.
In a few moments the redoubt was full of Frenchmen. They had won the
victory with such comparative ease that their passions got the better of
their judgment. Disobeying all orders, the Zouaves and Algerines pursued
the Russians towards the Malakoff, into which our batteries were now
pouring a terrible fire. It was an unhappy move; for the enemy immediately
lined his parapets and brought his guns to bear, and the Zouaves, although
they stood well and fought well, and although they were aided by shells
pitched into the Malakoff from our batteries, yet they only stood to be
slain. In the meantime, alarmed by some appearances indicating a mine, the
troops holding the Mamelon all ran out, and the Zouaves and Algerines,
returning from their mad rush on the Malakoff, pursued by a heavy and
angry column of Russians, found the Mamelon empty. Shattered as they
were, they could not hold it, and thus the enemy burst in triumph into
his stronghold once more. It was an anxious moment, but General Bosquet
was prompt in supplying a remedy. Throwing forward a fresh brigade, and
giving it ample support, these new troops, rallying hundreds who had fled
in terror at the idea of a mine, went steadily up to the work. There was a
brief combat, and rattling volleys; but, overpowered, the enemy sullenly
yielded possession and retired back into the town, this time unpursued.
Thus the French stormed, and lost, and regained the famous Mamelon.

Soon after the first advance on the Mamelon, Colonel Shirley, obeying a
signal from Lord Raglan, launched his little band against the Quarries.
The men of the Light and 2nd Divisions carried the work and its outlying
trenches without firing a shot, and then advancing, began to ply their
rifles against the gunners of the Redan. Anticipating an assault, the
enemy had filled this work with troops, and a horrible carnage was the
consequence. Either to escape this fire or to succour the Malakoff, for
a time the garrison of the Redan ran out of that work, and some British
soldiers actually went up and peered into it, and saw it was empty. But
when night came, the Russians returned to the Redan, and six times during
the night they strove to expel the little band of Britishers who occupied
the Quarries, and at one time, by turning the left flank, they succeeded
for a brief space; then, with a rolling cheer, our soldiers went at them
with the bayonet, and regained and held the lines, which were at once
turned into a new parallel, and the site of a new and most formidable
battery.

After the success of the 7th of June the question immediately
arose--should that success be pushed, and should the whole place be at
once assailed on all sides? To answer this question there was a council
of war. It should always be remembered that the British played a very
subordinate part in the siege of Sebastopol. They had reaped their glory
at the Alma and at Inkermann. They had soon lost that equality in point
of numbers with which they began the war, and the views of Lord Raglan
could now only prevail by dint of their comparative sagacity. He had, of
course, a certain authority as the representative of Britain; but it was
one of the penalties we paid for making war side by side with France,
that he should often have to succumb, and that in place of one plan or
another a medium course should be struck out and acted on. Whatever we
did in the siege was purely secondary after Inkermann. Our batteries,
indeed, were very formidable, and paved the way for the French successes
against the Mamelon and finally against the Malakoff; but our troops were
so placed by the stress of circumstances, that it was impossible for them
to perform any striking action. It would appear that Lord Raglan's plan of
taking Sebastopol would have been to follow up a heavy fire by, if need
be, repeated assaults at all points--some by way of diversion, to keep a
large force of the enemy occupied, others driven home with the view of
carrying the place. So that it is not surprising he should have wished to
continue the bombardment on the 8th, and then assault at the moment when
the enemy's batteries were at the lowest ebb of their power. But to this
the French would not agree. They wanted more time to build more batteries,
to push approaches nearer; and as they furnished the large assaulting
columns on the vital point, Lord Raglan had no choice but to acquiesce.
He knew that he could not take the place. He knew, and all knew, that if
the Redan were captured, it could not be held so long as the Malakoff was
in the hands of the Russians. Therefore he was obviously bound to assent
when General Pélissier proposed to defer the assault until the Mamelon and
White Works were armed, and a battery established in the Quarries.

[Illustration: MARSHAL PÉLISSIER.]

The French and British at once began to strengthen and arm their
acquisitions, and to sap onward towards the enemy's lines. But this caused
great losses day by day. Mortars from behind the Malakoff threw shells
into the Mamelon, mortars from the Redan threw shells into the Quarries;
guns and mortars from the north side threw their missiles into the White
Works. On the left the French did little more to aid the siege. There was
mining and counter-mining in plenty in front of the Flagstaff, and some
new batteries were constructed and armed on the extreme left; but they did
not now push the attack as they had done before. They had come at last to
recognise the Malakoff as the true point of attack, and against this they
turned all their energies. They worked out above a hundred and fifty yards
from the Mamelon, formed a large sheltered place in which to assemble
troops, and covered the front with a curving line of parapet. The British
built up and armed a six-gun battery in the Quarries, which looked into
the enemy's communications behind the Malakoff, and was destined to play
an important part; and they also increased the armament in the two attacks
until the 13-inch mortars alone amounted to thirty.

The Russians were not a whit less active. Their energies also were bent
upon making more complete the formidable defences of the Malakoff. They
were especially careful to close the gaps on its proper left towards the
Careening Bay, to open new batteries sweeping the ground at the head of
that bay, and to construct interior retrenchments and flanking batteries.
Their line of works, beginning from the South Harbour and extending to the
Great Harbour, was broken only at one point. About a quarter of a mile
to the proper left of the Redan, the Karabelnaia, or Middle Ravine--that
which ran between the British right attack and the French Malakoff
attack--broke the line of the Russian works. On the opposite bank of the
ravine, the outer defences of the Malakoff Redoubt began with a work
called the Gervais Battery, connected by a curtain with the Malakoff. But
in rear of this, as well as in rear of the Little Redan on the proper left
of the Malakoff, and in rear of the connecting curtains, the enemy had
thrown up retrenchments. In short, General Todleben developed his plan of
defence to meet the plan of attack, and as he had plenty of men, and a
boundless supply of guns and material, he could execute all his admirable
designs. He was a worthy foe.

As usual, the plan of attack was debated at headquarters when it had
been decided by superior generals that the guns should open on the 17th,
and that the assault should take place the next day. How should this be
carried out? It was arranged that the French on the west face of the
town should attack its salient defences, the Flagstaff, Central, and
Quarantine Bastions, in three columns, under General de Salles; and it
was anticipated that if these attacks did not succeed, they would keep
many thousands of the enemy employed, and might, if occasion offered,
be converted into real attacks, pushed home. The British were to send a
brigade down the South Ravine, to seize the cemetery lying at the bottom
of its basin, and, in conjunction with a French force, threaten the enemy
in that quarter. The main British assaults were to be made on the Redan.
If the Redan was carried, then the column in the South Ravine was to climb
up to the Barrack Battery, and join the Redan column in the rear. The
French were to attack in three columns on the extreme right. One was to
follow the Careening Ravine, and storm the Little Redan; a second was to
rush upon the proper left of the Malakoff; while a third, issuing from
the Middle Ravine, carried the Gervais Battery, and worked round thence
to the rear of the Malakoff. The fleet was to send in steamers on the
nights preceding the assault, to keep the enemy on the alert in his sea
batteries. Immense reserves were to be provided along the whole line. Such
was the original plan. It was settled on the 16th, but in the afternoon
General Pélissier desired to make an important modification. General de
Salles urged that, as the attacks on the left could not succeed, they had
better not take place; and General Pélissier, much to the discontent of
Lord Raglan, notified that this change had been made. Lord Raglan did not
press his objections, and thus the French were merely to "demonstrate" on
the left front. No other change was made, except that Lord Raglan decided
to send a third column against the Redan, having for its object the
salient angle of that work. Finally it was decided that the British should
not attack until the French were in possession of the Malakoff. The reason
for this was that the guns on the right face of the Malakoff commanded the
Redan and the road to the Redan. The whole of the 1st British Division was
brought up from Balaclava. The Imperial Guard was marched up to the open
ground at the head of the Malakoff Ridge; and 10,000 Turks were posted on
the field of Inkermann. There were in the British batteries 166 pieces of
ordnance, and nearly 300 in the French.

The bombardment opened at daylight on the 17th with great effect. The
Malakoff and the Redan were the objects of our gunners, and the torrent of
shot and shell poured into these works had, by nine o'clock, reduced the
fire of the Malakoff to an occasional gun. Throughout the day it was the
same. The Redan, although it soon ceased to fire with any vigour, flung
shells from small mortars with low charges into the Quarries. The Barrack
and Garden Batteries were, as usual, conspicuous for their vivacity. But
the fire of the Allies completely overpowered that of the eastern front.
Its severity may be estimated by the fact that the ammunition consumed in
the British batteries alone on the 17th and 18th was 22,684 projectiles,
including 2,286 13-inch shells. It must have been nearly impossible for
the Russians to work their guns, and quite impossible to work them without
awful loss. When the sun went down on the 17th the mortars continued to
hurl forth their monstrous missiles; and three or four of the steamers
standing in opened a fire of shot, shell, and rockets on the town. It was
on one of these occasions that Captain Lyons, fresh from his triumphs in
the Sea of Azoff, was struck in the leg by a fragment of shell. The wound
proved mortal, and death deprived the British navy of one of its most
promising officers.

From the comparative silence of the Russian batteries, Lord Raglan and
General Pélissier inferred that the enemy was at the end of his resources.
They hoped that at length he had exhausted his stores of artillery. It was
a vain delusion. In spite of the bombardment, which went on all night,
the enemy managed to replace the pieces in his batteries, and at dawn, as
will be seen, he was ready to begin anew. This advantage, indeed, might
have been counteracted had the Allies remained faithful to their original
plan. There was, in the French camp, a sort of passion for an assault at
the very first flush of the dawn. Their officers, Pélissier excepted,
had urged that the attack on the Mamelon should be given at daybreak.
They were overruled. Now they came to the charge afresh. The whole scheme
of the assault rested on the basis that the fire of the enemy had been
crushed. To make sure, however, it was originally planned that the assault
should be preceded by a three hours' violent cannonade. This would have
searched every part of the enemy's works, and prevented him from massing
his troops in them in large numbers. On this basis all the orders were
given.

Literally at the eleventh hour, the French changed the whole plan. On the
evening of the 17th, when all orders had been issued, General Pélissier
informed Lord Raglan that his officers declared they could not place their
infantry in the trenches without their being seen by the enemy, and that
consequently he desired the time of the assault to be altered and fixed
for daybreak. Lord Raglan was justly much annoyed, but he yielded. It was
a fatal concession. But how could he oppose a colleague who commanded a
force nearly double that under Lord Raglan's orders? Therefore, a few
hours before the assault was to take place, the old orders were revoked,
and fresh orders were issued. This occupied the British commander nearly
all night, and left him but one hour for repose.

Throughout the night the troops appointed to storm and support the
stormers and the reserves were moving to their appointed places. Down into
the British trenches went the men of the Light 2nd and 4th Divisions,
under Sir John Campbell, Colonel Lacy Yea, and Colonel Shadforth; while
Eyre's Brigade of the 3rd Division moved deep into the South Ravine, and
Barnard's Brigade of the same division was placed higher up in support.
The right column was to attack the left face of the Redan, the left
column the right face. If these succeeded, then the centre column was
to charge in at the salient. Eyre was to move towards the works at the
end of the South Ravine. The French, in addition to the ordinary guards,
marched three entire divisions, about 16,000 men, into their trenches, and
placed in reserve a part of the division of the Imperial Guard, bringing
the force up to about 24,000 men. The right division, under the orders
of General Mayran, marched into the Careening Ravine; the centre, under
General Brunet, had one brigade in front of the right of the Mamelon, the
other in the trenches behind; the left, under General d'Autemarre, placed
one brigade on the left front of the Mamelon, the other in the trenches
in the rear. The trenches and the ravines were choked up with troops, all
silent and crouching in the dark. Some were sitting under the parapets,
others lying flat in the ravines. But there was also a good deal of
movement, for the troops had to be placed so that they could most easily
and with slightest disorder move swiftly out of the trenches. Seen from
the higher ground in the rear, the soldiers are said to have looked, in
the deep obscurity, like the people of a world of shadows.

The allied generals had intended to surprise the place; to break into it
when its defenders were the least prepared. Some suppose that the enemy
was forewarned by spies and deserters of the coming assault, for, far
from being taken unawares, the Russians were as much on the alert as the
Allies. Behind those dark and silent entrenchments there were thousands of
soldiers under arms, and waiting in silence to do their duty at the first
tap of the drum or bray of the trumpet. It needed not spies or deserters
to forewarn them. The custom of armies when near each other is to parade
before break of day, and this is not less the custom of garrisons when
besieged, or of an army, like that in Sebastopol, defending a mighty
entrenched camp. So it was on the 18th. Behind the huge Malakoff and the
Great Redan, in rear of the connecting parapets, and in the houses of the
suburb, lay 16,000 men ready to clutch their arms and fall on. In front of
the works were watchful sentries, and in the works the gunners stood by
their pieces, prompt to fire. The steamers in the harbour, sheltered under
the cliffs, had their fires lighted and their steam up, and were prepared
to throw shell, and grape, and canister on the assaulting columns. But had
Lord Raglan's plan of a three hours' bombardment been carried out, the
fire could not have failed to disarrange the plan of defence, the chances
of surprising the defenders would have been great, and the assailants,
moving upon what they could see, would have stormed with greater unity and
greater confidence.

It was still dark. General Regnault de Saint Jean d'Angely, with the
Imperial Guard, was in the Lancaster Battery. Lord Raglan was at his post,
watching for the signal. The unemployed spectators, officers and amateurs,
were on the hills in groups here and there. General Pélissier was still on
his way, and upwards of half a mile from his post. Hope, nay, confidence
reigned in every breast. The British were cool, ready, and quiet. The
French, to use their own expression, were quivering with eagerness, but
their centre columns were not yet placed.

Suddenly, none knew why, flashes of fire, followed by a sullen uproar,
were seen and heard on the extreme right. The flashes grew brighter and
more frequent, the noise of exploding gunpowder grew louder. The roar
of big guns rose above the crash of musketry, and the roll of drums and
shrill notes of trumpets were heard in the transitory lulls of the larger
tumult. What had happened? No signal rockets had climbed upwards from
the Lancaster Battery to break into a bouquet of coloured fires. General
Pélissier, hurrying through the dark over the plateau, was perplexed and
furious. Still the combat raged about the head of the Careening Bay,
and the fire of the place grew fiercer and more sustained. Ten minutes
elapsed--minutes that seemed weeks to the wondering spectators. The French
general entered the battery in a fury; demanding sharply who had given the
signal, his wrath changed into astonishment when he was told no signal
had been given, and his astonishment into vexation when he learned that
General Mayran had mistaken a military rocket, fired from the Mamelon, for
the signal to assault! The unity and suddenness of the assault were thus
destroyed; but General Pélissier, without hesitation, ordered the rockets
to be fired, and, at seven minutes past three, the clustering stars of
fire hung for a moment up in the black sky, and then paled and vanished.
The French troops dashed out in the gloom to the assault.

A fatal accident had precipitated the conflict. General Mayran had been
up all night engaged in disposing himself the division he commanded. He
had them all in hand in the Careening Ravine, and he was eager, he was
impatient for the fray. In this frame of mind he was disposed to take
every rocket fired from the Mamelon for the signal agreed on; and when,
a little before three, one of these blazing missiles writhed and bounded
through the air towards the Russian lines, he called out, "That is the
signal." The rash step was taken; his division was ordered to move. With
the first brigade Mayran went himself; the second was commanded by De
Failly. But the troops no sooner rushed out than they were smitten by a
heavy fire. The leading soldiers, after the fashion of their countrymen,
began to fire on the retreating Russian outposts, and the flash and the
sound guided the Russian artillery in training their guns. Then it was
still dark, and the troops were unable to see the nature of the ground.
Instead of following the left bank of the Careening Bay, and striving to
turn the line of entrenchments, they went full in the teeth of a battery.
The steamers came up to the mouth of the bay, and, at short range, poured
in showers of grape and shell. So that this unhappy column, struggling in
the obscurity over rough ground, was torn through and through by the iron
sleet hurled at it in front and flank. Mayran was soon among the wounded,
but he would neither retire nor give up the command. Another grapeshot
striking him in the body, he was carried off mortally wounded; and part
of his troops, after a vain but gallant stand, hurried back into the
Careening Ravine, shattered and disorganised. But De Failly, bringing up
the reserve, rallied them in a hollow, and held his ground.

[Illustration: THE ASSAULT ON THE REDAN. (_See p._ 110.)]

In the meantime, at the signal from the Lancaster Battery, D'Autemarre and
Brunet gave the word to advance. Brunet's men were not in order; and in
disorder, and as they could, they scrambled into the open. The disorder
was increased when a shot struck and killed the general as he quitted the
trenches. General Lafont de Villiers took command. Part of the division
went towards the Malakoff, under Colonel Lorencez, while the rest were
held in hand to meet the exigencies of the moment. The men engaged, like
those on the right, were exposed to a crushing fire, and could make no
way, but they would not retreat. The attack on the right had, by this
time, utterly failed. The attack on the centre made no progress. The left
attack was more fortunate. D'Autemarre, on spying the signal, sent forward
two battalions, one of rifles, the other of the line. Day had dawned, and
the twilight revealed the column to the enemy, but it also allowed the
troops to see where they were going. With steady tread in the face of a
searching fire, D'Autemarre's men pressed along the ridge, on the right
of the Middle Ravine; Garnier, the commander of the rifles, kept his men
together and prevented them from firing; and thus they arrived at the
ditch of the Gervais Battery, on the proper right of the Malakoff, all
together. In a moment they were seen scrambling over the parapet, and
then firing their rifles, point blank, they went in with the bayonet. The
strife was close, but the French prevailed; and the 19th Line regiment
coming up, the two battalions were actually established within the
enemy's lines, among the ruins of houses, and under the mighty Malakoff.
The column on the right had by this time been reinforced by part of the
Guard, chiefly for the purpose of securing it from attack, but also to
have a body of men ready to take advantage of any opportunity. The head
of Brunet's column was under the Malakoff, exchanging volleys with the
enemy's troops, who fired exultingly from their parapets. D'Autemarre's
two battalions, as we have said, were inside the Russian lines, and their
gallant leaders, Garnier and Manèque, both wounded, had sent officer after
officer to the rear begging for reinforcements. Ten minutes had slipped
away since Pélissier gave the signal, and such was the condition of the
combat.

Lord Raglan had been a spectator of this engagement in the grey dawn.
He had seen and heard the false movement of Mayran; he had watched the
confused march of Brunet's troops; he had seen dimly the soldiers of
D'Autemarre storm the Gervais Battery. The French had not succeeded; but
the British commander, admiring their showy bravery, and feeling that he
ought to risk something to aid them, directed Sir George Brown to order
the assault on the Redan. Alas! here, too, the enemy were prepared. They
had a mass of infantry in the Redan; its guns, loaded with grape, were
ready to belch it forth; and between the stormers and their object there
was the abattis with its strong woodwork and deep ditch. The British
columns were small--400 men in each. They were covered by a scattering of
riflemen, and with them were to march a party of sailors under William
Peel, carrying ladders, a party of soldiers with sacks of wool, and a
party of artillerymen to spike the guns of the Redan. When the signal
was given, all these gallant men climbed over the parapets and alighted
in the open. Then the guns of the Redan opened with energy and effect.
The rifles, in open order, gained the abattis, and began to fire on the
enemy's gunners. Parts of the two columns of attack struggled in utter
disorder up to the same place. But the sailors under Peel were so cut up
that only one ladder was borne to the abattis, and Peel was wounded. It
was in striving to make the men in the right column form, and in leading
them on by voice and gesture, that the brave Lacy Yea met his death. He
was struck by grape, and almost instantly died. On the left, Colonel
Shadforth was slain as soon as he had left the trenches; and Sir John
Campbell, leaping over the parapet, went at once to head the column, and
carried them up to the abattis. But there, cheering his soldiers, Campbell
was also shot dead. Indeed, the storm of grapeshot strewed the ground with
red coats and bluejackets. Lord West and Colonel Lysons found it a vain
sacrifice to keep the men under that awful fire, to which musketry was now
added from the parapets of the Redan; and accordingly, the remains of the
devoted stormers were hurried back into the trenches.

The French attack had failed also. Seeing Brunet's men exposed to a
fire of small arms from the parapets of the Malakoff, Colonel Dickson
endeavoured to drive the Russians down by shells. But they did not appear
to feel these missiles, and Dickson changing to round shot, soon cleared
the parapet. D'Autemarre's two battalions held the Gervais Battery for
more than half an hour. Their brave commanders, grim and blood-stained,
looked eagerly, but in vain, for the reinforcements they had demanded.
And as these did not arrive, these two heroic soldiers were forced to
withdraw. When the French quitted the Russian entrenchments, the Russian
infantry followed. The French halted in a depression of the ground, and as
part of their reinforcements had now come up, they turned with the bayonet
upon their pursuers and forced them back into the work. Other battalions
coming up, these men held fast, and General Pélissier, unwilling to throw
a chance away, ordered up the Zouaves of the Guard, and had a momentary
thought of making a fresh attack; but receiving unfavourable reports, he
halted the Guard, and recalled all the troops. The attack was at an end,
and once more the dogged tenacity of the Russian peasant had won the day.

But while Pélissier was thinking of renewing the assault, he sent General
Rose with a message to Lord Raglan, saying that he hoped Raglan would
agree to a fresh onslaught. At the same time Lord Raglan, seeing how
completely our fire had mastered that of the place, ordered Sir George
Brown to bring up the supports, and prepare for another assault. He then
sent Commander Vico, the French officer at the British headquarters, to
inform General Pélissier of the steps he had taken, and to propose that
another attempt should be made after the bombardment had continued a
few hours longer. Lord Raglan thought that in this way the enemy might
be surprised, and the place be won. The two messengers met each other
in the trenches, and thus the messages crossed each other. Lord Raglan,
therefore, determined to see Pélissier himself. Reaching the Lancaster
Battery shortly after seven o'clock, Lord Raglan found the French general
ready to fall in with his views. But while they were discussing the
details, General D'Autemarre, now senior officer in the French trenches,
sent word that the French troops had lost so many men and were so
discouraged, that he feared it would be impossible to assault again. It
was, therefore, decided that no fresh assault should be made; the troops
were withdrawn; and the batteries slackened fire.

We have now to narrate a remarkable episode in the incidents of
the morning. It will be remembered that General Eyre was to make a
demonstration in the South Ravine. A French force was to aid him by
covering his left flank. Their first object was to capture two rifle-pits.
The French took one, and our volunteers the other, with ease. Then the
French halted, the officer in command having no warrant to go farther.
General Eyre, however, exceeding, or rather straining, his instructions,
did go farther, and a handful of French breaking from restraint kept
pace with him. In the ravine, just before it is joined by the Woronzoff
Ravine on the right, there was a cemetery where the Russians had a post.
This was carried by our troops, after a very slight resistance; and,
not content with this success, they pushed still farther. There were
clusters of houses under the cliffs on both sides of the broad basin
formed by the juncture of the two ravines. Into these the enemy retired,
and General Eyre deeming it desirable to occupy as forward a position as
possible, drove the Russians out of the houses, and held them as well as
the Cemetery. The troops were now under the Garden Batteries on the one
side, and the Barrack Batteries on the other; and before them was the
battery at the head of the South Ravine, called the Creek Battery. They
were thus exposed to fire on three sides. Nevertheless they still made
progress, driving the enemy out of the houses and up the sides of the
ravine. Some of them ascended the steep, a few looked into the works in
rear of the Flagstaff Bastion, others climbed the opposite side and got
shelter at a point commanding the Creek Battery. Thus they were ready, if
fortune favoured the assaults on the Redan and Malakoff, to sweep either
into the town or make way through the Barrack Battery to the Redan. But
the Russians had no sooner fled from the ravine into the place, than the
batteries opened on our daring soldiers. Nevertheless here they remained
all day, offering to the French in the right of their left attack a
splendid spectacle of hardihood. General Eyre was wounded early in the
day; but he did not give up the command of his men until five in the
afternoon. About nine in the morning he had heard of the failure of the
grand assault. Requesting instructions from Lord Raglan, he was told that
the French would send a force to relieve him, and hold part of the ground
he had won; but that if at nightfall the French had not arrived, then
he was to evacuate the ravine. The French did not come; and this noble
brigade, bringing with them nearly all their wounded, and these were many,
regained the trenches at nightfall. The Cemetery, however, remained in our
possession.

The losses of both sides were very great. Of the British there were 22
officers killed and 78 wounded; 244 men killed and 1,209 wounded. The
French lost 33 officers killed, 257 were wounded, and 21 were missing.
They also lost 1,340 men killed, 1,520 wounded, and 390 missing. The
wounded men thus exceeded the dead by 180 only--an unusual proportion.
The totals stand--for the British, 1,553; for the French, 3,561 killed,
wounded, and missing. The Russian loss, as usual, it is difficult to
ascertain. Prince Gortschakoff's published despatch fixes the losses
during the 17th and 18th at 16 officers killed and 153 wounded; 781 men
killed and 4,826 wounded; giving a total of 5,776 as the amount of the
Russian loss from the bombardment and the combat. The Allied losses on
the 18th were 5,106. On the 17th, 37 men were killed or wounded in the
British trenches. As the French placed more men in their batteries and
parallels than we did, they may have lost 100. Adding 137 to the total
of the Allied loss in the two days, it still falls short of the loss of
the enemy by 533 men. The errors of the day were the fatal change which
dispensed with the bombardment; the refusal of the French to assault on
the left; the mistake of Mayran, and the consequent failure in the unity
of the assault. To these it may be added, that the British assaulting
columns, except that led by Eyre, were all too weak, and would probably
have failed against the Redan, even had the French succeeded against the
Malakoff. And, reviewing the whole operation carefully, there is some
ground for the inference, that, although a preliminary bombardment would
have given a chance of success, yet, at this stage, it is probable that
failure would have been equally the result, because the distance which
the stormers and supporters had to traverse to reach the enemy was so
great, and also because the spirit of that enemy was still too high, and
his losses, immense though they were, not enough to warrant that profound
discouragement which precedes the final efforts of a desperate cause.

And now a severe misfortune was impending over the British army. It
was about to lose its beloved Commander-in-Chief. On the 23rd, Colonel
Calthorpe from headquarters wrote to his friends in England that every
one was more or less out of spirits. "Lord Raglan is, perhaps, the most
cheerful of any one, considering how much he has had lately to worry and
annoy him. But at the same time, I fear that it [the failure of the 18th]
has affected his health. He looks far from well, and has grown very much
aged latterly." He fell ill seriously on the 26th, but no one, not even
the doctors, thought that he was sick unto death. He grew no better, but
he slept well, watched over by his staff and Dr. Prendergast. On the 28th
he seemed so much better to some of the medical men that they were about
to quiet the anxiety in England by sending a message to that effect by
telegraph; but Dr. Prendergast was doubtful, and a dubious message was
sent. In the afternoon the Field Marshal became visibly worse, but it was
not supposed that death was so near him. At four o'clock the truth burst
upon all--he was dying. His staff, his nephew, Colonel Somerset, General
Simpson, General Airey, and Colonel Lord George Paget gathered round his
bed, and the principal chaplain came, and read and prayed. Gradually,
quietly, in a holy calm, that noble spirit ebbed away, so peacefully that
it was scarcely possible to tell the moment when he ceased to be. At
five-and-twenty minutes to nine in the evening of the 28th of June, an end
had come to the earthly career of the British Commander-in-Chief. He died
in his bed, but he died, like a knight of old, with his harness on. His
remains were conveyed to England in the _Caradoc_. She arrived at Bristol
on the 24th of July, and landed her sad burden, which was conveyed through
a town in mourning to Badminton; and there, on the 26th, in a quiet
village church, surrounded by a group of living comrades, who had fought
beside him under the Great Duke more than half a century before, the
remains of Lord Raglan, a fine man but second-rate soldier, found their
last resting-place.

[Illustration: RECONNAISSANCE OF FRENCH CAVALRY IN THE BAIDAR VALLEY.
(_See p._ 114.)]




CHAPTER VIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Changes in the Allied Camp--Advance upon the Malakoff and
    Redan--Attempt to raise the Siege--Prince Gortschakoff determines
    to Attack--The Allied Camp on the Tchernaya--Gortschakoff's
    Reinforcements--The Russian Plan--The Allies partially
    surprised--Read's Precipitation--Check of the Russian Attack--The
    French Counter-stroke--Gortschakoff changes his Front--A
    last Effort--The Battle is won--Allied Losses--Progress of
    the Siege--The French sap towards the Malakoff--The British
    Bombardment--The Covering Army--The Allies on the alert--Combats
    before the Malakoff--The Crisis arrives--Gortschakoff secures
    his Retreat--Council of September 3rd--Plan of Attack--The
    Last Bombardment--The Hour of Attack--Disposition of the
    Allied Troops--The Russians--The Signal--Assault of the
    Malakoff--Description of the Works--MacMahon and Vinoy--Failures
    upon the Curtain and Little Redan--MacMahon is Impregnable--Failure
    to take the Redan--Evening--Gortschakoff's Retreat--End of the Siege.


General James Simpson succeeded to the command of the British army, and
General Barnard became Chief of the Staff. Captain Keppel succeeded
Captain, now Admiral, Sir Stephen Lushington in the command of the Naval
Brigade. Sickness also drove home Sir Richard England, and Sir William
Eyre took the 3rd Division. Lieutenant-General Markham, coming from India
(there was a clamour for the appointment of Indian officers), succeeded to
the 2nd Division, and Sir William Codrington to the Light Division. In the
French camp there had been some changes. General Canrobert was recalled to
France. General Bosquet reassumed the command of the French troops on the
right, and General Herbillon, as senior officer present there, commanded
the French on the Tchernaya.

The great object of the Allies was now to press as closely as possible
to the body of the place. The French had begun to see distinctly that
the Malakoff was the key of the whole defences on the eastern side,
and that, with the fall of that redoubt, the town and the western side
would be untenable. Accordingly, they continued with vigour the works
of approach begun after the capture of the Mamelon. They descended the
eastern slope of this hillock, burrowing in the ground where the soil was
soft, planting gabions and piling up sand-bags, and using blasting powder
where it was hard and rocky. Day after day the space between the Mamelon
and Malakoff showed signs of their labours; the works on the Careening
Ridge were extended and strengthened; and the whole front protected
by being tied together by a connecting parallel. But the loss of men
was very great. The fire of guns and mortars, although not heavy, was
constant, and the shells, flung with low charges from a short distance,
burst in the parallels and batteries, and among the working parties, with
destructive effect. The labour required was prodigious; for every approach
had to be protected by traverses from an enfilading fire. The watchful
eyes of Todleben were never turned from the works of the Allies, and as
fast as they projected a new approach, he found means of taking it in
flank or raking it from his side. Unseen mortars, far in the rear, sent
their shells into the Allied works. The steamers were still active, and,
although they were frequently fired at, yet they were rarely, if ever,
hit. Then the fire of musketry was incessant, and so from shell, and shot,
and bullet the soldiers in the trenches lost numbers night and day. The
British were quite unable to work the rocky soil in front of the Quarries.
They pushed out but a little way under an irregular but searching fire
of shells, flung in clusters of eight or ten and sometimes twelve at a
time. The engineers were chiefly engaged in enlarging and strengthening
the works, and in placing a still heavier armament in the batteries. The
British loss was also very large--between thirty and forty men per diem
were put _hors de combat_.

So, through the month of July and the beginning of August, these deadly
labours were continued, and the Allies crept nearer and nearer to the
Malakoff and the Redans, and to the ramparts on the western face. In the
meantime came reports that the Russian Government, determined to strike
one blow for victory, had directed several divisions from Poland towards
the Crimea. These reports were true. An effort was about to be made to
raise the siege. As no attack could be made from the head of the harbour,
it was plain that the covering army would be assailed from the Heights of
Mackenzie and the Valley of Chouliou; wherefore the Sardinian infantry
from Tchorgoun made several excursions into the hilly region to the
north-east, yet they found no enemy. The Turks also entered the mountains,
and the French cavalry in the Baidar Valley kept an eye on all the rugged
passes leading into that fertile spot. They found no enemies in force, and
they obtained from the valley a boundless supply of forage. But in the
beginning of August it was observed that the Russians were constructing
new works on the road from the Tchernaya to the Heights of Mackenzie, at
points whence they could fire into the front and flanks of an advancing
column. Clusters of Cossacks came down more frequently to the brow of the
hills, gazed curiously into the valley, and sometimes skirmished with the
French outposts. Small parties of the same useful troops hung about the
French cavalry camps in the Baidar Valley, and one or two were caught by
the active Chasseurs d'Afrique. From the end of the first week in August
the Allies were on the look-out for an assault in force upon the Tchernaya.

It was the fact that Prince Gortschakoff, having received large
reinforcements, in obedience to orders from St. Petersburg--for the
Emperor on the Neva, like the Emperor on the Seine, interfered in the
conduct of the war--proposed to assail the Allies. He was painfully aware
of the strength of their position. He knew the ground. It had long been
visible to him throughout its whole extent. He could see the Sardinian
entrenchments from the heights above Tchorgoun, and his very batteries
could almost reach the French camps from the heights of Inkermann. He had
two batteries, called by the French Gringalet and Bilboquet, upon these
heights, whose missiles amused the French outposts, and sometimes annoyed
them, but seldom did any harm. Knowing the ground well, and the strength
of the force holding it, he designed a clever plan of attack, based on
that knowledge, but depending entirely for success upon a surprise,
followed by rapid movements urged on without hesitation.

The French were encamped on the crown of the Fedoukine hills. Their
outposts on the left, or western side, were on the banks of the Tchernaya,
and they held an angular entrenchment or redan on the right bank, to
defend the access to the bridge. The valley in front of the French camps,
looking north, was a meadowy plain, through which ran the road to the
Heights of Mackenzie and Inkermann. The troops occupying this position
were seven battalions of Turks, with four guns, whose duty it was to watch
the ford of Alsou, and guard the course of the Tchernaya thence to the
confluence of the Kreuzen, having ten battalions in support near Kamara,
on the other side of the affluent. Next, the Sardinians under La Marmora,
consisting of the divisions of Durando and Trotti, encamped on the Hasfort
Hill, and in the plain the cavalry under Saviroux. The Sardinians had
thirty guns, and a British battery of position, 32-pounder howitzers,
under Captain Mowbray. Then came the three French divisions--that of
Fancheux on the right, that of Herbillon in the centre, that of Camou
on the left. The French cavalry, Morris's division, were encamped in
the plain on the left of the Sardinians. The artillery park was in the
rear of the Fedoukine heights. General Herbillon commanded the whole.
Five brigades held the heights, and one occupied the eastern slopes of
Mount Sapoune, and thus connected the army of observation with the corps
engaged in pushing the attacks against the Malakoff. Including the British
cavalry, 3,000 strong, there were nearly 40,000 men and 120 guns in line
between Alsou and Mount Sapoune.

The information brought in by our spies and the reports of deserters had
led the allied generals to look either for a sortie from the town, or for
an attack on the line of the Tchernaya. On the 14th of August the troops
in camp were under arms before daybreak, but nothing occurred on one side
or the other. On the 15th more positive news arrived. General d'Allonville
from the Baidar Valley notified by the semaphore that he had troops in
front of him, or rather that his patrols had discovered bodies of the
enemy moving down into the Valley of Chouliou. Signal lights flashed from
Mackenzie to Inkermann, and from Inkermann to Sebastopol. An ostentatious
gathering of troops in rear of the Redan and Malakoff was discovered from
the tops of our men-of-war, and at the same time a suspicious movement of
Russians towards Inkermann. All the commanders were warned, and orders
were issued to be more than usually vigilant; General La Marmora directing
his brigades to get under arms before daylight the next morning.

Prince Gortschakoff had, indeed, resolved to surprise if he could, if
not, to force, the line of the Tchernaya. His reinforcements consisted
of the 4th, 5th, and 7th divisions of infantry. To these he was able to
add the 17th, 12th, 6th, and 11th; of these the 11th, 12th, and 17th had
long been in the Crimea, and had fought at the Alma and Inkermann; but the
4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th were fresh troops, which had arrived recently from
Poland and Bessarabia. In fact, as soon as it was certain that Austria
did not mean to fight, the Czar put in motion all the troops that could
be spared from the Austrian frontiers. Had all these divisions been in
full strength, Prince Gortschakoff could have brought into line 78,000
infantry alone. But long marches had weakened some regiments, and others
had suffered great losses in the field and the trenches; and instead of
78,000, he could only dispose of 50,900 infantry. To support them he had
7,200 cavalry, chiefly regulars, and 262 guns; in all about 60,000 men.

The plan of the Russian general was to move the bulk of his force, on the
night of the 15th, by the roads leading from the Mackenzie Heights into
lower ground, while two divisions marched from Korales down the Valley of
Chouliou, and joined the left of the main body above Tchorgoun. The right
column he entrusted to General Read. It consisted of the 7th and 12th
divisions, and sixty-two guns. The left was under the orders of Liprandi,
and was composed of the 5th, 17th, and 6th, and some ninety cannon. The
11th and 4th were in reserve, and remained so. General Liprandi led
the way. On quitting the defile he was to move to his left, and before
daylight drive the Sardinian outposts from the Mamelon, occupy that hill,
and also the heights above Tchorgoun and Karlovka. The object of this
was to give the Russians a good site, whence they might cannonade Mount
Hasfort, and cover an infantry attack on that position. While Liprandi
formed on the Sardinian Mamelon, Read was to bring his two divisions into
line, but out of range; hold himself prepared to storm the Fedoukine
heights, but not to make that attempt until he got orders to do so from
Prince Gortschakoff.

All night on the 15th the Russian columns were moving silently down the
steep road from Mackenzie, along the wooded valley of Chouliou, spreading
out over the slopes, and pushing nearer and nearer to the outposts and
patrols of the Allies. While this formidable host was approaching, the
allied soldiers were asleep, and only the usual guards were under arms,
and the usual patrols were moving across the front. Before daylight,
however, the Sardinians got under arms; but the French do not appear to
have turned out earlier than usual. Long security had bred confidence, and
no doubt they relied upon their advanced posts, and not without reason.
A thick fog hid everything in the valley, and hung heavily over the low
meadows on both sides of the Tchernaya. Under cover of this, Prince
Gortschakoff had got his troops into the positions he had designed them to
occupy.

But the sentries were on the alert. There was a splutter of musketry
in front of the bridge--a French patrol had stumbled in the fog upon
the skirmishers of Read! Then followed a few reports near the Sardinian
outpost, and a quick fire of musketry. General La Marmora, with great
promptitude, sent a support across the Tchernaya to aid the riflemen on
the Mamelon in delaying the advance of the enemy, while he made his final
preparations. Liprandi had, while it was still dark, brought up such a
heavy force, that although the Sardinians stood their ground with great
gallantry, they were so pressed on all sides as to be forced out of their
entrenchments, and were retiring down the hill as the support came up.
The whole then gave ground before the enemy, and fell back upon the rocky
elevation in front of the left of the Sardinian line, whence they were not
expelled.

In the meantime the guns of Liprandi and Read were both in action; and
the whole line of the Allies began to seize their arms and form. Morris's
Chasseurs d'Afrique, 2,400 strong, formed between the left of the
Sardinians and the right of the French, one regiment being at the head of
the defile leading to the bridge. Saviroux's Sardinian cavalry, 300 men,
came up on their right; and General Scarlett, turning out the British
cavalry, a splendid force, 3,000 strong, moved them across the plain,
and drew up in rear of the French and Italian squadrons. The Turkish and
Sardinian guns were answering the fire of Liprandi's artillery; and two
French batteries were ready to engage Read. So thick was the fog that
the enemy's troops were still invisible, and pending the development of
their attack, Generals La Marmora and Herbillon simply reinforced their
outposts. Prince Gortschakoff has stated that about this time he had
ridden on to the Sardinian Mamelon to survey the ground, and proceed with
the execution of his original plan. While he was meditating and trying to
pierce through the fog, he heard a violent fire of musketry on his right.
General Read, without orders, as his superior officer avers, had begun
the attack, and frustrated the whole scheme. From this moment the battle
of the Tchernaya was a battle mainly between the French and Russians; the
former, however, being assisted by the deadly fire of the British and
Sardinian guns.

The Russian cannonade had thoroughly roused the French, but uncertain from
what quarter the real attack of the enemy would come, the brigades were
kept drawn up near their camps, ready to move in any direction. Suddenly
dark masses were seen dimly through the mist moving down on the Tchernaya.
They came on with great resolution, and very fast. At one and the same
moment a column from the 12th Division assailed the bridge, and another
from the 7th attacked the French left. The onset was so impetuous that
the French outposts were at once thrust away from the river all along the
line, and forced over the aqueduct. The advance of the 7th Division had
been equally successful. Issuing from the fog, boldly passing the river,
closing in from all sides on the French, the latter, outnumbered, were
compelled to retire with all speed up the slopes of the Fedoukine hills.
Now the tide of combat was going to change. In crossing the aqueduct the
Russians had lost their regular formation, and they had to recover it
as well as they could under a heavy fire. Thus their charge was stopped
at the moment when victory depended upon its continuance; and while
the troops in their front kept them in play, the French generals were
executing movements intended to effect a bloody counter-stroke. The column
of the 7th Division fell first under this calamity. They had crossed the
river and aqueduct with comparatively little opposition, apparently only
that of the outposts and the supports. They were advancing up the hill,
when General Wimpfen, who commanded a brigade of General Camou's division,
sent the 3rd Zouaves to check them. This brought the Russians to a stand.
The heavy column, growing vaster as the men scrambling over the aqueduct
came up, gave and received a telling fire, but did not advance. All this
time, by the orders of Wimpfen, a battalion of the 82nd Regiment was
rapidly coming down the hill to the aid of the Zouaves. As soon as the
82nd appeared, the French attacked with the bayonet. The Zouaves went
headlong into the right, the 82nd into the left flank of the enemy. The
outward ranks were lifted off their feet by the violence of the shock,
and the column loosening at the rear, turned and hurried, in dreadful
confusion, back over the aqueduct. A battery of artillery on the left of
the line of attack poured grape into the flying mass, and augmented the
slaughter.

So far the attack on the left had been repelled, but the beaten troops
were still at hand to take advantage of any success that might fall to the
share of their comrades, who had carried the bridge and were assailing the
centre and right.

The Russians had poured over in three irregular columns. Those who crossed
by the bridge formed the centre; what may be called the wings had forded
the river and the aqueduct. Each column was bravely encountered and
overthrown. When General Wimpfen saw that his Zouaves and one battalion
of the 82nd were sufficient to deal with the Russian extreme right, he
sent the whole of the 50th, with the remainder of the 82nd as a reserve,
to fall upon the central Russian columns. Thus, while the battalions of
Herbillon's division assailed the centre, the 50th, moving obliquely down
the hill, came upon the flank of the Russian column which had passed the
aqueduct on the Russian right of the bridge. Exposed to such an assault,
the Russians were unable to stand, and, after a brief musketry fight, they
turned and sought shelter beyond the aqueduct and the Tchernaya. At the
same time, General de Failly, in the centre, had charged, and the effect
of the combined movement was to sweep the enemy over the river. The mass
of the French were kept behind the aqueduct; but Colonel Danner, with
portions of the 97th and 95th, was sent over to re-occupy the bridge-head.
On the other side of the road to Balaclava the Russian column had proved
too strong for the 19th Chasseurs; and after driving them up the eastern
hillock, had, regardless of the tearing flank fire of the Sardinian
artillery on Mount Hasfort, sought to deploy and storm the height. They
were just moving up when the 2nd Zouaves came over the crest. The Russians
began to fire, but the Zouaves continued to march forward, and then, with
loud shouts and levelled bayonets, they went down the hill at a charging
pace, and literally lifting the Russians off their legs, drove them
pell-mell over the aqueduct.

[Illustration: GENERAL SIMPSON. (_From a Photograph by Fenton._)]

Prince Gortschakoff had heard the beginning of the attack upon the French
left. He was, he says, astonished. General Read had frustrated his design
of first driving the Sardinians from their entrenchments, and taking
himself a solid grasp of Mount Hasfort. To effect this object he had in
hand four divisions of infantry, and he was preparing to hurl his bolt
when the uproar of Read's untimely onset broke upon his ear. At once he
suspended the movement of these divisions, and changed the whole tide
of his battle. He felt that he must support the troops of Read, for he
could not be sure that the Allies would not assume the offensive, and, by
good luck, they might interpose between him and the Mackenzie Heights,
and throw the bulk of his army upon the hills and narrow valleys towards
Aitodor and Chouliou. Wherefore he directed the cavalry to move up, and
should the infantry be repulsed, hold themselves in readiness to charge
or to cover the retreat of the 7th and 12th Divisions, and enable them to
rally. At the same time he directed the 5th Division to move by its right
into the plain and assail the French at and above the bridge. The 17th
Division was ordered to descend the Sardinian Mamelon and cross the river,
and strive to penetrate through the open space between Mount Hasfort
and the most eastern slopes of the Fedoukine heights. The 6th Division
moved up to guard the ground opposite the Sardinians above Karlovka and
Tchorgoun, and the 4th Division remained in the rear up the valley of
Chouliou as a reserve. The attack was vigorous enough, but the columns
were defeated in detail and driven back.

But the enemy would not yet own himself beaten. The 17th Division had
arrived on the right bank of the Tchernaya. It was formed of regiments
that had met the Allies at the Alma and Inkermann. Undismayed by defeat,
determined to risk another throw of the dice, Prince Gortschakoff
ordered a brigade, composed of three regiments--that is, twelve
battalions--supported by a large body of cavalry, to cross the river,
and push in between the French and Sardinians. The march of these troops
had been seen by the Allies. General Herbillon had reinforced the right
by three regiments of Cler's brigade and part of Sencier's brigade, and
General La Marmora had directed Mollard's brigade of Trotti's division to
descend from Mount Hasfort and, crossing the valley, support the French
right. The support, as it happened, was not needed, but it would have been
most timely and effectual had the French been overmatched. As it was, the
Russians crossed the river and the aqueduct, pushing the French before
them, and partly turning their right. They moved with evident resolution,
for their columns were struck by the fire of a powerful artillery in
flank. A French battery, disregarding the shot and shell poured upon it
by the Russian guns on the opposite hills, devoted all its might to the
injury of the enemy's infantry. These were now smitten on all sides except
their right. For when they saw the deep masses of cavalry facing the gorge
into which they had entered, and when they felt the Sardinians on the left
of their line of advance, they turned to the right and made a desperate
attempt to crown the hillock. The first column which reached the crest was
immediately assailed in flank by a French regiment of Cler's brigade, and
driven helplessly into and over the aqueduct. But the other deep columns
now filling the whole space between the aqueduct and the river still came
on with unfaltering resolution, and flung themselves into a focus of
fire. But they could make no way. The guns and musketry were too much for
them. In vain their officers ran out and waved their swords and showed
the way. In vain the columns tried to get along. Presently they fell into
confusion; then turned and hurried back over the river, pursued by volleys
of musketry and flights of grape and roundshot.

The Russians brought up into line a number of batteries to cover the
retreat of the infantry, and their splendid-looking cavalry drew up in
glittering lines out of range to protect the guns. But the heavy British
pieces in the Sardinian earthworks, opening on the enemy's artillery, soon
made them move farther away. It was about eight o'clock of the morning of
the 16th. The battle was won.

In this action the Allies lost 1,747 men killed and wounded, of whom
only 196 were killed. The Sardinians lost one general officer, the Count
Montevecchio. But the Russian loss was awful. The French buried upwards of
2,000 bodies; the Russians more than 1,000. There were 2,250 prisoners in
the hands of the French, some wounded, some whole. General Read and two
other generals of his corps were among the dead; and among the wounded
were eight generals and ten colonels. The Russian loss altogether could
not have been less than 15,000 men. The battle of the Tchernaya sealed the
fate of Sebastopol.

The battle of the Tchernaya did not interrupt the progress of the siege.
The Russians only succeeded in drawing upon themselves the bulk of the
covering army, for although the French showed a strong line of troops on
the old Inkermann ground, and kept up a sharp look-out upon their own
left, this did not hinder the working parties in the advanced works from
continuing their labours.

It should still be borne in mind that the French had fully recognised the
fact that the Malakoff was the key of Sebastopol, that their main efforts
were directed towards it, and that all the other attacks had become
subordinate to this one. In short the attack on the Malakoff had become
what is termed regular. But Sebastopol was not invested. The supply of
guns in the place was practically unlimited. As much ammunition as the
enemy could find transport for could be and was carried into the town.
Hence, although the progress of the sap went on against the Malakoff
and the Little Redan alone, the whole fire of the Allies could not be
concentrated on those works, because they had to reply to the other
batteries used so vigorously by the enemy. These conditions of the siege
had been long established; the new feature in it was the determined attack
upon the Malakoff, to which the other attacks were made subordinate.

The moment the French began to descend the western slope of the Mamelon,
and push up the eastern slope of the Malakoff, they became sensible of
the arduous nature of the undertaking. Their trenches had to be designed
with the utmost care, their connecting parallels to be constructed with
rapidity and solidity in the face of a destructive fire. About the period
of the battle of the Tchernaya they were losing a hundred men a night in
the trenches. Batteries, low down in the Russian works and unseen by the
Allies, flung shells into the trenches and batteries with fatal accuracy.
Nevertheless, the French steadily gained ground. They had descended one
slope, they were ascending the other. But when they had reached within
a hundred yards of the ditch of the Malakoff they could go no farther.
The work of the night was destroyed by the enemy the next day. In vain
the sharpshooters in their pits and in the most advanced cover kept up a
deadly fire on the embrasures of the Malakoff. The enemy's guns were so
numerous and so well placed that there seemed to be always some capable of
firing, and with the dawn came the destruction of the labours of the night.

In these circumstances, General Simpson agreed to open on the 17th of
August the heaviest possible fire upon the Malakoff; and the batteries
of the French on the left were to bombard the town front to prevent the
Russians on that side from overwhelming our left attack. Accordingly,
on the 17th, the British opened fire; but the French, for some reason,
did not support them, and the Russians in the town batteries did us
considerable damage and killed two good officers. Yet this did not prevent
the British from accomplishing their object. They maintained so crushing
a fire on the Malakoff that the Russian artillerymen were soon obliged
to quit their pieces, and only fire a gun now and then. At six in the
evening a magazine blew up in a work between the Redan and the Malakoff.
This battery was ruined. All night the mortars of the Allies fired heavily
into the Malakoff and Redan, to hinder the enemy from repairing damages;
and all night the French worked lustily at their trenches, doing more
in twenty-four hours than they had done in a fortnight. The bombardment
continued on the 18th. On the night of that day signal was made that
masses of Russians were in the Redan. Thereupon the mortars were directed
upon this work, and the heavy shells must have destroyed many men. There
was a considerable exchange of musketry fire between the advanced trenches
and the place, but the enemy did not venture out. The French on the
left, who had been almost silent, now found that, in order to complete
their approaches to a certain point, they also must open a general fire.
This they did on the evening of the 20th, taking the enemy somewhat by
surprise. While under cover of this fire they pushed forward their sap.

From this time to the end of the month there were constant alarms on the
side of the Tchernaya. The French had been very active in the valley of
Baidar immediately after the battle of the 16th. General d'Allonville had
caused his infantry to penetrate the passes leading to the Tchernaya from
the north, and establish posts of observation on the hills. At the same
time the Sardinians strengthened their formidable works on Mount Hasfort,
and the French constructed three batteries for guns intended to sweep the
ground about the Stone Bridge. On the right they mounted twelve pieces
of heavy artillery, naming the work the Raglan Battery. On the other
flank they placed the same number of guns in a battery named after La
Boussinière, a gallant artillery officer, distinguished at the Alma, and
killed before Sebastopol. These guns looked obliquely up the road to the
Mackenzie Heights. Then farther to the rear, and on the right of the road
to Balaclava, they constructed a work for twelve pieces, whose fire would
sweep the whole road as far as the bridge, and named it Battery Bizot.
Behind these works they re-made the old Turkish redoubts of October, 1854.
Thus the Allies covered Balaclava with a triple line, the third being the
now famous line of Balaclava, constituting a position as strong as any in
the world.

Although it seemed improbable that the Russians would repeat the
enterprise of the 16th of August, yet the information that reached
headquarters, the partial disappearance of the Russians from the North
Camp, the incessant flashing of signal lights from the eastern mountains
to Inkermann, and from Inkermann to Sebastopol, induced the Allies to
keep on the alert. General Simpson reconnoitred the whole position on the
Tchernaya. The troops were under arms, both on the plateau and on the
Tchernaya, long before daylight for several days, dispersing only when the
sun rose. The men-of-war in the harbour of Balaclava were in readiness
to take up positions whence they could do the most damage to the enemy.
The splendid cavalry of the Allies turned out every day, and showed its
thousands of sabres and lances in the plains of Balaclava; a spectacle
gratifying to the military eye, and not encouraging to the enemy. The
Highland Division took post above Kamara. The field artillery of the
Allies was in constant readiness. From the hills that enfold the Baidar
valley to the heights of Inkermann all was vigilance. Prince Gortschakoff,
who had his army on the plateau of Mackenzie, and in the little valleys
leading down towards the outposts and main position of the Allies,
probably looked upon this scene, enacted daily; if he did so, what he saw
must have extinguished any notion of breaking into the allied lines at any
point. There was no weak place in the chain.

Nevertheless, the siege works made steady progress towards the Malakoff.
There the assailants and defenders were within a few yards of each other.
The Russians had a series of rifle-pits on the slope under the Malakoff
Redoubt itself. The French works had approached so near that it became
necessary to seize these pits, and incorporate them with the main body
of the approaches. Accordingly, on the 23rd of August, a body of Zouaves
worked all day in opening a trench leading towards the pits; and in the
evening the light infantry of a line regiment went in and carried them.
But the Russians, determined not to lose their shelter without a struggle,
dashed out of the Malakoff, and expelled the Frenchmen. The Russians,
however, did not long enjoy their triumph, for the expelled troops, being
supported by their comrades, returned to the assault, reconquered and held
the work. The next day the enemy kept up a heavy fire on the Mamelon, in
spite of the support that our batteries afforded to the French. But the
onward march of the latter could not be arrested. On the evening of the
24th they seized the whole line of Russian works on the glacis. Again
the enemy violently essayed to prevent the French from making good their
hold. Before the morning the whole line was complete, and the French
works were within thirty-four yards of the salient of the Malakoff. The
efforts of the enemy were directed chiefly against the Mamelon and the
approaches therefrom, the quarter, as they well knew, where their greatest
peril lay. On the night of the 28th they made a lucky shot. One of their
shells rolled into a magazine in the left or southern face of the Mamelon
Redoubt. There were at the time 15,000 pounds of powder in the magazine.
This exploded with an awful roar, awakening the whole camp, and killing or
wounding 150 Frenchmen. This vast explosion of powder did not seriously
damage the Mamelon; but it delayed the final assault, because the store of
powder, thus expended, had to be replaced.

For the remainder of the month the trying labour of getting close to the
Malakoff and Little Redan went on in the usual way. But the crisis of the
long siege had now come. Neither side could bear much longer the horrible
losses inflicted by this deadly strife. The Russians might endure, hoping
against hope, to hold out until the winter once more became their keen
ally; but the French and British felt that they must risk an assault or
raise the siege.

When Prince Gortschakoff saw that the French had opened their seventh
parallel within a few yards of the Malakoff, he must have felt certain
that an assault would soon be attempted. He was quite as well aware as
the allied generals that the Malakoff was the key of the place. General
Todleben had, from the first, shown a just appreciation of the ground,
and upon those two salient and commanding points, the Flagstaff and
the Malakoff, he had exhausted the resources of his art. Once firmly
established in one of these, he knew that the Allies must win the city.
He knew also that if the Flagstaff only were taken, he could defend the
place long enough to secure a retreat; but that if the Malakoff fell
before a raft-bridge could be constructed, the Russians must surrender
or die fighting, for the Malakoff Hill commanded the harbour. Here one
cannot but admire the foresight of a general, who, while he defended his
lines to the last, took early and ample precautions to secure a retreat.
The great raft-bridge over that arm of the sea we call the Harbour,
which is half a mile wide, was begun in July, and finished by the end
of August. This stupendous work was designed and executed, no doubt,
partly with the object of enabling the Russian general to pour troops
rapidly into Sebastopol, but mainly to enable him to avoid capture in the
last extremity. Nor was this the only work undertaken with the view of
preparing against a calamity. The genius of Todleben had designed an inner
line of works in rear and to the east of the Malakoff; and this must have
been done only to gain time for the evacuation of the place in the event
of the capture of that work.

[Illustration: THE FRENCH IN THE MALAKOFF. (_See p._ 124.)]

The Russians were quite right in assuming that an assault would be
hazarded at no distant day. It was the uppermost thought in the minds of
the allied generals. The approach of winter, the expenditure of men and
ammunition, the vast extent of the works, the proximity of the trenches
to the place, and the impossibility of pushing them farther in certain
quarters, dictated imperiously a resolution to storm. General Pélissier
and General Simpson, therefore, directed the principal officers of
artillery and engineers to meet and report on the propriety of making an
assault, and on the best means of carrying it out. They met on the 3rd of
September, and drew up a memorandum. In the attack on the town, that is
the French left attack, from the Flagstaff to the Quarantine, they said,
the works of approach had remained for a long time stationary, and they
declared that these works could not be pushed farther without causing
great loss. The British had made some progress before the Redan--their
works had stopped short at 200 yards from the salient angle. Here again
these officers were of opinion that the approaches could not be advanced,
because serious impediments interposed; in other words, because the ground
was rocky and enfiladed by several Russian batteries on both sides of
the South Harbour. In front of the Malakoff, the report went on to state,
the French artillery had attained a marked superiority over that of the
place, and under its protection--and, as we may add, the protection of
the British batteries--the approaches had arrived within five-and-twenty
yards of the enemy's lines. The French were also within thirty yards of
the Little Redan. Here it was impossible to work nearer, because the
ground was living rock. Therefore, for these reasons, the officers decided
unanimously that the moment had arrived for assaulting the place. How
should this be done?

It was assumed, and justly, that if the Malakoff could be captured and
held, the fall of the Karabelnaia suburb, that is, the whole space east of
the South Ravine, would be inevitable. Therefore the main attack was to be
directed against the Malakoff, and in order that it might be successful,
while a powerful column rushed into the work itself, two other columns
assailed simultaneously the Little Redan, and the long rampart or curtain
connecting it with the Malakoff. But as the Allies were fighting, not
against a mere garrison of limited number, but against a numerous army,
and as the enemy, knowing the importance of the position, would do his
uttermost to keep, or, if he lost, to regain it, so it was held to be
necessary that other attacks should be simultaneously made upon the place,
in order to prevent the Russians from concentrating their forces at the
vital point. It was with this object that the officers of the Engineers
recommended an assault by the British on the Redan, and by the French
on the west or town front. These, it should ever be borne in mind, were
to be subordinate assaults. It was held essential to success that the
assault should be preceded by a heavy bombardment for three days. Such was
the scheme devised by the principal officers of artillery and engineers
of both armies on the 3rd of September. The day chosen was the 8th of
September, the hour, noon exactly.

The sixth and last bombardment began at daybreak on the 5th of September.
Nearly the whole of the 800 pieces of ordnance in battery opened on the
place. The sun shone brightly; a light air from the south-east blew over
Sebastopol. One moment the old familiar scene was visible--the still
majestic town, the serene waters of the harbour, the dark and rugged
outline of the defences, the Black Sea, and the allied fleet. The next
moment the rolling clouds of smoke, boiling up and extending on all sides,
hid everything from view. It was the policy of the Allies to fill the
mind of the enemy with doubt as to their projects, and thus force him to
keep at a strained attention on all sides. Therefore it was from the 350
guns and mortars in the fifty-two batteries directed against the western
face of the ramparts of Sebastopol that the most furious volleys issued.
Even the official report of the British engineers calls it a "terrific
cannonade." The fire from our batteries, and that of the French right,
was what is called steady and careful. It was incessant but not hurried.
This was calculated to make the enemy believe that the assault would be on
the town front and not on the suburb, and, therefore, to keep more men in
readiness in that quarter. Nevertheless, the mere weight of metal directed
upon the Malakoff entirely silenced that work from the first. Upwards of
200 guns and mortars were levelled and trained to bear upon its outward
faces, its embrasures, and its interior. The 7th passed like the 5th and
6th, opening with a volley along the whole four miles of batteries, then,
of set purpose, dying away, and suddenly bursting forth again. The wind
had changed. The smoke and dust were driven back from Sebastopol by a
northern blast, and men strained their eyes in vain to catch a glimpse of
the place. Yet patient watchers peering through the rifts in the sombre
cloud saw enough to convince them that the enemy was suffering almost
beyond endurance. At night fires were visible in several places; about
eleven o'clock a magazine blew up; and at the same time a huge two-decker
was burning solemnly in the Harbour. Up to this time the enemy had lost
4,000 men, exclusive of gunners, who, says Prince Gortschakoff, perished
in great numbers, shot down at their guns.

Hitherto the allied generals had kept secret the hour of the assault. At
noon they held a fresh council, and took their last resolutions. Now the
secret was divulged. Precisely at noon of the following day the stormers
were to make their rush. In order to secure uniformity of movement the
staff officers met at headquarters, and set their watches in concert. Next
morning General Bosquet, who had the immediate command on the Malakoff
side, went into the sixth parallel; and between eleven and twelve General
Pélissier took post in the Mamelon. General Codrington and General Markham
were in the front of our Redan attack; and a little before noon General
Simpson went to a spot selected for him by the engineers in the first
parallel. With him went Sir Harry Jones.

We have already described the plan of attack; we have now to set forth the
means of executing it. To ensure success in the attack on the Malakoff
works, General Pélissier employed 25,000 men. There were not only the
whole of the corps of Bosquet, but Mellinet's Brigade of the Imperial
Guard, and Marolles' Brigade of the Reserve. MacMahon, with 5,000 men,
was to storm the Malakoff Redoubt, and in support were Wimpfen's Brigade,
3,000 strong, and two battalions of the Zouaves of the Guard; thus giving
10,000 men to take and hold the Malakoff itself. General La Motterouge was
entrusted with 4,300 men to storm the curtain between the Malakoff and
Little Redan; and General Dulac had 4,600 wherewith to carry the Little
Redan itself, and 3,000 under Marolles wherewith to make good his grip
of this work, and thence carry the unfinished interior lines of defence.
There was no special support allotted to La Motterouge, but General
Bosquet had upwards of 3,000 men as a general reserve. In addition,
two batteries of artillery were held in readiness to drive through the
trenches and over the open, and take part in the combat in case they were
required. On the western front General de Salles commanded. He had 18,500
men available, including Cialdini's 1,200 Italians. Levaillant, with 4,300
men, was to make two attacks on the Central Bastion, and D'Autemarre, with
5,280 men, was to furnish a support. In case of success, and when one of
the storming columns had turned the Flagstaff Bastion on its proper right,
D'Autemarre's division, Cialdini at its head, was to turn the proper left
of the Flagstaff. The remaining troops were in reserve. Thus Pélissier had
set apart 43,000 men for the assaulting and supporting columns.

The British arrangements were not on this colossal scale. Two divisions,
the Light and Second, were directed to furnish both stormers and supports.
Each division supplied a covering party, a ladder party, a storming party
divided into two sections, and a working party. The whole amounted to
1,600 men. The covering parties, riflemen intended to spread out and keep
down the fire of the unsubdued Russian guns, were under Captain Fyers and
Captain Lewes. The ladder parties, intended to be stormers as soon as they
had placed their ladders, were under Major Welsford. The storming parties
were under Lieutenant-Colonel Handcock, Captain Grove, Brigadier Shirley,
and Colonel Windham. The supports consisted of 750 men of each division,
and the remainder of both were held in reserve. Thus General Simpson had
resolved to try and take the Redan by dribbling into it about 3,100 men;
and the whole force he kept in hand in case of emergencies was about 4,000
more. At the same time the Highland Division was posted next to the French
attack, while the Third and Fourth were held back in the rear of the right
attack, and the First was under arms in camp.

The Russians had no fewer than 75,000 men in Sebastopol. There were
sixteen battalions in the works on the proper left of the Malakoff, and
twelve battalions in reserve on this side. In the Malakoff were four
battalions and some companies, and four battalions in the Gervais Battery
on its proper right. There were besides sixteen battalions in reserve.
They had been called up from the town by General Chruleff, when his
suspicions were aroused by the information that the French trenches seemed
to be full of troops. Thus there were about 22,000 men under arms for the
defence of the Malakoff system of works. In the Redan and to the right and
left of it were nine battalions and sixteen in reserve. The battalions in
the front line were chiefly our old foes of the Alma and Inkermann. Their
numbers were about 13,000. In addition to these troops there were no fewer
than 10,000 in reserve for general purposes. The total number for the
defence of the line from the Barrack Battery to the Harbour was therefore
45,000 men; or 2,000 more than were set apart by the French alone for all
their attacks, and 10,000 more than the combined numbers of the English
and French on the eastern side. In the town the Russians had 20,000 men,
2,000 more than the number at the disposal of General de Salles. The
front line of works from the Quarantine to the Flagstaff was strongly
manned; and besides the special reserves of the different bastions, there
was a general reserve nearly 10,000 strong. Such a vast force, fighting
behind the strongest entrenchments ever raised, was certain to be hard to
conquer; and although it was divided into huge fragments, and one half was
separated from the other by an arm of the sea--the South Harbour--we have
shown that in mere numbers alone the Russians were in every point superior
to their assailants. This should be remembered in view of what followed.

At mid-day the officers gave the signal. The clarions sounded, the drums
beat, the men cried "_Vive l'Empereur!_" and dashing over the trenches,
went headlong towards the Malakoff, the curtain, and the Little Redan.
At the first rush all these places were surprised and overrun; but the
attack on the great redoubt was the only one destined to be permanently
successful.

The Malakoff Redoubt was a mighty keep, 380 yards long, and 160 wide; the
ditch was upwards of six yards deep and seven wide, and its slope next to
the work was very steep. In the interior were, first, the ground floor of
the old stone tower, and then a multitude of traverses, huge ramparts of
earth and timber designed to minimise the effect of shell fire. It was
a closed work, that is, fortified on all sides, with one narrow opening
in the rear, so that when once the assailants mastered the interior and
closed the gorge the vast ramparts were defences for and not against
them. This brief description will enable the reader to form some notion
of the difficulties in the way of the stormers, and of the advantages
which told in their favour when they had subdued the garrison. The Little
Redan was also a closed work, but the long curtain connecting it with the
Malakoff was exposed to the fire of the Russian second line, thrown up
about 300 yards in the rear. The Great Redan was an open work, like a very
straddling V, and its flanks were well supplied with traverses. The old
trace of the entrenchment, as it existed in 1854, formed a sort of low
retrenchment at the open end, in no sense formidable except as affording
cover behind which infantry could rally. Here, it will be observed, the
disadvantages were on the side of the assailants. Although the defenders
might not be able to keep their foes out, in all probability they could
prevent them from remaining in, unless they entered in overwhelming
numbers, and succeeded in closing the rear against the attacks of the
expelled enemy. In order to make the separate scenes of the 8th of
September clear, it will be necessary to treat them separately, trusting
the reader to remember that several actions were fought simultaneously.

The leading troops of MacMahon's division were the 1st Zouaves and the
7th of the Line. The Zouaves darted out on the right, and the Linesmen
on the left. The heads of the columns reached the deep ditch together,
leapt into it without waiting for ladders, swarmed up the opposing bank,
and climbing, some over the parapet, some through the embrasures, jumped
into the midst of the astonished Russians. In a short space half the
force of the two regiments was in the work; but the engineers had thrown
a ladder bridge so swiftly over the ditch that the rear companies of the
7th were able to cross it. At the same time four companies of Chasseurs
had crossed the ditch, and entering the work at its point of junction
with the Gervais Battery, drove its defenders out at the point of the
bayonet, and made good their hold upon the battery. The Zouaves and the
Linesmen in the Malakoff had attacked with such impetuosity and in such
numbers that the Russians were obliged to fight in disorder, about the
base of the old White Tower. But Frenchmen rushed in on all sides. There
was a brief and bloody combat. Assailed in front, turned on both flanks,
unable to retreat, above a hundred Russians ran into the lower storey of
the old tower, and began to fire through the loopholes. By this time the
Zouaves and the 7th had driven the enemy completely out of the space round
the tower. Quickly rallying, the Russians collected behind the first huge
line of traverses, and, in spite of the efforts of the French, held for
awhile their ground. Foot by foot the French had gained upon them. They
dashed at the openings, they wound in and out around the flanks, they
crept along the parapets, and just as Vinoy's brigade was entering the
work in support of Decaen, the latter's men had succeeded in forcing the
enemy to seek shelter behind the second great line crossing the Malakoff
at its widest part. Here the Russians rallied stronger than ever. They
were plainly gathering for a rush. Hundreds had fallen on both sides, but
the fury of the combat did not abate. The great French flag floated in
the smoke and dust over the tower, but the Malakoff was yet to win. Until
the gorge was gained and closed nothing was gained. So thought MacMahon.
Vinoy was bursting in to his aid, but he determined to be secure, so
he sent one of his staff for part of the Imperial Guard and Wimpfen's
reserve. Before these could arrive, Vinoy, a prompt and gallant soldier,
had led his men into the work and made use of them with striking skill.
He had thrown the bulk of his force on the right of the assailants. With
the 20th he supported the right of the Zouaves, and with the 27th, by a
most soldier-like movement, he turned the Russian left. Paralysed by this
rapid manœuvre, executed with unfaltering impetuosity, as soon as he saw
the 27th in the rear of his left, and rapidly approaching the gorge, the
enemy quitted his hold of the great line of traverses, and made for the
sole exit from the redoubt. The French burst through like a flood. The
more daring of the enemy turned several times, and spent their strength
in brave but useless charges. Though they were swept along by the torrent
of foes which streamed upon them, they made a brilliant resistance; and
it was only when they felt that the 27th of the Line, so skilfully led,
so relentlessly bent on gaining the gorge, would soon reach it, that they
rushed out of the work. MacMahon and Vinoy swooped upon their prize,
closed the gorge, and forbade all return.

[Illustration: THE STRUGGLE IN THE REDAN. (_See p._ 126.)]

During this time the French on the extreme right had fought with great
bravery but adverse fortune. The parallels of approach had been pushed
up close to the Little Redan, and the heads of the columns of attack
were close under the work; Dulac's leading brigade, therefore, had at
the appointed hour started like the rest and had at once seized the
Little Redan. Somewhat later in point of time, because the distance to be
overcome was greater, General La Motterouge had sent his first brigade
under Bourbaki against the curtain. Here again the French succeeded. The
whole line from the Malakoff to the Little Redan was in their hands. Eager
to take advantage of this burst of success, the leading brigades, as soon
as the supports were well up, dashed forward. Bourbaki led his men against
the second line, while St. Pol, issuing from the Little Redan, sought
to turn the line at its point of intersection with the rear defences of
the latter work. But the Russians were now fully alive. The batteries on
the north side opened on the assailants. Three war-steamers ran up to
the mouth of the Careening Bay, and poured in broadside after broadside.
Field guns were promptly brought up to the second line, and used to hurl
forth showers of desolating grapeshot. The Russian reserves came up, and
charging the disordered columns of the French, forced them violently
back--Bourbaki, as far as, and over, the curtain; St. Pol into the Little
Redan. So prompt and vigorous was this counter-stroke, so deadly was
the fire of the steamers, that St. Pol could not keep his hold even of
the Little Redan. He was driven out, and the French, with difficulty,
ensconced themselves on their own side of the curtain and in its ditch.
The attempts to recover these positions were unsuccessful. Similarly on
the extreme right they failed to carry the Central Bastion.

The afternoon was wearing away. The British attack on the Great Redan,
which we shall presently describe, had failed. The guns on the left
face of this work were shooting down the French on the slopes of the
Malakoff. General Chruleff had tried by three desperate charges to break
into the gorge of the key of the place, and tear away from MacMahon his
blood-stained prize. But the defence was too strong. The Russians only
dashed up to the gorge and tried to pull down the gabions that closed
it, or endeavoured to scramble up the ramparts, to meet death from the
crushing musketry fire that blazed from the parapets. A huge column had
emerged from the houses, and for a moment seemed resolved to sweep the
gallant Chasseurs out of the Gervais Battery. Suddenly the massive column
was rent by round shot and disordered by shell, and struck in flank by
musketry. The British gunners in the Quarry Battery had caught sight of
this column, and in an instant had trained and fired their pieces. Finding
only five guns bore upon the enemy, they tore down the sides of the other
embrasures, and brought promptly seven into action. That was the source
of the torrent of shot and shell. The streams of musketry rolled from
the western flank of the Malakoff, and from the Chasseurs in the Gervais
Battery. The column broke up under this fire and fled to the rear. Prince
Gortschakoff had arrived from the north side, and scanning the Malakoff,
saw that life would be vainly wasted in further attempts to retake it. He
therefore forbade them; but he ordered his generals to resist to the last
on the other points.

It is now time to narrate the attack of the British on the Redan. There
were in and near the work, and specially appointed to defend it, no less
than, at the lowest computation, 12,000 men, exclusive of a great reserve.
Against these we were about to send not altogether, stormers and supports,
more than one-fourth of the number. This handful of men were expected to
take and hold an open work defended by thirty-two battalions of Russian
infantry. The men did not hesitate. In a few minutes the salient was
won. The Light Division column had stormed in at the apex, the Second
Division column had been led to the right, and had entered the work on
its proper left face, some yards from the salient. Now the crisis of the
combat arrived. Driven back by the impetuous charge of the British, the
Russians in the salient, and on each flank ran to the rear, and collected
behind the breastwork, up to which they speedily brought field artillery.
The handful of British who had got in did not, unhappily, even attempt
to carry the breastwork by a rush. The British soldier is a creature of
habit, and he instinctively fell into his old ways. Instead of storming
on, he extended himself on parapet or traverse, and began to fire. The
officers saw how fatal this would prove, and tried to get the men out
from cover, and to form them for a rush. In this work Colonel Windham and
others were conspicuous. But it availed nothing. During this musketry
combat weak supports, in disarray, arrived from the British trenches; but
the Russians had now gathered in immense force. Pauloff, who commanded
here, had called up about 8,000 men. Throwing these into the fight as
they came up, he sent some along the flanks, while he kept a strong line,
aided by field guns, behind the breastwork, and from that point directed
a converging fire into the salient. Considering his numbers, the Russian
general was singularly slow in his movements. But by degrees, and by sheer
weight of men, his masses pressed the British closer and closer. These,
firing with all their might, soon exhausted their stock of ammunition,
and were forced to use stones. Then the supports from the trenches, on
reaching the salient, imitated the example of their precursors and fired
until their store was gone. Colonel Windham sent three officers to beg for
troops in formation. Not one reached General Codrington. This officer was
perplexed and irresolute, and at length Windham arrived himself to demand
a well-formed support. It was too late, assuming that such a support could
have reached the Redan and have expelled its numerous garrison. Just after
Windham had quitted the work on this errand, Pauloff grew emboldened by
his numbers, and pressing down upon the salient, closed with the British
soldiers still holding on. A short and terrible combat ensued at close
quarters. Our men were unwilling to surrender the little space they had
so dearly won; but the pressure of fire and steel was irresistible. The
remnant of the stormers was forced over the parapet, but not away from
it. There, on our side, they still hung, and were fed from the trenches
by sections of men who had survived the path of fire by which alone they
could reach the enemy. But this could not last long. At length the enemy
made a mighty effort, and swept every British soldier from the parapet
into the ditch. Those who were able to scramble up had to run the gauntlet
of a fire of grape and musketry on their return to the trenches, whither
they arrived breathless, bleeding, exhausted. The Russians cheered, manned
their parapets, fired into the chaos of human beings weltering in heaps
in the ditch, and even brought up two field-pieces, and with grape
from these pursued the fugitives. For this they paid a heavy penalty.
Our batteries instantly opened a deadly fire on the Redan, crushing the
field-pieces at once, and smashing the masses of infantry whose numbers
choked the work. But the enemy had gained his point, and had worsted the
victors of the Alma and Inkermann.

[Illustration: LORD RAGLAN VIEWING THE STORMING OF THE REDAN AT THE SIEGE
OF SEBASTOPOL.

FROM THE PAINTING BY R. CATON WOODVILLE.

By permission of Messrs. Henry Graves & Co., Ltd, Pall Mall, S.W.]

From his post of vantage on the Mamelon General Pélissier had witnessed
our defeat; and he now sent to inquire whether General Simpson intended
to renew the assault, telling him at the same time that the French were
inexpugnably placed in the Malakoff. General Simpson was compelled to say
that he could not renew the assault, for the trenches were full of the
beaten troops; but he promised to strike at the Redan once more in the
morning. The sun went down, and in the British camp gallant men groaned in
bitterness of heart over their splendid failure.

In the desperate efforts they made to recapture the Malakoff, the Russians
had lost hundreds of men and several generals. At five o'clock orders
for a general retreat were issued. As soon as it was dark the enemy
placed bodies of riflemen and artillerymen in all the works remaining to
them, and these were instructed to keep up a steady fire. Behind them
were some battalions in reserve, occupying the street barricades and
houses. Thus protected, the troops in the town were to march directly
to the raft-bridge, and across it to the north side in regular order.
Those in the suburb were to move upon the point where stood Fort Paul.
Thence steamers and other craft would transport them to the great bridge.
Then the reserves were to follow, and finally, at a given signal, the
rear-guard were to spike the guns, fire the trains of the magazines, and
beat a retreat over the bridge. All this was accomplished with great
skill and celerity. The Allies were uncertain of the intentions of the
enemy, and, moreover, they stood in awe of the mines supposed to exist.
So all night the long and heavy columns of men, with field artillery,
some of which they were obliged to throw into the sea, were passing over
the bridge, which swayed to and fro under the great weight. It was a
marvellous feat and forms a splendid _finale_ to the siege; but it should
be remembered that it was the retreat of an army by an unassailable line;
and what is admirable in the action is the promptitude of the general's
decision, and the coolness and speed with which it was executed. The town
was committed to the flames and the magazines were exploded. On the 11th
our guns had been brought to bear on the Russian steamers still afloat,
and the enemy, to prevent us from sinking them, burnt them at night,
making a second conflagration nearly as brilliant as that of the blazing
town. The Russian Black Sea fleet had ceased to exist.

Thus ended this now famous and unique military operation. The losses had
been enormous on both sides during the last days of the siege. In four
days in August the admitted loss of the enemy was 5,500 men from the
brief bombardment alone. From the 22nd of August to the 4th of September
the Russians had lost upwards of 7,000 men. During the cannonade and
bombardment which preceded the assault--that is, in three days--their loss
was 4,000, giving a total of 16,500 men, exclusive of the artillerymen
killed at their guns. On the 8th their loss, estimated by themselves, was
11,690. So that between the 16th of August and the 9th of September their
force was diminished by 28,190 men killed and wounded. Included in this
total, which is understated, are a few hundred "missing," but most of the
missing were among the slain. The losses of the Allies, although very
severe every day, were not so great. Allowing 200 a day for the last three
weeks of the siege, we have a total of 4,200, and if we add to these the
loss on the 8th--7,557 for the French, and 2,610 for the British--we have
a total loss of 14,367, a dear price for the prize that was won.




CHAPTER IX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Gortschakoff clings to Sebastopol--Inactivity of the
    Allies--D'Allonville's Expedition to Eupatoria--Destruction of
    Taman and Fanagoria--Expedition to Kinburn--Description of the
    Fortress--Its Capture--Resignation of Sir James Simpson--Explosion
    of French Powder Magazine--Naval Operations--The Fleets in
    the Baltic--The Hango Massacre--Coast Operations--Attack on
    Sveaborg--Results of the Action--What the Baltic Fleet did--Russia
    on the Pacific Coast--Petropaulovski blown up--Insignificant results
    of the Campaign--The Russian Position in Asia--The Turks left to
    their Fate--Incompetency of the Sultan's Generals--Foreigners
    in Kars--Want of Supplies--Defeat of Selim Pasha--Battle of
    Kuruk-Dereh--Colonel Williams sent to Kars--Fortification of
    Erzeroum and Kars--Situation of Kars--Williams's objects--Mouravieff
    arrives--His Expeditions towards Erzeroum--The Blockade
    begins--Relief is slow--The Assault of September 29th--Kmety's
    success--The Tachmasb Redoubt--Attack on the English Lines--Victory
    of the Turks--Omar's Relief fails--Sufferings of the
    Garrison--Williams capitulates--Terms of the Surrender--Reflections
    on the Siege.


Immediately after the fall of Sebastopol the Russians resumed the work of
fortifying the north side. If, for a moment, they entertained the notion
of retiring to Simpheropol, that moment must have been very brief. Prince
Gortschakoff had long studied the habits and customs of an allied army
under two or three Commanders-in-Chief. He knew well the benefits he
derived from a divided command in the camp of his adversaries. He knew
also the strength of his mountain position; and if, indeed, he thought
of retreating inland, that thought must have been suggested, not by any
fear that he should be forced, but by a fear that he might not be able
to feed his diminished host. Placing his cavalry on the Belbek, where
water abounded, he took up a long line with his infantry and Cossacks,
stretching from the high table-land above Fort Constantine, along the
Inkermann and Mackenzie ridges to Aitodor in the heart of the mountains
above the Baidar valley. New batteries sprang up by magic among these
rugged bluffs, and in a few days the Russian front of defence was as
powerfully organised as ever.

At this time the Allies had nearly 200,000 men in the Crimea; including
upwards of 10,000 horsemen, and a very numerous and efficient force of
field artillery. Having so vast an army, one is astonished to find that
no effort worthy of the name was made to strike another blow at the main
body of the enemy. The French did, indeed, place their right wing, 33,000
strong, with 54 guns, in the valley of Baidar, with a larger force and
more guns on the Tchernaya, backed by a powerful reserve, exclusive of the
Imperial Guard on the plateau. But this demonstration, made as early as
the 11th of September, did not in the least deceive Prince Gortschakoff.
It was manifest that no threatening movements of troops, no amount of
marching and countermarching between Balaclava and the Baidar passes,
would induce him to budge a foot. He knew that to reach him through the
mountains his adversaries could only show a narrow front, and thus obtain
no advantage from numbers; and that to assail the Heights of Mackenzie,
they must advance under a terrible fire to force rugged passes and deep
defiles. So he did not change his ground, much less run away. What he
dreaded was a decided advance from some point of the coast upon his lines
of communication--from Kaffa or from Eupatoria, or from the mouth of the
Alma--but whether it was that the allied generals could not agree, or
that the Governments of Paris and London thought enough had been done, or
whether it was that Marshal Pélissier did not wish to risk his laurels, or
whether the season was held to be too far advanced for the accomplishment
of large enterprises, certain it is that none were undertaken. For
ten days after the fall of the place the only change in the relative
situations of the two armies was that the French occupied more ground.

At the end of that time there was a delusive symptom of more extended
activity. General d'Allonville, with his division of horse, embarked at
Kamiesch, for Eupatoria, on the 18th of September. Arrived there, he took
the command of the whole force, namely, 17,000 Turco-Egyptian infantry,
2,500 cavalry, and 48 guns. Expectation ran high in the camp, especially
as the allied fleets went to sea on a cruise along the coast, reminding
observers of the experimental trips made in August, 1854. But there was
very little danger in the air. General d'Allonville, with the force at
his disposal, was strong enough to raise the blockade of Eupatoria on the
land side, but not strong enough to move far from the place, or hazard his
line of retreat for a moment. He found a well-disciplined Moslem force
at Eupatoria. The Turkish general, Ahmed Pasha, had employed the summer
in training these battalions, and the French general was pleased to find
such excellent infantry under his orders. But he felt 20,000 men were too
few for the execution of any great scheme, and it is doubtful whether,
had he been disposed to march inland, his superiors before Sebastopol and
in Paris would have permitted the risk involved. He therefore confined
himself to the simpler task of driving away the Russians, and giving his
cavalry officers the chance of winning a cross and ribbon. The expedition
was brilliantly successful. The pursuit was kept up for some miles, and
the French cavalry had the satisfaction, not only of routing the Russian
horse, but of carrying from the field six guns, twelve caissons, a forge,
169 prisoners, and 150 horses. This brilliant operation relieved Eupatoria
from the too pressing attentions of the Russian horse.

[Illustration: EVACUATION OF SEBASTOPOL. (_See p._ 127.)]

At the other extremity of the Crimea an expedition, organised at Kertch,
had crossed the Straits, and had occupied and destroyed Taman and
Fanagoria; but it would have been more to the purpose had the allied
generals seized Kaffa and Arabat, and threatened the road over the Putrid
Sea at Tchongar, whence the enemy derived large quantities of supplies.
Instead of this they adopted a different plan. The navy had long desired
some opportunity of doing service. Now it happened that the Emperor
Napoleon had invented or adopted certain floating batteries cased with
iron, and was anxious to test their quality in actual war. It happened
also that there was a fort isolated and exposed to attack whereon the
experiment might be tried, and a further stress put upon the enemy. It was
the fort of Kinburn on the estuary of the Dnieper that the Allies designed
to capture. It might have been assumed that their aim in so doing was to
pave the way for an advance in force either upon Kherson or Nicolaief; but
Prince Gortschakoff knew as well as the Allies that it was too late in the
year to make the attempt even; and thus the expedition to Kinburn only
served the purpose of testing the worth of the new floating batteries, and
seizing another material guarantee, which, when the time for negotiation
came, would prove useful. In the first week of October upwards of 7,700
infantry embarked on board the French and British men-of-war. There
were thirty-eight ships in the French squadron, and thirty-four in the
British. The former included the three floating batteries, _Dévastation_,
_Tonnante_, and _Lave_. The British had six, the French four ships
of the line; the former were under Sir Edmund Lyons, the latter under
Admiral Bruat. General Bazaine commanded the French land forces. After a
demonstration before Odessa, on the morning of the 14th of October the
ships got under steam, and made for Kinburn, where they anchored off the
spit the same evening.

Kinburn, as we have said, stood on the southern shore of the estuary of
the Dnieper, and formed, with Oczakov, the defence of those waters. It was
a regular fortress, built almost on a level with the sea. The northern
face looked up the spit, the southern along the road that led to Kherson
and Perekop; the eastern looked on to the estuary, and the western on to
the Black Sea. Thus it presented four strong casemated faces, and north
and south were deep ditches, supplied with sea water. It mounted fifty-one
guns, but they were only 18-pounders and 24-pounders. To the southward
there was a small village, and some large stacks of wood. To the north
there were two batteries--one called the Point Battery, mounting eight,
the other called the Middle Battery, mounting eleven guns. These were
connected by a deep covered way, and their guns commanded the channel,
which, inside the spit, ran along near the shore. There were in these
works some 1,500 men, under General Kokanowitch.

The Allies had arrived, determined to capture the place. Their plan was
to land their soldiers to the south, thus investing the fortress on that
side, and preventing any force from Kherson from relieving the besieged;
then to place their ships, gunboats, and floating batteries on both
sides of the fortress and its outworks, and thus overwhelm them with a
concentrated and concentric fire. The troops landed on the 15th, the
British being the first to step ashore. As soon as they were assembled,
lines of defence were marked out, and working parties began to ply the
spade and throw up entrenchments in the sand. The British were entrusted
with the task of showing a front on the Kherson road, which ran along
the spit, while the French moved up towards Kinburn. The guns of the
enemy at once opened upon the French, who replied with musketry and field
artillery. This combat continued. The fleets could not take part because
the sea was too rough, and night fell upon the scene, leaving the fleet
in the offing and the troops ashore. On the 17th the wind had fallen; the
sky was clouded, but the sea was calm. Then a movement began in the fleet.
The gunboats and mortar vessels steered for the positions assigned them,
some going southward to fire on the south-westerly angle, others steering
northward to double the point and range along the inner side. The floating
batteries were carried in nearer to the fort, until they were within about
700 yards of the south-west angle. The frigates went forward towards the
batteries on the spit, one line on the Black Sea side, the other in the
estuary. The _Hannibal_, line-of-battle ship, took position opposite the
extreme northern end of the spit, and raked its defences. The Russians
defended their post with energy; but they were overmatched. The interior
of the fort was soon in flames. Part of the garrison ran out into the dry
ditches for shelter, but here they were exposed to French musketry and
grape-shot. In order to terminate the contest the gunboats went closer in,
and the line-of-battle ships, steaming up in line abreast, brought their
guns to bear upon the torn and shattered and smoking ramparts. The Russian
guns were now completely silenced. The batteries on the spit continued
to fire a gun here and there, but five hours' cannonade and bombardment
had placed Kinburn fort _hors de combat_. Seeing this, and not wishing to
prolong a useless engagement, Admirals Lyons and Bruat made the signal
to cease firing. They then summoned the garrison to surrender. General
Kokanowitch complied. The next day the Russians blew up the fort at
Oczakov, thus leaving the Allies in full possession of the estuary of the
Dnieper and of the mouth of the Bug. But the capture of Kinburn was the
only solid piece of work done by this expedition.

Thus the pleasant autumn weather passed away. All was quiet round
Sebastopol, beyond the Tchernaya and around the Baidar Valley, and the
only activity displayed was in those expeditions we have described on the
extremities of the Crimea--at Kinburn, at Eupatoria, at Kertch, and in
the Sea of Azoff. The reasons for this inactivity may be safely traced to
differences at Paris and London touching the conduct and field of war, and
to the desire of making peace, which the Allies were resolved should be
honourable and satisfactory to them, and which the Russians were anxious
should involve the minimum of sacrifices on their side. But there was
another reason of great weight. General Sir James Simpson had sent home
his resignation immediately after the fall of Sebastopol. He was a brave
and able soldier, but he had passed the prime of life, and not knowing the
French language, he was in a false position, and unable to struggle with
success against the natural self-assertion of Marshal Pélissier. He had
also been unjustly assailed because a few hundred British soldiers had
not been able to wrest the Redan from thousands of Russians, supported
by heavy flanking batteries. The Government accepted his resignation.
That was easy. Whom should they put in his place? They were at a loss for
an answer. The fittest man was Sir Colin Campbell--old, it is true, but
still as hardy and active and vigorous as ever. But a report had been
industriously spread that Campbell would quarrel with the French, and
he did not, besides, belong to the privileged few. Perhaps the Cabinet
wanted a safe man, one who would not propose or urge decisive action. At
all events, they found one. Sir William Codrington--a guardsman who had
not seen a hundredth part of Campbell's service, who had not a hundredth
part of Campbell's ability, but who was an average soldier, a brave
leader in battle, and one of the "right set"--was selected to command the
Anglo-Sardinian armies.

Three days afterwards a great calamity befell the French, and inflicted
several losses upon us. On the 14th of November the powder magazines
in the park of the French siege train, containing 250,000 pounds of
gunpowder, blew up; not powder only, but an immense quantity of shells,
carcasses, rockets, and cartridges. Happily all were not panic-stricken.
General van Straubenzee, calling for volunteers from the gallant 7th,
Lieutenant Hope and a number of men stood forward. These brave fellows
headed by their officer, quickly joined by others, ascended the walls of
the roofless mill used as a powder magazine, and by great labour succeeded
in covering up the powder with wet blankets. It was a service where the
risk was awful, for all around were conflagrations; the air was full
of fleeting flames, and there stood the great magazine without doors,
windows, or roof; all had been blown in or torn off. Yet the daring deed
was well done, and the place saved. By this calamity we lost ten men
killed and sixty-nine wounded. One of the killed was Deputy-Assistant
Commissary Yellon. The French lost six officers killed and thirteen
wounded, and 166 men killed and wounded. The cause of this catastrophe was
never discovered.

We must now leave the Crimea to narrate the operations of the British
fleet in the Baltic and Pacific. The naval operations of the Allies in
1855 were again entirely confined to encounters between ships and forts.
The war seemed to be made on purpose to furnish illustrations of the
superiority of a well-designed scheme of coast and harbour defence over a
navy, be it ever so powerful. It is further remarkable as a war between
Maritime Powers unmarked by a single naval action. The Russians, of
course, outnumbered everywhere, except in the Gulf of Tartary, were not
bound to fight, and they were, except in the Pacific, shut up in narrow
seas. These are and must be their only legitimate excuses for yielding up
their waters to the Allies without striking or attempting to strike a blow.

The British fleet was more powerful in 1855 than in 1854. Government
had built several gun and mortar boats, and destined for the Baltic a
larger force of frigates and ships of the line. Sir Charles Napier had
pushed his quarrel so far with the Admiralty that it was impossible
to give him the command again. The officer selected was Rear-Admiral
Richard Saunders Dundas, with Rear-Admiral Michael Seymour as second,
and Rear-Admiral Baynes as third in command; and Captain Pelham, who
distinguished himself in the attack on Bomarsund, as captain of the fleet.
A light squadron, under Captain Watson of the _Impérieuse_, consisting
of six ships, started for the Baltic on the 19th of March, and on the
4th of April Admiral Dundas sailed from Portsmouth with thirteen sail
of the line and four frigates; Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort
being present on board the royal yacht. The Russians did not show a sail
in the Baltic. The frigates, as soon as the ice permitted, scoured the
narrow seas, capturing some prizes, and establishing a blockade. The Gulf
of Finland was closed in May, when the main body of the fleet lay off
Nargen, where they could watch Revel and Helsingfors. The French fleet,
under Rear-Admiral Penaud, did not sail till later. They were not in the
Baltic until the 21st of May. The British fleet had gone up the Gulf of
Finland towards Cronstadt, and it was here on the 1st of June that the
French joined them. The British ships lay across the gulf, and as the
French came up, out of compliment to their allies they formed a second
line, and after communication with Admiral Dundas, the two fleets formed
combined squadrons, showing both flags in front line to the enemy. But the
Russians, who had not been tempted by the smaller, showed no disposition
even to look at the larger force. All their ships, except a few steamers,
were dismantled, and lying under the protection of the forts. There was
nothing to be done but reconnoitre, fish up "infernal machines," and
engage in small operations. For three weeks the fleet lay off Cronstadt.
On the 14th of July part sailed for Nargen, leaving Admiral Baynes with a
powerful squadron to watch Cronstadt.

While the allied fleet was off Cronstadt an incident had occurred which
showed that the enemy, irritated by his losses, could descend to acts of
revenge and treachery. At Inkermann the wounded had been slain in cold
blood, and the parties gathering up the wounded had been shelled by the
war steamers. At Odessa, in 1854, a flag of truce had been fired upon
by the shore batteries; and now a party, from H.M.S. _Cossack_, bearing
a flag of truce, were massacred at Hango on the coast of Finland. Six
sailors were killed, and the event, which was cynically defended by the
Russian Minister of War, Prince Dolgorouky, aroused universal reprobation.
A thrill of horror and indignation ran through the British people.

During the month of July the lighter craft performed some smart actions
on the enemy's coasts. Captain Storey had already destroyed 20,000 tons
of shipping near Nystad, in the Gulf of Bothnia. On the 4th of July
Captain Yelverton, with the _Arrogant_ and two other vessels, appeared off
Swartholm. Here the enemy had abandoned and blown up a fort of immense
strength, commanding the approaches to Lovisa; and on the 5th, Captain
Yelverton, shifting his flag to the _Ruby_ gunboat, and accompanied by
the boats of the squadron, went up to Lovisa, landed, and made search
for Government stores. He found they were in the town, and therefore
he spared them, lest in burning the stores he should burn the town--a
magnanimous answer to the Hango massacre. Nevertheless, Lovisa was burnt
down, not by the British, but by accident. On the 20th, Captain Yelverton,
with three frigates and a gunboat, attacked, and in one hour silenced, a
six-gun battery at Frederiksham, between Sveaborg and Lovisa. His loss
was three men wounded. On the 26th, with three frigates and four mortar
vessels, Captain Yelverton made a successful descent upon the island
of Kotka, drove out the garrison, and, landing the marines, burnt the
Government buildings and immense stores of timber. Thus the whole coast,
from Viborg on the east almost up to Sveaborg, had been visited, and the
enemy harassed; while Rear-Admiral Baynes, steaming up the channel north
of Cronstadt, showed his flag to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, and
from the yards of his ship looked on the Russian capital. The remainder
of the fleet, except the flying squadrons and blockaders, was at Nargen,
preparing for an attack upon Sveaborg.

[Illustration: SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.

(_After the Portrait by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A._)]

This is the bulwark of the south coast of Finland, and, if the enemy's
soldiers did their duty, it was quite beyond the reach of any fleet, no
matter how powerful or numerous it might be. Built on rocky islands,
facing a shallow and treacherous sea, it was plain, even to the eyes of
a tyro in military science, that Sveaborg, though it might be bombarded,
could not be taken without the aid of a land force. The allied fleet
arrived off Sveaborg on the 6th and 7th of August. Admiral Dundas and
Admiral Penaud had no troops under their orders. They had determined
not to assail the place with ships of the line, but to rely upon their
gunboats and mortar vessels to set fire to the buildings and blow up
the magazines of the enemy. The British had sixteen, and the French
five gunboats. The British had sixteen, and the French five mortar
vessels. Beside these there were several ships of the line, frigates, and
corvettes; but, on the whole, it will be seen that the gun and mortar
boats did the work. Two days were spent in preparations. The small vessels
with which it was intended to fight were placed in position. They were
ranged in curving lines, the French in the centre. The mortar vessels
were anchored; the gunboats were directed to protect them, and to keep
constantly in motion. On an islet Admiral Penaud constructed a battery for
four mortars, nearly opposite Gustavswert, and this formed the centre of
the line. Two gunboats, armed with Lancaster guns, were directed to fire
at the three-decker barring the channel into the harbour. Two ships of the
line and a frigate were detached to cannonade Sandham, and a frigate and
two corvettes were sent to occupy the attention of a body of troops on
the island of Drumsio, on the extreme west.

The action began about seven o'clock on the morning of the 9th of August.
The fire of the guns and mortars was to be pressed to the fullest extent
deemed proper by the officers in command; and as soon as the accuracy of
the range was tested the whole mass of ordnance afloat began and sustained
a most rapid fire. The Russians estimated that thirty shells per minute
fell into their batteries. At first they replied with great spirit, but
although the range of their heavy guns extended far beyond the allied
lines, yet they were unable to do any damage, either to the passive
mortar vessels or the restless gunboats. While the action was raging in
the centre the detached ships were busy on the flanks, especially off
Sandham, where the liners were engaged in a combat with earthen batteries,
on which they could make little impression. Within three hours after the
beginning of the bombardment in the centre the incessant hail of shells
within the fortress had told with effect. The fire, so brisk before, now
began to slacken. The Russian gunners could not hit the small boats of the
Allies, while they were exposed to a crushing fire. About ten o'clock the
Russian buildings were on fire. Soon a loud report showed that a magazine
had been pierced, then another and another. The third explosion, about
noon, was very destructive. When it grew dark, and the gunboats had been
recalled, and the mortars ceased to fire, the boats of the fleet, fitted
with rocket-tubes, ran in nearer to the fortress, and poured forth their
incendiary missiles till the flames rose to the height of a hundred feet,
swaying to and fro in a brisk breeze.

The mortars and guns went nearer to the place at daylight on the 10th, and
resumed their destructive labours. It was observed that the three-decker
had been removed from the channel between Gustavswert and Bak Holmen.
Three times she had been on fire. Although the garrison were beset by the
flames of their burning barracks and stores, yet on the 10th they opened
a more sustained fire than on the preceding day. The operations, however,
were of the same character, and they produced the same effects, except
that the explosions ceased. Again at night the rocket-boats were called
into play, and this time the mortars were steadily active all night. By
the morning of the 13th the admirals considered that enough had been
done--that, in fact, they could do no more; neither destroy the forts nor
touch the squadron they sheltered. The place was gutted, but "the sea
defences in general were little injured," as the admiral reported. We had
inflicted this loss on the enemy at a cost to ourselves of one officer,
Lieutenant Miller, and seventeen men wounded. The enemy, on the contrary,
lost heavily in men and material. According to the British Minister at
Stockholm, the loss in men was not less than 2,000. Every magazine in the
place was destroyed; also immense stores of rope, cordage, tar, and other
naval supplies. The incessant activity of the admirals and captains had
swept the enemy's commercial marine from the sea, had taken many ships,
had destroyed vast stores, had kept a large body of troops employed, had
harassed all the accessible parts of the coast, had shown the British and
French flags to the enemy in his capital, and had gutted a first-rate
fortress, with an insignificant loss to themselves. To do more--to take
Cronstadt, and conquer Sveaborg--would have required an army equal to the
reduction of Finland, an enterprise which would have put a severe strain
on the resources both of France and Britain, and one that might yet have
failed: for the seasons in those regions fight on the side of Russia,
and if these heavy blows could not have been struck in six months, the
fleet and army must have decamped, under penalty of being frozen up and
destroyed.

On the Pacific coast there was an important, although to a great extent an
ineffectual, campaign. Russia, driven on by a desire to reach the open sea
somewhere, had pushed her settlements from Siberia down the great river
Amoor, which enters the Gulf of Tartary opposite the northern end of the
Japanese island of Saghalien. At Castries Bay, on the coast of this tract,
they had built a town called Alexandrovsk, and still farther south they
had a settlement, named after Constantine, at Port Imperial, or Barracouta
Bay. In short, before 1854, and still more so afterwards Russia was bent
on making a solid establishment on the Pacific, as an outlet to Siberia
and as the base of a Pacific fleet. She had also a town and forts at
Petropaulovski on the coast of Kamschatka, and, before the war, in Aniwa
Bay, at the south end of the island of Saghalien. Here was the nucleus of
a strong position on the Pacific, and it gave Russia great influence both
in Pekin and Yedo. More than this, it threatened British supremacy in the
Eastern seas.

No attempt on the mouth of the Amoor was made in 1854. But in 1855
the allied squadron was strengthened, both on the China and Pacific
stations. There were five steamers--one French, the others British--and
twelve sailing vessels, four of which were French. The total guns of the
squadrons amounted to 480. Admiral Bruce and Admiral Fournichon commanded
the Pacific squadron, Admiral Stirling the China squadron. On their side
the Russians had augmented the fortifications at Petropaulovski, and
had erected new works, and assembled a strong garrison, on the Amoor.
But their naval force was of no value; they had only seven vessels,
mounting ninety guns; of these four were in the beginning of the year at
Petropaulovski. Two British steamers arrived off this place on the 14th
of April, but while they were waiting for the squadron the Russians cut a
channel through the shore ice, and, favoured by a fog, escaped on the 17th
and reached Castries Bay. When, at the end of May, the allied squadron
arrived, the place was found to be abandoned; there were only three
Americans there. They consequently destroyed the batteries and burnt the
Government stores. Admiral Bruce sent one ship to join Admiral Stirling,
and with the rest returned to the American coast.

Admiral Stirling, in the meantime, had detached Commodore Elliot with
three ships--a frigate, and two steamers--into the Gulf of Tartary. He
found the Russian vessels which had escaped Admiral Bruce, in Castries
Bay; but he did not attack them, judging the disadvantages to be too
great. Yet the weight of metal was in his favour; his ships were free
to fight, being unencumbered, while the enemy was deeply laden with the
garrison, the inhabitants, and the stores of Petropaulovski. However,
Commodore Elliot decided not to risk an action. Instead of that, he sent
a steamer for reinforcements, and while he was waiting for them, the
enemy got away. At the time it was supposed he had escaped by some inner
channel leading to the Amoor, but no such channel exists. The Russians
went by the sea under the noses of their opponents. Commodore Elliot
returned to the southern shore of Saghalien, where he found two British
and two French ships. After some delay Admiral Stirling, taking with him
five British vessels, steered for the Sea of Okhotsk. Although the British
ships remained cruising off the Russian coasts until late in October, they
effected nothing remarkable. The opportunity of striking a blow at the
colonisation of the Amoor was lost.

Meanwhile, what was the position of Russia in Asia? "The cession of the
Asiatic fortresses, with their neighbouring districts," wrote Lord
Aberdeen in 1829, in commenting on the Treaty of Adrianople, "not only
secures to Russia the uninterrupted occupation of the eastern coast of the
Black Sea, but places her in a situation so commanding as to control at
pleasure the destiny of Asia Minor. Prominently advanced into the centre
of Armenia, in the midst of a Christian population, Russia holds the keys
both of the Persian and the Turkish provinces; and whether she may be
disposed to extend her conquests to the East or to the West, to Teheran or
to Constantinople, no serious obstacle can arrest her progress." Assuming
that the Western Powers did not interfere with the execution of the march
to the West, every year sufficed to show the soundness of the conclusions
to which Lord Aberdeen came in 1829; and although the presence of the
allied fleets in the Black Sea did offer a serious obstacle in 1854-5, yet
that was an accident, which only for a time diminished the value of the
Russian position in Armenia. Without the aid of a fleet the Russians were
still very formidable. The strong fortress of Gumri not only barred the
road to Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, but commanded the plain of Kars.
The fort of Akalzik shut out the Turks in Kars from direct communication
with the seaport of Batoum. The tracing of the frontier of the province of
Erivan placed Russia within a couple of marches of Bayazid. Both sides in
1854 knew the value of the prize for which they were contending. The Turks
owed the preservation of Anatolia to the energy and courage of a Hungarian
and a few Englishmen. The Russians sent one of their best generals to
command on that frontier, and had not the European officers stopped him by
holding Kars until they were on the brink of famine, that general would
have carried the flag of Russia to Trebizond.

Such being the importance of the frontier, it is not surprising that the
British Ministers watched with anxiety the progress of hostilities in that
quarter; and with all the more anxiety because they were comparatively
powerless to render aid. It required all the energies of Britain to
maintain an army in the Crimea. She could not send troops, but she could
send officers. France might have spared a force, but France had no wish to
protect the Turks in Armenia, and had she done so we should have looked
with jealousy on her efforts. There was the Turkish army under Omar Pasha,
which, after the Austrians entered the Principalities, was, at least in
the spring of 1855, comparatively useless. But here again France stepped
in, and would not consent to the employment upon the Armenian frontier of
the only efficient general in the Sultan's service. Therefore the struggle
in Asia Minor was carried on by the Turks alone, with the aid of a few
European soldiers.

The Turkish Pashas on the Russian frontier drew supplies and pay (when
they could get it) for 40,000 men, but they never commanded a force so
large. The difference they put in their own pockets. Corruption and
peculation and frauds of all kinds characterised the conduct of the
greater part of these Turkish officers quite as much--and that is a high
estimate--as their incapacity and cowardice. The true policy of the Turks
in Armenia would have been to wage a defensive war. In that course they
would have found in the nature of the country a great ally; and if they
had preserved the frontier intact, they would have done the Sultan and
the common cause good service. But the Turkish leaders had that kind of
impetuosity which accompanies incompetence. As soon as the war broke
out they began to assail the enemy. A party from Batoum captured Fort
Nicholas, just across the frontier, by surprise. This was not a bad
move, for it stimulated the ardour of the soldiers. Unfortunately, the
ambition of the Pashas was stimulated also. The commanders on the Kars
frontier took the offensive, and began to engage the Russian outposts. The
Commander-in-Chief was Abdi Pasha. He had been educated in the military
schools of Austria, and had some talent and knowledge, yet this was marred
by constitutional inactivity and slowness. His second in command was Ahmed
Pasha, an incompetent man, who shone in the intrigues of the Turkish
ante-rooms. The Russians were posted at Baindir and Akisha. Learning the
amount of their force at the former place, Abdi Pasha sent against them
a body of troops superior in number, who, falling upon them unawares,
routed them and drove them headlong into Gumri. At the same time Ahmed
Pasha had moved upon Akisha. His movements were slow, and the enemy, being
prepared, inflicted upon him a severe repulse. Learning this, Abdi Pasha
ordered his subordinate at once to retreat upon Kars. Ahmed Pasha would
not obey nor disobey. It is a convincing proof of his stupidity that he
divided his forces, sending part back to Kars, and remaining with the rest
within reach of the enemy. Prince Andronikoff, who commanded the Russians,
saw his opportunity, and seized it with great spirit. He quitted his
entrenchments and offered battle. Nothing loth, the Turk stood to fight.
He was still superior in numbers. He was able to show an equal front,
and at the same time to outflank his opponent. Nevertheless the Russians
utterly routed their foes. The troops hurried back to Kars in confusion.
They were "a mere rabble." The Russians did not pursue, otherwise Kars
might have fallen in 1853. The untoward conduct of Ahmed ruined the whole
campaign. Nor were the destructive powers of the Pashas limited to action
in the field. In the winter they allowed the army to rot in Kars.

It was now the spring of 1854, and the Western Powers were just sending
troops to the East. Through the long winter there had been a few Europeans
at Kars, and to these the army owed everything. There was the Englishman
Guyon, who had carved himself a name on the records of the Hungarian War
of Independence. There was George Kmety, a Hungarian leader of valiant
Honved battalions in 1848-9, and, like Guyon, driven into Turkey when
Russia, throwing her sword into the scale, turned it in favour of Austria.
Kmety was an excellent soldier, and although an infantry officer, he took
in hand and made great use of the Turkish irregular horse, with which he
covered the front, and guarded Kars for months from all chance of falling
by a _coup de main_. These two, until the arrival of Zarif, the new
commander, were the principal supports of Turkish power.

It was a great fault of the Turkish Government that it had established
no depôts in Armenia. Everything, except wood and grain, had to be
transported from Constantinople. The Russians had been allowed to purchase
the grain crops in the two preceding years; another instance of the
long-sighted policy of Nicholas, and his wilful determination to break up
the Turkish Empire. Had the Turks formed a large magazine at Erzeroum, and
constructed a strong camp at Kars, supposing an honest and capable Pasha
could have been found, the disasters and sufferings of 1853-4 might have
been avoided. On the contrary, nothing having been done in time, all that
was needed had to be done in a hurry, and the army had to be supplied from
Constantinople, first by sea to Trebizond, then by execrable roads over
rugged mountains to Erzeroum, and thence by roads equally difficult to
Kars. It was by this route that supplies and reinforcements reached the
front in the spring of 1854.

Neither side as yet showed any activity. The Russians were not in great
strength, and the Turks had only just recovered from the evils of the
winter. But in June the enemy showed that he was capable of striking a
blow. On the 8th he made a simultaneous advance along the whole line.
On the 8th of June the Russians threatened Ardahan, and the Turks
reinforced the post, but no action took place. At the same time a body of
Cossacks appeared near Bayazid; these were utterly routed by the Turkish
irregulars. In the meantime, Prince Andronikoff had pushed forward towards
Urzughetti. Selim Pasha, alarmed at his approach, retreated in haste over
the frontier. Compelled at length to stand, he took up a strong position,
and received battle on the 16th of June. He was totally defeated, with
the loss of all his guns and baggage; and he hurried with the wreck of
his army to Batoum. The Russians had opened the campaign with a fruitful
victory.

[Illustration: KARS.]

In July, having nothing more to fear from the army of Batoum, Prince
Bebutoff resolved to try the mettle of the Kars army, marched out of
Gumri, and crossing the Arpa-Chai, encamped on Turkish territory within a
few miles of the Pasha's camp at Soobattan and Hadji Veli Khoi. For weeks
Zarif declined action, and the Russian boldly sent a detachment which beat
the Turks at Bayazid. In this exigency, as soon as he learned the news
of the defeat, Zarif resolved to fight Bebutoff. There was still time.
The detachment was still on the march from Bayazid. But when he should
have acted with decision, the Turk wavered and hesitated; and before he
decided, the Russian army was again united in his front. It was on the
5th of August that he made up his mind to fight the next morning. He
should have acted on the 2nd, when the enemy was still looking for his
coming troops. It was now too late. The Bayazid detachment had rejoined
Prince Bebutoff. The spies in the Turkish camp had informed the Russian
of an intended movement. The result was that Zarif was defeated after a
stubborn contest. The Turks lost 3,500 in killed and wounded, 2,000 in
prisoners, and 15 guns. More than 6,000 men went home, but many of these
returned, and for days the irregular cavalry were bringing in stragglers.
Nearly all the Turkish officers ran away, and thus only one regimental
commander was killed, and one general of brigade slightly wounded. The
Russian loss was very great. They admit that upwards of 3,000 were killed
or wounded, including no fewer than 111 officers, of whom 21 were killed.
In truth, the Russian officers were obliged to expose themselves in order
to stimulate the men, and had the Turks been as brave, the day might have
had a different ending. The loss inflicted on the Russians is a terrible
testimony to the efficiency of the Turkish artillery. The Turks lost the
battle, because they were commanded by an intriguer who had never been a
soldier; because the troops were undrilled, and had no officers worthy of
the name; because, with such troops and such officers, they were directed
to make so perilous a movement as a night march; because their cavalry
ran away, and because they fought in fragments. Such was the battle of
Kuruk-Dereh. It took its name from a village within the Russian lines, and
it tended to increase vastly the influence of the Russians in Asia.

The campaign in Armenia ended with this battle. On the 17th of August,
eleven days after his victory, Prince Bebutoff deemed it prudent to
return to Gumri. The fruits of the campaign, besides the three victories,
were many. The Turkish army was diminished and demoralised; the road
from Turkey to Persia was rendered unsafe, and the Kurds were induced to
revolt. Russia might well be proud of successes in Armenia, which were
some compensation for losses on the Circassian coast of the Black Sea.

As it was foreseen that Russia would make fresh efforts in Asia, the
British Government, moved by the reports of the British Consuls, who
faithfully described the unhappy condition of the Kars army under its
wretched and criminal commanders, appointed, on the 2nd of August,
Lieutenant-Colonel Williams to be Her Majesty's Commissioner at the
headquarters of the Turkish army in Asia. He was to place himself in
communication with Lord Raglan and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, to keep
them informed of all matters connected with the state of the Asiatic
army, and to correspond with Lord Clarendon. Colonel Williams arrived at
Constantinople on the 14th of August, and on the 19th he saw Lord Raglan
at Varna. Returning to Constantinople, he was in constant communication
with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe until the 31st, when he sailed for
Trebizond. On the 24th of September he reached Kars. With him went
Lieutenant Teesdale, Dr. Sandwith, and Mr. Churchill. Throughout his
journey he had kept an eye on the state of affairs, and long before he
arrived at Kars had complained seriously to Constantinople. As soon as he
had quitted Trebizond he encountered two siege guns deserted in the snow.
On arriving at Erzeroum he found that no provision had been made for the
troops who were to winter there, and no adequate measures taken to defend
the place. But it was on reaching Kars that the truth burst upon him in
all its grossness--that the Sultan's army was a mere rabble in rags. The
muster-rolls of the Turkish army showed on paper a force of 22,754 men.
The number actually existing, including sick, was 14,600--a clear proof
of the peculation practised by the Pashas. The clothes of these men were
ragged and thread-bare. Their trousers, shoes, and stockings were not fit
to be seen. They subsisted from hand to mouth, and in October there were
only provisions for three days in the magazine.

In November Colonel Williams returned to Erzeroum in order that he might
thence enforce the measures necessary for the supply and reinforcement of
the army. Captain Teesdale was left at Kars to look after the feeding,
accommodation, and drill of the troops. In executing the laborious
task of fortifying Erzeroum, preparing barracks, obtaining transport,
making arrangements for supplies of grain and forage, pressing for
reinforcements, pay, clothing, arms, accoutrements, the British officers
at Kars and Erzeroum passed the winter. Besides contending with jealous
Pashas, General Williams found himself obliged to use his influence in
Kurdistan to put an end to a dangerous insurrection. He was well known to
the Kurds, and when he proposed terms they not only trusted to British
honour, but the leader surrendered. In the spring General Williams found
it necessary to ask for additional help, and the British Government sent
him from the Indian army, Colonel Lake, Captain Olpherts, and Captain
Thompson, the whole of whom reached Kars in March, 1855. Under the
direction of Colonel Lake, and with the aid of these officers, the rough,
dilapidated, and badly placed entrenchments about Kars were rectified, and
new works were constructed. It was known that the enemy was collecting a
large force in Georgia, under General Mouravieff, an officer of skill and
experience. There was, therefore, no time to lose, and as soon as the snow
melted, and work became practicable, Colonel Lake began his task.

The town of Kars stands in the midst of mountains, on a plateau, some
7,000 feet above the level of the sea. It has been a place of strength
for centuries. But its defences proved to be too weak to resist a skilful
soldier, and Prince Paskiewitch took it from the Turks in three days in
1828. In fact, the fortress was commanded by the Karadagh on the east,
and by the mountains across the river on the west. Therefore, when the
European officers reached the town in 1854, they set about remedying
these defects by fortifying the Karadagh, surrounding the town suburb
with low entrenchments, and throwing up two or three works on the high
ground upon the left bank commanding the place. Pontoon bridges were
thrown over the river to facilitate the passage of troops from one bank
to the other, saving time in the transit. On the left bank, the heights
immediately commanding the town were entrenched. Three redoubts, named
after Colonel Lake and others, and called the English Lines, stretched
from an eminence due west of the Karadagh to the river below the town; and
above the town, and commanding it, the river, and the bridges, there was
a large redoubt, named after Vassif Pasha. These works, as events showed,
were still insufficient. The English Lines, though commanding everything
eastward, were not the true key of the place; but that fact had to be
demonstrated by the enemy. At the end of May, 1855, the place was secure
from an assault on the east--that is, on the side of Gumri--and on the
south; but not yet on the west--that is, on the side of Erzeroum. In the
entrenched camp, at the beginning of May, there were 10,000 infantry,
1,500 artillerymen, and 1,500 useless cavalry. Afterwards this force was
largely increased, but it never exceeded 20,000 men of all arms.

The great object of General Williams was to create a strong and
impregnable camp at Kars, and to store up provisions there to such an
extent that the garrison would be able to hold out until the winter,
when it was assumed the enemy would be compelled, by stress of weather,
to quit the bleak highlands, and seek shelter in Gumri. Erzeroum was in
like manner made strong, so that it might serve as a base for the Kars
army, should that army be able to keep open its communications; and as
a place where a force might assemble in safety to relieve Kars, or at
least to harass the enemy, and make his position intolerable. But these
long-sighted views were frustrated by the wretched organisation of the
Turks, the corruption and sloth of the Pashas, and the inability of their
regulars to act in the open field. The stores intended for Kars never
reached that place, and it is a marvel how it held out so long. Turks,
however, will live where other troops would starve.

The Russians were very well informed of the state of things on the Turkish
side; they knew that the Allies, engaged so deeply in the Crimea, would
not spare any European troops for service in Asia; and that, for reasons
of his own, the French Emperor would not consent to the employment of the
best Turkish troops and Omar Pasha, the best Moslem general, in Armenia.
This made them bold. At the end of May General Mouravieff had assembled
35,000 men and sixty-four guns at Gumri; and in the beginning of June
he crossed the Arpa-Chai, and encamped on Turkish territory. General
Williams, hearing this, set out at once from Erzeroum, and on the 7th
of June arrived at Kars. He did not appear a moment too soon. Vassif
Pasha had proposed a retrograde movement on Erzeroum, and Mouravieff had
pitched his camp on the Kars-Chai, eight miles north-east of the town. The
presence of Williams inspired the garrison with fresh courage, and ended
all doubts in the mind of the Pasha. The Kars army was destined to stand
by Kars to the last.

The Russian general was a skilful soldier. As soon as he moved out
of Gumri and took post at Zaim, about eight miles north of Kars, he
halted, and sent out strong detachments to Ardahan and Tchildir among
the mountains on his right flank, with the double object of collecting
or destroying stores and ascertaining whether the Turks at Batoum were
preparing to assist their comrades at Kars. He soon found that the Batoum
army was not likely to trouble him, and such was his correct estimate of
its value, that for the rest of the campaign he scarcely troubled himself
about the doings of that force. Accordingly, on the 14th of June, he drew
nearer to Kars, and being powerful in cavalry, he, on that day, drove the
whole of the Turkish horsemen watching the valley back upon the entrenched
camp.

Mouravieff had inspected the approaches and defences fronting the road to
Gumri, and, satisfied that he could not break in on that side, he quitted
his camp on the 18th, and, marching in order of battle, crossed that road
within sight of the garrison, but far out of range, and encamped on the
south side, about four miles from the town. This cautious mode of going
to work showed that the general feared to risk an assault. He seemed
to be feeling his way about the fortress, but in such a manner, that,
although he respected the Turks behind earthworks, he clearly had no fear
of them in the field. Posted now close to the road to Erzeroum, his
cavalry threatened the direct communications with that place, and forced
the couriers of the garrison to take a wide sweep to the north through
the mountains, in order to carry the despatches to Erzeroum. From his new
camp his cavalry went forth and secured or wasted several small magazines
which the reckless idleness of the Turks had left exposed. For a few
days heavy falls of rain suspended all movement, but as soon as the rain
ceased, the Russian general once more, under cover of a great display of
force, reconnoitred the south or town side. The Russian officers thought
their general was about to attack. The Turks were on the alert, and every
parapet and battery was manned. But at the end of an hour the Russians
countermarched and returned to their camp. This was on the 26th of June.
Mouravieff had made up his mind that he would lose too many men in risking
an assault, and knowing that the Turks could not act in the field, he
determined to starve them into submission. On the 29th he divided his army
into two parts, leaving one to watch Kars, and proceeding with the other
himself over the mountains towards Erzeroum. The movement of Mouravieff
on to the Erzeroum road had already induced Vely Pasha to retire from
Toprak-Kaleh to Kupri-Keui, so as to place himself between Mouravieff and
the capital of Armenia. The Russian general's object, however, was not
Erzeroum. He had learned that there was a Turkish magazine in an exposed
situation at Yeni-Keui. It was of the last importance to the garrison
of Kars, and its stores ought long before to have been moved into that
camp. There were two months' supplies at Yeni-Keui. Upon these Mouravieff
pounced with the swoop of an eagle, and what he could not carry away he
destroyed. A second expedition, which caused great alarm, followed in
August.

During this expedition of General Mouravieff towards Erzeroum, General
Brunner, commanding the besieging army, advanced against the town defences
on the 8th of August. He brought up large masses of infantry, cavalry,
and guns, with the object of enticing the Turks out of their lines. Not
only did he fail, but he managed to get within range of the ordnance in
the south-west redoubt, called Kanli Tabia, and suffered a severe loss
in killed and wounded, including a general. This was the last experiment
on the plain; the enemy thenceforth turned his attention to the western
heights; and, seeing this close scrutiny, Colonel Lake completed his
defences on that side. At the end of August Mouravieff returned to
the camp. The approaches to Kars were more closely watched than ever.
Desertion began in the garrison, and was not stopped until some men,
caught in the act, were shot. The garrison now began to be pinched for
food. The men were on three-quarter rations in the middle of August, on
half rations in the first week of September. Forage could no longer be cut
outside. The stores of barley had come to an end. All the cavalry were,
therefore, sent away, and many scores managed to pass the Russian pickets,
but some hundreds were taken. The plan of capture by blockade was slowly
securing success. The Russian grasp grew tighter; the garrison weaker. The
appeals of General Williams for aid were in vain.

Not that they were unheeded; not that generals, diplomatists, ministers,
emperors did not write and talk about the straits of the Kars army, and
about plans for its relief. As early as June--but that was a thought too
late--we read of plans for the relief of Kars. The British Government felt
all the importance to British interests of a stout defence at least of
Armenia. They knew that Russian success would diminish their influence in
Persia, and possibly shake their power in India. Precisely for that reason
the French Emperor was indisposed to aid in or consent to any timely or
reasonable plan. As early as July it was proposed that an expedition
should sail for Redout Kaleh, on the Mingrelian coast, and landing there,
should so threaten Kutais and Tiflis that Mouravieff, alarmed, would be
compelled to quit Kars in order to defend the heart of Georgia. But the
British Government did not approve of this plan, preferring the direct
advance of a relieving army from Trebizond upon Erzeroum. The British had
raised a Turkish contingent under British officers; but Lord Clarendon
would not consent to its employment, on the ground that it was not fit
to cope with Russians in the field. Omar Pasha proposed to take his own
troops from Balaclava, and others gathered up from Bulgaria and Batoum,
and land at Redout Kaleh. To this the French Emperor would not consent,
on the ground that they could not be spared from the Crimea. As the
matter grew more urgent the plans for the relief of Kars increased; but
the obstructions to the formation of the army were so great, Governments
could agree upon so few points, that weeks--nay, months--passed, before
the relieving army could be formed and sent across the Black Sea. Thus
Kars and its gallant defenders were left to strive with two deadly foes--a
tenacious Russian general and starvation.

[Illustration: THE REPULSE OF THE RUSSIANS AT KARS. (_See p._ 141.)]

General Mouravieff had heard of the projected advance of Omar Pasha's
troops from Batoum, as he was told, and of another relieving army from
Erzeroum, upon Kars; and believing the reports, resolved to assault Kars
on the 29th of September. This led to a conflict which claims and deserves
a high place among great military actions. The Russian general had the
command of more than 30,000 men. He selected for attack the heights to
the westward, which General Kmety occupied with a garrison of 6,450 men,
whereof 5,270 were infantry. These heights he resolved to surprise by an
assault at daybreak on all points, while a diversion was made on the town
side. The garrison, however, were on the alert, and gave the enemy a warm
reception. The Russian left column, exposed to a heavy fire of artillery,
marched steadily on. Neither the round-shot, nor, as it came nearer, the
grape-shot, and then the musketry, converging upon its head, and searching
its flanks, nor the rocky ground it traversed, stopped the majestic march
of these noble troops. For half an hour it was tormented with shot, and
yet it still moved forward. When about a hundred yards from the works, the
head of the column, its patience exhausted, opened fire, but still without
halting. On it came. General Kmety now brought up fifty rifles of the
Sultan's Guard, and formed them parallel to the head of the column. It was
now enveloped in fire; nevertheless, these stubborn Russians pressed up to
within ten yards of the ditch. That was the limit of their advance. Brave
men as they were, they could bear no more; they slowly turned, and slowly
fell back on their guns. The Turks had exhausted their ammunition, and the
men were flinging stones at the retiring foe. The artillery was deficient
in grape-shot. The Turks had no horsemen. The enemy was beaten; he might
have been destroyed. In the track of the column lay a thousand corpses,
and from the pouches of their dead enemies the Turks, leaping over the
parapets, replenished their empty pouches.

At this moment of victory Kmety learned that Yarim-ai-Tabia, on his
left, had been captured; that the Tachmasb lines had been turned, and
that Hussein Pasha, in spite of a dogged resistance, was shut up in the
Tachmasb redoubt. To rally his men, Kmety called out that the foe was in
the rear; and at this call they ran back to their ranks. Sixteen Russian
guns, drawn up in the rear of the extreme left of the Tachmasb lines,
now came into action and pounded the Turks; but General Williams and Mr.
Churchill, from Yassif and Tek-Tabias, brought a heavy cross-fire to bear
upon these guns, and drove them away. At this time Kmety had reached
Yusek-Tabia, and organising a column of assault, fell on with the bayonet,
and cleared the breast-works of Yarim-ai. The Tachmasb redoubt was now
quite surrounded. The enemy were massed on all sides, and so close that
the grape from the redoubt made horrible havoc. The Russian artillery on
the exterior front were throwing shells, but more burst among their own
infantry in the tents than in the redoubt.

The chances of victory, although the enemy made no way against Tachmasb,
were not altogether against him; for just about the time that Kmety
recovered Yarim-ai, a strong force of infantry, cavalry, and guns appeared
before the English Lines. These works were not well placed; they were
weakly manned; the ground in front fell so rapidly that an advancing
foe could not be seen until he came within grape range. About a quarter
to seven the Russians crowned the ridge, fired three rounds, and in ten
minutes were masters of the lines. The enemy's infantry piled arms, and
breaking down a part of the parapet, he poured a battery through, and
began shelling the town and firing into Fort Lake. It is probable that
this force was directed to hold the ground won until joined by the enemy
from the west. But this could not be permitted. Arab Tabia opened on them.
Captain Thompson dragged a 32-pounder from the eastern to the western side
of the Karadagh. Colonel Lake turned three guns from the front to the rear
of his fort. This cross fire inflicted severe losses on the enemy. Yet the
Russians stood gallantly for an hour and a half. At the end of that time a
body of infantry sent by Thompson, and another sent by General Williams,
had wound their way across the river, and, uniting with a battalion pushed
forward by Colonel Lake, charged the enemy with the bayonet, and drove him
out of the lines. The Russian horse essayed a charge, but fell under the
fire from the reconquered parapets, and rolled over each other in the deep
holes, called _trous de loup_, which had been dug in front of the lines.
Curiously enough, however, the enemy carried off five guns.

The fighting about the Tachmasb redoubt was going on with great
fierceness; but, from the moment the Russians were driven away from the
English Lines, the issue of the day ceased to be doubtful. Kmety had first
recaptured the right breastwork at Tachmasb, though the enemy stood firmly
in the tents within fifty paces. But Kmety brought his two field-pieces
into action. Within the redoubts the Turks wanted cartridges. Hussein
Pasha supplied the want by heading sorties. Thus, part of the garrison
was employed in stripping off the pouches of the killed and wounded, and
throwing them to their comrades, who maintained the fire. The heavy guns
of the forts in the second line came into play, so that the dogged enemy
was in a circle of fire. To the last he was supplied with fresh troops,
but these did not do more than augment the slain. At length the Turks took
the offensive. The enemy stole away towards the left, and sought to escape
out of the lines. So far as their slender means allowed--and they had few
horses--the Turks pressed the retreat of the Russians, and drove off their
remaining guns. The battle was at an end; it had raged for seven hours;
and during that time a mere handful of Turks, well led, had defeated three
times their own number. There are few battles more remarkable for the
stubbornness of both sides than this battle of Kars. The Turks had 1,094
killed or wounded; the Russians had at least 6,500 killed, for the bodies
were buried by the garrison.

Although the garrison had won a victory, their sufferings were not at an
end. It was hoped that General Mouravieff would retreat, both because he
had been so thoroughly beaten, and because Omar Pasha was at length afoot
and troops were about to land at Trebizond. But Mouravieff did not go;
on the contrary, he began to erect permanent huts. Nor did he relax the
rigour of the blockade. He drew his lines more closely around Kars; for he
knew the plight of the garrison. He judged that no relief would arrive;
and he judged correctly. Selim Pasha did not land at Trebizond until the
11th of October; he did not make his appearance at Erzeroum until the
25th. The British officers there, and Consul Brant, plied him with every
kind of stimulant to provoke him to advance upon Mouravieff's rear. He
knew the state of the garrison of Kars, but he would not undertake the
task. He marched a little way, when his heart failed him and he halted.
All hope of aid from that side was at an end. Omar Pasha, with a really
fine army, had landed at Sukhum-Kaleh at the end of October. He was an
immense distance from Kutais and Tiflis. On the 5th of November he forced
the passage of the Ingour, winning a brilliant but useless victory.
Moving on through Mingrelia, he approached Kutais, until the rains began
to fall, and the swollen streams and deep roads brought him to a halt.
Then he retreated to Redout Kaleh. In the meantime Kars had fallen a prey
to famine. The movements of Omar Pasha had been absolutely without any
influence on the result.

The glorious garrison of Kars actually managed to maintain itself for
two months after the battle of the 29th of September. The cholera
appeared, and slew a thousand men in a fortnight. The rations of the
troops were reduced to eleven ounces of bread, and some very weak soup,
containing an ounce of nutriment. The hospitals grew fuller day by day.
The people and soldiers tore up the grass to feed on the roots. Some
of the grain abstracted from the magazines, and a depôt of coffee and
sugar, accidentally discovered, came in most opportunely as a relief. The
horses remaining were now killed sparingly, and from the flesh broth was
made. Hunger and cold--for the clothing of the troops was worn out--drove
scores daily to the hospital, where they died. They never failed in duty
or loyalty; neither want of food, nor hope deferred, nor the incessant
night alarms of the foe, shook these patient, faithful men. Three days'
provisions were collected in the batteries, for a false report had come
that Selim Pasha was near, and it was thought advisable to be ready for a
sortie. The hungry soldiers stood sentry over these provisions, yet did
not touch a single biscuit. Then snow fell; the scanty grass was hidden;
its roots were difficult to obtain. At length the people, who had borne
their suffering well, cried out that they could bear no more. General
Williams now received a message from Consul Brant, saying that Selim
Pasha would not move; that Omar Pasha was too far off, and that the Kars
garrison had nothing to depend on but itself. At first it was resolved to
attempt a retreat; but this was impracticable. Then it was resolved to
surrender, and General Williams and Captain Teesdale repaired on the 25th
of November to the Russian camp, and, with the permission of the former,
General Kmety and General Colman--Hungarian refugees--rode through the
Russian outposts, and reached Erzeroum.

Mouravieff was quite prepared to treat. The terms were soon agreed upon.
They were embodied in these articles, dated the 27th of November:--"1. The
fortress of Kars shall be delivered up intact. 2. The garrison of Kars,
with the Turkish commander-in-chief, shall march out with the honours of
war, and become prisoners. The officers, in consideration of their gallant
defence of the place, shall retain their swords. [This was dictated by
Mouravieff himself.] 3. The private property of the whole garrison shall
be respected. 4. The Redifs (militia), Bashi-Bazouks, and Laz shall be
allowed to return to their homes. 5. The non-combatants--such as medical
officers, scribes, and hospital attendants--shall be allowed to return to
their homes. 6. General Williams shall be allowed the privilege of making
a list of certain Hungarian and other European officers, to enable them
to return to their homes. [This was done to save Kmety and others.] 7.
The persons mentioned in Articles 4, 5, and 6 are in honour bound not to
serve against Russia during the war. 8. The inhabitants of Kars will be
protected in their persons and property. 9. The public buildings and the
monuments of the town will be respected." With difficulty the Turkish
pashas accepted these favourable terms, and on the 28th the garrison
marched out and laid down its arms.

Thus ended the campaign in Asia in 1855. The Russians occupied the whole
of Turkish Armenia until the peace, but made no further attempt to extend
their conquests. On looking back, it becomes manifest that the relief
of Kars might have been effected by an early and decisive march of Omar
Pasha's army from Trebizond upon Erzeroum. To this he was opposed, as well
as the Emperor of the French and the Sultan's Government; but that it was
the only feasible plan might readily be shown. Kars was really sacrificed
to the exigencies of the alliance and of the Crimean campaign. The French
Emperor would not give his consent that anything should be risked to save
Kars; nor did he want to save it; for the success of Russia in Asia was
not only not indifferent, it was gratifying to him. The success of Russia
was a diminution of British _prestige_ in the East. Moreover, the Emperor,
as we shall see, soon resolved that peace should be made; and that remark
carries us back to Europe and the incidents of the winter of 1855-6.

[Illustration: UNIFORMS OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1855.]




CHAPTER X.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Winter of '55--Napoleon's Shiftiness--Visit of the Czar to
    the Crimea--State of the British Army--Sufferings of the
    French--Destruction of Sebastopol--The Armistice--Signs
    of Peace--Views of Austria and Russia--And of the Emperor
    Napoleon--Britain acquiesces in Peace-Walewski's Circular--Austria
    proposes Peace--Buol's Despatch--Nesselrode's Circular--The Austrian
    Ultimatum--Russia gives way--The Congress fixed at Paris--The
    Representatives of the Powers--The Queen's Speech--Speeches of
    Clarendon and Palmerston--Views in the German Diet--Meeting
    of the Congress--The Armistice--An Imperial Speech--The
    Sultan's Firman--Prussia admitted to the Congress--Birth of
    the Prince Imperial--The Treaty signed--Its Terms--Bessarabia
    and the Principalities--The Three Conventions--The Treaty of
    Guarantee--Count Walewski's Four Subjects--The Declaration of
    Paris--International Arbitration mooted--The Kars Debate--Debates
    on the Peace--General Rejoicings--Cost of the War--Execution of the
    Treaty--The Principalities--The two Bolgrads--First Presentation of
    the Victoria Cross.


The expedition to Kinburn, the destructive raid of the Allies into
Taman and Fanagoria, the unfruitful marches and counter-marches from
Eupatoria towards Simpheropol, closed the military operations of 1855.
The French--who had taken military possession of the beautiful valley of
Baidar, and had pushed their outposts to the summits of the ridges leading
towards the Belbek--withdrew to the inner slopes, and contented themselves
with watching the main roads, both towards the north and towards the east
and south. The Sardinians remained in their old quarters. French divisions
still occupied the mamelons covering the bridge over the Tchernaya,
supported by their own and the British cavalry. The Highlanders were above
Kamara, but the bulk of the British army was on the plateau in the old
position. There, also, was at least one-half of the French, including the
Imperial Guard, who, however, embarked early in the month of November for
France. In the course of November 18,000 French troops went home, and
they were relieved by fresh troops amounting to 11,162. But the British
Cabinet had learnt with dismay that Napoleon had decided upon withdrawing
100,000 men from the Crimea; further, that the Parisians were demanding
that France should be compensated for her losses by advantages in Northern
Italy, or the left bank of the Rhine. Obviously no dependence could be
placed upon an uncertain ally and a shifty monarch.

[Illustration: NAPOLEON III.

(_From a Photograph by Messrs. W. and D. Downey._)]

Although the Allies in December had upwards of 200,000 men in the
Crimea--the French alone boasted of 141,476 men--undoubtedly a longing for
peace had sprung up in some quarters soon after the fall of Sebastopol.
This the Russians knew. Confident, therefore, that the Allies would not
undertake any large operation, and knowing winter to be at hand, they
held their ground. Moreover, their Emperor had visited his gallant army.
Quitting St. Petersburg in September, soon after the fall of his cherished
city in the south--the stepping-stone from Nicolaief to Constantinople--he
proceeded to Moscow. In his addresses to his army he still imitated the
language of his father; and, while he praised his gallant soldiers as
they deserved to be praised, while he frankly confessed that Russia had
been severely tried, he boldly claimed for his cause the support of the
Deity, and declared his steadfast resolve to defend orthodox Russia, who
had taken up arms for the cause of Christianity. After another visit to
Odessa, the Czar, passing through Nicolaief, went forward by Perekop to
Simpheropol, where he arrived on the 8th of November. To reach his army
he had travelled sixteen hundred miles through his own territory, and
had been nearly two months on the road. By the 12th of November he had
reviewed the army in the Crimea, looked on the ruins of Sebastopol, the
wrecks of his fleet, the camps of his enemies. No doubt his presence
cheered the soldiers who had borne so much at his bidding. For those who
had defended the lines of Todleben he provided a silver medal, to be worn
at the button-hole with the ribbon of St. George. The medal bore the names
of Nicholas and Alexander, and, said the Czar to his soldiers, "I am proud
of you, as he was.... In his name, and in my own, I once more thank the
brave defenders of Sebastopol." But in spite of his pride in his soldiers,
the heart of the Czar must have been sad, for he was a kindly man, and the
aggressive policy of his father--the consequences of which he could not
escape--had cost Russia 500,000 men. The Czar returned to St. Petersburg
by rapid journeys, arriving there on the 19th of November. The Czar had
seen for himself; and when he reached his capital on the Neva he was,
perhaps, in a better frame of mind for receiving those peace propositions
which Austria was already seeking to frame.

The Allies had begun to make ample preparations for the winter. The
weather in 1855-6 was very different from that which had beset them twelve
months before. They also were differently situated: they were triumphant,
and in a secure position. They had the resources of Sebastopol, in
wood and stone at least, wherewith to defend themselves against the
cold and the rain. They had huts and plenty of tents. The British had
abounding supplies of the warmest clothes of all kinds, and most ample
rations--fresh meat and bread three days a week, and pork and biscuit on
the other days. The troops had plenty of time for drill, though they were
still called upon to perform hard work in road-making. Thus they were
employed all day, without being overworked. Their health was so good, that
during this winter the average of the sick was lower than among the troops
at home. Some regiments did not lose a man--some were less fortunate; but
the most afflicted regiments did not lose more than two per cent., and it
was rare indeed that the sick exceeded four per cent. of the whole force.
No army was ever more cared for, or thrived more under good treatment.
And so it really grew stronger as the weeks glided away, until, when
the spring came, Sir William Codrington had under his orders a healthy,
well-drilled force of 70,000 men, ready for any enterprise, and well
provided with all those means and appliances which were wanting in 1854.

Not so our French Allies. Their system broke down. Their losses from
typhus in the first three months of 1856 are something fearful to
contemplate. An epidemic broke out in the French camp in January, and from
that time to the end of March 40,000 Frenchmen died from disease. More
than 5,000 died in the transports or men-of-war on their way from the
Crimea to the Bosphorus. In the Crimean hospitals their men died at the
rate of between 200 and 250 per day. In the hospitals on the Bosphorus the
rate was hardly less. The effective force of the French army on February
1st was 143,000 men. On the 30th of March it was 120,000, of whom only
92,000 were present under arms. These figures are official, showing a loss
in two months of 23,000 men, and they do not account for 28,000 men not
present under arms. But the other returns, on which the statement of the
vast losses mentioned are based, are also official, with this advantage,
that the latter are medical, the former military returns, such as it
was deemed inexpedient to make public. Throughout the war the French
understated their losses from disease and defective arrangements. In
1854-5 they suffered nearly as much as the British; but there was no free
press in France, and no free Parliament, to make known the sufferings and
privations of the soldiers.

In the meantime, both British and French were engaged in blowing up the
forts, docks, basins, and barracks in Sebastopol. The work had been
divided between the two. The French took the northern half of the docks,
the English the southern. These works were so solidly constructed and
so vast that their destruction required almost as much skill as their
construction. The engineers of each nation, however, rivalled each other
in expedients, and in the application of scientific principles to the
end in view. The whole of the work on the docks was completed on the 1st
of February. Fort Nicholas was blown up on the 4th, and Fort Alexander
on the 11th of the same month; and similar processes afterwards laid low
the aqueduct which brought the water of the Tchernaya into the docks and
the great barracks and storehouses in the marine suburb. The Russian
fire, though brisk at times, and often accurate, did not interrupt the
labours of the French and British engineers. By these means the offensive
character of Sebastopol was cut up by the roots, for it was as a great
war-port and arsenal that it was a "standing menace," and at the end of
February it had ceased to be.

On the 28th of February news reached the allied camps that the Governments
sitting in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg had just agreed to a
suspension of hostilities until March 31st. In the course of the day
the French and British generals were officially informed of the fact by
their Governments. The next day the chiefs of the staffs of the three
armies--General Martimprey, General Windham, and Colonel Petikti--met
General Timovief at the Bridge of Traktir on the Tchernaya, and there
these officers debated the limits which it would be desirable to fix as
military frontiers. Thus, just as the weather was becoming suitable for
field operations, the diplomatists managed to chain up the armies, and
having got the representatives of the belligerents round a table at Paris,
they contrived to bring all parties to an agreement, and bring about a
peace. How that was accomplished we have now to learn.

In the early part of the winter of 1855 there were two Powers--Austria
and Russia--eager, and one--France--willing to conclude a peace as soon
as possible. Austria was eager for peace, because another year of war
must have brought her into the field as a belligerent. She could not hope
that the theatre of operations would remain restricted to a corner of the
Crimea, nor, indeed, to the whole of the Crimea; for she knew that if the
war went on, the troops of the Allies would appear either in Southern or
Western Russia. The contest could not go on without raising the question
of Poland as well as Finland; and if the former question were raised,
Austria must take one side or the other. Her engagements with the Allies,
her political necessities, forbade her taking part with Russia. Yet she
was barely prepared to act against her, and would have done so only with
the greatest reluctance. Yet, as will be seen, under certain conditions
and contingencies she did make up her mind to cast in her lot frankly with
the Allies. But what she really wanted was peace, for war to her was not
only full of political dangers, but threatened her with something like
financial ruin. Russia was eager for peace, because she had lost so much
by war. The drain of adult males was enormous. The drain upon the southern
provinces for transport, for horses and cattle, for carts and waggons,
was prodigious. The harvests of Southern Russia and the forage went the
same road. Nor was it only men and transport and food which had been used
up with astonishing prodigality, first by the Emperor Nicholas, and then
by his son, to whom he bequeathed that fatal legacy, a devouring war. The
Russian treasury was empty, and although the credit of Russia had always
been good, still, capitalists were shy, and money was hard to obtain,
could not be obtained, even on terms very unfavourable to the borrower. In
these circumstances, and looking to the energetic preparations of Britain
by land and sea, Russia saw that she could not gain anything, and probably
would lose greatly on all sides, if she were exposed to another year of
war.

On the other side, France was willing to make peace. The Emperor had
gained all that he wanted out of the war. He had displayed the eagles
of the Empire in the face of Europe. He had won glory. Sebastopol had
given to France a military duke. The war had raised France, as Frenchmen
phrased it at the time, to the foremost rank among nations. The Emperor
had figured in war as an ally of Britain. He had visited the Queen at
Windsor, and had taken his place in the chapel of St. George's as a Knight
of the Garter. Moreover, and this was not the least gratifying fact,
Britain had played a secondary part in the Crimea, and she had suffered
a blow from the effects on Persia and Hindostan of the fall of Kars. The
Emperor, it is true, was a faithful ally, and did not spare his army in
the common cause. That must be put down to his credit, although nobody
thinks of claiming credit for Britain because she also was a faithful, not
to say a subservient ally. But, as no one can fail to see, at the close
of 1855 the Emperor had gained all he could gain by the British alliance,
and peace would conduce most to his interest, especially a peace signed
at Paris. He did not like to see the development of the material power of
Great Britain, which was fast outstripping him at sea. He did not wish to
witness the destruction of the maritime fortresses of Russia, still less
to hear that a British army had expelled Russia from Georgia. He thought
that he could make friends with Russia. In the previous November he had
taken the extreme course of concerting terms of peace with Austria without
consulting Britain, and was only partially deterred from these tortuous
courses by the vigorous remonstrance of Lord Palmerston, addressed to the
French Ambassador, in which the Prime Minister declared that Britain would
sooner continue the war alone than accept unsatisfactory conditions.

The British Government and the British people were not so ready or
willing to make peace. The real strength of the British power was only
just beginning to tell. Its armaments, by land and sea, were only just
acquiring bulk and organisation. A strong feeling was very generally held
that the task of curbing the aggressive ambition and checking the greed of
Russia, which the Allies had undertaken, was only half completed. There
was a desire to see Russia expelled from Asia Minor and from Finland, and
to weaken if not overthrow her in Poland, as well as to expel her from
the Crimea, and root up the mighty establishments with which she menaced
Turkey. In this feeling there was some reason. But the statesmen charged
with the conduct of the war could not forget that, although it would
have been just to take that opportunity of diminishing the vast power of
the Czar, yet that the primary object of the war was the safeguarding of
European interests, so seriously menaced in the Black Sea and the Baltic,
and that, providing Russia could be brought to agree to terms securing the
safeguards required, it would be expedient to bring the war to an end.
They felt the impossibility of securing the prolonged co-operation of
France, and the folly of continuing the struggle without her. The British
Government, therefore, was induced to consider terms of peace, and the
people acquiesced with sullen reluctance. Neither wanted war for the sake
of war, or glory for the sake of glory; nor did either want victories to
augment or secure the moral influence of their country in the affairs
in Europe. The reluctance to make peace was due solely to a gnawing
sense that the ambition of Russia had been only partially restrained. In
reality, the injury done to the enemy was greater than the British people
believed it to be; but in the winter of 1855 they did not know how deeply
the blows of the Allies had struck.

It must not, however, be supposed that either of the belligerents allowed
any of the symptoms of their desire for peace to be seen. The lateness of
the season accounted for the languid operations of the Allies after the
fall of Sebastopol. The resolve of the Czar to cling to the north side
of that fortress covered his weakness; and the success of Mouravieff in
Armenia allowed him even to boast that his gains were equal to those of
the Allies. On the surface there was every sign that the war would go on
in the spring more extensively than ever; for not only had the British
prepared hundreds of gun and mortar boats for service in the Baltic--not
only had the British Government raised and drilled a German legion
numbering 17,000 men, and a Turkish contingent under British officers,
20,000 strong, but Austria had increased her army, and the Allies held
frequent councils of war in Paris, with the object of settling plans of
campaigns for 1856. It is true that the Emperor of the French had made a
remarkable speech, as early as the 15th of November, in which he gave some
hints that peace would not be unacceptable. The occasion was the closing
of the Paris Exposition of 1855, an imitation of the London Exhibition
of 1851. Such a gathering in the midst of war the Emperor regarded as a
great example, and as a sign that the war was held to be dangerous only to
those who had been its cause, and by others as a pledge of independence
and security. "Tell your countrymen," he continued--and this is the point
of the speech--"that, if they wish for peace, they must at least openly
express their wishes for or against us; for, in the midst of a great
European conflict, indifference is a bad speculation, and silence is a
mistake." These sentiments told upon Germany. In order to clinch the
effect of these remarks, which were at once an overture and a threat,
Count Walewski was directed to inform all the Courts by circular that the
Emperor meant what he said; that he desired peace, and that the neutral
Powers could help powerfully in bringing it about by openly expressing
their opinions in the actual crisis. There was, therefore, a crisis; and
the crisis involved peace or a continuance of the war.

The Allies had resolved not to make any overtures themselves--that is,
any direct overtures. There was nothing in the public language of Lord
Palmerston, at this time, at all like that which we have seen in the
language of the French Emperor. The British Premier spoke of obtaining the
objects of the war, and so did every public speaker not opposed to the
war from the beginning. It was the French Emperor who hinted that it was
time for some neutral to step in and suggest peace. In these circumstances
Austria, who understood the situation, stepped in to propose peace. She
set her diplomatists to work, and sounded both sides, but more especially
sought to extract from the Allies the terms on which they would agree to
a peace. As the French Emperor was so well disposed to come to terms,
this was not difficult; but he still had to shape his course so as not
to endanger the British alliance, from which he had not yet derived all
the advantages it contained for him. The Emperor, however, had only to
allow his inclination to be felt, and then to drift, or appear to drift,
along the current of British views. Ostensibly the Western Powers were not
engaged in any negotiations for peace; but in reality they did entertain
the proposals of Austria, and gave a general assent to the terms which
that Power undertook to send to St. Petersburg; and this for the sound
reason that it would have been useless for Austria to press upon Russia
the acceptance of terms to which the Western Powers would not agree.

[Illustration: THE CZAR REVIEWING HIS ARMY AT SEBASTOPOL. (_See p._ 146.)]

The Austrian Government selected Count Valentine Esterhazy to carry on
this delicate negotiation with the Cabinet of St. Petersburg. He took
his instructions direct from the Emperor Francis Joseph, and they were
formally embodied in a despatch written by Count Buol on the 16th of
December. To his despatch he annexed the "four points" or indispensable
preliminaries, set forth at some length, so as to avoid the chance
of a misunderstanding; but substantially they were these:--1. That
the Russian protectorate in the Danubian Principalities should be
completely abolished, and that these principalities should receive such
an organisation as might be suited to their wants and interests, to be
recognised by the Powers, and sanctioned by the Sultan as suzerain. That,
in exchange for the strong places and territories occupied by the allied
Powers, Russia should consent to the "rectification" of her frontier
with Turkey in Europe. 2. That the freedom of the Danube and its mouths
should be secured efficaciously. 3. That the Black Sea should be open
to merchant ships, and closed to war ships--except a limited number
for coast service--and consequently that no naval or military arsenals
should be created or maintained there. 4. That the immunities of the
Christian subjects of the Porte should be secured without infringing the
independence of the Sultan. To these was added a fifth, of great moment,
as it was, in a measure, the touchstone of Russian sincerity. It was
this:--"The belligerent Powers reserve to themselves the right which
appertains to them of producing in European interest special conditions
over and above the four guarantees." These were tolerably stringent
conditions; and it was easy to see that the fifth, so indefinite in its
nature, would test the sincerity of Russia to the uttermost.

Count Esterhazy arrived in St. Petersburg on the 24th of December. During
his journey a very singular incident had occurred. The Cabinet of Russia
had either guessed, or had been duly informed of, the nature of the trial
to which they would be subjected. The probability is, that the Austrian
Court gave the requisite information unofficially to Count Nesselrode.
That astute politician was not long in making use of the opportunity.
On the 22nd of December, while Count Esterhazy was journeying through
Russian Poland, Count Nesselrode despatched a circular, embodying terms of
peace to which his Government would agree. This was an adroit manœuvre,
as it gave to Russia the appearance of dictating terms of peace. In this
document it was laid down that Russia had always desired peace; that it
was not her fault, but the fault of the Allies, that peace had not been
made in 1855; and that the wish for a prompt and durable peace openly
expressed by the Emperor Napoleon was the dearest wish of the Emperor
Alexander. Russia had, in the summer of 1855, accepted the four points as
a basis, and still accepted them; but they were susceptible of different
interpretations. As long as his enemies appeared resolved to substitute
the right of might for the spirit of justice, the Czar felt bound to
remain silent; but as soon as his Majesty learned that his enemies were
disposed to resume the negotiations for peace, he did not hesitate to
meet them; and he was willing to put the most liberal interpretation on
the third point, relating to the so-called neutralisation of the Black
Sea. The liberal interpretation put by Russia on this point was that no
war-ships should enter the Black Sea except those which, by a separate
agreement between Russia and Turkey, those Powers should think proper to
retain.

The Austrian Envoy was indeed the bearer of something more than
conditions. He carried in his pocket instructions which amounted to
a menace Russia could not afford to despise. If he did not obtain an
acceptance of his conditions within a limited time, he was to quit St.
Petersburg, taking with him the whole of the Austrian Legation. On the
27th he saw Count Nesselrode, read to him the despatch of Count Buol, and
handed in the paper of conditions. The Russian Cabinet fought hard against
the conditions. They wished to modify this Austrian ultimatum--for such
was its real character--and thus sustain that claim to independent action
put forward by Count Nesselrode on the 22nd of December. They wished to
make the Allies accept Kars and the surrounding country for Sebastopol,
Kertch, Kinburn, Eupatoria, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoff, and parts
of Mingrelia and Imeritia. They wished to avoid the unforeseen demands
that might lurk in the fifth point. They desired to hold fast to the
left bank of the Danube, and keep the Isle of Serpents. But the Czar was
made aware that he could look for no aid from any German Power. France
and Britain had just concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with
Sweden under certain conditions very adverse to Russia; and the Czar,
like the rest of the world, knew it. Sardinia was certain to act with
the Western Powers as long as the war lasted. Even Prussia was drifting
towards the Western Powers. Britain was just acquiring that strength
which would enable her blows to tell in another campaign. This the Czar
knew also, and, moreover, he knew that France would do everything to make
the terms of the treaty as little distasteful as possible. To crown all,
the Austrian Government demanded an unconditional acceptance of the five
points, the alternative being an instant rupture of diplomatic relations.
Count Esterhazy was forbidden to discuss the contents of the ultimatum.
He had simply to demand an answer, yes or no. Russia first sent an
answer to Vienna; but as it was not a categorical reply, but a series of
counter-propositions, Count Buol told the Russian Minister at Vienna that,
unless the ultimatum were accepted on or before the 18th of January, the
whole of the Austrian Embassy would quit St. Petersburg without a moment's
delay.

This was a great deal to bear. The Russian Government delayed their answer
until nearly the last moment. The time for decision allowed to them by
Austria had not quite expired before the Czar made up his mind. The public
anxiety in every capital of Europe was extreme; but while on the Continent
the anxiety was for an affirmative, in England there was a sort of dread
lest an affirmative answer should proceed from the cabinet of the Czar.
Three weeks had passed away in these negotiations on the Neva. On the 16th
of January, 1856, Count Nesselrode informed the Austrian Envoy that the
Czar had given way. Russia had complied with the demand of Austria, and
had given her unconditional assent to the Austrian ultimatum. This was
Count Buol's greatest triumph. The next day the fact was known in every
capital in Europe.

There was another triumph in store for the Emperor Napoleon. When Russia
had accepted the Austrian proposals, it became necessary to determine
where the Conference or Congress of the treaty-making Powers should
be held. This occasioned some little difficulty. There was a talk of
Brussels and Dresden; and it was said that London, Paris, and Vienna
were out of the question. There is little doubt now that it was intended
the Congress should be held in Paris. The Governments took to paying
each other compliments. France suggested London, and Britain suggested
Paris. Russia, for good reasons of her own, settled the amicable dispute
by adopting the suggestion of Britain. Therefore, it was in Paris,
where famous peaces had been made, that this peace was to be made. Then
came another question. Who should sit at this European council? Prussia
put in a claim based on her share in determining the Czar to yield.
But--independently of the fact that Prussia had all along acted like
an ally of Russia, and had only taken engagements hostile to Russia on
behalf of German interests, and therefore would enter the Congress as
a friend of Russia--Prussia had really no right at all to sit with the
belligerent Powers, because she had separated from them in the summer of
1855. Therefore Prussia was not invited to the Paris Congress. The other
Power whose right was for a moment questioned, but only for a moment,
was Sardinia. But Sardinia was a belligerent. One of the inducements
which led her to take an active part in the war was the opportunity of
showing herself as a European Power. For that she had incurred the expense
and the risk. Therefore she was admitted, with the reluctant assent
of Austria. The Powers to be represented at the Congress, therefore,
were Britain, France, Austria, Sardinia, Turkey, and Russia. Each Power
sent a special plenipotentiary, and each plenipotentiary was to be
assisted by the resident ambassador. The British plenipotentiary was the
Earl of Clarendon, assisted by Earl Cowley; France was represented by
Count Walewski and Baron de Bourqueney; Austria sent the cautious and
much-pondering Count Buol and the clever Baron Hübner; Sardinia confided
her interests to her greatest statesman, Count Cavour, whose second was
the Marquis of Villa-marina; Turkey was present in the person of Aali
Pasha, one of her ablest men, and Mehemed Djemil Bey; the Czar sent his
father's friend, Count Orloff, and Baron Brunnow, cool, astute, and
experienced. Some time elapsed before these men--some of them travelling
from the extremities of Europe--could reach Paris; and before they
could meet there was an important step to take. It is usual to frame a
preliminary treaty. In this case, to save time and avoid the chances of
discord, it was agreed, at a meeting of the Ministers of France, Britain,
Austria, Russia, and Turkey, at Vienna, on the 1st of February, that they
should sign a protocol, recording the acceptance of the Austrian proposals
by Russia as a basis of peace, and that this should be regarded as a
preliminary treaty. It was further agreed that the Congress should open
at Paris on the 26th of February.

The British Parliament was opened by Queen Victoria in person on the
31st of January. The public were not certain that the signs of peace
could be depended on. They were doubtful of the sincerity of Russia; they
were eager to hear the explanations of Ministers. The Queen's Speech
was anxiously awaited--the more anxiously because the contents were not
permitted to appear in the newspapers of the morning. While determined to
prosecute the war with vigour, her Majesty said she deemed it her duty
not to decline any reasonable overture promising peace. "Accordingly,"
she continued, "when the Emperor of Austria lately offered to myself and
to my august ally, the Emperor of the French, to employ his good offices
with the Emperor of Russia, with a view to endeavour to bring about an
amicable adjustment of the matters at issue between the contending Powers,
I consented, in concert with my Allies, to accept the offer thus made; and
I have the satisfaction to inform you that certain conditions have been
agreed upon, which I hope may prove the foundation of a general treaty of
peace. Negotiations for such a treaty," her Majesty added, "will shortly
be opened at Paris." And she continued--"In conducting these negotiations,
I shall be careful not to lose sight of the objects for which the war
was undertaken; and I shall deem it right in no degree to relax my naval
and military preparations until a satisfactory peace shall have been
concluded."

When the Address came under debate, Lord Gosford, the mover, expressed
the feeling of the country when he said he found himself reluctantly an
advocate of peace. That sentiment prevailed in both Houses. There were
some who, like Mr. Roebuck, gave utterance to a positive condemnation of
peace. But Mr. Roebuck was only continuing his career as accuser-general.
Lord Clarendon pointed out that when the Austrian Government offered its
good offices to bring about a peace, the British Government could not
refuse them. "However confident," he said, speaking for his colleagues,
"they might have been that another campaign would have increased the
military fame of England, and might have led to a treaty of a different
and more comprehensive character, yet such anticipations would have
been wholly unjustifiable, if they had induced us to prolong the war
when a prospect appeared of obtaining the objects for which the war was
undertaken." On the Continent the common belief was that the British
Government was insincere. This Lord Clarendon denied in explicit terms,
and there is no reason to believe he did not express the sentiment of the
nation. Lord Palmerston was far more emphatic than his Foreign Secretary
in repudiating the notion that Britain desired to go on with the war for
the sake of glory. "No doubt," he said, "the resources of the country
are unimpaired. No doubt the naval and military preparations which have
been making during the past twelve months, which are now going on, and
which will be completed in the spring, will place this country in a
position, as regards the continuance of hostilities, in which it has not
stood since the commencement of the war. We should therefore be justified
in expecting that another campaign--should another campaign be forced
upon us--would result in successes which might perhaps entitle us to
require--perhaps enable us to obtain--even better conditions than those
which have been offered to us, and have been accepted by us. But if the
conditions which we now hope to obtain are such as will properly satisfy
the objects for which we are contending--if they are conditions which we
think it is our duty to accept, and with which we believe the country
will be satisfied--then undoubtedly we should be wanting in our duty, and
should not justify the confidence which the country has reposed in us, if
we rejected terms of that description, merely for the chance of greater
successes in another campaign." The country--that is, the judgment of
the country--approved; but, as Lord Gosford said, with reluctance, much
doubting whether the work undertaken had been finished. The reluctance
sprang from that feeling, and by no means from a thirst for naval and
military glory. The nation accepted the proposal to make peace, trusting,
but not too blindly, that it would be safe and honourable; and whether it
would be so remained to be seen.

In the meantime Russia, who had yielded, but yielded with misgivings,
was very anxious it should be understood that she would not stand any
very stringent development of that fifth point, those special conditions
which the Allies had reserved their right to demand. She would not pay
any indemnity to Turkey; she hoped that no one would think of prohibiting
the re-fortification of the Åland Islands; she even suffered her organs
to talk of keeping Kars and part of Turkish Armenia. But this was all
bravado; the loud talking being intended to cover the fact that Russia
had been worsted, and to make it appear that she would enter Congress
as a Power proposing conditions. Prussia was very busy; very anxious
to be invited to the Congress; very eager to demonstrate that it was
her influence which finally induced the Czar to grant peace to Europe.
Austria did not fail to submit her peace propositions to the German
Diet, and to obtain the assent of that singularly-constituted and
abortive political corporation. Prussia again made a bid for a seat in
the Congress by supporting the proposals of Austria before the Diet; and
Austria, to please the minor German Powers, dwelt on the effect of the
expression of their opinions at St. Petersburg. Count Rechberg, who then
represented Austria at the Diet, expressed his firm conviction that the
right of proposing new conditions reserved in the fifth point would not
be exercised in a sense likely to frustrate the hopes of peace. Neither
Prussia nor the Diet was invited to the Congress; but this mysterious
discussion of the fifth point raised doubts in the minds of the public,
who were not told that the Powers had already determined that there should
be no difficulties, and that peace should be made.

February had nearly passed away before the plenipotentiaries began to
assemble. The Congress met on the 25th of the month, one day earlier than
the time fixed upon provisionally at Vienna. It was a matter of course
that Count Walewski should preside over this meeting. It is the custom
for the Minister of that Sovereign to preside in whose capital a congress
is held. But this was not done without a formal motion, made in this
case by the Austrian Plenipotentiary, and assented to unanimously by all
present. Then the Congress settled what are called the preliminaries--that
is, they gave their sanction to the transaction at Vienna on the 1st of
February. Next they resolved that an armistice should be concluded between
the belligerents, to terminate on the 31st of March unless renewed; but
not to extend to any blockade established or to be established. It was
understood, however, that no hostilities should occur off the coasts of
the enemy. Wherefore the British sent a light squadron again into the
Baltic, but merely as a measure of precaution; and, of course, the Black
Sea and Sea of Azoff remained in the hands of the Allies.

The Emperor Napoleon opened the Session of 1856 on the 4th of
March. He contrasted the state of affairs, the last time he had met
them--"Europe, uncertain, awaiting the issue of the struggle before
taking sides"--with their state at the time he was addressing them, when
the struggle for Sebastopol had been decided in favour of the Allies,
and had brought Europe over to their side openly. As a "fact of high
political significance"--truly, very high to him and his--he reminded
his subservient hearers of the visit of "the Queen of Great Britain" to
his Court, and cited it as "a proof of her confidence in and esteem for
our country." He told them also of the visit of the King of Piedmont--a
visit more significant, if his hearers could only have foreseen--and then
he said:--"These Sovereigns beheld a country some time so disturbed and
fallen from her rank in the councils of Europe, now prosperous, peaceable,
and respected, making war, not with the hurried delirium of passion, but
with that calm which belongs to justice, and all the energy of duty. They
have seen France, which had sent 200,000 men across the sea, at the same
time convoke at Paris all the arts of peace, as if she meant to say to
Europe: 'The present war is but an episode for me, and my strength is
always in great measure directed towards peaceful occupations. Let us
neglect no opportunity of coming to an understanding, and do not force me
to throw into the battlefield the whole resources and power of a great
nation.'" Such was the attitude, as it is called, of the Emperor Napoleon
in the spring of 1856. The alliance with Great Britain, the glories of the
Crimea, the Congress of Paris, had established his throne, and had made
him respectable in the eyes of his people, and for the future dreaded in
Europe.

The scene in Constantinople on the 21st of February was very different
from that in Paris. In the capital of Turkey there had also been a
conference--a conference whereat the British, French, and Austrian
Ministers had assisted the Turks in drawing up a grand Charter for the
Christians. At a solemn meeting in the room of the Grand Council this
charter was read. This firman is a very amazing document, promising almost
more than any Government could perform. It is a sweeping Charter of civil
and religious liberty, surprising to meet with in the latitude of the
Bosphorus. It decreed freedom of religion, admission to the national
schools and to public offices. There were to be mixed tribunals for all
civil and criminal cases where the parties differed in religion, and
open courts. Flogging and torture in prisons were abolished, and the use
of them made penal. As all were liable to taxes, as all were placed on
an equality of rights before the law, so there should be an equality of
duties; and the duty of serving in the army, almost a patent of nobility
in a Moslem State, became one of the duties of the Christians. In addition
to these reforms, the firman provided for the improvement of the mode
of collecting the taxes; for the publication of the Budget; for annual
assembling of a grand council of delegates; for free trade; for the right
of all to hold land. In short, it declared the resolve of the Sultan to
execute very sweeping reforms in all departments of the State, and on all
the great lines of public policy. Clearly this was more than an executive
so weak as that of the Sultan could effect, and remained for the most part
a dead letter. The Emperor of Russia did not fail to make use of this
famous firman, and tell his subjects that one of the reasons that induced
him to make peace was that the Sultan had granted that act of justice,
the want of which led the father of the Czar to make war. These two
documents--the Imperial Speech and the Sultan's firman--mark, the first,
the solid establishment of the personal power of Bonaparte; the second,
the most considerable step yet taken towards the full emancipation and
uplifting of the Christian races in the East.

The Congress of Paris sat seven weeks, opening its proceedings, as we have
seen, on the 25th of February, and closing them on the 16th of April. The
first five weeks were devoted to the discussion of the articles of the
treaty--indeed, they were determined on in the first month; put into final
shape during the last week in March, and signed on the 30th. When the work
was substantially done--that is, on the 12th of March--Prussia was at
length gratified by an invitation to send plenipotentiaries, and to accede
to what had been already determined on. As she had abstained from taking
part in the war, Prussia could have no place in a conference assembled
to settle terms of peace. But as the articles to be negotiated trenched
upon treaties relating to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, to which
Prussia was a party in 1840 and 1841, it was thought fit to invite her to
accede to the conclusions adopted by the other Powers. Prussia, of course,
readily accepted such a pretext for putting the names of her Ministers and
her Sovereign at the foot of a European treaty; and thus on the 18th of
March, at the tenth sitting of the conference, Baron Manteuffel and Baron
Hatzfeld took their seats at the round table in the Hall of Ambassadors.
Thus there were seven Powers represented around that green board at the
closing scenes of a diplomatic conference which was so gratifying to the
Emperor and all Frenchmen. Nor was this the sole piece of good fortune
that befell his Majesty, for on the 16th day of March there came into the
world a Prince Imperial, the only child of the marriage between Louis
Napoleon Buonaparte and Eugénie de Montijo, the bright Spanish beauty
chosen by him when his overtures at imperial and royal Courts went for
nought. As in duty bound, the plenipotentiaries waited on the Emperor
to congratulate him, and Paris, as in duty bound, covered itself with
illuminations.

It was on a Sunday afternoon, a fortnight after this event, that the
treaty of peace was signed by the plenipotentiaries. The Treaty of Paris
was not a very long or complicated document. It consisted of a preamble
and thirty-four articles, and there were attached to it three conventions,
each having the same force as the general treaty. In the preamble the six
Powers declared their intention to establish and consolidate a peace "by
securing, through effectual and reciprocal guarantees, the independence
and integrity of the Ottoman Empire," and, further, they recorded that
Prussia was invited to participate in the arrangements come to. Peace
being established, Russia was to restore Kars and the country occupied
by her troops in Turkish Armenia, and the Allies were to restore the
towns and ports of Sebastopol, Balaclava, Kamiesch, Kertch, Yenikale,
and Kinburn, and all other Russian territory occupied by them. Each
Power was to grant an amnesty to those of their subjects who had been
employed against them, or who had otherwise compromised themselves.
This was done to meet the case of Poles who had taken service with the
Allies. All prisoners of war were to be given up. The whole of the seven
Powers declared formally that the Sublime Porte should be admitted to
participate in the advantages of the public law and system of Europe.
"Their Majesties," the treaty went on (Article VII.), "engage, each on his
part, to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman
Empire; guarantee in common the strict observance of that engagement,
and will, in consequence, consider any act tending to its violation as a
question of general interest." If a quarrel arose between the Porte and
one of the Powers, before force was resorted to, the other Powers were
to have an opportunity of preventing by mediation the outbreak of war.
It was then recorded that the Sultan would communicate to each Power
the firman he had issued touching his Christian subjects; but it was
expressly declared that this act of the Sultan did not confer on all, or
any, of the Powers any right to interfere in the internal affairs of his
empire. The Black Sea was "neutralised"; that is, all ships of war, with
recognised exceptions, were prohibited from entering its waters, while it
was to be free to the mercantile marine of every nation. The exceptions
were specified in a convention between Russia and Turkey, annexed to the
general treaty, and equally valid with it. By this convention the two
Powers were each to maintain not more than six steamships of 800 tons,
and four light vessels of 200 tons. It was also provided in the treaty
that no military-maritime arsenal should be maintained by either Power on
the coasts of the Black Sea. Consuls were to be admitted to any port. The
navigation of the Danube was declared to be free, and a commission was to
be appointed to clear the mouths, improve and regulate the navigation,
and pay the expenses out of a shipping rate. Thus the Black Sea was set
apart for commerce and the Danube opened to all the world. This was what,
in the language of diplomacy, was called the neutralisation of the Black
Sea. Russia would not admit that the terms of this treaty applied to the
building-yards of Kherson and Nicolaief, or to the Sea of Azoff; but
Count Orloff gave a promise, which was recorded in the protocols, that
Russia would not build "anywhere on the shores of the Black Sea, or in its
tributaries, or in the waters dependent on it," any ships other than those
allowed by treaty. This was accepted as a binding engagement.

In order to show that the Allies did not exchange the territories held by
them in return for Kars, it was expressly stated that in exchange for the
ports in the Crimea held by the Allies, and the better to secure the free
navigation of the Danube, Russia consented to what was absurdly called
"the rectification of the frontier of Bessarabia." The new frontier was
to start from the river Pruth, at a point where it was not navigable,
and follow a line which would exclude Russia altogether from the Danube,
and take from her the fortress of Ismail and Kilia Nova. A commission
was to trace the new line, and of that we shall have to speak at a later
stage, as it nearly gave rise to a renewal of the war. The remainder of
the treaty provided for the future status of the Danubian Principalities.
They were placed under the collective guarantee of the seven Powers.
Their rights and privileges were to be secured, their laws and statutes
revised, and a commission was to report on their new organisation, after
taking counsel of Divans called for the purpose of expressing the wants
of the people. Finally, the Sultan was to give his sanction to the new
arrangements, and then the Principalities passed under the protection of
the seven Powers. These were the chief stipulations of this remarkable
treaty.

We have said that there were three conventions annexed to the general
treaty. One we have described already. The second, signed by all the
Powers, recorded the declaration of the Sultan that he would continue to
prohibit the entry of ships of war into the Straits of the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus, and would not admit any so long as he was at peace;
and the other Powers agreed to respect this determination of the Sultan.
There were exceptions, as in the case of ships bearing ambassadors,
admitted by permission of the Sultan, and of ships that the contracting
Powers might send to keep watch over the mouths of the Danube. The third
convention was signed by the Ministers of France, England, and Russia,
and it recorded the undertaking of the Czar "that the Åland Islands shall
not be fortified, and that no military or naval establishments shall be
maintained or created there." We may here remark that the Allies, after
the capture of Bomarsund, offered these islands to Sweden, but that
Sweden, fearing to offend Russia, and apprehensive of the burden they
might prove, declined the gift. The islands lie at the mouth of the Gulf
of Bothnia, off the Swedish capital. It was in the interest of Sweden that
this convention was made.

By this treaty and these conventions the Allies secured the object of
the war, which really was the reduction of the power of Russia. They not
only destroyed Sebastopol and the Black Sea fleet, they prohibited the
revival of fleet or arsenal; they removed Russia from the Danube; they
deprived her altogether of that exclusive protectorate over the Danubian
Principalities which she had extorted from the Porte, and declared
null and void that pretended protectorate over the Christian subjects
of the Sultan to which Nicholas violently laid claim; they gave Turkey
a collective guarantee, and they thus delivered her from the grinding
pressure of Russia, and struck out of the hands of the Czar those two
formidable weapons of coercion--a mighty arsenal and fleet. Without these,
it was thought, an invasion of Turkey from the north would be almost
impossible, and the chances of working down upon Constantinople from the
east--that is, from Kars--would become very slight. Moreover, by newly
organising the Principalities, the Powers provided for the growth of a
national Christian State, one of a group which, when the time comes, will
take the place of the Turk on the Danube, the Bosphorus, and the European
shores of the Levant. In the Baltic the Allies reduced the power of the
Czar, and delivered Sweden from a standing menace. So that, on the whole,
the fruits of the war were considerable, though not so considerable as
they might have been had the war gone on. That peace was then justly made
no rational man will deny; for, although all had not been accomplished,
enough had been done to meet the exigencies of the period.

With these stipulations Britain, Austria, and France were not content.
They took a remarkable step. They, on the 15th of April, signed a treaty
of guarantee. That is to say, they jointly and severally guaranteed the
integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire; and declared that "any
infraction of the stipulations" of the general treaty, signed on the 30th
of March, would be considered by these three Powers as a _casus belli_.
This was a very strong measure; and when it became known, as it soon did,
Russia, though offended at a want of confidence, saw that she must not
attempt to wriggle out of the conditions she had subscribed. Nevertheless,
she did, at a later period, succeed in frustrating the intention of that
stipulation which removed her altogether from the Danube, and thrust back
her frontier from its banks and waters.

The Congress of Paris did not restrict its attention to those points which
arose directly out of the war. The Congress indeed sat for a fortnight
after the peace treaty had been concluded, and took some remarkable
steps. On the 8th of April, for instance, Count Walewski, as president,
submitted to the Congress no fewer than four important subjects, and
invited discussion. It was a rather unusual proceeding; but it showed
the tendency, which afterwards became more manifest, to draw all great
questions for settlement to Paris, and to bring about a sort of government
of Europe by congresses. Count Walewski called for the opinions of the
plenipotentiaries on the condition of Greece, Italy, and Belgium, and
suggested a new declaration of maritime law. Greece had been occupied by
the Allies for contumacious conduct; before the troops were withdrawn, the
evils must be remedied. In Italy, France, "the eldest son of the Church,"
occupied Rome--that was abnormal, and the Emperor was ready to withdraw
his troops as soon as he could do so without injuring the interests of the
Pope--a safe promise. Count Walewski hoped Count Buol would say the same
for Austria, whose troops were in the Romagna and Tuscany. Then there was
a violent attack on Belgium. What Count Walewski said on this topic was
that there were outspoken enemies of the Emperor in Belgium, that they
abused the freedom of the press, that this might be dangerous for Belgium,
and that the Powers, perhaps, would be good enough to say that Belgium
must pass severe laws and repress these excesses. This was very uncalled
for, not to say insolent, conduct on the part of the French Minister.
Lord Clarendon and Count Cavour spoke with some freedom, and seemed to
concur with Count Walewski's Italian views, joining in the blows aimed at
Austria and Naples. Count Cavour, indeed, was eloquent on the subject of
the Austrian occupation of the Romagna, and the very tyrannical conduct of
the King of the Two Sicilies. But the other plenipotentiaries seemed to be
rather taken by surprise by the French manœuvre and said little. Even Lord
Clarendon did not repel with sufficient, with any vigour, the unwarranted
attack on Belgium. So that Count Walewski, in summing up the results of
the conversation, could record some sort of hollow agreement as to the
principles he laid down affecting Greece, Italy, and Belgium. In fact,
the object of the French minister was to bring Italy bodily before the
Congress, to pave the way for a policy which was to put a violent end to
Austrian occupation, and leave French occupation as flourishing as it was
when Count Walewski affected to lament its existence before the Congress
of 1856. Italy was introduced to satisfy also the urgent demands of Count
Cavour, who had already begun to meditate on plans for his country's
liberation with the aid of Britain or France. Italy therefore, at the
Congress of 1856, was the shadow of a coming event.

The suggested new declaration on maritime law also took the
plenipotentiaries by surprise. They demanded time, but a week
afterwards--namely, on the 16th of April--they agreed to a declaration
which was annexed to the treaty, and understood to be binding on those who
signed it and on those who might accede to it. The points solemnly set
forth as for the future international law were these:--"1. Privateering
is, and remains, abolished. 2. The neutral flag covers enemies' goods,
with the exception of contraband of war. 3. Neutral goods, with the
exception of contraband of war, are not liable to seizure under an enemy's
flag. 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective--that is
to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to
the coast of an enemy." This forms a great landmark in the history of
belligerent and neutral rights. It marks the enlargement of neutral, and
the restriction of belligerent rights; and by many it was thought that the
surrender of the right to take enemies' goods wherever found would prove
injurious, unless accompanied by an abolition of the right of capturing
private property at sea altogether. Certainly Britain surrendered a
great deal to the neutral and non-maritime Powers; and when she had done
so, the greatest, the United States of America, would not accede to the
declaration--would not agree to abolish privateering unless Europe agreed
to abolish the right of capturing private property at sea.

[Illustration: SCENE DURING THE PRESTON STRIKE. (_See p._ 162.)]

Another incident worth notice occurred at this Congress, and chiefly
because it relates to the adoption of a principle for which marked
success cannot yet be claimed. Much moved by the Peace party, Government
permitted Lord Clarendon to propose a sort of arbitration clause. He
observed that the treaty embodied the principle as applied to differences
between the contracting Powers and Turkey. He proposed that the happy
innovation should receive a more general application without prejudice
to the independence of Governments. Count Walewski and Baron Manteuffel
concurred, but Count Buol and Count Orloff gave it merely their personal
assent. "Whereupon," so runs the protocol, "the plenipotentiaries do
not hesitate to express in the name of their Governments the wish that
States between which any serious misunderstanding may arise should, before
appealing to arms, have recourse, as well as circumstances might allow,
to the good offices of a friendly Power. The plenipotentiaries hope
that the Governments not represented at the Congress will unite in the
sentiment which has inspired the wish recorded in the present protocol."
The principle of international arbitration, though generally accepted in
theory, is still far from being reduced to practice.

On the very day when the peace documents were laid before the British
Parliament, April 28th, the Opposition determined to censure the
Government for the loss of Kars. To this end it was necessary to treat the
fate of Kars as a matter entirely under the control of the Government;
to forget that Britain was engaged with Allies, and to assume that the
British Government had shown a deficiency of "foresight and energy."
On that ground Mr. Whiteside, acting for his party, based a motion of
censure. Lord Malmesbury, in the House of Peers, had also given notice
of a similar motion, but found it expedient to withdraw his notice, and
accept battle in the House of Commons. This debate unhappily, like so many
others, was a mere party encounter. The Opposition did not believe that
Kars could have been saved by the British Government in the circumstances;
but they found in the facts of the campaign admirable material for a party
attack. The real causes of the loss of Kars were twofold--the indolence
and corruption of the Turkish Pashas, whose conduct deprived Kars of the
provisions actually collected to victual the place; and the indisposition
of the French Emperor to permit the diversion to Asia of any effective
troops, who might have operated in time to relieve the garrison. Britain,
as happened in all cases where it acted in combination with Imperial
France, played a secondary, one might almost say a subordinate, part. That
is the price it paid for an active alliance with France. Consequently no
effective measures were taken to defend the Turkish frontier in Asia.
The House, not being prepared to censure the Government for deference
to an ally--a deference which could not be avoided without risk to the
alliance--rejected Mr. Whiteside's motion of censure by a majority of 303
to 176.

As a matter of course the peace treaty, when communicated to Parliament,
became a subject of high debate. The Address to her Majesty, agreed to by
both Houses, thanked the Queen for communicating the treaty to Parliament,
and assured her that, while they would have cheerfully supported her had
the war gone on, yet that they had learned with "joy and satisfaction"
that a peace had been concluded on conditions which so fully accomplished
the objects for which the war was undertaken. The Address took note of the
aid given by Powers not belligerents towards the restoration of peace,
and expressed a hope that it would be lasting. The debates in both Houses
were really without life or novelty, and do not concern posterity. The
Opposition only pretended to be dissatisfied. One called it a "base"
peace, yet would not divide against it; and another proposed to omit the
word "joy," yet leave in the word "satisfaction." In fact, the division on
the Kars resolution took the sting out of the Opposition speeches; and
the Address, unaltered, was agreed to without a dissentient. On the 8th
of May thanks were voted to the army and navy; and the Queen sent down a
message to state that she had raised General Williams to the dignity of
a baronet, with the style and title of Sir Fenwick Williams of Kars, and
had resolved to grant him a pension of one thousand pounds a year. This
gave great satisfaction, and met with ready support. On the 29th of May
the Queen's birthday was kept, and London illuminated in celebration of
the peace. Prince Albert inspected the Guards; the Queen held a Drawing
Room; and in the evening--her Majesty and her family witnessing the
spectacle from the balcony of Buckingham Palace--there were four grand and
continuous outbursts of fireworks, from the Green Park, from Hyde Park,
from Primrose Hill, and from Victoria Park. So London rejoiced, and the
towns in the country rejoiced also, that the war was at an end.

We have seen how the war arose, how it was waged, and how the objects
sought were accomplished. It is right that the cost in life and money
should also be recorded. According to Lord Panmure, our total loss up
to the 31st of March, 1856, of killed, dead of wounds and disease, and
discharged, was 22,467 men. The Russian loss was upwards of 500,000. The
cost in money, as estimated by Sir George Lewis, was fifty-three millions.
We increased the funded and unfunded debt by £33,604,263, and we raised
by increased taxation above £17,000,000. But the war left us with very
largely increased establishments; and the peace of Europe has since been
so often threatened that our Chancellors of the Exchequer have not been
able to reduce the expenditure to the comparatively low level of the years
immediately preceding the revival of the French Empire. The navy was
greatly augmented, having been raised from a force of 212 to a force of
590 effective ships of war. The organisation of the army and navy was much
improved; and in 1856 Great Britain stood in a better position as regards
offensive and defensive operations than it had done at any previous period
since the peace of 1815.

The execution of the conditions of the treaty of peace went on for many
months after its conclusion; but ultimately the Danubian Principalities
received a definite organisation, and succeeded, even in spite of the
temporary opposition of Britain, Austria, and the Porte, in obtaining
a united Government by the junction of Wallachia and Moldavia under
the name of Roumania. The new frontier also was traced; but not without
involving Europe in the danger of war. First of all Russia claimed the
Isle of Serpents, off the mouth of the Danube, and occupied it. Admiral
Lyons at once placed it under the watch and ward of a man-of-war. The
object of tracing a new frontier in Bessarabia was to remove Russia from
the Danube. In deciding the line roughly on maps produced by the French
at Paris, it was agreed that the Russian frontier should run to the
south of a place called Bolgrad, it being understood that this Bolgrad
was not on the banks of a lake--Lake Jalpukh--which ran into the Danube.
But the frontier commission found that Bolgrad was actually on the lake.
The maps exhibited were delusive. The place called Bolgrad on these maps
was Bolgrad-Tabak. There had either been a deception practised, or a
misunderstanding on all sides. The Russians, however, insisted on the
letter of the treaty; and strangely enough, the French Government showed
a disposition to support them. But Britain, Austria, and Turkey stood
out. At one moment, in consequence of the lurch of the Imperial mind
towards Russia, war was possible. Better counsels prevailed, and it was
arranged that a conference should sit to decide this knotty point. The
conference sat on the 31st of December, 1856, and the 6th of January,
1857. The result of its secret deliberations was that Russia had to give
up the Isle of Serpents and both Bolgrads; but she gained a considerable
slice of Moldavia, though not on the Danube, as "compensation." The delta
of the Danube reverted to Turkey; the remainder of the ceded territory
to Roumania. The French Emperor supported the Russian demands. It was
owing to the firmness of Lord Palmerston that Russia, in spite of the aid
of the Emperor Napoleon, was restrained from then becoming one of the
river-bordering Powers on the Danube.

By way of a pleasant epilogue to the Crimean War came the first
distribution of the Victoria Cross, a ceremony which took place in Hyde
Park on the 26th of June, 1857. It had long been felt that a distinctive
token was wanted to meet the individual acts of heroism in the army and
navy, and this impression was strengthened by the numerous deeds of valour
by which the struggle for Sebastopol had been rendered illustrious.
Accordingly the Queen had issued a royal warrant in the previous year
by which a new naval and military decoration was instituted, to be
styled "The Victoria Cross," and inscribed "For Valour," which was only
to be issued to men who had especially distinguished themselves in the
presence of the enemy. The destined recipients paraded at an early hour
on the appointed day, and were found to be sixty-two in all, twelve
from the Royal Navy, two from the marines, five from the cavalry, five
from the artillery, four from the engineers, and the remainder from the
line. The popular favourite was Lieutenant John Knox, who after greatly
distinguishing himself in the Fusilier Guards, lost his arm in the attack
on the Redan. Already more than 100,000 people were assembled in the
Park, where a vast semicircle of seats to hold 12,000 had been erected
for the favoured few. It was a glorious morning, when at 10 a.m. the
Queen--accompanied by the Prince Consort, Prince Frederick William of
Prussia, and a brilliant military suite--rode into the Park on a favourite
roan horse. The actual ceremony was of the briefest; the Queen, without
dismounting, pinned the cross upon the breast of each of the men as they
were brought up to her one by one, and in ten minutes the honours had been
bestowed. But the assembled multitude was highly delighted by the march
past of the 4,000 soldiers who had been brought on the ground to give
brilliancy to the occasion, and taken as a whole the brief record in the
Prince Consort's diary--"a superb spectacle"--was amply merited.




CHAPTER XI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Prorogation of 1853--End of the Kaffir and Burmese Wars--The Wages
    Movement--The Preston Strike--End of the Struggle--The Crystal
    Palace--Its Opening by the Queen--Marriage of the Emperor of
    the French--His Reception of the Prince Consort--His Visit to
    England--At Guildhall--The Queen's Return Visit--Festivities in
    Paris--Lord Lyndhurst on Italy--Lord Clarendon's Reply--Similar
    Debate in the Commons--Speeches of Russell, Palmerston, and
    Disraeli--Withdrawal of the Western Missions from Naples--The
    Anglo-French Alliance--The Suez Canal--The _Arrow_ Affair--Debate
    in the House of Lords--Mr. Cobden's Resolution--Mr. Labouchere's
    Reply--Lord Palmerston's Speech--The Division--Announcement of a
    Dissolution--Retirement of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre--Lord Palmerston's
    Victory at the Polls--Mr. Denison elected Speaker--Betrothal
    of the Princess Royal--Her Allowance--Abolition of "Ministers'
    Money"--The new Probate Court--The Divorce Bill in the Lords--The
    Bishop of Oxford's Amendments--Motions of Mr. Henley and Sir W.
    Heathcote--Major Warburton's Amendment--The Bill becomes Law--The
    Orsini Plot--Walewski's Despatch--Subsequent Correspondence--The
    Conspiracy to Murder Bill--Debate on the Second Reading--Defeat of
    the Government--The Derby Ministry.


The war with Russia, the conclusion of which has just been recorded, and
its effects on political parties and Cabinets, so fully absorbed the
attention of Parliament and the public while it lasted, that comparatively
little progress was made in the work of domestic legislation. It was not,
however, altogether neglected. At the prorogation on the 20th of August,
1853, her Majesty congratulated Parliament on the remission of taxes which
tended to cramp the operations of trade and industry; on the extension
of the system of beneficent legislation, which increased the means of
obtaining the necessaries of life; on the buoyant state of the revenue; on
the steady progress of foreign trade; on the prosperity that pervaded the
great trading and producing classes, without even a partial exception--all
affording continued and increasing evidence of the enlarged comforts of
the people. The Queen at the same time announced the termination of the
Kaffir War, which had lasted since the beginning of 1851, the Kaffirs
having repeatedly defeated our troops, and spread havoc through the
villages. At length they were enabled to bring against us an army of
6,000 horsemen. They were attacked by the Governor-General Cathcart, with
2,000 British troops, and defeated with great loss. The result was that
they accepted the terms of peace he proposed. The Royal Speech expressed
the hope that the establishment of representative government in the
Cape Colony would lead to the development of its resources, and enable
it to make efficient provision for its own defence. Another subject of
congratulation was the termination of the war with Burmah, which commenced
in January, 1851, and was caused by the exactions of the Governor of
Rangoon from British traders. At first the Court of Ava promised redress,
but the Governor refused to receive the British representative, Captain
Fishbourne, and Lord Dalhousie's ultimatum was treated with contempt.
Accordingly a British naval force arrived before Rangoon, under Commodore
Lambert, who, on January 4th, 1852, destroyed the fortifications of the
Irrawaddy, and a few months later stormed Martaban, Rangoon, and Bassein.
Later in the year Pegu was captured, and annexed to our Indian Empire. The
objects of the war having been thus fully attained, and due submission
made by the Burmese Government, peace was proclaimed.

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.]

The Session of 1853 had been a fruitful one--116 Bills had been
introduced by the Ministry, of which 104 passed into law, 10 having
been withdrawn, and 2 only rejected. This was the peaceful work of the
Coalition Ministry, under the Earl of Aberdeen, which was destined to end
its existence so ingloriously. Two powerful causes came into operation
soon after, which clouded the political atmosphere, and gradually spread
feelings of discontent and despondency throughout the nation--a bad
harvest and a costly war miserably conducted. The effects of the short
harvest were greatly aggravated by what was called "the Wages Movement,"
which commenced in April. It was generally felt by the skilled artisans
that, though their employment was constant and their wages good, they
did not obtain a fair measure of the extraordinary profits resulting
from their labour. The consequence was a general organisation of the
trades to extort better terms from their employers, enforced--if need
were--by strikes. The artisans engaged in the woollen manufacture led the
way in putting forth their demands. They were followed by carpenters,
shipwrights, waggon-wrights, and almost every class of operative. Large
concessions were made to some classes, and those employed in the coal
trade especially received enormous wages. But, as the prices of provisions
continued to rise the movement spread to every part of the United Kingdom,
assuming its most formidable aspect in the manufacturing districts, where
strikes became general, and many mills were closed. A common fund was
established for the purpose of supporting the unemployed workmen, and it
was hoped that the manufacturers would soon be compelled to give way. But
the masters formed a counter-combination, and wherever a partial or local
strike occurred, they all agreed to close their works, and thus to starve
the operatives into surrender. The result was a bitter controversy, and a
desperate struggle between capital and labour, which lasted with unabated
obstinacy throughout the year, but, happily, unaccompanied by such
acts of violence as attended strikes in former times, when the working
classes were not so well educated. The leaders of the movement were able,
intelligent, and energetic. The plan of the campaign was to conquer in
detail, directing the attack against some particular town, compelling
the firms to succumb individually till the capitalists of that district
were subdued, and then carrying the war to another place. They hoped by
this means to receive ample supplies for continuing the contest, because
the great mass of workmen would always be employed, and would be able to
support those that were out on strike. Preston and Burnley were the places
in which the operations commenced on a large scale, and the contest that
followed will be long remembered as "the Preston Strike." In that town,
upwards of 15,000 idle hands were supported by contributions from the
employed, which were so abundant, at first, that the enormous sum of
£3,000 was distributed weekly--equal to about five shillings a head on an
average. On this allowance they managed to exist for thirty-seven weeks.
The effects were in some respects like those produced by the cotton-famine
in Lancashire. First, the deposits in the saving-banks, and the sums
insured for age and sickness, were consumed in obtaining the necessaries
of life. Personal ornaments and wearing apparel were next sacrificed--sold
for trifling sums to meet the cravings of hunger. With poor, scanty food,
ragged clothes, and domestic discomfort of every kind, the habits of the
operatives became debased and their tempers morose. The retail traders
who depended upon them became bankrupt; many substantial shopkeepers were
ruined; trade everywhere languished and the distress grew general. Still
the operatives held out heroically, they insisted on one-tenth of the
profits of their labour; the watchword still passed from rank to rank;
they shouted enthusiastically, "Ten per cent. and no surrender!" It was
stated that the passion produced by this abstract idea became a sort of
religious conviction, and in one place the people assembled in a chapel
and sang a hymn to "ten per cent."

But, as in wars between nations, the belligerents were ultimately
compelled to come to terms by sheer exhaustion; the workers, as invariably
happens in such suicidal contests, were the first to fail. In April, 1854,
the supplies were diminished to a miserable pittance, the cardloom hands
receiving but a shilling a week each. The contributions from distant
towns fell off, while the demand was more than doubled by the men of
Stockport, to the number of 18,000, suddenly throwing themselves upon the
fund. As Stockport had contributed £200 a week to the fund which they
thus overburdened, the struggle was necessarily brought to an abrupt
conclusion. On the 1st of May, therefore, the committee announced that the
employers had succeeded in their "unholy crusade" and that the operatives
generally had deserted them in their hour of utmost need. The mills were
opened and work was resumed; but some thousands failed to find employment
and were reduced to destitution and pauperism. It has been computed that
the sums expended in maintaining the unemployed in Preston alone amounted
to £100,000. The loss of wages was more than three times that amount;
and altogether the loss to the working classes by that disastrous strike
could not be less than £500,000. The loss of capital to the manufacturers
must have been incalculable, not to speak of the ruin of a multitude of
shopkeepers. The principal leader was afterwards imprisoned for debt,
contracted in carrying on the war.

We pass from this painful subject to a scene that furnishes a contrast. On
the 10th of June, 1854, the Queen opened the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
Many of those who witnessed the Exhibition in Hyde Park deplored the
demolition of that magnificent structure, which the Commissioners of Woods
and Forests would not suffer to remain. The materials were purchased
by a private company, and removed to a new site on the summit of Penge
Hill, upon which a new palace was constructed. A full description of
this structure would be out of place here. It had three transepts, the
centre one being 120 feet wide, and 208 feet high from the garden front.
The whole nave was covered with an arched roof. This palace crowned an
eminence from which there is a commanding view of the metropolis and
of the rich and vast plains of Surrey and Kent. Internally, the palace
was constructed upon the principle of illustrating the architecture
of different ages, keeping in view its purposes as an educational
institution. Thus it comprised a series of palaces, Egyptian, Assyrian,
Grecian, Byzantine, Moorish, German, French, English, and Italian. All
these buildings, excepting the Egyptian, were reproduced on the scale
of their originals. The building was filled with statues, casts of the
great masterpieces of art, paintings, representations of savage tribes,
exotic shrubs and plants, and art-collections of various kinds; while in
the way of concerts, exhibitions, festivals, and fireworks, multitudes of
pleasure-seekers were congregated. Though created by the enterprise of a
private company, the Crystal Palace was in every respect worthy of the
metropolis, and continued to be patronised by the masses, rather than the
classes, though its immense size and cost of maintenance prohibited its
becoming a distinct commercial success.

The inauguration was witnessed by 40,000 spectators. Around the dais
in the centre transept were gathered the representatives of Britain's
greatness and nobility. The Lord Primate and Ministers of State were on
the left of the throne; on the right sat the diplomatic body. In front
were the directors of the company, in court dresses, with the Lord Mayor
of London, his brothers of Dublin and York, and other provincial magnates.
The members of Parliament and their families filled the lower galleries
of the great transept. The Queen and Prince Albert arrived at three
o'clock, and entered the palace, preceded by Sir Joseph Paxton and Mr.
Laing. With her Majesty were the King of Portugal, his brother, the Duke
of Oporto, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, Prince Alfred, the
Princess Alice, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duchess and Princess Mary
of Cambridge. The National Anthem having been performed with very grand
effect, Mr. Laing, the chairman of the company, presented an address to
her Majesty, to which a most gracious answer was returned. The designers
of the building, and the scientific gentlemen who had undertaken the
formation of the different departments, were then presented. This ceremony
gone through, a procession was formed to perambulate the palace, the Queen
in her circuit being warmly welcomed as she passed. This done, her Majesty
and her immediate circle returned to the elevated platform, the Ministers
of State and other public functionaries surrounding the dais as before.
Then the One Hundredth Psalm, in all its simple grandeur of harmony, was
pealed by the thousand voices and accompanying instruments of the choir.
This led, by a natural transition, to the Archbishop of Canterbury's
dedicatory prayer. The prayer was followed by the Hallelujah Chorus--a
triumph of music; and the Queen, through the Lord Chamberlain, pronounced
the Crystal Palace open. Once more the National Anthem rose and swelled
under the lofty vaults and then the Queen departed.

The Emperor of the French left nothing undone to secure his position and
establish his dynasty. All the Continental monarchs of Europe, except
the Czar, admitted him into the family of Sovereigns, addressing him as
"_Monsieur, mon frère_." The Emperor Nicholas could not overcome his
scruples on the point of legitimacy, and had recourse to a compromise, and
addressed him as "_Mon cher ami_," a slight which Louis Napoleon felt,
but prudently passed over. The next step was to choose an empress. It was
said at the time that his overtures of matrimonial alliance with several
royal families were rejected, and these statements are now known to have
been correct. He consoled himself with satisfactory reasons why such an
alliance would not be desirable, and that he did much better by selecting
for his bride Eugénie de Montijo, Countess-Duchess of Teba. The speech of
the Emperor, announcing his intended marriage, on the 22nd of January,
1853, to the Senate and Corps Législatif, is remarkable. He avowed at
the outset that the union did not accord with the traditions of ancient
policy; but therein lay its advantage. A royal alliance would create a
feeling of false security, and might substitute family interest for that
of the nation. Besides, for the last seventy years foreign princesses had
ascended the steps of the throne only to behold their offspring dispersed
and proscribed by war or revolution. One woman only brought with her good
fortune, the good and modest wife of General Buonaparte, and she was not
the issue of a royal family. "When," he said, "in the face of all Europe
a man is raised by the force of a new principle to the level of the
long-established dynasties, it is not by giving an ancient character to
his blazon, and by endeavouring to introduce himself, at any price, into
the family of kings, that he can get himself accepted; it is rather by
always bearing in mind his origin, by preserving his peculiar character,
and by frankly taking up before Europe the position of one who has arrived
at fortune (_position de parvenu_)--a glorious position, when success
is achieved by the free suffrage of a great people." He then lauded the
bride-elect for her varied moral, mental, and personal accomplishments,
saying, "I have preferred a woman whom I love and respect to one unknown,
and whose alliance would have advantages mingled with sacrifices--placing
independence, qualities of heart, and family happiness above dynastic
prejudices and calculations of ambition." The marriage ceremony, preceded
by the civil contract, was performed with great pomp by the archbishop in
Notre Dame.

In September, 1854, the Emperor being in the north of France, on the
pretext of inspecting the camp established there, he had the gratification
of being honoured with several royal visits. The King of the Belgians,
with his eldest son, and the King of Portugal, with the Duke of Oporto,
went to see him at Boulogne, and met with a very cordial reception. But
what gratified him more than all was a visit from the Prince Consort. The
Emperor, attended by a splendid suite, went down to the quay to receive
him and they both warmly shook hands. Nothing was left undone that could
gratify the English visitor, and the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Harding, Lord
Seaton, and other noblemen who accompanied him. Reviews, illuminations,
fireworks, banquets, balls, followed one another in rapid succession
during the time of the visit, which had the effect of strengthening the
_entente cordiale_ between the two Courts.

It was further ratified by the visit of the Emperor and Empress to the
Queen on Monday the 16th of April, 1855--an event which produced a
profound impression throughout Europe. It was indeed a strange phenomenon
that an Emperor of France, the heir and successor of Napoleon, should be
a welcome and popular guest in England, honoured by the Sovereign and
cheered by the people; this guest being moreover the author of the _coup
d'état_. Prince Albert went to Dover to meet the illustrious visitors,
who landed amid the salutes of the military and the booming of guns on
the heights, the Empress leaning on the Prince's arm. The line of streets
between the London terminus and the Great Western Railway was decorated
with flags and evergreens, and the Imperial party, as they drove along,
were received with enthusiastic cheers. At seven p.m. they arrived at
Windsor Castle, and were received by her Majesty and the Royal Family,
with the great officers of State and of the Household, in the grand hall,
whence the guests were conducted up the grand staircase, and through the
music-room and throne-room, to the reception-room. That evening there was
a dinner-party in St. George's Hall; next day the same, followed by a
brilliant evening party. On Wednesday the Queen made the Emperor a Knight
of the Garter--a very significant ceremony in the circumstances, which was
performed with the utmost magnificence, the Prince Consort helping her
Majesty to buckle the garter on the left leg of the Emperor. Her Majesty
accompanied the Emperor to his apartments, followed by the Empress and
the Prince Consort, and attended by the ladies and gentlemen of the royal
suites. On the evening of that day the Queen gave a State dinner, when, by
her Majesty's command, the Lord Steward of the Household gave the toast of
"The Emperor and the Empress of the French." The State apartments which
were occupied by the Imperial guests were gorgeously decorated for the
occasion.

On Thursday the Emperor and Empress proceeded to London in order to
visit the City, the Queen and the Prince accompanying them to Buckingham
Palace. On the route from Nine Elms to the palace they enjoyed a continual
ovation. The Emperor and Empress and suite were conveyed thence to the
City in six of the Queen's State carriages, the principal one being
drawn by cream-coloured horses; the Life Guards escorting the carriages,
and Carabineers and Blues keeping the ground. As they proceeded along
the Mall, the Strand, Fleet Street, Cheapside, to Guildhall, a vast and
orderly multitude thronged the streets, looked down from the windows and
house-tops, from the roofs of omnibuses, and every available position;
while the scene was enlivened by a profusion of union-jacks and tricolors,
lively peals of church bells, hearty cheers from the people, martial
music, and brilliant sunshine. It was calculated that more than a million
spectators witnessed the sight. They were received at the Guildhall by
the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, with the City magnates. The Emperor was
dressed as a general of division, wearing the insignia of the Garter and
of the Legion of Honour. After receiving an address from the Corporation,
the Imperial party partook of _déjeuner_ and then proceeded by a different
route to Buckingham Palace. In the evening the Queen and her guests paid a
State visit to the Royal Italian Opera, the house being fitted up superbly
for the occasion. In the evening the City and the West End were splendidly
illuminated. On Friday the Queen and her guests visited the Crystal Palace
at Sydenham, where an immense assembly had an opportunity of seeing them
as they leisurely promenaded through the building. On Saturday the Emperor
and Empress departed, accompanied to Dover by the Prince Consort and the
Duke of Cambridge. The Imperial visit was eminently satisfactory to all
parties, and a friendship between the royal families was established
which was destined to outlive good days and endure into misfortune so far
as the Napoleons were concerned. It was politically important, inasmuch
as it arose out of an alliance between nations regarded as hereditary
enemies, and was so far from being within the calculations of statesmen
that the whole policy of the Continental Powers was based upon its assumed
impossibility.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING THE CRYSTAL PALACE. (_See p._ 163.)]

Her Majesty was pleased to return the Imperial visit on the 18th of August
following. In a historical point of view this event was most interesting.
No English sovereign had beheld the French capital for four centuries,
since the infant Henry VI. was crowned at Paris in 1422. The Queen,
accompanied by the Prince Consort, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess
Royal, started from Osborne at half-past four in the morning on the 18th
of August, 1855, and arrived at Boulogne at half-past one the same day.
The appearance of the royal squadron was announced by discharges from
cannon on the heights and batteries on shore, by volleys of musketry, and
the cheers of a vast multitude of spectators. A pavilion had been erected
on the pier, in which the Emperor, surrounded by a brilliant suite,
awaited the approach of his royal guests. The instant the royal yacht ran
alongside, he hastened on board and saluted the Queen, kissing her hand
and both cheeks. He then shook hands with the Prince Consort, the Prince
of Wales and the Princess Royal, and with every mark of joy and welcome
conducted them to the pavilion. He rode beside the Queen's carriage to the
railway station. At half-past two the train started for Paris. From the
terminus of the Strasburg railway to the Palace of St. Cloud the houses
were gaily dressed with tapestry, flowers, and evergreens; the windows
and streets were crowded by people in every variety of costume; 200,000
soldiers and National Guards formed double lines five miles long. The
glitter of the arms, the splendour and variety of the dresses, mingling
their colours with the verdure of the trees in the Champs Élysées and
the Bois de Boulogne, presented a spectacle of extraordinary brilliancy
and beauty. The Parisians had been on the ground in great numbers from
noon and waited patiently for hours; but, unfortunately, the train was
behind time, the evening became dark and cold, and when at length her
Majesty appeared at half-past seven, the demonstration was shorn of much
of its splendour. Nevertheless, the boulevards, streets, and avenues
were still crowded and Her Majesty met with an enthusiastic reception.
As the carriages approached the Arc de Triomphe the outriders and escort
carried torches, which added much to the effect. The Palace of St. Cloud
was placed entirely at the disposal of the Queen and her party. She was
received by the Empress, the Princess Mathilde, with the ladies of the
officers of the Household, and the high officers of State. It was Saturday
evening, and the next day--Sunday, the 19th of August--was devoted to
rest, relieved only by a drive in the Bois de Boulogne.

On Monday their Majesties visited the Palais des Beaux Arts, a portion of
the great Industrial Exhibition. The route to the building was one dense
mass of spectators, who received her Majesty with every demonstration
of joy and respect. The royal party lunched with Prince Napoleon at the
Élysée, then visited Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame, and went through
the city to view its principal buildings. The Parisians were everywhere
delighted with the Queen and the royal children, whose gracious bearing
and frank manners quite won their hearts. On Tuesday her Majesty visited
the magnificent Palace of Versailles. The Emperor was so charmed with
his visitors, that it was remarked he conversed with an animation of
manner and countenance quite surprising to those accustomed to his usual
impassiveness. Two more visits were paid to the Industrial Exhibition.
On Thursday evening the Municipality of Paris gave a ball in the Hôtel
de Ville, which surpassed in splendour and magnificence all previous
experience. There was a grand review next day, and after that a visit to
the tomb of Napoleon. On Saturday evening the Emperor gave a splendid
fête at the Palace of Versailles, which outdid even the magnificence of
the Hôtel de Ville. At half-past ten the Emperor opened the ball with
the Queen of Great Britain. At eleven the Court proceeded to supper
in the theatre. Their Majesties' table was laid in the State box,
commanding a view of all the others, which were filled with ladies.
Orchestra and pit were turned into a festive hall. On all sides flowers,
lights, and brilliant toilettes gave an air of satisfaction, joy, and
delight, impossible to describe. It was like a glance at fairy-land.
Their Majesties left Versailles amid the warmest demonstrations of
enthusiasm. After their departure the ball was kept up till morning,
and during the whole of the night the road was thronged with brilliant
equipages conveying back the guests to Paris. Sunday was dedicated to
repose, Monday to travel. Immense crowds lined the streets to witness
the Queen's departure. The Emperor accompanied his illustrious guests
to Boulogne, where her Majesty reviewed the magnificent army encamped
on the heights. The Imperial host and his guests parted about midnight,
when the British Court re-embarked, and arrived at Osborne at nine a.m.
the following morning. The Earl of Clarendon, who was the Secretary of
State in attendance on her Majesty, addressed an official letter to Sir
George Grey, which contains the following testimony of her Majesty's
pleasure:--"The Queen is profoundly sensible of the kindness with
which she has been received by the Emperor and Empress, and of those
manifestations of respect and cordiality on the part of the French nation
by which she has everywhere been greeted. On personal and political
grounds, the visit to Paris has afforded the highest gratification to her
Majesty."

In July, 1856, the question of intervention or non-intervention was
fully discussed in Parliament, in connection with the affairs of Italy.
Read in the light of subsequent events and of later occurrences, and
with a view to pending eventualities, the debate is full of interest.
The subject was introduced by Lord Lyndhurst, who, in the course of an
eloquent and argumentative speech, expressed the warmest sympathy with
Italy, while exposing and denouncing the horrible oppression under which
she groaned. He declared, that of all military tyrannies, that of Austria
was the most galling and odious, as shown not only in Italy, but in her
Danubian provinces. In Italy she had, in violation of the Treaty of
Vienna, not only usurped the government of the Legations, but had taken
possession of the Duchy of Parma, and kept the whole country in a state
of siege, subjecting the population to martial law. Her excuse was, that
when she could remove her garrisons without danger of insurrection she
would do so. Lord Lyndhurst showed, with admirable clearness, the effect
of this plea. A bad Government produced dissatisfaction, disturbance,
possibly insurrection. That ended in invasion by the military force of
a neighbouring Power, which necessarily increased the dissatisfaction
and the tendency to revolt; so that, according to the Austrian argument,
the occupation of the disaffected districts by a foreign military force
could have no termination. "In adverting to the state and prospects
of Italy," continued the noble and learned lord, "it was impossible
to avoid speaking of the proceedings of the Neapolitan Government;
nothing could exceed its infamous conduct. The same infamous system of
tyranny and oppression--founded on no law, not even the law of arbitrary
government--described by Mr. Gladstone some years since, was at this very
moment pursued with greater secrecy, and, in the present political trials,
carried on now, as then, in disregard of every principle of justice and in
violation of every feeling of right." Lord Lyndhurst contended that there
were cases in which it was the bounden duty of foreign Governments to
interfere in the internal affairs of another State, and if there ever was
such a case, it was Naples. The king of that country denied the right of
Britain to interfere, and had positively refused to give any explanation
or reply to the remonstrances addressed to him. Yet Britain declined to
use her power. From this Lord Lyndhurst could draw but one conclusion,
which was--that there was a feeling at Naples that there was some
backwardness and lukewarmness on the part of France to co-operate with us
in the objects we had in view. "This, then," he said, "is the state to
which we are reduced. We threaten a foreign Government, declaring that its
conduct is infamous and atrocious, and that we require it to be changed;
they refuse to listen to our remonstrances, and we sit quietly down and
take no further steps. What, then, has become of the power and _prestige_
of England?"

Lord Clarendon, then Foreign Secretary, stated that urgent remonstrances
had been addressed to the King of Naples, in the most friendly spirit,
pointing out to him the danger of the existing state of things to the
stability of his throne, and suggesting the establishment of a better
administration of justice, a general amnesty for political offences, and a
system of government that would secure the confidence of the people. But
he did not believe that until the joint pressure of Britain and France
could be brought to bear in all its force, the desired amelioration of the
condition of the Italian people would be obtained; and he declared that
that was a matter which Government had as much at heart as Parliament or
the people. The Marquis of Clanricarde remarked that it was clear from the
statement of Lord Clarendon that the King of Naples had taken a stand upon
his own absolute independence, and had treated with contumely the attempt
of her Majesty's Government to meddle with the affairs of his territory.
The Marquis of Lansdowne expressed a hope that the existing system of
foreign interference in Italy would be ultimately got rid of; and he
trusted that, if ever British interference should become necessary, the
war would be vigorously conducted, so that it might be speedily ended.

In the House of Commons also, at the same time, the Italian question was
debated. Lord John Russell moved that an Address be presented to her
Majesty for copies or extracts of any recent communication which had taken
place between Government and the Governments of Austria, Rome, and the
Two Sicilies, relating to the affairs of Italy. He called attention to
the nature of the declarations made at the Paris Conference, reading the
statements made by Count Walewski, Lord Clarendon, Count Buol, and Count
Cavour; and then referred to the Austrian occupation. That occupation
was the result of bad government. It had existed seven years, and the
government was worse. What prospect was there that it would ever be
better? Austria was taking fresh precautions to perpetuate the oppression.
Without advocating interference with the internal affairs of foreign
States, he maintained that, at whatever risk, we were bound to support
the King of Sardinia. We should nourish the growing spirit of Italian
independence. "I remember," said Lord John Russell, "very long ago, having
had an interview in the Isle of Elba with the first Napoleon. The Emperor
talked much of the States of Italy, and agreed in the observation which
I had made that there was no union among them, and no likelihood of any
effectual resistance by them to their oppressors; but when I asked him
why Austria was so unpopular in Italy, he replied it was because she
governed not with the sword [this was probably not a reflection which
Napoleon I. would make], but that she had no other means of governing
except by the stick. I believe, sir, that that is the secret of the whole
disfavour with which Austria is viewed in Italy."

Lord Palmerston observed that at the Paris conferences the representative
of Austria held out no expectation that her consent would be obtained to
the cessation of foreign occupation in Italy. Her Majesty's Government
felt that that cessation was an object of European interest. If
disturbances broke out in Naples, the King would apply to Austria for
assistance, and complications would thence arise that would endanger the
peace of Europe. But with regard to Naples, as well as to Rome, he did
not despair. The King of Sardinia, having associated himself with Britain
and France in the war which had just closed, had a right to support and
protection against an unprovoked attack. Britain and France were bound by
the ties of honour to assist him to the utmost.

Mr. Disraeli could not understand why the question of Italy was introduced
into conferences and protocols if all that was intended to be done was
no more than diplomatic action. Nothing could be more irrational, he
said, than to address violent representations to Austria, with a view of
terminating the occupation of the Roman States, unless France was also
prepared to quit them. Their "admonitions," without fleets or armies, to
the ruling Powers would set Italy in flames. It was said that the case of
Naples was exceptional, but why was it exceptional more than the case of
Austria or Russia, except that those were strong Powers and Naples was a
weak one? But it was not only a contest between worn-out dynasties and
an intelligent class that was going on in Italy; there were the secret
societies which did not care for constitutional government. "Rome is not
far distant from Naples. The passage from Naples to the States of the
Church is not difficult. You may have triumvirs again established in
Rome; the Pope may again be forced to flee. What will be the consequences
of that? The two great Catholic Powers of Europe--France, whose Emperor
boasts in these protocols of being the eldest son of the Church, that
ally with whose beneficent co-operation Italy is to be emancipated, and
Austria--will pour their legions over the whole peninsula. You will
have to withdraw the British fleet; your admonitions will be thrown
into the mud, as they deserve; and your efforts to free Italy from the
occupation of foreign troops will terminate by rendering the thraldom
a thousand times more severe, and by aggravating the miseries of the
unfortunate people, whose passions you have fired and whose feelings you
have this night commenced to rouse. If they were not prepared," he said,
in conclusion, "to interfere in Italy with fleets and armies, let them
abstain from stirring up the passions of the people--a policy that would
only aggravate the thraldom of Italy, and might lead to consequences still
more fraught with disaster to Europe." Lord John Russell, in reply to
Mr. Disraeli, said, "that as to secret societies, a despotic Government,
supported by foreign troops, was not likely to put them down. Those things
acted upon one another. There were secret societies, therefore there was
foreign occupation. There was foreign occupation, therefore there were
secret societies. The people resorted to secret societies because there
was no other mode of stating their grievances." The motion was negatived
without a division.

In consequence of the discussions which took place during the Paris
conferences with regard to the state of Italy, Britain and France
despatched earnest remonstrances to the King of Naples, in order to
induce the Government to mitigate the system of oppression under which
his subjects groaned, and to adopt a course of policy calculated to
avert the dangers which might disturb the peace that had been recently
restored to Europe. These friendly remonstrances were scornfully rejected
by the infatuated monarch, in terms which left no alternative with the
Western Powers but to withdraw their missions from his Court. The fact was
announced in the Queen's Speech at the opening of the Session in 1857, and
led, of course, to Conservative attacks upon the Administration for their
interference with the domestic concerns of another country.

The maintenance of the Anglo-French Alliance despite the tortuous courses
to which the Emperor was addicted, was due to the peculiarly close
relations of the two Courts, and the friendship that existed between Lord
Palmerston and the French Ambassador, Count Persigny. Persigny's Imperial
master, however, was regarded by the Prime Minister with but little
confidence. In particular his notable scheme for dividing the Sick Man's
heritage through the occupation of Tunis by Sardinia, Morocco by France,
and Egypt by Britain was rejected at once. How could Britain and France,
Lord Palmerston contended, who had just guaranteed the integrity of the
Turkish Empire, proceed like the partitioners of Poland, to strip the
Sultan of his outlying dominions? Besides, we did not want Egypt; all we
wished was that the country should not belong to any other European Power,
and that we should have a free passage across it. It was undoubtedly
distrust of the Emperor which induced Lord Palmerston to oppose the
construction of the Suez Canal scheme, which he did with such insistence
that the Sultan's firman was not granted until after his death. His public
reasons, which were much ridiculed at the time, were that the canal would
never be made, that even if it was made, it would not pay, and that by
rendering Egypt virtually independent of the Porte, it would impair the
integrity of the Turkish Empire. His private objections, as given in a
letter to Lord John Russell, were far more statesmanlike. They were that a
canal open to all nations would deprive Britain of the commercial monopoly
with the East which she at present possessed, and that "it required only
a glance at the map of the world to see how great would be the naval and
military advantage to France in a war with Britain to have such a short
cut to the Indian seas, while we should be obliged to send ships round by
the Cape."

[Illustration: CHINESE OFFICERS HAULING DOWN THE BRITISH FLAG ON THE
"ARROW." (_See p._ 169.)]

The most momentous debates in the Session of 1857 were connected with
the affairs of China. They resulted in the defeat of Lord Palmerston's
Administration, which was followed by the dissolution of Parliament. It
was a seemingly trivial incident in a remote part of the globe that led
to these important consequences. Sir John Bowring had been appointed
British Consul in Canton in 1849. In 1854 he was appointed her Majesty's
Plenipotentiary in China and Governor of Hong Kong. While he occupied this
position he came into hostile collision with the Imperial Government.
On the 8th of October, 1856, a lorcha named the _Arrow_, which bore
the British flag, was boarded by Chinese officers, for the purpose of
arresting some of their countrymen charged with piracy. The British flag
was torn down, and twelve out of a crew of fourteen were carried off
prisoners. Sir John Bowring in vain endeavoured to obtain redress for
this outrage. The Imperial Commissioner Yeh paid no attention to his
remonstrances, or only returned evasive answers. Menaces being equally
unavailing, the matter was referred to the British admiral, Sir Michael
Seymour. Troops were obtained from India and Ceylon, and Sir John Bowring,
on his own responsibility--without any authority from the Government at
home--made war upon the most ancient and extensive empire in the world.
The forts along the river were one after another attacked and reduced.
The public buildings in the city of Canton were shelled. A large fleet of
war-junks was destroyed, and the city lay defenceless under our guns.

The news of these events had reached England during the autumn, and
produced a great deal of excitement and discussion. On the 16th of
February the Earl of Derby gave notice of a motion on the subject, and
in the House of Commons a similar notice was given by Mr. Cobden. Both
these statesmen delivered speeches memorable for the masterly and eloquent
discussion of the principles of international law and the duties incumbent
upon civilised Powers in their dealings with semi-barbarous nations.
Lord Derby moved his resolutions on the 24th, and then described the
proceedings at Canton as most violent in their character, and as having
inflicted the greatest injury upon trade and commerce. The _Arrow_, it was
said, was a British vessel within the meaning of the treaty, and entitled
to carry a British flag; but he contended that she was a China-built
ship, captured by pirates, recaptured by the Chinese, sold afterwards
by the Chinese, and ultimately bought, owned, and manned by Chinese. It
was an essential characteristic of a British merchant's ship that she
must be wholly owned by British subjects. But even if the _Arrow_ were a
British vessel, no infraction of the treaty had been committed: no one
would think of enforcing "the colonial ordinance," in the case of the
vessels of any European country, trading on the coasts of that country.
Besides, the very existence of the ordinance had not been made known
to the Chinese until some time after it was established. In any case
there could be no doubt that the _Arrow_ had no legal right to carry
the British flag, because it was admitted by Sir John Bowring that her
licence had expired before the seizure. The governor had said to Consul
Parkes, that the lorcha could not claim British protection, although he
made a contrary statement to Commissioner Yeh; and it was by such means
that the British nation was drawn into a destructive and expensive war!
It was true that by treaty the British were entitled to be admitted into
the city of Canton. The admission was denied by the Chinese authorities,
on the ground that it would lead to conflicts between the natives and the
foreigners. This had been held by Sir G. Bonham to be a sufficient reason
for not pressing the claim; but Sir John Bowring was determined to enforce
it at all hazards, and considered no sacrifice too great to effect his
object. In the correspondence upon the subject, the tone of the Chinese
was throughout forbearing, courteous, and gentleman-like; while that of
our representative, with hardly an exception, was menacing, disrespectful,
and arrogant. Lord Derby believed that Sir John Bowring and Mr. Parkes had
determined beforehand that they would not consent to anything proposed,
but would tack to the lorcha grievance Sir John Bowring's monomania for
obtaining admission to the city. The military operations were advised
and planned within twelve days after the cause of quarrel, while every
overture for peace on the part of the Chinese was evaded. Sir John Bowring
had charged the Chinese with shameful violation of treaties; but these
treaties remained unfulfilled, with the acquiescence of her Majesty's
Government, upon reasons assigned and representations made. Lord Derby
concluded his speech with an earnest appeal to the bench of bishops
to come forward on this occasion and vindicate the cause of religion,
humanity, and civilisation from the outrage which had been inflicted upon
it by the British representatives at Canton. He solemnly called upon the
hereditary peers not to tolerate the usurpation by authorities abroad of
that most awful prerogative of the Crown, the right of declaring war, not
to tolerate, upon light and trivial grounds, the capture of commercial
vessels, the destruction of forts belonging to a friendly country, the
bombardment of an undefended city, and the shedding of the blood of
unwarlike and innocent people, without warrant of law and without moral
justification. He then moved three resolutions embodying his sentiments.

Lord Clarendon defended the conduct of the British representatives at
Canton. He denied that the _Arrow_ had forfeited her licence, because,
though the term had expired, the vessel was still at sea, and therefore
still entitled, under the terms of the ordinance, to bear the British
flag. He contended that if Mr. Parkes, whose discretion and moderation
deserved all praise, had shrunk from demanding redress, he would have
failed in his duty, and given the Chinese reason to believe that they
might proceed to still greater insults. Such an outrage could not occur
among nations who respected international law, and it was necessary to
make the Chinese sensible of the law of force. He believed that the
assumed popular hostility to the admission of the British into Canton
was a mere bugbear, and that the Queen's officers were justified in
taking advantage of the dispute about the _Arrow_ to endeavour to obtain
a partial fulfilment of the treaty. He declared that the resolution
prohibiting hostilities against a foreign people, without express
instructions received from her Majesty's Government, would endanger the
lives and property of all British subjects in China, would cast dishonour
upon our name and our flag, and would bring ruin upon our trade with
that country. The Lord Chancellor, in reply to Lord Lyndhurst, took the
same view of the subject; and after a powerful speech on the other side
by Earl Grey, Earl Granville, having defended the conduct of Sir John
Bowring, sarcastically remarked upon the zeal with which noble lords on
the opposite side of the House constituted themselves lay-readers to
the episcopal bench, and admonished right reverend prelates with moving
sermons whenever they were in doubt about which way their votes would go.
He was sure the bishops would vote according to the dictates of their
consciences, and be guided only by what they believed and felt to be the
principles of justice and humanity. The Bishop of Oxford was the only
prelate who spoke in the name of the bench. He declared his belief that
the claim made on behalf of the lorcha was not founded on the principles
of either law or justice; therefore the war which had sprung from that
claim was indefensible, and its principle untenable among Christian
men. He reprobated the conduct of a great Christian nation like England
spreading the horrors of war among a weak and unoffending people. If the
House gave the weight of its great authority to support an act so unjust,
it would go against a Power which took its own time for vindicating
eternal justice, and which never allowed a wrong to pass unavenged--a
Power which could find in the very weakness of China sufficient elements
to abase and rebuke the lawless oppression of this country. All these
appeals failed to avert a decision in favour of the Government, which had
a majority of thirty-six; but this majority was made up chiefly of persons
who had not heard the arguments. The proxies for Lord Derby's motion were
fifty-seven, and the proxies against it seventy-five.

Mr. Cobden, on the 26th of February, moved a resolution to the effect
that the House had heard with concern of the conflicts that had occurred
between the Chinese and British authorities on the Canton river; and
considered that the papers laid on the table failed to establish
satisfactory grounds for the violent measures adopted in the affair of the
_Arrow_. He moved that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into
the state of our commercial relations with China. He asked the House to
inquire how all this warfare and devastation began--would they have dealt
in a similar manner if the transaction had taken place at Charleston,
and the Government assailed had been at Washington? Referring to the
correspondence between our consul and the Chinese Commissioner, he said
that Mr. Parkes, a young man, seemed to have made up his mind not to
be satisfied, in spite of the logical arguments of Governor Yeh, which
would have done credit to Westminster Hall. Mr. Cobden conscientiously
believed that there had been a preconceived design to pick a quarrel with
the Chinese authorities, for which the world would cry shame upon us. He
regarded the papers laid before the House as a garbled record of trumpery
complaints. It was an insult to bring down such a book in order to make
out a case for Lord Clarendon. Englishmen carried with them a haughty
demeanour and inflexible bearing towards the natives of other countries,
and the demands of our mercantile men in this instance were characterised
by downright selfish violence. Sir John Bowring, acting on their behalf,
had not only violated the principles of international law, but had acted
contrary to his instructions, and even to express directions from the Home
Government.

Sir Bulwer Lytton, on the same side, censured the language of Consul
Parkes to Commissioner Yeh as repugnant to the rules of diplomatic
intercourse, and denounced hostilities carried on upon such a miserable
plea. Lord John Russell reviewed the whole question, and argued that
the alleged provocations furnished no sufficient ground for the extreme
measures resorted to, which were not the proper modes of settling such
a great question. Government should consider that their officials had
committed a serious offence. And where was the matter to end? The worst
part of the case, he said, was the conduct of Sir J. Bowring, who, while
he declared that the vessel had lost all right to British protection, set
up that claim against the Chinese Commissioner, and required an apology
for the British flag as having been rightfully used. Mr. Gladstone
protested against making Sir John a stalking-horse for diverting
attention from the real matter at issue, which involved the interests of
humanity and the honour of England. We talked of the violation of treaty
by the Chinese, but was there no violation of treaty on our part? The
purpose for which Hong Kong was given to us was that it should be a port
in which British ships might tarry and fit. Was not our contraband trade
in opium a breach of treaty obligations? Had our Government struggled to
put it down, as bound by treaty? Had they not encouraged it by organising
a fleet of lorchas under the British flag? They who thus acted had stained
the British flag. For what were we at war with China? If the House had
the courage to assert its prerogative and adopt this resolution, it would
pursue a course consistent at once with sound policy and the principles
of eternal justice. Mr. Disraeli thought that Sir John Bowring had been
unfairly treated in the debate. If his conduct had been ratified by
Government, it should not be impugned by the House. The question at issue
was the policy of Government, which was to extend our commerce in the
East, not by diplomacy, but by force. Lord Palmerston--"the very archetype
of political combination without principle"--complained that he was the
victim of conspiracy. Then let him appeal to the country.

The foregoing is an outline of the case made against Government in the
course of a debate which lasted four days, and which excited extraordinary
interest, because it was felt not only by the House, but by the public,
that the fate of Government depended upon the issue. The following is
an outline of the defence, which was commenced by Mr. Labouchere. He
said that when the case was fairly and impartially considered, the
House would be of opinion that no blame justly attached to our local
authorities at Canton or to Government at home, who could have pursued
no other course than that they had taken without betraying the interests
entrusted to their care, and lowering the British character in the eyes
of the world. The transactions had taken place before the great community
of merchants who had been libelled by Mr. Cobden. French and American
merchants had coincided with ours in their view of the conduct of the
Chinese authorities, which had become absolutely unbearable. He denied
that the British functionaries had evinced any want of forbearance. On the
part of Government at home, he should regret if it had been so weak and
pusillanimous as to fail in supporting officials placed in a difficult
position, whose conduct had been applauded by the representatives of
foreign nations. We were not at war with the Court of Pekin, but with
the local government at Canton, and he hoped that the result of these
hostilities would be to place the relations of Europe with China upon a
safer and more satisfactory footing. Mr. Lowe contended that the real
question was not one of legality, but of the animus of the Chinese
authorities, and it was impossible to acquit them of bad animus in the
matter. Much as he deplored the consequences, it appeared to him that
upon those authorities, not upon the British Government or its officials,
rested the responsibility. The Lord Advocate of Scotland argued upon the
facts, that there was no ground for asserting that international law had
been transgressed by our authorities abroad. He contended that the Hong
Kong ordinance of 1855 was a valid law as respected the Chinese, and
whether or not it was contrary to our municipal law had nothing to do with
the question. The boarding of the lorcha was no doubt preconcerted; it
was regarded by Sir John Bowring as an outrage, as an international and
deliberate insult; and he wanted to know what Sir John was to have done.
He warned the House to pause before it put between us and China a barrier
which might be far more dangerous than any yet offered.

Lord Palmerston began his speech by observing that he should not have
expected from Mr. Cobden such a motion, or such a speech in its support,
nor should he have anticipated the bitterness of his attack upon Sir
John Bowring, an ancient friend, a man who had raised himself by his
talents, attainments, and public services, and who was a fit person for
the situation he held. If there was any man less likely than another to
get the country into hostilities, it was Sir John Bowring, who had been a
member of the Peace Society. But what most surprised him in Mr. Cobden's
speech was the anti-English spirit which pervaded it, and an abnegation
of the ties which bound men to their country and their countrymen. With
regard to the question under discussion, the noble lord said that we had
a treaty with the Chinese, stipulating that British vessels should not
be boarded without a previous application to the British Consul; and the
question is, What did the Chinese know or believe about the nationality of
the _Arrow?_ Did they consider her a British vessel? He affirmed they did,
and if they knowingly violated the treaty, it was immaterial whether,
according to the technicalities of the law, the register had expired.
It was the animus of the insult, the wilful violation of the treaty,
that entitled us to demand reparation for the wrong, and an assurance of
future security. He insisted that, after the refusal of reparation--only
one of many violations of treaty rights by the Chinese--hostilities
were amply justified, and that our proceedings were marked with extreme
forbearance, compared with the proceedings of the Americans when their
flag was insulted. The outrage was only part of a deliberate system to
wrest from us a right essential to our commerce in those waters. Lord
Palmerston referred to the barbarities of the local authorities at Canton;
the Commissioner Yeh having beheaded 70,000 persons in less than a year.
What was the Government expected to do--to send out a message to Yeh
that he was right? This would be withdrawing from the British community
protection against a merciless barbarian. It would disgrace this country
in the eyes of the civilised world, and especially in the estimation of
Eastern nations. The House, therefore, had in its keeping not only the
interests, the property, and the lives of many of our fellow-subjects
abroad, but the honour and the character of the country. As the Government
expected defeat, the latter part of the Prime Minister's speech was a
stirring appeal to the nation against the coalition of Radicals, Tories,
and Peelites, which, as Greville remarks, was "very bow-wow." Mr. Cobden
having briefly replied, and having withdrawn the first paragraph of his
resolution, the concluding portion was put to the vote--to the effect that
the papers laid before the House failed to establish satisfactory grounds
for the violent measures resorted to at Canton. The numbers were--for the
motion, 263; against it, 247; majority against the Government, 16.

[Illustration: VICTORIA, HONG-KONG, FROM THE CHINESE MAINLAND.]

This important division took place on March 3rd. Two days of anxious
suspense passed, during which the political world was full of speculation
as to the alternative Lord Palmerston would adopt--resignation or
dissolution. Mr. Disraeli had challenged him to appeal to the country,
but without such a provocative, that was the course which a man of
Lord Palmerston's spirit and determination was most likely to adopt.
Accordingly, on the 5th, Lord Granville in the Upper House, and the
Prime Minister in the Lower, announced that her Majesty's Ministers had
advised her to dissolve Parliament. The latter explained the grounds of
his decision. In ordinary circumstances, the result of a vote of censure
would be resignation, and to those who had obtained a majority in favour
of such a vote would be left the responsibility of conducting the affairs
of the country. But the present case seemed to Lord Palmerston of so
peculiar a character that he did not think it his duty to adopt that
course. The vote did not seem to imply a general want of confidence,
though it would render it very difficult, if not unseemly, to conduct the
business of the country in the ordinary manner during the remainder of
a long Session. The Parliament was then in its fifth Session, and might
be considered comparatively a very old Parliament, for it had witnessed
more important events than had fallen to the lot of most Parliaments
to see. It had seen three Administrations; it had seen the transition
from a state of profound peace to a great European war; it had seen the
transition from a great European war to the fortunate restoration of
European peace. Consequently, as concerned the events of which it had
been a spectator, it had done as much as could be expected to fall to the
lot of one which had completed its full term of existence. He therefore
proposed that the House should content itself with such provisional and
temporary measures as might be necessary to provide for the public service
until the earliest period at which a new Parliament could assemble. Mr.
Disraeli concurred in this course and said he would give every possible
facility to public business. Mr. Cobden inquired what the Government were
about to do in order to carry out the solemn vote to which the House had
come. If any danger to British residents in China was to be apprehended
from the vote, the first consideration ought to be their safety, and a
competent person should be sent out by the next steam-ship, armed with
full authority to supersede all existing British authority in China, and
to act according to circumstances. If Lord Palmerston did not intend to
take this course, what course would he take? A new Parliament could not
meet until the end of May. Mr. Cobden then attempted to give the Premier
a lesson in electioneering, but the listener, as the event showed, knew
more about the subject than the teacher. Lord Palmerston replied to the
various questions as to the policy to be adopted in China. Every one knew
that if a great extension of commercial intercourse between the nations of
Europe and China ever obtained, it would be an immense advantage to the
cause of civilisation and productive of great benefit to the industry of
the nations trading with that country. The difficulty having been greatly
increased by the unfortunate events that had occurred, it must strike
every one that the selection of a person to whom should be committed
the grave and important charge of conducting negotiations should be a
subject of serious deliberation. It must strike every one that he should
be imbued with the feelings of Government on this subject; and that,
being the recipient of their verbal instructions, he would be likely to
carry more weight than any person who might happen to be now in China.
He by no means undervalued the services of Sir John Bowring, to whom the
greatest injustice had been done, and whose merits had been disparaged to
a degree that astonished him; at the same time, Government could not shut
their eyes to the gravity and importance of the matters in hand. But the
House must expect their policy to remain the same--it was, to maintain
the rights and to protect the lives and property of British subjects, to
improve our relations with China, and in the selection of those means and
the arrangement of them to perform the duty they owed to the country. In
other words the war was to be continued.

The House of Commons turned from the angry discussions about the Chinese
war to a much more agreeable theme. Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, who had filled the
office of Speaker for nearly eighteen years, now announced his intention
of retiring. On the 9th of March he addressed the House, and said that
he could not contemplate the termination of his official career without
great pain; nor could he allow it to close without offering to the House
his sincere and grateful acknowledgments for that uniform confidence and
support which he had received, not only from every political party in it,
but he might say, with perfect truth, from every individual member. He
was quite aware that, in the discharge of the delicate and very onerous
duties of the Chair, he had much need of the kind indulgence which had
always been extended to him, and especially of late, when he had been
so frequently reminded of his increasing inability to do full justice
to the task imposed upon him. It had been his constant aim to improve
and simplify their forms of proceeding; but at the same time striving
to maintain unimpaired all their rights and privileges, together with
all those rules and orders, sanctioned by ancient usage, which long
experience had taught him to respect and venerate, and which he believed
never could be relaxed, or materially altered, without prejudice to the
freedom and independence of the House of Commons. On the motion of Lord
Palmerston, seconded by Sir. J. Pakington, the House then resolved that an
Address be presented to her Majesty, praying that she would bestow some
signal mark of her favour upon the retiring Speaker, and stating that the
House would make good the expense. The Queen having returned a gracious
answer, and the House having gone into committee on the message, they
unanimously resolved that an annuity of £4,000 a year should be conferred
upon Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, who was subsequently created Viscount Eversley.

The remaining business of Parliament having been rapidly disposed of,
Parliament was prorogued, with a view to its dissolution, on March 21st,
the Royal Speech, which was brief, being delivered by commission. Her
Majesty stated that it was her fervent prayer that the constituencies
of the United Kingdom might be guided by an all-wise Providence to the
selection of representatives whose wisdom and patriotism might aid her to
maintain the honour and dignity of her crown, and to promote the welfare
and happiness of her people. Parliament was convoked for the 30th of
April. The result of the general election showed how well grounded was the
confidence with which Lord Palmerston appealed to the country, and how
correct, as Lord Malmesbury tells us, had been Mr. Disraeli's anticipation
that if the Conservatives forced a contest on that issue they would suffer
complete defeat. The popularity the Prime Minister had won bore him
triumphantly over the most formidable opposition; while those who had been
instrumental in the defeat of his Government seemed not to have pleased
their constituencies; some eminent statesmen were rejected to make way for
untried and ordinary men, whose chief recommendation was that they would
give their zealous support to Lord Palmerston, whom they believed to have
vindicated the honour of the country. In fact the name of Palmerston was
made a popular rallying cry at almost every hustings in Great Britain.
Mr. Cobden, not venturing to face the West Riding of Yorkshire, where he
had been a popular idol, was defeated at Huddersfield, and kept out of
Parliament. Mr. Bright and Mr. Milner Gibson were driven from Manchester,
Mr. Layard from Aylesbury, and Mr. W. J. Fox from Oldham. The small but
powerful phalanx of Peelites, whose experienced and accomplished debaters
had given the Premier so much annoyance, was completely scattered. Thus
his most formidable opponents were driven from the field, while he was
enabled to meet the new Parliament at the head of a numerous body of
zealous supporters.

Mr. John Evelyn Denison was unanimously elected Speaker in the room of
Lord Eversley. Lord Palmerston congratulated him on the dignity to which
he had been raised, pointing out the onerous nature of the duties he
had to discharge, and presenting the example of the late Speaker as a
model which it was impossible to surpass. The Royal Speech was delivered
on the 7th of May, and Parliament at once proceeded to business. The
Queen expressed her heartfelt gratification at witnessing the continued
well-being and contentment of her people, and the progressive development
of productive industry throughout her dominions. The Address was agreed
to in both Houses _nem. con._ The first matter that came before the
Commons was a message from her Majesty, announcing that a marriage had
been negotiated between Prince Frederick William of Prussia and the
Princess Royal. It need hardly be said that so interesting an event as the
betrothal of the Queen's eldest daughter attracted much attention.

In the House of Commons on the same evening, the Premier made some
observations in reference to the approaching marriage:--"I cannot refrain
from saying that those who have had the good fortune to be acquainted
with the Princess Royal must have observed that she possesses, both
in heart and in head, those distinguished qualities which adorn her
illustrious parents, and that she bids fair to hold out in the country of
her adoption a repetition of that brilliant example which her illustrious
parents have held out in this country, of a domestic happiness worthy
to serve as a model of imitation for the most exalted or the humblest
of her Majesty's subjects. Sir, it is impossible not to see that this
marriage--independently of the prospect which I trust it holds out of
happiness to her Royal Highness, from the high qualities of the prince
whom she has selected as her future husband--also holds out to the country
political prospects not undeserving of the attention of this House. We
all know how family alliances tend to mitigate those asperities which
from time to time must be produced by those diversities of policy which
inevitably arise occasionally between great and independent Powers, and
therefore I trust that this marriage may also be considered as holding
out an increased prospect of goodwill and of cordiality among the Powers
of Europe."

In connection with the dowry of the Princess Royal, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer made a statement, in which he contrasted the position of
the Crown as to revenue with what it had been in past times. The Crown,
deprived of its hereditary revenues, was now dependent upon Parliament
for a maintenance suitable to its dignity. The Civil List of George III.
amounted to more than £447,000; whilst that of the present Queen was only
£385,000. George III. also received the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall;
the Queen devoted part of them to the education of the Prince of Wales,
and allowed the rest to accumulate for his benefit. During the reign of
George III., Parliament voted £3,297,000 in payment of debts incurred
by the Royal Family; the Queen had incurred no debts. Allowances were
granted to the younger branches of the family of George III.; no grant of
the kind had been made to the children of her Majesty. The expenses of
the visits of George IV. to Hanover, to Ireland, and to Scotland, were
paid by the country; whereas Queen Victoria visited the Emperor Napoleon
at Paris at her own cost, although the visit was not made for her own
personal enjoyment, but for the public good. Her Majesty had paid £34,000
for the furniture and repairs of Buckingham Palace; and she paid £6,180
a year for the peace income-tax, and £15,500 for the war income-tax. As
to precedent, the eldest daughter of George II. received an annuity of
£8,000 and a dowry of £80,000, and similar sums were granted to the eldest
daughter of George III. Sir George Lewis proposed that the Princess Royal
should receive an annuity of £8,000, and that her marriage portion should
be £40,000. Mr. Roebuck moved, by way of amendment, that a certain sum
should be given at once, and no annuity, in order to avoid an entangling
alliance, and with a view to the large family the nation would have to
provide for. As representatives of a hard-working people, they ought,
while generous, to be just. At the request of Lord John Russell, Mr.
Disraeli, Lord Elcho, and other members, Mr. Roebuck eventually withdrew
his motion. On subsequent days Mr. Coningham, Mr. Maguire, and others,
made attempts to reduce the amount; but their amendments were rejected by
overwhelming majorities.

A reform of some importance to Ireland was effected during the present
Session, namely, the abolition of "Ministers' Money"--a tax which was
imposed upon householders in Dublin, Cork, and other places for the
support of the clergy of the Established Church. It was only about £12,000
a year; but as it was, in the majority of cases, a direct payment from
Roman Catholics to Protestant ministers, it had been a source of much
irritation. Mr. Fagan, of Cork, brought in a Bill for its abolition,
with the assent of the Government, providing that the sum should be made
good by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners out of the Church revenues at
their disposal. On the ground of principle, the measure was strenuously
opposed by Mr. Napier, Mr. Whiteside, Sir F. Thesiger, and Mr. Walpole;
and supported by Sir G. Grey, Mr. Horsman, Mr. J. D. Fitzgerald, Lord John
Russell, and Lord Palmerston. The second reading was carried by a majority
of 139. In the House of Lords the Bill was opposed by the Earl of Derby,
the Bishop of Kilmore, Lords Dungannon, Wicklow, and Donoughmore. It was
defended by Earl Granville, the Earl of Harrowby, Lord Talbot de Malahide,
Lord Ellenborough, and the Duke of Newcastle. It narrowly escaped
rejection there, the second reading being passed only by a majority of
five.

The first Session of the new Parliament was distinguished by the passing
of two measures of great social importance--the transfer of testamentary
and matrimonial cases from the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts,
and the establishment of a new Probate Court, and a new Divorce Court.
As might be expected, all the supporters of vested rights and interests
in the Church offered to these measures the most determined opposition.
In the previous Session the Lord Chancellor had introduced the Probate
and Administrations Bill, which there was not then time to pass. It was
altered in the meantime, and on the 18th of May the second reading was
moved by the Lord Chancellor. He proposed that the then present judge
of the Prerogative Court should be the first judge of the new Court of
Probate, with a working salary of £4,000 a year, and a retiring pension of
£2,000. He proposed that he should also be the judge of the Divorce Court.
The proceedings were to be all conducted vivâ voce, and whenever matters
of fact were in dispute they should be referred to a jury. The County
Courts were to have jurisdiction in will cases, where the estate did not
exceed £200 in personalty, or £300 in real property. The Bill was severely
contested in both Houses; but, with certain amendments, it ultimately
passed into law.

[Illustration: MR. SPEAKER DENISON.]

The Divorce Bill--a measure of much greater importance--touching deeper
social interests, and powerful religious feelings connected with the
sanctity and indissolubility of marriage, met with the most determined
and persevering opposition. The second reading was fixed for the 18th of
May, when the Lord Chancellor reviewed the state of the law with regard
to marriage. In 1850 a Commission had been appointed to inquire into the
whole subject, and it was on the recommendation of their report that
the present Bill was founded. Nothing could be more absurd, vexatious,
and expensive, than the law as it previously stood. The principle that
marriage might be dissolved had been adopted by the Legislature; but
practically, the separation of husband and wife was a privilege reserved
for the aristocratic and wealthy classes, although the causes which made
separation necessary or desirable affected all classes. Before a divorce
could be obtained a _vinculo matrimonii_, proceedings must first be taken
in the Ecclesiastical Court, a verbist must be obtained against the
adulterer, and all the facts must be again established, at enormous cost,
before the bar of the House of Lords. The Bill proposed to substitute
one tribunal, by which the matter was to be investigated and finally
decided. The action for _crim. con._, then an indispensable preliminary
to a divorce, would be rendered unnecessary. The Archbishop of Canterbury
gave his assent to the second reading; but he declared that he would
oppose in committee the clause which permitted the guilty parties to be
united in legal marriage. Lord Lyndhurst was most anxious for the success
of the Bill. He believed that it was a scriptural doctrine that marriage
might be dissolved in case of adultery; but our law on the subject was
derived from the system which prevailed when the country was under Roman
Catholic rule. One hundred and fifty years ago recourse had been had to
palliatives; but these means were available only for the rich. The law
ought to embrace both rich and poor. Upon this principle it was impossible
that any solid objection could be made to the alterations proposed by
the Bill. Instead of facilities for severing the marriage tie being
demoralising, he contended that the present law led to great immoralities
among the poorer classes of the people, because they now had no redress
against the adulterer. But he was of opinion that the Bill did not go far
enough. One objection he had to the Bill was its great inequality between
the two sexes. He called upon their lordships to do justice. The more they
considered this part of the measure, the more they would be satisfied of
the unsoundness of the argument urged against women who applied for a
divorce on the ground of adultery on the part of the husband. But if their
lordships could not concur in that suggestion, he hoped they would allow
wilful desertion to be a sufficient ground for divorce. By deserting his
wife the man violated the very purposes for which marriage was instituted.

The Bill was opposed by several of the bishops, particularly by the
Bishop of Oxford; but the Bishop of London gave to the measure his
hearty approval, and the second reading was carried by a majority of
twenty-nine. In committee several amendments were proposed and rejected.
The Archbishop of Canterbury moved a clause restricting the person against
whom the divorce was pronounced from marrying the companion in guilt.
This was carried by fifty-three to forty-seven; but another amendment by
the same prelate was rejected, its object being to exempt from censures
or penalties clergymen who should conscientiously object to officiate
in marrying divorced parties. The Bill passed the third reading on the
23rd of June. It came on for the second reading in the House of Commons
on the 24th of July. Numerous petitions had been presented there against
the measure, one of which was signed by 6,000 clergymen. Mr. Henley moved
that it should be postponed for a month, in order to allow time for
deliberation; but Lord Palmerston pronounced the motion to be a pretence
too shallow to be entertained, though it was supported by Lord John
Manners, Mr. Napier, Mr. Malins, and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Henley's motion
was negatived by 217 to 130.

In moving the second reading on the 30th of July, the Attorney-General
traced the progress of legislation on marriage from the Reformation down.
Before the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church, holding marriage to
be a sacrament and indissoluble, had recourse to fictions to escape
the operation of the law. But Parliament, proceeding upon settled and
permanent principles, had acted as a tribunal for administering the law of
divorce. The present Bill gave concise expression to the law, simplified
it, and transferred its administration to a more convenient tribunal.
He argued that the dissolution of marriage for adultery is not contrary
either to the letter or spirit of Scripture, and that the intermarriage
of the guilty parties had been supported by the precedents of 150 years.
The operation of the ecclesiastical law by which a divorce was obtained
_a mensa et thoro_ was no effectual relief to an injured wife, as it
allowed the husband to retain his power over her property. Many cruel and
barbarous cases had occurred, in which the wife was driven to sue for this
sentence, and had afterwards by industry in the exercise of intellectual
ability obtained for herself an independent position, and become the owner
of property, till the husband returned, laid his hand on her hard-earned
gains, and swept all away to gratify his own dissolute propensities. This
reproach of our law, this relic of its savage character as regards the
relation of husband and wife, would, he trusted, be effectually removed
by the provisions of the Bill. Sir W. Heathcote moved that the second
reading be deferred for three months. The Bill was also opposed by Mr.
Gladstone, who argued against it at length, both on the law of the case
and on the authority of Scripture. Adverting to the religious view of
it, he asked whether it was consistent with the respect and reverence
due to the revelation of God, for Parliament to take into its own hands
great mysteries, and the remodelling of religious rites? Touching,
lastly, upon the social question, he urged the evils to be apprehended
from the licence of divorce, and from shaking the idea of the sacredness
and indissolubility of marriage, founded upon the great precedents of
human history, and warned the House against entering upon a road which
would remove us from a point to which Christianity had brought us. The
Attorney-General replied and the motion against the Bill was rejected by
a majority of 111; the numbers being--for the amendment, 97; against it,
208. In committee, Mr. Walpole urged the Government to accept an amendment
proposed by Major Warburton, to the effect that no priest or deacon
should be liable to any suit, penalty, or censure, for solemnising, or
refusing to solemnise, the marriage of any person who should be divorced
by virtue of the Act. The Attorney-General solemnly warned the committee
of the consequences of this concession. "You are about," he said, "to
give the clergy an exemption; and upon what ground? Upon the ground of
the sin, guilt, and criminality of the charge affecting those who come
before them with a request that a religious ceremony may be performed. But
if that exemption be granted, where are we to stop? Will the clergy not
reason most consecutively from this exemption when they say, 'You have
exempted us from doing violence to our consciences in this matter; but why
do you leave us under the necessity of submitting to the violation of our
consciences in others, _i.e._ the marriage of notorious free-livers and
so forth?'" The committee, however, decided in favour of the clause by 73
votes against 33, and it was added to the Bill.

In consequence of the adoption of the foregoing clause another was
added--namely, "That when any clergyman refused to perform the marriage
ceremony in the case of divorced parties, it might be lawful for any other
minister of the Church of England, licensed within the diocese, to perform
that ceremony." The Bill, very much altered, having passed the Commons was
sent up to the Lords to have the amendments sanctioned. Lord Redesdale
moved that the amendments of the Commons be taken into consideration that
day six months. The Lord Chancellor and Lord Campbell reprobated this
motion, and Lord Lansdowne affirmed that it was contrary to the practice
of the House for forty years for any peer thus to move the rejection of a
Bill of which he was neither the author nor the mover. Lord Redesdale then
withdrew his motion. The amendments of the Commons were considered on the
24th of August, the House having agreed to do this only by a majority of
two. All the amendments but two were adopted. The Commons concurred, and
the Bill became the law of the land. The court established under the Act
soon became well known under the efficient presidency of Sir Cresswell
Cresswell, who was instrumental in giving relief and freedom to an immense
number of aggrieved husbands and wives. The number of cases that came
before him, however, might lead to a false impression with regard to the
state of matrimonial life in England, because cases had been accumulating
for many years, in consequence of the want of a legal remedy. When this
accumulation was cleared off, the amount of business in the court
indicated a much more favourable condition of married life in the middle
and lower classes of English society. The Act did not extend to Scotland
or Ireland. The Scots did not need its facilities for divorce, and the
Irish indignantly protested against the extension of its provisions to
their country.

The opening of the year 1858 was signalised by a daring attempt on the
life of the Emperor Napoleon. On the 14th of January, at half-past eight
o'clock, just as he arrived with the Empress at the door of the Italian
Opera in the Rue Lepelletier, three explosions were heard proceeding from
hollow projectiles, one of which perforated the hat of the Emperor, and
another struck the neck of his _aide-de-camp_, General Roquet, who was
sitting in front. A considerable number of people standing at the doors
of the theatre, and some soldiers, were wounded, but only two mortally.
Two of the footmen also were wounded. One of the horses of the Imperial
carriage was killed, and the carriage itself was broken by the force
of the explosion. The escape of the Emperor and Empress seemed almost
miraculous. This was the celebrated Orsini plot, which was very near
involving Great Britain in a war with France and led to proceedings in the
British Parliament that resulted in the overthrow of Lord Palmerston's
Administration. On the 20th of January Count Walewski sent a despatch to
Count Persigny, then French Ambassador in London, in which he charged, in
very strong terms, the British Government and nation with something like
complicity with the assassins. "This fresh attempt," he wrote, "like those
which preceded it, has been devised in England. It was in England that
Pianori formed the plan of striking the Emperor; it was from London that,
in an affair the recollection of which is still recent, Mazzini, Ledru
Rollin, and Campanella directed the assassins, whom they had furnished
with arms. It is there also that the authors of the last plot have
leisurely prepared their means of action, have studied and constructed
the instruments of destruction which they have employed, and it is thence
that they set out to carry their plans into execution." He stated that the
Emperor was persuaded of the sincerity of the sentiments of reprobation
which the crime created in England. He appreciated and respected the
liberality with which England exercised the right of asylum to foreigners,
victims of political struggles. He did not complain of that, but very
different was the case of the skilful demagogues established in England.
It was no longer the hostility of misguided individuals manifesting itself
by all the excesses of the press--no longer even the work of the factions,
seeking to rouse opinion and provoke disorder. It was assassination,
elevated to a doctrine, preached openly and practised in repeated
attempts, the most recent of which had just struck Europe with amazement,
and he asked, "ought the right of asylum to protect such a state of
things? Is hospitality due to assassins? Ought the English Legislature to
contribute to favour their designs and their plans, and can it continue to
shelter persons who, by their flagrant acts, place themselves beyond the
pale of common right, and under the ban of humanity?"

Lord Clarendon, who was then Foreign Secretary, did not send an official
communication to Lord Cowley in answer to this despatch, but contented
himself with giving private instructions to lay before the French
Government the sentiments, views, and intentions of her Majesty's
Government, which was thought to be a much more prudent course to be
adopted with a view to allaying the excessive irritation of the French
nation and army at the time. The despatch of Count Walewski, however,
excited general indignation in England, which was rendered more intense
by the fact that very violent military addresses to the Emperor, full
of abuse and threats towards England, had been inserted in the official
_Moniteur_. There was afterwards a good deal of correspondence, which
assumed a conciliatory tone on both sides; but in the course of which
the Emperor insisted on the necessity of passing a new law, in order to
prevent conspiracies like that of Orsini. Towards the end of January he
wrote to his ambassador in London, saying, "I do not deceive myself as
to the little efficacy of the measures which could be taken, but it will
still be a friendly act, which will calm much irritation here. Explain our
position clearly to the Ministers of the Queen; it is not now a question
of saving my life; it is a question of saving the alliance."

Yielding to his pressure, Government, on the 8th of February, brought
in a Bill to "amend the law relating to the crimes of conspiracy and
incitement to murder, either within or without her Majesty's dominions,
and whether the person killed or to be killed were a subject of her
Majesty or not." Such was the state of facts that became the subject
of discussions in Parliament which led to the defeat of Government.
The signal for commencing the war was given by the introduction of
the Conspiracy Bill, the alleged necessity for which was urged by Lord
Palmerston. If our law was defective, we should not abstain from altering
it because other nations had given way to impulses of passion, perhaps of
fear. To the motion for the introduction of the Bill, Mr. Kinglake moved
the following amendment:--"That this House, while sympathising with the
French nation in its indignation and abhorrence at the late atrocious
attempt made against the life of the Emperor, and anxious, on a proper
occasion, to consider the defects of the criminal law of England, the
effect of which may be to render such attempts vain, deems it inexpedient
to legislate in compliance with the demand made in Count Walewski's
despatch of January 20th, until further information be obtained, and until
after the production of the correspondence between the two Governments
subsequent to this despatch." Leave was given to introduce the Bill by
a majority of 299 to 99. But the indignant feeling of the country at
anything like foreign dictation slowly gathered strength, and at length
became terrible and irresistible. Public meetings were held at which the
Conspiracy to Murder Bill was denounced in the strongest terms. It came on
for the second reading on the 19th of February, when Lord Palmerston did
all in his power to mitigate the hostility against it, and its supporters
generally laboured to keep out of view its political and international
bearings, and to treat it merely as a domestic question of law reform. An
amendment was moved by Mr. Milner Gibson, that the Bill be read a second
time that day six months. In the course of his speech he quoted from the
_Times_ a passage, which was received with cheers, to the effect that
there was no constituted authority in Europe with which Lord Palmerston
had not quarrelled, no insurrection that he had not betrayed; while, on
the other hand, when he had made up his mind to court the good will of
a Foreign Power, no sacrifice of principle or of interest was too great
for him. Mr. Gladstone, at the conclusion of a powerful speech, made the
following impressive remarks, as to the tendencies of modern society on
the Continent:--"Sir," he said, "these times are grave for liberty. We
live in the nineteenth century; we talk of progress; we believe that we
are advancing; but can any man of observation, who has watched the events
of the last few years in Europe, have failed to perceive that there is a
movement indeed; but a downward and backward movement? There are a few
spots in which institutions that claim our sympathy still exist and
flourish. They are secondary places; nay, they are almost the holes and
corners of Europe as far as mere material greatness is concerned, although
their moral greatness will, I trust, ensure them long prosperity and
happiness. But in these times, more than ever, does responsibility centre
upon England; and if it does centre upon England, upon her principles,
upon her laws, and upon her governors, then I say that a measure passed
by this House of Parliament--the chief hope of freedom--which attempts
to establish a moral complicity between us and those who seek safety in
repressive measures, will be a blow and a discouragement to that sacred
cause in every country in the world." Mr. Disraeli, though he voted for
the introduction of the Bill, now voted for its rejection. The question
now was, not between this country and France, but between the House
of Commons and the British Premier. After a spirited reply from Lord
Palmerston, the House divided; when the Bill was rejected by a majority of
19, the numbers being, ayes 215, noes 234. So entirely had the debate been
mismanaged that many observers thought Government were courting defeat, in
consequence of the pending question of the extremely unpopular appointment
of Lord Clanricarde to the office of Privy Seal, but that explanation is
rejected by Greville. A vote of censure upon Government, touching the
great principles of national policy, left no alternative but resignation.
Lord Palmerston could not go to the country again in such circumstances,
for if he did, his supporters would be sure to be defeated in the
existing temper of the public mind. Addressing the House, therefore, on
the 22nd of February, the noble lord announced that Ministers had tendered
their resignation to her Majesty, which had been accepted. He understood
that Lord Derby had been sent for by the Queen, and he moved the
adjournment of the House for a few days to afford time for the formation
of the new Ministry.

Lord Derby succeeded in forming an Administration. The Cabinet was
composed of the following members:--Prime Minister, Earl of Derby;
Lord Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford; President of the Council, Marquis
of Salisbury; Lord Privy Seal, Earl of Hardwicke; Home Secretary, Mr.
Walpole; Foreign Secretary, Lord Malmesbury; Colonial Secretary, Lord
Stanley; War Secretary, General Peel; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr.
Disraeli; First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir John Pakington; President of
the Board of Control, Lord Ellenborough; President of the Board of Trade,
Mr. Henley; First Commissioner of Works, Lord John Manners. Sir Fitzroy
Kelly was Attorney-General; Sir Hugh Cairns, Solicitor-General; Mr.
Inglis, Lord Advocate of Scotland; and Mr. Baillie, Solicitor-General.
The Irish Government was composed as follows:--Viceroy, Earl of Eglinton;
Lord Chancellor, Mr. Napier; Chief Secretary, Lord Naas; Attorney-General,
Mr. Whiteside; Solicitor-General, Mr. Edmund Hayes. Lord Derby had made
overtures to Mr. Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Grey, but all
three declined.




CHAPTER XII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Condition of India--The Bengal Army--Its Want of Discipline--Effects
    of Caste--System of Promotion-Independent Spirit of the
    Sepoys--Position of the Regiments--The Greased Cartridges--The
    Prudence of Hearsey--The Chupatties--At Berhampore--Mangul
    Pandy--Disarming of the 19th--Inactivity of Anson--The Sepoys
    at Lucknow--A Scene at Barrackpore--At Meerut--The Rebellion
    begins--The Rush on Delhi--The City is sacked--The Powder
    Magazine--It is exploded--The Fall of Delhi--Sir Henry Lawrence--The
    Telegraph saves the Punjab--Energetic Measures at Lahore--Philour
    and Jallandhar--Mutiny at Ferozepore--Kangra and Mooltan--Peshawur
    is saved--Anson at Simla--Action of the Civil Authorities--The
    Siege Train--Death of Anson--John Lawrence in the Punjab--Cotton
    disarms the Sepoys--Noushera and Hotee Murdan--The Trans-Indus
    Region is secure--Mutiny supreme elsewhere--Progress of the
    Rising--Lucknow--Oude ripe for Revolt--The first Outbreak
    suppressed--Shahjehanpore and Bareilly--Seetapore--The Ranee of
    Jhansi--The Five Divisions of Oude--The Province is free from
    British Control.


The stipulations of the Treaty of Paris had not been fully carried out
by the high contracting parties ere Britain found herself involved in
war with Persia on the west, and China on the east of her Indian Empire.
The Persian war had been caused by the Shah's temporary occupation of
Herat on the pretext of suppressing disorder, followed by certain insults
to Mr. Murray, the British representative at Teheran, events in which
Lord Palmerston saw "the first opening of the trenches against India
by Russia." After a mission to Constantinople had failed to effect an
arrangement of the dispute, an army was sent into the country under
Outram. A few months of active hostilities brought the Shah to reason, and
happily released the troops employed and enabled them to return to India;
while the regiments sent out from England to quell the Cantonese arrived
in the Indian Ocean just in time to lend material aid in suppressing
the mutiny of the Sepoy army in Bengal; and the rebellion of the people
of several native States. It was the spring time of 1857. Lord Canning
had been one year Governor-General of India. The King of Oude had just
been deposed, and his kingdom annexed to the British dominion by Lord
Dalhousie, on the ground that he was utterly unfit to rule. This act was
productive of the gravest consequences, and is technically indefensible;
nevertheless it was justified by its later results, and apparently excited
but little notice at the time. On the surface all was peace at the opening
of the year. In a few weeks there was a sputter of mutiny; in a few months
an army was in revolt from Calcutta to Peshawur; the British were lying
dead, or flying for their lives, or fronting and conquering the mutineers,
or shut up in forts; and the last of the Great Moguls was ruler in the
famous city of Delhi. There was first a struggle for existence, then a
fierce and determined effort to regain ascendency; finally, well-planned
and successful measures to secure what had been won back literally from
the jaws of death. The mutiny of the Bengal Sepoys is an event unique
in modern history. It furnishes a story of confidence abused, treachery
punished, and heroism rewarded. It vindicates the moral superiority of the
European over the Asiatic. But if it has illustrated our strength, it has
also illustrated our weakness and folly, for from them it sprang.

The Bengal native army was upwards of a hundred thousand strong. It
consisted of troops of all arms. There were seventy-four regiments of
regular and twenty of irregular infantry; there were ten regiments of
regular and eighteen of irregular cavalry; and besides these there was
a due proportion of artillery brigades. The distinction between regular
and irregular regiments consisted mainly in this: that the regular had
the usual number of European officers, while the irregular had only three
or four. There was no substantial difference in drill and discipline.
In addition to this fixed native establishment, there were five _corps
d'armée_ furnished by native States, and called contingents. They were
drawn from Gwalior, Bhopal, Kotah, Malwa, and Joudpore. These were small
armies complete in themselves: the Gwalior contingent, supplied by the
Maharajah Scindia, was the most formidable of these forces, being strong
in numbers of all arms, and admirably drilled. Like the regular and
irregular regiments of the Bengal army, those of the contingents were
officered by Europeans. In one short year the whole of this force, except
five irregular cavalry regiments and three regular infantry regiments, and
the whole of the contingents, had either mutinied or been disarmed.

[Illustration: INDIA]

In order to form any reasonable idea of the causes of the mutiny which
we are about to describe, it is necessary to explain the nature of the
instrument which broke in the hands of the rulers of India. In outward
form it was splendid. From the drill-sergeant's point of view, few things
in this world could be more perfect. The infantry were tall, shapely,
handsome. They moved with precision and regularity. They made a brave
show at parades. The cavalry were also well-made men, being excellent
horsemen, with a dashing bearing. The artillery were famous for the
neatness and accuracy of their movements, and their ability to serve and
point their guns. Such was the appearance of these troops. Their officers
were proud of them, and years of unquestioned fidelity and obedience had
made these officers confident that their men would follow them anywhere.
But, as Colonel Jacob wrote in 1851, "the thing was rotten throughout, and
discipline there was none." The wonder to this observant soldier was, even
then, that "the outward semblance of an army had still been maintained."
For the officers of this army, from various causes, had ceased to possess
a hold on the confidence and regard of the men. They were no longer
accessible as of old. They lived apart. "Young men," writes Mr. Gubbins,
"were no longer taught to take a pride in their regimental duty." They
were taught to look out for staff employment, that is, employment in
either civil or military tasks away from their regiments. It was not that
there were few officers left behind to do the ordinary duty that caused
the evil; it was "the want of interest felt in their work by the officers
present with the corps." Nor was this the fault of the officers. It arose
from a vicious system, gradually introduced, which deprived the commanding
officer of his due share of power. "The commanding officer of a regiment
in Bengal," to quote Colonel Jacob again, "is almost powerless for good.
He is allowed to do nothing; his men are taught to despise him; and in
many instances of late years the Sepoys have been allowed and encouraged
to forward written complaints (secretly) against their commanders direct
to headquarters. What can be worse than this? It is utterly destructive of
military discipline and soldierlike pride."

Then there was the grave evil arising out of caste. The Bengal army was
composed mainly of high-caste men from Oude and Behar and Rohilcund. A
very large part came from the same districts and were relatives. The army
was, in fact, a sort of military club, and caste, as in other clubs,
determined admission or exclusion. But what were the consequences? The
army became subject to the control of Brahmins and Fakirs. A man was not
chosen on account of his fitness to be a soldier, but because he was tall
and handsome and of high caste. "Whatever be his other qualifications,"
writes Colonel Jacob in 1851, as we must repeat, "if a man think that
a stone with a patch of red paint on it is not to be worshipped as the
Creator--still more, if he have been a shoemaker, etc.--he is not to be
admitted into the ranks of the Bengal army, for fear of offending the
lazy and insolent Brahmins. The consequences are ruinous to discipline.
By reason of this, a native soldier in Bengal is far more afraid of an
offence against caste than of an offence against the Articles of War, and
by this means a degree of power rests with the private soldier which is
entirely incompatible with all healthy rule. Treachery, mutiny, villainy
of all kinds, may be carried on among the private soldiers unknown to
their officers, to any extent, where the men are of one caste of Hindoos,
and where the rules of caste are more regarded than those of military
discipline." By this subservience to caste all real power rested in the
hands of the private soldier. Thus the Bengal Sepoy would not form what
is called a "working party," and it was thought a perfect wonder that in
Afghanistan, when fighting for life, a Sepoy regiment handled the spade.
A native cavalry regiment would not unsaddle, picket, feed, and groom
its horses--a host of inferiors, grooms and grass cutters, were kept for
those purposes. To such an extent was this system carried that men were
kept to strike the gongs at the guard-houses; the high-caste Sepoy would
not do it. And all this time--while the troops of all arms in Bengal
were petted and ruined in this way, on the ground that no rule of caste
must be infringed lest it should lead to mutiny--in Bombay, Sepoys from
the same villages in Bengal, relatives of the pampered gentlemen we have
described, did all that their officers required of them, and drilled,
lived, and slept side by side with men of many inferior castes. The
army wherein caste was the first thing thought of, and discipline and a
soldier's duties the second, mutinied from end to end. The army wherein
caste was not considered remained faithful, and did good service against
the mutineers. Nor was this all. Colonel Jacob's splendid regiment of
Scinde Irregular Horse was composed to a very great extent of exactly
the same material as that of the Bengal army. It was disciplined on
sound principles, in accordance, as we may say, with the laws of Nature.
Consequently it did anything and went anywhere at the orders of its
officers.

But there were other evils in this unhappy Bengal army. The bad system
of promotion was, in the opinion of Colonel Jacob, the worst of all. "In
the Bengal army," he says, "the promotion of natives is made to depend
on seniority only, so that if a man keeps clear of actual crime, and
lives long enough, he must become a commissioned officer, however unfit
for the office. Under this system, the private soldier feels himself
entirely independent of his officers; he knows that they neither hasten
nor retard his advance in the service. He has nothing to do but to live
and get through his duties with listless stupidity, and with the least
possible trouble to himself. No exertion on his part can help him--neither
talent, courage, fidelity, nor good conduct is of any avail. Confidence
and pride in each other between men and officers cannot exist. There is no
real co-operation; for the one being powerless to aid, the other becomes
careless of offending. This is the effect on the private soldier. The
system is equally if not more baneful as respects the native officers,
commissioned and non-commissioned. The whole of the native commissioned
officers are entirely useless; the amount of their pay is a dead loss to
the State; every one of them is unfit for service by reason of imbecility,
produced by old age, or where, in rare instances, the man may not be
altogether in his second childhood, he is entirely useless from having
been educated in a bad school."

With an army managed as this was, the really surprising thing is not that
it mutinied in 1857, but that it did not mutiny years before; indeed,
partial revolts were of fairly frequent occurrence, especially when the
Sepoys were called upon to serve out of India. Except in the mere outward
show, it was not an army at all, and all that was required to destroy it
was opportunity. The fact that there were good officers in the Bengal
army, beloved and trusted by their men, does not invalidate the opinion we
have set forth. These officers had triumphed over the system in so far as
the system tended to make the Sepoy despise his officers; but they could
not triumph over the system in so far as it affected the men. That bad
influence went on with unfaltering steadiness. Day by day the Sepoys felt
that they became more and more the masters of India. Day by day a sense of
their own importance grew and flourished in their breasts. They were able
to conspire with safety under the very noses of the Europeans; and the
gulf which separated them from their officers enabled intriguers to sow
the seeds of mutiny unchecked and unseen. Thus the native army of Bengal
became combustible, ready to take fire and flame up if a spark fell on it.
This combustible state was not produced in a year or ten years; it had
been growing for a quarter of a century. In short, it grew as the vicious
system of depriving commanders of power was developed; as the Sepoys, on
plea of caste, shirked more and more the duties of soldiers, and as the
senile system of promotion by seniority produced its inevitable effects.
The recent annexation of Oude, the late Russian war, the spread of British
dominion beyond the Indus, the scanty garrison of Europeans actually in
India in 1857--these were only the collateral influences, and only to a
limited extent causes. They were, indeed, rather occasions than causes;
the root of the whole colossal evil being the absence of discipline in the
Bengal army.

Let the reader figure to himself this army scattered about the country in
military posts, from the eastern provinces on the Irrawaddy to spurs of
the mountains beyond the Indus on the north-western boundary. Here they
are gathered in brigades of two or three regiments of all arms; there
stands a solitary regiment of infantry or cavalry; in another place a
squadron or a company. From Fort William in Calcutta, up the valley of
the Ganges, and beyond it across the Punjab to Peshawur, ran a chain of
military stations; throwing out detachments to the right and left, on one
side towards the Himalayas and Nepaul, on the other over the jungles of
Central India and Rajpootana, until the outposts touched those of Madras
in Nagpore and the Deccan, and those of Bombay in the valley of the
Nerbudda. In each of the stations there are the native lines with open
parades in front, and the detached quarters of the European community;
long rows of thatched dwellings, and cottages standing in gardens or
"compounds." In some there are no European troops; indeed, so few are the
Europeans in this vast region, that their presence is the exception and
not the rule. For instance, the great fort and magazine of Allahabad, at
the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, is in the hands of native troops.
The fortified city of Delhi, with its two magazines, is entirely occupied
by native infantry. In the whole of Oude there is only one European
regiment, the 32nd, at Lucknow. At Cawnpore, a very important station,
there are no Europeans. Mooltan, the key of the valley of the Indus,
is, in like manner, almost destitute of Europeans. In other stations
there are one or two European regiments or parts of regiments. Thus, at
the great station of Dinapore there was the 10th Foot; at Agra, the 3rd
Bengal Fusiliers; at Meerut, a whole European brigade of all arms, 6th
Dragoon Guards, 60th Rifles, and artillery; at Lahore, the 81st Foot and
some artillery; and at or near Peshawur the 27th, 70th, and 87th Foot.
In the hill stations of the North-West and in the Punjab the European
element was stronger than elsewhere, for there were fourteen regiments,
including two of horse, scattered about in that quarter. There were thus
about 12,000 Europeans north and west of Delhi, but there were upwards
of 40,000 Hindostanees, and beside these several thousand Sikhs and
Punjabees. Between the Jumna and the Nerbudda there was not a single
European regiment. British India altogether was six regiments short of her
complement of European troops; but four of these were in Persia making war
on the Shah, and with them were Generals Outram and Havelock. Such was the
state of affairs at the end of 1856, when India stood on the threshold of
an awful calamity and knew it not. The country seemed to be profoundly
tranquil, but there were 5,000 fewer British soldiers than was usual to
secure or defend the sway of their race.

[Illustration: OUTBREAK OF THE INDIAN MUTINY: HIGH CASTE V. LOW CASTE.
(_See p._ 185.)]

Government had determined to arm the Sepoys with the Minié rifle. It
followed, as a matter of course, that Schools for Instruction in Musketry
were established. With the old musket instruction was of little avail,
for Brown Bess could not be relied on to shoot straight for a distance of
a hundred and fifty yards. Therefore, at various points men from several
regiments of the native army met to be taught how to load and fire the
new rifle. This weapon was loaded with a greased cartridge. It was usual
in those days to bite the cartridge, in order to pour out the powder. At
Dumdum, near Calcutta, there was an arsenal, and here these cartridges
were made up, chiefly by native servants. Early in January one of these
men asked a Sepoy of the 2nd Grenadiers for a draught of water from his
lotah, or brass drinking-pot. The high-caste native was astonished at
the insolence of the man, for he was low caste; and if the lips of the
latter touched the pot, it would be defiled. He refused with disdain. The
low-caste man was one of those who made up the cartridges, and he retorted
with a sneer that the Sepoy need not be so particular about his caste; for
the new cartridges were greased with bullock's fat, and every Sepoy would
lose caste when he bit off the end. The Sepoy spread the tale abroad among
his comrades. The Hindoos were told that the grease was the grease of the
sacred cow, and the Moslem soldiers were informed that it was the fat of
the unclean swine; and finally, to meet the case of both, the story ran
that the grease was a compound of the fat of pigs and cows. This story
has been received as authentic. Whether it be true or not in detail, it
illustrates the feeling that the new cartridges, with their unctuous ends
and ill odour, had aroused in the native mind. Here, then, was a plot to
deprive the whole army of its caste, striking high and low alike, and with
its caste of its religion! The fatal story flew on the wings of the wind
from cantonment to cantonment from station to station. In a few weeks the
native army was ready to rise and slay.

At first, indeed, the men at Dumdum appeared to be perfectly reasonable.
Called on at parade to state complaints, they objected to the cartridge,
and suggested the use of wax and oil. The Government ordered an
investigation, and in the meantime changed the drill, so that in future
the end of a cartridge was to be torn not bitten off. General Hearsey, an
experienced soldier, well known to all the Sepoys, harangued his division
at Barrackpore, showing them how impossible it was that they could be made
Christians by the mere biting of cartridges. But all was of no avail. A
native lieutenant informed the authorities that the Barrackpore brigade
was preparing to mutiny. General Hearsey wrote to Calcutta, saying, "We
have at Barrackpore been dwelling upon a mine ready for explosion." He
admitted that the native officers were of no use, being afraid of their
men, and he suggested that a European regiment should be sent up to the
station.

At this time, the middle of February, another singular sign was observed.
A native policeman entered a village of Oude, carrying two chupatties, or
cakes. He ordered his fellow official there to make ten more, and give two
to each of the five nearest village policemen, with the same instructions.
In a few hours the whole country was astir with watchmen flying about with
these cakes. This proceeding was and remains a mystery. One officer who
saw a watchman run in with his cakes, asked what it meant. He was told
that when the malik, or chief, required a service from his people, he
sent round these cakes to prepare them for the execution of his orders.
"And what is the order now?" inquired the officer. And the answer, with
a smile, was, "We don't know yet." Whatever may have been the reason for
this flight of cakes, there it stands in the forefront of calamity, and is
regarded as one of its signs. "How little was it thought," writes Mr. Cave
Browne, "that therein was really hidden an Eastern symbol of portentous
meaning! Five centuries before (1368), the Chinese had, by a somewhat
similar plan, organised and carried out a conspiracy by means of which
their dynasty of Mongol invaders was overthrown." This is a far-fetched
illustration. No doubt, the chupatty mystery had a meaning, though it may
never have been clearly ascertained.

From Barrackpore a detachment of the 34th Native Infantry went to
Berhampore, once a great and important station, 120 miles north of
Calcutta. Here were quartered the 19th Native Infantry, the 11th
Irregulars, and two guns. The 19th feasted their comrades, and these in
return told the story of the cartridges with great additions. John Company
had sent Lord Canning to convert India to Christianity, and he had been
ordered to begin by destroying the caste of the whole army! The men of the
19th heard, and forthwith believed. They made no inquiries of the English
officers. What were the "stranger gentlemen" to them? How could their
words in such a matter affect what their brethren had told them? On the
day after the detachment had come in, Colonel Mitchell, commanding at the
station, ordered a parade for the following morning. The men were to meet
for exercise with blank cartridge, and it was served out. These cartridges
were not new, and had inadvertently been made of two kinds of paper,
whereupon the Sepoys imagined that one sort must be the greased cartridges
fatal to their caste. So the men refused to take them. Not ripe at the
moment for mutiny, they yielded when threatened with a court-martial. But
the same night their passions got the better of them, and they rose and
seized their arms. Aroused by the noise and confusion, Colonel Mitchell
ordered out the cavalry and the guns. But the night was dark. Torches
were necessary. The ground was broken. Neither guns nor horsemen, it is
said, could be used. Colonel Mitchell doubted whether he could depend
on his native troopers and native gunners. He therefore harangued the
mutineers, explained the groundlessness of their fears, and begged them
to give up their arms. The Sepoys, still unready for revolt, made a
counter-proposition. They would give up their arms if the Colonel would
withdraw his cavalry and guns. He complied, and with this transaction the
tumult ended. Here, then, was decided mutiny. It broke out with a running
accompaniment of fires in different places, the work of wilful men bent on
spreading the contagion of alarm and treason.

On learning what had happened at Berhampore, the Government in Calcutta
called up the 84th Queen's Regiment from Burmah, and ordered the 19th
Native Infantry to march to Barrackpore to be disbanded. As they were
marching down, an emissary from the 34th met them with a proposal that,
when within a march of the station, the 19th should murder their officers,
while the 34th did the same; but the 19th refused, and marched quietly
into the cantonment. Here they found the 84th, a wing of the 53rd Foot,
two troops of horse artillery, and the Governor-General's body-guard
of picked Sepoy troopers. Two days before they were disbanded, a Sepoy
of the 34th, Mangul Pandy by name, endeavoured to rouse his regiment.
In the presence of the guard, who stood by, he wounded Adjutant Baugh.
While those were in deadly strife, the British sergeant-major dashed in;
but he was cut down, and the native lieutenant and guard took part in
the fray, striking the Europeans. A Mahometan, however, was faithful,
and, with the assistance of General Hearsey and other officers Baugh was
rescued and Mangul Pandy seized. Riding up to the mutinous guard, with
a loaded pistol in one hand, and ordering them back, Hearsey threatened
to shoot the first man who disobeyed him, and on this they returned to
their posts. Mangul Pandy and the native lieutenant were hanged in due
course, and the Mahometan and sergeant-major were rewarded; but for these
acts, such was the style of management that prevailed in Bengal, General
Hearsey was reprimanded! Otherwise the regiment was unpunished. On the
31st of March--a long delay caused by the fact that there was absolutely
no regiment that could be trusted with the disarmament until the return of
the 84th Foot from Burmah--the 19th were deprived of their arms, paid up
all their arrears, solemnly lectured in the presence of the whole force at
the station, European and native, disbanded, marched out of the station,
and sent to their homes. The 19th were really not so much in fault as
appeared, for they offered, if pardoned, to serve in China or anywhere;
but Government held it necessary to make an example. For now the fires in
cantonments were more rife than ever all up the valley of the Ganges, the
midnight meetings of the Sepoys more numerous, and the excitement of the
whole army was fast rising to a climax.

These symptoms of mutiny were manifest in Oude and in the North-West.
General Anson, the Commander-in-Chief, was on his way to comfortable
quarters in the hills. He was altogether unfitted for the deadly conflict
impending. He did not understand its gravity, and if he had caught a
glimpse of the facts, he would have been unable to deal with them. In the
middle of March, with the 36th Native Infantry for escort, he went to
Umballa. Two non-commissioned officers of this regiment were at the rifle
school. They went out to meet their comrades, and were by them repulsed
as outcasts--men who had touched greased cartridges and were defiled. In
fact, these natives had not touched greased cartridges, for there were
none in the school. But that made no difference to the infatuated 36th.
The Sepoys pretended that the rifle with its cartridge was "a Government
missionary to convert the whole army to Christianity." By this time the
whole army had become aware of its strength, and was in communication
from Calcutta to Peshawur. General Anson inspected the depôt, and
suspended the musketry practice of the Sepoys until further orders. He
ordered an inquiry, and when all the symptoms were disclosed to him, he
actually censured the Sepoys who had made known the fact that they had
been repulsed and treated as outcasts by their corps! He next forced the
Sepoys, not yet ripe for revolt, to use the cartridge. They did so, but at
night they burnt a number of Government buildings. A Sikh now reported the
existence of a conspiracy which was to break out in the beginning of May,
either at Delhi, Umballa, or Meerut. But General Anson would not believe
the information. He was already nestled snugly in the hills, playing
whist. And so the month passed away, lighted at its close by blazing
cantonments, and marked by the most flagrant signs of universal military
disaffection. In addition to this the agents of the King of Delhi and the
Shah of Persia and the Moslem priests were at work, preaching a religious
war by stealth, while the Hindoo pundits openly prophesied that the reign
of the English had lasted its appointed time, and that it was now coming
to an end.

The month of May came. It was the height of the hot season. There is
little doubt that the Sepoys, who had seen that their European masters
feared the sun, had calculated on its enervating effects. The storm was
gathering to a head. The strife was going on sullenly at Meerut as well
as at Umballa. At Lucknow, also, it was in progress. On the first days of
May the 7th Oude Irregular Infantry refused to touch cartridges, which,
they admitted, were in every respect such as they had been accustomed
to. The men were in absolute, but passive mutiny. On the 3rd of May,
threatening to kill the European officers, they seized their arms and the
magazine; but a force of cavalry and artillery arriving, the mutineers
were panic-stricken and gave up their arms. It was then discovered that
the 7th Oude and the 48th Native Infantry were actually conspiring. Thus
face to face with danger, Sir Henry Lawrence, Commissioner in Oude, began
to make preparations that enabled him to cope effectually with the crisis.
He had already struck down promptly the first mutinous regiment. He was
destined to save the power of Britain in Oude, and to sacrifice his life
in so doing.

[Illustration: GENERAL HEARSEY AND THE MUTINEERS. (_See p._ 187.)]

This scene at Lucknow aroused the Government at Calcutta. But mild
measures were the order of the day. A native lieutenant at Barrackpore had
been caught in the lines of the 70th, urging his men to revolt. He was
tried by a native court-martial and sentenced to dismissal. The effect
on the Sepoys is indescribable. "This," they said, "the only punishment
for mutiny! They are afraid of us; we can do as we like." But, alarmed
by the mutiny at Lucknow, Lord Canning determined to disband another
regiment. The corrupted 34th was to be so punished this time. Directing
the 84th Queen's, a wing of the 53rd, and two batteries of artillery upon
Barrackpore, he ordered the officer commanding at the station to disband
the mutinous regiment. It was done, but the punishment was felt to be no
punishment and the men went off exulting with their pay. In the order of
the Governor-General, disaffected soldiers were told that mutiny would
draw down upon them sharp and certain punishment like that inflicted
on the 34th. But the Bengal Sepoys had been long hardened to radical
insubordination, and the sharp and certain punishment of disbandment for
mutiny had no effect on them. This scene occurred at Barrackpore on the
6th of May. It was the second instance of paltering with mutineers. The
Government seem to have thought that they had destroyed the mutiny, root
and branch. In five days from that time Meerut was sacked, and the streets
of Delhi were running with European blood.

[Illustration: THE REBEL SEPOYS AT DELHI. (_See p._ 191.)]

The town and station of Meerut lies about forty-five miles north of Delhi,
in the upper part of the Doab of the Jumna and Ganges. As no European
troops could be stationed in Delhi, without violating the arrangements
made when the Great Mogul was dispossessed of his territories, Meerut
was fixed on as a station for European troops, and here were the 6th
Dragoon Guards, or Carabineers, the 1st Battalion of the 60th Rifles, and
two troops of Horse Artillery. There were also the 11th and 20th Native
Infantry and the 3rd Native Cavalry. The commander of the station was
General Hewitt, a worn-out old officer, of whom it had once been reported
officially that he was totally unfit for any command. As the disaffection
of the Sepoys was manifest, Colonel Carmichael Smith, of the 3rd Cavalry,
determined to bear it no longer. He paraded a part of the regiment, ninety
men, and ordered them to take the cartridges, showing them, at the same
time, that the end was to be torn not bitten off. Only five obeyed. The
rest were deaf to exhortations and warnings. They stood still, in passive
mutiny. This fact was reported to Brigadier Archdale Wilson, and by his
order the whole of the mutineers were arrested. They were tried, as usual,
by a native court-martial and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
On the 9th of May, by order of General Hewitt, the whole of the force in
the cantonment, European and native, was paraded. As soon as they were
drawn up, the Europeans were directed to load. Then the mutineers were
marched in, and so placed that any resistance would be followed by their
destruction. Their uniforms were stripped off and they were placed in
irons. The only sign of emotion was one deep sigh which burst at once
from all the battalions. The disgraced troopers actually reproached their
comrades for permitting the execution of the sentence; and we may well
believe that nothing but the loaded guns in front, and the grim men of
the Rifles and Carabineers, prevented the armed Sepoys from attempting
a rescue. The shackled troopers were marched off to the gaol and placed
under a guard of native policemen; and the Sepoys returned to their
lines to plot treason and communicate their intentions to the regiments
at Delhi. The sun went down on that Saturday, May the 9th, and darkness
covered up the meetings of swarthy soldiers planning a general revolt for
the next day.

About five o'clock next day the quiet of the evening was broken. A rocket
flew upwards in the Sepoy lines. The 3rd Cavalry rushed forth, seized
their arms, and slew at once four of their officers. A party of them
gallop away to the gaol, whirling their sabres over their heads. There is
only a native guard at the gaol; the doors are thrown open with shouts;
they set their imprisoned comrades free. Fourteen hundred convicts are
at the same time let loose, who rush eagerly away to reap the harvest of
plunder and violence. A party of the Sowars, with the 20th, went to the
lines of the 11th, to turn the tide of disaffection in its ranks, for it
was not yet entirely gained over. Colonel Finnis was there, endeavouring
to address the men and keep them to their duty. They instantly fired at
the unfortunate gentleman, whose death decided the wavering regiment. The
Sepoys of the 11th now joined with the rest, but protected the officers
and ladies. It was the plan of the mutineers to set upon and massacre
the Europeans assembled in church. Fortunately, the signal was given too
early. The Sepoys fall upon and kill everybody they meet; joined with the
rabble of the bazaars, they run to plunder the long line of beautiful
cottages in which the European families resided. They push their muskets
into the thatch, and fire; in a few minutes they are all in a blaze.
Ladies and children are seized with exultation and tormented to death.
The Europeans who get clear fly away to the English barracks. All the
bungalows in the native lines are burned and sacked. For two hours the
work of hell goes on--tumult, murder, pillage, conflagration. They fight
for the spoil and kill one another. And what are our soldiers doing? They
are all armed and ready, panting with fury, eager to rescue their dying
countrywomen, eager for blood and vengeance. To them thus ready for the
fray General Hewitt's order comes. What is it? "Defend your lines!"

Such was the fatal order. Instead of attacking the mutineers with horse,
foot, and artillery, he stood on the defensive. At length he was prevailed
on to move; but when he did, the mischief had been completed and the
mutineers were speeding southward to Delhi. Moving in the gloom, the angry
Europeans came up within sight of some of their foes, and the guns poured
a shower of grape into the darkness as the Sepoys vanished. There was no
pursuit. Captain Rosser offered to ride after them with horsemen and guns,
and follow them to Delhi; but General Hewitt would not hear of it, and
returned to his lines!

In Delhi all was peace. There were no signs of mutiny in the city or
cantonments. There had been a sign of Mahometan disaffection, for a
placard had been posted on the walls of the Jumma Musjid, declaring that
the Shah of Persia was coming to drive the Europeans from India. The old
King of Delhi and his sons and grandsons could not be expected to love us
or be loyal to us. They lived a life of conspiracy in those stormy times;
they were all sensual, cruel, and idle; but they dared not act openly
against the Company. There were three native regiments in the city and
cantonments, the 38th, 54th, and 74th, and a native battery. Brigadier
Graves commanded the brigade, and he and all the officers had the most
complete confidence in the loyalty of their men. It was nine o'clock; from
the magazine, which also looked on to the river, a sharp eye saw a body of
troopers coming down the Meerut road. The news spread to the Europeans;
one after the other they heard of these galloping horsemen. The brigadier,
warned by Mr. Hutchinson, at once ordered the 54th, under Colonel Ripley,
and two guns, to march. Sir Thomas Metcalfe warned Lieutenant Willoughby
at the magazine, and wished that two guns might be planted to sweep the
bridge. Fraser and Captain Douglas went into the palace to rouse and
induce the king to exert his influence. In the meantime the troopers had
ridden up to the bridge, had cut down the sergeant in charge, had crossed
over, and were in the palace and the city.

They were prompt men, these troopers. So long as there was one white
face left, they felt that they were not masters. So when Mr. Fraser
expostulated with them, they shot at him, wounded Mr. Hutchinson, and
killed a European clerk. Mr. Fraser seized a gun and shot a trooper; but
there were none to aid him, and he had to fly. Sir Thomas Metcalfe tried
the police; they stood unmoved. Sir Thomas drove away. As yet there were
only troopers in the city; but they had been looked for by the native
troops, and though few, they were sufficient, since there were none to
oppose them. Fraser, Hutchinson, and Douglas had gone into the palace.
There were the troopers, a mob from the city, and convicts delivered
from gaol. The British gentlemen still faced the mutineers, reasoning,
reproaching, exhorting. Suddenly one of the king's servants cut down
Fraser, and then a body rushed up the stairs and there slew Hutchinson,
Douglas, the Rev. Mr. Jennings, Miss Jennings, and Miss Clifford. The
ladies were killed outright on the spot and suffered no dishonour. Then
the troopers rushed forth to complete the massacre of the white men and
the native Christians. They scoured through the European quarters, with
reeking blades--the centre of a horde of ruffians steeped in cruelty,
crying, "_Deen! Deen!_" and sparing none. Some gallantly resisted; some
were smitten at their desks and employments. Mr. Beresford, at the bank,
fought stoutly, but was slain, and all who belonged to his household. The
dwellers in the College shared the same fate; the whole force of the Delhi
Mission fell. In the midst of their fury they were not likely to forget
the telegraph. The chief clerk was slain, but the rebels were not quick
enough in getting to the office to prevent his assistant from sending his
message to Lahore, ere the troopers cut him down "The Sepoys have come in
from Meerut, and are burning everything. Mr. Todd is dead, and, we hear,
several Europeans. We must shut up." They died; like good men and true,
they fell at their posts, but they had saved the Punjab.

Brigadier Graves had not been idle. He first sent word that all Europeans
in the city should muster at the Flagstaff Tower, a stone building, with
battlements, standing on the centre of the ridge; but his orders were too
late, or rather the troopers and felons were too speedy for the orders
to be of service. Then, as we have stated, he sent the 54th, followed by
two guns, to quell any tumult. But the 54th had no sooner entered the
Cashmere Gate than some troopers rode up and shot Colonel Ripley and all
his officers, except three who got away. Major Patterson now entered
with the guns, and at sight of these the troopers rode off. But the 54th
immediately broke up and joined the mutineers. Brigadier Graves sent down
three companies of the 74th and two more guns. These only provided fresh
mutineers, for not a man would obey orders. The guns were ordered back;
but on their road a party of mutineers met them, wounded the horse of the
officer in charge and carried the guns back to Delhi. All the Sepoys now
became active mutineers.

There were two magazines in the station: a large one, containing above a
thousand barrels of powder, placed two miles outside the city walls, and
at anybody's mercy, and a smaller one within the walls, not far from the
palace, containing not more than fifty barrels. It is of the latter we
have to write. Sir Charles Napier had condemned this building. Its gates
were so weak, he said, a mob could push them in. On the 11th of May there
were nine officers and men to defend this magazine. They were Lieutenant
George Willoughby in command, Lieutenants Forrest and Raynor; Conductors
Buckley, Shaw, and Scully; Sub-Conductor Crow, and Sergeants Edwards and
Stewart. Their memories are worthy of all honour. In the forenoon they
were beset by a crowd, raging, tumultuous, demanding admission. Seeing
this, Willoughby prepared for defence. He closed and barricaded the gates,
and a train was laid by Conductors Buckley, Scully, and Sergeant Stewart,
ready to be fired at a preconcerted signal, which was that of Conductor
Buckley raising his hat from his head, on the order being given by
Lieutenant Willoughby.

The mob had been balked at the outset. They had been reinforced by a body
of the king's soldiers, but still they were kept at bay. But when the
old king and his counsellors found that the troops in cantonments were
in revolt, that the spies he sent out returned reporting that no British
were coming from Meerut, and that the Native Infantry from Meerut had
entered Delhi, then fresh troops poured down upon the magazine. The whole
of the besieging crowd were eager for powder and arms. The king's soldiers
summoned the Europeans to surrender. They were defied. Then the crowd
swarmed to the attack and opened fire. At the first round the natives
in the magazine fled. But the nine Englishmen remained. Scaling-ladders
were brought; Sepoys mounted the tombs in the burial-ground overlooking
the enclosure, and fired on the little garrison. These plied their foes
with grape, but as fast as the iron sleet swept away one body, another
followed. For five hours the gallant nine maintained the unequal contest.
Scully stood by the trunk of a tree, ready to fire the mine. Every moment
the attack grew hotter and the defence weaker: for Edwards and Crow were
killed; Forrest and Buckley were wounded. All hope was gone. Willoughby
passed the word to Buckley to raise his hat, the signal for firing the
train, and Scully coolly and with deliberate care applied the match. In a
moment the whole building was rent by the explosion, and hundreds of the
enemy, crowding on, were buried in the ruins. Forrest, Raynor, Willoughby,
Buckley, and Scully made their way out, scorched and bruised, but alive. A
trooper cut down the brave Scully, and Willoughby was killed by marauders
in a village on the road to Meerut; but Forrest, Raynor, Stewart, and
Buckley succeeded in reaching that place alive, and each received the
Victoria Cross as a reward.

The explosion of the magazine may be regarded as the last act in defence
of Delhi. The fugitives who had reached the Flagstaff Tower were now
crowded within it, uncertain of their fate. The Sepoys who surrounded
the two guns were watched by armed Europeans from the roof of the tower;
but it would have been destruction to fire. The ladies were loosening
cartridges, and the men were resolving on defence when defence was
hopeless. One by one the fugitives had come in. Major Abbott had brought
up a cartload of dead and wounded officers. The Sepoys were growing
defiant. When the magazine blew up they became excited; they had long
refused to obey orders; they now told the officers they had better be
gone, "this was no longer a place for them." The words were true. All who
could got carriages or horses, and those who could get neither, set out on
foot. The Sepoys did not oppose them. The brave Brigadier Graves, Captain
Nicholl, and Dr. Stewart lingered to the last; but at length these went
also, and Delhi was in the power of the king and the Sepoys. An attempt
had been made to blow up the great magazine, but the Sepoys frustrated
it, and so ended the scene. One Sepoy only followed the officers in their
flight. The fugitives bent their steps towards Kurnaul, and only some
arrived. They were beset by the village marauders, who robbed and wounded,
or murdered, all parties alike. Some were nearly naked, their clothes
having been torn from them; some were severely wounded; some lay down to
die from fatigue and grief. It was a dreadful night; and in Delhi there
were still forty-three persons, chiefly women and children. They had taken
refuge in the palace; on the 18th of May the poor creatures were given up
to the mutineers, and massacred in a body by them and the king's brutal
sons.

Sir Henry Lawrence, ever vigilant and prompt, saved Lucknow for a time,
by disarming the 7th Oude Irregulars, on the 3rd of May. On the 12th
Sir Henry held a durbar, and rewarded, with solemn forms, a subahdar, a
havildar, and two Sepoys, who had been instrumental directly in arresting
emissaries who were preaching sedition. Sir Henry made a noble speech
to the soldiers representing all the native forces in the cantonment,
praised, warned, exhorted them, and so he gained a month to prepare for
a doom that was inevitable; a month to prepare and provision a fortified
post in the heart of Lucknow, where a handful of Europeans and a few
faithful natives were destined, with endless honour, to uplift and keep
flying the British standard in one of the centres of rebellion.

The electric telegraph saved the Punjab. We have already told how from
the office in Delhi went a message along the wire to Lahore. It was read
at Umballa, _en route;_ it was read at Lahore; it was shot north-westward
to Sir John Lawrence at Rawul Pindee, and to Herbert Edwardes, John
Nicholson, and Sydney Cotton at Peshawur. They had it by noon in Lahore:
a messenger coming in from Meerut confirmed it. By eventide Sir John
Lawrence had read the momentous words at Rawul Pindee; by midnight they
were scanned at Peshawur. They fell into the hands of men prompt to face
and to overcome danger; keen of sight and swift of action. There was to
be no paltering with mutiny in the Punjab. The Britons were resolved to
be masters in that land. The morning of the 12th of May brought fresh and
fuller tidings, and out of them grew a fixed resolve. The Europeans had
kept the secret imparted by the magic dial, and determined to be first in
the field.

There were at Mean Meer, six miles from Lahore, three regiments of native
infantry and one of cavalry. These Brigadier Corbett and Mr. Montgomery
and others, after brief deliberation, resolved to disarm. The means
at hand were slight, but sufficient for brave men. They were the 81st
Queen's, and two troops of horse, and four companies of foot artillery. A
ball had been appointed for the night of the 12th, and it was agreed that
this festivity should be held, and that the troops should parade on the
morning of the 13th. The 12th brought fresh news. A Sikh discovered and
revealed a plot to seize the fort in Lahore, and massacre every white man.
The authorities kept their discovery to themselves, and prepared by a bold
stroke to anticipate the conspirators. The ball was held. The revel was
kept up till nearly dawn, when the officers stole away to attend a parade
which was to determine the fate of British rule in the country of the five
rivers. During that night a company of the 81st were driving along in
carts to Govindghur, three companies were held in readiness to relieve the
conspirators of the 26th in Lahore Fort, and six companies were left in
cantonments to perform a principal part on the parade ground. The pretence
for the parade was to read a general order touching the disarmament of
the 34th, at Barrackpore. When the regiments were in line, an order was
read aloud to the Sepoys, explaining to them that they were about to be
deprived of their arms to prevent them from disgracing themselves and
their colours by yielding to the temptations of bad men, and rising in
mutiny. At the conclusion of the reading, the order went forth to "pile
arms." By this time the 81st had moved to the rear of the guns. There were
twelve, each loaded with grape, and by each gun stood an artilleryman
port-fire in hand. Colonel Renny of the 81st also gave the order to load,
and the ring of the steel ramrods told the Sepoys there was no hope for
them. The infantry piled arms, the cavalry took off their sabres and
pouches; a company of the 81st swept them up; the crisis was past, and
Lahore was saved on the third morning after the outbreak at Meerut. On
that memorable morning, too, three companies of the 81st marched into the
fort of Lahore. The 26th, astonished and surprised, laid down their arms
without a murmur.

[Illustration: DISARMAMENT OF THE 26TH AT BARRACKPORE. (_See p._ 193.)]

On the same day there were other deeds performed between the Ravee and
Sutlej. On the right bank of the latter river, and commanding the Great
Road from Delhi to Lahore, stands the fort of Philour. To the south-east,
over the river, is the cloth-working town of Loodiana, also on the Great
Road, and to the north-west the cantonment of Jallandhar. Philour was
wholly in the hands of the Sepoy guard, and a native regiment, the 3rd,
was encamped under its walls. There were only eight Europeans in the fort,
one of whom, Mr. Brown, had arrived on the 12th of May with telegraphic
apparatus to open communication with Jallandhar. For when the officer
commanding at the latter station heard of the mutiny, his first thought
was for the safety of Philour. He sent Mr. Brown and his apparatus in a
light cart, and he marched out 150 men of the 8th Queen's at night to
garrison the fort. The gallant eight had one gun. They closed the fort,
and loaded the piece with grape; and kept watch over the Sepoys within and
the Sepoys without. It was an anxious night, and the gun was not quitted
for one moment. Before day had dawned, up came the men of the 8th, with
the welcome addition, picked up on the road, of two horse-artillery guns
and some Punjabee troopers, under the chivalrous Probyn. The Sepoys in the
fort were surprised and dismayed when they were relieved, and marched out
of the fort. They, too, were to have risen on the 15th, and Philour was to
have been the rendezvous of all the mutineers in the Punjab.

At Jallandhar itself very vigorous measures had been taken. We have seen
how Philour was saved. Mr. Ricketts, at Loodiana, was also warned to look
sharply after the bridge of boats which carries the traffic of the Great
Road over the Sutlej. The troops at Jallandhar were, the 6th Cavalry,
the 36th Native Infantry, and the 61st Native Infantry, the 8th Queen's,
and one troop of Horse Artillery. Brigadier Hartley would have disarmed
the natives, but he feared for the out-stations; so he contented himself
with taking ample precautions, by an able disposition of his guns and his
European infantry. The civil chief of the station appealed for aid to the
Rajah of Kuppoorthulla, a Sikh chief, whose territories lie between the
Beas and the Sutlej, and the Rajah responded with promptitude, bringing
up at once a body of troops and guns. This was the first evidence of the
goodwill of the Sikh chieftains in this district. They were destined to
render the most valuable services in the trying days at hand. Thus was
mutiny for a time parried at Jallandhar.

Far different had been the incidents of the crisis at Ferozepore. This
town stands on the left bank of the Sutlej, nearly due south of Lahore,
and below Loodiana; it contained the largest arsenal in Upper India and
its importance was immense. The brigade at the station consisted of the
10th Cavalry, the 45th and 57th Native Infantry, the 61st Queen's, and
three batteries; the whole under Brigadier Innes, who had just arrived
from Mooltan. Strong symptoms of disaffection had appeared among the
57th but not in the 45th, or the 10th Cavalry. When on the 13th decisive
news arrived, the brigadier held a council of war; but here, as in all
other stations, his avowed suspicions of the native troops were sharply
combated by their own officers. He adopted a half measure: he resolved
to divide the two native regiments, placing them so that the Europeans
and the guns would be between them, and he intended to disarm them the
next day. On the evening of the 13th he held a parade, at the same time
threw a hundred men of the 61st into the magazine, and selected the best
positions for his artillery. From the parade he directed the 57th to
march in one direction, and the 45th in another. The former obeyed, and
encamped quietly in their new quarters; but the 45th took a route that
brought them in sight of the magazine, which they made an unsuccessful
attempt to rush. In the meantime the 61st had to guard the barracks, where
the women and children had sought shelter, as well as the magazine, and
thus were compelled to look on while the mutineers and the mob burnt the
cantonments. The 57th took no part in the mischief, and the next day gave
up their arms and colours. The 45th were still bent on wrong doing, and
as a precaution, the brigadier blew up the regimental magazines. Then the
45th, except a few, broke into open mutiny, and set out for Delhi, pursued
by the Europeans and the 10th. Very few escaped, for the 10th caught some,
and the villagers brought in others. Brigadier Innes had now leisure to
secure all the powder and stores. Of the native force, the 10th alone
retained their arms and received General Anson's thanks for their loyalty.
In a few weeks they too were mutineers.

There were three other points of moment: one of supreme importance in the
Punjab-Peshawur. The others were Kangra and Mooltan. Kangra was to the
Rajpoots of the hills what Umritsir was to the Sikhs of the plains--a
place invested with a moral prestige. Major Lake, getting one of Mr.
Montgomery's notes from Lahore, marched a body of Punjab police into
Kangra and it was secured. We have already seen the men of the 8th enter
Philour at dawn. Mooltan, standing on the left bank of the Chenab, a few
miles above its junction with the Indus, was the key of the whole country
around the point where the five rivers become one. It commanded the
navigation; it was the connecting link between the Punjab and Scinde and
the Punjab and South Afghanistan. There were only sixty Europeans there,
and 3,500 natives. Of these the most dreaded were the 62nd and 69th Native
Infantry; their officers alone were full of trust in them. Major Crawford
Chamberlain could rely only on his sixty Europeans and some 250 Punjabees;
he had hopes of a regiment of irregular cavalry, his own regiment, known
all over India as Skinner's Horse. His policy was to temporise and
prepare; and most ably he did both. It was pluck and skill which saved
Mooltan.

Peshawur was, after all, the critical point in the Punjab. Five infantry
regiments of the Bengal army were there, the 21st, 24th, 27th, 51st, and
64th; three cavalry regiments, the 5th Regulars, and the 17th and 18th
Irregulars. In three adjacent forts were detachments of a Hindoo regiment,
called the Khelat-i-Gilzies. The British force consisted of the 70th and
87th, and four batteries; in all about 2,000 men. At Noushera, the station
at the east end of the Peshawur Valley, and more than twenty miles off,
were the 27th Queen's, the 55th Native Infantry, the 10th Irregulars, and
a battery. At Hotee Murdan, a mountain station, sixteen miles north of
Noushera, were the Guides, natives, but true as steel, because raised,
officered, and disciplined on sound principles. These were the forces,
native and British, north of the Indus. The Europeans were outnumbered by
three to one.

The telegram from Lahore was received here and kept secret. The men who
had to deal with probable mutiny were Brigadier Sydney Cotton, Colonels
Edwardes, Nicholson, and Neville Chamberlain, for General Reid, the
Commander-in-Chief, was not one of the prime moving spirits. On the
morning of the 12th a council was held, and swift were its decisions.
The bold spirit of John Nicholson suggested at once that the British
should take the initiative and form a movable column, so that aid might
be rendered where it was required, and visible tangible power shown to
all. To form this column, the 55th Native Infantry were ordered to occupy
Hotee Murdan; so that the Guides might join the 27th Queen's at Noushera,
and that these two should form the kernel of the column. At the same time
the 64th Native Infantry were split up into three parts, and sent to the
forts near Peshawur. The next morning, the 13th, the council heard the
news of the disarming at Lahore, and proceeded with the work. Sir John
Lawrence, though at Rawul Pindee, talked with his coadjutors by telegraph,
and at his suggestion General Reid joined him, and thus the heads of the
two public services were united. The measures taken extended over a wider
field. The Punjabee infantry and the Sikh regiments, the remains of the
old Khalsa army, were called in from all quarters to join the movable
column. Not only was the station made safe, and the passage of the Indus
at Attock secured, but Edwardes and Nicholson took advantage of their
popularity on the frontier to call for aid from the very tribes whom it
had been their business to rule, and to rule with no unsteady hand. For
the moment these men, by boldness, promptitude, and sagacity, held down
the raging element of mutiny on both banks of the Indus, and finally drew
its teeth with little loss.

But for the present we must leave them with these armed traitors all
around, to show what General Anson was doing in the first week after the
outbreak at Meerut.

We have already caught a glimpse of General Anson, whose distinction among
men it was to be the greatest whist-player in either hemisphere. We have
seen him at Umballa, misunderstanding the mutiny, and snubbing Sepoys and
Sepoy officers for telling tales. He was on the road to Simla, and to
Simla he went. Below him were spread out the Cis-Sutlej States, governed
chiefly by native Sikh chiefs who owned allegiance to the Company. It was
among these that we had sought and found our earliest allies. We have
seen how the Rajah of Kuppoorthulla cast his lot at once with ours. There
were others ready to follow his example. The whole country below had been
for three days in the ferment of mutiny; the troops at Lahore had been
disarmed; the movable column had been formed, an outbreak of the 5th and
60th Native Infantry at Umballa on the 10th of May had been frustrated by
a mere accident; and blood had been shed at Ferozepore, before General
Anson heard that there was any serious mutiny in the army. When the famous
message from Delhi reached Umballa, General Barnard sent off Captain
Barnard, his aide-de-camp, to inform the Commander-in-Chief. As he passed
through Kussowlie, he warned the 75th Foot to be ready to march at a
moment's notice. On the 12th he astonished the Commander-in-Chief by
presenting the Delhi telegram! It was fortunate for General Anson that he
had with him at that moment men like Colonel Chester and Major Norman.
Whatever indecision there may have been in the mind of the chief, there
was none in that of his subordinates, and when he could not decide, they
decided for him. Orders were sent that very night for the march of the
75th and for the 2nd Fusiliers to be ready for marching, and the 1st
Bengal Fusiliers at once to Umballa; But General Anson did not stir.
Fresh news came in on the 13th, as precise as it was horrible. The 2nd
Fusiliers were ordered to march. On the 14th the general and his staff
quitted Simla, and the next day they were at Umballa. The 1st Fusiliers
arrived the same day; having marched in two nights sixty miles. The 75th
had come in, and these, with the 9th Lancers, under Colonel Hope Grant,
and two troops of horse artillery, formed a weak but respectable brigade.
On the 17th they were joined by the 2nd Fusiliers.

Pending the arrival of General Anson the civil authorities had not
been idle. Acting under the inspiration and on the orders of Sir John
Lawrence, whose comprehensive mind embraced the whole state of affairs
north of Delhi, Mr. Barnes and Mr. Forsyth had called upon the Maharajah
of Putteeala, and the Rajahs of Jheend and Nabha, for the aid of troops,
provisions, carriage, and it was instantly granted. Detachments of their
forces were sent to guard fords and places of importance in the country,
to Loodiana, and on the road to Kurnaul. The military commissaries could
not meet the immense demand for transport; it was met by the civilians.
These were days of vast activity. For the first time European soldiers
mounted sentry, and European officers rode and walked in the burning sun.
With the aid of the native princes the civilians took firm hold on the
country between the Jumna and the Sutlej, and thus secured the road from
Delhi to the Punjab, whence troops and ammunition and spirited counsels
alone could come.

One of the first acts of General Anson, or rather of his able staff
officers, was to organise a siege train at Philour. The order, however,
did not reach that fort until the 17th, and four days elapsed before
it could be prepared. In the meantime, a Ghoorka battalion near Simla,
which nobody doubted was badly managed, broke into mutiny, creating a
disgraceful panic at Simla. The siege train had to be entrusted to the
escort of the 3rd Native Infantry, encamped at Philour. Part of this
regiment, and of the 4th Cavalry, had already been sent to guard a small
supply of ammunition for the Europeans. It was said the 3rd had sworn
the siege-train should never reach Delhi, and it is not an improbable
story; nevertheless, when, hearing that the Ghoorkas were in revolt,
they volunteered to act as escort, the offer was accepted. The train
crossed the Sutlej, and two hours afterwards the bridge was carried away.
Perplexed and harassed by the responsibility thrown upon him, General
Anson reached Kurnaul on the 25th; on the 26th he was attacked by cholera,
and on the 27th of May he died. It may be said he died of a consciousness
of his own incapacity to contend with the gigantic difficulties around
him. It was not his fault that he was neither a Lawrence nor a Montgomery,
neither a Havelock nor a Campbell; but it was the fault of the British
Government that they selected a man of such moderate abilities and no
force of character to command the Indian army. On the 26th the Delhi Field
Force under Sir Henry Barnard reached Kurnaul, and Sir Henry assumed
command. It was now nearly the end of May, twenty days since the mutiny
began; and here were the troops from Umballa and the brigade from Meerut
converging on a point, to effect a junction and lay siege to Delhi.

By this time the Punjab had been the theatre of more decision and vigour.
Sir John Lawrence, Mr. Montgomery, and their able coadjutors had shown
how mutiny should be dealt with. No half measures were adopted. They went
upon the time-honoured principle that he who is not for us is against
us. "Treason and sedition," writes one of the Punjab men, "were dogged
into the very privacy of the harem, and up to the sacred sanctuaries of
the mosques and shrines." Mr. Montgomery banished red tape. All letters
were intercepted; all important ferries, fords, and roads were watched.
Rewards were offered for fugitive mutineers, dead or alive. It was soon
found that the population were on our side, and the villagers ready to
stop mutineers, or to report their movements. The Hindostanee soldiers had
boasted throughout the Punjab that _they_ had conquered it, and now it was
the turn of the Sikh and the Punjabee. The Sikhs were burning to march on
Delhi. More than a century and a half before, Aurungzebe, the Great Mogul,
had beheaded a prophet of the Sikhs in his palace at Delhi, and there was
a prophecy current that the Sikhs, in conjunction with the British, should
sack Delhi, and avenge the death of their martyr Gooroo. This made the
work of the British leaders less difficult; but it was, in the middle of
May, still a problem whether we should stand or fall.

[Illustration: SIR JOHN LAWRENCE (AFTERWARDS LORD LAWRENCE).]

The Punjab still had to be made safe. Peshawur was not yet secure. The
blow to be struck there by the Sepoys had only been parried. The hill
tribes looked on with suspicion and doubt. The cantonments were full of
intrigue. The Sepoys were the first to draw down on themselves the doom
awaiting them. The 55th had been sent from Noushera to Hotee Murdan, and
the 64th into their forts near Peshawur. This had reduced the force to
be watched to four infantry and three cavalry regiments. They had all
heard of the success of their "brothers" at Meerut and Delhi. In spite
of vigilant watching and severe measures, these regiments were in close
communication. But some of the letters seized not only showed that an
extensive conspiracy existed, but revealed its nature. Happily, Colonel
Nicholson felt danger in the air, and induced Sir John Lawrence to send
back half the 27th Foot to the Indus. Happily, also, the Punjabee troops
on the frontier were coming in. But there was no time to lose. The
Sepoys in the station were ripe for revolt, and the plot formed was only
discovered eight-and-forty hours before the time fixed for its execution.
The 51st Native Infantry at Peshawur sent a letter to the 64th and the
Khelat-i-Gilzies, inviting them to march into Peshawur on the 22nd of
May, and hinting what should then be done. The letter got safely to
hand, but the Sepoy who received it took it to the officer commanding at
one of the three forts. The officer sent it back instantly to Peshawur,
and thus saved the station. Now was the time to disarm the whole of the
native troops. It was the 21st of May. Edwardes had just come in from
Rawul Pindee. Promptly a council was held, and although the colonels
of the Sepoy regiments--as they did every where--vehemently refused to
believe that their men were mutinous, Cotton, Edwardes, and Nicholson saw
more clearly, and would not be gainsaid. News from Noushera and Hotee
Murdan quickened their resolves into acts. The 55th were in open mutiny.
Brigadier Cotton decided that the 24th, 27th, and 51st Native Infantry,
and the 5th Cavalry should be disarmed on the 22nd. The 21st Native
Infantry and the 7th and 15th Irregular Cavalry were still trusted. The
hazardous operation was performed with complete success. The British
had won again. While the issue was doubtful, the chiefs of the valley
had refused to take sides. "Show us that you are stronger," they said,
"and there shall be no lack of support." The demonstration of strength
was given. On that very day recruits came in by the hundred. "The chiefs
of the valley crowded in upon General Cotton, flung their swords on the
ground at his feet, and tendered the services of themselves and their
vassals." Such it is to be morally intrepid at the right moment and in the
right way.

More had to be done, for the 55th were in open mutiny at Noushera and
Hotee Murdan. The first-named station lies on the road from Peshawur
through Attock on the Indus to Rawul Pindee and Lahore. The second lies
to the north, over the Cabul river, which, twisting down through the
rocky bottom of the Khyber pass, joins the Indus near Attock. The 55th
had marched to Noushera on the 13th. The 27th Foot had gone eastward. The
Guides were hurrying towards Delhi. The 55th held Hotee Murdan, had two
companies at Noushera, and one on the right bank of the Indus, opposite
Attock. There, too, were a hundred Pathans, under Futteh Khan, once a
captain in the Guides, and in the fort of Attock were the 5th Punjabees.
The 55th men opposite Attock tried to seduce the Pathans from their
allegiance; but these were true and revealed the secret. Finding they were
discovered, the 55th men mutinied and made for Noushera. Here they were
met and captured by the 10th Irregulars, but from these they were rescued
by their comrades in the station. It happened that Lieutenant Davies had
under his orders a few men of the 27th Foot, who were guarding the sick,
and the women and children of the regiment, and these, though few in
number, displayed so bold a front that the mutineers recoiled, and hurried
away to Hotee Murdan. But, finding that the bridge of boats over the
Cabul river had been broken, the greater part marched back and only a few
joined their regiment. When the 55th heard that a force under Nicholson
was coming against them from Peshawur, they prepared to hurry off into the
hills, but were caught and scattered like dust before the wind.

From Hotee Murdan, the Peshawur column, under Colonel Chute, moved
upon the three forts, garrisoned by the 64th Native Infantry and the
Khelat-i-Gilzies. Chute reached the first fort, Aboozai, and easily
disarmed the men of the 64th who were there. He reached Subkuddur the
next day, and disarmed the men of the 64th, both in that fort and in Fort
Michnee. Peshawur was no longer in danger; the whole of the trans-Indus
region had been secured. It had been shown that although the Irregular
Hindostanee Cavalry could not be trusted, yet that the Punjabees were
true, for the men of the 5th had not hesitated a moment to shoot a cavalry
mutineer, who had incited his comrades to murder an officer. Improving
on their bold policy, the leaders at Peshawur levied new corps among the
frontier tribes--hitherto our direst foes--and found them trusty warriors;
drew enough men from the British Infantry to make a squadron of horse,
and mounted them on the chargers of the disarmed native cavalry; formed
in like manner a battery, took the Sikhs out of the disarmed regiments,
re-armed them, and placed them in a separate regiment. The old Sikh
leaders eagerly came forward, and soon there was the nucleus of a new and
trusty native army of Sikhs and Punjabees. It is recorded of a frontier
chief that when he heard the story of the Meerut and Delhi atrocities,
filled with rage, he spat on the ground, and said with wrath, "Who can
charge us with ever touching a helpless woman or defenceless child? No! we
would not do it, not for a prince's ransom!" And it was true.

The North-West was now completely cut off from Calcutta. The 9th Native
Infantry, stationed at different towns on the trunk road between Agra and
Delhi, mutinied on the 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of May, and marched to
Delhi. Some gallant Europeans--Mr. Patterson Sanders, a zemindar of those
parts, among them--forming a little squadron of cavalry, remained for
months afterwards about Allyghur; but with this exception British rule
ceased in the Doab below Delhi. At Agra, indeed, the British stood out
bravely amid a sea of mutiny roaring around them, suffered their moments
of peril, had their combats and hair-breadth escapes, but nevertheless
survived. At the end of May mutinies increased on all sides. Let the
reader bear in mind that, from the 10th of May onwards, there were, day
after day, incessant explosions of Sepoy regiments, sometimes bloody and
cruel, sometimes mild--that is, not followed by the slaughter of many of
our kin. The track of the mutiny ran from the Delhi country eastward,
through the Doab into Behar, and north and south, marking Rohilcund and
Oude, and Central India, with many bloody spots; for the Sepoys were many,
and the British were few--so few, that they could be reckoned by hundreds,
while their exasperated foes were numbered by thousands and tens of
thousands. While the Delhi field force was getting itself together, siege
train and all, while the men of the Punjab were fighting their great fight
with their Sepoys, the military revolution was growing supreme in every
province garrisoned by Hindostanees, until only Agra and Lucknow, like
rocks in that turbulent ocean, were left to bear the British flag and
shelter men of British race. Before following the army to Delhi, let us
look nearer at the mutiny, now blazing so far and wide.

We shall take the events in chronological order. On the 16th of May the
native sappers stationed at Roorkee were ordered to march to Meerut. They
mutinied, slew Captain Fraser, and strode away to Delhi. On the 20th,
a spy, caught and surrendered by the 9th Native Infantry at Allyghur,
was hanged in the presence of the regiment, the bulk of whom seemed to
approve. But one suddenly crying, as he pointed to the corpse, "Behold a
martyr to our religion!" the whole of the companies present broke into
mutiny. They spared the officers, but plundered the place, liberated the
convicts, and marched to Delhi. In four days the whole regiment was in
revolt; but it is distinguished among other regiments, because it did
not commit murder. At Mynpooree, Lieutenant De Kantzow rendered himself
conspicuous by his sterling courage. He stood up against the mutineers,
exhorting, remonstrating, threatening. When some pointed their muskets
at him, he folded his arms and bade them fire if they dared. When they
tried to storm the treasury, he was there to resist, and, aided by the
gaol-guard, he induced the raging multitude to turn away. They went off to
Delhi, and De Kantzow received the thanks of Lord Canning, and a command.
On the 28th the Hurrianah battalion rose at Hansee and Hissar, a few
miles south-west of the Great Road from Delhi to Kurnaul, and murdered
every European they could overpower; and on the same day, showing how the
mutineers acted from a common feeling, the 15th and 30th Native Infantry
stationed at Nusseerabad, in Rajpootana, seized their arms and a native
battery, and began to shed blood. The 1st Bombay Lancers charged them, but
without effect, and then retreated, with the surviving Europeans, to a
place of safety, while the mutineers went forth towards the common centre,
Delhi.

Two days afterwards, the Lucknow Brigade showed itself in its true
colours; within twelve hours the Bareilly Brigade revolted, and within
a week the whole of Rohilcund and Oude, save Lucknow, had been wrested
from British rule. Lucknow city stands on the right bank of the Goomtee,
one of the tributaries of the sacred Ganges. Within the city was a most
turbulent population; without, a camp swarming with mutinous Sepoys.
The only men who could be trusted wholly were the 32nd Foot and the
Europeans, civilians, merchants, and traders dwelling in Lucknow. The
chief commissioner was Sir Henry Lawrence; the Financial Commissioner, Mr.
Gubbins. Another commissioner was Major Banks. Colonel Inglis commanded
the 32nd Foot, and Brigadier Gray the native troops. In and near the
cantonments were 4,800 foot, and 2,100 horse, with two batteries of
artillery. In the whole of Oude there were 19,200 native troops, and only
one British regiment and one company of British artillery, in all 800
men. These last were at Lucknow. Thus, there were upwards of twenty to
one against us. But in the mutinies about to occur, all our enemies did
not turn upon us at once; and such preparations had been made to secure a
stronghold, that, when nearly all had fallen away, there still remained
a place of refuge for the civilians and traders, and a place for all to
defend.

Nearly the whole of the troops in Oude were ripe for revolt, and the
people were becoming suspicious of our ability to maintain our power.
The state of transition from the rule of the ex-king to that of the
Governor-General helped to create disaffection. The sway of the former
was irregular and inequitable; the sway of the latter, though regular and
equitable, had not come fully into play. In Oude, the maxim of all was,
and had long been, every one for himself. The villagers were accustomed
to resistance; the talookdars, rulers of petty and sometimes extensive
districts, were accustomed to revolt. In the latter end of May Sir Henry
Lawrence sent a small column, under Captain Hutchinson--who wrote an
interesting memoir of the mutinies--to move about between the Goomtee and
the Ganges, and fourteen miles from Lucknow this column was watched by
armed villagers. The great province of Oude, so full of fighting men, had
not, like the Punjab, been disarmed when it was annexed, and we were about
to pay the penalty of over-confidence. This column had not been gone two
days before the troops in the cantonment mutinied.

As usual, they gave no premonitory sign. It was well known that the native
troops might break out any day, and on the 30th of May a Sepoy reported
that the troops would rise in the evening; but the brigadier did not
believe the report, and did not forward it to Sir Henry Lawrence. In the
twilight the 71st and the 7th Cavalry turned out and began firing. They
tried to surprise the officers and the mess-house, but these were too
quick for them. Sir Henry repaired to the camp of the 32nd, which was soon
under arms, with the guns ready for action. The mutineers shot Brigadier
Handscomb dead, and then essayed to charge the 32nd and the guns. But
grape shot proved enough for them. Falling back, they slew Lieutenant
Grant, The 13th and 48th were drawn up on parade, but would not act,
and only a few of the 71st, and 200 of the 13th, and fifty-seven of the
48th could be got to follow their officers to the side of the British.
The Sepoys seized the magazine, and plundered the officers' bungalows,
in spite of some gallant efforts to prevent them. The 32nd, with the few
faithful Sepoys, remained under arms all night. In the morning Sir Henry
pursued the mutineers, who fled away before him. The scoundrels in the
city now rose, but they were speedily and severely punished; and Sir Henry
was able to raise 3,000 police, who, under Captain Carnegie, did good
service. Some of the mutineers struck across country for the Ganges and
Delhi.

On the very day after this outburst at Lucknow, on Sunday, the 31st,
Bareilly and Shahjehanpore were the scenes of horrible atrocities. At the
latter, the 28th Native Infantry selected the moment when the Europeans
were at church, and tried to slay them altogether; but they failed. Mr.
Ricketts was killed in the church, with others, and Major James fell on
the parade ground. The greater number took to the country, and reached
Mohumdee. Here they found Captain Patrick Orr, with a company of the 9th
Oude, and these were reinforced by fifty men from Seetapore. Captain Orr
extracted from the native officers an oath binding them to escort the
whole party to Seetapore; but they had not gone far before the troops
turned them adrift to go where they pleased. They went, but the ruffian
Sepoys soon followed, and near Aurungabad began the work of murder. The
Sepoys, strangely enough, saved Orr and a drummer boy, and took them to
Lonee Singh, of Mithowlee.

The tragedy at Bareilly made a deep impression. That Sunday was a day
fatal to the British. At Bareilly there were two regiments of native
infantry, one of cavalry, and a battery, under Brigadier Sibbald.
Happily, the women and children had been sent to the hills. There were
no European troops in Rohilcund; the Sepoys had nothing to fear. They had
only delayed the execution of their intentions in the hope that their
officers could be induced to call their wives and children from Nynee
Tal. Finding the hope vain, they mutinied in the most complete way. On
that quiet Sunday, being all agreed, they suddenly opened with both grape
and musketry on the officers, while a detachment released 3,000 felons,
and the fierce Rohillas rushed out to burn and slay. The devastation of
the camp completed the day's work. Khan Bahadar Khan, an old servant of
the Company, proclaimed himself king, and appointed a native officer of
artillery to be his general. Then he held a court, tried two European
judges, found them guilty, and caused them to be hanged. The Bareilly
Brigade was not long in marching to Delhi, but nothing, except the fatuity
of General Hewitt, saved it from disruption, if not destruction, at a
ferry over the Ganges.

Seetapore, in the westernmost division of Oude, lies on the Sureyan river,
about fifty miles north of Lucknow. It was the seat of government for
Khyrabad. The commissioner there was Mr. George Christian. The troops
there consisted wholly of natives, one regiment being the 41st Native
Infantry, the others being Oude Irregulars. Here, too, mutiny was felt to
be in the air. Here, too, the British officers refused to believe that
their men could revolt, and even Mr. Christian believed he could trust
the Oude Irregulars. All the troops were paid on the 2nd of June; on the
3rd they broke into mutiny. Like the regiments at Bareilly, these men
reproached their officers because they had sent their women and children
into the commissioner's house. How many were actually slain at Seetapore
is not known, but twenty-four can be named and numbered--among them Mr.
and Mrs. Christian. Among those who escaped towards the hills on the north
was Captain Hearsey of the Military Police, whose men protected him and
even saved two ladies. The wanderings of Captain Hearsey and the fugitives
from different quarters whom he met, surpass in romantic incidents the
inventions of the novelist. After eight months' wanderings, Hearsey
rejoined the army of Sir Colin Campbell, by making an immense detour
through the hills, and issuing into the plains far north of Meerut.

[Illustration: DE KANTZOW DEFENDING THE TREASURY AT MYNPOOREE. (_See p._
199.)]

The mutiny of Jhansi was even more tragic than this of Seetapore. Jhansi
was formerly one of the independent principalities of the extensive region
known as Bundelcund. It stands between the Betwa and the Sinde rivers,
two affluents of the Jumna, and is 100 miles from Calpee and 150 from
Agra. It had been annexed by Lord Dalhousie. He had refused to recognise
the adopted heir of the last Rajah, and the Ranee, his wife, refused,
so angered was she, to accept a pension from the British Government.
There were parts of two regiments at Jhansi. The Ranee, an able and bold
woman, saw her opportunity for revenge had come. As soon as she heard of
the successful mutinies of the Sepoys in the North-West, she instigated
the regiments in her city to follow their example. The Europeans had
determined to make a stand in the fort, and this they provisioned; but a
company of Sepoys entered on the 4th of June, and declared they intended
to hold the fort, thus depriving the British of a defensible post. A
parade was held; the Sepoys were respectful, and swore to stand by their
officers. The place of refuge now selected by the residents was the town
fort. In a few hours the whole native force was in revolt. The cavalry
began the fray. Riding over the plain, they met and shot two officers of
the 12th Native Infantry. "They then made a rush at their own commanding
officer, who, well mounted, was making for the fort; but, though they
managed to wound him, he reached the fort in safety, and our countrymen
on the ramparts, opening fire on his pursuers, killed some five or six of
them.... With loud shouts, the mutineers then proceeded against the fort,
and on the second day the Ranee sent her guns and elephants to assist
them. But there was not only force without, there was treachery within.
The Europeans numbered only fifty-five, including women and children;
the natives who were with them were numerically superior. Two of these,
brothers, were discovered in the act of opening one of the gates to the
enemy. Lieutenant Powys, who saw them, instantly shot one dead, and was
himself cut down by the brother. Captain Burgess avenged him in a second,
and the assassins lay side by side in the ditch. But provisions were
failing them; two attempts to communicate with Nagode and Gwalior had been
abortive; some Europeans who had tried to escape over the parapet had been
caught and killed; all appeared hopeless. At this crisis the Ranee sent
to say that if they would surrender their lives should be spared, and they
should be sent safely to some other station. She swore, the troopers of
the cavalry swore, the Sepoys swore, the native gunners swore, to adhere
to these terms. Seizing this as the only chance of life--unable, indeed,
to hold out for twenty-four hours longer--the garrison surrendered. They
came out, two and two; as they advanced through the line of cavalry and
infantry, they saw none but hostile faces; but there was no movement
against them. At last, every Christian had quitted the fort. Then was
commenced a deed of ruthless treachery, unsurpassed even by the Nana
Sahib. The gates were shut behind them; they were seized, the men and
women separated, and tied together in two rows, facing one another; the
children standing by their mothers. The men were then decapitated, the
children were seized, and cut in halves before their mothers' eyes; and
last of all, the ladies found what, under those circumstances, they must
have felt to be a happy release in death."

In the interval between the 4th and the 10th of June the whole of the
troops at Cawnpore and throughout Oude had revolted. Cawnpore demands a
separate story, and we turn again to Oude.

There were five considerable stations. On the 8th the troops at every one
became their own masters. The military station in the Bareytch division,
north of Lucknow, was Secrora. The Commissioner of the Division, Mr.
Wingfield, later Chief Commissioner of Oude, was at Secrora. Feeling that
the two regiments and battery there would mutiny, the ladies and children
were sent by the officers to Lucknow on the 7th, and were met halfway
by a body of Sikhs and volunteer horse, and taken to the residency. Mr.
Wingfield rode off to Gonda, determined to take refuge at Bulrampore. The
next day all the remaining officers, except Lieutenant Bonham, started
for Gonda, for the troops rose and bade them go. Lieutenant Bonham was
protected by his men for a day. Then he, too, was obliged to leave,
and he made his way across country to Lucknow. The Europeans at Gonda
were now forced to retreat, and they were fortunate in finding shelter
at Bulrampore, and they finally got into Goruckpore, and were saved.
But three officers, all in the civil service, retreating from Bareytch
disguised as natives, were recognised at the main ferry over the Gogra,
and all murdered, after they had made a gallant defence.

The division of Fyzabad lies to the south-east of Lucknow, and extends
from the Ganges to the Gogra. The chief station was Fyzabad, a town on the
left bank of the Gogra, just then notorious for the sharp quarrel which
had occurred in the previous February between the Moslems and Hindoos.
Here lay in gaol that moulvie who had traversed Hindostan preaching
sedition, and whose daring had compelled the Government to employ force
against him, and to put him in prison. There were two regiments of
infantry, one of cavalry, and a horse battery at Fyzabad. These were known
to be so disposed to mutiny that the civilians had sent their wives and
children to Shahgunge, a fort belonging to Rajah Maun Sing, a powerful
talookdar. Several other European women and children joined them, but some
of the officers' wives remained. On the 8th it was clear that the dreaded
moment was at hand. Mutineers were coming up the river from Goruckpore
and Azimghur, notably the 17th Native Infantry, whose agents entered the
lines at Fyzabad, and summoned the troops there to join. This they did
on the night of the 8th of June. "They did not go through the form of
pretending a grievance, but said they were strong enough to turn us out
of the country, and intended to do it." Nevertheless, these men would not
murder their officers. They provided them with money and boats wherewith
to descend the Gogra, and then, with horrible treachery, instigated the
17th to waylay the boats at Begumgunge and kill the Europeans. Twenty
officers and sergeants and one lady embarked in four boats. Of these only
six escaped; for as the boats approached Begumgunge, the Sepoys of the
17th opened fire on the fugitives. Some fell wounded, others were killed.

At Sultanpore were Fisher's Irregulars and two foot regiments. Colonel
Fisher, the commandant, sent away the ladies and children, who, befriended
by Madho Sing, reached Allahabad, plundered, but alive. But the Military
Police shot Colonel Fisher, his own men, who "liked him," looking on.
They slew Captain Gibbings, and ordered Lieutenant Tucker to be gone. Mr.
Block and Mr. Stroyan were also cruelly and treacherously murdered near
Sultanpore. The British at Salone on the Sye, and Durriabad, north of the
Goomtee, receiving protection from zemindars and talookdars, their lives
were preserved. It was thus that, in ten days, all the native troops
in Oude freed themselves from British control; and by a sort of common
impulse directed their steps towards Nawabgunge Bara Baukee, which became
the point of concentration for the meditated attack on Lucknow.




CHAPTER XIII.

Reign of Victoria (_continued_).

    March of the British on Delhi--Battles on the Hindon--Wilson joins
    Barnard--Hodson reconnoitres Delhi--Battle of Badlee Serai--Behold
    Delhi!--The Guides arrive--Outbreak at Jallandhar--Johnstone
    and Ricketts--The Delhi Force in Position--The Enemy assume the
    Offensive--A "Mistake of Orders"--Destruction of a Battery--A Three
    Days' Battle--An Unfulfilled Prophecy--Reinforcements arrive--Lord
    Canning's Inaction--Lord Elphinstone's Discretion--Troops from
    Madras and Persia--Benares is saved--So is Allahabad--Cawnpore--Nana
    Sahib and Azimoolah--The Europeans in the Entrenchment--The
    Mutiny--The Sepoys start for Delhi--Nana Sahib brings them
    back--Sufferings of the Garrison--Valour of the Defence--The
    Well--The Hospital catches Fire--Incidents of the Siege--Moore's
    Sortie--Nana Sahib's Letter--The Massacre at the Ghaut--Central
    India--Lawrence fortifies the Residency at Lucknow--An ineffectual
    Sortie--The Defences contracted--The Death of Lawrence.


It is necessary to return to Delhi again, to bring the British force well
up before its walls, and show the Punjab authorities once more in action.
We left the troops under Sir Henry Barnard advancing slowly towards Delhi.
Among them were the 60th Native Infantry; but instead of disarming them,
he placed Colonel Thomas Seaton at their head, and sent them to Rhotuck,
in the vain hope that they would escape the contagion. Of course in due
time they mutinied, but did not kill their officers; and we may dismiss
them here with the remark that the Sepoys swelled the rebel army, and the
officers joined the British. Thanks to the journey made by the gallant
Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, the Meerut force were under orders to march
on Bhagput, where there was a bridge over the Jumna. They were to reach
this place and cross on the 1st of June. Accordingly, on the 27th of May,
Colonel Archdale Wilson collected his little brigade. It consisted of half
a battalion of the 60th Rifles, two batteries, and two squadrons of the
Carabineers, with a few native sappers and troopers. The King of Delhi had
got wind of this movement, and he sent out a body of mutineers to meet the
column. Wilson's force encamped on the 30th on the Hindon, a feeder of the
Jumna, crossed by an iron bridge at Ghazeeoodeen Nugger. The rebel force
took up a position on their own side of the river. The warning of their
proximity given by the outposts was followed by the fire of their cannon.
Two heavy round shot were flung into the camp, wounding two bearers. In a
moment the force was under arms. A company of the Rifles took possession
of the bridge. Major Tombs, with four guns and a troop of dragoons, dashed
along the river and took the enemy in flank, while two 18-pounders, posted
in front, soon shook the nerves of the rebel gunners over the river.
Then, seeing their fire growing unsteady, the Rifles on the bridge were
reinforced, and, led by Colonel John Jones, they charged and captured five
rebel guns. Thus in a short time the mutineers were worsted in the first
pitched battle. They hurried away so fast that pursuit was impossible, and
were so cowed that the very Goojurs despoiled their stragglers of arms and
accoutrements. We lost one killed and thirty-one wounded. But fresh forces
came out from Delhi to retrieve their lost military honour. Our advance
was now over the bridge in a burnt village. The enemy, who came up on
Whitsunday, the 31st of May, posted themselves on a ridge, with a village
on their left. The fight began by a fire from their heavy guns, which were
rapidly answered, by Tombs and Light, with 9- and 18-pounders. For two
hours the contest was one of artillery, during which the Carabineers were
drawn up in the open ground to protect our guns. Then the Rifles charged
upon the village occupied by the enemy, and forced them out. The Sepoys,
in this fight, kept as far as possible out of musketry range and would
not allow our soldiers a chance of coming to close quarters. As we moved
on, although we were hundreds and they thousands, they fell back, and
when we crowned the ridge the discomfited army was seen in the distance
hurrying along the Delhi road. Our loss was six killed in battle, three by
sunstroke and twelve were wounded. After this fight, Wilson's force halted
four days, during which 100 Rifles and the Sirmour battalion of Ghoorkas,
under Major Reid, came up from Meerut--a welcome addition to the brigade.

Marching towards the Jumna on the 4th of June, they crossed it on the 6th
by the bridge of boats at Bhagput, which Hodson had taken care should be
in order. On the 7th they joined the main body under Barnard, which had
arrived at Alipore. The force now numbered 2,400 infantry, 600 horsemen,
and twenty-two field guns. The siege train from Philour, with 100
European artillerymen, strengthened the little army, and all was ready
for grappling with the enemy. Very early on the 7th Hodson rode out,
accompanied by a dozen native troopers. He went up to the very parade
ground before Delhi, scaring away the rebel vedettes and reconnoitring
the place so well that it was on his information the general based his
plans. The infantry were divided into two brigades; one, consisting of
the 75th and the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, under Colonel Showers; the second,
consisting of the 60th Rifles, the 2nd Bengal Fusiliers, and the Ghoorkas,
under Brigadier Graves. With each brigade went some horse and guns; the
remaining horse formed a cavalry brigade under Colonel Hope Grant, with
two troops of horse artillery. These soldiers had come down from Umballa
and Meerut, under a blazing sun of the Indian June with the wind blowing,
when it blew, in a current of "liquid fire." Cholera had stricken down
officers and men. The soldiers were fretful from impatience to fight.
Few armies have ever marched to battle animated by so fiery a spirit of
revenge.

Before daylight on the 8th of June the army began its forward movement.
The Sepoys had taken a post of vantage a few miles north of Delhi. They
formed across the Great Road at the serai of Badlee. A serai is a square
walled enclosure, having a tower at each angle, one door, and a flat
roof. It contains many small chambers for the use of travellers, and is
loopholed all round. Thus, it is really a strong post. Badlee Serai lay a
little to the west of the Great Road. Around it was the Sepoy camp; and in
front, on a hillock commanding the road, they had made a sandbag battery
for four heavy guns and an 8-inch howitzer for grape. On both sides of the
road the ground is swampy, having pools here and there. The left flank of
the Sepoys was covered by the Delhi canal, which ran parallel to the road,
and was crossed by bridges not far from each other. This was the position
which Hodson had looked at the day before. The plan of attack was simple.
Sir Henry Barnard, with the main body, was to assail the front from the
Great Road; while Hope Grant turned the left flank with three squadrons
of the 9th Lancers, under Colonel Yule, fifty Jheend Horse, under Hodson,
or 350 lances, and ten horse-artillery guns, under Tombs, Turner, and
Bishop. This little force moved out of camp first, and crossed the canal
near Alipore, with the intention of recrossing it in rear of the Sepoys,
thus cutting them off from Delhi. The main column, 1,900 infantry, 170
horse, and fourteen guns, marched later, but still in the dusk before
dawn. A march of five miles brought them within sight of the Sepoy camps,
where the lights were still burning. As our troops were moving down the
road the enemy opened fire, and our guns coming rapidly into action, the
battle began. The left brigade, under Graves, was still in the rear,
when the 75th and the 1st Fusiliers deployed to the right of the road,
and soon felt the weight of the heavy shot from the sandbag battery,
which our light guns could not silence. Time was precious, but men were
more so, and it would never do to play at long bowls with the mutineers.
Grant's horsemen were not in sight, but the left brigade were hurrying
up, when Sir Henry Barnard ordered the 75th to carry the battery. The men
eagerly obeyed. Moving on steadily over rough and watery ground, they
were exposed to a fire so heavy that in a few minutes nearly a hundred
fell. But without a halt they pressed on, and bringing down the bayonet to
the charge, surged into the battery. The 1st Fusiliers had supported the
75th, and soon joined them, when the two regiments dashed at the serai and
stormed it. The left brigade had now come up. Grant's cavalry, delayed by
watercourses which obstructed the progress of the guns, debouched on the
left rear of the rebels, and these scattering and fleeing, left our troops
masters of their camp and the greater part of their guns.

The enemy had fled, but not yet into Delhi. They had halted on the ridge
overlooking that city, and here seemed disposed to make a stand. Sir Henry
Barnard, with one brigade and guns, moved to the left, upon the cantonment
lines, while Brigadier Wilson with the remainder took the road to the
Subzee Mundi, a suburb of Delhi, while Reid's Ghoorkas extended between
the two. The march of the main body had to be performed under fire, which,
as the troops were filing over a canal bridge, proved very galling. But
they went on with a will, and emerging from the old lines, near the
Flagstaff Tower, opened fire and instantly silenced the enemy's guns. The
60th and the 2nd Fusiliers, charging, took the guns, and sweeping along
the ridge, arrived at a building at the right extremity, called the Hindoo
Rao's house, and destined to be famous in the siege. Here the whole force
rallied, Wilson having cleared the Subzee Mundi and captured a gun. All
this time the Sepoys in Delhi cannonaded the British from the walls. It
was now noon, and the troops withdrew behind the ridge to the camp, after
posting pickets at the Hindoo Rao's house, and in the Flagstaff Tower.
Thirteen guns had been captured; our loss was fifty-one killed and 152
wounded; among the former was Colonel Chester, Adjutant-General. The loss
of the enemy is supposed to have been about 400 killed and wounded. So
far, a good beginning had been made; but instead of rushing into Delhi
with the enemy, here was the little force obliged to sit down and begin a
siege destined to last three months.

[Illustration: HODSON RECONNOITRING BEFORE DELHI. (_See p._ 204.)]

At length, then, behold Delhi. There lay the prize which might have been
seized by a bold march from Meerut, on the night of the 10th of May, under
an Edwardes or a Nicholson, but which now, swarming with the soldiers of
sixteen or eighteen corps of our own training, having in its arsenal and
magazine a practically inexhaustible supply of guns and ammunition, defied
the gallant few who, after a month's delay, once more looked down upon the
handsome walls and beautiful buildings. And trooping along from all points
were mutineers hastening to rally round the Great Mogul, and dispute for
empire with the pale faces.

Early on the morning of the 9th there was a scene in camp well worth
recording, because, in many respects, it illustrates forcibly the
transition from the old to the new. There came into the camp squadrons
of swarthy horsemen and dusky foot. An officer was out riding; suddenly
horse and foot closed upon him, surrounding him, shouting, and "behaving
like frantic creatures." They seized his bridle, his dress, his hands, his
feet; they threw themselves before his horse, and wept for joy, hailing
him in their own tongue as "Great in Battle." The officer was Hodson, the
warriors were the horse and foot of the Guide Corps, which had started
just three weeks before, from Hotee Murdan, beyond the Indus, 580 miles
away. These real soldiers had crossed the Punjab and the Cis-Sutlej States
in twenty-one days, doing thirty miles a day, and halting only three
days, and then by order. Three hours after they entered the camp the
Sepoys showed fight, and the Guides were at once to the front, engaging
the enemy hand to hand, and coming out with one officer, Quentin Battye,
mortally, and every other officer more or less, wounded. Such was the
first exploit of the force which had been raised through the prescience of
Sir Henry Lawrence.

While the British, the Ghoorkas, and the Guides were establishing
themselves before Delhi, a fresh mutiny in the Punjab threatened for a
moment the safety of the Great Road to Lahore. The Sepoys broke out at
Jhallandhar. The reader will remember that here were the 36th and 61st
Native Infantry and the 6th Cavalry; that it was from this station the
troops went out who secured Philour; and that here incipient mutiny, on
the 12th of May, had been checked by menace and precaution. Brigadier
Johnstone succeeded Colonel Hartley on the 17th of May, and from that time
the effects of a feebler hand are discernible. The brigadier humoured the
Sepoys, listened to the prayers of their colonels, who here, as elsewhere,
were infatuated, and, on the plea of conciliation, gave in to their
demands. He was exhorted to disarm Sepoys who could not be expected to
resist the contagious example of their brothers, neither could he resist
the reproaches and appeals of their officers. He had an ample European
force. Captain Rothney halted his famous 4th Sikhs, and Charles Nicholson
brought in the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, to aid in the disarming. The brigadier
could not make up his mind; and these could stay no longer. At length,
when it was too late, Brigadier Johnstone determined to do what he should
have done before: too late, for the Sepoys took the initiative, rose on
the 7th of June, led, as usual, by the Moslem cavalry, fired the station
and shot some of their officers. They called on the native gunners to
join, but these replied with grapeshot and would have given more such
effective replies had not the brigadier stopped them. All was soon
confusion. The Europeans were not allowed to act. The mutineers had it all
their own way. For an hour and a half they burnt, plundered, and murdered,
and then marched off, unpursued. About 200 remained staunch to their
officers; and one whole company, kept in order by a subahdar, preserved
the treasury, containing £10,000. The rest decamped, part going towards
Loodiana, part taking the hill road, and striking the Sutlej higher up.
The former got safely off, the latter met with unexpected resistance,
being intercepted by Mr. Ricketts with a small force of Sikhs. And where
was the European force from Jhallandhar? In camp near Philour, within
hearing of the sound of Ricketts' solitary gun, yet forbidden to move by
the brigadier, who thought them too fatigued! Had half the force marched
up the river, and opened only on those mutineers who had not crossed,
how different would have been the result! As it was, the mutineers were
able to enter Loodiana, open the gaol, burn the church and the mission
houses, try ineffectually to destroy the powder in the fort, and then fly
in a panic across country towards Delhi. Had they moved down the Great
Road they would have swept everything before them. A few days later Mr.
Ricketts, having the passing aid of Coke's Punjabees, disarmed the town,
seized and punished the ringleaders in the late riots and inflicted a
heavy fine on the community. Sir John Lawrence also felt the necessity of
securing Umritsir, and thither he sent Nicholson with the movable column;
while at the other extremity of the Punjab, Crawford Chamberlain, acting
on Sir John's orders, very deftly disarmed the native infantry and cavalry
at Mooltan by the aid of two Punjab regiments and a European battery.

While these blows were parried in their rear, the army before Delhi had
made good its position. It was strong and defensible. To the north of
Delhi, some two miles, there is a sandstone ridge running nearly parallel
to the course of the Jumna--that is, north-north-east. The slope from the
city walls is gradual, but somewhat broken. The plateau on the summit
is tolerably flat, and along the whole course of the ridge, but well in
rear--that is, north of it,--lay the lines of the camp. The ridge, in
fact, may be roughly described as the right bank of the Jumna, to which
it approaches at its northern, and from which it recedes at its southern,
end. This was the position of the besieging army. Its left rested on the
ridge near the river; its centre was behind the Flagstaff Tower; its right
at the butt end of the ridge, where the ground fell rapidly towards the
Subzee Mundi and Kishengunge, suburbs of Delhi, facing its western walls
and set in gardens and groves. At this end the ridge was crowned by a
house formerly belonging to a Mahratta chief, and called the Hindoo Rao's
house; and here we quickly established a battery, and made a strong post
to defend that side. The Grand Trunk Road to Loodiana and Lahore, going
from the Cashmere Gate, ascended the ridge, and crossed it to the east
of the Flagstaff Tower, and a good road ran along the interior of the
ridge parallel to it, thus tying together the position. From this ridge,
but especially from Rao's house, Delhi was visible, standing up bold and
distinct in the clear air, with its stout red walls and bastions, and
white buildings embowered in trees. Between the ridge and the city the
ground was rugged, and dotted all over with houses, mosques, tombs, and
ruins, rising up among clumps of trees. Such was the base of our attack;
for on the south, the whole of the country, as far as Agra, was in the
hands of the enemy; the river protected the eastern face, and we had no
choice but to assail the north.

As soon as the force settled down on the ridge, the enemy commenced a
series of attacks which may be described as incessant. This was policy,
for it harassed the besiegers, and kept the Sepoys in good heart, although
they were invariably beaten. The first of these was on the 9th of June.
They issued from the Lahore Gate on the west, covered by a cannonade from
the Moree bastion, at the north-western angle, and, moving on the right
flank of the position, strove to storm the ridge. But in vain. The Guides,
coming up to support the Rifles and Ghoorkas, charged so vigorously that
the Sepoys were driven up to the very walls with great loss. On the 10th
and the 11th the mutineers sent up fresh men to turn and carry the right,
and paid heavily for their temerity. The heavy guns were now in battery on
a knoll forming part of the garden of the Hindoo Rao's house, but their
fire was not sufficient to silence, barely to cope with, that of the enemy
from his bastions. Our officers began to respect the rebel artillerymen,
whose guns were so accurately laid that some could only account for it
by supposing that there were European deserters in their ranks. On the
12th the enemy, tired of trying the right, fell unexpectedly on the left.
There, in front and due east of the Flagstaff Tower, stood the house and
grounds of Sir T. Metcalfe, just where the fertile soil ends and the sands
of the Jumna begin. Here the mutineers had established a garrison and a
battery; and from this, on the morning of the 12th, they pushed out a
large force, which by stealthy movements approached within musket-shot
of the Flagstaff Tower, without being detected. There were a few of the
75th and two guns in position. The Sepoys turned its flank and, pressing
vigorously forward, gained the ridge and even crossed it. For a moment
the whole of that side was in extreme peril; but the 75th soon rallied,
and the guns began to play. Then supports came up--1st Fusiliers, Guides,
Rifles. A steady charge was made, and the enemy, cut up and bayoneted,
rolled down the hill. The charge became eager. The pursued went fast, but
the pursuers were almost as speedy; and seeing the opportunity, chased
the men into and out of Metcalfe's house, and up to the walls of Delhi.
Thus won, this advanced post was held and made the most of, completely
barring the way to any force directed on our left, and placing us so far
nearer Delhi. This sharp onset had no sooner been repulsed than the enemy
showed himself on the right. It was a clumsy attempt at a combined attack
on both flanks. Issuing from the Subzee Mundi, on our right rear, the
Sepoys made a fruitless effort to mount the hill. The Ghoorkas and Rifles
on picket, and part of the 1st Fusiliers, met them, drove them back, and
chased them out of the enclosures, killing a goodly number. No quarter was
given. The loss inflicted on them in these fights was estimated at 400
killed.

On the 11th five young officers, Hodson, Wilberforce, Greathed, Chesney,
and Maunsell, were directed to sit in council, and draw up a plan showing
how they would take Delhi out of hand. Their plan was simple enough. They
proposed that all the infantry available, some 1,800 men, should move
at midnight down to the walls, blow in two gates with powder bags and,
storming in, surprise and capture the place. The general took the plan,
considered it, adopted it, and issued his orders. The thing was to be done
on the night of the 12th, on the heels of the repulse inflicted that day.
The young men were sanguine of success, and eager to try--none more so
than Hodson. Part of the troops marched; they reached their stations, then
halted and reconnoitred: all was still; but the remainder did not arrive;
instead of the remainder, came an order to retire. Brigadier Graves
refused to believe that the general intended to leave the camp in charge
of native troops and horsemen; and in place of sending his infantry, went
himself to remonstrate with Sir Henry Barnard. The brigadier admitted
readily that the city could be taken, but doubted whether it could be
held. Sir Henry hesitated, time was lost, and so he gave way. The conduct
of the brigadier is described both by Hodson and Norman as a "mistake of
orders." This mistake was bitterly censured at the time, but we cannot
help agreeing with those who are thankful for the delay, since even
success would have saved no one from massacre, and would have sent a horde
of armed ruffians pouring down the unprotected south road; whereas for
three months Delhi served as a rallying-place and the Sepoys were kept
together.

Unsuspicious of the danger hanging over them, the enemy were still full
of fight, and encounters, more or less sharp, continued every day. The
front and flanks of the position were now more strongly secured, as it
was plain that Delhi could not be taken until large reinforcements of
infantry, more guns, and especially more gunners, arrived. Major Reid
held the Hindoo Rao's house with his Ghoorkas, commanding Kishengunge and
protecting the batteries. Major Tombs had charge of a post to the right
rear, over against the Subzee Mundi. The whole front was strengthened by
entrenchments, and Hodson kept both eyes on the rear. But they were not
content to stand still and repel attacks. Few though they were, they could
show their teeth on occasions. On the 17th the enemy, under cover of a
very severe cannonade, threw a large force on to a hill near the Eedgah,
a walled enclosure, and there began to work on a battery, which, when
finished, would enfilade the position on the ridge. Sir Henry Barnard
determined to stop this dangerous move; in the afternoon he formed two
columns, one under Major Reid, the other under Major Tombs. Starting from
our right flank, Reid pushed straight through Kishengunge, and emerged on
the right of the new rebel battery, while Tombs, having made a detour,
fell upon their left. The new battery was soon carried; the magazine blown
up; the mutineers were hunted from garden to garden; the doors of four
serais were destroyed, and one gun was carried off by the gallant Tombs.
The enemy lost about 300 killed and wounded. Considering the nature of the
country, our loss was trifling--three killed and twelve wounded.

The rebels, however, now received a large reinforcement. The brigade
that had mutinied at Nusseerabad, in Scindia's country, on the 28th of
May, entered Delhi on the 17th of June, and on the 19th were sent out to
fight their old masters. Their tactics were new. They resolved to operate
strategically, and cut us off from the Punjab. With this object they
marched out with much ostentation at mid-day, filing bravely through the
Lahore Gate, traversing Kishengunge, and disappearing from view to the
westward. The movement had been, of course, observed by Reid and Tombs,
and the whole force turned out, but they turned in again when the Sepoys
vanished from view. But late in the afternoon news came in from the rear
that the Sepoys had worked round, and were in position across the Great
Road. This was serious. Colonel Hope Grant could only oppose them with
seven troops of British cavalry and the Guides and twelve guns. Although
the odds were so great against them--3,000 to about 350--Grant did not
hesitate to attack. The guns, under Turner, Tombs, and Bishop, went
rapidly into action. The cavalry, under Yule and Daly, of the Guides,
charged with headlong gallantry as often as opportunities presented
themselves. Right and left the mutineers were checked, by lance and
sabre, and cannon, until night drew near. But the rebel infantry worked
through the enclosures, and fired on our gunners, while their artillery,
splendidly served, did considerable execution. Our cavalry and guns were
obliged to fall back before the masses crowding in upon them on all sides,
when 300 infantry from the camp reached the field. Yule had fallen dead;
the Guides had brought off Daly wounded; two guns were in the hands of the
Sepoys. At this moment our foot, Rifles and Fusiliers, went in with the
bayonet, and in a few moments the tide of rebel success was arrested and
the guns were won back. Night had fallen; the enemy retreated, covering
himself with a random fire in the dark, and the action was over.

The next morning Colonel Hope Grant rode on to the field and found it
abandoned; dead men and horses were lying about, and he brought in
a deserted 9-pounder. Soon came a fresh alarm. The enemy brought up
his guns--the famous Jellalabad battery, part of the "illustrious"
garrison--and his round shot rolled through the camp. But his triumph
was short. Sweeping down with every available bayonet, Brigadier Wilson
closed with the rebels and swiftly drove them away. They hurried off,
carrying away their guns, and, having had enough of strategy, returned by
a roundabout march to Delhi. It was a critical moment in the history of
the siege. We were triumphant, but our little force was diminished by 100
men killed and wounded. Precautions were now taken to guard the rear as
effectually as the smallness of the force would permit. On the very day of
the first attack, Captain M'Andrew, acting on a mere rumour of an attack,
had drawn off the force guarding Bhagput Bridge over the Jumna, and Hodson
was obliged to ride thither and restore this line of communication with
Meerut. M'Andrew was censured for running away without even seeing an
enemy.

On the 21st, the Jhallandhar Brigade augmented by the 3rd Native Infantry,
picked up at Philour, entered Delhi. The rebels were now so numerous that
they encamped outside the place, but out of our reach, and under their
own guns. On the 23rd, 850 men, including Rothney's 4th Sikhs, arrived
in the British camp. It was a timely succour. The 23rd of June was the
anniversary of Plassey. For 100 years the British "raj" had endured. Now
crazy, or wily, pundits brought to light a prediction that, on the 23rd
of June, 1857, British rule would end. So the Delhi garrison moved out in
great excitement to fulfil the prophecy. They paid for it, and dearly.
Crowding into the Subzee Mundi, and bringing guns up to the Eedgah, they
raked the right flank and skirmished up the slope with their infantry.
These attacks were easily repulsed, but the artillery fire was very
destructive; and Brigadier Showers begged Sir Henry Barnard to assume the
offensive. He assented. The first attacks failed, with the loss of two
officers and several men. Then the column was reinforced. The 4th Sikhs,
and part of the 2nd Fusiliers, just in from a march of twenty-two miles,
went gaily into action and, using the bayonet very freely, rapidly cleared
the Subzee Mundi, killing great numbers of rebels, who had shut themselves
up in a temple, and forcing the remainder to fly, galled by the fire of
our batteries on the ridge. This action gave us the Subzee Mundi, which we
occupied, connecting it by a breastwork with the ridge, thus securing the
position on that side; but it cost us thirty-eight killed and 118 wounded
to prove to the Sepoys that our "raj" had not yet come to an end.

[Illustration: THE PALACE, DELHI. (_From a Photograph by Frith & Co.,
Reigate._)]

Thus the position of the British before Delhi became gradually more
extensive, stretching now from the Subzee Mundi to Metcalfe's house,
and thus commanding both roads leading to our rear. Neville Chamberlain
arrived to act as adjutant-general. Then came further reinforcements: half
the 8th Foot, a hundred European artillerymen, and many score old Sikh
gunners who had served at Sobraon, a battery, and the 2nd Punjab Cavalry,
bringing up the force present to about 6,600 men of all arms. This was the
force destined to hold on to that ridge, and two months afterwards, when
aided by John Nicholson, to rush into Delhi. But now we must leave these
heroes for a time, to track the bloody steps of mutiny on the Ganges and
Jumna.

It cannot now be denied that at the outset of the mutiny the magnitude
of the crisis was totally misapprehended at Calcutta. Lord Canning was
new to India. He was a man of a powerful but a slow intellect. With time
to think, he acted wisely. But on the first days of the mutiny the civil
servants--the Grants, Beadons, Dorins, men of a stamp very different from
the clear-sighted and determined statesmen of the Punjab--sadly misled
him. They treated the mutiny in the army as a military squabble that
would soon be quelled. The civil servants looked down on the military
servants of the Company, and from the height of their conceit lived on in
blessed ignorance of military affairs. To this we must trace the paltering
way in which the Government dealt with the mutiny at the outset; and
the severe rebuffs they administered to all--not of the Government--who
offered either counsel or advice. It is true, the Governor-General had
very few European troops under his hand--only the 53rd at Fort William,
and the 84th at Barrackpore. But at an earlier, he ought to have done
what he did at a later stage: he might have called in troops from Madras,
Ceylon, Mauritius, and the Cape. On the 10th of May, before he knew of
the outburst at Meerut, Sir John Lawrence had telegraphed his opinion
to Calcutta that the whole regular army was ready to break out. And
then he gave this large-minded counsel:--"Send for troops from Persia.
Intercept the force now on its way to China, and bring it to Calcutta.
Every European soldier will be required to save the country if the whole
of the native troops turn against us. This is the opinion of all leading
minds here"--in the Punjab. But at Calcutta, had the civilians been as
quick-sighted as Lawrence, this advice would have been needless, for the
course it recommended would have been adopted in March, or at least in
April. After Meerut, it was too late to prevent, though not to cure. Lord
Elphinstone, indeed, at Bombay, saw what was coming; and as soon as he
knew that peace had been made with Persia--that is, in April--he pressed
on General Outram the necessity of sending back to India the European
troops at once. The Governor-General allowed him to act on his discretion,
and Sir James, being discreet, complied with the urgent request of the
Governor of Bombay. Yet General Havelock did not quit Mohamerah, at the
head of the Persian Gulf, until the 15th, nor did he land at Bombay until
the 29th of May, when he was astounded by the news that Delhi was in the
hands of mutinous Sepoys. He at once set out for Calcutta by sea; but
being wrecked off Ceylon, he did not reach Calcutta until the 17th of
June. With him went from Madras Sir Patrick Grant, who, on the death of
Anson, was appointed Commander-in-Chief. By this time the Bengal native
army had practically "gone."

It was not until the middle of May that Lord Canning, getting some insight
into the facts, sent to Ceylon, Mauritius, and Madras for troops, and
despatched a steamer to lie in wait for the regiments bound to China, and
ordered the late army of Persia to come to Calcutta. The first to arrive
were the Madras Fusiliers, under Colonel Neill, a man swift to see and to
strike, who did not understand the system of paltering with mutiny. The
Madras Europeans arrived on the 23rd of May, and were at once, with the
84th, despatched towards the North-West.

While Neill was hastening onwards towards Benares, and Allahabad, and
Cawnpore, the native regiments at these and other stations had thrilled
to the shock of the news from Delhi and were prepared to imitate the
example. There was one European regiment, the 10th Foot, and three native
regiments, at Dinapore, near Patna, 130 miles from Benares; at Benares
there were a Sikh regiment, and two Bengal regiments, and thirty European
artillerymen; at Allahabad there were a few Sikhs under Braysher--a
gallant soldier who had risen from the ranks--and the 6th Native Infantry.
Benares, the sacred city, was the headquarters of Hindooism. Its
population, numbered at 300,000, mainly Hindoos, was turbulent. Within its
walls lived many dethroned princes, from Nepaul and Sattara, a branch of
the Delhi family, and several Sikhs. Here, if anywhere, disaffection was
certain to exist; and here were only thirty British soldiers and the civil
servants. Among these civil servants was Mr. Frederick Gubbins, a very
resolute man; and when news of the Meerut mutiny came, although he saw the
peril, he determined to stand stiffly up against it and resist. On the 3rd
of June the vanguard of the Madras Fusiliers arrived--sixty men--and the
question of at once using them and the Sikhs to disarm the 37th Native
Infantry was debated. News came that the 17th Native Infantry at Azimghur
had just mutinied, and it was resolved on the 4th to disarm the regiment
the next day. At this crisis Colonel Neill came in. He saw no good in
delay. "As soon as the 37th hear of the mutiny at Azimghur," he said,
"they will rise. Do it at once." Brigadier Ponsonby yielded. The troops
were paraded; the Sikhs and irregular cavalry on the left, the artillery
on the right, of the 37th. The latter at once mutinied, and began firing.
Two or three officers fell. The artillery opened fire. By some mistake,
never explained, the Sikhs fired on their officers and on the Fusiliers.
Then the guns opened on them, and all was confusion. Brigadier Ponsonby
fell from sunstroke. Neill took command, and with his handful of thirty
gunners and Fusiliers, routed the rebels. The whole district around for
many miles rose in revolt at once; but such was the stern energy of Neill,
the occult and long-acquired influence of Gubbins, the devotion of men
like Venables and Chapman, indigo planters, that not only was the city
population held down, but in a very short time we regained our power here
also. At this time gibbets were set up and, for many months, traitors and
mutineers of every caste and rank were mercilessly hanged thereon.

The safety of Benares was important in a political point of view and it
was guarded by thirty European artillerymen! The safety of Allahabad was
essential in a military point of view and it did not contain a single
European soldier! Its absolute masters were the 6th Native Infantry, a
native battery, and part of the Ferozepore regiment of Sikhs. Yet what
was Allahabad? It was not only a very strong fortress, commanding the
confluence of the Ganges and Jumna; it was not only the point of passage
over the Jumna into the Doab on one side, and thence to the north-west,
and over the Ganges on the other into Oude and the valley of the Goomtee;
it was the greatest arsenal in India--full of guns, stores, ammunition;
our sole base of operations upwards towards Cawnpore and Lucknow. The 6th
Native Infantry were quite ready to mutiny. Fortunately, Government in a
moment of alarm--for it had its moments of alarm as well as its moments
of confidence--ordered up from Chunar some sixty European artillerymen,
all invalids, yet fit for garrison duty. These arrived on the 23rd of
May, and entered the fort. They saved this invaluable post. The 6th had
volunteered to march on Delhi, and Government was so delighted that on the
5th its commander, Colonel Simpson, was directed by telegraph to thank
the regiment, and tell them the order would appear in the next Gazette.
On that very day came news of the mutiny at Benares, and on the 6th of
June, twenty-four hours after it had been thanked for loyalty, the 6th
rose, and the men shot nearly every one of their officers. In the fort
all was anxiety. The real nature of the contest raging in cantonments
was not known until an officer, naked from a swim in the Jumna, ran in.
Then, by the steadfastness and skill of Braysher, the Sikhs were induced
to disarm the company of the 6th, and the fort was saved. But the rabble
invested the fort! For five days this was permitted and not a gun allowed
to be fired. Colonel Neill, with forty men, came up on the 11th from
Benares. The bridge of boats was in the hands of the rebels, but he got a
boat and crossed below it. Then, without resting, he organised a plan for
recovering the bridge; and early next morning he executed it with vigour
and promptitude. From that time he continued to regain the lost sway
over the city. Neill became a name of terror all along the banks of the
Ganges, and by his wise as well as severe measures he made it possible for
Havelock to avenge Cawnpore.

Cawnpore is a large station. Seated on the right bank of the Ganges, it
is midway between Lucknow and Calpee and Agra and Allahabad. Thus, it
was one of the most important stations in the Doab of the Ganges and
Jumna--a central point whence troops might move on an enemy or intercept
one on four great lines. There were three regiments of native infantry,
the 1st, 53rd, and 56th, and one regiment of native cavalry, in the
station. There were about sixty European artillerymen and six guns. The
commandant was Sir Hugh Wheeler, a soldier who had served under Lord
Lake fifty-four years before, and who then and since had led Sepoys in
battle in half a dozen great campaigns. There were at Cawnpore the wives
and children of the men of the 32nd Foot; a number of ladies, wives of
officers and civilians, and many merchants and traders and their families.
Agitated by the earlier incidents of the mutiny, the natives were more
deeply stirred by the outbreak at Meerut and Delhi, and General Wheeler
felt that no trust could be placed in the men he commanded. But he was
absolutely powerless. He had only sixty-one Europeans. He could not disarm
the Cawnpore garrison. He could only wait and watch, and prepare some
ark of refuge, however frail. Nor had he much time. News of the Delhi
massacres arrived on the 14th of May. The troops gave no outward sign. A
few days afterwards Mrs. Fraser entered the station. Her husband had been
slain at Delhi, and she had travelled down 266 miles in safety. A native
had undertaken to perform the journey, and he did. This lady was a real
heroine, and in the dreadful days at hand, regardless of herself, she gave
up everything to soothe and minister to the wounded.

On the 20th of May all communication with Delhi and Agra had ceased. Fires
broke out in the native lines, and prophecies of evil were uttered.
Sir Hugh Wheeler entrenched an old hospital--two brick buildings, one
thatched, one roofed with stone. The entrenchment was so slight that a
British horseman could have leaped in anywhere. In this enclosure the
guns were placed, and the women and children were ordered to take up
their quarters therein. Stores of food, but not sufficient, were laid
up. Happily, ammunition was plentiful. There were nine guns in the work.
Still there was no sign of mutiny. But, as the treasure was exposed, Sir
Hugh and Mr. Hillersden requested the Nana Sahib of Bithoor to supply a
guard. He complied, bringing down troops of his own, and taking up his
quarters in the civil lines. Who was the Nana Sahib? He was the son of
a Brahmin living near Bombay. His name was Seereek Dhoondoo Punt. Bajee
Rao, the last Peishwa, having no issue of his own, adopted him; and when,
for his treachery, Bajee Rao was dethroned, the Government granted him
a pension, and sent him to live at Bithoor, on the Ganges, a few miles
above Cawnpore. When he died, the Nana, by forging a will, obtained his
enormous wealth; but Government refused to continue the pension allowed
to the late Peishwa. That Nana Sahib never forgave, but he showed no
sign of resentment. He lived a life of the lowest sensual indulgence in
the splendid fort at Bithoor. He was on the most friendly terms with the
British officers, frequently entertaining them at Bithoor, but accepting
no hospitality in return. He had for prime minister, or chief agent, one
Azimoolah, originally a waiter, then teacher in the Government schools at
Cawnpore, then agent to Nana Sahib. Azimoolah was sent to London to pray
the Board of Directors to grant the Nana his pension. He came in 1854, was
a lion in society, much admired by the ladies, at one time nearly carrying
off one to grace his harem. He returned to India by way of Constantinople,
and was there in the depths of that dreary winter when our soldiers were
holding the heights at so much cost.

After the 20th of May the Sepoys did not conceal their feelings. They
held nightly meetings; the character of those meetings was known from
spies. The 2nd Cavalry, especially, displayed hostility; and when Sir Hugh
sought to remove the treasure, the Sepoys would not part with it, and it
had to be left under the joint care of them and Nana Sahib. On the 21st,
all the European residents, except one, Sir George Parker, cantonment
magistrate, entered the entrenchment. The next day a company of the 32nd,
under Captain Moore, arrived from Lucknow, lent by Sir Henry Lawrence.
For a week there was dreadful suspense; then 160 men of the 84th Foot and
Madras Fusiliers arrived, with the cheering news that more troops were on
their way. On the 26th Sir Hugh thought he should soon be able to dispense
with the 32nd men, and hold his own until troops came from Calcutta.
But the mutinies at Benares and Allahabad put an end to the fulfilment
of that hope. There is every reason to believe that at this time Nana
Sahib was playing a double game, and that he found willing agents in the
2nd Cavalry. But up to the last moment the Sepoys affected loyalty, and
actually gave up one man on a charge of spreading sedition. But the poison
of mutiny had worked deeply into their hearts, and the day of disaster
duly arrived.

Up to the 4th of June the officers had slept in the native lines. After
that day Sir Hugh would not allow them to do so any more, and they found
corners in the entrenchment. The signs of approaching mutiny were now
plain. There were 210 soldiers of the artillery, the 32nd, the 84th,
and the Madras Fusiliers, about a hundred officers, the same number of
merchants and clerks, and forty drummers; giving a total of 450 fighting
men, and nine guns. It has been well said that these could have fought
their way out in any direction; but encumbered with 330 women and
children, they could do nothing but remain and wait for succour. On the
night of the 6th of June the 2nd Cavalry rose. Captain Thomson, one of
the few survivors of the Cawnpore tragedy, thus describes the mutiny:
"An hour or two after the flight of the cavalry, the 1st Native Infantry
also bolted, leaving their officers untouched upon the parade ground. The
56th Native Infantry followed the next morning. The 53rd remained till,
by some error of the general, they were fired into. I am at an utter loss
to account for this proceeding. The men were peacefully occupied in their
lines, cooking; no signs of mutiny had appeared amidst their ranks; they
had refused all the solicitations of the deserters to accompany them, and
seemed quite steadfast, when Ashe's battery opened upon them, by Sir Hugh
Wheeler's command, and they were literally driven from us by 9-pounders.
The only signal that had preceded this step was the calling into the
entrenchments of the native officers of the regiment. The whole of them
cast in their lot with us, besides 150 privates, most of them belonging to
the Grenadier company. The detachment of the 53rd posted at the treasury
held their ground against the rebels about four hours. We could hear
their musketry in the distance, but were not allowed to attempt their
relief. The faithful little band that had joined our desperate fortunes
was ordered to occupy the military hospital, about 600 yards to the east
of our position, and they held it for nine days, when, in consequence of
its being set on fire, they were compelled to evacuate. They applied for
admission to enter the entrenchments, but were told that we had not food
sufficient to allow of an increase to our number. Major Hillersden gave
them a few rupees each, together with a certificate of their fidelity."

[Illustration: SIR HENRY HAVELOCK. (_After the Portrait by F. Goodall,
A.R.A._)]

The first impulse of the mutineers was to march on Delhi. There, they
rightly judged, the struggle would be fought out. They had laden
elephants with treasure, and carts with ammunition and plunder. They had
marched forward on the road, when Nana Sahib beset them with offers of
service, and incitements to destroy their white masters. For some time
they resisted; but the temptations proved to be too seductive, and they
enlisted, as it were, under the flag of one who dreamed of restoring the
Mahratta empire. So the whole force turned back towards Cawnpore, and sat
down before the entrenchment. To please his new followers, Nana Sahib
hoisted two standards--the Moslem and the Hindoo flag. To gratify his
troops, he directed the sack of the European houses, and even those of
wealthy natives in Cawnpore. He took possession of the store of shot and
shell; he mounted heavy guns. To give a colour of fairness to his conduct,
he notified to Sir Hugh Wheeler by letter that he intended to attack him,
and he followed up the threat by opening fire on the 8th of June.

The little garrison of Cawnpore, thus beleaguered, held out for twenty
days, and even then yielded honourably to famine, not arms. Their
sufferings during this time can neither be imagined nor described. The
entrenchment was about 250 yards square. The mud wall had been made by
digging a trench and throwing the earth outwards. Thus, about five feet
cover was obtained; but where the spaces were left for the guns there
was no cover at all. From the eastern side a little redan was made and
armed, and at three other points there were small batteries. As muskets
and ammunition abounded, five or six loaded muskets, with bayonets fixed,
were placed near each man in the trenches, so as to ensure a rapid fire.
In the centre of the entrenchment was a well. Near it were two buildings,
each having only a single storey, and one only a stone roof. They were
intended to accommodate a company of a hundred men. Within them were
stowed more than three hundred women and children, and the sick. The heat
was so fierce that it was often impossible to hold a musket barrel, and
once or twice muskets exploded from heat alone. Think, then, what these
women and children must have suffered, crowded together in those barracks.
As soon as the place was beleaguered, men drew water at the risk of their
lives, and from the beginning of the siege not a drop could be spared
for purposes of cleanliness. With scanty clothing, meagre diet of flour
and split peas; with water, often bought for its weight in silver from
the men who drew it, and measured out in drops; with cannon thundering
day and night, with shot and shell tearing through the buildings, with
the sickness of hope deferred upon them, who can imagine the agonies of
those weary hours? The men, all save one officer, went forth to fight, but
the women could only watch and wait, and listen to the piteous cries of
children, whose throats were parched, whose lips were baked with thirst.
For the men there was the chance of a death-struggle, or death from shot
or shell. Nothing but patience and longsuffering for the women. Some went
mad; some sought death; but others behaved as angels may, with a courage,
a fortitude, a forgetfulness of self, men may imitate but not excel.

This little enclosure was defended solely by the courage of the garrison.
The Sepoys had seen how white men fight, how they dare danger in every
shape, almost in sport, above all, how in battle they stand by each other
with never-failing confidence. The prestige of the British soldier never
stood him in better stead than in this Indian mutiny. Driven to bay here
with such slender defences as we have described, it is a fact that
the surrounding multitudes never once charged home. In a very few days
the original force of mutineers was tripled. There came up men of the
6th from Allahabad, and men of various regiments from Oude, and hordes
of scoundrels from all the country side, until there were 10,000 armed
men raging round the little force. They had three mortars and ten guns
firing night and day, in addition to the musketry of the Sepoys. The
entrenchments were entirely commanded from two buildings, and all around
there was plenty of cover; yet with all these numbers and advantages
the cowards did not venture on a hand-to-hand fight. On the west of
the fort was a series of unfinished barracks. They were connected with
the entrenchment by a sort of covered way, made of carts; two or three
of these were held by small detachments of fifteen or twenty men, one
composed of railway engineers and platelayers. With nothing but musketry
and this cover, these gallant fellows kept the enemy at bay, and inflicted
on them great losses. On one occasion a host of Sepoys charged up with
the seeming intention of getting in. The garrison of seventeen men killed
eighteen assailants at pistol-shot range, and drove them away. On another,
Captain Moore, the soul of the defence, resolved to try a new trick; he
and Lieutenant Delafosse, suddenly leaped out, calling in a loud voice,
"Number one to the front!" The skulking scoundrels, thinking a company was
about to charge, rose from their cover like a flock of sparrows, and gave
the defenders an opportunity of pouring in a deadly volley.

All this time the thermometer ranged from 128° to 138°. Tortured by this
dreadful heat, grimed with dirt, devoured by myriads of flies, suffering
agonies from thirst, enduring the severest pangs of hunger, exposed to
death in every shape, our beleaguered countrymen and countrywomen still
bore up against fate, with grim and steadfast determination. The Sepoys
took every advantage; not a little child could stray out from the scanty
shelter of shattered walls or holes in the trenches without drawing upon
itself the fire of a hundred muskets. If any one went to the well, he was
a mark for big guns and bullets; and at night the sound of the creaking
wheels revealing the fact that men were drawing the water, called forth a
hail of shot. Yet men went out and endured this fate by day and night, to
draw water for the women and the wounded. "My friend, John M'Killop, of
the Civil Service," writes Captain Thomson, "greatly distinguished himself
here; he became, self-constituted, Captain of the Well. He jocosely
said that he was no fighting man, but would make himself useful where he
could, and accordingly he took this post; drawing for the supply of the
women and the children as often as he could. It was less than a week after
he had undertaken this self-denying service, when his numerous escapes
were followed by a grape-shot wound in the groin, and speedy death.
Disinterested even in death, his last words were an earnest entreaty that
somebody would go and draw water for a lady to whom he had promised it."

Besides this well there was another near one of the unfinished barracks.
"We drew no water there; it was our cemetery." Stealthily at night, the
bodies of the dead were carried out, and thrown into this well; and in
three weeks it was choked up with the remains of 250 persons! On the 13th
of June a great misfortune befell the garrison. One of the buildings in
the entrenchments was used as a hospital. It had a thatched roof. On
the evening of the 13th a shell or "carcase" set this on fire, and the
whole building was soon in a blaze. By the light of the flames the Sepoys
poured in a heavy fire on the women and children running out, and on the
men bearing off the wounded, some of whom perished there, while all the
medicines and surgical instruments were destroyed! This moment of trial
the enemy selected for an attack, hoping to find the garrison unprepared.
They were deceived. Every man was on the alert. The mutineers were allowed
to come close up, and then the guns opened with grape, and the infantry
firing muskets, ready loaded, as fast as they could pick them up, drove
off the yelling assailants, with great slaughter. At another time they
approached, rolling before them bales of cotton, but these were speedily
set on fire with shells, after which grape-shot soon thinned the ranks of
the flying crew. These attacks were repeated in different ways, but always
with the same result.

But a few details abridged from Captain Thomson's narrative of what he
called the superficial horrors of the siege, will better enable the reader
to conceive the agonies of those three weeks, than pages of general
description. A group of soldiers' wives were sitting in the trenches.
A shell fell among them, and killed and wounded seven. "Mrs. White,
a private's wife, was walking with her husband, under cover, as they
thought, of the wall, her twin children one in each arm, when a single
bullet passed through her husband, killing him. It passed also through
both her arms, breaking them, and close beside the breathless husband and
father fell the widow and her babes; one of the latter being also severely
wounded. I saw her afterwards in the main-guard, lying upon her back, with
the two children, twins, laid one at each breast, while the mother's bosom
refused not what her arms had no power to administer." An ayah, nursing a
baby, lost both legs from a cannon shot, while the infant was uninjured.
Mrs. Evans was killed by falling bricks brought down by a round shot. Mr.
Hillersden, the collector, was talking to his wife, when he was cut in
two by a round shot. Two days afterwards a mass of falling bricks killed
his wife. Here are two other terrible pictures. In the unburnt, but not
unbroken barrack, "Lieutenant G. R. Wheeler, son and aide-de-camp of the
general, was sitting upon a sofa, fainting from a wound he had received
in the trenches; his sister was fanning him, when a round shot entered
the doorway, and left him a headless trunk. One sister at his feet, and
father, mother, and another sister, in different parts of the same room,
were witnesses of the appalling spectacle. Mr. Herberden, of the railway
service, was handing one of the ladies some water, when a charge of grape
entered the barrack, and a shot passed through both his hips, leaving an
awful wound. He lay for a whole week upon his face, and was carried upon a
mattress down to the boats, where he died. The fortitude he had shown in
active service did not forsake him during his extraordinary sufferings,
for not a murmur escaped his lips."

Enough of these horrors. It is a relief to turn from them to the recorded
acts of daring, of which let this one suffice. As Sir Hugh Wheeler was
too old to take an active share in a defence, which he, nevertheless,
helped to sustain by his unconquerable spirit, Captain Moore, of the 32nd,
was the real leader of the garrison. A genuine soldier, he conceived the
idea of making a sortie by night, and spiking the Sepoy cannon. He was at
the time suffering from a wound; yet, one night, he led out fifty men,
spiked three guns near the church, killed several gunners, and spiked
two 24-pounders at the mess-house, with the loss of one killed and four
wounded. This illustrates the active valour of this garrison. It availed
little, for fresh pieces were brought up the next day.

Aware that aid was approaching, though slowly, Nana Sahib now had recourse
to a devilish expedient in order to get the garrison in his hands. He
had in his power a Mrs. Greenway, one of a family who had paid to the
Nana £30,000 as a ransom, yet who were all slain. This poor woman, half
naked, and carrying an infant, he sent with a message to the entrenchment.
It was addressed "To the subjects of her Most Gracious Majesty Queen
Victoria," and it ran as follows:--"All those who are in no way connected
with the acts of Lord Dalhousie, and are willing to lay down their arms,
shall receive a safe passage to Allahabad." At first Sir Hugh Wheeler was
utterly opposed to any dealing with Nana Sahib, but he finally agreed to
treat. Accordingly a negotiation was begun, and rapidly concluded, Nana
Sahib signing a treaty of capitulation to the effect that the garrison
should march out under arms, with sixty rounds of ammunition per man, and
should be sent, with the women and children, in boats to Allahabad. No
precautions were neglected by Sir Hugh or Captain Moore. Their sole error
was in placing any trust in Nana Sahib.

On the 27th the woe-begone and tattered procession set out for the
ghaut, or landing-place. The women and children went on elephants and
in palanquins, the men, except the sick and wounded, walked. When they
found the boats--but they were all aground on sandbanks--every one, men,
women, and children, had to wade knee-deep to embark. Suddenly, at the
signal to start, the native boatmen, firing the thatched roofs of the
boats, leaped into the water, and rushed to the shore. Then, first a
dropping fire of carbines, succeeded by volleys of musketry, and round
shot from four 9-pounders, opened on the fugitives. The banks were lined,
the neighbouring houses were filled with assassins. Soon the boats were
in flames, the water was full of women and children on whom the shot was
poured. Only two boats got off and one was instantly sunk by a round shot.
The other, crowded with survivors, some of whom had swum to her side,
began to float down the stream, when guns opened on her from the Oude
side. Her rudder was shot away, the oars were gone, but the current bore
her on, now stranding her on a shoal, now drifting her off, aided by the
use of a spar or two of wood. All day long this boat was chased and one by
one her occupants became fewer. Some fell overboard, some sank wounded to
the bottom of the boat. At night she stranded and the Sepoys fired lighted
arrows at her to set her on fire. The next morning they were beset again;
a boat full of armed Sepoys came down and grounded near, when the British
at once charged through the water and slew their pursuers. A hurricane
of rain and wind followed, and once more the boat with its starving and
bleeding freight was afloat; but it soon stuck again in shoal water. Here
Captain Thomson, Lieutenant Delafosse, Sergeant Grady, and eleven privates
landed by order to drive away the Sepoys while the boat was eased off.
The boat and its occupants they never saw again. They quickly drove back
the enemy, but could not find the boat on their return, and so they were
forced to retreat along the banks; pursued, they took refuge in a small
temple and held it against a host, until the enemy lighted brands at the
door and began to throw bags of gunpowder on them. The little band charged
at once and made for the river; seven out of fourteen reached it alive and
plunged in; the number was soon reduced to four. These swam on and on,
six miles down stream, and, exhausting pursuit, went ashore. Here they
found a protector in one whose name should be preserved--Diribijah Singh,
of Moorar Mhow, in Oude. He saved their lives. At this time Thomson's
clothing consisted of a flannel shirt; Delafosse wore a cloth round his
waist; Murphy and Sullivan were naked. Every one except Delafosse was
wounded. These were the sole survivors of the massacre at the ghaut. About
130 of the women and children were taken out of the water and carried
prisoners into Cawnpore. We shall hear of them again.

During this period mutiny had been making great progress elsewhere. Bombay
had been saved by the energy of Lord Elphinstone and the prompt appearance
of the 37th from Mauritius, just as Madras had been quieted by the landing
of a regiment from Ceylon. But in Central India not a station remained.
The Europeans had been driven away from Indore, the residence of Holkar.
At Mhow, near by, some officers were killed, but the others, with the
women and children, took shelter in the fort. The Maharajah remained true
and they were saved. At Gwalior the contingent had mutinied, killing some
officers, but the women and children got away to Agra; and Scindia, acting
on the advice of his minister, Dinkur Rao, the ablest native in India, so
managed the contingent that they did not move until months afterwards. Mr.
Colvin, at Agra, in the North-West, after paltering with mutiny, had been
forced to disarm two regiments there on the 31st of May, and to prepare
and occupy the fort; for the Khotah contingent mutinied, and there were no
regular soldiers on whom dependence could be placed but the 3rd Europeans,
a battery of artillery, thirty or forty volunteer horse, and the armed
civilians. Such was the state of the country from the Himalayas to the
Nerbudda, from the sand deserts of Bikaneer to the frontiers of Behar.
Here and there, as at Saugor, Agra, Lucknow, there were little knots of
beleaguered Britons, and all around them a raging sea of anarchy.

[Illustration: _By permission of the Leicester Corporation Art Gallery._

THE FLIGHT FROM LUCKNOW (1857).

FROM THE PAINTING BY A. SOLOMON IN THE POSSESSION OF THE LEICESTER
CORPORATION ART GALLERY.]

[Illustration: MEMORIAL AT THE WELL, CAWNPORE. (_From a Photograph by
Frith & Co._)]

The reader will remember that the 8th of June was a day of disaster
in the history of the Oude mutinies, and that from this day Lucknow
alone remained in the hands of the British; and even this was held by a
precarious tenure. Sir Henry Lawrence, seeing himself alone, and observing
no signs of prompt support from any quarter, soon began to fortify the
Residency. At first he contemplated the occupation of a larger position.
He garrisoned and fortified the Muchee Bhowun, a strong fort commanding
the iron bridge; and his military police held several parts of the town.
At a later period he found how necessary it was that he should contract
his lines, bring all his troops in from the cantonments, and make himself
as strong as he could around the Residency. Before he came to that
conclusion the work of preparation and provisioning went on with ardour
under a burning sun. A large gateway, from the top of which the Residency
enclosure was commanded, was blown down. Many lacs of rupees were buried,
to save the trouble of guarding them. Upwards of 200 pieces of ordnance,
many of large calibre, were found, and with great labour brought in.
Neighbouring houses were cleared away or unroofed. Large bodies of coolies
were kept at work upon the defences, which now began to assume shape and
order and connection. The racket court was full of forage; the church was
crammed with grain; the fuel, stacked in vast piles, formed a rampart in
front of the Residency. Every day the volunteer cavalry were drilled, and
the civilians, merchants, clerks, were organised, and posts were assigned
them. The heat was almost insupportable. Cholera, small-pox, fever, broke
out. Evil news came in day after day. Finally, the troops were withdrawn
from the cantonments and placed in the Residency and Muchee Bhowun. All
this time the courts had sat and business went on, malefactors, traitors,
mutineers, were tried and executed, and order was maintained. Patrols went
out on the road to Cawnpore and Fyzabad. The news of the massacres of the
Futtehghur fugitives, and of the Cawnpore garrison, and of officers on
all sides, came in; and Colonel Neill reported his arrival at Allahabad,
and promised to move up as soon as he could. A price was set upon Nana
Sahib--£10,000 was offered for him, dead or alive.

For three weeks the Oude mutineers had been gathering at Nawabgunge, on
the Fyzabad road, about twenty-five miles from Lucknow. Sir Henry Lawrence
thought it would be desirable to attack them when he heard they were
marching on the city. Keeping his intention secret, he collected a force
consisting of four European and six Oude guns, and one 8-inch howitzer,
the whole under Major Simons; thirty-six European and eighty Sikh horse;
300 of the 32nd Foot, and 220 Sepoys, the faithful few who had not
mutinied. With these he marched, and his advance guard fell in with the
enemy near Chinhut. They were in great strength, a complete army, having
in the field cavalry, infantry, and artillery. The mutineers began the
fray by a heavy fire of cannon, and then extending their wings, bore down
on both flanks of the British. The volunteer cavalry charged boldly, but
the Sikhs fled. The Oude gunners abandoned their pieces. The mutineers
pressing on, turned our flank completely, and repulsed the 32nd in an
attempt to drive them out of a village. The combat was now lost, and Sir
Henry ordered a retreat. All fell back in confusion, leaving the howitzer
behind. A body of horsemen tried to cut them off, but the volunteer
cavalry, careless of odds, charged and routed them. Agonised with thirst,
for the water-carriers had deserted, our little force fell back, turning
and firing as often as they could, covered by the gallant volunteer horse,
and so reached the iron bridge, and filed over into the city. They had
lost 200 men killed and wounded (112 Europeans being among the slain),
and four guns were missing. The pursuit was only checked by the fire of an
18-pounder from the redan, which commanded the iron bridge. The mutineers
had brought into the field 5,000 infantry, 800 horse, and 160 gunners. As
a sequel to this unhappy adventure, it may be stated that the military
police and the companies of Oude regiments in the city at once mutinied.
The troops from Chinhut crossed the river lower down, and invested the
Residency. It was then found that the detachments in the Muchee Bhowun
would be required to defend the Residency. But the enemy were in force
between the two. No messenger could pass. In this crisis, at great risk,
for the enemy kept up a heavy fire, four officers rigged a telegraph on
the roof of the Residency, and thus sent orders that the Muchee Bhowun
should be evacuated and blown up. That night the feat was achieved. The
garrison had just reached the Residency, and were filing in, when a
tremendous explosion shook the earth--240 barrels of powder and 594,000
rounds of ammunition had destroyed the Muchee Bhowun.

The next day, July 2nd, Sir Henry Lawrence was mortally wounded by a piece
of shell, and died on the 4th. Shot and shell raining on the Residency,
confusion all around, were the accompaniments of his last hours. He was
not only an able man, but a good man, with a heart abounding in charity
for all. Few men have left a brighter track on the dark stream of Indian
history. Schools and asylums are as much his monuments as deeds of
statecraft, and it may be that the Lawrence Asylum for European children,
up in the hills of the North-West, will bear his name vividly to a
posterity which will have only a faint idea of the early administration of
the Punjab.




CHAPTER XIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Havelock to the Front--His Advance from Allahabad--Battle
    of Futtehpore--Battle of Aong--Battle of Cawnpore--Nana
    Sahib's Position--It is turned by Havelock--The Enemy resist
    obstinately--The final Charge--Cawnpore reoccupied--Nana Sahib's
    Vengeance--Havelock pushes on for Lucknow--Battle of Onao--First
    Battle of Busserutgunge--The second Battle--The third--Havelock
    recrosses the Ganges--Battle of Bithoor--End of Havelock's first
    Campaign--Lord Canning and Jung Bahadoor--Mutiny at Dinapore--Its
    Effects--Before Delhi--Attempt to surprise a Convoy--Death of
    Barnard--The British Lines attacked--The Assault renewed--The
    Remainder of July--Wilson's Discipline--John Lawrence's
    Perplexities--Disarmament at Rawul Pindee and Jhelum--Mutiny at
    Sealkote--It is avenged by Nicholson--Cooper shoots Sepoys in
    Batches--The Drama at Peshawur--Reinforcements for Delhi--Nicholson
    arrives--Battle of Nujuffghar--The Crisis in the Siege.


We have seen the rebels assailed at Delhi, and subjected to a siege;
we have seen them become the besiegers of the British at Lucknow, and
triumphant by horrible treachery at Cawnpore. We left Colonel Neill at
Allahabad preparing the way for Havelock; and it is now time to describe
the marvellous career of that general from Allahabad to Cawnpore.
Havelock, as we have said heretofore, reached Calcutta on the 17th of
June, and on the 20th he was appointed to command a movable column
which was to be collected at Allahabad. Five days afterwards he quitted
Calcutta, and on the 28th of June, one day after the bloody business at
Cawnpore, he arrived at Benares. On the 30th he reached Allahabad. That
very day, with the sanction of Sir Patrick Grant, Commander-in-Chief at
Calcutta, the first detachment prepared by Neill marched for Cawnpore. It
consisted of 400 Europeans, 420 natives, chiefly Sikhs, and two guns, the
whole under Major Renaud. Havelock, soon after he arrived, sent 100 men in
a steamer up the Ganges, to cover the right flank, but was himself obliged
to wait, not only for carriage, but for troops, until the 7th of July
before he could start. On the 3rd he learned the state of the Cawnpore
garrison, and found that his duty, instead of saving them, would be first
to recover Cawnpore and then essay to relieve Lucknow. On the 7th of July
he set out to join Renaud, taking with him about 1,000 bayonets, furnished
by the 78th Highlanders, the 64th, the 84th, the Madras Fusiliers and
Braysher's Sikhs, the bulk of whom were with Renaud. Havelock had also
eighteen volunteer horsemen and six guns. Such was the force which, on the
afternoon of the 7th of July, 1857, moved out of Allahabad to perform one
of the most striking campaigns in the history of India.

Major Renaud had pushed onwards about seventy miles towards Cawnpore, and
had halted, according to orders. For Havelock, by dint of a judicious use
of money, had secured excellent information of the enemy's proceedings;
and knowing that Nana Sahib was advancing on Renaud, intent on snapping
him up, Havelock pushed on by forced marches, and joining him on the
night of the 11th, both hastened forward to Belinda, a few miles from
Futtehpore. Lo! the rebels were there. It was now Havelock's chance. He
resolved to force an action, although he had only 1,800 men and eight guns
to match against their 3,500 men and twelve guns.

The Sepoy mutineers were in position across the road. They occupied
ground broken by swamps, groves, and hillocks, as a front line, with the
enclosures of Futtehpore to fall back upon. The Trunk Road ran through the
position, and formed the best line of advance. Havelock put his guns in
the centre, and covered them with 100 riflemen. He disposed of his other
troops in columns preceded by skirmishers, and he put his handful of horse
on the flanks. In this order he advanced. Some of the troops had Enfield
rifles, and with these, deftly used, he struck the rebels at ranges which
filled them with amazement. In ten minutes, says Havelock, the action was
decided, so distressed were they at the fire of the rifle and Maude's
artillery. The enemy at once abandoned three guns. "As we moved forward,"
writes the general, "the enemy's guns continued to fall into our hands,
and then, in succession, they were driven from the garden enclosures, from
a strong barricade on the road, from the town wall, into and through,
out of, and beyond the town." Here they tried to stand; the 2nd Cavalry
charged, and our irregulars fled leaving the volunteers alone; but the
Rifles got into action, and the guns came up, and the rebels bolted
altogether, leaving in our hands eleven guns. We actually did not lose
a single man at the hands of the enemy, but twelve died of sunstroke.
They had been afoot fourteen hours, had fought without food, and now sank
exhausted.

Resting on the 13th, Havelock took three of the captured guns and added
them to his train, and sent 100 Sikhs to guard his communications. At
daybreak on the 15th Havelock's force found itself again in front of the
enemy. He had entrenched the Great Road in front of the village of Aong,
and garnished his line with two guns. This was a strong outpost covering
the main position of the rebels behind the stone bridge over the Pandoo
Nuddy, a stream, now swollen by the rains. It was necessary to pass Aong,
and push on as fast as possible to the bridge. General Havelock divided
his little army into two parts. One part he placed under the orders of
Colonel Tytler. This was destined to assail the enemy. With the other the
general himself guarded his train and baggage from the enemy's horse.
Tytler moved up, the Volunteer Cavalry, under the gallant Barrow, leading
the way. The enemy's guns opened, and the Sepoys, intending to attack
while the troops were forming, advanced with a confident air from their
position to a village. Thereupon Major Renaud, with his Madras Fusiliers,
pounced upon them like lightning and drove them back; but in the combat he
received a mortal wound. Then Tytler closed with the enemy, expelled him
from gardens and buildings and put him to flight, but could not reach his
guns. Havelock, for his share, had beaten off repeated onsets of cavalry,
and these now retired to rejoin their comrades. Halting his men, Havelock
anxiously awaited reports respecting the doings of the enemy on the Pandoo
Nuddy. The news came. The enemy were engaged in strengthening their
position on this river by mining the bridge. The moment was critical, if
they were permitted to succeed in this work, the march of the army would
be arrested for several days. On the other hand, the troops had been on
foot since midnight and had not fed. But Havelock did not hesitate. Two
hours' march under a burning sun brought his band to the bank of the
river. The Sepoys were arrayed beyond the bridge; they were at work under
one of the arches; and they had two 24-pounders, so planted that their
fire swept the Great Road. The plan of attack was soon decided on. Eight
guns were drawn up in positions which enabled them to concentrate their
fire on the bridge. There was a bend in the river at this point, and the
Madras Fusiliers, armed with the Enfield rifle, at once took advantage
of this, by pushing up in open order above and below the bridge, and
from the banks of the river pouring in a hail of bullets on the rebel
artillerymen. This shook the steadiness of the enemy, the fire of our guns
increased his alarm; and when the mine in the bridge was seen to explode,
yet failed to injure the structure, the artillerymen lost heart. As the
fire slackened, Major Stephenson gathered up his Fusiliers, and dashing
at the bridge carried it with a rush and seized the guns. Thereupon the
mutineers took to their heels and made off for Cawnpore.

There was another battle before them. They marched the next morning,
the 16th. Cawnpore was twenty-four miles away. Before them lay an arid
road. The sun was more formidable than the foe. Nana Sahib, alarmed at
the progress of Havelock, and enraged by the repeated defeats of the
mutineers, had concentrated all his forces, about 5,000 men and eight
guns, and had posted them a few miles from Cawnpore, determined there
to give battle. Havelock marched his men sixteen miles, then halted for
three hours, resumed his march at two o'clock, leaving his baggage under
a guard in the village, and quickly came within sight of the enemy. The
mutineer army had been posted with some skill. It was drawn up across
two roads, one leading to the cantonments at Cawnpore, the other being
the Great Trunk Road to Delhi. Each flank rested on a native village;
another village strengthened the centre. All were entrenched or walled.
The Ganges was distant about a mile from the left, and on the right rose
the half-finished embankment for the railway. The rebel infantry were
drawn up in a concave line from flank to flank. Their horse were in a body
on the left, and their guns were so disposed along the line as to sweep
the two roads. About 1,200 yards from the centre of the lines the roads
became one, that is, the cantonment road diverged at this point from the
Trunk Road. Beyond the point of junction a fringe of wood ran towards the
Ganges. In taking up this position the enemy had calculated on a front
attack. He had measured out distances along the roads, and his gunners
stood ready to fire as soon as the British came within range.

But he had to deal with a general versed in warfare. On coming within
sight of the enemy, Havelock took steps to ascertain from the country folk
the nature of the country on both flanks of the rebel host, for he had
resolved to turn one or the other. He found that the enemy's left was the
more assailable. Thus a force marched for about a mile and a half behind
the screen of trees, while the little body of Volunteer Horse showed
themselves on the Trunk Road, as if they were the forerunners of a front
attack.

[Illustration: THE HIGHLANDERS CAPTURING THE GUNS AT CAWNPORE. (_See p._
221.)]

Suddenly the enemy became aware of the object of the manœuvre, as he
caught glimpses, through breaks in the wood, of a column moving behind
the trees. He opened fire. Our troops, without heeding shot and shell,
moved silently on, until they arrived at a point parallel to the rebel
position. Then they wheeled into line. The guns came up and opened fire,
and the Madras riflemen once more spread out and made play with their
splendid weapons. But Havelock was not the man to trifle with an advantage
of position such as he had gained by his skilful march. He ordered an
advance in _échelon_ from the right. The Madras men went first in open
order; the 78th Highlanders came next, then the 64th and 84th combined,
and lastly the Sikhs. There were three 24-pounders on the enemy's left,
well entrenched behind a village. The 78th were launched upon them.
Moving up steadily under a fire of grape, until they were within eighty
yards, their colonel, Hamilton, in front, the bagpipes playing in the
rear, the Highlanders suddenly rent the air with a fierce shout, and,
charging in, carried the village, and captured the guns, breaking the
enemy's left into two parts, hurling one in confusion on the centre, and
shouldering the other to the rear. In the meantime the 64th had come
abreast of the Highlanders, and the Madras Fusiliers, on the other flank,
had successfully encountered and defeated the rebel cavalry. Reforming
the 78th, Havelock rode to the front, and pointing to the rally of the
enemy on his centre round a howitzer, cried, "Now, Highlanders, another
charge like that wins the day." The charge was made, and, with the aid
of the 64th, the gun was captured. The Volunteer Horse, too, making
a daring charge up the road, fell upon the enemy and slew many. The
whole of the British force was now united again after its rough fight.
The position of the enemy and several of his guns had been won, and
our troops, emerging in the rear of it, reformed. The Sepoys had again
rallied, with commendable promptitude, on Suktipore, a village between
the two roads. From this they had to be driven. Havelock's voice was
again heard animating his soldiers to renewed exertions, and again, this
time unsupported by any artillery fire from our side, did those noble
foot soldiers of Britain drive the foe before them. Yet again he rallied,
so stubborn was he in this combat. Nana Sahib, present on the field,
was seen to be encouraging his troops. He brought them up as the sun
was setting, and prepared for a last effort. He still had a 24-pounder
and two pieces of smaller calibre, and with these he commanded our men,
now lying down, awaiting their artillery. The sun went down. There were
about 900 British soldiers, only awaiting a signal from Havelock. "The
final crisis," he writes, "had arrived. My artillery cattle, wearied by
the length of the march, could not bring up the guns to my assistance;
and the Madras Fusiliers, the 64th, 84th, and 78th detachments, formed
in line, were exposed to a heavy fire from the 24-pounder on the road.
I was resolved this state of things should not last; so, calling upon
my men, who were lying down in line, to leap on their feet, I directed
another steady advance. It was irresistible. The enemy sent round shot
into our ranks, until we were within 300 yards, and then poured in grape
with such precision and determination as I have seldom witnessed. But
the 64th, led by Major Stirling and by my aide-de-camp [his son, Henry
Havelock] who had placed himself in their front, were not to be denied.
Their rear showed the ground strewed with wounded; but on they steadily
and silently came; then, with a cheer, charged and captured the unwieldy
trophy of their valour. The enemy lost all heart, and after a hurried fire
of musketry gave way in total rout. Four of my guns came up, and completed
their discomfiture by a heavy cannonade; and as it grew dark, the roofless
barracks of our artillery were dimly descried in advance, and it was
evident that Cawnpore was once more in our possession."

The next morning spies brought in the dreadful news that Nana Sahib had
retreated from Cawnpore after butchering all the prisoners. Havelock
immediately sent forward an advanced guard to test the truth of this, and
as they came up to the old cantonments, an explosion shook the earth. It
was the old magazine which the troopers of the enemy's rear-guard had
fired. The army now entered the place. It was a memorable day, the 17th
of July, when Cawnpore was recovered, for the horrors it brought to light
kindled to an intensity beyond conception the passions of the British
soldiers.

For the first thing done was to visit the entrenchment, and the house in
which the prisoners had been confined. At the sight thereof strong men
wept, and a fierce thirst for vengeance seized them and made them terrible
in battle. From subsequent inquiries, it appeared that Nana Sahib had
preserved the lives of 47 of the women and children from Futtehghur, and
163 of the old Cawnpore garrison. These he kept prisoners. "The captives,"
writes Captain Thomson, "were fed with only one meal a day of dhâl and
chupatties, and these of the meanest sort; they had to eat out of earthen
pans, and the food was served by menials of the lowest caste (_mehter_),
which in itself was the greatest indignity that Easterns could cast upon
them. They had no furniture, no beds, not even straw to lie down upon, but
only coarse bamboo matting of the roughest make. The house in which they
were incarcerated had formerly been occupied as the dwelling of a native
clerk; it comprised two principal rooms, each about twenty feet long and
ten broad, and besides these, a number of dark closets rather than rooms,
which had been originally intended for the use of native servants; in
addition to these, a courtyard, about fifteen yards square."

After the defeat of his troops on the Pandoo Nuddy--that is, on the
15th of July--Nana Sahib ordered all the prisoners to be slain. It must
have been anger and hate and a love of cruelty which prompted this
dastardly act. When our troops arrived, Mr. Sherer, the newly-appointed
magistrate, began an investigation, from which we learn the facts as
nearly as they can be known. "When Mr. Sherer," writes Captain Thomson,
"entered the house of horrors, in which the slaughter of the women had
been perpetrated, the rooms were covered with human gore; articles of
clothing that had belonged to women and children--collars, combs, shoes,
caps, and little round hats--were found steeped in blood; the walls were
spattered with blood, the mats on the floor saturated; the plaster sides
of the place were scored with sword-cuts, and pieces of long hair were all
about the room. No writing was upon the walls, and it is supposed that the
inscriptions, which soon became numerous, were put there by the troops,
to infuriate each other in the work of revenging the atrocities that had
been perpetrated there. There is no doubt that the death of the unhappy
victims was accomplished by the sword, and that their bodies, stripped of
all clothing, were thrown into an adjacent well. A Bible was found that
had belonged to Miss Blair, in which she had written; '27th June--Went to
the boats. 29th.--Taken out of boats. 30th.--Taken to Sevadah Kothi; fatal
day.'" Such was the scene which tore the hearts of our valiant soldiers,
and the recital of which made the whole world shudder. It is related that
the Highlanders, on coming to a body which had been barbarously exposed,
and which was supposed to be that of Sir Hugh Wheeler's daughter, cut off
the tresses, and counting the hairs, swore that for every hair a rebel
should die.

The reaction which followed his great successes, combined with the
critical position in which he found himself, for a moment depressed the
spirit of the undaunted Havelock. Here was this fearful massacre; here was
news from Lucknow of the death of Henry Lawrence; from Delhi, of the death
of General Barnard; from Agra, of a defeat of the troops there; and from
Bithoor, that Nana Sahib had garrisoned that stronghold with 5,000 men.
But one night's brief repose restored to the general his wonted calmness.
Getting news of the march of a reinforcement, under Neill from Allahabad,
he, on the 12th, selected a situation for a fort, commanding the passage
of the Ganges, and prepared all things for an attempt to cut his way to
Lucknow. Meanwhile Nana Sahib had evacuated Bithoor, and crossed into Oude.

On the 29th Havelock marched upon Onao. Here the rebels had occupied
the ground with considerable skill. A deep swamp covered their right.
Onao itself protected their left. In front was a village, and a garden
entrenched like a bastion. In front of the village were enclosures. Thus
the general found that he could not turn the position on either hand.
He was forced to assail it in front. The order was given. With ready
valour the Highlanders and Fusiliers drove the enemy out of the garden.
They fell back on the village; their fire was hot; the 64th had to be
brought up; and, all charging together, the village was stormed and the
guns captured. This enabled Havelock to interpose his force between the
enemy and Onao, towards which town they were hurrying. Firmly lodged on
a piece of dry ground in the midst of swamps, and assailable only on a
narrow front, Havelock saw his advantage, and allowing the enemy to come
near, he shot them to pieces as they crowded on the road. The Oude native
artillery, which had been carefully drilled, behaved with great gallantry;
many gunners served their pieces to the last, and fell beside them under
the rifles of the Fusiliers and the bayonets of the British Linesmen.
Havelock stood victor, and master of fifteen of the enemy's guns.

The troops, after a halt of three hours to rest and eat, once more
marched. The rebels had rallied at Busserutgunge. This was a walled town.
The gate facing our troops was entrenched, and mounted four guns, and
was flanked by towers. The road to Lucknow, running through the place,
emerged at the opposite gate, and then was carried on a causeway through
one of those large pieces of water called jheels. Concentrating a fire
of artillery on the gate, Havelock held the Fusiliers and Highlanders
ready to storm it, while he detached the 64th to the left to turn the
town and cut off the retreat of the enemy. While the guns were in action,
the storming column lay down; but when the fire of the defence slackened,
and the Sepoys, frightened at the flank movement, began to run, the
Highlanders and Fusiliers, with stern shouts, sprang up and carried the
gate at a bound. The enemy fled over the causeway--for the 64th had not
come up--and the battle was won.

But Havelock was destined to disappointment. A mutiny at Dinapore had
prevented the arrival of the 5th and 90th regiments. He had lost nearly
a hundred men on the 29th; a third of his ammunition was expended;
cholera, smiting down scores, was in his camp; he had little or no spare
transport; so, with a bitter feeling, he fell back to Mungulwar. Here
he received five more guns and 257 men, but was obliged to disarm his
native gun Lascars. The enemy--mutineers from Oude and Saugor, in Central
India--was now gathering in force at Bithoor, and Neill was apprehensive
of an attack; but Havelock, determined to try again, told Neill to hold
his communications, and on the 4th of August marched to Onao, and on the
5th once more to Busserutgunge. Here the enemy were again. Knowing the
ground better this time, the general, while he prepared to cannonade the
front of the village, sent a force round their left flank. When this force
emerged, he began the cannonade. The effect was instantaneous. Smitten
by a point-blank fire of shot and shell, the rebels fled. The 64th and
84th dashed into the gate, while the Highlanders and Fusiliers and four
of Maude's guns caught them as they streamed out on to the causeway.
But, with great courage, the enemy rallied again in a village on both
flanks. These were carried in brilliant style. The Sepoys carried off
their cannon, but left 250 men on the field. Havelock could not improve
his victories, because he had no cavalry. This was a fatal defect, as it
gave the enemy time to rally. Our loss--so swift and able had been our
movements--was only two killed and twenty-three wounded.

Yet even now Havelock could not go on. As the Oude folk defended every
post, he felt that he could only reach Lucknow with a force too weak to
break in, much less carry off the garrison. He heard also that the Gwalior
contingent was moving up to the Jumna, and he knew that Nana Sahib was
not far off in Oude, and that the mutineers at Bithoor were growing every
day stronger. Therefore he once more fell back to Mungulwar. The troops
were indignant, but there is no doubt the general was right. His army was
the only force we had between Behar and Delhi, and he was bound not to
throw it away uselessly. He, therefore, drew up at Mungulwar, entrenched
it, and made good his raft bridge over the Ganges, hoping in vain that
reinforcements would arrive. Neill now urged him to send over aid to drive
the enemy from Bithoor, who were meditating offensive operations. Havelock
then resolved to abandon Oude altogether. He had begun to re-cross the
river, when he learned that 5,000 men, with artillery, had occupied
Busserutgunge. He saw that if he retreated under such a threat without
striking a blow, he would lose much of that moral influence his daring
actions had secured. So, before crossing he turned upon his foe. Two
marches brought him up to the position. Again the enemy had made a skilful
choice of position; and again, by skill and courage, our troops thrust
him out of it, with heavy loss to him and little to them. Thus they had
been thrice beaten on this one battlefield. Having struck this heavy blow,
Havelock retreated at once, and on the 13th of August crossed to the right
bank of the Ganges; then the bridge was broken up, and the boats brought
over to the Cawnpore side. Such was the first effort to relieve Lucknow.
It failed; but it is impossible not to admire the devotion and resolution
of the general and his men, who--in spite of such odds as were arrayed
against them--in spite of the fervid heat and its effects fever, cholera,
lassitude--had eight times encountered victoriously the enemy on the field
of battle.

On the 16th he went forth to his ninth action. The rebels at Bithoor were
now to feel the weight of his hand. They were a "scratch pack," from five
regiments, but they had a strong position, and many of them were very
brave men. They were drawn up in fields of sugar-cane, with a village
and an enclosure here and there, and behind a line of breastwork. Behind
these was a stream crossed by a stone bridge. Instead of having this in
their rear, the enemy should have had it in front. No doubt he relied on
his numbers. After a march, under a cloudless August sun, the troops came
up with the enemy, and speedily routed him out of his cane-brakes, but
not before, in some cases, men of the 42nd Native Infantry had crossed
bayonets with the Madras Fusiliers. The real work had now to be done.
Covered by his breastwork, the enemy fought with great obstinacy, keeping
his great guns going, and maintaining a fire of musketry equal, so thought
the general, to that of the Sikhs at Ferozeshah. Our artillery could
not silence the Sepoy guns. There was nothing for it but the bayonet.
Our infantry got the word they loved so much, and charging in upon the
enemy, lifted him clean over the bridge, captured his guns, and put him
to flight. Havelock halted at Bithoor one night, and then returned to
Cawnpore. Before he left he had cleared the town, and had blown up the
remains of the Nana's buildings. The reason for retreating was that the
defeated force might have doubled round upon Cawnpore, and sacked it
in the absence of the troops. This action terminated Havelock's first
campaign. He now learned, to his chagrin, that Sir James Outram had
been appointed to take command of the troops destined for the relief of
Lucknow. Here we must quit for a time this noble soldier, whose services
were inestimable. But before we return to Delhi, we must tell by what
accumulation of stupidities the reinforcements destined for Havelock were
delayed on the road.

The reasons lie in the defective resolution of the Calcutta Government. At
an early stage in the mutiny, Jung Bahadoor, of Nepaul, had offered his
assistance, and Major Ramsay, our agent at his capital, had transmitted
the offer. He proposed to send six regiments of Nepaulese to Benares or
Allahabad. The Government did not like to acquiesce in this destination
of the troops. Benares and Allahabad were too important to be held by
any natives. The proposal was declined; but, after a lapse of some days,
when our prospects grew every moment more gloomy, Jung Bahadoor's offer
was accepted, but he was directed to move on and occupy Goruckpore. Here
he might do good and could do little harm. In this opinion not only the
Calcutta Government, but Mr. Tucker at Benares, and Havelock at Cawnpore
acquiesced, and the last declared that he could not accept aid from the
Nepaulese, unless their women and children and sick were left in some
place as a sort of hostages, so profound was the distrust at this time of
any natives. Lord Canning has been censured with regard to his treatment
of the Nepaulese, but we do not think wisely. His treatment of the Sepoys
at Dinapore, however, does not admit of defence or excuse.

[Illustration: HOW MAJOR TOMBS WON THE VICTORIA CROSS. (_See p._ 227.)]

Dinapore was a military station, ten miles west of Patna, and was the
capital of the province of Behar inhabited by a turbulent population,
numbering 300,000, a large proportion of whom were Mohammedans. There
could be no security in the province until the Dinapore regiments were
disarmed. Nothing would have been easier. In the middle of July, the 5th
Foot, just landed from Mauritius, and half the 37th Foot were on their
way up the Ganges. On their arrival at Dinapore these might have been
landed, and, in conjunction with the 10th Foot, every native might have
been disarmed in an hour. But Lord Canning left it to General Lloyd to say
if the regiments should be disarmed, and General Lloyd had faith in the
Sepoys. Moreover, Lord Canning refused to allow the 5th to land for an
hour at Dinapore. The consequence of throwing the responsibility on Lloyd,
and of refusing to detain the 5th, was very serious. General Lloyd thought
it would be enough to take away from the Sepoys the percussion caps. This
half-measure was executed on the 25th of July, just when Havelock was
preparing to spring into Oude. The Sepoys murmured, threatened, but for
the moment were quieted, and the general, thinking all over, went to lunch
on board a steamer. Suddenly shots were heard. It appeared that when the
Sepoys were ordered to deliver up the caps in their pouches, they fired;
thereupon the 10th marched upon their lines and opened fire. The Sepoys at
once decamped; some ran to the Ganges and tried to cross, but a sharp fire
from a steamer sank their boats. The greater part made off, unpursued,
towards Arrah. Their enterprise was not easy; they had the Sone to cross.
A quick pursuit would have found them seeking boats on its right bank.
No pursuit was made for three days, and in that time they had crossed
the river and entered Arrah. Kour Singh, a large landowner, a man who
exhibited a gun at the Great Exhibition in 1851, joined the mutineers,
supplied boats, counsel, leadership. They marched on Arrah, intending to
plunder the treasury, and crossing the Ganges at Buxar, enter Oude. They
were frustrated by the bravery of some ten civilians and fifty Sikhs,
who held the place with dauntless resolution until they were splendidly
relieved by Major Vincent Eyre.

The effects of the Dinapore mutiny were felt all over Behar. The 12th
Irregulars mutinied, cutting off the heads of Major and Mrs. Holmes;
two companies of Sepoys at Hazareebagh broke out and burnt the station;
magistrates and Europeans fled in all directions, and weeks elapsed,
and a large display of force had to be made, before order was restored.
Moreover, Kour Singh and the broken mutineers went to Nagode and raised
the 50th Native Infantry; and several other regiments and parts of
regiments took fire and exploded. These were the causes that arrested the
march of reinforcements to Havelock, and frustrated his splendid efforts
to reach Lucknow.

To return to Delhi, the reader will remember that at the beginning of
July reinforcements from the Punjab had raised the British army before
that place to 6,600 men. At the same time, however, five native regiments
and a battery of artillery arrived on the left bank of the Jumna opposite
Delhi from Rohilcund. This added upwards of 4,000 fresh men to the rebel
army. With them came Mohamed Bukt Khan from Bareilly, formerly a subahdar
of artillery, now a general of brigade, and, soon after his arrival,
Commander-in-Chief of the Sepoy army. When they came up, the swollen
river had broken the bridge of boats, which was not re-established for
two days. Our forces were so few that we were compelled to look on while
the enemy performed this operation at leisure. In the beginning of July
the new arrivals so raised the spirits of the mutineers that they engaged
in several desperate actions. Their first operation was daring, and a
dangerous one for us. The road to the Punjab, so vital to our safety, was
entirely guarded by native troops, perfectly trustworthy, but in weak
detachments, placed here and there to keep the road clear of marauders.
It was along this road that our sick and wounded were sent to Umballa,
and that our convoys of treasure and ammunition passed to the camp. The
Sepoys, of course, knew this, and were moderately well informed of the
goings and comings of convoys. They had heard that a quantity of treasure
was coming down, and that a number of sick were going up; they resolved
to capture the first and to murder the second. So on the 3rd about 6,000
men of all arms, with several guns, moved out of the Lahore Gate, and went
round our right. They were not unseen. All night they marched, making
for Alipore, one march in the rear of our camp. Here they drove off the
Sikh guard, but found neither sick nor treasure; the former had passed on
the 2nd, the latter, delayed on the road, had not come up. The Sepoys,
instead of pushing for Kurnaul, as they might have done, countermarched
on Delhi. Major Coke, with 1,100 men and 12 guns, had been sent out to
intercept them. Hodson and his horse had been on the look-out, and gave
Coke ample information. But although our troops got within cannon-shot,
and engaged the enemy, they did little except capture an ammunition waggon
and a store cart, and recover the plunder of Alipore. In order to check
these attacks on our line of communications, it was resolved to blow up
all the bridges over the canal except one, and also to destroy part of
an aqueduct, one of the mighty works of the former Mohammedan rulers of
Delhi. These enterprises were effected during the next week, and thus
greater safety was secured for the rear, and the country folk were able to
bring provisions into our markets without danger from the Sepoys.

On the day after the attack on Alipore General Barnard sickened of
cholera, and by night he was dead. Himself a distinguished soldier, and
the son of a more distinguished soldier, Sir Andrew Barnard, he had found
himself in a situation unsuited to his abilities; for having served in
the Crimea as chief of the staff, he had only arrived in India a few
months before the mutiny broke out. He was greatly respected and beloved
in camp, but it must be owned he was hardly fit for the work in hand. He
was succeeded by a seniority general of no mark, who in turn fell ill, and
going off on sick leave, left Brigadier Archdale Wilson in command of the
troops before Delhi.

On the 9th of July the newly-arrived Sepoys again sought to distinguish
themselves by an assault upon our lines. Among the troops from Bareilly
which had just entered Delhi were the troopers of the 8th Irregulars. A
wing of the 9th was in our camp, and many men in it had friends in the
mutinous 8th. The incidents of the day showed that these two regiments
were in communication. "About ten o'clock in the morning," writes Captain
Norman, "the insurgents appeared to be increasing in numbers in the
suburbs on our right, when suddenly a body of cavalry emerged from cover
on the extreme right of our right flank, and charged into camp.... The
troop of Carabineers, all very young, most of them untrained soldiers, and
only thirty-two in number of all ranks, turned and broke, save the officer
and two or three men, who nobly stood. Lieutenant Hills, commanding the
guns, seeing the cavalry come on unopposed, alone charged the head of
the horsemen, to give his guns time to unlimber, and cut down one or two
of the sowars, while the main body of horsemen riding over and past the
guns, followed up the Carabineers, and a confused mass of horsemen came
streaming in at the right of the camp. Major Tombs, whose tent was on
the right, had heard the first alarm, and, calling for his horse to be
brought after him, walked towards the picket just as the cavalry came on.
He was just in time to see his gallant subaltern down on the ground, with
one of the enemy's sowars ready to kill him. From a distance of thirty
yards he fired with his revolver, and dropped Hills's opponent. Hills
got up and engaged a man on foot, who was cut down by Tombs, after Hills
had received a severe sabre-cut on the head. Meanwhile great confusion
had been caused by the inroad of the sowars, most of whom made for the
guns of the native troop of horse artillery, which was on the right of
the camp, calling on the men to join them. The native horse artillerymen,
however, behaved admirably, and called to Major Olpherts' European troop,
which was then unlimbered close by, to fire through them at the mutineers.
The latter, however, managed to secure and carry off some horses, and
several followers were cut down in camp. Captain Fagan, of the artillery,
rushing out of his tent, got together a few men, and followed up some of
the sowars, who were then endeavouring to get away, and killed fifteen of
them. More were killed by some men of the 1st Brigade, and all were driven
out of the camp, some escaping by a bridge over the canal-cut in our
rear. It is estimated that not more than 100 sowars were engaged in this
enterprise, and about thirty-five were killed, including a native officer.
All this time the cannonade from the city, and from many field-guns
outside, raged fast and furious, and a heavy fire of musketry was kept up
upon our batteries, and on the Subzee Mundi pickets from the enclosures
and gardens of the suburbs. A column was therefore formed to dislodge
them, consisting of Major Scott's horse battery, the available men of the
8th and 61st Foot and 4th Sikh Infantry--in all about 700 infantry, and
six guns, reinforced _en route_ by the headquarters and two companies
of the 60th Rifles, under Lieutenant-Colonel J. Jones; the infantry
brigade being commanded by Brigadier W. Jones, C.B., and Brigadier-General
Chamberlain directing the whole. As this column swept up through the
Subzee Mundi, Major Reid was instructed to move down and co-operate with
such infantry as could be spared from the main picket. The insurgents
were cleared out of the gardens without difficulty, though the denseness
of the vegetation rendered the mere operation of passing through them a
work of time. At some of the serais, however, a very obstinate resistance
was made, and the insurgents were not dislodged without considerable
loss. Eventually everything was effected that was desired, our success
being greatly aided by the admirable and steady practice of Major Scott's
battery under a heavy fire, eleven men being put _hors de combat_ out of
its small complement. By sunset the engagement was over, and the troops
returned to camp, drenched through with rain, which, for several hours,
had fallen at intervals with great violence. Our loss this day was one
officer and 40 men killed, 8 officers and 163 men wounded, 11 men missing."

Not content with the result of the 9th, the mutineers, on the 14th,
renewed the attack. They moved, as usual, out of the Lahore Gate, and
made for the Subzee Mundi. The position on this side, however, had been
strengthened greatly since the inroad of the troopers on the 9th, and
the Sepoys were easily repelled. The fight became one of artillery and
musketry, each party availing itself of good cover. At length we had to
put an end to it in the usual way. Brigadier Chamberlain formed a column,
and led them against the enemy--literally so; for our troops, not liking
the look of a wall lined with Sepoys, stopped short, instead of charging
at it. Thereupon Chamberlain, spurring his horse, leaped clean over the
wall into the midst of the enemy, daring his own men to follow. They did,
but Chamberlain got hit in the shoulder. Once on the move, our infantry
kept the Sepoys going, and drove them from garden to garden and house
to house up to the walls of Delhi. For this they paid heavily; for when
they began to retire, the Sepoys took heart, and, issuing out, opened
with musketry and grape. Luckily, Hodson, who had seen the column go in,
followed with a few of his horse, and arrived at the moment of peril.
Aided by some officers and the boldest spirits among the European and
Guide Infantry, he stopped the enemy's cavalry, and then retired fighting,
until two guns came up, and soon "drove the last living rebel into his
pandemonium," as they called Delhi in those days. But we lost 15 killed,
and had 150 wounded.

During the remainder of July there were two more actions. The Jhansi
regiments entered Delhi on the 16th; our spies in the city warned the
general of an impending attack; and on the 18th the fresh regiments
began what they boasted should be a four days' fight. There was nothing
in the combat to distinguish it from so many of its predecessors. The
alarm sounded, our troops turned out; the Sepoys, swarming among the
ruins about the Subzee Mundi, retired as soon as they were assailed, and
our men followed them as far as prudence dictated, and then drew off.
The Sepoys did not keep their promise. One day's fighting seemed to have
satisfied them. On the 23rd they sallied from the Cashmere Gate, and tried
to establish a battery near the house called Ludlow Castle; but they were
sharply assailed by a force under Brigadier Showers, and driven into the
city. Unfortunately, in trying to take their guns, the troops got too near
the walls, and suffered accordingly. No other fighting of moment occurred
for the rest of the month; but in the meantime there had been hot work in
the Punjab.

General Wilson, looking for troops from the Punjab, had changed materially
the system of warfare before Delhi. He resolved to make more secure
the position on the ridge, and connected the isolated batteries with a
continuous line of breast-works. He determined to confine himself as
much as possible to a system of resistance, and not give the enemy the
opportunities he appeared to covet of luring our columns under the fire
of the walls. He established a system of reliefs, so that part of the
force got some rest while the bulk was on duty. The result was that the
discipline of the troops, which had been growing somewhat slack, was
rendered more rigorous, and a higher tone was imparted to the whole body.
Rest and food, at stated times, soon improved the health of the army. The
great point was to stand fast until the remaining troops which could be
spared from the Punjab should arrive. We have now to tell what detained
them.

To all suggestions that the siege of Delhi should be abandoned, Sir John
Lawrence had offered instant and peremptory resistance. He would rather
have restored the Peshawur valley to the Afghans than have abandoned
Delhi. As a measure of despair he had even contemplated and discussed the
surrender of the valley. His wisest counsellors were vehemently opposed
to the latter move; they would have preferred the raising of the siege.
Happily neither measure was forced upon him. He was burdened with a vast
responsibility, for by severing the electric wires the Sepoys had made
him Governor-General of the Punjab and the North-West above Agra. Aided
by men like Montgomery, and Edwardes, and Nicholson--supported by such
unflinching lieutenants as Frederick Cooper, Reynell Taylor, Spankie,
Barnes, and Forsyth--he was able to quell his own mutineers, and pour down
on Delhi those reinforcements which enabled Wilson to take it by storm.

That brilliant invention, the movable column, had not been idle during the
month of July. There were five regiments of infantry and two of cavalry
still in arms. Six of these regiments were in stations where there was
not a single European soldier. The problem was how to get their arms. It
was resolved first to deal with the 58th Native Infantry at Rawul Pindee
and the 14th at Jhelum. He had little difficulty with the 58th. At first
they seemed inclined to resist, but soon yielded. The two companies of
the 14th, however, fled. They were pursued by mounted Punjabees, and
those that escaped were brought in by the villagers. At Jhelum there was
a battle. Sir John had sent 260 of the 24th Foot, three guns, and 150
police, all under Colonel Ellice, to disarm the 14th. These were followed
by 700 Mooltanees, partly mounted, and the two bodies joined on the 6th.
On the 7th Ellice sent part of the Mooltanee horse to guard the river, and
with the rest marched towards the station. The 14th had been called under
arms, and as soon as they saw the Europeans moving towards them, they
began to load. Then there was a dropping fire. Presently the Sepoys broke,
the Mooltanees charged, and did some execution, but the mutineers got into
their quarters, and defied the horse. The Mooltanee foot came up. These
were beaten off. The guns arrived, and opened. The Sepoys, well sheltered,
would not budge. Colonel Ellice then arrived with the 24th Foot, and
forming a small column, carried the lines with the bayonet. Ellice being
wounded at the head of his men, Gerard took command. The Sepoys fled into
a fortified village and stoutly resisted every onset. When night fell the
troops were obliged to retire, leaving behind a howitzer, which was taken
by the enemy. In the night the mutineers retreated, but did not escape.
Out of 500 men only fifty were not "accounted for." No fewer than 150
fell in action, 180 were captured by the police, and 120, who reached
Cashmere, were surrendered. But we suffered a loss of 44 killed, and 109
wounded, of whom one-half were Europeans.

[Illustration: BLOWING UP OF THE CASHMERE GATE AT DELHI. (_See p._ 235.)]

Nor was this the worst loss. There were two native regiments at
Sealkote--a few score miles distant east of the Chenab. They had long
been suspected. They might have been disarmed in May, when there were
European troops in the station. Brigadier Brind, the commandant, a brave
old officer, remonstrated against the withdrawal of the 52nd Foot and
Bourchier's European battery to form the movable column. He did not like
to be left with only Hindostanee troops. "He was requested," says Mr.
Montgomery, "to remove the cause of alarm by disarming them. He did not
see his way to do this, and the column marched on." Sir John Lawrence had
directed the ladies of the station and the soldiers' wives and children to
be sent to Lahore. The latter were marched to Lahore under escort; several
of the former remained. Brigadier Brind kept up a show of confidence in
the 46th Native Infantry and the wing of the 9th Cavalry in the station;
but he knew they were mutinous in spirit. The wonder was they had not gone
before. Perhaps they waited for a signal from Delhi, and there is some
evidence that the signal reached the station simultaneously with the news
of the fight at Jhelum on the 7th. Be that as it may, on the 9th all the
native troops mutinied. The officers, roused from sleep, mounted and rode
among the men, but found remonstrance useless. They all made for an old
fort, which Tej Singh, a Sikh chief, had placed at their disposal. But
only some escaped.

Nor was this all. The movable column was at Amritsir. Here were the 59th
Native Infantry. They had shown no symptoms of disaffection; but on the
8th General Nicholson heard of the fight at Jhelum. He saw at once the
peril of the moment, and the duty. On the 9th he disarmed the 59th. It was
only done just in time. On the evening of that day in came a messenger
from Lahore, telling of the mutiny at Sealkote, and directing Nicholson
to march on Gordaspore and intercept the Sealkote men. Nicholson did not
hesitate. Disarming and dismounting the men of the 9th Cavalry, who were
at Amritsir, he set out on the night of the 10th for Gordaspore, and by
daylight he had made twenty-six miles. On the 12th, certain information
came that the mutineers had crossed the Ravee at Trimmoo Ghaut, a ferry
on the river. Nicholson moved out at once, and by noon sighted the rebel
vedettes, men of the 9th Cavalry. The whole had not got over, and some
were still crossing. Covering his front with mounted Punjabee levies,
mere recruits for Hodson's Horse, Nicholson moved up his guns and
infantry. The Sepoys were behind a strip of deep water, passable only by a
bridge. In their rear was the Ravee, growing wider and deeper every hour,
for the snows were melting in the hills, and swelling all the streams. As
Bourchier's guns went over the bridge, down came the men of the 9th at
the charge; the levies fled; the Sepoy skirmishers ran up and opened a
steady fire. But the ugly symptoms soon vanished. The Sepoys had no guns.
They were not soldiers who could stand against the 52nd. In twenty minutes
grapeshot, shrapnel, and rifle-balls silenced the fire of the rebel line.
In half-an-hour the mutineers were in retreat, leaving three or four
hundred killed and wounded on the field. Nicholson had no dragoons, or
there the business would have ended. He caused his few Sikhs to pursue,
and these captured all the baggage and stores which the enemy had brought
to the left bank. In the river there was an island. To cross that night
was impossible. In the night the river rose and caught the rebels in a
trap. On the 11th they had been able to ford the stream; on the 13th it
had risen several feet. The dawn found the enemy prisoners, with the swift
flood of the Ravee rolling around them, and a relentless foe preparing
the means of destroying them. Three days passed before boats could be
procured. On the 16th all was ready. Covered by the fire of seven guns on
the other bank, and headed by Nicholson, the 52nd swept on in line, and in
a few minutes the mutineers went in a crowd to the rear. A few resolute
men died around the gun; others were overtaken in fight and slain; a mob
ran to the end of the island, and those who escaped the bayonet, and swam
over the river, were captured by the villagers. Not more than a hundred
got away into Cashmere, and these we compelled the Maharajah to surrender.
Thus did John Nicholson break in pieces this horde of mutineers, and save
the Punjab between the Jhelum and the Sutlej. On the 22nd the column was
again at Amritsir. Three days afterwards it was again on the march, _en
route_ for Delhi, in earnest this time, for now the Punjab had been made
secure by the disarming of nearly every Hindostanee regiment, and the
raising of new levies among the Punjabees.

But there were still days of peril between the Sutlej and the Indus,
and over the Indus; and before carrying the reader with us to Delhi, to
witness the final strife there, it will be as well to note in passing the
tragic incidents at Lahore and Peshawur.

The disarmed Hindostanees at Meean Meer, near Lahore, writhed under
the degradation which it had been so necessary to inflict upon them.
Frequent reports reached the brigadier that one or more of the regiments
intended to break out and run away, but day after day passed, and there
were no signs, and only the usual precautions were taken. At length,
however, the 26th Native Infantry tried the experiment, and their fate
proved an example to discourage the other regiments. On the 30th of July,
at mid-day, they broke out. They fled up the left bank of the Ravee.
Fortunately, the deputy-commissioner at Amritsir was Mr. Frederick Cooper.
As soon as he heard of the flight of the 26th, he got together some
Punjabee horse and foot, and after a severe march, struck the trail of
the mutineers. He found them in sorry plight. They had swum the river or
floated over on pieces of wood, and were lodged on an island about a mile
from the shore. By stratagem he got them all from the island, and had
them secured with cords. Then they were escorted to the police-station at
Ujnalla, six miles distant, and before they arrived the Sikh infantry came
up. There were 282 prisoners. Sending his Hindostanee troopers back to
Amritsir, Mr. Cooper prepared to execute the whole. On the 1st of August
they were led out in batches of ten; their names were taken down; they
were marched to the place of execution. Two hundred and thirty-seven were
so executed, and forty-five were found dead in the gaol. All the bodies
were thrown into a dry well by men of the lowest caste, and Cooper wrote,
"there is a well at Cawnpore, but there is also a well at Ujnalla." To
read of this execution in cold blood makes one shudder; but those who
have studied the state of the Punjab at that moment will agree with Mr.
Montgomery, that the punishment so sternly inflicted by Mr. Cooper was
"just and necessary." Sir John Lawrence congratulated him on his success,
though privately acknowledging that his despatch was "nauseous." Mr.
Montgomery wrote at the time--"All honour to you for what you have done;
and right well you did it;" and in 1859 solemnly reviewed and justified
the execution. Lord Canning approved.

The drama at Peshawur was equally serious and bloody. In the middle of
August there came a holy man, who sat himself down at the mouth of the
Khyber Pass, hoisted the green flag, and preached what Colonel Edwardes
calls a "crescentade." "The most evident restlessness," writes Colonel
Edwardes, in his report, "pervaded the disarmed regiments; arms were
said to be finding their way into the lines in spite of all precautions,
and symptoms of an organised rise began to appear; General Cotton, as
usual, took the initiative. On the morning of the 28th of August he caused
the lines of every native regiment to be simultaneously searched, the
Sepoys being moved out into tents for that purpose; swords, hatchets,
muskets, pistols, bayonets, powder, ball, and caps, were found stowed
away in roofs, and floors, and bedding, and even drains; and, exasperated
by the discovery of their plans, and by the taunts of the newly-raised
Afridi regiments, who were carrying out the search, the 51st Native
Infantry rushed upon the piled arms of the 18th Punjab Infantry, and
sent messengers to all the other Hindostanee regiments, to tell them of
the rise. For a few minutes a desperate struggle ensued; the 51st Native
Infantry had been one of the finest corps in the service, and they took
the new Irregulars altogether by surprise. They got possession of several
stand of arms, and used them well. Captain Bartlett and the other officers
were overpowered by numbers, and driven into a tank. But soon the Afridi
soldiers seized their arms, and then began that memorable fusilade which
commenced on the parade ground at Peshawur and ended at Jumrood. General
Cotton's military arrangements in the cantonment were perfect for meeting
such emergencies--troops, horse and foot, were rapidly under arms and in
pursuit of the mutineers. Every civil officer turned out with his _posse
comitatus_ of levies or police, and in a quarter of an hour the whole
country was covered with the chase." By these means the regiment was in
thirty-six hours "accounted for." It was 871 strong. The example sufficed.
The disarmed regiments were paralysed by the sudden retribution. Peshawur
was stronger than ever.

At the beginning of August it had been resolved to make a supreme effort
to dispose of Delhi. Nicholson's column, growing stronger at every step,
had already started from Amritsir. A first-class siege train was prepared
in the arsenals of Philour and Ferozepore. It consisted of four 10-inch
mortars, six 24-pounders, eight 18-pounders, and four 8-inch howitzers,
with ample supplies of ammunition. Thus there were _en route_ for Delhi
a powerful column and a splendid siege train. General Wilson's plan
meanwhile was to act on the defensive. He therefore confined himself to
repelling attacks on our position, and to protecting his communications
with Kurnaul. Twice or thrice the enemy tried to bridge the waterways
covering the flank of the Great Road, and so get to Alipore, and clutch
at convoys. But they failed. Three or four times during the month of
August they assailed the ridge, but their failures were costly to them.
On the 7th one of their magazines blew up, and it is said that 500 men
perished in the explosion. On the 8th they again tried to plant a battery
at the house called Ludlow Castle, opposite our left front. General Wilson
resolved to have it. At four in the morning of the 12th Brigadier Showers
led a strong column of infantry down from the ridge, and so well did
he manage that he surprised the enemy, overpowered him, killed several
hundred, and captured and brought off four guns. On the 13th of August
Nicholson's column marched into camp. It consisted of the 52nd Foot, half
the 61st Foot, the 2nd Punjab Infantry, and Bourchier's battery. There
were on the way the 4th Punjab Infantry, half the 1st Belooch Battalion
from Scinde, three companies of the 8th Foot, and several score recruits.
Beside these, the general had to wait for the siege train. Sir John
Lawrence could do no more. These were the last batches of troops he could
spare. They mustered about 4,200 men, of whom 1,300 were Europeans.

In the meantime, alarmed by news of the coming siege-train, the mutineers
sent out 6,000 men and 16 guns, under Bukt Khan, of Rohilcund, to capture
the train. Hearing this, Nicholson girded himself up for a stroke at
them. They moved out on the 24th; he started on the 25th, with 1,600
infantry, 500 horses, and 16 guns. The enemy had marched to Nujuffghur
by the Rhotuck road. The Sepoy position consisted of a serai in their
left centre, where they had four guns; a village in rear on each flank;
a third village, and the town of Nujuffghur. In their rear ran a canal,
crossed by a single bridge, over which they had come from Delhi. Nicholson
determined to carry the serai, thus breaking the left centre of the line;
then swinging round his right, to sweep the enemy's line of guns, and, if
possible, cut him off from the bridge. This plan was energetically carried
out. Detaching the 1st Punjab Infantry, under Lieutenant Lumsden, to
drive the enemy out of Nujuffghur, and Blunt to watch the left, Nicholson
arrayed the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, the 61st Foot, and the 2nd Punjabees
against the serai. There was a crash of musketry, down came the bayonets,
and with a fierce cheer on dashed the line. The Sepoys fought well, and
some crossed bayonets with our men; yet they could not stand against the
impetuous onset, and the serai and guns were won. Changing his front,
Nicholson now turned the line of the remaining guns of the enemy, and
advanced. The Sepoys, although strongly posted, seeing the bridge in
danger, made for it at full speed, and crowded over, pursued by the fire
of our artillery. They succeeded in getting away with three guns, leaving
thirteen in our possession, captured on the field. We also took their camp
and baggage, horses and camels and seventeen full waggons of ammunition.
In the meantime Lumsden had cleared the rebels out of Nujuffghur, and was
moving up to join the main body, when he was ordered to drive a band of
Sepoys out of a village into which they had thrown themselves when cut
off from the bridge. Having no retreat, these men fought desperately. The
61st were sent up, but these, too, suffered heavily before the village
was taken. Halting near the bridge, the sappers blew it up--an important
service--and the troops, who had been afoot all day, slept on the ground
without food. By such an exploit did Nicholson signalise his arrival
before Delhi.

The fate of Delhi was drawing nigh. The old king, after he learned the
truth--a long time kept from him--about the battle of Nujuffghur, suffered
alike from impotent anger and impotent despair. He felt that we must win;
and he felt rightly. The last reinforcements came up in the first week
of September, and with them the siege train. There was now no time to
lose. Cholera and ague were rife in our camp. Not only the malaria from
the swamps, but the fetid odours from dead cattle were more fatal than
the shot of the enemy. Out of 11,000 men, more than a fourth were sick.
Everything--the feverish state of the Punjab, the unhealthiness of the
camp--made it imperative on General Wilson to take Delhi. He had powerful
assistants. Baird Smith was there to direct the engineering operations;
Nicholson to impel and guide; Hodson and Chamberlain and Norman to apply
the spur, if it were needed. At the back of all, the commanding voice of
Sir John Lawrence could be heard from the Punjab. Delhi must be taken out
of hand. Thus the month of August closed, and September began the fourth
of the mutiny and the third of the siege. The crowning act is a little
story by itself, and must have a separate chapter.

[Illustration: HOOSEINABAD GARDENS AND TOMB OF ZANA ALI, LUCKNOW. (_From a
Photograph by Frith & Co., Reigate._)]




CHAPTER XV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Defect of the Delhi Fortifications--The Batteries are
    constructed--An effective Cannonade--The Plan of Attack--The
    British Advance--Nicholson's Column--The Cashmere Gate
    exploded--Entry into the City--Campbell's Column--Nicholson
    mortally wounded--Failure at the Lahore Gate--Cavalry and
    Artillery save the Situation--A Lodgment in Delhi--Excesses of the
    Troops--The British possess the City--Capture of the King--The
    Princes shot--Significance of their Fate--Effect of the Fall
    of Delhi--Greathed's Column--The Relief of Agra--Affairs at
    Lucknow--Weakness of the Defences--The Garrison--Character of
    the Attack--Effort against the Redan--Explosion of Mines--The
    Daily Wear-and-Tear--Inglis's Report--Sir Colin Campbell at
    Calcutta--Havelock superseded by Outram--Position of Havelock's
    Army--Eyre's Exploits--Havelock crosses the Ganges--Combat of
    Mungulwar--Battle at the Alumbagh--The Plan of Attack--The Charbagh
    Bridge is won--Under the Kaiserbagh--The Goal is reached--The Scene
    that Evening--Havelock's Losses--Outram determines to remain--Energy
    of the Indian Government--The Force at Cawnpore--Sir Colin to
    the Front--Kavanagh's daring Deed--The Canal is crossed--Capture
    of the Secunderbagh--Sortie of the Garrison--The Relief
    accomplished--Campbell retires on Cawnpore--Death of Havelock.


The crisis in the siege of Delhi had now arrived. Although the Sepoys had
shown some skill and some enterprise in defence of Delhi, our engineers,
scanning the place, had long seen that they had committed a capital fault.
We were forced to assail the north front of the city, because we were tied
to the plateau and the ridge, by the fact that our line of communications
lay in rear of the ridge, and because we could not establish any base
of supplies in any other quarter. Now, the fortifications on this side
consisted, starting from the Jumna, on our left, of the Water Bastion, the
Cashmere Bastion, and the Moree Bastion. A curtain wall, loopholed for
musketry, but not pierced or prepared for guns, connected each bastion
with the other. The consequence was that guns were mounted only on the
bastions, and not on the curtains; and the effect of this was that we were
enabled to erect a line of batteries strong enough to silence the guns on
the bastions and breach the curtain walls. Had the mutineers possessed
an engineer of ordinary faculty, he would have seen the use to which the
curtains could have been put. He would have caused a thick rampart of
earth to be piled up behind the curtains. On these he would have mounted
guns drawn from the magazine--there were 200 new pieces in store--and
thus the whole of the north front, from the Moree to the Water Bastion,
would have been one bristling line of batteries. Fortunately for us the
enemy did not find this out until it was too late. It was not likely that
an engineer so accomplished as Colonel Baird Smith would overlook the
capital defect of the enemy. He did not; and his plan of attack, executed
by Captain Taylor, took ample advantage of the opportunity afforded by the
negligence of the foe.

The active operations of the siege began on the 7th of September.
That night it was resolved that the right battery, No. 1, should be
completed and armed. It was an immense undertaking, but was successfully
accomplished.

As soon as it was light the mutineers in the Moree and along the curtain
beheld with indignant astonishment the newly built battery, and opened
upon it with a destructive fire, under which it had to be finished, gun
after gun opening as it was got into its place. The effect of our fire was
soon manifest, for by the afternoon of the 8th the Moree was a silent heap
of ruins. Nevertheless, at intervals throughout the bombardment, the enemy
sticking to the Moree, now and then opened fire from a gun until it was
knocked over. On the same day, the 7th, a strong force had surprised and
occupied Ludlow Castle, and the Koodsia Bagh, a garden to the left of it,
and under the Water Bastion. It was in this quarter that the real siege
batteries were to be constructed, and the work had been commenced on the
right with the double object of crushing the Moree, and drawing off the
attention of the enemy from the Cashmere Gate and Bastion. On this side
four batteries were speedily made, all under a heavy fire, for they were
within musketry range, and the broken ground between the batteries and
the place afforded excellent cover. There were two batteries in front of
Ludlow Castle, an array of eighteen guns; a mortar battery in line with
them, but farther to the left; and a fourth battery near the customhouse,
within 150 yards of the Water Bastion. Until all was ready the embrasures
were masked with gabions, and when the time came to open fire, these were
removed by volunteers, who for the time were exposed to the enemy's shot.
These were great and successful operations, and without native labour
could not have been accomplished. But the natives worked well for pay, and
readily plied the spade and pick under a searching fire. The losses were
heavy, but the work was very urgent.

The mortars had been in steady play from sunset on the 10th, and on the
11th the breaching battery of eighteen guns opened with such effect on the
Cashmere Bastion, and the curtain between it and the Water Bastion, that
the guns on the former ceased to reply, and the latter came clattering
down in huge cantles. The shot shook down the wall, the shells tore
open the parapets. Hour by hour the breach grew wider. The right of the
Cashmere Bastion and the left of the Water Bastion were crumbling away
under the ceaseless blows. But these were not given without a sharp return
of fire. The mutineers covered their whole front with a trench, and
lined it with infantry. They brought light guns on to the ramparts. They
skilfully planted a battery to the left of the Moree in such a position
that it took the right and centre batteries in flank, and could not itself
be seen by any gun of ours; while across the Jumna there was a second
battery, which enfiladed the left, though with less effect. In spite of
all this our troops worked their guns with unfaltering steadiness. For
three days this went on incessantly; the big guns firing by day, the
mortars shelling the breaches and parapets all night. On the 13th there
were two great breaches in the walls. If these were practicable, it was
determined that the place should be assaulted forthwith, as the Sepoys
were at length engaged in piling up earth behind the curtain connecting
the Moree and Cashmere Bastions in order that they might line the wall
with heavy guns. The engineers--no officers were called upon to do more,
or answered the call better, than the officers of this corps--were ordered
to examine the breaches, and reported that the attempt was quite feasible.

The general had already drawn up his plan of assault. The chief engineer
advised that it should be delivered at daybreak the next morning. His
advice was adopted, and accordingly the welcome order went through the
camp, and roused the soldiers for an encounter they so sternly desired.
In order to capture the city, the general formed five columns. Of these,
the first, under Nicholson, consisted of the 75th Foot, the 1st Fusiliers,
and the 2nd Punjabees. It was to break in at the Cashmere Bastion, through
the breach. The second, under Brigadier Jones, consisted of the 8th Foot,
the 2nd Fusiliers, and the 4th Sikhs. This column was directed to enter
the Water Bastion breach. The third column, under Colonel Campbell, of
the 52nd, consisted of the 52nd Foot, the Kumaon Battalion, and the 1st
Punjabees. To them was entrusted the duty of rushing in at the Cashmere
Gate after it had been blown open. The fourth column, under Major Reid,
the constant and gallant defender of the Hindoo Rao's house, was formed
of a detachment of British, his own Ghoorkas, and part of the Cashmere
Contingent. They were to carry the suburb of Kishengunge, the enfilading
battery under the Moree, and, if possible, the Lahore Gate. The fifth
column, under Brigadier Longfield, formed the reserve. The whole force did
not exceed 5,000 men.

Before daybreak the first three columns and the reserve moved down
from the ridge towards Ludlow Castle and the Koodsia Bagh. Just before
reaching the former, Nicholson marched to the left and Campbell to the
right of Ludlow Castle, while Jones led his men into the jungles of the
Koodsia Bagh. The whole then lay down under cover, while the 60th Rifles
in advance took post in open order within musket-shot of the walls,
their duty being to fire on the mutineers on the parapets of the curtain
flanking the breaches. It was now seen that the enemy had improvised
defences in the breaches during the night, and the batteries once more
opened on them to clear away the obstructions, and to shake the courage of
the Sepoys. The Rifles springing up with a cheer, and moving forward, was
to be the signal for the batteries to cease firing, and for the columns to
go in simultaneously. Presently the dark forms of the 60th rose from their
cover; their cheering shouts were followed by the crack of their rifles; a
burst of musketry from the walls replied with a steady vigour; the columns
emerged, and each went as straight at the object before them as the ground
would permit. With throbbing pulses, but firm, quick tramp, they swept
along. So the columns closed with the enemy who had kept them at bay four
months.

Nicholson's column, headed by the ladder party, which was led by the
engineers, Medley, Lang, and Bingham, rushed towards the breach. But the
mutineers shot closely and fast, and the party were so smitten on the
edge of the ditch, that minutes elapsed before the ladders could be got
down: at length the thing was done. Then the leaders and the stormers slid
down the slope, planted the ladders against the scarp below the breach,
and began to ascend. The enemy fought furiously and yelled furiously,
and rolled down stones and sustained a terrific fire, and dared our men
to come on. They got a speedy answer. Up went Lieutenant Fitzgerald, of
the 75th, the first to mount, but he was instantly shot dead. But others
followed fast, and seeing how resolute their assailants were, the enemy
fled, and the breach was won. Swarming in, the column poured down into
the main guard. They had assailed the proper right of the bastion. On the
proper left was the famous Cashmere Gate, and here an exploit had been
performed, which, for daring, ranks amongst the choicest exploits recorded
in the history of war.

That exploit was the blowing in of the gate in broad daylight. The men
ordered to perform this feat were the engineer officers, Lieutenants Home
and Salkeld; the sapper sergeants, Carmichael, Burgess, and Smith, and
Havildar Madhoo, with seven native sappers to carry powder-bags. With them
went Robert Hawthorn, bugler of the 52nd, whose duty it was to sound the
advance when the gate was blown in. Campbell's column, as we have seen,
was lying down awaiting the signal. As soon as it was given, the explosion
party started on their dreadful errand. Captain Medley has described the
scene that ensued so well that we must quote from his pages. There was an
outer barrier gate, which was found open. Through this went Home. Before
him stretched a broken drawbridge spanning the ditch. Over its shattered
timbers, accompanied by four natives, each carrying a bag of twenty-five
pounds of powder, he went, and placed them at the foot of the great
double gate. "So utterly paralysed were the enemy at the audacity of the
proceeding that they only fired a few straggling shots, and made haste to
close the wicket, with every appearance of alarm, so that Lieutenant Home,
after laying his bags, jumped into the ditch unhurt. It was now Salkeld's
turn. He also advanced with four other bags of powder, and a lighted
port-fire. But the enemy had now recovered from their consternation, and
had seen the smallness of the party, and the object of their approach. A
deadly fire was poured upon the little band from the top of the gateway
from both flanks, and from the open wicket not ten feet distant. Salkeld
laid his bags, but was shot through the arm and leg, and fell back on the
bridge, handing the port-fire to Sergeant Burgess, bidding him light the
fusee. Burgess was instantly shot dead in the attempt. Sergeant Carmichael
then advanced, took up the port-fire, and succeeded in the attempt; but
immediately fell mortally wounded. Sergeant Smith, seeing him fall,
advanced at a run; but, finding that the fusee was already burning, threw
himself down into the ditch, where the bugler had already conveyed poor
Salkeld. In another moment a terrific explosion shattered the massive
gate."

Ere the roar of the powder had died away, the bugle of the steadfast
Hawthorn rang out the well-known notes, which told his comrades to come
on. Campbell gave the word, and the column, headed by the noble old 52nd,
started forward. First went Captain Bayley and a company of the 52nd.
These, rushing over the drawbridge, and through the gate, were quickly
followed by fifty men from each battalion, and these by the whole force
of the column. There was no resistance. The exploding powder had killed
all the defenders of the gate but one, and he was soon despatched. As the
men were forming afresh for work, down came Nicholson's column from the
other side. So far the work had been well and quickly done. The second
column in its advance on the Water Bastion breach had suffered great
losses, three-fourths of the ladder-party falling, together with Greathed
and Hovenden, the engineers. Part of the column, however, got in at the
breach; but a large number straggled off to the right, and followed the
track of Nicholson. Once inside, Campbell and Nicholson got their men into
order. The work of the first was to clear the buildings near the Cashmere
Gate, and then march straight forward upon the Chandni Chowk, having for
object the possession of that High Street of Delhi, and the strong and
lofty Jumma Musjid, which rose up just beyond it. The second undertook to
sweep along the ramparts, capture in succession the Moree, Cabul, Burun,
and Lahore Bastions, give admission to Reid's column, if it carried the
suburbs, and, connecting with Campbell in the Chandni Chowk, press on to
the Ajmere Gate. We must follow each column in turn.

Colonel Campbell's column, before it started inwards, cleared the
cutchery, the church, and several houses, and sent a company into the
Water Bastion, where the enemy still lingered. Then gathering up his men,
and guided by Sir Theophilus Metcalfe, who knew every inch of the city, he
made his way through the streets and gardens towards the Chandni Chowk.
On the road the detached company, which had cleared the Water Bastion,
rejoined the main body, having worked its way through the narrow streets
from the waterside. The column met with little opposition. Working through
the Begum Bagh, the column found the gate closed; but an adventurous
native policeman, and half a dozen 52nd men, speedily broke open the gate,
and the force emerged into the Chandni Chowk, and at once occupied the
Kotwallee, or police-station. Then they tried the Jumina Musjid; but the
enemy had closed the gate and bricked up the side arches. He had swarmed
into the houses on each side, and his cavalry, even, were galloping about
the streets. As Colonel Campbell had neither powder-bags nor guns, he
could do nothing; so he fell back into the Begum Bagh under a smart fire.
Here he waited some time, in the hope of seeing Reid's and Nicholson's men
sweep up the Chandni Chowk from the Lahore Gate. They did not come; and he
therefore relinquished the ground won, and fell back upon the church.

In the meantime, Nicholson had led his men along the Rampart Road, which
runs the whole circuit of the city within the wall. He rapidly seized
the Moree Bastion and the Cabul Gate, and was pressing on for the Lahore
Gate, when the column met with a check. They had gone some distance, the
75th Foot in front, writes Mr. Cave Browne, when, "at a curve in the road,
a gun in the Burun Bastion opened fire upon them. In the lane, too, was
a slight breastwork with a brass gun to dispute the road; but this was
soon withdrawn before the brisk fire of the 75th. Unhappily, no rush was
made to capture it. The men in advance hesitated, and fell back to the
Cabul Gate, with three officers--Captain Freer (of the 27th), Wadeson,
and Darrell--wounded. Here Nicholson, who had mounted the Moree Bastion
to reconnoitre the movements of the enemy outside, joined them, and found
the aspect of affairs suddenly changed. In the lane, which had before been
comparatively clear, one of the guns (originally placed at the Lahore Gate
to sweep the Chandni Chowk) had now been run some distance down the lane,
and another placed at the entrance to support it. The windows and roofs
of the low houses on the left were also now swarming with riflemen; and
where a short time before a vigorous rush might have cleared the almost
empty lane, and taken the gun and carried the Lahore Gate in flank, with
probably but little loss, now every inch of ground had to be fought,
and the advance made in the face of a deadly fire from the field-piece,
through the lane alive with a concealed foe. Nicholson saw the emergency,
and resolved on recovering, if possible, the lost ground. He pushed on
the 1st Fusiliers, who answered to his call right gallantly. One gun was
taken and spiked; twice they rushed at the second. The grape ploughed
through the lane, bullets poured down like hail from the walls and houses.
Major Jobson fell mortally wounded at the head of his men; Captain Speke
and Captain Greville were disabled; the men were falling fast--there was
hesitation. Nicholson sprang forward, and while in the act of waving his
sword to urge the men on once more--alas for the column, alas for the
army, for India!--he fell back mortally wounded, shot through the chest by
a rebel from a house window close by, and was carried off by two of the
1st Fusiliers. The command of the column devolved on Major Brookes, of the
75th Regiment, who, on Colonel Herbert's retiring wounded at the glacis,
had taken command of that regiment. They now fell back on the Cabul Gate,
which was for some time to be our advanced position. The delay had lost us
the Lahore Gate and Nicholson."

[Illustration: SIR HOPE GRANT. (_From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry._)]

It was this check which compelled the retreat of Campbell from the Begum
Bagh, and of Ramsay, with his Ghoorkas from the Kotwallee, in the Chandni
Chowk, a post he had held for five hours. By this time the reserve had
entered the city, and Bourchier was bringing in his guns, when the aspect
of affairs outside directed attention to that quarter.

The attempt to reach the Lahore Gate, by carrying the suburb in front of
it, had failed. The Sepoys, who, as we have remarked, were not wanting in
military qualities, had prepared for an attack on Kishengunge. Indeed, one
reason for hurrying on the assault of Delhi was that they were known to be
making a battery for seventeen guns in this quarter, with which to take
in flank our whole line of batteries. So that when Major Reid, starting
from the ridge, led his weak column from the Subzee Mundi towards the
Kishengunge suburb, he found the gardens and houses full of troops, two
or three breast-works in his path, plenty of guns, and several squadrons
of horsemen hovering about on the watch for a chance. His troops were
under the fire of the western bastions of the city, and artillerymen were
so scarce that the three guns with him were under-manned. The column
moved on, and came in contact with the enemy. The Cashmere Contingent,
forming the right of the line, rushed prematurely into action, and ran as
prematurely out of it. Their conduct obliged the handful of Rifles and
Ghoorkas to precipitate their attack, and in the first onset they stormed
the first line of the enemy's defences. But at this crisis, Major Reid,
who had escaped scot-free in twenty-five actions, fell severely wounded in
this his twenty-sixth; and the enemy, developing an immense force of all
arms, Captain Muter, of the Rifles, who succeeded to the command, withdrew
the whole column, covered by the fire of the ridge batteries.

This was a moment of real peril. If the victorious foe wheeled to his
right, he might have swept along the line of the siege batteries, and
fallen on the flank and rear of the assaulting columns. Or he might
have tried to capture the ridge and camp. To prevent this, the cavalry
performed a rare exploit in war. Brigadier Hope Grant, whose horsemen had
been in the saddle since three in the morning, descended from the ridge
with 600 sabres and lances and a few guns, led by the gallant Tombs, and
rode under the city walls, so as to interpose between the assaulting
troops and the enemy. "In an instant," writes Hodson, "horse artillery and
cavalry were ordered to the front, and we went there at the gallop, bang
through our own batteries, the gunners cheering us as we leapt over the
sand-bags, etc., and halted under the Moree Bastion, under as heavy a fire
of round-shot, grape, and canister, as I have ever been under in my life.
Our artillery dashed to the front, unlimbered, and opened upon the enemy;
and at it they both went, 'hammer and tongs.' Now, you must understand
we had no infantry with us. All the infantry were fighting in the city.
They sent out large bodies of infantry and cavalry against us, and then
began the fire of musketry. It was tremendous. There we were--9th Lancer,
1st, 2nd, 4th Sikhs, Guide Cavalry, and Hodson's Horse--protecting the
artillery, who were threatened by their infantry and cavalry. And fancy
what a pleasant position we were in, under this infernal fire, and never
returning a shot.... Well, all things must have an end. Some infantry came
down and cleared the gardens in our front; and, as their cavalry never
showed, and we had no opportunity of charging, we fell back, and (the
fire being over in that quarter) halted and dismounted."

When the evening of the 14th arrived we had made a lodgment in Delhi.
We held the ramparts from the Cabul Gate, along the north front, to
the Jumna. We held the church and the college, and several houses.
The palace, the magazine, the Selimghur, the great gardens, the Jumma
Musjid--four-fifths of the city--were still in the hands of the enemy.
To win what we had won had cost the little army 66 officers and 1,104
men killed and wounded--nearly a third of the whole force engaged! The
position gained was fortified, and preparations were made for pushing on
the work next day. But, unhappily, the troops found plenteous stores of
liquor, and, demoralised by prolonged labour, with systems exhausted by
the burning climate, they drank without stint, and on the night of the
14th and the morning of the 15th the Sepoys might have driven the helpless
host out of the place. General Wilson was so alarmed that he talked of
retreating to the ridge! Happily there were firmer minds about him, and
he had sense enough to take their advice, and hold on. Nicholson's voice
pealed up from his death-bed against the madness of the thought, the bare
mention of which raised a storm of anger in our lines. To put a stop to
intoxication, General Wilson sent a party into the warehouses to destroy
every bottle of beer, wine, or spirits that could be found. It was done,
and the army was saved at the expense of the sick and wounded, who needed
the stimulants poured out in waste in the cellars of Delhi.

Once rescued from drunkenness, the troops steadily carried out their
arduous enterprise, and at the end of six days Delhi was ours. On the
16th the walls of the magazine were breached, and the 4th Punjabees and
Beloochees, going in with the bayonet, drove out or killed the defenders.
The enemy, losing courage, withdrew from Kishengunge, and the Ghoorkas
replaced them. On the 17th the Delhi Bank House was carried, and a mortar
battery planted to bombard the palace. All this time the enemy kept up a
heavy fire from every point of vantage; but this did not prevent us from
making progress. On the 18th the Burun Bastion was taken by surprise, and
the Rifles had sapped their way through the houses up to the palace, the
main gate of which was now exposed to a severe cannonade. The people and
the Sepoys were now hurrying out of the city on all sides. Hosts of women
had passed through our lines towards our camp, guarded by our soldiers,
for we did not make war on women. There were signs that the palace had
been deserted, and, rushing in, the troops found only a few fanatics
inside, and these soon received the death they sought. On the 20th we were
in entire possession of the city, every large building and fortified post
having been taken or abandoned.

But the King of Delhi, the descendant of Timur--the man around whom
insurrection would gather its thousands--had not been taken. With the
blood-stained princes of his house, he had found refuge in the Tomb of
Humayoun, and the ruins of old Delhi. Hodson, who always saw into the
heart of the business in hand, now felt that without the capture of the
king, the capture of Delhi would be shorn of half its fruit. He therefore
implored the general to allow him to take a body of his horse, and bring
in the king, on the sole condition that his life should be spared if he
surrendered. Wilson was obdurate. He did not want to be "bothered" with
the king and the princes. He could not spare European troops, and so on.
Neville Chamberlain threw the weight of his counsel into Hodson's scale,
and again the words of Nicholson were forthcoming on the same side. The
general gave way. He gave Hodson authority to spare the life of the king,
but he declined to be responsible for the enterprise. Hodson selected
fifty troopers from his Horse. The ruins were swarming with townspeople
and the followers of the king. The peril was very great. Here was one
white man; he had fifty faithful swordsmen with him; around him were a
host of natives, chiefly Moslems. But he did not hesitate, and the king
surrendered. The march towards the city began--the longest five miles,
as Captain Hodson said, that he ever rode; for of course the palkees
only went at a foot pace, with his handful of men around them, followed
by thousands, any one of whom could have shot him down in a moment. His
orderly said that it was wonderful to see the influence which his calm and
undaunted look had on the crowd. They seemed perfectly paralysed at the
fact of one white man (for they thought nothing of his fifty black sowars)
carrying off their king alone. Gradually as they approached the city the
crowd slunk away, and very few followed up to the Lahore Gate.

This adventure was followed by one still more striking, more tragic--the
capture and summary execution of the felon princes. Again the general
had to be entreated earnestly to permit their capture. Having obtained
permission, Hodson called up his lieutenant, Macdowell, and ordered him
to bring a hundred men. They set out about eight in the morning of the
21st, and arriving at the Tomb, the troopers were so posted as to invest
the huge building, in which were several thousands of armed men. In spite
of this support the princes surrendered. Writes Macdowell, recounting the
story to a friend, "As we got about a mile off, Hodson turned to me and
said, 'Well, Mac, we've got them at last;' and we both gave a sigh of
relief. Never in my life, under the heaviest fire, have I been in such
imminent danger. Everybody says it is the most dashing and daring thing
that has been done for years (not on my part, for I merely obeyed orders;
but on Hodson's, who planned and carried it out). Well, I must finish my
story. We came up to the princes, now about five miles from where we had
taken them, and close to Delhi. The increasing crowd pressed close on the
horses of the sowars, and assumed every moment a more hostile appearance.
'What shall we do with them?' said Hodson to me. 'I think we had better
shoot them here; we shall never get them in.' There was no time to be
lost; we halted the troop, put five troopers across the road, behind and
in front. Hodson ordered the princes to strip (that is, to take off their
upper garments), and get again into the cart; he then shot them with his
own hand. So ended the career of the chiefs of the revolt, and of the
greatest villains that ever shamed humanity. Before they were shot, Hodson
addressed our men, explaining who they were, and why they were to suffer
death. The effect was marvellous--the Mussulmans seemed struck with a
wholesome idea of retribution, and the Sikhs shouted with delight, while
the mass moved off slowly and silently." The bodies were taken into the
city, and flung down in the Chandni Chowk, in front of the Kotwallee, the
very place where, four months before, they had exposed the bodies of our
countrywomen whom they had slain! Our soldiers looked on this as poetic
justice. To the Sikhs it had a deeper significance. Two hundred years
before, the great King Aurungzebe, a fanatical Moslem, as intolerant as
an inquisitor, had cut off the head of the Sikh prophet, Tej Singh, and
had caused his body to be thrown on that very spot. Here, also, had come
retribution for them, and the awful fulfilment of one of their cherished
prophecies. There lay three scions of the hated house of Timur, on the
public way. Hodson, who had fulfilled their desire of vengeance, and who
had done rough justice at the same time, at once rose tenfold in their
estimation.

Delhi captured, the king in captivity, the Sepoy army routed, broken,
demoralised--and all without any aid from England--the back of the mutiny
in the North-West was broken. This was the work of Lawrence, and Edwardes,
and Montgomery, and the able men who were their assistants. That Delhi did
not fall a moment too soon is shown by the fact that, contemporaneously
with its fall, a rebellion broke out in Gogaira, the country lying between
Mooltan and Lahore, a wilderness inhabited by predatory tribes. Nearly
two months were occupied in quenching this fresh flame; but long before
that the road to Mooltan was cleared. The incident itself showed what
combustible material was scattered over the Punjab. Had Delhi not been
taken, there would have been perhaps a general revolt. As it was, the
"good fortune" of the British filled the people with awe and admiration,
for nothing succeeds like success, especially in Asia. The name of Sir
John Lawrence, always powerful in the Punjab, was now more powerful than
ever. All doubt of our might disappeared, and recruits to any amount were
forthcoming at the slightest hint that men were wanted. But this supremacy
had not been reasserted without measures of extreme severity. No mercy was
shown anywhere to mutineers or rebels. All caught in the act were hanged
or blown from guns. The only justification for this sweeping destruction
of life is the old one--necessity. It was their lives or ours. Sometimes,
no doubt, men were killed who may have been innocent, but on the whole,
considering the peril of the hour, justice was done.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE RESIDENCY, LUCKNOW. (_From a Photograph by
Frith & Co., Reigate._)]

Once established in Delhi, it became of the utmost importance to clear
the Doab, or country between the Jumna and Ganges, as far as Agra, and
re-open communications with Calcutta by way of Cawnpore. It was reported
everywhere that we had been foiled at Delhi, and that the Padishah
was still a great king. Ocular and tangible proof of the contrary was
required, and on the 22nd a column 2,790 strong, with sixteen guns,
traversed Delhi, crossed the Jumna, and emerged into the purer air of the
open country. The whole were under Colonel Greathed. Crossing the Hindon
by the suspension bridge, the scene of Wilson's first successes, the
force swept round to the right, and marched on Bolundshuhur. Here a smart
action ensued; but in three hours the enemy was routed, driven through
the town, and his guns were captured. Crossing the Kalee Nuddee, it was
found that Walidad Khan, the rebel chief, had fled from Malaghur across
the Ganges. The fort was blown up, but in that operation Lieutenant Home,
who had earned the Victoria Cross by his exploits at the Cashmere Gate of
Delhi, was accidentally killed. Marching on, the column did justice on
the road upon well-known and flagrant offenders, and had passed Alighur,
when expresses came from Agra demanding instant help. For 10,000 mutineers
from Delhi and elsewhere were moving from Dholpore upon Agra, and Colonel
Fraser, who had succeeded Mr. Colvin, had got alarmed beyond measure.

[Illustration: THE MAUSOLEUM OF AKBAR, AGRA.

(_From a Photograph by Frith and Company, Reigate._)]

Greathed put his troops in motion at once, and on the 10th of October,
after two forced marches, filed over the Jumna, passed through Agra, and
pitched his camp on the other side. His wearied soldiers little thought
they were on the very threshold of a battle. He had been told that the
enemy had retreated. So much for the intelligence of Colonel Fraser. A
crowd of sight seers followed the soldiers to the Native Infantry parade
ground, a fine open plain. Many of the troops went to sleep immediately,
and officers rode off to see friends in the fort. Few tents were up, the
baggage was coming in, when suddenly a round shot crashed through the
camp; then another, and finally a salvo from twelve guns. The sight-seers
fled at the first gun; but the war-worn and war-trained troops sprang to
arms with admirable alacrity, turning out with such clothes as they had
on. The enemy had surprised the camp, but he was surprised in turn, for
our artillery soon answered his fire; our infantry and horse were promptly
in motion. The whole force closed with the enemy, and delivered such
stunning blows that he fled nine miles, almost without a halt to breathe.
On his track, swift and sharp, were the horse batteries and cavalry. This
splendid little action relieved Agra. After resting three days, a rest
well deserved, the column, now under Hope Grant, moved out for Cawnpore,
which it reached on the 26th of October.

The Punjab army had thus sent help towards, instead of receiving aid
from, Calcutta. Matters had greatly changed in this quarter since we
left Havelock a victor at Bithoor in August; and how the change had been
brought about we must now narrate. The reader will remember that we left
the small garrison of Lucknow beleaguered in its extemporised lines by the
rebel force of Oude; and that we narrated the first campaign of Havelock
to relieve the garrison, and its failure. The result of that campaign
simply enabled us to recover Cawnpore, and to show the mutineers that we
had still power to rout them in the open field; and this was an immense
gain at that time. We have now to recount the story of the defence of the
Lucknow Residency and its various outposts, and then to show how the noble
garrison was first succoured by Havelock and Outram, and finally rescued
by Sir Colin Campbell.

The defeat of the British forces at Chinhut, the abandonment of the Muchee
Bowun, the defection of all but a few hundreds of the native troops,
the suddenness of the disaster, created great confusion. The position
occupied consisted of a number of buildings around the Residency. The
defences begun early in June were still incomplete. There were large
gaps at vital points. The engineers had been permitted to level only a
few of the surrounding houses, and this only on the north side facing
the river. Hence the enemy, as soon as he closed around, was able to
occupy the near houses, and from these, as well as from the more distant
buildings, the vast palaces and stronger houses, to open at once, and
maintain almost without intermission, a terrible fire of shot, shell, and
musketry. Consequently, the defences had to be completed under fire; and
had the enemy shown the least courage, he might have stormed in at more
than one point; but, strong in numbers, he was weak in bravery, and he
feared to grapple at close quarters, even with the few hundreds encircled
by his fire. The position occupied was a piece of table land, on the
crown of which stood the Residency. The ground fell sharply towards the
river, and all along the northern face ran a low rampart, eked out with
sand-bags, and having a ditch in front. The north-eastern and eastern
fronts consisted of lines of buildings connected by barricades and banks
of earth. Here were the hospital, the Treasury, the Bailey Guard, a strong
gateway well banked up with earth, Dr. Fayrer's house and enclosures, the
Financial Garrison House and wall, Sago's house, and Anderson's house,
which was entrenched and formed the south-eastern angle of the position.
Then, looking south, came the Cawnpore Battery, so named because it swept
the Cawnpore Road. From this point the line of available buildings trended
in a westerly direction, until the house of Mr. Gubbins was reached. This
was made by that energetic civil servant into a very strong post at the
eleventh hour. The western face of the position was the series of houses
connected with the north face by an entrenchment running along the brow
of the high land on that side. Within the outer line were inner posts,
some of which commanded those in front, and at suitable points batteries
were constructed and armed with guns. Nevertheless, it was soon found that
there were few spots into which the projectiles of the enemy did not make
way. In fact the whole position was encircled by hosts of foes, who, from
batteries placed within a hundred yards, from houses still nearer, from
the roofs and upper storeys of the lofty and more distant palaces on the
east, kept up an incessant hail of shot.

The garrison consisted of the men of the 32nd Foot, under Brigadier
Inglis, portions of the 13th and 48th Native Infantry, some Sikhs of
the 71st, many officers of the mutinied regiments, the civil servants
of the East India Company, and several merchants: in all 1,692 men, of
whom 765 were natives. The force of the assailants varied in numbers.
Always formidable, never less than 30,000 men, the nucleus of whom were
the Oude Sepoys, the number sometimes rose to 100,000. Chiefs came in
from the country districts, bringing their retainers, stayed as long as
they deemed expedient, and went away. Then Havelock's advance drew off a
portion of the investing force for a long period. Nevertheless, the active
operations of the siege went on without cessation for nearly four months.
The investment all this time was so strictly maintained that until after
the arrival of Outram and Havelock in September, only one messenger, Ungud
by name, was able to go out with despatches and return.

Within the first week of the siege the enemy had established batteries
on every side. He had also manned the houses. The round shot and shell
brought down the walls of the larger buildings, and the bullets fell in
every part of the place like rain. It was only by keeping close under
shelter that any one escaped. In some spots balls fell so thickly that
soldiers and officers crossing the space on duty, were obliged to run
at speed. Many refused to run, and of these not a few fell, sacrificed
to an excessive spirit of honour. It was this perpetual fire, and not
the assaults of the enemy, that caused the greatest losses. The brave
men among the besiegers were few. They would lead an assault and fall,
and then, instead of pressing the charge home, their companions would
run back to the first cover. Strict watch had to be kept night and day,
and the sentries would often fire at anything mistaken for a dark form.
At night the garrison were compelled, not only to repair damages, but to
bury the dead, and not only the dead bodies of their comrades, and of
women and children, but of the cattle and horses--the latter at first
numerous--that fell under the enemy's fire. They had to cook their own
food, for there were few servants in the lines, and their food soon became
scanty. Fortunately they had an abundance of guns and an immense supply of
ammunition. They had, also, the one thing needful--a stoutness of heart
that never failed, a determination to perish rather than yield. Even the
sick soldiers came out of hospital of their own accord, looking like
ghosts of men, and when reproved and ordered back again, nobly replied,
"Well, sir, in these times a man must do his best." The ladies and women
shared in the labours and the dangers, ready to cook for the strong, and
to attend on the sick; and the virtues of the tender sex never shone out
more brightly than in this siege.

Up to the 20th of July the enemy contented himself with keeping up an
incessant fire of cannon and musketry, to which with musketry and cannon
we replied. They had been busy underground. They had begun to mine. Their
first effort was against the Redan. On the morning of the 20th they sprang
their mine, but it did no harm. "As soon as the smoke had cleared away,"
writes Brigadier Inglis in his famous report, "the enemy boldly advanced
under cover of a tremendous fire of cannon and musketry, with the object
of storming the Redan; but they were received with such a heavy fire, that
after a short struggle they fell back with much loss. A strong column
advanced at the same time to attack Innes' post, and came on to within
ten yards of the palisades, affording to Lieutenant Loughnan--13th Native
Infantry, who commanded the position--and his brave garrison, composed of
gentlemen of the uncovenanted service, a few of her Majesty's 32nd Foot
and the 13th Native Infantry, an opportunity of distinguishing themselves,
which they were not slow to avail themselves of, and the enemy were
driven back with great slaughter. The insurgents made minor attacks at
almost every outpost, but were invariably defeated; and at two p.m. they
ceased their attempts to storm the place, although their musketry fire and
cannonading continued to harass us unceasingly as usual."

The action thus described was a very severe one. The enemy, in more than
one place, got close under the defences, and some among our volunteers,
especially the half-castes, engaged in a war of insults with the enemy, in
which our own Sepoys joined. The defenders were few, the assailants many,
but in no place did the latter penetrate the lines. After this struggle
the old state of things recurred,--a ceaseless cannonade and fusilade,
constant deaths and wounds, sleepless watchfulness. Day after day passed
with a horrible monotony, varied only by the deaths of friends. Still the
garrison kept up its courage, and stood ever ready to fight. The besiegers
were again at work underground, and we had begun to countermine, doing
considerable damage to the works of the enemy. But on the 10th of August
they fired a mine on the south side, which entirely destroyed the defences
of the place for the space of twenty feet, and blew in a wall, forming a
breach "through which a regiment could have advanced in perfect order."
Another mine was sprung on the east side, and a general attack commenced.
A few went gallantly up to the first breach, but fell under a flank fire.
On the eastern side some ran up under the walls, and laid hold of the
bayonets through the loopholes: these were soon shot down. Another party
attacked the Cawnpore Battery. They rushed on with fixed bayonets and
trailed arms. They dashed through the stockade, and reached the mound in
front of the inner ditch; but no farther; the fire in front and flank
was too sharp and telling; the leading men all fell. Again and again the
chiefs cried, "Come on, the place is taken!" but those who obeyed were
soon driven back. About a hundred got under the Cawnpore Battery, carrying
ladders; but a few hand grenades, dropped among them, sent them flying.

In these encounters the enemy lost immense numbers, the killed alone
on the 10th amounting to 470 men, by the admission of the natives
themselves. "On the 18th of August," says the brigadier's report, "the
enemy sprang another mine in front of the Sikh lines with very fatal
effect. Captain Orr, Lieutenants Mecham and Soppitt, who commanded the
small body of drummers composing the garrison, were blown into the air;
but providentially returned to earth with no further injury than a severe
shaking. The garrison, however, were not so fortunate. No less than
eleven men were buried alive under the ruins, whence it was impossible to
extricate them, owing to the tremendous fire kept up by the enemy from
houses situated not ten yards in front of the breach. The explosion was
followed by a general assault of a less determined nature than the two
former efforts, and the enemy were consequently repulsed without much
difficulty. But they succeeded, under cover of the breach, in establishing
themselves in one of the houses in our position, from which they were
driven in the evening by the bayonets of her Majesty's 32nd and 84th
Foot." The enemy made one more serious assault, this time on the 5th of
September. He sprang two mines in succession, and strove to storm into the
place. He brought up scaling ladders, and tried to mount, but could not
stand against the fire of musketry and the explosion of hand grenades. On
this, as on other occasions, he was routed with immense slaughter.

But these actions were not what the garrison had most to dread. The
glory of the defence did not lie in these fierce combats, but in the
unfaltering fortitude which enabled all to bear the incessant fire, the
daily losses, the horrid stench, the ever-present dread of mines, the
absence of the common conveniences of life, the want of a knowledge of
the events occurring in the outer world, the fear lest all the natives
should desert. The unceasing cannonade knocked down the walls, and tore
through and through some of the buildings. It seemed as if, by sheer force
of heavy shot, the enemy would level the defences in one common ruin. But
it is astonishing what an amount of cannonading a clump of well-built
houses will bear. The enemy, fortunately, did not possess a good supply
of shells, so that the arrival of these destructive missiles was
comparatively rare. We had shells, but no howitzer to fire them from, and
to supply this want, Lieutenant Bonham ingeniously rigged a carriage for a
mortar. It was called "the ship," and did good service in horizontal shell
firing. The history of the mining operations is not the least remarkable.
The enemy was ever employed in digging and mining all round the place, and
hence we were compelled to countermine. Shafts were sunk and galleries run
out in the direction of the enemy's mines, that direction being discovered
by close observation above, and intense listening under, ground. In this
very severe work the Sikhs and Hindostanees behaved extremely well. As
there was more skill in the garrison than in the rebel army, so the
former were more fortunate in their mines.

[Illustration: INCIDENT IN THE DEFENCE OF LUCKNOW. (_See p._ 243.)]

The eloquent report of Brigadier Inglis contains at once the most
authentic and most touching account of the sufferings and endurance of
this illustrious garrison, and we cannot do better than quote it. After a
description of the mining operations, he says--"The whole of the officers
and men have been on duty night and day during the eighty-seven days
which the siege had lasted up to the arrival of Sir J. Outram, G.C.B.
In addition to this incessant military duty, the force has been nightly
employed in repairing defences, in moving guns, in burying dead animals,
in conveying ammunition and commissariat stores from one place to another,
and in fatigue duties too numerous and too trivial to enumerate here. I
feel, however, that any words of mine will fail to convey any adequate
idea of what our fatigues and labours have been--labours in which all
ranks and all classes, civilians, officers, and soldiers, have all borne
an equally noble part. All have together descended into the mine; all
have together handled the shovel for the interment of the putrid bullock;
and all, accoutred with musket and bayonet, have relieved each other on
sentry without regard to the distinctions of rank, civil or military.
Notwithstanding all these hardships, the garrison has made no less than
five sorties, in which they spiked two of the enemy's heaviest guns,
and blew up several of the houses from which they had kept up the most
harassing fire. Owing to the extreme paucity of our numbers, each man
was taught to feel that on his own individual efforts alone depended in
no small measure the safety of the entire position. This consciousness
incited every officer, soldier, and man to defend the post assigned to him
with such desperate tenacity, and fight for the lives which Providence had
entrusted to his care with such dauntless determination, that the enemy,
despite their constant attacks, their heavy mines, their overwhelming
numbers, and their incessant fire, could never succeed in gaining one
inch of ground within the bounds of this straggling position, which was
so feebly fortified that had they once obtained a footing in any of the
outposts, the whole place must inevitably have fallen. If further proof be
wanting of the desperate nature of the struggle which we have, under God's
blessing, so long and so successfully waged, I would point to the roofless
and ruined houses, to the crumbled walls, to the exploded mines, to the
open breaches, to the shattered and disabled guns and defences, and lastly
to the long and melancholy list of the brave and devoted officers and men
who have fallen. These silent witnesses bear sad and solemn testimony to
the way in which this feeble position has been defended. During the early
part of these vicissitudes we were left without any information whatever
regarding the posture of affairs outside. An occasional spy did, indeed,
come in, with the object of inducing our Sepoys and native servants to
desert; but the intelligence derived from such sources was, of course,
entirely untrustworthy. We sent messengers daily, calling for aid and
asking for information, none of whom ever returned, until the twenty-sixth
day of the siege, when a pensioner, named Ungud, came back, with a letter
from General Havelock's camp, informing us that they were advancing with
a force sufficient to bear down all opposition, and would be with us in
five or six days. A messenger was immediately despatched, requesting that
on the evening of their arrival on the outskirts of the city, two rockets
might be sent up, in order that we might take the necessary measures for
assisting them in forcing their way in. The sixth day, however, expired,
and they came not; but for many evenings after officers and men watched
for the ascension of the expected rockets, with hopes such as make the
heart sick. We knew not then, nor did we learn until the 29th of August,
or thirty-five days later, that the relieving force, after having fought
most nobly to effect our deliverance, had been obliged to fall back for
reinforcements; and this was the last communication we received until two
days before the arrival of Sir James Outram on September 25th. Besides
heavy visitations of cholera and small-pox, we have also had to contend
against a sickness which has almost universally pervaded the garrison.
Commencing with a very painful eruption, it has merged into a low fever,
combined with diarrhœa; and although few or no men have actually died
from its effects, it leaves behind a weakness and lassitude which, in the
absence of all material sustenance, save coarse beef and still coarser
flour, none have been entirely able to get over.... I cannot refrain from
bringing to the prominent notice of his Lordship in Council the patient
endurance and the Christian resignation which have been evinced by the
women of this garrison. They have animated us by their example. Many,
alas! have been made widows, and their children fatherless, in this
cruel struggle. But all such seemed resigned to the will of Providence,
and many--among whom may be mentioned the honoured names of Birch, of
Polehampton, of Barbor, and of Gall--have, after the example of Miss
Nightingale, constituted themselves the tender and solicitous nurses of
the wounded and dying soldiers in the hospital."

Sir Colin Campbell had just arrived in Calcutta. When the news of General
Anson's death reached London, the name of only one man occurred to the
Duke of Cambridge, as that of a soldier fit to restore to us an empire
in the East. By a sort of instinct, in moments of real peril, nations
select their commanders; and when the Duke of Cambridge sent for Sir
Colin Campbell, he only anticipated the national choice of a fit leader.
The scene at the Horse Guards was characteristic. The Duke offered the
command of the Indian army to the veteran who but a few months before was
simply a colonel. Sir Colin accepted the appointment, and when he was
asked how soon he would be ready to start, he replied--in four-and-twenty
hours. He was as good as his word, and embarking for India at once,
arrived in Calcutta on the 13th of August, two months and a half after
the death of Anson. But the army he was to command was slowly steaming
and sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. The French Emperor had offered
to our Government free passage for troops through France, but we had not
become so humiliated as a nation as to be in a position to accept that
offer, and for the same reason Lord Palmerston rejected the proffered
assistance of Belgium from full confidence that Britain "could win off
her own bat." Many persons urged the Government to send the Indian
reinforcements through Egypt as if Egypt were our own. Had the Government
done so, a doubtful precedent would have been set, one that might have
provoked unpleasant relations with certain Continental Powers. Therefore
the Government wisely sent the troops by the sea route, even though in
doubling the Cape an amount of time would be inevitably consumed that
could hardly be spared.

As soon as he heard of Sir Colin's arrival, Havelock reported to him,
and begged that he might be reinforced. The Indian Government, however,
had taken the unusual step of superseding Havelock by Sir James Outram,
and left the former to learn his supersession from the columns of the
_Calcutta Gazette_. Havelock felt this keenly, but he was a good soldier,
and did not complain. His friends supplied the required amount of
indignation, and his biographers, from excusable motives, have not failed
to censure the Government. It cannot, however, be contended that there
was anything unfit in placing over Havelock the man under whom he had so
recently served in Persia.

The position of Havelock at Cawnpore was one of great peril; enemies were
accumulating all around him. There was a mutinous force at Futtehpore;
the Gwalior Contingent, kept inactive by the skill of Scindia and his
able Minister, Dinkur Rao, nevertheless threatened to move on Calpee. The
Oude insurgents had occupied the abandoned position at Mungulwar, and
scouring the left bank of the Ganges, threatened to strike at his line of
communications with Allahabad. Agra, it must be remembered, was beset.
Delhi, it should be borne in mind, had not been taken; indeed, Nicholson
had only just entered the camp with the movable column. Central India
was ablaze with mutiny. To hold Cawnpore we had not more than 1,000 men.
Deducting the force required to guard an entrenched position covering the
point of passage over the river, and a hundred men sent down the Ganges in
a steamer to destroy the boats collected on the Oude bank for an inroad
into the Doab at Futtehpore, Havelock could only muster 685 Europeans.
Thus it was impossible that he could act in the field. Indeed, at the end
of August he was forced to contemplate the fatal step of retreating on
Allahabad, unless he were speedily reinforced.

But these reinforcements did not arrive very quickly. As soon as he
assumed command, Sir Colin Campbell requested General Outram to push
on the 5th and 90th from Behar to Allahabad, together with all the
detachments available, as fast as possible. The 90th had no sooner started
than the civilians called them back. Then Koer Singh reappeared in the
field, and part of the troops destined for Cawnpore had to be detained to
watch and counteract him. Moreover, Sir James Outram conceived a new plan
of campaign--a march up the Gogra or Goomtee, combined with the advance
of Havelock from Cawnpore, instead of the dash of a single column from
Cawnpore on Lucknow. To this both Sir Colin and Lord Canning were opposed.
And when Sir James Outram heard that Havelock could not hold Cawnpore
unless reinforced he gave up his own views at once, and set his face
towards Cawnpore. At the same time he apprised Havelock of his approach,
and told his old comrade in arms that he would not supersede him. "I shall
join you with reinforcements," so ran his message; "but to you shall be
left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled
so much. I shall accompany you as civil commissioner, placing my military
service at your disposal, should you please, serving under you as a
volunteer." Well might Sir Colin Campbell say, "Seldom, perhaps never, has
it occurred to a Commander-in-Chief to publish and confirm such an order."

Outram's column had reached Aong, the scene of one of Havelock's
victories, when news arrived that a force from Oude had crossed the
Ganges, the forerunner of a regular irruption, intent on interrupting our
communications. Sir James saw at once how necessary it would be to put a
stop to that, and he detached Major Eyre at the head of 150 men, two guns,
and forty native troopers, under Captain Johnson and Lieutenant Charles
Havelock, to attack the invaders. Eyre put his infantry on elephants,
and, making a rapid march, came upon the enemy at daybreak. Detaching his
horsemen, to keep them in play, and urging on his elephants, he found
that the enemy had fled to his boats, and that the cavalry were gallantly
engaging him and holding him to the shore. The infantry went briskly
into action and the guns were brought to bear. The Oude men were smitten
with terror, and bundling into the river tried to escape by swimming. So
deadly was the fire of grape and musketry that only three men out of the
host succeeded in recrossing the Ganges. This was a deadly blow and left
a deep impression. Another body had come over, four miles above, and Eyre
at once turned upon them; but they had got news of the slaughter of their
comrades, and before Eyre could strike them, they had swept back into
Oude. Eyre then made a forced march and joined Sir James at Futtehpore.

To this swift and sharp blow the Lower Doab was indebted for future
security. The Oude borderers did not again get within reach by attempting
to molest the roads in our rear. Sir James Outram reached Cawnpore on the
evening of the 15th, and with him came the last of the reinforcements.
The two chiefs now had all the men they could possibly obtain. Brigadier
Inglis had named the 21st of September as the day he could hold out to.
There was no time to be lost. Indeed, Havelock had already begun to take
measures for the reconstruction of his bridge of boats. The bridge was
established in three days, the enemy watching the operation supinely from
Mungulwar. Leaving 400 men to guard the entrenchment at Cawnpore, Havelock
on the 19th crossed the Ganges with 3,179 men and 18 guns, confident that,
if he arrived in time, he should save the noble Lucknow garrison. The
heavy guns and stores for thirteen days were carried over the bridge on
the 20th, and on the 21st the army began its march in two brigades, the
first under General Neill, the second under Colonel Hamilton, of the 78th.

The progress of the force was far more rapid than that of Havelock when
he first crossed into Oude. Moving upon Mungulwar, he found the enemy
posted there with six guns. Mindful of former defeats, the enemy made no
stand, and being started from cover by the infantry and guns, were chased
by Outram with the Volunteer Horse as far as Busserutgunge, where two
guns, much ammunition, and a standard were captured. The whole force came
up the same night, and slept on the scene of Havelock's three brilliant
combats. The next day the troops marched fifteen miles. They found the
bridge over the Sye unbroken and they encamped on the opposite bank. On
the 23rd, ten miles from the Sye, they found the enemy in position at the
Alumbagh. This was a large park or garden, devised as a pleasaunce for one
of the favourite wives of a former King of Oude. The park was enclosed by
a wall, with turrets at each angle; it was entered by a handsome gateway
and contained a large palace.

The enemy had brought up 10,000 men, including 1,500 horse from Lucknow,
and supported them with many guns. Part of his front was covered by
a morass, his centre stood across the road, and his left was in the
Alumbagh. In order to get at him, the whole column had to move along his
front under fire, having the water of the swamp between it and the foe.
But when once this obstacle was surmounted, and it became possible to
open with heavy guns, both artillery and cavalry fell away to the rear in
confusion. One gun alone remained. Its gunners were gallant well-trained
regulars, and they went through their work without flinching. Suddenly a
little band of horse swept down upon them and, closing in, cut them down.
It was Lieutenant Johnson and his native irregulars. He was now more than
half a mile in front of our line, and of course could not keep the gun,
but the enemy did not go near it again. However he put two pieces into the
Alumbagh, making holes in the wall, to serve as embrasures. This stood the
foe in no stead, for the 5th Foot charged him, and drove him out of the
garden and palace. We captured five guns, and pressed the enemy back upon
Lucknow, with the Volunteer Horse at his heels.

Havelock was now in actual contact with the assailants of the garrison in
Lucknow. He was within sight of the goal he had done so much to reach.
It had been comparatively easy to defeat the enemy in the open field.
The task of breaking into Lucknow, through its tortuous lanes and mighty
buildings, was far more arduous. It had to be undertaken with resolution,
but also very circumspectly: it was needful to temper daring with craft.

The 24th was spent by the generals in devising a plan of attack. First,
it was wisely proposed to hold the Alumbagh, which thus served as an
intermediate base of operations. It was highly defensible, and plentifully
supplied with water. All the baggage was to be deposited here, and a
garrison of 250 men, under Colonel M'Intyre, was entrusted with the
defence. The next step--the choice of a route into Lucknow--was more
difficult. One plan was to force the Charbagh Bridge, and to cut a passage
to the Residency along the Cawnpore road. This plan was at once abandoned
because the route which the column would have to take lay through the
heart of the city, and because every yard presented an obstacle. Another
plan was to move the whole column to the right, seize the Delkoosha Palace
and park, and, under cover of its excellent defences, bridge the Goomtee,
throw the column over, and sweeping up the left bank of the river, capture
the iron bridge, and so release the garrison.

The actual plan adopted was a compromise between the two. It was resolved
that the Charbagh Bridge should be carried, but that, instead of pushing
forward into the city, the column should wheel to the right, and fight
its way through the palaces and large houses lying to the east of the
Residency. There is reason to believe that the second plan would have
been adopted, as the safer and less costly in life, but it would have
taken some days to execute it, and the latest communications from
Brigadier Inglis painted the dangers of the garrison from mines, and the
possible defection of the native troops, in such colours, that the idea
was abandoned and the deadlier project adopted. Havelock determined to
take with him his heavy guns, and well it was that he did so. Therefore,
leaving in Alumbagh, including the sick and wounded, about 400 men, the
force paraded on the 25th to fight its way into Lucknow.

The troops moved off between eight and nine. First went a brigade of
infantry, followed by the guns, under Sir James Outram; then the remainder
of the infantry, under Havelock himself. As soon as the skirmishers had
passed the picket the column came under fire. But, in spite of this fire,
on it swept; and, led by Captain Maude, the artillery got through, but
with a loss of a third of the men. On the right was a large garden called
the Charbagh, on the left clusters of enclosures, in front the bridge
over the canal. The enemy had planted a battery of six guns to defend
the bridge, and had filled all the neighbouring houses with infantry.
Meeting the storm of shot at a turn in the road, the troops were ordered
to lie down until the guns could be got into position. But the narrowness
of the road did not enable our artillery captains to place more than two
upon it, and with these two Maude contended with six. In order to bring a
flank fire to bear on the bridge, Outram led a body of infantry into the
Charbagh. The unequal artillery combat continued. Maude's gunners fell
rapidly; infantry soldiers replaced them. General Neill, now leading the
first brigade, listened anxiously for the sound of Outram's musketry. All
was silent in the Charbagh. Feeling that this protracted artillery duel
would not help them into Lucknow, Neill resolved to carry the bridge with
the bayonet. The word had scarcely been given ere Lieutenant Arnold and
a few of the Madras Fusiliers charged on to the bridge. With them went
Colonel Tytler and Lieutenant Henry Havelock. The first blast of the
enemy's grape swept them all down, Havelock excepted. For a moment he was
seen standing alone on the bridge, a target for scores of muskets, waving
his sword, and calling to the Madras Fusiliers. The next moment they were
with him. With a loud cheer the Fusiliers dashed over the bridge, and
bayoneted the gunners at their pieces before they had time to load again.
Thus was the bridge of the Charbagh won. Sir James Outram and his men
appeared on the bank of the canal just as the guns were captured.

Now the whole column rolled over the bridge. As if they were about to
storm along the Cawnpore road, the 78th moved up the street, contending
with the enemy in the houses, and occupied its outlet. But this was only
a feint. To the surprise of the Sepoys the main column wheeled to the
right, and disappeared from view. The baggage followed in a steady stream.
Enraged at being thus foiled, the enemy, seeing the Highlanders without
support, turned upon them. For three hours the gallant 78th kept the
street against all odds. They held the houses at a point where two roads
met. When the enemy became too audacious, they sallied out and scared him
away. When he brought up two guns, the 78th dashed out of the houses and
captured the guns, a feat which won for Captain Macpherson the Victoria
Cross. The surgeon of the regiment, Macmaster, was to be seen nobly doing
his duties under the hottest fire, and a Cross was granted to him also.
At length the last waggon passed over the bridge. Young Havelock, who had
been charged with the safety of the convoy, was now shot in the arm, just
as he had ordered the 78th to withdraw.

[Illustration: LIEUT. HAVELOCK AND THE MADRAS FUSILIERS CARRYING THE
CHARBAGH BRIDGE AT LUCKNOW. (_See p._ 248.)]

Once through that fiery passage of the Charbagh Bridge, the column went
on between the canal and the city with comparative ease, for the enemy's
defences had been turned. The interval of comparative quiet was the
hour occupied by the march of the main column from the bridge through
the tortuous lanes as far as the building known as the Motee Munzil. On
approaching this, the column moved to the left, facing westward towards
the Residency; and the enemy, massed in the Kaiserbagh, a vast palace of
the Kings of Oude, and in the houses, catching sight of our troops, opened
a tremendous fire. Eyre brought his heavy guns to bear on the enemy's
battery at the gate of the Kaiserbagh, and twice compelled the gunners to
flee within the gate; while our troops and trains got under cover in the
walled passages and buildings. Halting for a time, to wait for the 78th
and the Volunteer Horse, the force moved once more, and crossing a narrow
bridge partially under fire, they plunged into the Chutter Munzil and
Furhut Buksh Palaces, out of the storm.

In the meantime the 78th and the horsemen, guided by the sound of the
guns, had, on reaching a point where two roads met, quitted the track of
the main body, and boldly advanced along a cross lane leading directly
to the gate of the Kaiserbagh. Here they came suddenly on the flank of
the enemy's battery, which they stormed at once, driving the foe into the
palace. Spiking the largest gun, they pressed on and came up with the main
body in the palaces above-mentioned. Here they found the whole body in
great confusion, and here for a moment there was a pause.

For the generals were debating the important question whether they should
rest there for the night, or push on. Outram was for halting; Havelock
for completing the work that night. Little more than a quarter of a
mile intervened between the troops and the Bailey Guard. The garrison
were eagerly expecting them, for the watchers had seen officers in
shooting-jackets and men in sun helmets, and European soldiers coming
towards them, and trembled with the near prospect of deliverance. The
distance, though so short, was every inch under fire. But at length Outram
consented. The troops formed up, the generals rode forth at their head,
the Highlanders and Sikhs leading the column; and giving a loud cheer,
they dashed through an archway into the main street which led to the
Bailey Guard Gate. The enemy occupied the windows and roofs of the houses
on each side, and poured forth a torrent of fire. The road was cut by deep
trenches, so that the artillery had to seek another road, but neither
musketry nor trenches could stop that column. It was while seeing that
the rear was properly brought up that Neill was shot by a party of the
enemy through the ceiling of the archway under which the whole column had
passed. No man who fell was more regretted. But the work had been done.
Lucknow was relieved.

The garrison had seen the advance of that noble column; seen the
Highlanders and Sikhs charge up the main street at a rapid pace, loading,
shouting, firing as they stormed along; and almost before a cheer could
be raised, Outram rode up, and dismounted at the embrasure of Aitken's
Battery, near the Bailey Guard Gate. "Nothing," writes Mr. Gubbins, "could
exceed their [the soldiers'] enthusiasm. The Highlanders stopped every one
they met, and with repeated questions and exclamations of 'Are you one of
them?'--'God bless you!'--'We thought to have found only your bones,' bore
them back towards Dr. Fayrer's house, into which the general had entered.
Here a scene of thrilling interest presented itself. The ladies of that
garrison, with their children, had assembled in the most intense anxiety
and excitement under the porch outside, when the Highlanders approached.
Rushing forward, the rough and bearded warriors shook the ladies by the
hand, amidst loud and repeated gratulations. They took the children up in
their arms, and fondly caressing them, passed them from one to another to
be caressed in turn; and then, when the first burst of enthusiasm and
excitement was over, they mournfully turned to speak among themselves of
the heavy loss which they had suffered, and to inquire the names of the
numerous comrades who had fallen on the way. It is quite impossible to
describe the scene within the entrenchment that evening. We had received
no post, nor any but the smallest scrap of news, for 113 days since the
date of the outbreak at Cawnpore. All had relatives and friends to inquire
after, whose fate they were ignorant of, and were eager to learn. Many
had brothers, friends, or relatives in the relieving force, whom they
were anxiously seeking. Every one wished for news of the outer world, of
Delhi, Agra, Calcutta, and of England. Everybody was on foot. All the
thoroughfares were thronged; and new faces were every moment appearing of
friends which one had least expected to see."

It was the Sikhs and Highlanders who had carved out a road to the
Residency by the main street. The remainder of the column, with all
the guns except two, were guided by Lieutenant Moorsom--a brave and
accomplished young soldier--along streets and lanes that turned some of
the Sepoy defences, and brought them to the place with little loss. At
the same time, Lieutenant Aitken, with some of the faithful Sepoys of the
13th Native Infantry, sallying forth, materially aided the progress of
the guns, and secured a parallel route to the Chutter Munzil. The loss of
Havelock's force, since it crossed the Ganges on the 19th of September,
was 535 killed and wounded. Thus Lucknow was relieved at the cost of a
sixth of the little band that had started from Cawnpore.

It was anticipated that Sir James Outram, who now assumed command, would
carry off the garrison. This was not found to be practicable, except at
great risk and heavy cost of life. On making due inquiry, it was found
that, with the supplies brought in, there was abundance of provisions for
several weeks. Sir James, therefore, determined to remain. He divided his
force into two parts. Colonel Inglis was left in command of the lines
he had so long defended. Havelock was directed to take the remaining
troops, and establish himself in the palaces and buildings to the east,
on the road through which the troops had come in. This was done in three
days. The soldiers now made themselves at home in the luxurious palaces
of Lucknow. They were in comparative comfort and safety, but shut out
from the rest of India: comparative, for the enemy renewed his mining
operations; directing them now against the buildings under Havelock's
charge. But at this work he was foiled by the skill and science of Colonel
Robert Napier and Captain Crommelin. Guarding against these tricks of the
enemy, enduring a fire of guns and musketry less severe and less deadly,
and poorly fed, our men, without a murmur, held on for eight more weeks,
when the Commander-in-Chief himself arrived, and snatched them, as it
were, from the jaws of death.

The Government of India had now become fully aware of the character of the
mutiny, which in Oude, Rohilcund, and Central India, had been supplemented
by an insurrection. In Oude a strong spirit of hostility was manifested;
and although many talookdars held aloof from the rebels, they did not
join the Europeans. In Rohilcund and Central India the insurrectionary
forces were masters of the field from the Ganges to the frontiers of
Oude, from the Nerbudda to the Jumna. In Bombay there were intermittent
signs of disaffection, and sharp remedies had to be promptly applied.
Lord Elphinstone ruled with an iron hand--clad in a velvet glove, it is
true, but none the less effective for that. He had his own difficulties
to contend against--hostility in Kolapore, and Sattara, and Candeish;
mutiny also in some recently-raised regiments--but all these he overcame.
Madras was quiet, and as Bombay sent troops to the Nerbudda Valley and
Rajpootana, so Madras sent a column to cover the frontier of Nagpore, and
reinforcements to Bengal--European infantry, who took part in several
battles, and native infantry and native guns, which did good service.

Except during the spring, neither the Indian nor the Home Government
underrated the magnitude of the struggle, and the thousands of troops
embarked in the summer began to pour into Calcutta by battalions at the
end of September. The China troops had all been intercepted before that
time, and had been sent up the country. The sailors of the _Pearl_ and the
_Shannon_ had been landed with some of their heavy guns, and had been sent
up the Ganges, with Captain William Peel and a sailor brigade, forming a
part of the army rapidly gathering at Allahabad and Cawnpore. For as soon
as it became certain that Outram and Havelock could not bring off the
Lucknow garrison, treasure, women and children, guns and ammunition, Sir
Colin began to organise a force for their relief and rescue. Throughout
the month of October this force was being collected at Cawnpore. Except
the China regiments, all the troops employed were those already in India.
The whole strength was about 4,550 men, with forty-nine guns, including
Peel's eight heavy pieces, manned by his gallant tars. This force,
gradually collected, was completed by the arrival of Greathed's force from
Delhi, which, we have already stated, arrived at Cawnpore on the 26th of
October.

As soon as he heard of Greathed's arrival, Sir Colin Campbell quitted
Calcutta, and "travelling like a courier," reached Cawnpore on the 5th of
November. Part of the troops had already gone on, with large convoys, to
the Alumbagh, which, it will be remembered, was held by part of Outram's
force, now under the orders of Brigadier Hope Grant, who arrived in time
to repel a smart attack made by the enemy. The troops had commenced the
passage on the 30th of October, and the bulk of the troops were near
Alumbagh by the 5th of November. On the 9th Sir Colin reached that place,
and on the 11th he reviewed his army. As the Gwalior Contingent--a force
of all arms, the nucleus of a large native army--had come up to Calpee, it
was not without some apprehensions that Sir Colin left General Windham,
of Redan renown, with about 500 men, to guard the small entrenchment
that protected the bridge over the Ganges. Nevertheless, as he knew
Windham would be reinforced by the troops coming daily up the Ganges from
Calcutta, and as it was imperative that Lucknow should be relieved, he
left Windham to do his best, and gathered up his strength for a deadly
blow at the Oude insurrection.

As soon as General Outram was informed of the early approach of Sir Colin
Campbell, he sent plans of the city and its approaches to the Alumbagh,
and arranged with Brigadier Grant a code of signals to be worked by means
of the old semaphore. The garrison also sent a guide. Fired with the
desire of winning the Victoria Cross, Mr. Kavanagh, of the uncovenanted
service, volunteered to join the Commander-in-Chief. The offer was
accepted. Staining his face, shoulders, and hands with lampblack, putting
on the gay dress, and carrying the simple arms of an irregular mutineer,
Kavanagh, guided by a native scout, forded the Goomtee at night, dressed
on the opposite bank, walked up the river, and recrossing at the iron
bridge, made his way through the heart of the city of Lucknow. Emerging
in the open country through the enemy's pickets, he pushed on and reached
Sir Colin's camp. This is one of the most daring acts ever done in India,
since James Outram made his way from Afghanistan to Bombay disguised as
a groom. And Kavanagh had his reward, obtaining not only the Victoria
Cross in due time, but a reward of £2,000 and admission into the regular
civil service. The telegraph soon told not only that Kavanagh had come in
safely, but that on the 14th Sir Colin would march on Lucknow.

At nine o'clock on the 14th the army was in motion. Passing to the rear
of the Alumbagh, Sir Colin directed his columns upon the Delkoosha Palace
and Park, and a fantastic building a little to the west of it, called
the Martinière. This side of Lucknow was a mass of groves, gardens,
enclosures, and palaces, with stretches of green-sward and cultivated
patches between. By sweeping so far to the eastward Sir Colin avoided the
defences which the Sepoy mutineers and their allies had accumulated on
the canal, and about the bridge stormed by Havelock. They had dammed the
canal, in order to deepen the water above, and thus outwitted themselves,
for they left it dry below, and easy of passage even for heavy guns. After
a brief march, the skirmishers came under fire, but pressing on, they
chased the enemy through and out of the park, and entered the palace.
Then, turning half left, the troops made for the Martinière. Here there
was a smarter defence, for the enemy had begun to comprehend the drift
of Sir Colin's manœuvre. A number of guns opened on both sides, and the
rattle of musketry shook the air; but the infantry leaped over the wall,
and with the bayonet soon cleared the building and the enclosure, while
the horsemen, dashing through, hunted the enemy over the canal into
the suburb on the other side. The troops were now in position from the
canal on the right to the Delkoosha Park wall on the left. To cover that
flank and protect the road to the Alumbagh, Brigadier Russell seized two
villages in front of the left and garrisoned them with Sikhs. Thus posted,
the troops prepared to pass the night, when suddenly the enemy assailed
the whole position. The troops turned out rapidly and drove them back
with great slaughter, and to guard against a similar occurrence, a strong
force of all arms bivouacked on the canal. The next day the troops rested
in position, and completed the arrangements essential for the safety of
the baggage and the line of communications. The garrison of Lucknow were
disappointed, and looked on with apprehension; but on the evening of the
15th they were rejoiced to see the telegraph at work, and to read off the
signal, "advance tomorrow." For they had prepared the means of making a
diversion in favour of the assailants, and the powder in the mines was
getting damp during this delay.

Early on the 16th the guns and infantry, except the Sikhs, were withdrawn
from the left, and the columns were formed to attack the enemy's position.
This consisted of the Secunderbagh across the canal, and near to the
Goomtee. Sweeping to the right, the troops moved on, and about mid-day
reached the front of the enemy's lines. The Secunderbagh was surrounded
by a high wall, loopholed on all sides, and flanked by towers. The whole
formed a formidable front, as each group of buildings was supported by
another. Nevertheless, the exterior defences were rapidly carried. The
guns dashed up under a cross fire and opened on the villages, and the
infantry, in open order, closing with the defenders, expelled them. The
bulk of the leading brigade then turned upon the Secunderbagh, while the
skirmishers stretched away to the left, sweeping the foe before them, and
seizing each post of vantage. In the meantime two 18-pounders had been
engaged in breaching the main wall of the garden. They had broken down a
part of the wall, a small hole through which three or four men could enter
abreast. Sir Colin thought his men could carry it, and he started the 93rd
and 53rd and 4th Punjabees at the place. They bounded in with a cheer.
The houses and the garden were full of Sepoys. Four regiments, upwards of
3,000 men, were caught in this trap. Burning with rage, our troops plied
the bayonet with such good will that the enclosure, 120 yards square,
became a mere pile of carcases. "There never was a bolder feat of arms,"
wrote Sir Colin; and rarely, perhaps never, such a horrible slaughter.
Still on went the column. The work was not over. Several strong places
intervened between the assailants and their friends inside. A little
farther on was the Shah Nujeef. Here was another feat of arms. "Captain
Peel," says Sir Colin, "led up his guns, with extraordinary gallantry,
within a few yards of the building, to batter the massive stone walls.
The withering fire of the Highlanders effectually covered the naval
brigade from great loss. But it was an action almost unexampled in war;
Captain Peel behaved very much as if he had been laying the _Shannon_
alongside an enemy's frigate." This terminated the operations of the day.
Indeed, the closing scenes were acted in darkness, illumined only by the
fire of the guns, the rockets, and the shells. Thus far had Sir Colin
penetrated towards the Chutter Munzil. Between him and it lay the Motee
Munzil, to reach which he must come under the guns and musketry of the
Kaiserbagh. During this contest outside, Havelock and Outram had not been
idle. By dint of mine and battery they had so wrought that, not only had
they cleared a part of the road between them and their friends, but had
materially assisted in engaging the Kaiserbagh and other buildings full
of men and guns. They had made a desperate sortie, and wrought a passage
by powder, bayonet, and torch. From the top of the Chutter Munzil the
whole scene--domes, minarets, palaces, groves and gardens, all alive with
combatants, and mantled in smoke--was visible, and there, aloft, Outram
and others, under fire from the other side of the Goomtee, watched the
progress of Sir Colin, till night fell.

[Illustration: SIR JAMES OUTRAM.]

The next day the first step of Sir Colin Campbell was to make his left
rear and line of communications more secure, and with that view he caused
a body of troops to occupy a large building near the canal, called Banks's
House, and a series of bungalows on the south of the lanes leading to
the Delkoosha Park. When this was accomplished, he turned his attention
to the Mess House of the 32nd, and the Observatory, which stood on the
flank of his road into the Residency. Determined to use his guns as
much as possible, Sir Colin directed them upon the Mess House, while
Outram caused Eyre's Battery in our lines to join in the fire. Then
the place was stormed and found to have been abandoned; but the fire
from the Observatory was so heavy that the flag of the 90th, planted
by Captain Wolseley, was twice shot away. Wherefore the troops turned
furiously upon the Observatory, drove out the enemy, and set it on fire.
Only the Motee Munzil remained, and the obstacles here offered were
soon overcome. Pouring into this palace under fire from the Kaiserbagh,
the troops rapidly filled it; the sappers broke through into other
buildings, and the lines of the Residency were won. Forth from them came
Lieutenant Moorsom, of the 52nd, ever foremost, and greeted the army
of rescue. The troops emerge, Outram and Havelock issue forth, and Sir
Colin has the "inexpressible gratification" of greeting them before the
fighting is quite at an end. Thus the relief of the besieged garrison was
accomplished, and great was the rejoicing among the battered walls, and
broken minarets, and gorgeous palaces of Lucknow.

The chiefs of the relieved garrison, ignorant of the state of affairs
on the Jumna and in the Doab, thought that Sir Colin would immediately
complete the conquest of the city. Sir Colin knew better. Nothing but
imperative necessity led him to advance on Lucknow before he had defeated
the Gwalior Contingent. He did not know but that, at the very moment
when he entered the Chutter Munzil, the enemy might not have fallen upon
Windham, and driven him from Cawnpore. To withdraw the garrison and
treasure was therefore his first care and his first duty. He had no secure
base of operations. His army was, indeed, scattered about in groups, and
every man for a week had been constantly on duty. He therefore set himself
to devise a plan of taking all away with him as soon as possible. His
device was very simple, yet very ingenious. He directed his heavy guns to
breach the Kaiserbagh, in order that the enemy might suppose he meant to
storm it. Then he ordered the whole force, the women and children, and the
trains, to file through his pickets on the night of the 22nd of November.
The guns that could not be brought off were burst. The women made their
little packages; transport was scarce, and many had to walk; and all going
out during daylight were more or less under fire. Before the troops moved,
the sick and wounded, the women and children, the stores of grain, and
the large mass of treasure, were safely got through to the Delkoosha. Then
the troops moved off. "Each exterior line came gradually retiring through
its supports, until at length nothing remained," writes Sir Colin, "but
the last line of infantry and the guns, with which I was myself to crush
the enemy if he had dared to follow up the pickets." Halting one night in
the Delkoosha Park, the army, with its enormous train, marched off and
halted at the Alumbagh, without having been molested at any point by the
enemy, who had a wholesome dread of the splendid cavalry which covered the
operation. All arrived safely at the Alumbagh, and Sir Colin, on the 27th
of November, leaving a strong force there under Sir James Outram--3,000
men and 18 guns--started off with the rest of the troops to escort a
train, ten miles long, to Cawnpore.

But before the Commander-in-Chief marched away, the army had suffered a
heavy loss: General Havelock had passed away. Just as he had become the
pride of England, he died. The nation exulted when there came news of
Havelock's glorious campaign in the Doab, and his determined efforts to
reach Lucknow. The Queen at once conferred on him the order of Knight
Commander of the Bath; and Sir Colin, when he entered Lucknow, astonished
his old comrade by calling him Sir Henry. But Havelock only heard five
days before he died that this honour had been bestowed on him. The labour,
the anxiety, perhaps the foul atmosphere of Lucknow, proved too much for
his strength. On the 20th of November signs of cholera appeared. He was
instantly moved out of the city to the Delkoosha Park. Lying on his bed,
tended by his son, surrounded by the affection of the army, Havelock
declared he should die happy and contented. "I have for forty years so
ruled my life," he said to Outram, "that when death came I might face it
without fear." He passed a less restless night, but at nine on the morning
of the 24th he quietly passed away, dying as became a Christian soldier.




CHAPTER XVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Windham at Cawnpore--His Indecision--Partial Success followed by
    Defeat--Sir Colin Campbell to the Rescue--Battle of Cawnpore--Seaton
    advances from Delhi--His Campaign in the Doab--Combats of Gungaree
    and Puttiala--Hodson's Ride--Campbell at Futtehghur--Condition
    of Central India--Relief of Mhow--Capture of Dhar--Fighting
    in Malwa--Battle of Mundasore--Relief of Neemuch--End of the
    Campaign--Rose at Indore--The Problem of the Recovery of India--Oude
    or Rohilcund?--Combat at Shumshabad--Plans for the Reduction of
    Lucknow--Waiting for the Nepaulese--Franks's March--Battle of
    Budhayan--Campbell's final Advance--The Enemy's Position--Outram
    crosses the Goomtee--Capture of the Martinière--Outram's
    Successes--The work of the 11th--Death of Hodson--Capture of
    the Imambara and the Kaiserbagh--The Loot--Outram pauses--The
    Fall of Lucknow--Lord Canning`s Proclamation--The Conquest of
    Rohilcund--Nirput Singh's Resistance--Sir Colin marches on
    Bareilly--Battle of Bareilly--The Moulvie attacks Shahjehanpore--It
    is relieved by Brigadier John Jones--Sir Colin returns to
    Futtehghur--End of the Campaign.


It was rather a misfortune for Sir Colin that he had been obliged to leave
at Cawnpore, not a Neill or a Havelock, but General Windham, who owed his
military good fortune not to especial or eminent military qualities, but
to the place he occupied in correspondence from the Crimea, and to the
part he played--that of a brave soldier--in the last attack on the Redan.
His position at Cawnpore was an arduous one, too arduous for an officer
who was simply brave. Enemies were gathering round him. He had to preserve
the bridge over the Ganges into Oude, to keep up the communication with
Allahabad, to watch night and day the hostile force at Calpee, of which
the famous Gwalior Contingent formed the nucleus, and to improve his
defences. He had general instructions, and of course he was ordered not
to assume the offensive unless compelled. But these instructions supplied
guides to his discretion; they did not fetter it.

The Gwalior Contingent, knowing that Sir Colin had passed into Oude,
crossed the Jumna themselves in the middle of November, and approached
Cawnpore. They moved slowly, and spread themselves out as if they intended
to attack the place on all sides, and overwhelm the defenders by sheer
weight of numbers. Had they moved rapidly they might have done so; but had
Windham possessed Havelock's military skill and resolution, he would have
cut them up in detail before they could reach him in masses. Unfortunately
he deemed it necessary to submit every plan to the Commander-in-Chief,
and even when he found that the road from Cawnpore to Lucknow was closed
by roving parties of the enemy, he still deemed it his duty to wait for
an answer. Windham not only delayed, but fearing that Sir Colin might be
in difficulties himself--as if Sir Colin Campbell with 5,000 good troops
was likely to get into a scrape--Windham parted with a body of Native
Infantry from Madras, and sent them to Bunnee in Oude.

Fortunately for him, although no doubt acting on a sound principle in
striking at Cawnpore, the enemy was timid in his approaches, and a long
time making up his mind. Thus the hesitation was tolerably equal on both
sides. In the meantime four regiments from Oude went over to the enemy,
and he seemed disposed to join issue. Windham, gaining confidence as his
numbers grew, encamped outside the city, with the canal covering his
front. The enemy had pushed up his advanced guard to within three miles.
There were 3,000 men with guns on the banks of the Pandoo Nuddee, now
the mere bed of a stream. On the 26th of November Windham moved out with
1,500 men and eight guns, and falling briskly upon them, routed chem in
a short time and captured three cannon. Our loss was fourteen killed
and seventy-eight wounded. Although the troops defeated were not the
Gwalior men, the result of this action showed the advantage of prompt and
judicious offensive. But that mode of warfare had been adopted too late.
When he had carried the enemy's position, Windham saw, from a hill, the
main body of the enemy not far distant, and he returned to Cawnpore with
the certainty that he should be attacked.

Yet even now he did not give the enemy credit for audacity greater than
his own. He thought they had been checked by the stroke he had just
delivered. So he went into camp among some hillocks and brick-kilns on the
Calpee road outside the town. Thus the town was in his rear. When he rose
on the 27th there was no sign of the foe. The Gwalior men were playing
a fine game. They intended a surprise, and they succeeded, for Windham
does not seem to have known how to get intelligence--a great defect in
a general. In broad daylight, at ten a.m., while he was reconnoitring,
the enemy, who had moved up unobserved, opened fire in front and flank,
and took the general by surprise. They had advanced with much boldness,
crossed the Delhi road and the Bithoor road, and thus showed a front
extending from the canal on their right nearly to the Ganges. Windham met
them in front with the 88th and the Rifles, and on the right flank with
the 34th and 82nd. There were ten guns in action on our side, the enemy
had forty. Then ensued a most unsatisfactory combat: assailed in front and
flank, Windham's troops resisted for five hours. All that time the enemy
confined himself to a cannonade. But he was creeping up on both flanks;
and, greatly alarmed for his bridge, Windham gave orders to retreat. As
the camp followers and drivers had fled, he had to abandon his standing
camp to the foe. Thus he retired in the face of an enemy who had not
courage sufficient to molest him in retreat!

Windham now disposed his troops in position where they could cover the
entrenchment, and spent an anxious night, not knowing well what to do.
He had forwarded alarming letters to Sir Colin Campbell, and three of
these in succession were delivered to the Commander-in-Chief, as he was
marching from Bunnee towards the cannonade, of which he could hear the
noise. All that day, the 28th, as Campbell's immense train was working
through the dusty roads of Oude, Windham was fighting for his post. On
the left, Walpole, with the Rifles and four guns, successfully defended
that flank and actually captured two pieces of cannon. On the right the
enemy came on in greater force, swarming down the Bithoor road, hoping to
carry the entrenchment, or at least to take positions that would give them
the control of the bridge of boats. Brigadier Wilson, a zealous officer,
led part of the 64th against four guns, and captured them at the cost of
his life; but when taken they could not be held. The enemy came on like
a tide, rolling nearer and nearer every hour, except on the left, where
Walpole kept him at a distance. On the right front of the entrenchment
were a church, a chapel, and the assembly rooms. These were all defensible
posts, but at dark Brigadier Carthew deemed it expedient to withdraw.
It was at this moment the leading troops under Hope Grant, with Peel's
naval guns, arrived in sight of the bridge, and found that it was under
the fire of the enemy's cannon. Staff officers rushed over to inquire for
Sir Colin. He had crossed the bridge, after ordering the naval brigade
to post their guns on the left bank to answer and extinguish the fire
of the enemy. Sir Colin's presence rescued Windham from the plight into
which he had got himself from an undue fear of responsibility. His force
was diminished by upwards of 300 men. Sir Colin at once took measures to
secure the bridge. He pushed the infantry, with the cavalry and some field
guns, across, and during the night brought over the wounded, and women and
children. The infantry and horse had, in the meantime, occupied positions
covering the road to Allahabad; and under cover of these, and the fire
from the left bank and from the fort, the huge convoy from Lucknow moved
day by day over the bridge. It was not until the 30th that the last cart
came across, and not until the 3rd of December that the convoy with the
women and children had been despatched under escort for Allahabad. Two
more days were consumed in caring for the wounded. All this time Sir Colin
was obliged to permit the enemy to remain in Cawnpore, and to maintain a
desultory skirmish, using guns when the mutineers showed any audacity.
Free from his encumbrances, Sir Colin at once struck a heavy blow.

His plan of action was based on the position of the enemy. He observed
that the town of Cawnpore separated the right from the left; that on the
right was the camp of the Gwalior Contingent, and behind the right the
road to Calpee, the line of the enemy's advance and his line of retreat.
Sir Colin saw that by falling with his whole force on the right, he could
smash the enemy in detail. He therefore, on the morning of the 6th, drew
up his troops under cover of some old buildings on the Allahabad road, and
ordered Windham to open a heavy fire from the entrenchment, to deceive the
enemy into the belief that the attack was coming from that side. The camp
was struck and the baggage put under a guard near the river. Then Windham
opened fire about nine, and at eleven o'clock Sir Colin deployed his
infantry and attacked the enemy. For a brief time the guns on both sides
were engaged; then the infantry columns dashed over the bridge of a canal
that covered the enemy's front, Captain Peel and a soldier of the 53rd,
named Hannaford, leading over one of them with a heavy gun. The whole
line, filing over, re-formed on the other side, covered by Punjab infantry
in skirmishing order, and then went steadily into the heart of the enemy's
right. The attack was irresistible. The enemy gave way at all points,
and in two hours our troops were in his camp, and his men were flying in
disorder along the Calpee road. The cavalry had been sent to the left,
in order that they might get well in the rear, but, badly guided, they
went too far to the left, and came up late, but still in time. Without
losing a moment, Sir Colin sent them, with Bourchier's light guns, in hot
pursuit, supporting them with infantry. On reaching the enemy's camp he
had detached General Mansfield, his accomplished chief of the staff, with
a strong column, to the right, to assail the enemy's left, now gathering
round a tank, called the Soubahdar's Tank. The pursuing column, headed
by the artillery, followed the fugitives closely, Bourchier's Battery
going two miles without a check, and alone, and coming four times into
action in that distance. Then the battery halted until the cavalry came
up and the pursuit was renewed. In the meantime Mansfield had routed the
enemy on the Bithoor road, and driven them off in that direction. The
next day Hope Grant followed them with a strong force. He made a march of
five-and-twenty miles, and coming upon the enemy as they were crossing the
Ganges, succeeded in capturing all their guns and ammunition.

[Illustration: THE SLAUGHTER GHAT, CAWNPORE.]

There was now no hostile force of any magnitude in the Doab, except that
which the Nawab of Furruckabad had collected round him, and with which he
domineered over the country between the Ganges and Jumna, as far to the
north-west as Allyghur, and to the south-east as Etawah. Before dealing
with the enemy who swarmed in the regions north of the Ganges, from
Goruckpore to Rampoor, it was necessary to clear the whole of the Doab,
restore and secure complete communication between Allahabad and Delhi, by
way of Agra, and procure from the North-West ample supplies of transport.
In order to accomplish this, a vast convoy had been collected at Delhi,
and a column organised under the orders of Colonel Thomas Seaton, to
escort it to Cawnpore. The plan was for Seaton to take his convoy to
Allyghur, leave it there under the guns of the fort, defeat the enemy,
whose bands made the roads insecure, and then join Sir Colin, whose force,
divided into two columns, was, when united and reinforced by Seaton, to
concentrate on Futtehghur, the fort which commanded Furruckabad and the
passage of the Ganges. By these means it was thought the whole of the
Doab would be cleared of the enemy; and the means proved to be equal to
the end. At the same time, the engineer brigade and some Muzbee sappers,
with guns and ammunition, were sent from Agra to Allyghur, there to meet
Seaton. The latter force reached Allyghur on the 10th of December, and on
the 11th Seaton's column and convoy came in from Delhi. Leaving his convoy
under the guns of the fort, Seaton at once began active operations against
the enemy, and fought a brief, spirited, and important campaign in the
Doab. He had with him two regiments of infantry, the 1st Bengal Fusiliers
and the 7th Punjabees, a squadron of Carabineers, and Hodson's Horse,
under Hodson himself, and eight guns. At daybreak on the 12th he marched
out in search of the enemy, and was not long in finding him.

Crossing the Ganges Canal a few miles from Allyghur, Seaton halted for the
night at Julalee, and the next day moved on to Gungaree. Here the troops
arrived about eight o'clock. The camp was pitched, and all prepared to
rest for the day as usual. Suddenly the pickets began firing. Instead
of waiting to be attacked in their lines at Khasgunge, the enemy, 5,000
strong, had become the assailant. This somewhat astonished the officers,
and they only understood the reason later. It appears that the enemy,
acting on false information, had moved out, hoping to surprise a weak
detachment of the Belooch Battalion. Hence their boldness. They came on
with some spirit, but were shocked to find themselves in front of a strong
force of all arms. In a moment our guns dashed to the front and opened
fire. The Carabineers charged the enemy's battery and took their guns, but
lost three out of four officers. At the same time, Macdowell, commanding
Hodson's Horse, seeing the Carabineers attacking, shouted "Charge!"
and rode into the foe with such goodwill that he scattered them in all
directions.

The next day the troops marched to Khasgunge, Hodson leading, and on the
16th pushed on to Suhawun. Here they heard that the enemy had rallied at
Puttiala, where they had entrenched themselves, resolved to fight. On the
17th the column moved out, and the advanced guard under Hodson found the
enemy in position in front of a fortified village, his right resting on a
ravine, his centre across the road, covered by slight entrenchments, and
his left "in the air," as the military phrase is, resting on nothing, and
entirely dependent on a mass of cavalry for protection. Colonel Seaton
at once determined to attack the left. Our infantry were moved out to
that flank, and Hodson's Horse held in readiness. The Carabineers and
four guns made a demonstration on the other wing. The artillery shook the
cavalry by a smart fire of shell, and then advancing, got into position,
which enabled them to rake the whole line. Hodson had followed the guns,
and seeing the enemy waver, called on his men to charge. They willingly
obeyed, dashing into the camp and through the village, and down upon the
enemy flying in disorder towards Furruckabad. The cavalry pursued eight
miles. They met with no resistance, and slew hundreds of the enemy. We
lost but one man killed and one wounded. Our officers felt pity for the
poor wretches whom duty compelled them to destroy. And well they might.
The enemy were country folk, ignorant and misled, with no heart in the
cause, and no discipline. We took that day fourteen guns and all the
ammunition. The leader of the beaten army had fled at the first sound of
our guns.

After halting three days at Puttiala, the column, having thus effectually
scared the enemy, returned to Gungaree, to cross the Kallee Nuddee there,
and then striking across country, fell into the trunk road again at Etah.
The Rajah of Mynpooree had collected a force wherewith to dispute the
road, and Seaton bent his steps towards him. There on the 27th he attacked
the rajah and his men, and routed him out of hand, taking six guns, and
following the fugitives for many miles. Thus the road down the Doab was
cleared by Seaton's column, and the convoys from Agra and Allyghur began
to move down towards Cawnpore. Seaton was made a brigadier and elevated to
the dignity of Knight Commander of the Bath.

In the meantime Brigadier Walpole, with a small column, had marched
from Cawnpore on the 18th of December, had cleared the left bank of
the Jumna, and reached Etawah on the 29th. Sir Colin Campbell, with
the main body, had moved up from Cawnpore towards Futtehghur. On the
29th news reached the camp of Seaton, at Mynpooree, that Campbell was
at Goorsaigunge, about thirty-eight miles distant, and Hodson at once
volunteered to ride over and open communication between the two columns.
On the 30th, accompanied by Macdowell and seventy-five of his Horse, he
started. Halting at Bewar to feed, he left fifty men there and pushed on
with the rest to Chibberamow. Here he left the remaining twenty-five and
with Macdowell rode off for the camp of the chief. But when he arrived
at Goorsaigunge he found that the camp was fifteen miles farther off.
Nevertheless thither he went, and there he found Sir Colin, who made him
heartily welcome. After dinner, Hodson and his friend set off on their
long ride of fifty-four miles, and reached their destination in safety
after several narrow escapes. This was a daring feat, and such feats
made Hodson famous among all soldiers, and adored by his own. Seaton now
brought down his convoy, Walpole came in from Etawah, passing Mynpooree,
and overtaking Seaton at Bewar on the 3rd of January, 1858. That day Sir
Colin had reached the Kallee Nuddee. His engineers were busy repairing
the suspension bridge, when the Nawab of Futtehghur brought up all his
force and attacked the working party. Thus assailed, Sir Colin fell upon
him, and in a short time routed him off the field and took all his guns.
The same day he moved close up to Futtehghur. The nawab blew up his
palace, and escaped into Oude; but Nazir Ali Khan, chief instigator of the
massacres that had taken place there, was captured and hanged. The fort
had been abandoned and thus was Futtehghur recovered. It was an important
place. Here was the depôt of the Gun Carriage Agency, and here were
stores of clothing. Seaton and Walpole having come in, headquarters were
established at Futtehghur.

Here we will leave the Commander-in-Chief meditating important schemes,
while we lead the reader into fresh fields, and bring up a long arrear
in our narrative, to pave the way for the splendid campaign of Sir Hugh
Rose in the burning plains of Central India. The tempest that broke over
Bengal and the North-West had swept away every atom of our authority in
Central India, except at Saugor and at Mhow, the hill fort near Indore.
From the middle of June we had no representatives in the districts between
the Nerbudda and the Jumna. The shock had reverberated, though faintly,
in Madras and Bombay, having been counteracted in the latter presidency
by the energy of Lord Elphinstone, and having only slightly affected the
mounted force there. But it had been felt in the Deccan, over which ruled
the Nizam, who, like the Guicowar, in Gujerat, derived his authority
originally from the Great Mogul, and who now subsisted, as a native
prince, by virtue of British forbearance, and the dictates of good policy,
if not of justice.

The task of restoring British authority in Central India devolved upon
the Bombay and Madras Governments, but especially on the former; and
Lord Elphinstone was not found wanting in the hour of trial. He was not
satisfied with the repression of mutiny and signs of mutiny in the
territory under his rule. He sought aid from Ceylon; he intercepted the
China force; he urged the instant return of the troops from Persia; and
he organised a movable column at Aurungabad to march upon Mhow. On the
13th of June the 1st Cavalry of the Hyderabad Contingent--that is, the
force supplied by the Nizam, refused to obey orders, then mutinied and
fled. General Woodburn, to whose hesitation the disaster was due, shortly
afterwards obtained leave on sick certificate, and Colonel Stuart, of the
14th, took command. The column marched from Aurungabad on the 12th of
July; on the 21st it crossed the Taptee; on the 29th, after being joined
by all the cavalry of the Hyderabad Contingent, under Captain S. Orr,
the force effected the passage of the Nerbudda, then rapidly rising from
the rains in the Vindhya Mountains; and on the 2nd of August the troops
entered Mhow, which, rejoicing to be "relieved," fired a salute. Here they
remained for two months, their progress stayed by the rains; and during
this period they reconstructed the fort, making it larger and more easily
defensible.

Neither Holkar nor Scindia, although powerful princes, could restrain
their troops from mutiny. To the west of Mhow is the little State of Dhar;
and since the greater princes could not control their mercenaries, it
was not to be expected that the lesser should succeed in so doing. The
Dhar troops revolted; the Bheels and budmashes joined them; the rajah was
powerless. They seized the fort of Dhar, and harried the country side.
In the middle of October the brigade set out to drive them from Dhar,
and to restore order in the Malwa country. The force arrived in front of
Dhar on the 22nd of October. The enemy, with more valour than prudence,
left their stronghold to fight a battle. They were charged and routed
by the 25th Bombay Native Infantry, their three guns were captured, and
they were driven into the fort. On the 24th the siege train came in after
a fatiguing march through heavy roads; and Brigadier Stuart immediately
laid siege to the fort. The place was invested; batteries were thrown
up; and the wall in one place was breached. The enemy, who had made a
good defence, now pretended to parley. Firing was suspended; and while we
parleyed with them, they examined the breach, and they rejected all terms,
asserting that they could only treat with the rajah. The next day the
sappers inspected the breach, and reported it practicable. The stormers
rushed in, and found the place empty. The enemy had got through the
cavalry outposts unobserved. In Dhar our troops took an immense booty. It
was the property of the infant rajah, who was not in arms against us, but
himself a sufferer; and, contrary to all justice, we declared it prize and
divided it amongst the brigade. In addition to this, Dhar was annexed.

The enemy, flying from Dhar, went to Mahidpore and there were joined by
the contingent of that little State. Tho palace and fort of Dhar were
blown up and burned--a most unjustifiable proceeding. Leaving this ruin
behind them, the column moved north-west towards Mundasore, with the
legitimate object of punishing the Mahidpore Contingent, and rescuing
the fertile plains of Malwa from men who were no better than robbers
and marauders. They were burning villages, beating the inhabitants,
and carrying off the women. On the 14th of November Captain Orr, who
had closely followed the enemy, surprised him in his camp at Rawul.
Giving them no time to recover their equanimity, and without waiting for
reinforcements, the Hyderabad Horse, charged the guns, regardless of the
shower of grape they poured forth, and fought with such good will that the
enemy was routed and the guns were taken. The enemy, chiefly Arabs, fought
bravely and we lost a hundred killed and wounded. The column pursued,
passing through Jacra, where they were joined by the Nawab, who had
remained faithful, and thence onward towards Mundasore, the headquarters
of the enemy, now mustering 5,000 strong. Crossing the Chumbul without
opposition, the column halted a day to try seventy-six mutineers,
all of whom were shot for the murder of their European officers and
non-commissioned officers. On the 21st of November the force was before
Mundasore.

Here the enemy fought a battle. Their right rested on a village, their
left on Mundasore, their centre stood across the parade ground. Our
troops drew up opposite, the cavalry being held in readiness to charge.
The combat, however, was short. Plied by a heavy fire of artillery, the
enemy soon showed symptoms of weakness; and as our infantry dashed into
the village, the whole of the natives began to run. Then the cavalry went
forward, and drove them headlong into Mundasore. It was not Brigadier
Stuart's object then to assault the town. He desired to reach Neemuch and
rescue the Europeans, who, since the mutiny of the 3rd of June, had been
shut up in a fort, surrounded by enemies. He therefore crossed the Sore
river, and made a flank march past Mundasore on the 22nd, in order to
reach Neemuch, which lay to the north-west of the rebel stronghold.

The enemy in Mundasore made a sally, which was easily repelled, and the
column took up the route for Neemuch, eager to be there, for the heroic
garrison was reduced to the last straits for food. Hearing of the approach
of the column, the enemy quitted Neemuch and drew up across the road.
Here they were found on the 23rd, posted among the tall waving crops,
behind deep watercourses, full of water. After disposing of his baggage,
Stuart brought up his guns, and, under cover of their fire, formed his
line, infantry in the centre and cavalry on the flanks. Then ensued a very
severe fight. In spite of the fire of our cannon, the enemy became the
assailant, but found the 25th Bombay Regiment too much for him, while the
cavalry charged and captured the guns. The enemy now fell back fighting,
inflicting considerable loss upon us; while his friends from Mundasore
attacked the baggage, but were driven off by the dragoons. Routed from the
field and thrown into disorder at all points, a strong body established
themselves in a village, and here defied the whole army. The place was set
on fire with shells, but the Rohillas would not give in, and night fell,
leaving them in full possession. The next day the cannonade was resumed,
and continued until the village was burnt to a mere shell; yet still these
brave fellows held on. A little later about 200 surrendered and then our
infantry took the place by storm.

This action relieved Neemuch effectually. The pent-up Europeans came forth
to tell how many desperate attacks they had beaten off and how grateful
they were for their rescue. The column marched back upon Mundasore, and
found that the enemy had fled on learning the issue of the combat on the
23rd. Leaving the Hyderabad Contingent in Mundasore, and breaching the
wall of the fort to make it untenable, Brigadier Stuart led his column
back to Indore, by way of Mahidpore and Oojein. The object of this march
was to disarm Holkar's refractory troops, who did not submit to his will
until they saw the head of Stuart's column moving upon the town. Holkar
thus recovered his power, and we ours. Sir Robert Hamilton, a most able
man, succeeded the somewhat imperious and brusque Durand, as Political
Agent, and on the 16th of December Sir Hugh Rose arrived to take command
of the army. The campaign in Malwa had thus ended, and it was not until
January, 1858, that Rose set out on his brilliant campaign in Central
India.

[Illustration: THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW. (_See p._ 250.)]

The mere struggle for existence had long been over. The work of regaining
empire was about to begin. Nearly 30,000 men had come out from England,
and the remaining part of our story will show how they were employed,
and how their work was done. We left the Commander-in-Chief encamped
at Futtehghur in the beginning of January, 1858. Here he remained for
the rest of the month; his troops engaged in watching the enemy on the
opposite shore of the Ganges, and himself occupied in an important
correspondence with Lord Canning with regard to the next step in the war.
The problem to be solved was whether the army, now augmenting daily,
should be used against Lucknow or Bareilly, whether Oude or Rohilcund
should be first conquered. It was an exceedingly difficult question.
The whole country from the mountains to the Ganges as far as Allahabad
swarmed with enemies. The two centres were Bareilly in Rohilcund and
Lucknow in Oude. The larger number and the better forces were in Oude;
the more active and threatening, so far as the upper and central parts of
the Doab were concerned, the districts of Meerut and Saharunpore, were
in Rohilcund. To crush the latter first, and thus remove all chance of
an irruption on the Great Trunk Road, and into any part of the country
on the right bank of the Ganges, seemed to Sir Colin the wiser plan; but
Lord Canning thought differently. He saw less political danger from the
new-born royalty of Khan Bahadoor at Bareilly than from the resuscitated
royal government at Lucknow; for one of the wives of the late king had
set her son on the throne. The Governor-General feared the effect upon
Jung Bahadoor--now leading 9,000 of his Ghoorkas from the hills to operate
in Goruckpore--of leaving the rebels in Oude untouched while Sir Colin
cleared Rohilcund; and he apprehended that an attempt would be made by
Oude men to break into the fertile provinces on the left bank of the Lower
Ganges. It was at best a choice of evils which lay before the soldier and
the statesman; and it may be presumed that, in a military point of view,
the former was right; while, from the political point of view, the balance
of reason was on the side of Lord Canning.

In the meantime Sir Colin kept a sharp watch upon parties of the enemy
who were known to have assembled both above and below Futtehghur, intent
on breaking into the Doab and plundering. Walpole watched the fords below
and Hodson above. Adventurous parties of the Rohilcund forces crossed the
Ganges at Soorajpore, about twenty miles up the river, and a large body
prepared to follow. Well informed of their movements, Sir Colin waited
until they crossed, and approached near enough to be within reach. They
numbered about 9,000, and came on very confidently, and, giving out that
they intended to attack Furruckabad, they encamped at Shumshabad, and were
fairly in the trap. The enemy were beaten, pursued, and driven over the
Ganges. Their guns and ammunition, as usual, were captured.

This action ended, Sir Colin left Walpole with a small force at
Futtehghur, and marched for Cawnpore. The Governor-General had come up
to Allahabad, in order to be nearer the scene of action, and thither Sir
Colin went to settle, in a personal interview, the more important details
of the campaign. The result of this interview was the completion of an
extensive plan for the reduction of Lucknow, and the dispersion of the
armed mob who held it. Sir Colin Campbell, with the main body, 18,000
strong, with 180 guns, was to march from Cawnpore; while General Franks,
with 2,500 European troops, and as many Ghoorkas from Jung Bahadoor's
army, now in Goruckpore, as he could obtain, was to move up the Goomtee.
At the same time General Penny and General Chamberlain were to invade
Rohilcund, while the Ghoorkas at Nynee Tal were to descend into the
plains. Sir Hugh Rose also was afoot, marching from Indore upon Saugor;
and General Whitlock, with a Madras force, was to move from Jubbulpore on
Banda. Other columns were on the move from Bombay into Rajpootana, where
our troops had not only relieved Neemuch, as already recorded, but had
recovered Ajmere and Nusseerabad. In this quarter the Rajahs of Tonk and
Bikaneer were our fast friends. Thus at the beginning of 1858 the numerous
troops sent from England began to tell, and from all quarters the rebels
and mutineers were threatened with certain destruction.

The main body under Sir Colin had been in great part pushed across the
river from Cawnpore, and occupied camps on the road to Lucknow, Onao,
which the reader knows, Nawabgunge, deeper into Oude, Bunnee, where
there is a bridge over the Sye, Jellalabad, a fort near the Alumbagh,
and finally the Alumbagh itself, where Outram had held his own so long
in front of the insurgent army. Sir Colin was ready to march early in
February; but he had to wait, until his patience was quite exhausted,
for the march of Jung Bahadoor up the Goomtee. Lord Canning hoped to
produce a great moral effect upon the mind of the Hindoos by showing them
so stout a Hindoo as Jung Bahadoor as his ally. But the Nepaul chief moved
slowly. He did not bring with him the men of the fighting caste of Nepaul.
He brought the scum of the hills, and these worthies plundered every rood
of ground over which they passed. Lord Canning had no sooner got them from
the hills than he wished them back again; but as they were there, and as
their chief was burning for military distinction, he was obliged to let
them go on. Therefore Sir Colin made all his arrangements for moving on
Lucknow and so disposed his troops that he could concentrate them at the
Alumbagh, as soon as it was plain that Jung Bahadoor was near at hand, or
that he could be stayed for no longer.

[Illustration: THE SECOND RELIEF OF LUCKNOW, 1857.

FROM THE PAINTING BY THOMAS J. BARKER.]

In the meantime Brigadier General Franks, who had been warring
successfully near Allahabad and Jounpore, had collected a column 5,700
strong, 2,000 of whom were Europeans, the rest being Ghoorkas, with
twenty-four guns at Sigramow on the road from Benares to Lucknow. His
orders were to march up the right bank of the Goomtee, and arrive within
one march of Lucknow by the 1st of March. The population were hostile;
there were 30,000 men in arms on the line of operations; the roads were
in many places unbridged, in others almost impassable; the distance to
be traversed was about 130 miles. On the 18th of February Franks was at
Sigramow. In his front were two bodies of the enemy, 8,000 at Chanda and
10,000 more eight miles distant. He designed to beat them in detail. He
therefore gave out that he should march on the 20th. The rebel chief
ordered his troops to concentrate on the 19th. But Franks moved on the
19th himself; before noon he had beaten the 8,000 at Chanda; and resting
his men, turned at eventide on the 10,000 coming up on his left flank,
and routed them also. The enemy were thus skilfully driven off the road
to Lucknow with a loss on our side of only eleven men; and seizing the
moment, Franks pushed his column, with its immense baggage train, through
the defile of Budhayan, without the loss of a cart or a man. This was a
fine piece of work.

The enemy, making a wide detour--which, as Franks was so encumbered,
he was unable to do--reappeared on the Lucknow road two miles beyond
Sultanpore. Here were collected 25,000 men, of whom 1,100 were horse and
5,000 Sepoys, with 25 guns. They occupied a compact position, showing a
line a mile and a half long, the front being covered by a ravine, the
left resting on the Goomtee and the right on a serai. The road to Lucknow
ran through the position at right angles, and was commanded by five heavy
guns at the point where it crossed the ravine. There were six guns on the
right, the remaining fourteen being distributed along the front. Franks
marched from Budhayan on the 23rd; and, feeling the enemy, he approached
him in order of battle, brought up his troops in columns, the British
Brigade in front, the Ghoorkas in rear, and making a show of assaulting
the position in front, rode up with his cavalry, sixty horse, and a few
score riflemen, and drove the enemy's pickets over the ravine. His design
was to impress the enemy with the belief that he was about to assault
their centre; and to prevent them from discovering his real intentions, he
kept the horsemen close to the ravine. Riding off to the left, he hoped to
find a point where he could cross the nullah, and turn their right. This
he found. Then swiftly and secretly marching the British Brigade to the
left, while he kept the Ghoorkas on the road, he turned the enemy's right
so completely that he forced his way on to the Lucknow road, captured the
guns, and pushed the enemy into the ravine. The Ghoorkas charged upon
the front and finished the action. By these skilful movements, showing
real soldiership, Franks, at the cost of eleven men, turned the enemy's
position, killed and wounded 1,800 men, dispersed an army, and captured
twenty-one guns. This was a great exploit. The fruit of it was an open
road to Lucknow, by which he marched to join Sir Colin Campbell.

Sir Colin had become impatient of further delay. He knew that Jung
Bahadoor was on the Gogra on the 24th, and that Franks had thrashed the
enemy on the 23rd; and as he knew Franks would be up to time, and as he
could do without Jung, he determined to cross into Oude. The troops, as
we have said, were in camp on the road to Lucknow. The enemy, growing
suspicious of all these preparations, resolved to assume the offensive.
The Sepoys, horse and foot, came out of Lucknow, and assaulted Outram's
camp on several occasions. On the 27th the headquarters crossed the
Ganges, and on the 1st of March Sir Colin was at Buntera, ready for
work. All the men were drawn together. The engineering preparations were
complete. A cask-bridge had been made, whereon to cross the Goomtee. The
heavy guns were up. Franks was close at hand, and Jung Bahadoor over the
Gogra. Leaving his heavy guns at Buntera, Sir Colin, on the 2nd, marched
with a strong force of all arms to seize the Delkoosha palace and park, in
order that he might make this the base of his operations against the city.
He took the post with little resistance from the enemy, and established
his headquarters at Bibiapore, on the Goomtee, east of the park. On the
3rd the siege train arrived, and on the morning of the 4th General Franks
marched in and joined the grand army. The same evening the siege began.

The advanced posts of the enemy were over the canal, the principal outpost
being the Martinière on the left front. On the north bank of the Goomtee
the enemy occupied some of the few buildings and the suburb; but he had
no works on that side. This was a strong position, but it had a great
defect, and of this defect Sir Colin Campbell took full advantage. As
the enemy's entrenched line rested on the Goomtee, and as the other bank
was not defended, by crossing the river Sir Colin saw that he could take
each of the enemy's lines in reverse, and so render them untenable. He
wished to capture the place with as little loss as possible, and to make
his artillery do the work. Therefore he gave Outram a strong force of all
arms, and directed him to cross the Goomtee at Bibiapore, march up the
left bank, establish his batteries, and force the enemy out of his lines.
One bridge was finished on the night of the 4th, and a party of infantry
was sent over to cover the men building the second. The enemy now scented
danger, brought down troopers and guns, and opened on the bridge. But the
picket of infantry scared the cavalry by a random volley, and our guns,
replying to the enemy, soon made him withdraw. He was now too late. The
second bridge was finished, and the column ready to cross.

On the morning of the 6th, Outram's column of all arms marched through
the woods to the Goomtee, and began to cross. He led it at once up the
Goomtee. The enemy, becoming aware of the movement too late, hurried out
to oppose him. From the Delkoosha our officers could mark his progress by
the clouds of dust above the trees, coming nearer and nearer; then the
rush of fugitives in white; then the clearing of the cloud by the Queen's
Bays in scarlet uniform, riding with flashing sabres; finally, the Horse
Artillery coming out at a bound, and trying in vain to overtake, with
shot and shell, the bulk of the enemy. Outram had routed him with ease,
and he encamped for the night on what was once the Lucknow race-course.
This being done successfully, Sir Colin threw up batteries in his front
to play on the Martinière, to keep down the fire of the enemy's line, and
to attract his attention from Outram. Captain William Peel, disdaining
the enemy as his wont was, took his naval guns into his battery across
the open ground, the sailors conducting their guns with a coolness equal
to that of their famous leader. Although a considerable impression was
made on the fantastic Martinière, the enemy held on to it, and one gun
seemed quite beyond our reach, for none of ours could touch it, or reduce
it to silence. But another enemy was coming on them. Outram, who had
been attacked on the 8th--an attack which he easily repelled--became the
assailant himself on the 9th, and pushing everything before him, closed
with the Goomtee, and bringing up a mass of guns, ploughed up the rear
of the first line of hostile trenches. At the same time the batteries
in front of the Delkoosha, especially Peel's, were rapidly smashing the
Martinière; and Sir Colin, seeing how matters were going--how effective
the fire was, both from his own and Outram's guns, directed the assault
of the Martinière. The Martinière was very easily taken. The leading
regiments were the 42nd and 4th Punjabees; the supports were the 38th,
53rd, 90th, and 93rd. The storming party used the bayonet only. The guns
covered the attack. The whole force was under Lugard.

Outram had been most successful. He had pushed his conquering column up to
and within the walls of the Badshahbagh, and his heavy guns had so raked
the enemy's lines in front of Campbell that they appeared to be deserted.
An officer volunteered to cross the Goomtee and see. Plunging in, he
swam over. "Suddenly," writes Dr. Russell, who was in the Martinière,
"we saw a figure rising out of the waters of the Goomtee, and scrambling
up the canal parapet, which just terminates at this place. He gets up,
stands upright, and waves his hand. 'What is he?' 'He must be one of our
fellows, sir; he has blue trousers and red stripe.' And so it was--Butler,
of the Bengal Fusiliers," had done this exploit. The Highlanders and
Sikhs now dashed at the line, and were soon in possession of the extreme
left, and the portion in front of the Martinière. All this time our guns
were pounding the city on our left; and such was the effect of Outram's
flank movement that the enemy abandoned Banks's House and the whole line,
and our troops took secure possession. On the 10th we were occupied on
both sides of the river in battering the place, and preparing for the
next move. By the incessant exertions of Lieutenant Patrick Stewart the
telegraphic wire followed the Commander-in-Chief everywhere, so that he
was in direct communication with Calcutta every morning, and with Outram
also, for Stewart carried a branch line over the Goomtee.

[Illustration: DEATH OF HODSON. (_See p._ 266.)]

On the 11th both forces made great progress. Jung Bahadoor brought his
army into camp, and was sent to hold the left on the canal. Outram made
a vast stride forward. Dividing his force into two columns, he sent one
to the iron bridge and one to the stone bridge. The troops advanced,
literally chasing the enemy before them, and slaying hundreds. Both
bridges were taken, but it was not deemed expedient to hold the stone
bridge, and the right column returned to a position in a musjid west of
the Badshahbagh. But the iron bridge was held by a strong force. All day
Outram's batteries had been firing steadily into the huge buildings on
the other bank, especially into the Kaiserbagh, and were enfilading the
enemy's second line with effect. Nor were Sir Colin's batteries idle.
They were breaching the Begum's Kothie. When the breach was practicable,
the Highlanders, this time the 93rd, and a Sikh regiment, went at this
place, and carried it with a rush. Adrian Hope led the column. Mounting
to a window by the aid of his men, he tumbled through among a crowd of
Sepoys, who fled at "the apparition of a huge red Celt, sword and pistol
in hand." The men followed, carrying everything before them at the point
of the bayonet, until the place was cleared of all except skulkers, who
were even found next day, and who from dark holes slew some of our men. On
the right the 53rd had carried the Secunderbagh without opposition, and
even the Shah Nujeef; Captain Medley, with a handful of native sappers,
gallantly holding it all night. This brought the Commander-in-Chief into
direct communication with Outram over the river. The mortar batteries
were at once turned upon the Kaiserbagh and the Imambara, and up towards
the latter Robert Napier, a most accomplished soldier, was pushing a sap
by the aid of his engineers. Thus a great day's work had been done. The
Kaiserbagh and the Mess House alone remained in the enemy's hands, but
the former was strong. While Mansfield was superintending the capture of
the Begum's Kothie, Sir Colin had to go through the disagreeable duty
of receiving Jung Bahadoor. The reputation of the Nepaulese was of ill
savour; and it was not pleasant to a frank soldier like Colin Campbell to
take the hand of a man who had murdered his kindred.

The work of the 11th was most satisfactory; but in the storming of the
Begum's Kothie, as in the assault on Delhi, Britain suffered a great
loss. At the latter fell Nicholson, at the former Hodson was mortally
wounded. On his way to select a camping-ground for his Horse, he heard
firing, and, riding up, found Brigadier Napier directing the attack on
the Begum's Kothie. With the assaulting column, beside Robert Napier, he
went into the place. It was taken; but Sepoys were still in hiding, and
the soldiers were looking for them. Turning to his orderly, he said, "I
wonder if any of the rascals are in there." He looked into a dark room--it
was full of Sepoys; a shot was fired and, staggering back, Hodson fell.
The Highlanders rushed in, and killed every man in the room; while poor
Hodson's orderly, a large, powerful Sikh, carried his master out of
danger. He was taken to Banks's House, and there the next day he died, in
the presence of Napier and his faithful orderly, who hung over the corpse
crying like a child. He was buried on the 13th, Sir Colin Campbell and a
host of officers attending his funeral, to mark his regret and esteem for
"the most brilliant soldier" under his command.

The work of sapping up to the Imambara, the next place to be taken,
now went briskly on. Napier's sappers were engaged in opening wide
communications to the rear, and in breaking through the houses in front,
so that heavy guns might be brought up to breach the walls. Into the
enemy's posts poured an incessant fire of shell from the batteries of
Outram, as well as those of Sir Colin; and the rattle of musketry never
ceased while there was daylight. The army was now extended from the
Badshahbagh, on the right, over the Goomtee to the front of the Imambara;
and the moment had now arrived when this building could be breached with
effect. The guns were placed behind a wall thirty yards from the building,
and their huge shot went crashing through the massive structure, breaking
down several walls at each blow. From the house-tops and the windows
and loopholes the enemy fired heavily at random, and did little harm.
Then came the order to assault; and in went the 10th Foot and Braysher's
Sikhs with a rush. The enemy, as usual, fled; and being pursued with
much eagerness, our troops emerged through the great gateway into the
main road, to find that they had turned the whole of the second line of
defence. Fortune gave them the whole second line; and now, lo! they were
in rear of the third. They had pushed up to the Kaiserbagh itself, having
broken into the rear of the entrenchments covering the great gate. Seizing
the opportunity, heavy supports were brought up from the right, and Franks
and Napier determined to take the palace itself. The order was given, and
the soldiers dashing in, the whole of the vast buildings fell easily into
our hands, so thoroughly broken was the spirit of the enemy.

"Here and there," wrote Dr. Russell, "the invaders have forced their
way into the long corridors, and you hear the musketry rattling inside,
the crash of glass, the shouts and yells of the combatants, and little
jets of smoke curl out of the closed lattices. Lying amid the orange
groves are dead and dying Sepoys; and the white statues are reddened
with blood. Leaning against a smiling Venus is a British soldier, shot
through the neck, gasping, and at every gasp bleeding to death. Here and
there officers are running to and fro after their men, persuading or
threatening in vain. From the broken portals issue soldiers laden with
loot or plunder; shawls, rich tapestry, gold and silver brocade, caskets
of jewels, arms, splendid dresses. The men are wild with fury and lust
of gold--literally drunk with plunder. Some come out with china vases
or mirrors, dash them to pieces on the ground, and return to seek more
valuable booty. Others are busy gouging out the precious stones from the
stems of pipes, from saddle-cloths, or the hilts of swords, or butts of
pistols or fire-arms. Some swathe their bodies in stuffs crusted with
precious metals and gems; others carry off useless lumber, brass pots,
pictures, or vases of jade and china. Court after court the scene is still
the same. These courts open one to the other by lofty gateways, ornamented
with the double fish of the royal family of Oude or by arched passages
in which lie the dead Sepoys, their clothes smouldering on their flesh.
The scene of plunder," he continues, "was indescribable. The soldiers had
broken up several of the store-rooms, and pitched the contents into the
court, which was lumbered with cases, with embroidered cloths, gold and
silver brocade, silver vessels, musical instruments, arms, banners, drums,
shawls, scarfs, mirrors, pictures, books, accounts, medicine bottles,
gorgeous standards, shields, spears, and a heap of things, the enumeration
of which would make this sheet of paper like a catalogue of a broker's
sale. Through these moved the men, wild with excitement, 'drunk with
plunder.' I had often heard the phrase, but never saw the thing itself
before. They smashed to pieces the fowling-pieces and pistols to get at
the gold mountings and the stones set in the stocks. They burned in a
fire, which they made in the centre of the court, brocades and embroidered
shawls for the sake of the gold and silver. China, glass, and jade they
dashed to pieces in pure wantonness; pictures they ripped up or tossed
on the flames; furniture shared the same fate." In a military point of
view the capture of this palace was a piece of great good fortune, as it
virtually gave us the command of the city. There were now only the houses
and buildings towards the old Residency; and with Outram on their flank,
they could easily be taken, and taken at leisure.

Yet, the action on the 13th might have been more successful. When the
Kaiserbagh fell, the troops on the right swept forward from the Shah
Nujeef nearly up to the old Residency, and the 20th Foot caught a host
of Sepoys in the engine-house, and slew nearly every man. At this time
Sir James Outram was ready to burst across the iron bridge. His column
was prepared, his men were eager. Lieutenant Wynne, with some sappers,
had gallantly thrown down the breastwork across the end of the bridge--a
service which won for him the Victoria Cross. But Outram did not advance.
His orders were precise, and he construed them literally. He was to
advance; but on the condition that he could do so without the loss of a
single man. Seeing a gun bearing down the long street which led to the
bridge, a gun steadily fired, Outram knew that if he charged across, he
must lose at least one man, perhaps many. He obeyed the conditional order,
and the Sepoys escaped. But had he crossed at the moment the Kaiserbagh
fell, he must have inflicted a terrible loss upon the enemy, though
suffering some loss himself.

Virtually Lucknow was now taken, but much still remained to be done.
The troops rested on the 14th, except the gunners, who were rarely or
never quiet. On the 15th, Sir James Outram, leaving a force near the
iron bridge, crossed the Goomtee, and a general attack was made on the
buildings west of the Kaiserbagh. A great deal of irregular fighting
ensued, but the enemy stood nowhere. Outram's column worked up through
the old battered Residency to the iron bridge; and as the enemy fled in
disorder over the stone bridge higher up, our guns on the iron bridge
kept up a heavy fire. That night we occupied the Muchee Bowun, and by the
18th every place was captured, except the Moosabagh, out in the country;
the city itself was occupied, and direct communication established
with the Alumbagh. Prize agents had now been appointed to secure the
plunder; but order was not restored, and every street and house had its
horrible scenes. The place was full of powder; our men were careless,
and explosions were frequent, in one of which Captain Clarke, Lieutenant
Brownlow, and thirty men were killed. On the 19th a concerted attack was
made on the Moosabagh. Here were the resolute Moulvie, stout and cunning;
the courageous and undaunted Begum, who had been the soul of the defence,
her cowardly paramour Munnoo Khan, her son, the titular King of Oude, and
some 8,000 men. The object was to catch them, but the combination failed.
Somehow the cavalry sent out to cut off the fugitives lost their way. The
enemy stayed just long enough to see the approach of the infantry and
guns; then their hearts failed them and they fled. There was one more
desperate skirmish in the city with a band of budmashes; that was the last
fight, and the capital of Oude was recovered, after being so many months
in the possession of the enemy. We took 120 guns, tons of ammunition, and
much treasure; and so splendidly was the work done that our loss did not
exceed 700 men killed and wounded.

The Governor-General now issued a proclamation, which, after setting
forth the wickedness of the rebellion, and rewarding some talookdars by
granting them a hereditary right to their lands, declared that, with these
exceptions, the proprietary right in the soil of Oude was confiscated to
the British Government. To those who made immediate submission, life and
honour were promised, but nothing more. Those who had murdered Europeans
were to expect no mercy. This proclamation created a great ferment in
India and in England. It was held to be monstrous that Lord Canning should
confiscate a province, though it is remarkable that when in the previous
year he had drawn up a proclamation which distinguished the guilt of the
rebels, he was scoffed at as "Clemency Canning." Sir James Outram resigned
rather than carry out the scheme; and Mr. Montgomery, who succeeded him,
obtained full permission to deal with each case on its merits. In England,
Lord Ellenborough, then at the Board of Control, was so angry that he
wrote a most insolent despatch to Lord Canning, on mere newspaper report;
and, not satisfied with this, he published it before he posted the
document to Lord Canning. It was an uncourteous and an ungentlemanly act,
and Lord Ellenborough had to resign his seat to save the Derby Cabinet
from censure. The fact is, the proclamation was completely misunderstood.
The confiscation was not permanent deprivation. It enabled the Government
to take a position in Oude calculated to restore men to their real
rights--to reward the faithful and punish the wrong-doers; and, above
all, under the settlement made by Mr. Montgomery, and his successor, Mr.
Wingfield, all those proprietors held from the Crown. In the end the
measure worked well, and was essentially just and politic; and, in a long
despatch, Lord Canning fully refuted the melodramatic impertinences of
Lord Ellenborough.

But in the spring of 1858, not only Oude but Rohilcund had to be
conquered. For a time the proclamation was a dead letter; the army had
still to be employed; and in April, Sir Colin, after an interview with
Lord Canning at Allahabad, broke up his force and proceeded to the work
of conquest. General Walpole started, on the 7th, with a fine brigade
towards Rohilcund. Sir Edward Lugard, with another, set out eastwards
towards Gorruckpore, where Koer Singh and a host of enemies were afoot.
A garrison was left in Lucknow, which was to be strongly fortified, and
the remaining troops marched for Cawnpore on the 13th, to move up the
Doab and enter Rohilcund from Futtehghur. The plan of campaign now was
this: Sir Colin was to effect a junction with Walpole on the Ramgunge,
opposite Futtehghur, and thence march on Bareilly by Shahjehanpore; while
General Penny, with a brigade collected at Roorkee, and Brigadier Jones,
from Moradabad, crossed the Ganges, and also made for Bareilly. Walpole
marched his column by Sundeela. Near Rhodamow he came upon a mud fort
in the jungle, occupied by a force under Nirput Singh. The place was
reconnoitred, and the cavalry reported that it could be easily assailed
in the rear; but Walpole thought that he could take it by rushing at the
front. He did not even use his heavy guns, but sent the 42nd and 93rd
against the rampart. They were driven back by the fire of the enemy. Many
men fell killed and wounded; but the greatest loss was Adrian Hope, the
pride of his brigade. The Highlanders were on the verge of mutiny, and the
officers were savage with this unskilful mode of warfare. In the night,
Nirput Singh, knowing his own weakness, ran away, and then it was seen how
easily the place might have been taken. Walpole marched on towards the
Ramgunge. On his way he heard that a body of the enemy were guarding a
bridge of boats over that stream; and dashing on with cavalry and guns, he
surprised and routed them with heavy loss. Sir Colin, marching by Cawnpore
and Futtehghur, crossed the Ganges on the 27th, and joined Walpole at
Tingree. In the meantime that gallant sailor and hope of the British navy,
Sir William Peel, had died of small-pox at Cawnpore (April 27th).

Sir Colin entered Shahjehanpore on the 30th of April without meeting
any resistance. Here he learned that Penny, leading his column through
Budaon, misled by a civilian, who trusted to native information, got into
an ambuscade and lost his life. His troops carried the position occupied
by the enemy, and marched on. Jones also had made progress, and was
approaching Bareilly from Moradabad. On the 2nd of May Sir Colin moved out
of Shahjehanpore, leaving behind a small force with four guns to hold the
gaol. He had not gone far before the energetic Moulvie, bringing a great
body of all arms, fell upon Shahjehanpore; and although he failed to take
it out of hand, he invested it, and put the little garrison in peril. Sir
Colin got news of this, but he was then near Bareilly, and had a large
army in his front whom it was necessary to fight.

Disregarding the Moulvie, and his skilful onslaught on the rear, Sir
Colin pursued his march to Bareilly, where Khan Bahadoor Khan had 40,000
or 50,000 men of all arms, and forty guns. Here, in front of Bareilly,
on the 5th of May he engaged the enemy. Penny's force had already joined
him; Brigadier Jones was on the other side of the city. While Sir Colin
attacked the enemy on the east, Jones broke into the place from the west.
The enemy were defeated, but managed to escape in a disordered and broken
state, some flying for the Ganges and some for Oude. During this action
a body of Ghazees--fanatic Moslems--made a dash on the 93rd and 42nd.
Sir Colin was near the Highlanders, but the Ghazees came on so rapidly
that he had only time to call on his men to stand firm, and bayonet them
as they came on, before the dare-devils were in their midst. A number
of them got round the flank of the 42nd, dragged Colonel Cameron from
his horse, and cut General Walpole over the head. Both were saved by the
Highlanders. "Sir Colin had a narrow escape. As he was riding from one
company to another, his eye caught that of a quasi-dead Ghazee, who was
lying, tulwar in hand, just before him. The chief guessed the _ruse_ in
a moment. 'Bayonet that man!' he called to a soldier. The Highlander made
a thrust at him, but the point would not enter the thick cotton quilting
of the Ghazee's tunic; and the dead man was rising to his legs, when
a Sikh, who happened to be near, with a whirling stroke of his sabre,
cut off the Ghazee's head at one blow, as if it had been the bulb of a
poppy!" The enemy's troopers also got round the rear and did considerable
mischief before they were driven off. But Bareilly was captured, and
the enemy dispersed. Sir Colin's first thought was for the safety of
Shahjehanpore. He sent off Brigadier Jones with his brigade to relieve
Colonel Hale; and, having established a garrison in Bareilly, followed
himself. Jones easily drove off the Moulvie's troops on the 11th, and
covered the place. Sir Colin himself marched from Bareilly on the 15th.
Arriving at Shahjehanpore on the 18th, he marched through the town, and
drew up on the eastern side. There the Moulvie had made a demonstration
with an immense force of horsemen. The action, however, was almost
wholly carried on by the artillery. When the infantry were deployed and
developed, the enemy retired. Sir Colin now handed the army over to the
command of Brigadier John Jones, and with a weak escort set off suddenly
for Futtehghur. Jones marched on Mohumdee, the last stronghold of the
rebels on the eastern frontier of Rohilcund; but the enemy would not wait
for him. This ended the campaign for the summer in Oude and Rohilcund.
While the Commander-in-Chief had been thus engaged, Sir Hope Grant, with a
flying column from Lucknow, had scoured the country towards Fyzabad, and
had surprised and defeated the enemy at Nawabgunge. Sir Edward Lugard had
relieved Azimghur, and, following up Koer Singh, had passed the Ganges,
driven the valiant old chief into the jungle, and restored confidence in
Behar. The troops were put under cover as far as possible, but there was
still considerable fighting at different points in the Doab, and north and
south of Allahabad; while Colonel Rowcroft kept down the rebel element on
the north of Goruckpore, and facilitated the march of Jung Bahadoor and
his plunder back to the mountains of Nepaul.

[Illustration: THE MARTINIÈRE, LUCKNOW. (_From a Photograph by Frith &
Co._)]




CHAPTER XVII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The State of Central India--Objects of Rose's Campaign--The
    two Columns--Capture of Ratghur--Relief of Saugor--Capture of
    Gurrakota--Annexation of the Rajah of Shahghur's Territory--Capture
    of Chandaree--Rose arrives at Jhansi--The Ranee and Tantia
    Topee--Bombardment of Jhansi--Tantia Topee beaten off--Jhansi
    is stormed--Battles of Kooneh and Calpee--Tantia Topee
    captures Gwalior--Smith and Rose rescue the Place--Lord
    Elphinstone's Proceedings--Flight of Tantia Topee--Lawrence
    in the Punjab--Banishment of the King of Delhi--Other Rewards
    and Punishments--The Subjugation of Oude--Hope Grant's Flying
    Column--Britain does her Duty--Transference of the Government to
    the Crown--The Queen's Proclamation--Clyde enforces the Law--The
    Hunt for Bainie Madho--Further Flights and Pursuits--An Accident
    to Lord Clyde--His Last Action--Disappearance of the Begum and
    Nana Sahib--The Country at Peace--The Last Adventures of Tantia
    Topee--His Flight into Oodeypore--He is headed from Rohilcund--And
    from the Deccan--He joins Feroze Shah--Disappearance of the latter
    and Execution of Tantia Topee--Settlement of India--The Financial
    Question--The Indian Army--Increase of European Troops--The Native
    Levies--Abandonment of Dalhousie's Policy.


Sir Hugh Rose, it will be remembered, arrived at Indore on the 16th of
December, 1857, and assumed command of the Central India Field Force,
mustering 6,000 men, of whom nearly one half were Europeans. He had a
severe task to accomplish with these means. The whole country north of the
Vindhya range of mountains was in the hands of the enemy. The only British
post was Saugor, where several hundred Europeans were shut up in a fort,
but where, strange to state, the 31st Native Infantry and part of the 42nd
were faithful. Deeper in the country, towards the Jumna, the Ranee of
Jhansi held the town and district of that name, and kept up communication
with the disaffected subjects of Scindia, the remains of the Gwalior
Contingent reorganising itself at Calpee, and the rebel bands who wandered
up and down the Jumna, and made dashes into the Doab, from Allahabad to
Agra. Sir Hugh Rose was entrusted with the duty, first, of relieving
Saugor, then of capturing Jhansi, and finally of making his way to Calpee.
He was to be supported on his left by another column from Bombay, under
General Roberts, which was collected at Nusseerabad, in Rajpootana; and on
his right by a Madras column, under General Whitlock, whose starting-point
was Jubbulpore, on the higher waters of the Nerbudda. Thus, while Rose
swept the country between the Sinde and the Beas, and Whitlock marched on
his right between the Beas and the Sone, his object being Banda, Roberts
was to march eastward by Kotah, then in the hands of the rebels and
mutineers, into the Gwalior country.

Sir Hugh Rose divided his force into two columns or brigades. The first,
under Brigadier Stuart, was formed at Indore; the second was collected at
Sehore, about ninety miles to the north-east, on the road to Bhopal. The
first was ordered to march on Chandaree, a very strong place on the left
bank of the Betwa. The second, or right brigade, with which Rose himself
marched, was directed from Sehore upon Ratghur and Saugor. Stuart's
brigade was not to leave Indore until Rose had started for Bhopal, so
that the two columns, although separated by a wide interval, might march
in parallel lines, and then converge to a point north of Chandaree.
Stuart's course lay down the left bank of the Betwa, and he had no serious
hostility to apprehend until he approached Chandaree.

Rose's column was joined on the 15th of January, 1858, by the siege-train
from Sehore. After executing 149 mutineers of the Bhopal Contingent, Rose
started on the 16th. On the 21st the column entered Scindia's territory,
and encamped at Bilsah, famous for tobacco. Three more marches brought the
brigade in front of Ratghur, the first obstacle to be overcome on the road
to Saugor; for the enemy had occupied the fort, and showed a readiness to
bar the road. On the 24th Rose drove in the outposts of the enemy, and
invested the place. Having disposed his troops around the place, keeping
a good look-out towards Saugor, whence interruption might come, he pushed
his siege guns, under a sufficient escort, up the hill and through the
jungle, making a road for the heavy pieces as he advanced. All this time
the troops around the town were engaged in constant skirmishes against
irregular forces on the outside. By dint of perseverance these were driven
off, and the town was occupied. Then the heavy guns were mounted in a
battery, made by the Madras Sappers, most efficient soldiers, on the north
hill, within 300 yards of the north wall, and opened fire, while other
guns shelled the fort from the plain, and the Enfields were busy duelling
with the matchlock-men. The breach had been examined, and declared to be
practicable. It was supposed that it would be stormed on the 29th; but
when that day dawned, two enterprising officers, suspecting the quiet,
climbed up the breach, and found that the enemy had fled. The garrison
had scrambled down a precipice, women and all, and had got away through
the lines of the Bhopal Contingent, who were supposed to be guarding
that side. The cavalry went in pursuit, but were not able to catch the
fugitives: indeed, the latter halted eight miles distant. Sir Hugh went
out to attack them, and defeated them, yet could not take their guns. But
the effect of these actions was that the roads to Saugor and Indore were
freed from the enemy; and, on the 3rd of February, the Europeans shut up
so long in Saugor were liberated by the arrival of Sir Hugh. They drove
out to meet him, "looking pale and careworn," as it was natural they
should look after eight months' imprisonment.

The next obstacle to be removed was a body of mutineers, men of several
regiments, who had thrown themselves into the fort of Gurrakota, which
fifty years before had defied a European army. This fort lies over the
Beas, east of Saugor, and until it was taken Rose could not move on Jhansi
nor Whitlock on Banda. The Sepoys entrenched the road into the fort from
the south. But the troops advanced from the west. The horse artillery
ranged up and opened fire in this unexpected quarter. Whereupon the
Sepoys, greatly to their credit, sounded the advance and, moving boldly
out, seemed disposed to charge the guns. Upon this the 3rd Europeans came
into play and drove them back. Not satisfied yet, the enemy re-formed
and came up with great steadiness and obstinacy, and were not broken and
routed until they were close upon the guns. When they fled, the Hyderabad
horsemen were soon amongst them, and their charge split them in two,
one body hurrying into the fort, the other rushing off to the south and
suffering loss at every step. Batteries were at once erected to breach
the west face. The enemy worked their guns with vigour and coolness, but
they were soon silenced, all but one, and this one was finally knocked
over by Lieutenant Smith, of the Bombay Artillery. On the 13th of February
the enemy were seen escaping from the fort, and the infantry, hastening
in upon them, found that nearly all had gone. The fugitives were pursued
five-and-twenty miles by the Hyderabad Horse. In the fort were found great
stores of provisions, and quantities of plunder taken from Europeans in
the mutiny. Provided for a long siege, the Sepoys had been ousted in three
days, and such of the provisions as could not be carried away were given
to the starving villagers whom they had so long oppressed. Gurrakota was
blown up by the sappers. The troops returned to Saugor on the 17th, and
halted until they could be adequately furnished for a long march through
Central India.

The troops rested ten days, Sir Hugh Rose marching for Jhansi at two a.m.
on the 27th, the time when Sir Colin crossed the Ganges into Oude. There
were two means of access--the Pass of Malthon and the Pass of Mudanpore.
Malthon was the northern outlet and stood directly in front of the line of
march followed by the column. Here the enemy were supposed to be encamped,
and indeed it was soon found that they held the fort of Barodia as an
outpost. From this they were rapidly expelled by a few shells. This also
helped the purpose of Sir Hugh, which was to deceive the enemy and make
them believe that he intended to storm the Malthon Pass, while he really
turned it by Mudanpore. But the enemy were not wholly deceived, for they
occupied both passes. Leaving a small party of all arms to attack Malthon,
or rather keep the enemy occupied, Sir Hugh, with the bulk of the brigade,
went south along the foot of the hills through the pathless jungle. He
then turned toward the gorge and at once came under fire. The Rajah of
Shahghur, in whose territory the pass was situated, headed the enemy, and
his general, late a Sepoy sergeant, had occupied the hills on both sides
of the pass. Thence he opened such a storm of cannon shot and musketry
that he brought our men to a halt, and even obliged Sir Hugh, whose horse
was shot under him, to withdraw the guns farther to the rear. The check
was only momentary. Keeping up a hot fire, Sir Hugh directed his infantry
upon the flanks of the pass, and Europeans and Hyderabad natives went
with shouts into the jungle. This was more than the enemy could endure,
and without waiting for the assailants, they ran down the hills into the
pass and through it, carrying off their guns. Our troops followed towards
the town. The enemy endeavoured to stand once more, but his heart soon
failed him. Nevertheless, he got away with his guns. Encamping near the
fort of Soorai, the troops halted while this fort was destroyed. On the
6th of March the brigade moved on Murowa, seized the fort, and declared
the territory of the rebel rajah to be annexed to the British possessions.
While here the detachment sent against Malthon came into camp. They had
marched through with little opposition, as the men who were to hold it
grew alarmed when they heard the cannon at Mudanpore and, alarm becoming
panic, they ran away.

In order to protect the friendly ruler of Tehree, Sir Hugh sent thither
the Hyderabad Contingent and marched himself upon Baunpore, where he
came within hearing of the cannonade directed by his 1st Brigade against
Chandaree. This brigade had laid siege to the strong fort in due form,
and was reducing it with heavy guns. Quitting Baunpore, Sir Hugh, having
determined to clear his right effectually, marched upon Tal Behut, from
which the Hyderabad Contingent, that most active force, had driven the
enemy. He arrived on the 14th of March. The fort had been abandoned,
luckily for him, as it was a place of very great strength and might have
been defended for weeks. Having opened communication with the 1st Brigade,
and having learned that it was making good progress, Sir Hugh detached the
sappers and contingent to secure the fords of the Betwa; then, turning
westward, he marched the whole column to the river, and crossed it on the
17th of March. That day the 86th Foot and the 25th Bombay Infantry had
carried Chandaree by storm; the 86th, an Irish regiment, fighting none the
worse because it was St. Patrick's Day.

Having heard of the fall of Chandaree, Sir Hugh Rose marched at once
upon Jhansi. On the 19th the brigade halted, while cavalry and guns
reconnoitered Jhansi, and on the 21st the whole force set out and halted
before that place. Jhansi, the reader will remember, was the scene of
one of the bloodiest tragedies in India, the scene of a foul massacre,
accomplished by treachery, and only exceeded in magnitude by that at
Cawnpore. The brave but vicious Ranee was, like the Begum of Oude,
determined to hold her own. Since she had been in full possession she had
repaired the strong walls surrounding the city, mounted guns upon them
and on the flanking bastions, cleared out the ditches, erected outworks
well devised and well built, and even when the British encamped before her
stronghold, her willing subjects were still hard at work throwing up fresh
defences. She had been aided by Tantia Topee, a retainer of Nana Sahib.
This remarkable man had served in the Bengal Artillery. He was a weaver
by trade--hence his name, which means the "weaver artilleryman." After
leaving the British service he entered that of Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and
when the latter struck for empire, the talents of his artilleryman soon
came into play. Tantia Topee had the brain of a soldier without the heart.
He could plan, and scheme, and raise armies, and direct their movements,
but he could not lead them. An avowed coward, the natives regarded his
cowardice as an infirmity, and were willing to accept his services without
demanding from him qualities he did not possess. As Sir Hugh Rose appeared
before Jhansi, Tantia Topee rode off to Calpee, there to organise a
relieving army around the wreck of the famous Gwalior Contingent.

The British troops encamped on a plain without shelter of any kind, for,
with great judgment, the Ranee had caused the trees to be destroyed. As
soon as he encamped, Sir Hugh Rose surveyed the place thoroughly, riding
all day in the burning sun and seeing everything for himself. Thus he was
enabled to direct the investment of Jhansi with his cavalry, a work that
was completed on the 22nd. That night the first battery was constructed,
about 300 yards from the town wall. It was done silently and effectually.
But daylight disclosed the work and the enemy began to pound it, soon
getting the range, and to raise a counter-battery intended to enfilade
it. By the 24th four batteries were constructed and in action. Their shot
silenced several guns and demolished the works of the enemy and their
shells set fire to the town; while the infantry, spread out in front,
skirmished with the Sepoys in the cottages and enclosures. The force was
now strengthened by the arrival of the 1st Brigade from Chandaree, and Sir
Hugh immediately extended his front of attack and established batteries
on his left. For the next five days the bombardment continued. The enemy
fought his guns admirably, and showed great determination. Our troops grew
excited with the work. They were eager to storm and sack a city infamous
for the murder of so many of their countrymen and countrywomen, and they
laboured in the summer heat with a cheerfulness and constancy that must
have made glad the heart of Sir Hugh Rose.

[Illustration: SIR HUGH ROSE (AFTERWARDS LORD STRATHNAIRN).

(_From a Photograph by A. Bassano._)]

On the 31st a new danger, not wholly unforeseen, appeared. Sir Hugh,
anticipating a movement of the rebel army at Calpee, had established a
telegraph on the hills to the east, worked with flags. On the 31st the
flags waved saying, "Here come the enemy in great force from the north."
Sir Hugh was not at all disconcerted. He had expected that an effort
would be made to relieve the place and had meditated on the best mode
of thwarting it. As soon as he heard, therefore, that Tantia Topee had
brought 20,000 men from Calpee, and placed them on his right flank, close
to the city, he knew what to do. It was evening when the news came.
Knowing where the enemy was, the general prepared a surprise for them. He
determined to fight the enemy and continue the siege--one of the hardiest
resolutions ever taken by any general, especially when we consider the
fact that he had only 1,200 men available for battle. As soon as it was
dark he caused his 1st Brigade to strike tents, and then he marched them
silently into a position on the left flank of the foe. Then he reinforced
it by two 24-pounders, so placed that they swept the road to the city. The
enemy were the more elated because they saw but few tents in our camp,
and they halted at dusk close on the front of the 2nd Brigade and made
merry. But morning showed them another sight. At daylight we opened on
them with artillery, cutting up their left flank. The unexpected fire of
the 1st Brigade guns soon shook them; and, swiftly discerning symptoms of
unsteadiness, our cavalry went in with a crash, Rose leading one body,
Prettyjohn another. The flank was rolled up in a moment, and the infantry
following the cavalry, the enemy was driven back with great slaughter.
Then the infantry, moving across the battle field, fell upon the opposite
flank, cut the rebels off from the city and followed them up with vigour.
Tantia Topee had prepared a second line, but Rose left him no time to use
it. Bursting in on both flanks, our troops forced the enemy to retreat
upon the Betwa, and pursued so sharply that they drove the rebels over the
river with the loss of every gun brought into the field. Thus did 1,200
men, of whom only 500 were Europeans, defeat 20,000, while their comrades
carried on the siege with unrelenting vigour. This battle was fought
on the 1st of April; on the 3rd it was resolved that Jhansi should be
taken by storm. From the right batteries the walls were to be carried by
escalade; on the left the stormers were to sweep in through a breach; the
signal was to be the opening of guns on the west face, as though an attack
were to be made there.

The moon shone brightly as the columns marched out of their camps to
the appointed places. The Sappers, the 3rd Europeans, and the Hyderabad
Infantry were to scale the walls; the 86th Foot and the 25th Native
Infantry were to go in at the breach. The signal was given and the men
emerged from cover into the broad moonlight. The enemy were on the alert
and met the columns with a storm of shot. "We had upwards of 200 yards
to march through this fiendish fire," writes Mr. Lowe, who, as medical
officer to the Sappers, accompanied the right column, "and we did it.
The Sappers planted the ladders against the wall in three places for
the stormers to ascend; but the fire of the enemy waxed stronger, and
amid the chaos of sounds, of volleys of musketry, and roaring of cannon,
and hissing and bursting of rockets, stink-pots, infernal machines,
huge stones, blocks of wood, and trees, all hurled upon their devoted
heads--the men wavered for a moment, and sheltered themselves behind
stones. But the ladders were there, and there the Sappers, animated by the
heroism of their officers, keeping firm hold until a wound or death struck
them down beneath the walls. At this instant, on our right, three of the
ladders broke under the weight of men, and a bugle sounded on our right
also for the Europeans to retire. A brief pause, and again the stormers
rushed to the ladders, led on by the engineer officers," and carried the
position.

As soon as they were in, they heard the shouts of the left column, who
had broken in at the breach and came rushing along the ramparts. The
two columns joined and dashed into the town. No quarter was given. The
city and its people were held to be accursed. There were fights in every
street, almost in every house; and in the palace and stables, battle and
slaughter and conflagration. The Ranee, who had fled into the fort, kept
up a fire on the palace. The Sepoys and rebels were surrounded in the town
and out of it and very few escaped who stayed to bear the shock of fight.
This went on all the 3rd and 4th, and on the 5th Lieutenant Baigrie, of
the 3rd Europeans, found the fort had been abandoned. Our loss in this
storm of Jhansi was 300 killed and wounded.

The weather was now so hot, and the force so exhausted, that Sir Hugh
found himself obliged to give the troops some rest, and also to replenish
his stores. He halted three weeks, and then, after leaving a garrison in
the place, resumed active operations. The 1st Brigade marched for Calpee
on the 25th; the 2nd a few days afterwards. The sufferings of the troops
on the march were dreadful, chiefly from want of water--a want that the
transport animals, even the camels, felt keenly. On the 5th of May the
two brigades, reinforced by the 71st Highlanders, united. The enemy made
a stand at Koonch and was routed, with the loss of eight guns. The battle
of Koonch would have been more disastrous for the enemy had not Brigadier
Stuart held back his brigade. The sun killed more on our side than the
enemy and Sir Hugh Rose himself was prostrated three times with the heat.

The enemy, weakened and disheartened, drew up at Calpee. Here were the
Ranee of Jhansi, the Nawab of Banda--driven off by Whitlock's column,
which had slowly and without adventure worked its way as far as Banda--and
Tantia Topee. Here they drew up among the tombs and ravines on the south
side of Calpee. But Sir Hugh Rose swept round to the east, and encamping
on the Jumna, entered into communication with Colonel Maxwell, who held
his brigade on the opposite bank of the river. It was now the 15th of May.
The strong front of the enemy's position had been turned, but he found in
the ravines that ran between Sir Hugh's camp and Calpee endless facilities
for attack; and every day until the 22nd the enemy made repeated attacks.
On the 20th Maxwell sent over a few troops, and on the 21st his artillery
shelled the town. On the 22nd the enemy came out in great force, and
attacked Sir Hugh in position at Gowlowlee. This combat was, perhaps, the
sharpest in which Sir Hugh had been engaged. The enemy, in thousands, not
only attacked the front with great resolution, but repeatedly tried to
turn the left flank. Several times his infantry charged up to the guns.
For some time, so numerous were the assailants, it was with the greatest
difficulty that our soldiers held their ground; and had not the right
been promptly reinforced it must have been overpowered. But Sir Hugh
Rose, at the right moment, assaulted the enemy's right with a vigour that
was irresistible; and then, advancing the whole line, drove the enemy in
disorder from the field. He retired to Calpee; but on the 23rd of May he
was driven out without much trouble, pursued by the cavalry, and relieved
of all his guns.

Such seemed to be the natural termination of this astonishing campaign
in the hot season. The troops had traversed Central India from Indore to
Calpee, had been four months in the sun, and were literally exhausted. But
now came startling news. Gwalior was in the hands of the rebels, and the
Maharajah Scindia a fugitive at Agra. Defeated at Gowlowlee, driven out of
Calpee, Tantia Topee and his shattered troops hurried off towards Gwalior.
It was a bold stroke, worthy of the subtle brain of the ablest leader of
the Hindoos. Scindia had not befriended the rebel cause: nay, he and his
sagacious Minister, Dinkur Rao, had helped the Europeans in every way; yet
the Gwalior people were hostile to the British. Why not, then, dethrone
Scindia and, seizing Gwalior, hoist the Mahratta flag in the capital
of that great Mahratta State? Tantia Topee was equal to the emergency.
Preceding the army by forced marches, he secretly entered Gwalior and
began to intrigue with the leaders of the disaffected. The fruits were
soon seen. Hearing of the approach of the rebel force, Scindia marched
out to attack them on the 30th of May. But when the combat began, half
his army threw down their arms and fled. The Maharajah's body-guard of
horse alone fought, charging the enemy repeatedly, and only retiring when
two-thirds were slain. Then the faithful remnant hurried their chief out
of the field. They took the direction of Agra, and falling in with a troop
of British horse, Scindia entered Agra a fugitive on the 3rd of June.
Tantia Topee entered Gwalior in triumph and proclaimed Nana Sahib Peishwa
of the Mahrattas. It was the news of this that brought Sir Hugh Rose from
his sick bed and set his weary brigades in motion once more. They marched
at once, one from Calpee, the other from Jaloun, to unite at Indoorkee.

A great movement of concentration on Gwalior was in progress. A body
of Europeans marched out of Agra. Orders were sent to Brigadier Smith
operating in the heart of Scindia's country, to hasten on to Gwalior from
Goona. It was needful that a severe blow should be struck, and struck
at once, lest Tantia Topee should succeed in raising the whole country
south of the Jumna, and in spreading the contagion to the Deccan, where
the Nizam's Minister, Salar Jung, another able Hindoo, held down the
disaffected with difficulty; therefore the troops marched with rapidity
under the scorching sun. Sir Hugh pushed up close to Gwalior, and then
waited for Scindia, whose presence with the army gave it a moral weight
and, it was hoped, would save the city from plunder. On the 17th Brigadier
Smith, issuing from the Pass of Antree, south of the town, found himself
in front of the rebel army. It was led by the Ranee of Jhansi, who, it is
said, was dressed like a man and who fought like one. Brigadier Smith,
after surveying the enemy's position, drove off their cavalry by a charge
of the 8th Hussars, who had to ford a ravine full of water before they
could get at the enemy. Then the infantry went in and, fighting and
marching all day, expelled the enemy from his position and drove him back
upon Gwalior. Smith encamped within range of the enemy's guns, and they
pounded him at intervals, although the troops were not allowed to light
fires. The next day Sir Hugh Rose arrived and the two columns, united,
assailed the enemy with such fury, on the 19th, that, after a sharp combat
of five hours, they drove him away. Tantia Topee fled to the west pursued
by the British cavalry. The Ranee of Jhansi, mortally wounded on the 17th,
was carried from the field, and Rose wrote, "the best _man_ upon the side
of the enemy was the _woman_ found dead." All night the fort fired guns at
intervals; but in the morning, when the troops entered, it was found that
this was the work of eleven fanatics, only two of whom knew how to load
and fire a gun.

As soon as Gwalior fell, the Agra brigade came up, and Scindia was
ceremoniously restored to his throne by Sir Hugh Rose. Thus, within the
space of three weeks, the Mahratta prince had been worsted in battle and
driven from his capital by men of his own race and religion; and they in
turn had been routed from the field and he had been restored by the white
men from the Western world. A great danger had been met with energy and
overcome. The lesson was not lost on the native princes far and near. It
made our hold on the neighbouring Doab more secure, and it relieved the
mind of Sir Colin Campbell of any apprehension he might have felt touching
an irruption on his flank and rear from the south of the Jumna. On the
28th of June Sir Hugh Rose, having done his work and being really ill,
resigned his command and started for Bombay.

The reader will be naturally solicitous to know how Brigadier Smith came
to be at Goona and thus in a position to aid Rose in the vital operation
of recovering Gwalior. The brigadier's column had come from the west. Lord
Elphinstone's first care had been to recover Indore and reassure Holkar.
This was effected by the troops Rose had collected at Mhow and Indore
and by Stuart's campaign at Malwa. Lord Elphinstone's next care was to
assemble troops in Western Rajpootana, in order to recover that country,
keep the enemy out of Gujerat and, by a forward movement to the east,
defeat the mutineers and rebellious chieftains between the Sinde river
and the Chumbul. As reinforcements arrived from England, they were sent
into Rajpootana. Camps were formed in the winter of 1857-8, and when Rose
moved from Saugor, General Roberts, who commanded in Rajpootana, marched
upon Kotah. On the 30th of March, the day he attacked the place, he was
joined by 1,500 horsemen, who had marched from Cutch. Having dispersed
these rebels, the division under Roberts broke up and engaged in diverse
harassing expeditions during the whole of the year. Part of the force
(Smith's brigade) marched over the Chumbul into the Gwalior country. When
Sir Hugh Rose had captured Jhansi, the rebels, pressed from the west by
Roberts, assembled in detached bodies in Rose's rear, and Smith's brigade
was occupied in marching and fighting and dispersing the enemy. It was
thus that, in June, he was at Goona and was called up to drive Tantia
Topee out of Gwalior city.

After that defeat the rebel chief hurried westward, was defeated again,
with the loss of his remaining guns, and pursued by Sir Robert Napier,
who succeeded Rose in command of the Central India Field Force. But
although the weaver-artilleryman attracted towards himself a host
of enemies--Napier from Gwalior, Showers from Agra, Roberts from
Nusseerabad--he managed to slip through their hands; to raise fresh
armies as often as his soldiery were surprised and broken; to steal
artillery from native rajahs; to fight and fly, and fly and fight, and to
keep all the troops between the Jumna and Nerbudda constantly employed
for six months. His great object was to reach the Deccan or Candeish;
and to accomplish this he made incredible efforts. But the story of his
wanderings and adventures belongs to a later stage in the revolt.

While Campbell had been capturing Lucknow and Bareilly, and Rose had
marched and fought from Indore to Gwalior, by way of Calpee, the great
force that held down the North-West and made the Punjab a tower of
strength had not ceased to exert itself for the weal of the empire.
Mr. Montgomery had issued an order in the very midst of our troubles,
declaring that the system of caste could no longer be permitted to
rule in our service; that soldiers and Government servants should be
entertained irrespective of class, caste, or creed, and inviting native
Christians to seek our service, promising to appoint those who were
properly qualified. This was a great step; not taken before it was needed.
Moreover, the Punjab Government determined that all loyal natives who had
suffered in consequence of the acts of mutineers should be compensated
by contributions levied in the offending districts--thus rewarding the
faithful at the expense of the malcontents. Sir John Lawrence in the
summer of 1858 was able to organise a plan for relieving himself of
the huge army of disarmed Sepoys. He separated the faithful from the
faithless. He sent off all the latter to their homes, passing them on in
small batches of twenty a day, under escort, until they reached their
native States, and then turned them adrift. Only two regiments, those at
Mooltan, resisted and they met with terrible punishment. Three regiments
and one wing of a fourth were re-armed. Another body, faithful men from
several regiments, was formed into a new regiment, to be known in future
as the _Wuffadar Pultun_, or faithful regiment; while the 21st, which had
been armed all along, which had resisted every appeal from its fellows,
and the Khelat-i-Ghilzies, were all that remained untouched in any way
of the 41,000 Bengal Sepoys who in May, 1857, were in the Punjab and the
Upper Doab.

During the spring of 1858 the King of Delhi had been tried, convicted,
and sentenced to banishment. It was clearly proved that he was guilty of
rebellion and murder. The rebellion was patent: he had proclaimed himself
Emperor of India. The murders were proved: it was shown that he gave
express permission for the massacre of the forty-nine women and children
whom he had in confinement, and that one of his sons took an active part
in the foul work. The old man was fairly tried; had not Hodson, with the
sanction of General Wilson, promised him life, he would have been hanged.
As it was, he was banished to Burmah. Thus Mohamed Bahadoor Shah, the last
of the Moguls, terminated the dynasty of Timour; and in the words of the
Advocate-General, he was degraded by his crimes to a felon, and the long
glories of a dynasty were effaced in a day.

[Illustration: PROCLAMATION OF THE QUEEN AS SOVEREIGN OF INDIA. (_See p._
279.)]

Before the trial of the king had come to an end, the rebel Nawab of
Jhujhur and the rebel Rajah of Bulubgurh had been hanged; both having been
proved to be accomplices of the king and participators in the rebellion.
At the same time the Maharajah of Puttiala, the Rajahs of Jheend, Nabha,
and Kuppoorthulla--all of whom had given unhesitating aid in men, money,
and provisions, and who had taken the field in person--were amply rewarded
by an increase of dignity and territory. Besides these several minor
chiefs in the same district also received acknowledgments for their
services. Thus, justice and political equity and expediency were alike
satisfied. We showed those chiefs that in trusting to us they trusted not
only to the strong, but to the just. By able and judicious measures Sir
John Lawrence rapidly organised the territories over which he exercised
unquestioned sway, and turned all the strength at his disposal to the
promotion of the Imperial cause.

In another quarter the work to be done was of a different kind. The
presence of such large masses of rebels in Oude led to great disturbance
on the eastern frontier of that country. The marches and battles of
Franks, and the progress of Jung Bahadoor had not crushed opposition,
nor had the capture of Lucknow reduced Oude. It was in this extensive
district that Colonel Rowcroft, with a small force of European and Ghoorka
infantry, and Sotheby's Naval Brigade, chiefly sailors of the _Pearl_,
and a mere handful of Bengal yeomanry cavalry, made head against an enemy
who outnumbered them ten to one. It was to their exertions, aided by
detachments from Dinapore, that Sarun was saved from invasion, and that
the rebels could gain no footing in Azimghur and Goruckpore. Sometimes
acting together; sometimes working in detachments; now repelling with
heavy loss an attack; now beating up the enemy's quarters and shattering
his masses, this energetic and much-enduring force did most admirable
service. Throughout the year, and with unvarying fortune, our soldiers and
sailors continued the combat, shielding the eastern provinces of Bengal,
north of the Ganges.

During the hot months, also, Sir Hope Grant, justly styled indefatigable,
had moved about Oude with a flying column, to prevent the enemy from
establishing himself too strongly at any point. In June Sir Hope returned
to Lucknow from one of these expeditions. He had received information
that the Begum had collected an army at Nawabgunge Bara Bankee, the place
selected for a rendezvous by the Oude regiments at the outbreak of the
mutiny, and whence they advanced upon Chinhut and finally to Lucknow. Now
Sir Hope Grant determined to attack them. He had with him about 4,000 men
and eighteen guns. The enemy mustered 20,000 men and an unknown quantity
of guns. They were routed from the field with a loss of 600 killed. One
advantage of this action was seen in the great moral effect that it
produced in the country north of the Goomtee.

The cause of the Oude rebels had grown desperate. They had lost their
ablest leader, the famous Moulvie, who fell in a fight before a mean mud
fort; and now, their largest force beaten at Nawabgunge, they began to
see that they had little, indeed no, hope of winning the game. Yet, with
a good deal of fortitude, the Oude chiefs held out, and there was yet to
be a cold weather campaign before the conquest of Oude was complete. Hope
Grant marched from his camp at Nawabgunge in July to Fyzabad, and drove
off a body of the enemy who were besieging Maun Singh, the most powerful
talookdar in those parts, and who now unhesitatingly rallied to our
side. From Fyzabad he detached Brigadier Horsford, an excellent soldier,
to Sultanpore, where he defeated the enemy; and, being reinforced by
Grant himself, drove him from all his works and secured that part of the
country. Thus the summer campaign ended. There were only two Oude armies
of any strength at large. The Begum was on the north-east of the Gogra,
between that river and the Raptee; and Bainie Madho, of Amethie, held Roy
Bareilly and the country around south of the Goomtee, and between that
river and the Sye. The Begum had an open line of retreat to the hills.
Bainie Madho was supposed to be surrounded by our posts. When these two
were defeated, Oude would be again in our possession.

Britain had not forgotten India. In 1857 she sent out thousands of
troops, as in duty bound, to suppress the mutiny, and her patriot sons
and daughters subscribed tens of thousands of pounds to relieve the
sufferings of those who had fallen a prey to the merciless Sepoys. For
the dead nothing could be done; for the living much--and much was done.
Britain had been filled with horror, and her horror was succeeded by a
rage that, for a time, overpowered every other feeling. In 1858 she sent
more troops--nearly 30,000; but she did more. Her Legislature effected
a grand reform in the Government of India, and a measure undertaken by
Lord Palmerston was carried out, with great improvements, by Lord Derby.
An Act was passed that abolished the rule of the East India Company and
transferred the government of India to the Crown. Thenceforth, instead
of a Board of Directors and a Board of Control, there were to be a
Council of India, and a responsible Minister--a Secretary of State for
India--through whom and by whom all business was to be transacted. The
Company, which had endured so long and had been so mighty, ceased to have
any political power and continued to exist solely because its machinery
was required to look after certain pecuniary interests and distribute
dividends upon East India Stock. As a matter of course the local European
army was afterwards absorbed into and amalgamated with the Queen's army
and the civil and military servants in India became servants of the
Crown. This was an immense change, not only in name, but in principle;
for thus India became virtually a part of Britain, and directly under the
control of British Governments. On the passing of the Act a proclamation
by the Queen in Council was addressed to the princes, chiefs and people
of India, and sent to Lord Canning, who was appointed "first Viceroy
and Governor-General," to administer the Government in the name and on
behalf of Queen Victoria. This proclamation was received in the autumn
of 1858, when Oude alone remained to be reconquered; and when Colin
Campbell, then just raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Clyde, was
preparing to overthrow the rebel hosts of the Begum and Nana Sahib. It
was determined that before he marched into Oude the Queen's proclamation
should be published; and Lord Clyde, all being in readiness on his part
for action, went to Allahabad, at the end of October, to be present when
the Governor-General solemnly published the proclamation. This was done
on the 1st of November. A platform was erected near the fort. Lord Clyde
and General Mansfield accompanied Lord Canning to this appointed spot, and
there the first Viceroy read the document that created a revolution in the
fundamental principles of Indian government. The ceremony, we are told,
was tame and spiritless; but the fact behind it was one of the most solid
and substantial in India. The pith of the proclamation was the transfer
of power--the extinction of the Company Bahadoor. But it also went on to
describe the spirit in which the Queen, through her Viceroy, would rule in
the land.

"We hereby announce," said the Queen, "to the native princes of India,
that all treaties and engagements made with them by or under the authority
of the Honourable East India Company are by us accepted, and will be
scrupulously maintained; and we look for the like observance on their part.

"We desire no extension of our present territorial possessions; and
while we will permit no aggression upon our dominions or our rights to
be attempted with impunity, we shall sanction no encroachment on those
of others. We shall respect the rights, dignity, and honour of native
princes as our own, and we desire that they as well as our own subjects
should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be
secured by internal peace and good government....

"Firmly relying ourselves on the truth of Christianity, and acknowledging
with gratitude the solace of religion, we disclaim alike the right and the
desire to impose our convictions on any of our subjects. We declare it to
be our royal will and pleasure that none be in any wise favoured, none be
molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances;
but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of
the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in
authority under us, that they abstain from all interference with the
religious belief or worship of any of our subjects, on pain of our highest
displeasure....

"Already in our province, with a view to stop the further effusion of
blood, and to hasten the pacification of our Indian dominions, our Viceroy
and Governor-General has held out the expectation of pardon on certain
terms to the great majority of those who in the late unhappy disturbances
have been guilty of offences against our Government, and has declared the
punishment which will be inflicted on those whose crimes place them beyond
the reach of forgiveness.

"We approve and confirm the said act of our Viceroy and Governor-General,
and do further announce and proclaim as follows:--

"Our clemency will be extended to all offenders, save and except those who
have been, or shall be, convicted of having directly taken part in the
murder of British subjects. With regard to such the demands of justice
forbid the exercise of mercy.

"To those who have willingly given asylum to murderers, knowing them
to be such, or who may have acted as leaders or instigators in revolt,
their lives alone can be guaranteed; but, in apportioning the penalty due
to such persons, full consideration will be given to the circumstances
under which they have been induced to throw off their allegiance, and
large indulgence will be shown to those whose crimes may appear to have
originated in too credulous acceptance of the false reports circulated by
designing men.

"To all others in arms against the Government we hereby promise
unconditional pardon, amnesty, and oblivion of all offence against
ourselves, our crown and dignity, on their return to their homes and
peaceful pursuits. It is our royal pleasure that these terms of grace and
amnesty should be extended to all those who comply with their conditions
before the first day of January next.

"When by the blessing of Providence internal tranquillity shall be
restored, it is our earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful industry
of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to
administer its government for the benefit of all our subjects resident
therein. In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment
our security, and in their gratitude our best reward. And may the God of
all power grant to us and to those in authority under us strength to carry
out these our wishes for the good of our people." The last sentence was,
says Sir Theodore Martin, added by the Queen's own hand.

Such are the principles upon which the future government of India was
to rest. Armed with this proclamation, and one issued in his own name,
in which he promised protection to all who submitted, Lord Clyde, that
same night, crossed the Ganges and entered Oude to enforce the law and
reduce the last remaining rebels to obedience. We have already stated
that one great body of rebels, led by Bainie Mahdo, held the forts and
jungles between the Goomtee and the Ganges. It was against him that the
Commander-in-Chief directed his first efforts. His own camp was near
Pertabgurh on the Sye, and his troops formed the main central column.
On the right was Sir Hope Grant, near Sultanpore; on the left Colonel
Wetherall, near the Ganges. These columns were to sweep the country before
them, and concentrate on Amethie, a strong mud fort held by the rajah of
that ilk, and garrisoned by 20,000 men of all sorts with thirty guns. The
rajah, after much shuffling, surrendered.

Dismantling the fort, Lord Clyde despatched three columns in pursuit of
the fugitives; and conjecturing rightly that they would in the main make
for Shunkerpore, the stronghold of Bainie Madho, the columns marched
towards that place, halting at Oodeypore. But Bainie Madho had fled.
From Shunkerpore Lord Clyde continued the pursuit of the enemy; but, as
intelligence of the whereabouts of Bainie Madho was contradictory, he
halted a few hours near Roy Bareilly in order to obtain exact information.
It did not come, but some information came which warranted a move, and the
army defiled through Roy Bareilly and went up the Sye. Colonel Evelegh,
commanding a light column, was ordered to follow and not lose sight of
Bainie Madho, while the army crossed the Sye above Roy Bareilly. Then in
came a courier from Evelegh, with certain news that he had tracked the
foe to Dhondiakera, on the Ganges. Lord Clyde immediately marched on the
fort. A bridge was thrown over the Ganges below the rebel position, from
the opposite bank, and a force crossed over, while cavalry and guns from
Cawnpore patrolled the Doab shore. It was supposed that Bainie Madho had
about 8,000 Oude Sepoys and many thousands of irregular levies; and the
British brought up 6,000 men. For a brief space there was brisk exchange
of musketry, then the enemy opened with cannon, and our guns were ordered
up to the front, just as our line pushed on. From that time the British
advance was continuous, Lord Clyde still leading the eager skirmishers.
After a brief but heavy cannonade, our "advance became a run. The men
cheering, broke out into a double, at last into a regular race, Lord Clyde
himself leading them on." The ridge was crowned just in time to see the
enemy in full flight up and down the banks of the Ganges. In a moment the
cavalry and horse artillery and some of the foot went off in pursuit,
while another body, with two guns, opened upon a host of fugitives who
were trying to escape across the Ganges. But the rebel chief escaped with
his treasure, and lost only some hundreds killed and his stronghold.
Nevertheless the blow was in one sense effective. The rebel force was
broken up; its leaders were convinced that there was no safe place for
them south of the Goomtee, and they fled even beyond the Gogra.

Lord Clyde, directing his army from Lucknow, encamped there a short
time. More talookdars surrendered. Practically, Southern Oude was free
from organised revolt, and it now only remained to deal with the Begum,
reinforced by Bainie Madho, and with Nana Sahib, all of whom had been
driven to seek refuge in Beyratch, with their backs to a pestiferous belt
of forest land, called the Terai, that skirts the foot of the Himalayas.
The British forces were now widely distributed in posts all over the
country, and when in December Lord Clyde heard that the rebels were
assembling on the Gogra, not far from Nawabgunge, he had to collect a
column wherewith to attack them. He marched north from Lucknow on the 4th
of December. On the 6th he heard that the enemy were in force at Beyram
Ghat on the Gogra. Directing the infantry to follow, he made a forced
march with the cavalry and four guns, hoping to surprise the enemy and
drive them into the river before they could destroy their boats. But,
although he rode at speed all the way, he reached the river only to find
that the enemy had just fled.

[Illustration: GWALIOR, FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]

The army was next marched to Fyzabad, and thence it crossed the Gogra into
Beyratch. Maun Singh and his brother accompanied the force. Halting for
some days in the town of Beyratch to receive and answer letters from the
rebel leaders, some of whom were willing to come in on terms, Lord Clyde
would not listen to anything but unconditional surrender, and finding it
impossible to effect an arrangement, the army marched on Nanparah. A few
miles beyond, the troops came up with a body of the enemy in the jungle,
but the latter would not stand an attack. They fled in all directions
before the cavalry and the guns. Here it was that Lord Clyde met with a
severe accident. Galloping over the fields, his horse put one foot in a
hole, and coming down threw the Commander-in-Chief with such force that
his right shoulder was dislocated. This was soon remedied by the surgeons,
but Lord Clyde was much shaken and obliged to follow the troops in a
litter.

The operations were now rapidly coming to an end. On the 27th of December,
hearing that a body of the enemy had collected in the fort of Mejidiah,
Lord Clyde marched upon them, drove them out with his guns and then went
in and took their artillery. It was a very strong place and its easy
capture showed that the enemy had lost confidence. On the 30th Lord Clyde
was informed that Nana Sahib and Bainie Madho were at Bankee, twenty miles
north of Nanparah. He determined to march all night, and if possible,
surprise them. This was the last action of the war on this side and
resulted in a complete defeat of the enemy, who made hardly any stand.
Nana Sahib, unhappily, got away. He was in a wood, two miles in rear of
the position, when the guns opened. He gave orders for flight at once, and
with elephants, bearing himself and his treasure, dashed over the Raptee
into the Terai and Nepaul. Sir Hope Grant had followed his brother, Bala
Rao, into the jungle beyond Toolsepore, and had dispersed his soldiery,
taking fifteen guns. "Thus," says Lord Clyde, in his official report, "the
contest in Oude has been brought to an end, and the resistance of 150,000
armed men subdued with a very moderate loss to her Majesty's troops, and a
most merciful forbearance towards the misguided enemy." One after another
the chiefs surrendered, and Major Barrow held his court to receive these
rebels, who acknowledged that they had lost the game. The rebels, with
the Nana and the Begum, were held fast in the Terai, where they perished
one by one. The Nana and the Begum never reappeared. They may have found
shelter in Nepaul or Tibet, but the probability is that they were eaten
by wild beasts. All the other leaders, except Feroze Shah, of Delhi,
were either captured, killed in action, or surrendering, were punished
according to the nature of their crimes. Oude was disarmed, the forts of
the talookdars were demolished; Lucknow was fortified, and the province
was permanently occupied. Mr. Montgomery, and after him Mr. Wingfield,
were left to reorganise the government. Lord Clyde went to Simla to
restore his health, and Lord Canning returned to Calcutta to undertake the
gigantic task of reorganising the whole Government of India on the new
basis of Imperial rule, and as a fundamental step was obliged to take in
hand the finances, which the mutiny had so greatly disordered. After the
end of January, 1859, there were combats and skirmishes here and there
with bodies of turbulent men, the dregs of the native armies raised by the
rebellious chiefs; but they only measured the regular subsidence of the
great tempest which had swept over the land. With one exception, we have
now followed the track of every rebel leader to its close. That exception
is the career of Tantia Topee, who, with Kour Singh, was the only able man
thrown to the surface by these great events. His romantic course is worth
sketching, at least in outline.

Driven from Gwalior, Tantia rode off to the westward. Pursued and stricken
by Robert Napier, turned aside by the appearance of Brigadier Showers with
the Agra troops at Futtehpore Sikri, he made with all speed for Jeypore,
seizing camels, horses, elephants, carts, provisions, as he went. His
object was to seize some large town and plunder it, taking arms and cannon
and coin, and getting together as large a mass of mounted men as he could.
The native ruler of Jeypore was on our side and there was, therefore,
a double motive for saving him. Accordingly, General Roberts, as soon
as he learned that Tantia was marching on Jeypore, broke up his camp at
Nusseerabad and, by rapid forced marches, interposed just in time between
the rebel and his prey. Frustrated in his move upon Jeypore, Tantia
turned abruptly southward and rode straight for Tonk, a town and native
principality on one of the affluents of the Chumbul. Roberts now followed
and other columns closed from different quarters towards the rebel line
of march. Tantia was first at Tonk. The rajah shut himself up in his fort
and kept the enemy at bay, but he plundered the town and carried off
four guns. Colonel Holmes now took up the chase, but was soon stopped by
want of carriage. Then Roberts went on and by long marches overtook the
enemy, forced him to an action and routed him. The light-heeled rebels
rushed away towards Oodeypore. Roberts followed and overtook them again,
this time getting well among them with his horsemen, cutting them up and
retaking the Tonk guns. The enemy scattered to avoid the pursuing cavalry,
and then crossing the Chumbul, and being reinforced by the desperadoes
of the country-side, laid siege to and took the important town of Julra
Patun. Here they levied very heavy contributions and obtained a large
number of guns. This was Tantia's greatest triumph. He had sacked Julra
Patun in the teeth of our troops.

But he dared not halt. Roberts was following. Smith's troops on the Agra
trunk road were approaching him. The Mhow force, under General Michell,
was preparing to strike. Tantia's object was now the Bhopal State; his
ultimate design being to cross the Nerbudda and the Taptee, and breaking
into the Deccan or Nagpore, raise a mighty insurrection and gather the
Rohillas to his flag. This was a great danger, and it was necessary to
strain every nerve to ward it off. Smith detached Robertson, of the
25th Bombay Native Infantry, and Michell moved up from Mhow. Robertson
overtook part of the rebel force at Bajapore, mostly Sepoys, many wearing
medals. He came upon them as they were cooking, drove them into and over
a river, and killed many hundreds. Michell had even better fortune, for
he routed the main body on the 13th of September, and took nearly thirty
guns, the spoil of Julra Patun. Thus, headed off from Bhopal, Tantia
hastened to Seronge, on the Betwa, and halted to refit and recruit. But
he dared not stay long. His spies told him that columns were afoot, east,
west, north, and south. So he broke up from Seronge a few hours before
Captain Mayne rode in with part of Smith's force, and going northwards,
attacked and captured Esaughur, a fortress belonging to Scindia. Smith
and Mayne followed him, making a march on Esaughur in concert with troops
from Jhansi and Gwalior. Again the rebel rapidly retreated, striking
in between the advancing troops, and making eastward for the Betwa. He
crossed this river on the 9th of October, intending to seize and plunder
the friendly native State of Tehree. Here he had the aid of an ally.
The Nawab of Banda came up the river on the left bank to oppose Michell
advancing from Seronge, while Tantia sacked Tehree. But on the very day
when Tantia crossed the Betwa, Michell met the nawab and, fighting him
at once with characteristic vigour, routed him with great loss. In the
meantime Tantia had formed a column on the road to Tehree; and when, on
the 11th, he was moving back to the Betwa, Michell, who had crossed that
river at Mungrowlee, fell in with Tantia at Sindwah and took four of his
guns.

Thus frustrated and defeated, this persevering partisan fled first towards
the north, but doubling back, stole away between his pursuers, and made
for the Nerbudda, by way of Ratghur. He had not effected this movement
without suffering one more defeat at the hands of the energetic and
tireless Michell. In spite of these defeats Tantia was now apparently
nearer than ever to the object of his endless manœuvres; for, at the end
of October, he actually crossed the upper waters of the Nerbudda, east
of Hoosingabad. He had but to pass one line of posts, and he would be in
Nagpore, or the Deccan. This was the one moment of great peril for us.
If Tantia, with even a broken force of 7,000 men, entered the Deccan,
he would in a week have been at the head of 100,000 men. The Government
was really alarmed; but as the danger was greater, so were the means
of parrying it greater, since Lord Elphinstone had pushed up a large
force of European and native cavalry to render the hunt after Tantia
more effective; while, from Kamptee, in Nagpore, to the Gulf of Cambay,
there was a great stir of troops, and a readiness to move at the shortest
notice to guard the passes, and fords, and great roads southwards. And
the measures adopted proved to be effective. Tantia found he could not
get farther than the hills of Sindwarra. Out of these he was forced by
Lieutenant Kerr. Flying by devious routes, he sought the Nerbudda again;
but, being headed, he turned westward, and traversed the hills between
the Taptee and Nerbudda at racing speed. It is assumed that his aim
was Candeish. Moving into Nimar, he actually prevailed on 1,000 men of
Holkar's Horse to desert and join him, and with this reinforcement rode
off to Burwanna, evading our troops. Finding it impossible to remain in
the valley of the Nerbudda, or to break into Candeish, he once more
crossed the great river and hurried into Malwa; not, however, before he
had been hit very hard by a new enemy--the Camel Corps; that is, infantry
mounted on camels. It was this force that drove Tantia over the river.
Brigadier Parke now came up. He formed a flying column, all horsemen,
except 100 Highlanders. With these he crossed the river, and marched 241
miles in nine days; he caught Tantia near Chota Oodeypore. Forced to
fight, the rebel chief showed his usual judgment in the selection of a
position on broken ground. Parke put his handful of Highlanders in the
centre, and placed horse on the flanks, and formed a reserve wholly of
cavalry. Then, although overlapped on both flanks, he charged in upon the
foe, drove him from his strong ground, and pursued him for miles. He fled
deeper into Malwa.

In the meantime Feroze Shah, who had been fighting in Oude, found a gap
in Lord Clyde's line, and crossing the Goomtee, he made his way over the
Ganges into the Doab. Here Brigadier Percy Herbert marched upon him, and,
wresting from him his only gun, drove him over the Jumna. Feroze Shah made
for the west. Robert Napier, hearing at Gwalior of the advent of this new
foe, took with him 300 men, horse and foot, and marching 140 miles in four
days, came up with the rebels at Runnode, smote them heavily and forced
them to turn towards Kotah. Met at various points, Feroze Shah wound in
and out and at length succeeded in crossing the Chumbul near Inderghur.
Tantia Topee, smarting under the rough punishment inflicted by Parke, now
sought to join the Delhi Shazadah. In spite of numerous defeats, he made
for the Chumbul again, crossed it, and joined Feroze Shah somewhere in the
Jeypore country. The whole of these operations were performed at racing
speed between the 20th and 30th of December. Brigadier Showers got wind of
their whereabouts, and marching ninety-four miles in three days, overtook
the two worthies on the 16th of January, 1859, and slew some of their
followers, but failed to catch chiefs who were so prone to fly at the
sound of the cannon. Thus reduced to extremities, Feroze Shah disappeared
and was never captured. Tantia Topee, making a fruitless effort to break
into Bikaneer, doubled back again to Central India and, his fightings and
flyings over, took to the jungle. Beset on all sides, having made many
enemies, he dared not venture abroad, and his very life now depended on
the fidelity of those who knew his secret. In April a native betrayed
him; he was captured in the jungle near Seronge, tried by court martial,
and hanged at Sepree, having furnished for ten months ample occupation to
all the troops in Central India. With the capture and execution of Tantia
Topee the war came to an end.

The struggle was over then, but now a new one arose. The stupendous
exertions required to suppress the mutiny had created great confusion.
Order, in another sense, had to be restored. The mutinous Sepoys, the
rebellious rajahs and their followers, had been exterminated or quelled.
Now it became of the last consequence to revive public confidence,
to bring back order and solidity to the finances of the country, to
re-establish the principles of government, and to reorganise the army.
This gigantic task Lord Canning, aided by the Home Government, had to
undertake and accomplish; a task not so exciting as that of suppressing
a mutiny backed by insurrection, but perhaps even more laborious and
exhausting, because more tedious.

A very few figures will serve to prove the magnitude of the financial
undertaking. Just before the mutiny the Indian Budget showed a small
surplus--contrary to the rule, which was that it should show a deficit.
But the mutiny, as a matter of course, rapidly restored, in an aggravated
form, the normal state of the finances. With a revenue of nearly
£32,000,000, the Budget of 1857-8 showed a deficit of nearly £9,000,000,
which in the next year rose at a bound to nearly £15,000,000, making
a total deficit in two years of £24,000,000. The revenue, by dint of
taxation, had actually increased during the first year of the mutiny; a
fact that testified to the wonderful elasticity of the resources of India.
The great deficit was provided for by loans, nearly one-half of which
were raised in India itself, showing that public confidence in British
power and good fortune had not been impaired, although the debt rose in
two years to £81,500,000, and in three to £95,000,000. The question for
Lord Canning and the Home Government to solve was, how to balance revenue
and expenditure. In order to effect this, Sir Charles Wood determined
to present India with a Chancellor of the Exchequer. In England, as all
know, the Chancellor who has to meet the expenditure has also to provide
the ways and means, and has, of course, considerable power and influence
in the Government which decides on the policy, and, as a consequence, the
expenses to be incurred. But in India the department that provided the
money had no connection with the department that spent it. There were
consequently carelessness, extravagance, and confused accounts. The first
remedy, then, was to send out Mr. James Wilson, the well-known economist,
a statesman familiar with our mode of keeping accounts, to take charge
of the Indian department, with power and authority sufficient to combat
and overcome the tendency to delay and obstruct but too common among
the servants of both the great branches of the Government. Mr. Wilson
went, restored order to the finances, and died in his duty; a great loss
to India and to England. In addition to the gain we looked for by the
adoption of a sound system worked out with vigilant superintendence, the
Indian Government was obliged to have recourse to extra taxation. These
labours began as soon as the insurrection was suppressed; and within
five years of the end of these great troubles not only had the revenue
increased, but the expenditure was appreciably diminished, and the
Government of India was even able to reduce taxation and secure a small
surplus.

The army presented difficulties as great as the finances. No sooner was
one mutiny at an end than Government was threatened with another. We
have already recorded the transfer of authority from the Company to the
Crown. Under that Act the army became, of course, the Queen's army. Here,
however, arose a serious difficulty. There were nearly 20,000 European
soldiers who had enlisted to serve, not the Queen, but the Company.
Technically, no doubt, they had all along been servants of the Queen,
whose agent the Company was. But soldiers do not understand these refined
distinctions; and when the men were simply told that they would in future
be Queen's soldiers, they first murmured and then mutinied. The act of
mutiny is always indefensible. In this case, however, it admits of some
excuse; for, as the men said, the Government had no right to transfer them
from one service to another, "like cattle." It was true: they had no moral
and only a barely legal right. If, instead of dealing with the soldiers
as if they were cattle, the Government had told them of the transfer,
and given them a small bounty, the men would have been pleased with the
consideration displayed; as it was, every one sympathised with the men who
were punished, and even the Queen's troops betrayed a strong inclination
to take their part, and gave unmistakable signs of their anger. And,
after all, the Government had to do with an ill grace what it should have
done at first with a good grace. And at great cost; for a bounty of £2
sterling per man would have amounted to only £40,000; whereas the course
adopted--that of giving every man the option of taking his discharge--cost
nearly a million; and many of the men, when brought home, re-enlisted.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF TANTIA TOPEE. (_See p._ 283.)]

This European mutiny had a very important political consequence. At
first, after the abolition of the Company, the Home Government seemed
disposed to increase rather than diminish, much less abolish, the army
raised for local service in India. Many were of opinion that we should
have a separate army for service in India, China, the Cape, Australia,
New Zealand, and the islands we hold in the Indian Ocean. The mutiny
of the Company's Europeans, mild though it was, turned the scale in
favour of abolishing them altogether. The consequence was an Act that
amalgamated the Company's European troops with the Queen's army, and thus
the European infantry became regiments of the line. In order to prevent
that abstraction of officers from their regiments to do staff duty, civil
as well as military, so common under the Company's _régime_, a Staff
Corps was organised, admission to which was obtained by undergoing an
examination. For a long time, of course, it was difficult to pronounce any
opinion on the working of these extensive changes, but on the whole it was
thought that they worked well.

The result of the mutiny was to bring about an enormous increase in the
number of European troops in India. The number of Europeans, including
officers of native regiments, was, before the mutiny, only 45,522; the
number of native troops was 249,153, giving a total of 294,675. But at
the end of 1859 there were in India no fewer than 110,320 Europeans--an
enormous drain upon our resources in men. There were of native troops
207,765, one-half of whom were new levies, enlisted during the fight. So
that of regular soldiers there were 318,085, and if we add to these the
Military Police, a thoroughly military body, there was a total of 407,914.

Here, then, was the field for reduction, and a fine rich field it was. By
dint of great resolution and an unsparing pen in 1864 there were 30,000
fewer European, and perhaps 100,000 fewer native troops. Still it was a
subject of serious reflection to statesmen that India should require and
receive from us 70,000 or 80,000 British soldiers to hold a land that we
once held with 50,000 at the outside. It was obvious that from this point
of view our Indian Empire weakened our force and diminished our weight in
Europe; and that so long as we felt it needful to keep 80,000 soldiers
in India, we could not again take that part in European questions which
we had taken up to that time. As to the native army, which, after all,
we could not do without, it was composed mainly of Sikhs and Punjabees,
and it was believed to be organised on sounder principles than the rotten
Bengal machine which exploded in 1857. But there were not wanting those
who anticipated a Sikh mutiny.

One other great change must not be forgotten. In 1858-9 Lord Canning
made a royal progress throughout the North-West, even into the farthest
Punjab. He held durbars, and rewarded the faithful native princes, some
with gifts of honour, some with fair speeches, others with more solid
gifts of territory. During this progress he hinted here and there at the
coming change of policy--the concession of the right of adoption to all
the princes of India. At a later period this momentous concession was made
in a formal shape. What did it mean? It meant the renunciation of the
policy of annexation, nothing more nor less, and it gave assurance that
the native States would in future be maintained as a part of our internal
policy. Lord Dalhousie had made annexation a system. He had annexed four
kingdoms and five territories. It is assumed that, had he remained to
carry out his policy, India would have been one homogeneous military
monarchy. This is doubtful; but it is not doubtful, it is certain,
that when he retired the whole fabric fell with a crash. The mutiny and
insurrection rooted up the fundamental principle of the Dalhousie system
of foreign policy. The native States allowed to survive broke the force
of the revolt. The Cis-Sutlej States enabled Sir John Lawrence to retake
Delhi. Bikaneer and Bhawlpore and Jeypore were stumbling-blocks in the way
of the enemy. The loyalty of Scindia, Holkar, and the Nizam saved Bombay
and Madras from the fate of the North-West. Rewah served to curb Kour
Singh. The minor rajahs and ranees, in many places, furnished material
support and aid. It is to Lord Canning's credit that he perceived not
only the changed position of affairs, but the mode in which that change
might tend to consolidate the supremacy of the Crown. A diplomatist of
less acumen would have guaranteed the States as independent powers. Lord
Canning took from them the last vestige of independence; called them
openly feudatory princes; compelled the proudest to retire backwards from
the chair of the Viceroy, and _then_ guaranteed their rights as barons
of the empire. The concession was accepted with delight. The concession
was the right to adopt an heir when they had no issue, a privilege that
secured the continuance of the State as an entity. Thus we have gone back
to the period before Lord Dalhousie ruled, or rather we have adopted, with
considerable emphasis, a new principle--that native States are desirable.
The working of this principle is the more easy in India because there
the princes have never claimed independence in the European sense. They
have always been taught to look up to a paramount power, and the British
Viceroy, far more effectually than the Great Mogul ever played that part,
is, indeed, a paramount lord.

[Illustration: THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.

"IT MIGHT BE DONE, AND ENGLAND SHOULD DO IT."

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS. BART., P.R.A., D.C.L., &C. IN
THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.]




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Termination of the Hudson's Bay Monopoly--British Columbia and
    Vancouver--Mr. Locke King's Bill for the Abolition of the Property
    Qualification--Evils of the old System--Cordial Reception of the
    Measure--Attempt to abolish Freedom of Arrest for Debt--Mr. Bright
    agitates for Reform--The Conservatives propose a Reform Bill--Mr.
    Disraeli's Speech--His New Franchises--Liberal Objections--Secession
    of Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley--Mr Henley's Explanation--Lord
    John Russell's Resolution--Seven Nights' Debate--Replies of Lord
    Stanley and Sir Hugh Cairns--Mr. Bright's Speech--Progress of the
    Debate--Speeches of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli--Defeat of the
    Government--Lord Derby announces a Dissolution--Prorogation of
    Parliament--The General Election--Parliament reassembles--Lord
    Hartington's Amendment--Defeat of the Government--Lord Malmesbury's
    Statement in his "Memoirs"--Union of the Liberal Party--Lord
    Granville's attempt to form a Ministry--Lord Palmerston becomes
    Premier--His Ministry--The Italian Question in Parliament--State of
    the Peninsula--Speeches of Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel--Ambiguous
    Attitude of Napoleon--Lord Malmesbury's Diplomacy--Lord Cowley's
    Mission--The Austrian Ultimatum--Malmesbury's Protest--"From the
    Alps to the Adriatic"--The Armies in Position--First Victories
    of the Allies--Magenta and Milan--Battle of Solferino--The
    Armistice--Treaty of Villafranca--Lord John Russell's Commentary.


The vast territory of the Hudson's Bay Company was converted into a
British colony in 1857. For nearly half a century the varied productions
of this territory had enriched that Company--fur and skins of various
kinds, fish, timber, all of excellent quality. Agriculture was discouraged
and the land was preserved as well as possible for the use of fur-bearing
animals, although the soil was in many places extremely rich; it was
watered by magnificent rivers, and abounded in minerals. Several attempts
had been made to open this region for the purposes of colonisation, and
thus to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, the whole intervening
country being the property of the British Crown. The monopoly of the
Hudson's Bay Company, however, effectually resisted those attempts until
its licence expired, contemporaneously with the discovery of gold in
1857. This discovery attracted an immense number of adventurers from
California and other parts of the United States, and from China, as well
as Great Britain, its dependencies, and the American colonies. The time
was therefore come when a regular government for the whole territory
should be provided, and in the Session of 1858 Sir E. Bulwer Lytton,
then Colonial Secretary in Lord Derby's Government, brought in a Bill
for the purpose. He stated that the Government intended the following
year to resume possession of Vancouver's Island, and to include it within
the new colony, which was first called "New Caledonia," but the name
was afterwards changed to British Columbia. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, at
the conclusion of his speech, remarked--"I do believe that the day will
come, and that many now present will live to see it, when a portion at
least of the lands on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, being also
brought into colonisation, and guarded by free institutions, one direct
line of railway communication will unite the Pacific with the Atlantic,"
a prophecy fulfilled by the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
In the Queen's Speech at the close of the Session her Majesty expressed
a hope that this new colony on the Pacific might be but one step in the
career of steady progress by which her dominions in North America might be
ultimately peopled, in an unbroken chain from the Atlantic to the Pacific,
by a loyal and industrious population of the subjects of the British
Crown. This hope was destined to be realised sooner than even sanguine
minds anticipated, by the rapid progress of colonisation and the creation
of the Dominion of Canada, stretching across the Continent from ocean to
ocean.

To turn to home affairs, Mr. Locke King honourably distinguished himself
by his persevering efforts to extend the franchise in counties; but he was
more successful in his endeavours to remove a great blot from the system
of parliamentary representation by abolishing the property qualification
of members. This was always regarded as a highly conservative feature of
the Constitution; and at the time the Reform Bill was passed it would
perhaps have been impossible to carry its abolition. It had, however, so
notoriously become a sham, and involved so much that was discreditable,
false, and immoral in the efforts to evade the law, that although the
Conservatives were now in power, the Bill of Mr. Locke King encountered
no serious opposition in either House. A member for a county was obliged
to swear that he had a clear estate in perpetuity worth £500, or for a
borough £300 a year. But it was well known that the oath was not true,
but merely conventional, and that the qualification was often created
by fictitious conveyances, which if obtained for any other purpose would
have been regarded as positively fraudulent. Adventurers and men of straw
entered the House without any difficulty when returned by English and
Irish constituencies; while in Scotland, where there was no property
qualification, men of standing and worth were almost invariably selected
as representatives. Besides, the existing system was rendered still
more obnoxious by the fact that the sons of peers were exempt from the
operation of the law, and could enter the House of Commons without any
property qualification. The law, therefore, was universally understood to
be an unreality, a sham, and a snare; while, as Lord Fortescue remarked
in the Upper House, it limited the freedom of choice among the electors,
and was an infringement of the rights of the people. Earl Grey, indeed,
considered the measure to be only one of a series put forward by a party
that desired to effect a total change in the representative system--a
change that would bring it closer to a democracy, which they hoped to
effect by degrees and in detail. But the Earl of Derby met this objection
fully: it did not follow that because the House of Commons passed this
measure, it would also pass those which Earl Grey deprecated--the £10
franchise in counties, for example. He did not believe the abolition of
the qualification would make any substantial difference in the condition
of the representation. The Bill passed without much further opposition.

[Illustration: LORD CANNING. (_After the Portrait by George Richmond, R.
A._)]

The success of the measure encouraged an attempt to abolish the privilege
of freedom from arrest for debt; but it was defended on the ground that it
protected the independence of members, and was shared in by barristers
attending the courts or on circuit, justices of the peace at sessions,
suitors and witnesses, the Queen's servants, and foreign ambassadors with
their servants; and on the ground that the Bill drew a distinction between
peers and members of the House of Commons. It was read a second time by a
considerable majority on the 30th of June, but it was allowed to drop.

[Illustration: STREET IN PESHAWUR.]

One of the most singular anomalies connected with the relations of
political parties in England occurred in the Session of 1859. The defects
of the Reform Act had occupied the attention of politicians from time
to time, and fruitless attempts had been made by Lord John Russell and
others to remedy those defects and supplement the great measure of 1832.
Mr. Bright agitated the subject in the North with his usual eloquence
and power of argument, and not without considerable effect on the public
mind in the manufacturing districts; but the nation at large could not be
induced to take much interest in the subject. No urgent need was generally
felt for a reform in the representation, the prevalent conviction being
that the House of Commons as it stood was quite competent to perform all
its duties as a representative body; but if any attempt were made to give
fuller effect in the Commons to the will of the people, nothing could be
more unlikely than that it should be made by a Conservative Government,
supported by men who had strenuously resisted Reform at a time when it
was imperatively demanded by the nation. Yet, in the Royal Speech at the
opening of the Session, the Queen was made to say--"Your attention will be
called to the state of the laws which regulate the representation of the
people in Parliament, and I cannot doubt but that you will give to this
great subject a degree of calm and impartial consideration proportioned
to the magnitude of the interests involved in the result of your
deliberations."

In pursuance of this announcement, Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the
Exchequer and leader of the Commons, introduced a Reform Bill, on the
28th of February, in a crowded House, full of interest and curiosity to
learn what might be the nature of a measure of the kind proceeding from
a Conservative Cabinet. The right honourable gentleman spoke in a manner
worthy of an occasion so remarkable and a position so equivocal. The
question as he viewed it was more important than one of peace or war.
It was beset with difficulties, but they were mitigated by the absence
of passion and the advantage of experience. There was a general wish to
settle the question, and the Government offered a solution not based upon
any mean concession or temporary compromise, but consistent with the
spirit and principles of the Constitution. Since the great measure of
1832 the progress of the nation had been extremely rapid, there being no
instance in history of such an increase of population and accumulation of
capital as had taken place within that period. Hence Parliamentary Reform
had become successively a public question, a Parliamentary question, and
a Ministerial question. Lord John Russell in 1852, and Lord Aberdeen
in 1854, counselled her Majesty to announce from the throne a measure
of Parliamentary Reform, nor was the House reluctant to deal with the
question. What, in these circumstances, was Lord Derby's duty? It might
have been practicable by evasion to stave off the difficulty; but was
it to be left in abeyance as a means for reorganising an Opposition, as
a desperate resource of faction? Lord Derby's Cabinet were unanimous in
thinking that the question should be dealt with in a sincere and earnest
spirit, nor was there anything in the antecedents or position of the
Premier--whom Lord Grey had summoned to his Cabinet in 1832--to preclude
him from dealing with it, or to justify the taunts that were so freely
used against the Ministry for undertaking the task. Mr. Disraeli argued
against the principle of basing representation upon population. If the
House of Commons were re-constructed according to that principle, it
would find itself in the ignominious position from which it had been
emancipated more than two centuries ago. His plan would combine population
with property, adding the new principle of representing property in
the funds; a new kind of franchise, founded upon personal property;
and another founded upon education. He would give a vote, therefore,
to persons having property to the amount of £10 a year in the funds,
Bank Stock, and East India Stock; to persons having £60 in a savings
bank; to pensioners in the naval, military, and civil services receiving
£20 a year. He would also give a vote to lodgers, or persons occupying
a portion of a house, whose aggregate rent was £20 a year. He would
give the franchise to graduates of the universities, clergymen of all
denominations, members of the legal profession, of the medical body, and
to a certain class of schoolmasters. He proposed an identity of suffrage
between counties and boroughs, in order to bring about general content
and sympathy between the different portions of the constituency. Thus a
£10 franchise would be given to counties, which would add 200,000 to the
county constituency. Commissioners were to be appointed to adjust the
borough boundaries to the altered circumstances of the country, so as to
embrace the population that had sprung up. Discarding the principle of
population, and accepting as a truth that the function of the House was
to represent, not the voice of a numerical majority, or the predominant
influence of property, but the various interests of the country, the
Government proposed to add four members to the West Riding of Yorkshire,
two to South Lancashire, and two to Middlesex; and also to give members to
Hartlepool, Birkenhead, West Bromwich, Wednesbury, Burnley, Staleybridge,
Croydon, and Gravesend, for which purpose one member was to be taken from
each of a number of small places then represented by two.

Strong objections were made to this measure by members representing
various classes of reformers. Mr. Baxter complained that it excluded
Scotland, and moved as an amendment that "it is expedient to consider the
laws relating to the representation of the people in England, Scotland,
and Ireland, not separately, but in one measure." Mr. Fox said that the
Bill did nothing for the working classes. Lord John Russell condemned the
clause which would take away from freeholders in towns the right of voting
in counties. Mr Roebuck denounced it as a measure of disfranchisement,
leading to a worse state, and not giving one iota of power to the working
classes. Mr. Bright also strongly censured the measure for excluding the
working classes from power. The new franchises were absurd, and seemed
intended merely to make it appear that something was given. He thought
that a Government representing a party that had always opposed the
extension of political power to the people ought not to have undertaken
to settle this question. It would have been better if it had adopted a
measure of its opponents, than to introduce a Bill that must create anger
and disgust throughout the country--a Bill that would disturb everything
and settle nothing.

But one of the greatest blows to the measure was the secession of Mr.
Walpole and Mr. Henley, two of the ablest members of the Cabinet. On the
the evening after the introduction of the Bill, the former rose and read
a letter to the Premier, stating the grounds of his resignation. He said
that he found it utterly impossible to sanction or countenance the policy
which the Government had determined to adopt on the important subject of
Parliamentary Reform. He regarded the reduction of the county occupation
franchise to a level with that which existed in boroughs as utterly
contrary to every principle that the Conservatives, as a party, had always
maintained--as a complete destruction of the main distinction that had
hitherto been recognised and wisely established between the borough and
the county constituencies. It was to his mind a most dangerous innovation,
giving to temporary and fluctuating occupations a preponderating influence
over property and intelligence; while it would throw large masses into
the constituencies who were almost exempt from direct taxation, and
therefore interested in forcing their representatives to fix that taxation
permanently on others. Mr. Henley, stating that he had taken as his guide
the principles laid down by Lord Derby in 1854, said it was his opinion
that identity of suffrage, which was the principle of the Government
Bill, would be fatal to the Constitution of the country. If they took a
paintbrush to draw a line across the country, and said that all the people
upon one side were to have the franchise, and all the people upon the
other were not to have it, as sure as the sun was in heaven they would
find the people upon the outside of the line, some day or other, making a
very ugly rush to break over it, and when they did break over it, it would
not be easy to maintain the Constitution.

A few days after the introduction of the measure, Lord John Russell, now
anxious to rejoin the Liberal party, prepared the battle-ground by giving
notice of the following resolution, on which issue was taken:--"That this
House is of opinion that it is neither just nor politic to interfere in
the manner proposed by this Bill with the freehold franchise as hitherto
exercised in counties in England and Wales; and that no re-adjustment
of the franchise will satisfy this House or the country which does not
provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in cities and boroughs
than is contemplated in the present measure." There never perhaps was
a Ministerial proposal of reform of any kind so badly supported by the
country. Notwithstanding the influence of Government--generally great, no
matter what party is in power--only three petitions had been presented in
favour of the Bill when it came on for the second reading on the 20th of
March, while an immense number was presented against it. The debate on
the second reading occupied seven nights, and was sustained throughout
with remarkable ability and animation. The first speech was delivered by
Lord John Russell, on moving his amendment to the motion of Mr. Disraeli,
which was made without any remarks. The noble lord argued that the Bill
would completely change the Constitution of the country, destroy rights
that had existed since the Conquest, deprive men of their county votes
who had not shown themselves unworthy of the trust, and enable persons of
landed property to flood small boroughs with fagot votes, and make them
what they were before 1832--nomination boroughs; while in counties the
measure would lead to the formation of electoral districts, which Lord
Derby five years before had said would destroy one of the main balances
of the Constitution. He concluded in these words:--"With regard to this
great question of Reform, I may say that I defended it while I was young,
and I will not desert it now that I am old." Lord Stanley, in reply to
Lord John Russell, taunted him with having allowed the question to fall
in abeyance, and with having brought forward his motion as virtually a
vote of censure, and as such it was met on the part of his colleagues,
who declared that the noble lord's motion would be fatal to the Bill. Sir
Hugh Cairns, the Solicitor-General, also shone in this debate. Referring
to an alleged compact between Lord John Russell and Mr. Bright, he said,
"We all know and admit the noble lord's attachment to this question;
but we also know that there is a form of the tender passion which
sometimes develops itself in jealousy of any attention to the object of
its affection from any other quarter. I think the noble lord exposes
himself to some misconstruction on this point. The English people," he
continued, "do not like a 'dodge.' They do not like it in business, they
do not like it in politics; but least of all do they admire it in a man
who, at a time when the best interests of his country at home, and our
most peaceful hopes abroad, demand all the patriotism, all the candour,
and all the forbearance of a statesman, approaches the consideration of
a great national question like this, not fairly to criticise, not boldly
to reject, but with a crafty and catching device to confuse, and, if
it may be, to dislocate parties, and on that confusion and dislocation
to secure his own political aggrandisement and private advantage." Mr.
Bright ably exposed the main defects of the Bill. The people out-of-doors
understood by a Reform Bill a large enfranchisement, and larger, freer
constituencies. The Bill did not meet that demand: it got rid of the most
independent electors from counties, and insidiously proposed to alter the
boundaries of boroughs to complete the work. The object was to make the
representation of counties more exclusively territorial, and to gratify
the hundred and fifty gentlemen who sat behind Mr. Disraeli elected by
the territorial interest. As to small boroughs, which were only a refuge
for the politically destitute, he knew no limit whatever to the amount
of corruption in them that would be occasioned by the Bill. It would, at
the same time, exclude the working classes, telling them that they were
dangerous, notwithstanding their improved mental, moral, and physical
condition.

Lord Palmerston, whose hatred of Reform was notorious, supported the
amendment of Lord John Russell. On the other hand, Mr. Whiteside denounced
it as "an inscrutable resolution to stifle truth and prevent discussion--a
crafty contrivance to defeat the Bill, and, if possible, the Ministry."
Sir J. Pakington complained strongly of the speech of Lord Palmerston,
stating that he had adopted a tone of arrogance altogether unusual
between gentlemen who sat opposite to each other in that House, and that
his language could be looked on in no other light than as wanting in
due respect to the Crown. Mr. Gladstone, who, as may be gathered from
the "Life of Bishop Wilberforce," was at this time well disposed to the
Conservatives, remarked upon the singular coincidence of opinion on all
sides with respect to the great question of Parliamentary Reform. There
was no controversy traceable to differences between political parties,
and he thought it was to be regretted that the House was now in hostile
conflict with a division before them, which would estrange those by whose
united efforts alone a satisfactory settlement could be come to. The
resolution was unprecedented in form, being an amendment on the second
reading of a Bill, referring to a portion of a measure that might be
dealt with in committee. Pleading for consideration to the Government, he
described the failures of their predecessors who had engaged in a similar
task, and proved how consistently the Liberals had shirked the question.
Mr. Gladstone defended small boroughs. He regarded them as a means of
supplying a race of men who were trained to carry on the government of
the country--the masters of civil wisdom, like Burke, Mackintosh, Pelham,
Chatham, Fox, Pitt, Canning, and Peel, all of whom first sat for small
boroughs. If there was to be no ingress to the House but one, and that
one the suffrages of a large mass of voters, there would be a dead level
of mediocrity. The extension, the durability of our liberty, were to be
attributed under Providence to distinguished statesmen introduced to the
House at an early age. But large constituencies would not return boys,
and therefore he hoped the small boroughs would be retained. Those facts
formed a reason for going into committee, where Lord John Russell could
carry his views. Mr. Gladstone earnestly deprecated the postponement
of the question. It was a golden opportunity which they should not let
slip. Mr. Disraeli, in replying, defended his measure with vehemence,
and not without personal acrimony towards Lord Palmerston and Lord John
Russell, whom he charged with living in an atmosphere of combinations
and cunning resolutions when out of office. By bringing forward this
untoward motion, and by sneering at Lord Malmesbury at a moment when
negotiations were pending, when an awful responsibility rested on the
Minister, Lord John had not only embarrassed the Government, but had
injured the public service. The Government, he said, had been sustained
in all its arduous struggles by a conviction of the justice of the
people of England, and were sustained by it at that moment, amid all the
manœuvres of Parliamentary intrigue and all the machinations of party
warfare. The House then proceeded to a division, in the midst of a scene
of extraordinary excitement, the issue being rather uncertain till the
last moment. It was, however, decisive against the Government, the numbers
being--for the second reading, 291; against it, 330; majority 39. The
division took place on the 1st of April.

[Illustration: EARL RUSSELL. (_From a Photograph by Elliot & Fry._)]

Next day Lord Derby had an audience of the Queen; on the same evening,
in the Lords, he stated that the majority against him left him but one
alternative, either to resign or dissolve Parliament. He regarded the
vote as equivalent to a vote of want of confidence, and he thought the
Government would have laid themselves open to a charge of indifference if
they took no notice of such a division. The distracted state of parties in
the House of Commons, he said, rendered it almost impossible to administer
the affairs of the nation. He excepted from this censure the Conservative
party, whose support had been unwavering, cordial, and generous. According
to his lordship's view, the chief mischief-maker was Lord John Russell,
who, from the restless energy of his disposition, had the peculiar fortune
to overthrow many Governments, not only of his opponents but also of his
friends; the consequence of which conduct was, that hardly a year now
passed without a Ministerial crisis, and if the system were persevered in,
it would put an end to all government; for it inflicted injury at home
and damaged the influence of the country abroad. One of the questions
bequeathed to him by the late Government was the _damnosa hæreditas_ of
Parliamentary Reform. He had in consequence introduced a Bill to meet
that question. An opportunity had thus been given to the House of Commons
to settle this question, but the Opposition preferred the interests of
party to the interests of the country. Lord Palmerston had said that "the
Ministers should be condemned to keep their places and do our bidding."
But Lord Derby begged to tell him that he would do no one's bidding but
that of the Queen, so long as he retained her confidence. But whose
bidding were they to do? Was it that of the motley and heterogeneous
Liberal party? He then announced that, considering the grave condition
of European affairs and the domestic interests of the country, he had
deemed it his duty to recommend to her Majesty an early dissolution of
Parliament, stating that he looked with confidence to the result of the
appeal about to be made to the country.

Mr. Disraeli gave a somewhat similar explanation in the Lower House. Lord
Palmerston acknowledged the courtesy and fairness of his statement. He did
not consider the late vote as one of censure; as such he would not have
supported it. He thought the advice given to her Majesty was very unwise.
If he were to attempt to prophesy the result, he would say that the new
Parliament would be far more likely than the present to decide that power
should be transferred to other hands. After some more discussion on the
dissolution, the House hastened to wind up the Session by disposing of
the necessary business, which was interrupted only by a short debate on
the affairs of Italy. On the 9th of April, therefore, Parliament was
prorogued by commission. The Royal Speech was a mere formal production,
except the concluding paragraph, which stated that the appeal that her
Majesty was about to make to her people had been rendered necessary by
the difficulties experienced in carrying on the public business of the
country, as indicated by the fact that within little more than a year two
successive Administrations had failed to retain the confidence of the
House of Commons; and she prayed that the step she was about to take would
have the effect of facilitating the discharge of her high functions, and
of enabling her to conduct the government of the country under the advice
of a Ministry possessed of the confidence of her Parliament and her people.

The results of the general election, at which the Government, as might be
expected, put forth all its influence to secure a working majority, fully
verified the predictions of Lord Palmerston, for the new Parliament was
not even disposed to give the Derby Cabinet a fair trial. The Tories had
gained considerably at the polls, but had failed to secure a majority.
Still, they formed a compact party in the House of Commons more than
300 strong. The Session was opened on the 7th of June, the process of
swearing-in having been then completed. The Queen delivered the Royal
Speech in person. It contained nothing remarkable, except a suggestion
that the subject of Parliamentary Reform should be postponed till next
Session. The debates on the Address in both Houses were unusually
animated. Lord Granville expressed regret that, in spite of the result of
the elections, the Ministry had determined to carry on the government in
a minority. Lord Ellenborough stated that what the country required was a
strong Government; and he expressed his conviction that this result had
not been obtained by the general election. Lord Derby defended the conduct
of his Government and, in reference to some of the Irish elections, denied
that any compact existed between him and Cardinal Wiseman. If he saw any
chance of a strong Government, he would gladly lay down the responsibility
he had assumed; but considering the state of foreign affairs, he thought
it his duty to his Sovereign to remain at his post. The Address in the
Lords was agreed to without a division; not so in the Commons, where an
amendment was moved by the Marquis of Hartington, leading to a debate that
lasted for three nights. He admitted that it was a party move, in order
that power should not be left in the hands of a party antagonistic to
all progress. In the course of this debate great distrust in the foreign
policy of the Government was betrayed; and the Italian question had much
more to do with the premature dissolution of the Cabinet than the Reform
question. The nation sympathised warmly with the cause of freedom in
Italy, and had a decided conviction that a Conservative Government was not
a fitting medium through which that sympathy might be conveyed. Upon a
division, therefore, the numbers were as follows:--For the amendment, 323;
against it, 310; majority against the Government, 13.

There is a curious statement in Lord Malmesbury's "Memoirs" to the effect
that the defeat of the Government was due entirely to Mr. Disraeli's
neglect to lay on the table of the House the Blue Book containing the
Italian and French correspondence with the Foreign Office, and that
after the despatches had appeared, numerous Liberals, Mr. Cobden among
them, expressed their regret in the lobby at having voted against the
Ministry. But Lord Malmesbury was certainly mistaken as far as Mr. Cobden
was concerned, since he was out of England at the time of the division,
and it is probable that the whole story is an exaggerated recollection
of one or two private expressions of opinion. The simple explanation of
Mr. Disraeli's supposed neglect would seem to be that the book was not
printed, and that Ministers felt so certain of defeat that they did not
think it worth while to hurry on its appearance. With the re-union of
the Liberal party all chance of their continuance in office was at an
end, and that long-delayed object was at length accomplished after much
negotiation by party managers, male and female. The great obstacle was the
long-standing rivalry between Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston. The
latter was induced to pave the way to a reconciliation by a letter to Sir
James Graham, which contained the suggestion that one of them should be
Prime Minister, presumably with a peerage, the other leader of the House
of Commons. This equal division of the spoils was, however, by no means to
Lord Palmerston's taste; nevertheless, at a meeting of the Liberal party
held at Willis's Rooms on the 6th of June they agreed to serve under one
another if either was sent for by the Queen, and the result of their amity
was Lord Hartington's resolution.

In consequence of the adverse division, Lord Derby announced the
resignation of his Cabinet on the 19th of June. On the same evening
Mr. Disraeli made a similar announcement in the House of Commons. Lord
Palmerston was then called upon by her Majesty to form an Administration,
the Queen having at first applied to Earl Granville to relieve her from
the "invidious unwelcome task" of choosing between Lord Palmerston
and Lord John Russell. He failed, however, to secure their support,
and somewhat compromised himself by indiscreet communications to the
press. The following are the names of the members who comprised the new
Cabinet:--Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister; Lord Campbell, Chancellor;
Lord Granville, President of the Council; the Duke of Argyll, Privy
Seal; Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Home Secretary; Lord John Russell,
Foreign Secretary; the Duke of Newcastle, Colonial Secretary; Mr. Sidney
Herbert, Secretary for War; Sir Charles Wood, Secretary for India; Mr.
Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Duke of Somerset, First
Lord of the Admiralty; Lord Elgin, Postmaster-General; Sir George Grey,
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; Mr. Milner Gibson, Chief Poor-Law
Commissioner; Mr. Cardwell, Chief Secretary for Ireland; the Earl of
Carlisle, Viceroy. The list of names included the flower of the Peelites,
Whigs, and Radicals. Lord John Russell's emphatic determination to have
the Foreign Office or nothing caused the exclusion of Lord Clarendon,
and the blandishment of the Prime Minister, together with the offer of
the Board of Trade, failed to secure the allegiance of Mr. Cobden, who
feared, and with some justice, that the Ministry would play fast and loose
with Parliamentary Reform. In expressing that opinion he noted the weak
point of the Ministry--it was strong in talent, but divided in opinion.
The three important members, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, and Mr.
Gladstone, were of one mind in their sympathy for the Italian cause, but
the Premier was far more conservative in his domestic policy than the two
other statesmen, and while at issue with Russell on Reform held different
views from Mr. Gladstone as to the propriety of strengthening the national
defences. However, they continued to agree to differ.

Before commencing the deeply interesting narrative of the last Italian
war, which resulted in the establishment of the kingdom of Italy, it
is desirable to dispose of the Italian question, in its international
aspects, and in its relations to the state of political parties in the
United Kingdom. The influence of that question on the fortunes of the
Conservative leaders was very great. Nothing militated so strongly against
Lord Derby, or contributed so much to alienate from him the confidence
of the mass of the British people, as his apparent want of sympathy with
the Italians in their struggles for independence; while the well-known
sentiments of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell upon this subject
tended in a very high degree to strengthen their influence and extend
their popularity. As a matter of fact the Conservative statesman was
actuated mainly by a desire to preserve the _status quo_, and the extreme
Austrian view was propounded by the Whig politician, Lord Clarendon.
"The bubble of Italian unity," he said, "had at length burst, and the
detestable party of Mazzini and his accomplices was almost extinct.
Supposing that Austria was driven out, and Lombardy was annexed to
Piedmont, the people of Milan and Venice would never agree with those of
Sardinia, but would be even more discontented than they are now. Piedmont
was nothing more than the advanced guard of France, and he considered that
the defeat of Austria would only substitute one master for another." Lord
Derby, it is true, like other statesmen, failed to forecast the future in
the event of a war. "It would not," he said, "be localised in Italy; it
would be impossible to confine it to that country. It would extend itself,
and involve the world in universal conflagration." It would bring the
whole of Germany into the field. England, which could not look unmoved at
the occupation of the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, would be drawn into
the vortex. But the chance of peace, he thought, would be immeasurably
strengthened if it were known that Great Britain would not remain an
unmoved spectator of any event in which her honour was concerned.

The long-cherished dream of Italian unity, which Lord Clarendon treated
with so much scorn, was as little likely as any other political dream to
be realised. The difficulties lying in the way seemed to be absolutely
insuperable. The country was cut up into sections called principalities.
It was the policy of their numerous Sovereigns, while cultivating a
fraternal feeling among themselves, to foster animosities between their
respective populations, lest by any chance they should unite for their own
deliverance. The shadow of Austrian power, like an immense poison-tree,
shed a blighting influence over the whole land, and under its shelter
the petty princes exercised their despotic arts according to their own
capricious wills. In 1815 a defensive alliance was concluded between
the Emperor of Austria and the Duke of Tuscany for the defence of their
respective States, Austria engaging to furnish 80,000 men of all arms, and
the Grand Duke 6,000. In 1847 the Emperor made a similar treaty, called
a special convention, with the Duke of Modena, by which the Emperor of
Austria was bound, as soon as applied to, to give immediately all the
military support necessary to put down any insurrectionary movement. It
was, however, a singular fact that the means adopted to extinguish all
hope in the hearts of the people and to render deliverance impossible,
should have been the very means by which that deliverance was effected.
Had Austria confined herself to her own possessions secured to her by
treaty, it would have been difficult for Victor Emmanuel, or Louis
Napoleon, to find a cause of quarrel sufficient to justify a war. But she
had usurped the virtual sovereignty of the duchies of Tuscany, Modena, and
Parma; and her troops occupied the Legations, while the King of Naples
and the Pope were little more than her creatures. It was this crushing
domination of a foreign Power that warranted foreign intervention, and
excused even the ambition of France and Piedmont.

Such was the state of things at the close of the year 1858, when, save
this one dark spot in the political horizon, everything indicated profound
peace. On New Year's Day the French Emperor was accustomed to receive the
foreign ambassadors at the Tuileries. On the 1st of January, 1859, he
turned to M. Hübner, the Austrian Minister, and abruptly said to him, "I
regret that our relations with your Government are not so good as they
have been hitherto; but I beg you to assure the Emperor that my personal
feelings towards him are not changed." A portentous meaning was generally
ascribed to this remark, and in order to allay the apprehensions it
excited, the _Moniteur_ was instructed to declare that there was nothing
in the diplomatic relations of the two Courts to warrant the prevailing
rumours of war. But this pacific assurance was more than counteracted by
the speech of Victor Emmanuel in opening the Sardinian Chambers on the
10th of the same month. "The horizon," he said, "was not entirely serene,
but encouraged by the experience of the past, he was prepared resolutely
to encounter the eventualities of the future. His country, small in
territory, had acquired credit in the councils of Europe, because it was
great through the ideas it represented and the sympathies it inspired.
This position," said the King, "is not exempt from perils, since, while
we respect treaties, we are not insensible to the cry of suffering which
reaches us from so many parts of Italy. Strong by our concord, confiding
in our good right, we await, prudent and decided, the decrees of Divine
Providence."

It was generally believed at this time that a secret alliance had been
formed between the Emperor and the King, though its exact nature could
not be conjectured. That it implied much to the advantage of France, or
to the family of the Emperor, as the price of his armed intervention, was
inferred from the marriage of Prince Napoleon to the Princess Clothilde,
eldest daughter of Victor Emmanuel, then only sixteen years of age. Her
hand was demanded by General Niel on the 23rd of January, and the marriage
took place a week after. As a matter of fact Count Cavour had held secret
interviews with the Emperor Napoleon at Plombières in the previous July,
where the Emperor of the French had agreed to aid Sardinia in obtaining
Lombardy, Venetia, and perhaps something more in return for the cession of
Nice and Savoy. These and other indications of the designs of the French
Emperor warned the Austrian Government to make energetic preparations for
the defence of its possessions in Italy; and a manifesto on the subject
was issued on the 5th of February in the form of an address from the
Prime Minister, Count Buol, to the representatives of Austria at foreign
Courts. This was an appeal to the German Confederation to act as a united
Power, if Austria, by an attack on her possessions in Italy, should be
called upon to take up arms against one of the greatest military States in
Europe. While thus appealing for support to the other German Governments,
Austria was pushing forward extraordinary armaments along the frontier
of the Po and Ticino. Strong masses of troops were quartered at Cremona,
Piacenza, and Pavia, assuming an aggressive aspect towards Piedmont.
Orders had been given to hold military stores and quarters in readiness in
many places. A decree was issued forbidding the exportation of horses into
Piedmont. As another indication of war, Austria had contracted a loan of
150,000,000 francs. These facts were alluded to in the Sardinian Chamber,
as warranting that Government in contracting a loan of 50,000,000 francs.
This was carried in the Chamber by a majority of 116 to 35. The Prime
Minister, Count Cavour, also issued a counter-manifesto to the Sardinian
agents at foreign Courts, vindicating his policy, as being rendered
necessary by the hostile manifestations on the part of Austria.

[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, 10, DOWNING
STREET, LONDON.]

The attitude of France towards Austria and Italy was the subject of much
discussion and great difference of opinion previous to the commencement
of the war. Notwithstanding the emphatic declaration of Louis Napoleon,
that the Empire meant peace, there was a strong suspicion, especially
in Conservative quarters, that the Imperial policy would be guided by
a spirit of war and conquest. The Emperor took great pains to remove
this impression, especially from the minds of English statesmen. In a
conversation with Lord Cowley, he remarked--"What I said to M. de Cavour I
repeat now. My sympathies always have been, and still are, with Italy. I
regret that Lombardy should be in the possession of Austria; but I cannot
and do not dispute the right of the latter. I respect existing treaties,
because they are the only landmarks we have; so long as Austria remains
within her own frontier, she is, of course, mistress to do as she pleases.
With regard to Sardinia, if she provokes hostilities unjustly, and places
herself in the wrong, she must expect no support from me."

Lord Malmesbury, our Foreign Secretary, exerted himself with each of the
parties as a zealous peacemaker, taking his stand upon the treaties of
1815. At the same time in a despatch to Sir James Hudson, our Minister at
Turin, he fully acknowledged the grievances of Italy. Lord A. Loftus,
our representative at the Court of Vienna, pleading for peace with Count
Buol, received the following answer:--"If you wish to preach peace and to
prevent war, address yourselves with firmness to France and Piedmont. We
are not meditating war; we shall not be the aggressors. Tell the Emperor
Louis Napoleon that Great Britain will not passively look on if his
Majesty should commence hostilities. Say to him that should he take such
a course, it will be at his own risk and peril. On the other hand, warn
King Victor Emmanuel that England will not sanction any act of wilful
aggression, undertaken in full peace by Piedmont against Austria. If Great
Britain is prepared to hold this language, no war will arise." Lord A.
Loftus did not seem satisfied with the statement that Austria did not
mean to be the aggressor, and he therefore demanded from Count Buol an
assurance that in no case would Austria move a single soldier across her
frontier in Italy, without previous concert with France. Then he would
consider that war might be averted. But Count Buol could not give that
assurance. "It would be a surrender," he said, "of the sovereign power
of Austria;" but he asked, "What will you say to Piedmont if she were to
attack us?" To which the British Minister replied, "I cannot imagine such
an eventuality. It would be a mouse attacking the lion." Count Buol then
went on to say that they could never come to an understanding with France
on Italian affairs, because France sympathised with and protected the
cause of nationalities; while Austria supported sovereigns, governments,
and established order. Besides, he said, it was a great mistake to suppose
that Italy required change. All she wanted was quiet--that agitation
should be put down, and the hopes of interested agitators extinguished.

In the month of February Lord Cowley was sent on a special mission to
Vienna, which resulted only in an elaborate defence of the Austrian
policy in Italy from Count Buol, in reply to objections and proposals
made by Count Walewski. Lord Cowley had to encounter in the Austrian
Government the idea that France was determined on war, and that to make
concessions was only to put off the evil day; and also a bitter feeling
of hostility against Sardinia. His proposals were (1) the evacuation of
the Roman States by Austria and France, (2) reforms in the administration
of those States, (3) security for better relations between Austria
and Italy, (4) the abrogation or modification of the Austrian-Italian
treaties of 1849. These conditions, which in the circumstances of the
case were certainly not unfavourable to Italy, were adopted by Russia
as the bases for the proposed convocation of a Congress, with a view
to prevent the complications to which the state of Italy might give
rise. This proposal seemed to meet with general acquiescence and highly
pleased Lord Malmesbury, who expressed his satisfaction to the Sardinian
Ambassador. Sardinia naturally claimed the right of being represented in
it. To this Austria decidedly objected and demanded, moreover, that before
it assembled Sardinia should be required to disarm, which was afterwards
modified into a proposal that there should be a simultaneous disarming
of the Great Powers. This was one of a series of proposals made by the
British Cabinet, as a last attempt to preserve the peace of Europe. But
all efforts at conciliation proved unavailing, as Napoleon simply played
with them in order to gain time for his military preparations. Thus he
agreed to disarm himself, but refused to make any representation to
Sardinia. Strange as it may seem, it was the patience of the phlegmatic
German that first gave way.

On the 23rd of April an aide-de-camp of the General Gyulai, who commanded
the army in Lombardy, then massed along the Austrian frontier, was the
bearer of a peremptory demand that Sardinia should disarm within three
days, and that in the event of refusal war would immediately commence. To
this demand Count Cavour returned an answer which, like all the documents
that issued from his pen, was a conclusive argument that the great
adversary of Piedmont was in the wrong, and had sent a threatening summons
instead of compliance with the propositions that the Great Powers had
deemed reasonable, and he made a similar defiance in a popular manifesto.
The rashness of Austria in commencing the war by an invasion of Piedmont
alienated the British Government. On the 22nd of April Lord Malmesbury,
in writing to Lord Augustus Loftus, referred to the strong feeling of
indignation against her which prevailed in England, and told him that his
language could not be too strong with regard to the course adopted by that
Power, and requesting that he would give Count Buol clearly to understand
that the refusal of Austria to stop the march of her armies would enlist
against her the feelings of the Government and of all classes in Britain.
He was instructed to inform Count Buol that her Majesty's Government felt
it due to themselves and to the great interests of humanity, which they
had so earnestly striven to uphold, solemnly to record their protest
against the course that Austria--regardless of the terrible consequences
to Europe and indifferent to the public opinion of the world--had so
rashly and so unjustly adopted. He said, "They assign to Austria and fix
upon her the last responsibility for all the miseries and calamities
inevitably consequent on a conflict which was on the eve of being averted,
but which, once begun, will infallibly produce a more than ordinary amount
of social suffering and political convulsion." He urged the German States
to remain quiet, but gained no credit at the Tuileries, as the despatch
was suppressed by the Foreign Minister, Count Walewski.

On the 3rd of May the Emperor caused a communication to be made to the
Corps Législatif, in which he said that Austria "had brought matters
to this extremity, that she must rule up to the Alps, or Italy must be
free to the shores of the Adriatic; for in this country every corner of
territory which remains independent endangers her power. Hitherto," he
said, "moderation has been the rule of my conduct; now energy becomes
my first duty. Let France arm, and resolutely tell Europe, I desire not
conquest, but I desire firmly to maintain my national and traditional
policy. I observe the treaties on condition that no one shall violate them
against me. I respect the territories and the rights of neutral Powers;
but I boldly avow my sympathies for a people whose history is mingled with
our own, and who groan under foreign oppression." The Emperor proceeded
to explain the object of the war in which he was about to engage. It was
to restore Italy to herself--not to impose on her a change of masters;
and we shall then have upon our frontiers a friendly people, who will
owe to us their independence. "We do not," he said, "go into Italy to
foment disorder, or to disturb the power of the Holy Father, whom we have
replaced upon his throne, but to remove from him this foreign pressure,
which weighs upon the whole peninsula, and to help to establish there
order, based upon pure, legitimate, satisfied interests. We are going,
then, to seek upon this classic ground, illustrious by so many victories,
the footsteps of our fathers. God grant that we may be worthy of them!"
In this spirit the Emperor set out on his mission for the liberation of
Italy "from the Alps to the Adriatic." Instead of obeying the order of
Austria, his ally, Victor Emmanuel, summoned Garibaldi to take the command
of the little army of Volunteers, which included in its ranks members of
the noblest families in Italy, and Garibaldi obeyed. The Volunteers had
got the general whom of all others they preferred, and whose name had
magic power with all Italian patriots. Piedmont stood prepared for the
threatened invasion by Austria. That false step was taken on the 27th of
April, 1859, when the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, Gyulai, ordered two
columns of his army to cross the Ticino. On the 2nd of May the King called
the nation to arms. He was himself Commander-in-Chief. In the meantime
three Austrian _corps d'armée_ were encamped on the plains of Piedmont, on
both banks of the Po; and it was expected that an attempt would be made to
take Turin by a _coup de main_ before the arrival of the French. But these
were hurrying to the field of battle from the slopes of Mont Cenis and
Mont Genèvre, and a junction was duly effected.

The Austrians had taken up their ground at leisure, and occupied strong
positions. The allied army was drawn up in a large crescent, which
extended without interruption from Vercelli to Voghera. The first
engagement with the enemy began on the 20th of May, at Genestrello,
from which, after some hours' hard fighting, the Austrians were driven
out. They then took up a fresh position at Montebello. There they were
attacked--though 20,000 strong--by a body of about 6,000 infantry and six
squadrons of Sardinian cavalry, by which they were routed in a few hours.
General Forey was the commander of the French troops in this battle, and
was the chief hero of the first victory over the Austrians. The Austrian
general was completely outmanœuvred by the Emperor and the King. Unknown
to the enemy, the allied army changed its line of battle, turning on its
left wing from the right bank of the Po to the left. Thus this army of
200,000 men extended its undulating lines like an immense serpent, which
had its head at Cameriano, its tail at Casale, and its centre at Palestro,
on the other side of the Sesia. By this means the allied generals were
enabled to effect movements that compelled the enemy to retreat to the
left bank of the Sesia. This river was crossed on the 30th by General
Cialdini. The King, followed by his whole army, also crossed on a bridge
of boats. The Austrians were strongly fortified at Vinzaglio, on elevated
ground, with ten field guns and two howitzers. The position was boldly
attacked by General Cialdini. As soon as his men got within twenty
paces of the entrenched camp, they rushed on and carried the position
at the point of the bayonet, after showers of bullets had thinned their
lines. As the Austrians were supported by reserves pouring in from the
roads leading to the camp, the contest assumed a deadly character, and
Cialdini would have been compelled to retire had not a second brigade been
despatched to support him. In less than an hour, however, the victory was
his--the enemy retreating towards Novara, leaving 300 muskets, with a
considerable number of prisoners and wounded. A similar fate attended the
Austrians posted at Casalino. The Sardinians won a still more brilliant
victory at the village of Palestro, which caused the enemy to retreat on
Robbio.

The actions of the war followed one another with astounding rapidity.
Bulletin after bulletin, telegraphed "from the Emperor to the Empress,"
announced a succession of triumphs for the French arms. One of the most
important of these victories was won on the 4th of June, at Magenta, when
5,000 Austrians were taken prisoners, and 15,000 killed or wounded. The
loss of the French was about 2,000 placed _hors de combat_, and had it
not been for the timely advent of MacMahon the victory would probably
have been converted into a defeat by the poor generalship of Napoleon.
The routed Austrians transferred their headquarters to Abbiate Grosso,
while the allies marched on Milan. This city had risen against the
Austrian garrison, which evacuated the place precipitately, leaving their
cannon and the treasure of the army behind them. On the 8th of June the
Emperor and the King made their triumphal entry into the city, where they
were received with unbounded joy. Victor Emmanuel immediately assumed
the authority of Sovereign by universal acclamation. The Emperor and
the King did not rest long upon their laurels at Milan; they followed
the retreating Austrians across the plain of Milan, meeting no check
till they reached the Mincio on the 23rd of June. The line of the two
armies was formed, and extended from the shores of the Lago di Garda, at
Desenzano, along the western edge of the hilly country, till, bending
back, it touched the Chiese at Carpenedolo. The Emperor, with the guards
as a reserve, took up his position at Montechiaro; and the King, with
his staff, at Sonato. Contrary to expectation, the Austrians crossed the
Mincio and assumed the offensive. The whole Austrian army formed the line
of battle, which extended five leagues in length, from Peschiera--on
which they leant their extreme right--down into the plain of the Mincio,
intersecting the great road to Goito. The Emperor of Austria was present,
having chosen for his headquarters Cavriana, a place in the centre of the
line, the village of Solferino being the key of the whole position. Each
of the armies had mistaken the movements of the other, though the French
had sent up a man to reconnoitre in a balloon; it consequently happened
that they came unexpectedly into collision. This occurred on Friday, the
25th of June, when after much blundering strategy on both sides, the
Austrians were compelled to abandon all their positions, and they withdrew
during the night, having blown up the bridge of Goito.

In the meantime the Austrians had retreated to the Quadrilateral, and
taken their position behind the lines of those celebrated fortifications,
which were believed to be impregnable. The allies had crossed the Mincio
in pursuit. The French headquarters were established at Valeggio, in
the villa of the Marchioness Maffei, which had been previously occupied
by the Austrian Emperor. Two days after the battle of Solferino, Count
Cavour, with his friend and secretary, Nigra, had a long interview with
the French Emperor. They found him exceedingly disgusted with the quarrels
of his generals, deeply impressed by the horrible scenes of war he had
just witnessed for the first time in his life; but apparently proud and
delighted that the military glory of France, and the superiority of her
army over the Austrians, had been once more splendidly asserted. In
reality he was perplexed by the increasing difficulties of his position.
The count returned to the camp in high spirits and full of hope, under
the impression that the Emperor was determined to prosecute the war with
vigour to its conclusion, and that, in case it should be necessary for
the accomplishment of that object, he would not scruple to appeal to the
Hungarians. In the course of a day or two afterwards, however, mysterious
rumours were afloat in the camp, that a French general had been sent
to Verona on some inexplicable mission to the Austrian Emperor. These
rumours proved to be well founded. When both armies were fully marshalled,
prepared for action at any moment, when there was some apprehension that
their lines would be attacked by the enemy, or that they would be ordered
to march on Verona, General Fleury was despatched with a proposal for an
armistice. This had been prefaced by an attempt to secure the mediation
of the British Government, but Lord John Russell was not to be caught.
This step was taken without any communication with Victor Emmanuel,
and without the knowledge of any human being except the bearer of the
message. At seven o'clock next morning he returned with a letter to his
Imperial master, announcing the success of the mission. The result was
the conclusion of an armistice for one month. The announcement, it need
scarcely be said, spread consternation through the Sardinian camp, and
excited the deepest disappointment and indignation throughout Italy.
Coming upon the Italians while still in the flush of victory and full of
hope, they felt it not only as a terrible shock, but as a betrayal of
their cause and a national humiliation. Cavour promptly flung up office.

[Illustration: ENTRY OF NAPOLEON AND VICTOR EMMANUEL INTO MILAN. (_See p._
300.)]

The great statesman resigned, rather than endorse a peace concluded
without his Sovereign or himself being consulted, and Ratazzi received
orders to form a Cabinet. The ex-Premier had scarcely departed in his
carriage, amidst shouts of "Long live Cavour!" when the Emperor and Prince
Napoleon drove up to dine with the King. It is said to have been a sad
party, during which little was spoken by the royal host. On the 12th of
July the Emperor returned to Paris, passing through Milan and Turin, where
he had been so recently received with enthusiastic acclamations. He must
have painfully felt the contrast, when the victor of Magenta and Solferino
was permitted to return from the scenes of his military glory without a
cheer from the people whose country he had promised to free from the Alps
to the Adriatic; but which he seemed now to abandon, leaving his "mission"
but half accomplished.

Before his departure, he issued a proclamation in the following
terms:--"Soldiers,--an armistice has been concluded on the 8th instant
between the belligerent parties, to extend to the 15th of August next.
This truce will permit you to rest after your glorious labours and, if
necessary, to continue the work which you have so gloriously inaugurated
by your courage and your devotion. I am about to return to Paris, and
shall leave the provisional command of my army to Marshal Vaillant; but
as soon as the hour of combat shall have struck, you will see me again in
your midst to partake of your dangers."

The armistice was immediately followed by the basis of a treaty of peace,
the terms of which were arranged--and the treaty itself was provisionally
signed--on the 11th of July at Villafranca by the two Emperors. Its
conditions were these:--

"The two Sovereigns will favour the creation of an Italian Confederation.
That Confederation will be under the honorary presidency of the Holy
Father. The Emperor of Austria cedes to the Emperor of the French his
right over Lombardy, with the exception of the fortresses of Mantua and
Peschiera, so that the frontier of the Austrian possessions shall start
from the extreme range of the fortress of Peschiera, and shall extend in a
direct line along the Mincio, as far as Grazio; thence to Scorzarolo and
Suzana to the Po, whence the actual frontiers shall continue to form the
limits of Austria.

"The Emperor of the French will hand over the ceded territory to the King
of Sardinia. Venetia shall form part of the Italian Confederation, though
remaining under the Crown of the Emperor of Austria. The Grand Duke of
Tuscany and the Duke of Modena return to their States, granting a general
amnesty.

"The two Emperors will ask the Holy Father to introduce indispensable
reforms into his States. A full and complete amnesty is granted on both
sides to persons compromised in the late events in the territories of the
belligerent parties."

This fantastic scheme was severely criticised by Lord John Russell in his
usual incisive style, both in despatches and in Parliament. Lord John
thought that such a confederation would be possible; but he doubted if
it was practicable at that time, and whether a confederation with the
Pope as chief, and the Emperor of Austria as one of its members, would
be desirable. How could such a body assent to a religious toleration
or liberty of conscience? How could the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had
forfeited his rights by abdication be forced back upon his subjects, who
had asserted their independence? Then how could the difficulty about the
Pope be got over? The Emperors recommended to him indispensable reforms,
but he declined to take their advice. It would never do, however, for a
Minister of the Crown of Great Britain to say that England, which had
taken part in all the concerns of Europe since 1815--in the formation
of the kingdom of Greece and in the formation of the kingdom of
Belgium--should now, suddenly and without reason, withdraw from a meeting
of the Powers, if there were any chance that the situation of Italy might
be improved, that peace might be confirmed, and the independence of the
Italian States secured by her taking part in the Congress.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Peace of Zurich--Its Repudiation by Italy--The Idea of a
    Congress--Garibaldi in Central Italy--The Cession of Nice and
    Savoy--The Sicilian Expedition--Garibaldi lands at Marsala--Capture
    of Palermo--The Convention for Evacuation signed--Battle of Milazzo
    and Evacuation of Messina--Garibaldi master of Sicily--Attempts to
    prevent the Conquest of Naples--A Landing effected--The victorious
    March--Flight of the King--Garibaldi occupies Naples--He is warned
    off Venetia--The Sardinian Troops occupy the Papal States--Battle
    of the Volturno--Victor Emmanuel's Advance--His Meeting with
    Garibaldi--Accomplishment of Garibaldi's Programme--Refusal of his
    Demands--He retires to Caprera--Lord John Russell's Despatch.


Plenipotentiaries were appointed to arrange the terms of a definitive
treaty of peace at Zurich, where they met on the 6th of August, and it
was signed on the 11th of November following. The document consisted of
three parts, which might be regarded as three distinct treaties, the first
containing a conveyance of Lombardy to France, the second a conveyance of
the same province from France to Sardinia, and the third re-establishing
peace between the three Powers.

The Venetian territory was still in the possession of Austria, with the
right of entering into the proposed Italian confederation, under the
presidency of the Pope. It was the height of absurdity to suppose that the
Pope would ever consent to be the president of any confederation of the
kind, or that Venice could derive advantage from the nominal concession
of any rights so long as she was subject to the foreign domination of
Austria. One of the most unsatisfactory portions of the treaty was the
stipulation for the restoration of the Dukes of Tuscany and Modena
to their dominions, from which they had fled in consternation, their
subjects having revolted, almost to a man, against them. According to the
Treaty of Villafranca, and the state of things which it recognised, the
whole gain to Italy resulting from the war was the rescuing of Lombardy
from Austria and annexing it to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel. This
was no doubt a great advantage--an important accession to the cause of
constitutional government; but as the fortresses of Austria still menaced
the independence of Piedmont, the whole results were in the highest degree
disappointing, not only to the people of North Italy, but to the provinces
that had thrown off the yoke of their petty princes and had already
established provisional governments. In rapid succession Parma, Modena,
and Tuscany voted for annexation to Italy, and the Papal States were
evidently ripe for revolt.

In the midst of his perplexities Napoleon caught at the idea of a
European Congress in order to prevent his treaty from becoming mere waste
paper. The idea was highly unacceptable to the British Cabinet, which
believed the Italian confederation to be a wholly unworkable plan. Lord
Palmerston bitterly remarked that "_l'Italie rendue à ellemême_" had
become "_l'Italie vendue à l'Autriche_," and Lord John Russell bluntly
informed the Austrian Court that every free Italian State had a right to
decide its own destiny. Queen Victoria was inclined to favour the Austrian
position, deeming that the language used by her Ministers was much too
strong, and even went so far as to appeal from Lord John and Palmerston
to the Cabinet as a whole. They were compelled to inform her that unless
their views were adopted they would have no alternative but to resign
their offices. Presently events began to favour Lord John's policy. In
order to reconcile the British Government to the idea of a Congress,
Napoleon III. declared himself ready to constitute a confederation
without Austria, and added that he had no intention of employing force to
restore the Dukes of Tuscany and Modena. Lord John thereupon informed the
Sardinian Envoy that the defence of Tuscany from internal disorder would
be perfectly legitimate, and the advice was promptly acted upon, in spite
of the indignation of Napoleon. Further, in September Austria admitted
that she was not prepared to use force. So that when the invitations for
a Congress were issued shortly after the signature of the treaty, it
was clear its meeting would be perfectly futile if the treaty was to be
taken as a basis of discussion. This Napoleon saw and, though the British
Government accepted the invitation, the Emperor gave the project its
death-blow by causing an adverse pamphlet to be written, entitled "_Le
Pape et le Congrès_." In his subtle machinations he had been foiled by one
man, and that man was the simple-minded Garibaldi.

Amidst all that was doubtful, ambiguous, or perplexing in the Italian
revolution, which resulted so happily in the establishment of the
Kingdom of United Italy under the constitutional government of Victor
Emmanuel, there was at least one character which always appeared without
a shadow--which shone with unclouded lustre to the end. Garibaldi was
the real hero of the Italian war. He was the man of action who realised
the great thoughts of Mazzini. If the latter was the first to conceive
the idea of Italian unity, it was the former that made it a fact. The
campaign of the hero in the Valteline displayed uniformly the qualities
of a great general and extorted the admiration of the enemy. The Austrian
officers encamped on the Stelvio spoke of him in the highest terms of
praise and thought him a truly wonderful man; as for the Croats, they
firmly believed that he was the son of the devil. Garibaldi, it may well
be supposed, felt as deeply as Cavour the blow inflicted on the hitherto
triumphant cause of his country by the French Emperor in the Treaty of
Villafranca. When Cavour resigned, the General went to the King to give up
his commission, with all the officers of his corps; but Victor Emmanuel
said--"No; Italy still requires the legions you command, and you must
remain." Garibaldi consented. Then followed in Italian affairs a period
of uncertainty, perplexity, confusion, and mystery. The "Ratazzi Ministry
had no settled plans, and not knowing what was best to do, did nothing."
The Sardinian envoys were recalled from the duchies and the Romagna;
Garibaldi was requested to resign the command of the Æmilian army; the
vote of the different provincial Parliaments for annexation to Sardinia
was neither refused nor accepted; the nomination of Prince Carignano to
the regency of the provinces was declined after England had refused her
armed support, and Buoncompagni, who had not been asked for, was sent in
his stead. The organisation of the Sardinian army also was neglected, and
the incorporation of the Lombard provinces with Piedmont was conducted
so inefficiently as to cause great discontent. At this juncture the
volunteers were thrown into Tuscany. Wherever Garibaldi went in his
tour of inspection, the inhabitants received him with unbounded joy. He
accepted all the demonstrations gladly, as inspired by devotion to their
country and loyalty to Victor Emmanuel; but this did not save him from the
jealousy of the generals of the regular army, particularly La Marmora, who
refused to recognise Garibaldi's nominations, and gave orders to dismiss
all the volunteers from Central Italy, that they might serve in their own
province. It is stated that as many as 18,000 or 20,000 of these passed
through Modena; but not one could be induced to enter the regular army, so
sickened were they of their Piedmontese experience; but all were ready to
follow Garibaldi. General Fanti, who had resigned the chief command of the
army, became Minister of War at Modena, and thwarted Garibaldi in every
possible manner; going so far as even to send confidential messages to his
officers, warning them not to execute his orders. These studied annoyances
were designed to cause the high-spirited General to give up his command,
in compliance, it is believed, with the desire of the French Emperor. In
consequence of these intrigues Garibaldi retired, but by that time the
unity of Central Italy with Sardinia was practically secure.

In January, 1860, the Ratazzi Cabinet resigned, being indignant at Lord
John Russell's suggestion that Cavour should come to Paris and London,
"congress or no congress"; and Count Cavour was charged with the formation
of a new Ministry. At the general election Garibaldi was returned as a
member of the Chamber for Nice, his native city, the authorities, at
the same time, presenting him with a sword of honour. Soon after the
conclusion of peace, rumours were rife that Nice and Savoy were to be
surrendered to France, as a reward for her services. This was deemed
incredible, for the French Emperor had emphatically disclaimed any
interested motives or any desire for the acquisition of territory, and it
could not be supposed that Victor Emmanuel would ever consent to alienate
the cradle of his dynasty. When Cavour was questioned on the subject by
Garibaldi, he distinctly denied that he had ever dreamt of such a thing.
This denial was often repeated; but when the fact of a secret compact to
this effect became notorious, the Emperor authorised Lord John Russell
to assure the House of Commons that, however confident in the justice of
his claim, he would not take any step to carry it into effect without
first consulting the Great Powers of Europe. Yet he shortly afterwards
quietly entered into possession without troubling them on the subject.
Not a word of discussion on the matter was permitted by Cavour in the
Sardinian Chamber; and without any appeal to his Parliament, the King
withdrew his governors and his troops; whereupon Savoy and Nice were
immediately occupied by French soldiers. On the 12th of April Garibaldi,
in his place in the Chamber, made an attempt to defeat the scheme by
showing that the transfer of territory without the consent of Parliament
was unconstitutional and illegal. His motion was lost; but his effort
to save the fair city--an Italian city that had fought for the common
cause--won for him an enthusiastic reception from the people outside, by
whom he was actually carried away in triumph. The first act of the Italian
Parliament was to ratify the sale of the people of Nice. This transaction
caused an irreconcilable breach between Garibaldi and Cavour. Lord John
Russell launched a vigorous protest against the annexation and the
doctrine of "natural frontiers," which Napoleon enunciated in its defence,
but his remonstrances in the nature of things went unheeded, even though
his declarations in the House of Commons were outspoken in the extreme.
"But this means war," said General Flahault to Palmerston. "Very well,"
was the reply, "if it is war, it is war." Things, however, took their
natural course, though Russell's language undoubtedly prevented French
intervention in the events that we are about to relate, and therefore
helped freedom's cause.

[Illustration: MEETING OF GARIBALDI AND VICTOR EMMANUEL. (_See p._ 309.)]

The Romans and Venetians were still in bondage, and there seemed as yet no
way opened for their liberation. The former were kept down by a powerful
French garrison, which could be increased to any extent at the shortest
notice; the latter dwelt under the shadows of the Quadrilateral, the
strongest fortresses in the world, and Austria was determined to hold
that province with its seaboard at any cost. But it occurred to Garibaldi
and his friends that something might be done to overthrow the feeble
government of the King of Naples in Sicily. Mazzini had sent an agent
there, who reported that it would be dangerous to attempt anything in
that quarter. Still, there was a chance that if Garibaldi placed himself
at the head of an expedition to that island, the immense prestige of his
character, and the magic of his name, might work wonders amongst the
people. Mazzini took this view, and promised the support of the secret
societies, with all the funds he could collect in England and other
countries. The General had resigned his commission in the Piedmontese
service, and was therefore free to act independently. We must assume that
the Government of Victor Emmanuel considered this attempt of Garibaldi
extremely rash and hopeless. Whatever might be their motives, they did all
in their power to prevent the enterprise. They accordingly seized upon the
funds and the arms that had been deposited at Genoa and Milan, and neither
arms nor money were ever afterwards restored to Garibaldi. This was a
great discouragement, as the supplies that had been collected were far
too scanty. Garibaldi had only 1,000 volunteers, while the military force
with which his expedition would have to contend consisted of twelve times
as many well-appointed regular troops. With his small army, numbering not
more than a single regiment, he started from a country house near Genoa on
the night of the 5th of May, 1860, to make war against the King of Naples,
with whom his own Sovereign was at peace. Two steamers, with appropriate
names--the _Piedmonte_ and _Lombardo_--were seized by the volunteers in
the roadstead at Genoa, and steaming along the coast, they picked up their
comrades at the points previously fixed upon. The Sardinian Government,
hearing of the embarkation, immediately sent out the fast screw frigate
_Maria Adelaide_, under the orders of Admiral Persano, in pursuit of
the expedition. Lord John Russell did not altogether approve of the
enterprise; nevertheless he declined to interfere, and warned Napoleon
that the annexation of Sardinia by France as compensation "would be viewed
with extreme displeasure by Great Britain."

The "thousand heroes" steered their course to the harbour of Marsala,
where the men had just time to land on the 11th of May, and get their guns
and stores on shore, before two Neapolitan ships, which were pursuing
at full speed, could come within reach. Some broadsides were fired at
the Garibaldians, but without effect. Sicily had been prepared for the
advent of the deliverer. Some partial attempts to effect a revolution
had been crushed with great brutality by the Neapolitan troops, but the
effect was to extend throughout the island the spirit of revolt. The
Neapolitan army was commanded by General Lanza, who, in an order of the
day, proclaimed his intention to extinguish the firebrand of Italy, the
outlawed filibuster of South America. Nothing daunted by this bravado,
Garibaldi, on the 15th of May, attacked the enemy in their strong
positions. The battle lasted three hours; Garibaldi had 200 men _hors
de combat_, while his son Menotti, and the son of the great Manin, and
Baron Stocco were amongst the wounded. From Calatafimi to Palermo, the
liberators marched on, fighting and conquering, and carrying out, under
the guidance of Garibaldi, the most admirable strategical plans. The
General, after crossing the mountains, feigned a hasty retreat, which so
completely deceived the Neapolitan generals in that quarter that they
telegraphed to Lanza at Palermo, stating that Garibaldi had fled and that
his troops were being utterly demoralised. But on the morning of the
27th the Commander-in-Chief received, while yet in bed, the startling
intelligence that the despised "filibuster" was encamped in the vicinity
of that city. It was defended by 12,000 troops. In less than four hours
they were dislodged from their positions. Before night Garibaldi was in
possession of the whole of the town, with the exception of the royal
palace, its immediate vicinity, and the forts, from which, as well as
from the Neapolitan ships hard by, a shower of projectiles fell upon the
Italians, for the enemy had opened fire upon the city in spite of the
energetic protest of the English Rear-Admiral Mundy. The result of this
marvellous success was a conference with Garibaldi, which was held on
board the British flagship _Hannibal_ on the 30th of May, in presence of
the French, American, and Sardinian naval commanders. An armistice was
agreed to, and ultimately a convention, signed on the 6th of June, by
which the Neapolitans were to evacuate Palermo, and the whole of Sicily,
except Messina, Melazza, and some other less important fortresses. The
Italians paid a just tribute to the humanity, energy, and diplomatic
skill of Admiral Mundy, but for whose exertions the city would have been
almost totally destroyed by a treacherous bombardment after the hour for a
conference had been fixed.

The next step in Garibaldi's liberating progress was to dislodge the enemy
from Milazzo. The garrison was commanded by General Bosco, who had under
him four regiments of rifles, numbering 4,800 men; the 15th Regiment
of the line, 1,000 strong; two squadrons of dragoons, five pieces of
artillery, and twelve field pieces, all remarkably well mounted. He had,
besides, every advantage in point of position. Garibaldi's forces were
greatly inferior in point of numbers, amounting to only about 4,400 men,
with three guns, two of them old ship twelve-pounders, and a six-pounder,
cast in the seventeenth century. But his little army was enthusiastic and
daring, having unbounded confidence in its chivalrous leader, and after
a tough battle the enemy was thoroughly beaten. The Dictator, for so
Garibaldi styled himself, had now learned, from an intercepted letter,
that the King of Naples, despairing of Sicily, had ordered his troops to
evacuate the island. He therefore resolved to prevent the departure of the
troops, and to force the garrison of Messina to come to terms, to which
the general agreed without difficulty, signing a convention, by which he
surrendered the town and all the forts, except the citadel. Messina and
the harbour were to be respected, and no bombardment was to take place
without provocation on the part of the Garibaldians; the towns of Syracuse
and Augusta were also to be evacuated by the royal troops; thus Garibaldi
became master of Sicily, and had obtained from the enemy large supplies of
war material to enable him to effect the liberation of Naples.

In the meantime the King, alarmed at the progress of revolution, and
fearing the loss of his throne, supplicated the interposition of the
French Emperor, promising a constitution and all sorts of reforms.
Napoleon, therefore, wrote in very urgent terms to Victor Emmanuel,
deprecating the invasion of Naples. In consequence of this interposition,
Count Litta was sent to remonstrate with Garibaldi. Garibaldi resolved
to disobey the royal injunctions. He wrote a reply full of devotion and
affection, in which he declared nothing on earth should influence him
to swerve from his mission till it was accomplished--until he made his
Majesty King of United Italy. Napoleon then had recourse to England, and
suggested that France and Great Britain should combine to stop Garibaldi's
passage. Lord John Russell, however, declined to accede to this view and
Naples was left to its fate by the Powers.

On the 18th of August Garibaldi embarked, with an expedition of 4,000
men, for the conquest of a kingdom defended by a well-organised army
of at least 80,000. He surprised Reggio, whose garrison capitulated
and was placed on board the Neapolitan ships. As the liberating army
advanced, Garibaldi and his officers everywhere out-manœuvred the
Neapolitans, giving them to understand that a small reconnoitring band
was but the advanced guard of a powerful army and inducing them to
retire or surrender. Garibaldi pursued his conquering march with the
utmost rapidity. On arriving at Monteleone he found that the Neapolitan
corps under General Ghio had decamped the evening before. Hastening on
to Tiriolo, he was joyfully greeted by the National Guards. At Savoria
a sudden attack spread terror amongst the royal troops, though the town
contained 7,000 infantry, with cavalry and artillery. Colonel Peard was
sent forward to General Ghio to demand that he should capitulate, to which
he assented without any difficulty. At length the Liberator arrived at
Salerno, which was his last resting-place before entering the capital.
On the 5th of September it was decided that the King and Queen with
their court should quit Naples and retire to Gaeta, leaving their loyal
Ministers and generals to defend the capital and throne as well as they
could. As soon as the King had departed, the Ministers who had been left
to preserve order held a meeting, and decided that a deputation should
proceed at once to Salerno, and make arrangements for the public entry of
Garibaldi into the capital. "The warrior of Freedom" made his entrance
into Naples accompanied only by a few followers. He passed unguarded
under the guns of Castel Nuovo and St. Elmo, still garrisoned by the
troops of the departed King. As his carriage advanced with difficulty
through the applauding multitude the crowd grew thicker and thicker. At
last the hero arrived at the Palace of Forestiera, where he was received
by the National Guard and the Municipal Council. In compliance with the
demand of the people, he immediately showed himself on the balcony and
delivered a brief address, in which he told them that they must prove to
Italy that they were the worthy descendants of Massaniello. The Neapolitan
garrison, however, which still held the fortress of St. Elmo, overlooking
and commanding the town, occasioned much anxiety, as the troops remained
faithful to the King and might possibly bombard the city. But the alarm
was set at rest by the capitulation of the garrison. So far everything
went well; but Garibaldi could not organise a government and began to
squabble with Mazzini as to the destiny of his conquests. Should they be
surrendered to Victor Emmanuel or should they be a republic?

Here the British Government wisely interposed. On the 9th of September,
Mr. Elliot, the British Minister at Naples, received a telegram from Lord
John Russell, desiring him to express to General Garibaldi the hope that
no attack would be made upon Venetia. On September 10th General Garibaldi
and Mr. Elliot met on board the _Hannibal_ at eleven o'clock. "After I had
made her Majesty's Minister and the Dictator acquainted with each other,"
wrote Admiral Mundy, "I requested the latter to desire his attendant
staff to leave the cabin, as Mr. Elliot was desirous of a private
conversation, and Captain Farquhar took them on the lower deck to watch
the gunnery exercise. Mr. Elliot having expressed to General Garibaldi
the astonishment with which, in common with all the world, he had
witnessed the marvellous results he had accomplished with such trifling
means, informed him that though he could have no official relations with
him, he should remain at Naples until he received further instructions
from her Majesty's Government. This information appeared to give great
satisfaction to the Dictator, who said he fully understood that official
intercourse was not practicable. Mr. Elliot then informed him that Lord
John Russell had charged him to express the hope that no attack would be
made on Venetia, as, in his lordship's opinion, it would be calculated to
bring the greatest calamities upon Italy. Garibaldi replied by stating
that he would make no concealment of his plans, which were plain and
straightforward. He intended to push on at once to Rome, and there place
the crown of United Italy on the head of King Victor Emmanuel, upon whom
would devolve the task of the liberation of Venetia, and in which he would
himself be but the lieutenant of his Majesty. If that liberation could be
accomplished by purchase or by negotiation, so much the better. He added
that he was sure that Lord John Russell, in counselling the abandonment of
Venetia, did not fairly represent the generous feelings of the people of
England towards the Italian nation, although he cheerfully recognised the
obligation Italy was under to her Majesty's Government for the sympathy
they had exhibited with regard to Rome." Nevertheless the warning,
accompanied by another to the King of Sardinia, was not without its effect.

The speedy annexation of Naples to Piedmont was most desirable; and the
main difficulty that stood in the way was the antagonism between Garibaldi
and Cavour. The former wrote to the King requesting that the obnoxious
Minister might be removed from office; but Victor Emmanuel answered
that he could not, as a constitutional Sovereign, withdraw a Minister
who enjoyed the confidence of the majority of his subjects. Garibaldi,
however, lost no time in making all necessary arrangements for the
annexation, which was hastened by the march of events in another quarter.
The celebrated French General, Lamoricière, had tendered his sword to
the Pope and had organised an army of volunteers which began to assume
alarming proportions. Garibaldi would have marched to meet this new enemy
and would have attacked Rome. The French garrison of that city must then
have interfered and France would have been forced into actual war against
the liberators of Italy. This complication of circumstances led the
Emperor to consent to the invasion of the Papal States by Victor Emmanuel,
which was the very thing that Cavour desired. Consequently, with but a few
days' notice, the Sardinian army crossed the Papal frontier, scattered
Lamoricière's forces, compelling himself to fly for safety, and added some
of the finest provinces in Italy to the new Italian kingdom.

Towards the middle of September Garibaldi had permanently established his
headquarters in the magnificent palace of Caserta, the summer residence
of the ex-royal family. The organisation of the army was his first care
after his arrival in Naples. Altogether Garibaldi could muster an army of
37,000 men by the middle of September. He distributed his forces so as
to be in a position to be able to repel any attack that might be made by
the Royalists, and to be at the same time free to cross the Volturno and
assume the offensive. Up to September the 17th there had been no encounter
between the two armies but slight skirmishes, in which the Royalists were
invariably worsted. On that day Garibaldi ordered a forward movement,
which was conducted by Colonel Turr, and was followed by an attack upon
Capua. In presence of the advancing column of Major Cattabene, the enemy
abandoned the town of Cajazzo, a strong position which the Garibaldians
were thus enabled to occupy. But they were only 600 in number, and
separated by a river from their base of operations, which was four miles
distant. Two days afterwards they were attacked by an overwhelming
force, which cut off half their number and took the major prisoner to
Capua. This unfortunate affair, which occurred on the 19th, was only a
preliminary encounter. The advance of the Piedmontese army through the
Papal States, threatening the rear of the Neapolitans, compelled them to
assume the offensive against Garibaldi. It was consequently determined by
a council of war that, on the 1st of October, the whole army should cross
the Volturno at different points and fall upon the Garibaldian lines.
The principal attack was directed against Garibaldi's line between Santa
Maria and St. Angelo. It was vigorously conducted, and well supported
by powerful artillery; but the military genius of Garibaldi and the
enthusiasm of his troops prevailed, though the victory was by no means
decisive. The remnant of the royal forces were withdrawn to Gaeta.

The advance of Victor Emmanuel's army on the Garigliano decided the
fate of Southern Italy and of the Bourbon dynasty. It seemed rather a
triumphal progress than a contest between two fighting armies. A Sardinian
division under General de Sonaz landed at Manfredonia on the 14th of
October, and marched on Maddaloni; while the main body of the Sardinian
army, under General Cialdini, was pushing on from the Abruzzi towards
Capua, compelling the Neapolitans to fall back on Gaeta. Garibaldi had,
meantime, concentrated his forces at Calvi, whence he sent Colonel Missori
to convey his respects to Victor Emmanuel at Teana. The King received
Missori most affectionately, evincing the liveliest interest in the army
of Garibaldi and complimenting the gallant envoy on his own exploits at
Melazzo. It was agreed that the King should meet the Dictator next day at
the foot of a hill called Santa Maria della Croce. The two great leaders
of Italian unity cordially shook hands, and showed by their faces that the
action was the expression of a true sentiment of affection on Garibaldi's
part, and of the greatest admiration on the part of the King. The King
complimented the General by saying that without his daring expedition the
unity of Italy would not be a reality for ten years to come. "It may be,
sire," answered Garibaldi; "but I could not have attempted my expedition
had not Victor Emmanuel been the most noble and generous of kings."

The triumphs of the Piedmontese army were rapid. The earthworks were
stormed, the Garigliano was crossed, and the main body of the Neapolitan
army was driven back to Gaeta. Capua having been bombarded for forty-eight
hours, the garrison surrendered on the 2nd of November, yielding almost
without conditions. Meanwhile, universal suffrage had declared Victor
Emmanuel King of the Two Sicilies; there being but about 10,000 votes
for the Bourbon, against 1,300,000. The task of Garibaldi was now
gloriously accomplished; his programme, as conqueror and Dictator,
exactly fulfilled. On the 7th of November Victor Emmanuel made his
triumphal entry into Naples. The General now asked three things of the
King, in return for the two crowns he had given him, namely: first, to
be appointed Governor of Southern Italy for three years; secondly, that
the decrees he had signed during his dictatorship should be ratified,
so far as they were in accordance with the constitutional laws of the
country; and thirdly, that the rank conferred by him, in virtue of his
dictatorship of the Two Sicilies, on his companions in arms, should be
recognised by the new Italian Government. A peremptory refusal was given
to the first request, which, indeed, it was impossible to grant. The
two last the King's Ministers were disposed to grant, but upon certain
conditions to be named by themselves. In the end, the King renewed the
royal promise he had previously made, that Garibaldi's volunteers should
be incorporated with the regular army, and be subject to the scrutiny
of a mixed commission--a promise that was afterwards broken by his
Ministers. In these circumstances it is not surprising that Garibaldi
declined all the offers afterwards made to him and retired, poor and
unrewarded, to Caprera. Although the task of Garibaldi and Victor
Emmanuel was accomplished, yet the diplomatic situation was gloomy in
the extreme. Napoleon III. sent a threatening squadron of ships in order
to avert, if possible, the surrender of the final stronghold of the
Neapolitans at Gaeta, but the Italian army persisted in the siege and the
demonstration was a complete failure. Then France and Spain withdrew their
Ministers from Turin; Austria and Prussia expressed their indignation and
displeasure, and Russia followed suit by directing her Minister to depart.
Lord John Russell thereupon wrote a famous despatch, dated the 27th of
October, 1860. He declined to follow in the wake of the Powers, and after
asserting that the people of Naples and the Roman States had taken up arms
for good reasons, concluded with these stirring words--"Such having been
the causes and concomitant circumstances of the revolution of Italy, her
Majesty's Government can see no sufficient grounds for the severe censure
with which Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia have visited the acts of
the King of Sardinia. Her Majesty's Government will turn their eyes rather
to the gratifying prospect of a people building up the edifice of their
liberties, and consolidating the work of their independence, amid the
sympathies and good wishes of Europe."




CHAPTER XX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Session of 1860--Debates on Nice and Savoy--Mr. Gladstone's
    Budget--The French Commercial Treaty--The Paper Duties Bill--Lord
    Palmerston's Motion of Inquiry--Mr. Gladstone's Resolution--Lord
    John Russell's Reform Bill--It falls flat--Mr. James Wilson
    and Sir Charles Trevelyan--The Defences of India and Great
    Britain--Foreign Affairs in the Queen's Speech--The Massacre
    by the Druses--The French Expedition--Palmerston's Distrust of
    Napoleon--China once more--Repulse on the Peiho--Lord Elgin and
    Baron Gros--The Advance on Pekin--Capture of the Taku Forts--Futile
    Negotiations--Treacherous Treatment of the British Envoys--The
    Summer Palace looted--Release of Mr. Parkes--Lord Elgin decrees the
    Destruction of the Palace--It perishes in the Flames--The Treaty
    of Peace--The Prince of Wales in Canada--Death of the Duchess of
    Kent--The American Civil War--Causes of Dispute between North and
    South--Election of Lincoln--Secession of South Carolina--Her Example
    followed--The Confederate States--Fall of Fort Sumter--Lincoln
    calls out the Militia--He places the South under Blockade--The
    British Cabinet declares Neutrality--The Order in Council--Affair
    of the _Trent_--Capture of Mason and Slidell--Excitement in
    England--Canadian Loyalty--Russell's Ultimatum--His Correspondence
    with Seward--Release of the Envoys--The Paper Duties Bill and the
    Church Rates Bill--Sidney Herbert and the Volunteers.


The Session of 1860 opened on the 24th of January, her Majesty delivering
the Royal Speech in person. In the debates on the Address, affairs in
Italy became a prominent topic of discussion, especially the part that
France had played after the war in demanding the cession of Savoy and
Nice. In the Upper House Lord Brougham expressed his opinion that the
Italians should be allowed to work out their own freedom, without the
interference of foreigners, whether French, Sardinian, or Austrian. No
doubt they would do it, if Austrian interference could be got rid of;
but that was precisely the difficulty that rendered the interference of
the other Powers necessary. Lord Derby objected to Britain joining any
conference on the subject at all. On the 7th of February the Marquis of
Normanby brought forward a distinct motion upon the subject. The noble
lord--who had been distinguished as a Whig, and something more, and
whose ultra-Liberalism when Viceroy of Ireland had exposed him to much
animadversion, was converted to ultra-Conservatism by his residence as
ambassador in Italy--became during this Session the zealous partisan of
the despots whom the people had deposed. He moved an Address to the Queen
on the subject of the proposed annexation of Savoy. After some strong
language from Lord Derby and others the motion was withdrawn. But, on
the 14th of the same month, Lord Normanby brought forward another motion
in reference to the new Government of Central Italy, which he denounced
in the strongest terms of reprobation. The Marquis of Clanricarde ably
answered the vituperative speech of Lord Normanby and contradicted his
allegations from his own personal knowledge. The fiscal burdens under
which, according to Lord Normanby, the people of Sardinia groaned, the
noble marquis declared to be as nothing compared with the taxation endured
by Venetia, which was, in fact, absolute confiscation. The motion was for
the production of papers, and it was agreed to. There had been similar
discussions in the House of Commons, which led Lord John Russell, on the
12th of March, to make a formal statement about Italy, the object of which
was to vindicate the course taken by the Government. But the discussions
led to no practical result; inasmuch as, whatever might be the feeling
about the extension of the French frontiers by the annexation of Savoy and
Nice, the House was unanimously of opinion that it should not be made a
ground of war with France.

Great interest was felt at the opening of this Session about the
forthcoming financial statement of Mr. Gladstone, and the Treaty of
Commerce with France, which had been recently signed, but the terms of
which had not been laid before Parliament. This very important concession
to the doctrines of Free Trade had been negotiated by Mr. Cobden and
M. Rouher, the French Minister, and represented the better side of
Napoleon's policy. The 6th of February was fixed for the Budget, but the
illness of Mr. Gladstone caused its postponement to the 10th. His speech
on that occasion lasted four hours and was distinguished by all his
accustomed clearness, force, and eloquence. On the 21st of February Mr.
Du Cane moved a resolution against the Budget to the effect that, while
recognising the necessity of providing for the increased expenditure
of the coming financial year, the House was of opinion that it was not
expedient to add to the existing deficiency by diminishing the ordinary
revenue, and was not prepared to disappoint the just expectations of the
country by re-imposing the income-tax at an unnecessarily high rate. A
debate followed, which was continued by adjournment on the two following
days; and the result was a division, which, in a very full House, gave
to the Government a majority of 116; thus deciding the question of its
financial policy and of the Treaty of Commerce with France. A more formal
sanction, however, to this treaty was afterwards given on the motion of
Mr. Byng, who proposed to present an Address to her Majesty, expressing
the acknowledgment of the House for the treaty. The motion was seconded
by Mr. Baines; but Mr. Horsman moved an amendment to the effect that
the treaty imposed unnecessary and impolitic restrictions on the Crown
and Legislature of this country and prayed for the omission of the 11th
article from the treaty. This amendment was rejected by a majority of 282
against 56.

The financial measures of the Government raised an important
constitutional question as to the power of the House of Lords. When the
Paper Duty Repeal Bill, which had passed the House of Commons, came up
for first reading in the Upper House, Lord Monteagle gave notice that he
should, at the proper time, move its rejection. The second reading was
moved by Lord Granville on the 21st of May. Having explained the measure,
he asked in conclusion, whether it was desirable that the House of Lords,
now so popular, should furnish ground for declamation and agitation by
introducing a new system, and making its hand seen and felt in every
burden that pressed upon the people. The question, as raised by Lord
Lyndhurst in an able speech, was, whether the Lords had a right to reject
a money Bill that the Commons had adopted. Undoubtedly they possessed
the right, but it had been long in suspense. "No one," wrote Lord John
Russell to Lord Palmerston, who took the matter very lightly, "can deny
the right of the Lords to throw out the Paper Duty Repeal Bill any more
than they can deny the right of the Crown to make a hundred peers a day
or of the Commons to reject the Mutiny Bill. But the exercise of a right
that has lain dormant since the Revolution must give a great shock to the
Constitution." The result, after a long and able debate, was that the Bill
was rejected by a majority of 89, the numbers, including proxies, being
for the bill, 104; against it, 193. Lord Malmesbury, in his "Memoirs,"
gives the curious piece of information that he gratuitously offered
through Lady Palmerston, in the name of Lord Derby, the support of the
Conservative party for the remainder of the Session, in the event of the
resignation of Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone, and that the offer
was gladly accepted. The rejection of the Bill was hailed as a great
Conservative triumph; but among the Liberal party, both in the House of
Commons and out of doors, it excited a strong feeling against the Lords,
who were believed to have arrogated to themselves unconstitutional power
in subjecting the nation to a continuance of financial burdens, not being
representatives of the people. The feeling of hostility, however, was
mitigated by the consideration that the Lords were right in deeming it
inexpedient, at that time, when the Continental situation was full of
anxiety, to forego the income derived from the paper duties. There was,
of course, great irritation in a large section of the House of Commons,
but any further collision was averted by Lord Palmerston, who moved the
appointment of a committee of 21 to search for precedents on the subject.
The report of the committee was purely historical. The Premier adroitly
made it the basis of a series of resolutions which he moved on the 6th
of July, to the effect 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. In moving this resolution,
the noble lord noticed one fact which furnished an excuse for the course
adopted by the Lords--namely, that during the interval between the second
and third reading in the Commons, the majority had dwindled down from
fifty-three to nine; a fact that could not be overlooked. He advised the
House, therefore, as the most dignified course, to be satisfied with
the declaration of its constitutional privileges. Three amendments were
proposed; but as Mr. Disraeli offered to Lord Palmerston the tribute of
his adhesion to the "patriotic speech" with which he had introduced the
motion, the amendments were withdrawn and the resolution was unanimously
adopted. These resolutions were not believed by the Liberal party to
go as far as the case demanded. Accordingly, on the 17th of July, Lord
Fermoy moved the following resolution:--"That the rejection by the
House of Lords of the Bill for the repeal of the paper duties is an
encroachment on the rights and privileges of the House of Commons; and
it is therefore incumbent on this House to adopt a practical measure for
the vindication of its rights and privileges." Lord Palmerston, however,
deprecated the renewal of the discussion and moved the previous question.
It was generally felt that Lord Fermoy's motion was ill-timed. It was
accordingly negatived by a majority of 177 to 138.

[Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE (1860).]

The question of the paper duties, however, the abolition of which
was assumed in the French Treaty, was yet to be settled; and Mr.
Gladstone--who was at serious issue with his chiefs on many points,
notably the expediency of spending nine millions on the fortifications
of Portsmouth and Plymouth--moved a resolution upon the subject, on
the 6th of August, when he exposed and refuted the arguments of the
paper manufacturers, showing that they were nothing better than the old
fallacies of the Protectionists; and he argued, moreover, that the House
was bound by the French Treaty to abandon the paper duty. So far as
intention was concerned, the articles of the treaty showed, beyond the
possibility of dispute, that our meaning was to part with every vestige
of the protective policy. The House of Commons had given its consent
to the treaty, and a specific pledge that it would take the necessary
steps to give it effect. With regard to the absence of reciprocity, the
protectionist interest in France was too strong for the Government. But
Mr. Gladstone regarded the prohibition of the export of rags as utterly
insignificant, because France was a dear country for rags, and was obliged
to import them for its own use. Mr. Puller moved, as an amendment, "That
without desiring to prejudice the question of a reduction, at a future
period, of the duty on books and paper, this committee does not think fit
at present to assent to such reduction." The amendment was rejected, and
the resolutions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, abolishing the duties,
were adopted.

[Illustration: DEMONSTRATION AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS IN DAMASCUS. (_See p._
315.)]

On the 1st of March Lord John Russell experienced in his own person the
wonderful changes in public sentiment that had passed over England in the
course of a single generation. He still clung to the idea that it was
necessary to do something to complete the great measure of Parliamentary
Reform, to supply its defects, and to adapt it to the altered condition
of society produced by the marvellous development of manufacturing
industry. Having been mainly instrumental in defeating the Reform Bill
of the Conservative Administration, he felt it the more incumbent upon
him to redeem the promises repeatedly made to complete the reform of the
representation of the people. He did not find fault with his own great
measure of 1832; on the contrary, with true paternal affection, he avowed
his firm belief that no measure had so few faults. What he proposed to
do was, in a simple manner, to supply its unavoidable omissions and
remedy its necessary defects. He then went into details, to which it is
unnecessary here to allude. The public took no interest whatever in the
question, as Lord Palmerston told him in language of remarkable bluntness.
This undeniable fact suggested a topic in his favour, the noble lord no
doubt forgetting that he had relied on arguments and facts of an opposite
kind thirty years before. He thought that the Legislature ought not to
wait for an agitation that would force demands upon Parliament. The
concession of just claims should not be delayed because they were not
urged. Leave was given to bring in a Bill for England; Mr. Cardwell, Chief
Secretary for Ireland, brought in a similar Bill the same evening for that
country, as did the Lord Advocate for Scotland. The second reading took
place on the 19th of March; but the report of the proceedings describes
the debate as so utterly devoid of interest that it was difficult to keep
the House together. Lord Palmerston made a speech, which, as Mr. Disraeli
happily said, was "not so much in support of as about Reform." It was
protracted by repeated adjournments from the 19th of March till the 3rd
of May, when the second reading was adopted without a division. The 4th
of June was fixed for going into committee on the Bill, when Lord John
Russell explained the course which the Government meant to take. But Sir
J. Fergusson moved an amendment on the motion that the Speaker leave the
chair, seconded by Colonel Dickson, that the debate should be adjourned
until the Irish and Scottish Bills were before the House, in order that
the three might advance _pari passu_. After a debate on this motion, the
House divided, when it was rejected by a majority of 21, the numbers
being--For the adjournment, 248; against it 269. But as the public seemed
to care little what became of the measure, and as it was now quite evident
that it could not pass during that Session, its noble author, on the
11th of June, had to make the humiliating avowal that the Government had
determined to withdraw the Bill. He acknowledged to Lord Palmerston that
"the apathy of the country was undeniable, nor was it a transient humour,"
but the Radicals were furious with the Premier, and as Cobden's biography
proves, speculated on his overthrow.

The affairs of India occupied considerable attention during the Session
of 1860. Its finances had got into a state of confusion, the public debt
was increasing every year, and it was found impossible, by those charged
with the administration, to equalise the income and the expenditure. In
these circumstances, the Home Government had, in the previous year, sent
out Mr. James Wilson as financial member of the Legislative Council at
Calcutta. On his arrival in India he devoted himself to the study of
Indian finances; and when he had mastered the subject, he matured a plan
for the reduction of expenditure, which, in connection with improvements
in the system of taxation, would, he hoped, make matters right. He brought
this plan before the Council in an able and elaborate speech. It was well
received in India and also most favourably in Great Britain; but it did
not meet the approbation of Sir Charles Trevelyan, who had been recently
appointed Governor of Madras and considered himself a very high authority
on Indian affairs. He was betrayed into the indiscretion of attacking
Mr. Wilson's scheme. The conduct of a great public functionary in India,
in thus openly assailing the measures of the Government under which he
served, especially in the then critical state of Indian affairs, presented
an example of imprudence so dangerous that it could not be tolerated; and,
accordingly, the Home Government gave orders for the immediate recall of
Sir Charles Trevelyan. He found able defenders--Mr. Bright among them--in
Parliament. Afterwards, in a debate on Indian finance, which occurred on
the 13th of August, the Secretary for India, Sir Charles Wood, stated
that the recall of Sir Charles Trevelyan was the most painful duty of
his public life. He then went into a discussion of the rival schemes and
came to the conclusion that there must be new taxes. In fact, the classes
best able to bear taxation had hitherto in a great measure escaped it;
merchants and fund-holders could be reached only by means of an income-tax
and this measure was therefore adopted. The result of Mr. Wilson's
scheme realised the most sanguine expectations of its supporters. He was
unfortunately removed by death in the midst of his labours, being cut off
by cholera, at Calcutta, on the 11th of August, after a residence of about
a year in India; but the system he inaugurated was ably carried out by his
successor, Mr. Laing; in consequence of which the resources of India were
very rapidly developed and the country entered upon a career of prosperity
quite unprecedented in its history. Railways were constructed, irrigation
works were restored, private enterprise was encouraged, and social
progress was promoted in every direction; a remarkable instance of the
good that may be effected by sound economic principles, honestly carried
out.

An Act was passed this year for the reorganisation of the Indian army,
which was one of the consequences of the transfer of the government
from the East India Company to the Queen--a benefit to India of immense
magnitude, resulting from the late mutiny. The India Council was opposed
to the change in the army; but the Cabinet sustained Sir Charles Wood
and Parliament sanctioned the measure. On the 12th of June Sir Charles
Wood brought in a Bill to alter the regulation of her Majesty's local
European forces in India. The East India Company had maintained three
armies, one at each presidency, part of which consisted of Europeans,
enlisted in Great Britain for local service in India, the proportion of
which to the Company's native troops was two to one. After the mutiny had
been put down, there was much discontent among the European soldiers with
reference to the new arrangements; in consequence of which many of them
were discharged and sent home. It was resolved, after much consideration,
that our military power in India should consist of a uniform force,
instead of the anomaly of two European armies. After a lengthened debate,
Sir Charles Wood replied to the objections that had been made to the Bill,
and the House divided, when the second reading was carried by a majority
of 289 to 53. The Bill also encountered some opposition in the Lords, but
the second reading was carried _nem. con._, and it quickly passed through
the other stages and became law. Equally important was the vote for nine
millions for coast defences, defended by Lord Palmerston in a masterly
speech enumerating the dangers to which England was exposed. It caused
great friction in the Cabinet, so much so that Lord Palmerston wrote to
the Queen, "however great the loss to the Government by the retirement of
Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the
risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." The Chancellor of the Exchequer,
however, remained in office, after a hard-hitting correspondence with the
Premier. The Bill passed by large majorities.

The Session was brought to a close on the 28th of August. The Queen
had gone to Scotland and the Royal Speech was delivered by the Lord
Chancellor. It referred to frightful atrocities that had been committed by
the Druses on the Christian population of Syria, who had been massacred
in great numbers in the most treacherous and barbarous manner. Those
atrocities inspired the Queen with the deepest grief and indignation and
her Majesty had cheerfully concurred with the Emperor of Austria, the
Emperor of the French, the Prince Regent of Prussia, and the Emperor of
Russia, in an engagement with the Sultan to send him military assistance,
so long as it would be necessary, to re-establish order in that part of
his dominions. The only one of the parties who fulfilled this engagement,
however, was the Emperor of the French, whose Syrian expedition
accomplished the mission assigned to it in a satisfactory manner. The
Speech also alluded to a joint expedition of French and British forces
sent to the Chinese seas, which were to advance to the northern provinces
of the empire, in order to support the just demands of the Allied Powers,
and to give all possible weight to the diplomatic action of Lord Elgin,
who had gone out as special ambassador for this service. It was he who had
negotiated the Treaty of Tientsin, the faithful and full performance of
which was now demanded from the Emperor of China.

The massacre of the Maronite Christians in Syria, referred to in the Royal
Speech, was one of the most frightful occurrences of the kind on record.
Lord Dufferin, who was appointed British Commissioner in Syria, describes
some of those scenes in his despatches to Sir H. Bulwer, the British
Ambassador at Constantinople. He attributed the massacres and all the
wars, quarrels, and disturbances that had agitated the Lebanon for the
last fifteen years, to the dissatisfaction of the Turkish authorities with
the measure of self-government enjoyed by the Christians. Their policy was
to prove the scheme adopted by the Great Powers in 1845 as impossible.
With this object they stimulated, as occasion served, the chronic
animosity existing between Maronites and Druses. In proportion as foreign
influences exalted the arrogance and fanaticism of the Christians, their
independence became more insufferable to the Turks, and a determination
was arrived at to inflict on them, through the instrumentality of the
Druses, a severer chastisement than they had yet received. But he states
also, that the Christians had been long meditating an onslaught on the
Druses, which was to end in the overthrow of the Turkish authority in
Lebanon. On the 28th of May a general attack was made on the Maronite
villages in the neighbourhood of Beyrout and Lebanon, and they were burnt
to the ground. Next day Hasbeya, a large town under Mount Hermon, was
attacked by the Druses. The Turkish commander told the inhabitants that
if they laid down their arms he would protect them. They did so, and were
sent under a small escort towards Damascus, and were seized on the way
by a body of Druses. Having got rid of the armed men, the treacherous
commander abandoned the place; and, on the 5th of June, the Druses rushed
in and murdered indiscriminately the whole male population in the most
revolting circumstances, the Turkish soldiers assisting in the work of
slaughter. Several other towns were treated in the same manner. The number
of killed in this horrible massacre has been variously estimated; some say
that 900, and others that 1,800 persons were slain. Beyrout itself was
threatened by the infuriated and victorious Druses; and the presence of
an English pleasure-yacht in the harbour, with a single gun, is supposed
to have had more effect in averting the danger than all the troops of the
Turkish Pasha, whose conduct, in fact, showed that he connived at the
massacres. On the 9th of July similar outrages began at Damascus. A mob of
the lowest order of Moslem fanatics assembled in the streets, and instead
of being dispersed by the Turkish troops--of whom there were 700 in the
town, under the command of Ahmed Pasha--they were allowed to increase
until they began a general attack upon the houses in the Christian quarter
and committed many murders. The soldiers sent to quell the disturbance
joined the mob and next day the work of destruction was renewed with
greater violence. On the 11th of July there were about 18,000 or 20,000
Christian inhabitants in the city, and 7,000 or 8,000 poor refugees from
other quarters. Between 11,000 and 12,000 were collected in the castle and
fed by the Government.

These deplorable events, of course, caused strong representations to
be made to the Sultan by the ambassadors of the Christian Powers, in
consequence of which he sent Fuad Pasha, the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
with a strong force, to Syria, to execute summary justice upon the guilty
parties. He did so with a vengeance. At Beyrout he hanged and shot a great
number of Moslems; and the following despatch, transmitted by him to
Constantinople from Damascus, dated August 4, will show the vigour with
which he executed his task:--"Yesterday I arrested 330 persons guilty
of having taken part in the massacres. To-day the number of arrests
exceeds 400. By the day after to-morrow, at the latest, the principal
persons who are seriously compromised will have been apprehended." The
French expedition was under the command of General Beaufort d'Hautpoul,
and left Marseilles in the beginning of August. It numbered about 12,000
men and met with little resistance. By a later convention between the
Great Powers, the stay of the French troops was prolonged till the 26th
of June, 1861, to enable a plan to be formed for the organisation of the
government of the Lebanon and to secure the tranquillity of Syria. Lord
Palmerston was alarmed at this, and believed that Napoleon was determined
on a permanent occupation of the country. From these and other causes
he went so far as to tell the French Ambassador, Count Flahault, that
it was impossible to trust the Emperor any longer, and that if war was
forced on England, England would fearlessly accept it. However, at the end
of July Lord Dufferin was appointed to act as British Commissioner, in
conjunction with commissioners on the part of France, Austria, Prussia,
and Russia. The object of the commission was to inquire into the origin
of the disturbances and outbreak, to alleviate the sufferings and losses
of the Christians, and to make arrangements for the future administration
of Syria, so as to prevent, as far as possible, a recurrence of similar
calamities.

It would seem as if the difficulties with China were destined never to
have an end. The Treaty of Tientsin provided for the appointment of
ambassadors on the part of Great Britain and China to reside at their
respective Courts, and for the permanent establishment of the British
Minister at the Court of Pekin. The Honourable Mr. Bruce, brother of Lord
Elgin, was accordingly sent out in March, 1859. Anticipating the usual
obstacles of Chinese diplomacy in the way of the plenipotentiary to the
metropolis, he was required to do his duty firmly and admit of no excuses;
but insist on the right of presenting his credentials to the Emperor in
person and to require the literal fulfilment of the treaty with regard to
the establishment of the mission permanently at Pekin. A sufficient naval
force was to accompany him to the mouth of the Peiho. He arrived at Hong
Kong in the month of May, and was joined there by M. de Bourboulon, the
French Ambassador. When they reached Shanghai, it was proposed to them by
the Chinese authorities that the ratifications should be exchanged there,
or that, if they must go to Pekin, it should be by land, a journey of two
months, instead of ascending the river Peiho. They, however, insisted on
the latter route, and were escorted by a squadron of gunboats and some
other vessels under the command of Admiral Hope. Proceeding in advance
to reconnoitre the fortifications, he found those demolished last year
now strengthened by additional ditches, with an increased number of more
powerful booms. Few guns were visible, but there were numerous embrasures
masked with matting. After waiting for some days, tantalised with false
promises and evasive answers, Admiral Hope was resolved to force his way
up the river. The first barrier was penetrated, when a tremendous fire
suddenly opened from the forts, where guns of large calibre had been
concealed. The _Plover_ was disabled, the _Kestrel_ sunk in her position,
and the admiral was severely wounded. He then determined to take the forts
by _coup de main_. A landing was effected, in obedience to his orders, on
the evening of the 21st of June, but the attempt completely miscarried.

In consequence of this humiliating repulse, Lord Elgin was again sent
out as British Plenipotentiary, with a powerful expedition, to enforce
the execution of the treaty of which he was the author. General Hope
Grant, then in India, was appointed to the chief command, and several
Sikh regiments volunteered their services. Baron Gros, the French
Plenipotentiary, accompanied Lord Elgin. They arrived at Hong Kong on the
21st of June, 1860. On the 25th of July the French expedition joined the
British near the mouth of the Peiho river; disembarking at Pehtang, where
they remained encamped to the 12th of August. In the meantime an ultimatum
had been sent to Pekin, demanding satisfaction for the treacherous attack
on the British, the immediate ratification of the treaty at Pekin,
permission to proceed in a British vessel to Tientsin, and an escort
to conduct the British Ambassador with due honour to Pekin. The French
Ambassador joined in these demands, which also included an indemnity for
the losses sustained. The Great Council answered this despatch, stating
that its contents had filled them with the greatest astonishment, and that
they were altogether contrary to "decorum."

[Illustration: THE IMPERIAL PALACE, PEKIN, LOOKING NORTH.]

Nothing now remained for the Allies but to fight their way to the
metropolis. They advanced along the banks of the Peiho, constructing
bridges over the creeks and ditches, till, arriving within a mile of
Taku, they encountered the enemy's batteries, which they carried by
storm, routing the Chinese garrison, and capturing forty-five guns. They
then advanced against the Taku forts, which they assailed with Armstrong
guns at 2,000 yards' range, the Chinese firing upon the troops from all
their forts within range so effectively that our sappers were unable to
lay down the bridge, the men who carried it being knocked over and the
pontoon destroyed. A breach, however, was soon made, our men swarming
across and entering single file in the most gallant manner. At the same
time the French effected an entrance, the garrison was driven back step
by step and hurled pell-mell through the embrasures on the opposite side.
After an hour's desperate fighting, the whole of the forts on both sides
of the river hauled down their war banners and hoisted flags of truce,
but they refused to surrender. In the course of the evening, however,
they abandoned all their positions, leaving 400 guns in the hands of the
Allies. Admiral Hope then advanced to Tientsin, which he occupied. There
he found a placard posted on the walls, announcing that the barbarians
were defeated, and were suing for peace, and that the inhabitants need
not be alarmed. Negotiations were then opened by fresh commissioners of
high rank, whom Messrs. Parkes and Wade were sent to meet at Tangchow,
twenty-five miles distant. On the 15th of September they returned,
having made satisfactory arrangements for Lord Elgin's reception; and
camping-ground had been assigned to the British forces. On arriving at
the spot, however, they found it occupied by a large Chinese army; while
batteries had been hastily thrown up and armed so as to flank the proposed
site of the British camp. Mr. Parkes started back to Tangchow to see the
High Commissioners, and ask the reason of this move. He was accompanied
by Mr. de Morgan, attaché to the British Legation, and by Mr. Bowlby,
correspondent of the _Times_. Meanwhile, the Chinese cavalry, which
were very numerous, had almost entirely surrounded the British forces.
Sufficient time had elapsed for the party to arrive from Tangchow. While
anxiously waiting for them, a sudden attempt was made to assassinate
Colonel Walters and others, including some French officers. Mr. Parkes and
his companions, however, did not return. They were all taken prisoners by
the Chinese, carried off into the interior, and treated with frightful
cruelty; their hands and feet being so tightly bound with cords that in
some instances the flesh burst and mortification ensued.

In consequence of the treachery of the Chinese, their camp was attacked by
the allied forces and the enemy was completely defeated. The authorities
were now willing to negotiate once more; but Lord Elgin refused unless the
prisoners were surrendered in three days, threatening that otherwise his
army would advance to the assault on Pekin. Prince Kung, who now became
the chief negotiator, persisting in the system of evasion, the allied
armies marched forward, and on the 6th of October the French entered
the Summer Palace of the Emperor, which they looted of its inestimable
treasures. Two days afterwards Mr. Parkes and his companions were released
and permitted to join the camp.

The siege guns were placed in position before the walls of the mysterious
metropolis of the vast Chinese empire, and notice had been given to its
defenders that unless it were surrendered before noon of the following
day the attack would commence. The Emperor had departed, on the pretext
that he was obliged to go on a hunting expedition, deputing his authority
to Prince Kung and his Ministers. The latter thought it the wisest course
to surrender unconditionally, in order to save the city from destruction.
The gates were thrown open and the flags of Britain and France were soon
seen floating from the walls. It was the first time for thousands of years
that the sanctity of the Imperial capital was thus violated. In the terms
proposed Lord Elgin stipulated that, if the garrison surrendered, the
city would be spared. He was then in ignorance of the fate of some of
the British prisoners; but when he became acquainted with the horrifying
details he resolved to inflict signal punishment for such barbarous
outrages against humanity: he therefore proposed that the Summer Palace
of the Emperor, the place in which some of the worst tortures had been
inflicted upon the prisoners, should be burnt to the ground. Baron Gros
declined to take part in this measure, but Lord Elgin determined to
act in the matter on his own responsibility. He wrote to Prince Kung,
reminding him that of the total number of twenty-six British subjects
seized in defiance of honour and of the law of nations, thirteen only had
been restored alive, all of whom carried on their persons evidence, more
or less distinctly marked, of the indignities they had suffered; while
thirteen had been barbarously murdered. He declared that until this foul
deed should be expiated, peace between Great Britain and the existing
dynasty of China was impossible. He announced that the Summer Palace must
be forthwith levelled with the ground. He required that the sum of 300,000
taels should be at once paid down, to be appropriated, at the discretion
of her Majesty's Government, to those who had suffered and to the families
of the murdered men; and, lastly, that the whole of the indemnity
stipulated in the Treaty of Tientsin should be paid before the armies of
Britain and France removed from the city, should the Governments of those
countries see fit to adopt that course.

Notwithstanding the indiscriminate loot by which the Summer Palace had
been stripped of all that was portable among its precious treasures,
there yet remained much that was beautiful and gorgeous in that wonderful
abode of Oriental pomp and luxury. It consisted of a series of elegant
and picturesque buildings spread over an extensive park. Lord Elgin was
determined that not a trace of this grandeur should remain and that the
spot on which the blood of British subjects had been so treacherously
and cruelly shed, should for ever remain a monument of British power and
of retributive justice. Accordingly, the buildings were set on fire by a
detachment of our troops and totally destroyed. The Chinese authorities
were now brought to a sense of their real position. They no longer
dared to talk of Lord Elgin's want of decorum, but humbly signed the
convention on the 24th of October. In that treaty the Emperor expressed
his deep regret at the breach of friendly relations that had occurred
by the conduct of the garrison of Taku in obstructing her Majesty's
representative when on his way to Pekin; he conceded the right to her
of having an ambassador resident in that city if she thought proper; he
agreed to pay a sum of 8,000,000 taels, in certain fixed instalments,
as indemnity for the cost of the war. It was also provided that British
subjects were to be allowed to reside and trade at Tientsin, and that
Chinese subjects should be at liberty to emigrate to British colonies, and
to ship themselves and their families on board British vessels; and the
Queen was to have the option of retaining a force at Tientsin and at other
specified places, until the indemnity should be paid. The ratifications
were duly exchanged and the allied armies retired from Pekin to Tientsin
on the 5th of November, 1860.

The Session of 1861 was opened on the 5th of February, by the Queen in
person, who informed her Parliament, among other matters, that she was
glad to take the opportunity of expressing her warm appreciation of the
loyalty and attachment to her person manifested by the Canadians on the
occasion of the residence of the Prince of Wales among them. The Prince
arrived in America on the 24th of July, 1860 and remained there till
the 20th of October. During his tour he was everywhere received with
the greatest enthusiasm, the people of the United States vieing with
the Queen's subjects in Canada in the honours paid to him in popular
demonstrations, addresses, and ovations. If he were to be their own
Sovereign, and if they were royalists of the highest type, they could not
have manifested greater ardour than they did wherever his Royal Highness
went. Not the least interesting incident connected with this tour was his
visit to the tomb of Washington. Yet royal festivities were accompanied by
royal bereavement. The Duchess of Kent died on the 16th of March, 1861,
aged seventy-five years. She had throughout her life enjoyed the respect
of the public, and won the gratitude of the empire, by the excellent
manner in which she had educated and trained the Princess Victoria for
her high destiny as Queen of England. Addresses of condolence on this
melancholy event were therefore unanimously adopted by both Houses--that
of the Upper House being moved by Earl Granville and seconded by the Earl
of Derby; and that of the Lower House by Lord Palmerston and seconded
by Mr. Disraeli, who thus happily concluded his speech:--"For the great
grief which has fallen on the Queen there is only one source of human
consolation--the recollection of unbroken devotedness to the being
whom we have loved and whom we have lost. This tranquil and sustaining
memory is the inheritance of our Sovereign. It is generally supposed
that the anguish of affection is scarcely compatible with the pomp of
power; but that is not so in the present instance. She who reigns over
us has elected, amid all the splendour of empire, to establish her life
on the principle of domestic love. It is this--it is the remembrance and
consciousness of this--which now sincerely saddens the public spirit and
permits a nation to bear its heartfelt sympathy to the foot of a bereaved
throne and whisper solace even to a royal heart."

But these domestic affairs were overshadowed by events in the United
States. Since the beginning of the year, affairs in North America had
assumed a more and more unhappy and alarming character, and the British
Government had felt itself compelled to issue, on the 14th of May, its
celebrated proclamation of neutrality. It is now time, therefore, to
revert to the circumstances in which the great American Union was for
a time broken up and a war of colossal magnitude waged during nearly
four years between the Northern and Southern States. For many years a
feeling of estrangement had been gradually growing up, grounded partly
on differences of economic policy, partly on original want of sympathy
between the inhabitants of each region, but most of all on the continual
collisions to which the question of slavery gave rise. The national
tariff had long been so adjusted as to protect the interests of New
England manufacturers by excluding, with more or less rigidity, the
manufactured products of Great Britain and other European countries;
and the Morrill tariff, passed in March, 1861, carried this principle
of exclusion to a still greater height. That this commercial policy was
injurious to the interests of the South cannot be doubted, since, as they
had no manufactures, they reaped no benefit from protection; while the
tariff impeded that free interchange of their own teeming supplies of
raw material with the products of the industry of other nations, which
was necessary to the full development of their material civilisation.
Again, the original contrast between Virginia and New England--the one
settled by men of aristocratic connections, ruled by territorial instincts
and disposed to Toryism in Church and State; the other by persons of
the middle rank, predisposed to trade and industry and clinging fast to
the "dissidence of Dissent" as their great religious principle--this
contrast was ever present to embitter any misunderstanding that might
arise. But lastly, and chiefly, the relations between North and South
were disturbed by quarrels arising out of slavery. At the time when the
colonies achieved their independence, all the thirteen provinces held
slaves and legalised slavery. But in course of time natural causes--the
labour of a slave not being comparable to that of a free labourer in a
temperate climate--produced the diminution and, finally, the extinction of
slavery in the Northern States. Northern slaveholders sold their slaves
to Southern planters and trusted to the continuous and ever-increasing
emigration from Europe, supplemented by a considerable number of free
blacks, to supply the wants of the labour market. The time came when the
citizens of States that but a short time before had harboured slavery
themselves denounced slavery as a sin. The Abolitionists, among whom
Garrison was the most prominent person, became a strong party at the
North, especially in the New England States; associations were formed
for obstructing the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and
facilitating the escape of slaves to Canada; and during the ten years that
this law was in force, collisions of more or less magnitude between the
Federal and State judicatures were continually taking place. The death of
John Brown at Harper's Ferry, while attempting to liberate slaves, was
only one of many incidents. But, on the other hand, the proceedings of
the slaveholders and their partisans were, and had been for years, of a
character so outrageous, that conscientious men might well begin to ask
themselves whether, in yielding obedience to the Federal legislation,
which, in order to preserve the Union, sanctioned such things, they were
not breaking a law of higher and more sacred obligation. There was also a
danger, as exemplified in the formation of the new State of Kansas, that
slavery would extend in the territories of the Republic, for Kansas did
not become a Free State until the two sides had shed one another's blood.

The time came for the election of a President to succeed Mr. Buchanan. The
great Republican party at the North represented the feelings that were
lacerated and the convictions that were outraged by the recent course of
events, of which we have given an outline; and in November, 1860, this
party carried its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, against the two Democratic
candidates, Douglas and Breckinridge. The meaning of this nomination was
plain. It announced, "We will have no more compromises." But as, under
the constitution of the United States, every State sends two members to
the Senate, the members of which were at this time pretty evenly balanced,
half from Free, and half from Slave States, the effect of the triumph of
the Republican party, and of the foreseen application of the above policy
in dealing with the territories, could only be that in a few years the
balance of parties in the Senate would be destroyed, as more and more
new, and, necessarily Free, States were admitted into the Union. Then,
argued the slaveholders, the Abolitionists will become more intolerable
than ever; if they give to our domestic institutions for a time an
insulting toleration, it will only be while they gather their forces for
an open assault; the Fugitive Slave Law will be repealed as soon as they
obtain the requisite majority in Congress, and our negro property will be
everywhere depreciated in value, while on the borders of Free States it
will be utterly valueless. Impelled by such motives as these, the people
of South Carolina, which of all the States in the Union had for years
been known to be the most restive under the Federal obligation, met in
convention at Columbia, and on the 20th of December, 1860, voted the State
out of the Union.

The South Carolina politicians had rightly calculated that the example
thus set would soon be followed by other Slave States. Between this date
and May, 1861, the following States adopted ordinances of secession,
voting themselves out of the Union: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North
Carolina. The last four States seceded unwillingly from the Union, and
only because, hostilities having broken out, it was practically impossible
for them to remain neutral, and community of interest attracted them to
the Slave States that had already seceded. The first shot fired in anger
in this civil war was aimed from a battery on Morris Island, on the 9th of
January, 1861, at a vessel bringing reinforcements to Fort Sumter. South
Carolina sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate with the President
for the peaceful surrender to her of Federal forts and property within
the limits of the State. Mr. Buchanan, on the eve of retirement, declined
to recognise them in any other capacity but that of private citizens of
South Carolina; however, a sort of informal understanding was arrived at,
that so long as each side remained passive force should not be resorted
to. On the 18th of February the leading men in the seven States that had
then seceded having by this time arranged the terms of a new Federation,
to be called "The Confederate States of America," Mr. Jefferson Davis and
Mr. Stephens were inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama, as President and
Vice-President of the new confederacy. A Constitution was adopted nearly
resembling that of the United States, the main difference being that the
President was to be elected for six years instead of four, and could not
be re-elected during his term of office.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY. (_See p._ 320.)]

Mr. Lincoln, in his sincere anxiety to avoid bloodshed, did not attempt
to reinforce the garrison of Fort Sumter; but he declared that he must
reprovision it and would use any force that might be required for
the purpose. This was rendered necessary by the conduct of the South
Carolinans, who had stopped the supply of provisions to the fort from the
shore. A fleet was accordingly prepared and despatched to Charleston.
About the same time Major Anderson, the Federal commandant, removing his
men from all the other posts and batteries that he had hitherto held
in the harbour, concentrated his force in the island fort of Sumter.
These measures were declared by the South Carolinans a breach of the
understanding that had hitherto subsisted and their general was ordered to
summon the fort. General Beauregard accordingly summoned Major Anderson
to surrender; upon his refusal, fire was opened from batteries, the
positions of which had been carefully selected so as to surround the fort
with a girdle of fire; the Federals made what resistance they could; but
after the barracks had been burnt, and they were in imminent peril of the
explosion of the magazine, they capitulated on honourable terms. In this
the first conflict of the war, singular to relate, not a man was killed or
mortally wounded on either side. Fort Sumter fell on the 13th of April,
1861.

The news came like a thunder-clap on the feverishly expectant people of
the North. The suspense of the last three months had seriously interfered
with trade, and painfully affected all classes with a sense of uncertainty
and insecurity. Now there must be no more parleying or coaxing; the flag
of the Union had been fired at--had been lowered--it must be raised again
at all hazards. Mr. Lincoln, justly interpreting the general sentiment,
issued on the 15th of April a proclamation calling out the militia in
all the loyal States of the Union, to the number of 75,000 men, in order
to put down certain "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the
ordinary course of judicial proceedings," which were obstructing the
execution of the laws in the seven seceded States. The men of the Free
States hastened to obey the call, and to send regiments of militia to
Washington to defend the national capital. But upon the Slave States
that had not yet seceded the effect of Mr. Lincoln's appeal was very
different. The Governors of these States--Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri,
Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky--flatly, and in most
cases indignantly, refused to call out troops for any such purpose as
that indicated by Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. And, since neutrality for
communities situated between the North and the seceded States became every
day more difficult, and the common interest of slaveholding strongly
impelled the leading men in the border States to throw in their lot with
their seceded brethren, it was not long before all the States above-named,
with the exception of Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, adopted ordinances
of secession and voted themselves out of the Union, and Missouri
afterwards did the same. Besides calling out 75,000 of the militia, Mr.
Lincoln, by his proclamation of the 19th of April, declared the ports of
all the seceding States to be in a state of blockade, and that any vessel
attempting, after being once warned, to violate such blockade, would be
captured and sent into a Federal port for adjudication before a prize
court. By a supplementary proclamation of the 27th of April the blockade
was extended to the ports of Northern Virginia.

These proceedings, as soon as they became known in Europe, formed the
subject of anxious consideration with the British Government. The Cabinet
determined on a proclamation of neutrality, which appeared in the _London
Gazette_ of the 14th of May. It began by taking notice that "hostilities
had unhappily commenced between the Government of the United States of
America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States
of America;" announced the Queen's determination "to maintain a strict
and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending
parties," and commanded her subjects to observe a like neutrality. The
substantial part of it was the public declaration that, in the judgment
of the Executive, a state of war existed, with all those incidents that
are attached to a state of war by the law of nations. The "incident"
most interesting to British subjects was the now recognised liability
to capture and condemnation of any British vessel going to Charleston
for cotton, or taking hardware to New Orleans. A few days afterwards
(June 1st) an Order in Council was adopted, interdicting the vessels of
war or privateers of either belligerent from carrying prizes into any
British port, at home or in the colonies. The operation of this order,
the adoption or nonadoption of which was entirely optional with the
British Government, was exclusively favourable to the Federals, since any
prizes taken by their cruisers could be carried into their own ports;
whereas a Confederate captain, after taking a prize, his own ports being
blockaded and British ports not open to him, had no alternative between
taking a bond from her master, the future liquidation of which was highly
problematical, and destroying his prize at sea. France and the other
Maritime Powers quickly followed the example of Great Britain, both as
regarded neutrality and the disposal of prizes (except that France allowed
a captor to bring his prize into a French port, but not to sell it there);
so that the Confederates soon found out that privateering was unprofitable
and abandoned it. The captures and destructions of which we heard so much
during the remainder of the war were all made by commissioned cruisers
of the Confederate navy. The attitude of the British Government pleased
neither party. The North thought, on the one hand, that even belligerent
rights should not have been conceded to the seceding States. The South
argued that the independence of a large and important country might fairly
have been recognised. Their cause gained advocates from the result of the
first campaign; the raw levies of the North were defeated in the battle
of Bull Run towards the end of July, and for the next two months the
forces of the South appeared to be entirely triumphant. The blockade of
the Southern ports had, moreover, entailed a terrible cotton famine in
Lancashire, and the Government was earnestly pressed by many competent
persons to recognise the South and break the blockade. Mr. Gladstone gave
expression to a prevalent feeling, when in a famous speech at Manchester
he declared that Jefferson Davis had made an army, a navy, more than that
a nation. The Emperor Napoleon was early in the field with remonstrances
against the policy of Lord John Russell, and there was a moment when even
Lord Palmerston wavered. Fortunately the Foreign Secretary stood firm,
and declined to be a party to any intervention of the Foreign Powers in
the contest, and his prudence was thoroughly justified by the transient
character of the Confederate successes.

Meanwhile the conduct of the Federal Government, though high-handed
at first, averted a menacing peril, which, had it fallen upon them,
might have been fatal to all their plans of conquest, gigantic as they
were. The Confederate Government, being desirous of sending accredited
representatives to the principal nations of Europe, appointed Messrs.
Mason and Slidell on a special mission to the Governments of Great Britain
and France. The real object of this mission, it was well understood,
was to obtain recognition for the new State, or, at least, to pave the
way for recognition. To the Northern Americans and their Government the
thought of this was intolerably exasperating. There is a well-known maxim
of Sir William Scott's that "you may stop your enemy's ambassador on
his passage." Fortifying themselves with this, and forgetting in their
haste to inquire into the exact nature of the circumstances to which the
dictum applied, and in defiance of the advice of their legal officers,
the American Government gave orders to its naval commanders to seize
Messrs. Mason and Slidell wherever they could catch them. The English
mail-steamer _Trent_, Captain Muir, sailed from Havana for Southampton
on the 7th of November, 1861, having on board a large quantity of specie
and numerous passengers, among whom were the Confederate Envoys already
mentioned, with their respective secretaries, who, having run the
blockade from New Orleans, had reached Havana. On the next day, as the
_Trent_ was passing through the Bahama Channel, a large steamer, having
the appearance of a man-of-war, but showing no colours, was observed
ahead. As the _Trent_ approached, the stranger--an American vessel, the
_San Jacinto_, commanded by Captain Wilkes--fired a shot across her bows
and compelled the surrender of the envoys. The _Trent_ pursued her way,
first to the island of St. Thomas, and thence to Southampton. In Great
Britain upon the arrival of the news of what had befallen her, the feeling
of astonishment and indignation was universal. Could anything be more
infatuated, it was argued, on the part of the Federal Government than to
insult thus wantonly, to provoke thus recklessly, a Power which it was
of the utmost consequence to them to be on the best understanding with;
and which, if their enemy, could brush away their blockading squadrons
like so many flies, and supply herself at once, with full right and a
clear conscience, with the cotton for want of which the population of
Lancashire was in a state of semi-starvation? Anyhow, whatever came of it,
the sacredness of the right of asylum must be maintained; the wrong that
had been done must be undone; the guests that had been rudely torn from
England's board must be given back again. Such feelings were, as nearly
as possible, universal; nor did the Government show itself a dull and
inapt interpreter of the people's mind. A demand, made in terms of studied
courtesy, for the restoration of the captured persons was immediately
forwarded to the American Government. It was the last despatch read by the
Prince Consort and was modified on his sick bed in accordance with his
views. M. Thouvenel, in the name of the Emperor of the French, as well as
the Governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, wrote friendly despatches
to Washington, reprehending the act of Captain Wilkes and counselling
the dignified abandonment of untenable ground. But as the issue seemed
doubtful, particularly since the Northern press had, with scarcely an
exception, approved the seizure, and the House of Representatives had
actually passed a vote of thanks to Captain Wilkes for the promptitude and
vigour of his proceedings, it was thought advisable to prepare for the war
that would have inevitably followed the refusal of our demand. The din of
preparation resounded through our arsenals and dockyards and troops were
hastily forwarded to Canada. The unexpected warmth and heartiness with
which the Canadians met the appeal thus suddenly made on their loyalty,
the zeal with which they called out their militia and volunteers and
prepared to strengthen the defences of their frontier, awakened a warm
sense of satisfaction in the Mother Country.

The language used by Mr. Seward in the despatch announcing the intention
of the American Government to surrender the captives, seemed to show that
that Government was so strongly disposed to consider the seizure good and
lawful, that it is fair to conjecture that a very little wavering, the
least sign of a disposition to recede from the resolute attitude that
Britain had taken up, would have turned the scale in America in favour of
a rejection of our demand. In a despatch of prodigious length, displaying
great reach of thought and mastery of language, united to an extraordinary
power of subtle distinction and analysis, Mr. Seward discussed the
_Trent_ incident in connection with the established principles of
international law, and also with other principles not yet established,
but which he thought might by parity of reasoning be deduced from those
universally admitted, and without the definition of which a case that
presented in many respects novel features could not easily be determined.
The upshot was this--that the American Government justified the conduct
of Captain Wilkes in every point but one: he was right in stopping the
_Trent;_ he was right in searching her; he was right in seizing the
persons of the Confederate Envoys and their secretaries; but he was
wrong in allowing the _Trent_ to proceed quietly on her voyage after the
seizure. What he ought to have done was, to put a prize crew on board
the _Trent_, and send her to the nearest American port where there was a
Court of Admiralty, in order that she might either have been condemned as
a lawful prize, or else released. Thus the omission of an act, which to
obtuse understandings on the British side of the Atlantic would have given
to the whole incident a yet more aggravated and intolerable character
than that which it already bore, was transcendentalised in the subtle
apprehension of Mr. Seward into the one flaw in an otherwise perfect
crystal, which vitiated the procedure of Captain Wilkes, invalidated the
else unimpeachable case of America, and which--for he had to come at last
to the point--compelled the American Government to accede to the demands
of Britain, and place the captured persons at the disposal of Her Majesty.
They were accordingly transferred on board H.M.S. _Rinaldo_, a ship
belonging to the squadron stationed at Halifax, whence they soon found
their way to their respective destinations.

The despatch of Earl Russell in reply to that of Mr. Seward, though
not to be compared with the latter in point of diplomatic finesse and
argumentative subtlety, nevertheless fairly met and disposed of the chief
arguments by which the American Minister had endeavoured to establish that
the captured persons were "contraband of war." Thus, with reference to the
dictum of Sir William Scott, that "you may stop your enemy's ambassador on
his passage," Earl Russell proved that the meaning of that great legist
was, not that this might be done _anywhere_, on the territory or within
the jurisdiction of a friendly neutral for instance, but that it might be
done in any place of which you were yourself the master, or in which you
had a right to exercise acts of hostility, that is, in any part of the
enemy's country. But the American Government was not the master on board
the _Trent_, nor had it a right to exercise acts of hostility on board of
her, England being a neutral Power; it was manifest, therefore, that this
dictum of Sir William Scott could not be adduced in support of the act of
Captain Wilkes.

The Session of 1861 was not fruitful in important legislative enactments.
The remission of excise duty in regard to paper was, perhaps, of all the
measures agreed to by Parliament, the one that has been most prolific in
results. This remission was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, in his speech on the Budget, and though vigorously opposed,
was at length carried. Cheap literature and journalism, and along with
these the harmless entertainment of the people, have benefited enormously
by the change. Doubtless the cheapness of the material has led at times
to the abuse of the benefit conferred. It is found, however, that the
sale of corrupting works is limited and that the immense majority of
the cheap newspapers and periodicals that the reduction of the paper
duty has brought into existence are, though often dull and in bad taste,
respectable and moral in their tone. The Government brought in a Bill
for the abolition of church rates, which passed the second reading by
a considerable majority. This stimulated the Tory party to unwonted
efforts; the third reading of the Bill, contrary to the usual practice of
the House, was opposed, and on a division the numbers were found to be
equal--274 voting that the Bill do pass, and the same number supporting
the amendment of Mr. Estcourt, that it be read a third time that day six
months. The Speaker had to give his casting vote, and he gave it against
the Bill, justifying his vote in a short and statesmanlike speech, on the
ground that the exact equipoise of parties seemed to indicate that the
House itself felt that the Bill might be the better for revision.

The country sustained grievous losses in the deaths this year of Sir
James Graham, a politician of a somewhat "cross-bench" disposition, and
Lord Herbert of Lea, better known as Sidney Herbert. The breakdown in
our military departments which the Crimean War had witnessed, required
unflagging diligence, strong sense, and uncommon strength of constitution
in the administrator who undertook the task of reparation. Of these
requisites Sidney Herbert possessed the first two in an eminent degree;
and the thorough efficiency of the expeditionary force that marched to
Pekin in 1860 attested the improvement which the indefatigable labours of
the Secretary at War had introduced into every branch of the service. The
labours imposed upon the Minister for War at this particular period were
almost more than human strength could grapple with. The Volunteer movement
had to be promoted and watched; the Indian army was to be fused with
that of the Queen without detriment to individual rights and interests;
coast defence had to be readjusted in conformity with the enlarged powers
of the new rifled artillery. His name is honourably connected with the
institution, as a set-off to the aggressive attitude of France, of the
National Volunteer Association, which was formed on the 16th of November,
1859. In May of the same year the formation of volunteer corps of riflemen
had begun, under the auspices of the Government; and by the end of the
year many thousands were enrolled in all parts of Great Britain. On the
7th of March, 1860, 2,500 volunteer officers were presented to the Queen;
after which they dined together, the Duke of Cambridge occupying the
chair. On the 23rd of June following, there was a grand review in Hyde
Park, when 18,450 volunteers defiled before the Queen in admirable order.
A great national rifle shooting match was held at Wimbledon, from the 2nd
to the 7th of July, when Captain Edward Ross obtained the Queen's prize of
£250, and the gold medal of the association. Again, on the 7th of August,
the Queen reviewed 20,000 volunteers at Edinburgh. In the beginning of
1861 the association had an annual income of £1,500, with a capital of
£3,000; the volunteers in Great Britain then numbering at least 160,000.
The sudden rise of this vast volunteer army, composed of the finest men
in the world, was the answer which Great Britain gave to the threats of
French invasion.

[Illustration: GENERAL ROBERT LEE.]




CHAPTER XXI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Queen's Visit to Ireland--The Royal Family at
    Balmoral--Movements of the Court--Illness and Death of the Prince
    Consort--The National Lamentation--The Laureate's Lines--The
    Address in Parliament--A peaceful Session--The Education Code--The
    American War in Parliament--The _Nashville_--The Blockade and the
    Cotton Famine--The Defences Vote--The Game Act--Palmerston and
    Cobden--Prorogation of Parliament--The Garotters--The _Alabama_--Mr.
    Adams and Earl Russell--Blunders and Delays--Russell's Excuses--The
    _Alabama_ sails--Progress of the War in America--Greece and
    the Ionian Islands--The Society of Arts--The Exhibition of
    1862--Jealousy of Prussia and France--The Colonial Exhibition--The
    Cotton Famine in 1863--Engagement and Marriage of the Prince of
    Wales--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--"Essays and Reviews"--Obituary of the
    Year--Russell and Gortschakoff--The Six Points--They are ignored by
    Russia--The Polish Revolution--Russell and Brazil--The Coercion of
    Japan--The American War in 1863--Mexican Affairs--Intervention of
    England, France, and Spain--The French Emperor's Designs--Withdrawal
    of the British and Spanish Expeditions--The Crown of Mexico offered
    to the Archduke Maximilian--Captain Speke in Central Africa.


The year 1861, in the earlier months of which the Queen had been called to
sustain a severe affliction through the death of her mother, the Duchess
of Kent, was destined not to close without bringing her Majesty face to
face with a still more terrible bereavement. But all looked bright and
prosperous for a time. In the summer the Queen paid a visit to Ireland,
the third since she ascended the Throne. In 1849 she made a voyage along
the eastern coast, calling at Cork, Waterford, Dublin, and Belfast. In
1853 she visited the Dublin Exhibition, accompanied by the Prince Consort,
the Prince of Wales, and Prince Alfred. On the 21st of August the Royal
party, including the Queen, the Prince Consort, the Princess Alice, the
Princess Helena, and Prince Arthur, crossed from Holyhead to Kingstown in
the Royal yacht, arriving in the night, and dropping anchor in the middle
of the harbour. The Royal party proceeded to Dublin by train and took up
their residence at the Viceregal Lodge in Phœnix Park. During the day
they drove about Dublin, visiting various public buildings. Afterwards
the Royal party, including the Prince of Wales, started for the Lakes of
Killarney. The Queen was hailed with enthusiasm along the whole line by
the inhabitants, who thronged in multitudes to see her. The Queen took
up her residence in Kenmare House at Killarney--the beautiful mansion of
the Earl of Kenmare. It had been arranged that the Queen should divide
her time equally between the two magnates who owned equally the wondrous
Killarney Lakes--the Earl of Kenmare and Mr. Herbert, whose seat at
Muckross was placed amid scenery surpassing even that about Kenmare House,
and took in the interesting ruins of Muckross Abbey. After several days
spent in this terrestrial paradise, the Queen left Killarney _en route_
for Scotland, by way of Dublin and Holyhead.

The Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Royal Family proceeded at once to
Balmoral on their return from Ireland. The time was spent there in the
usual pursuits and exercises most conducive to health--in driving, riding,
walking, sketching, fishing, deer-stalking, visiting, and rural sports
of various kinds. It is not easy to conceive a picture of greater human
felicity than the Queen and her family presented this year. Her eldest
daughter had been married to the Prince of Prussia, and had given birth
to an heir to the Throne of that country. The Prince of Wales, the Heir
Apparent to the Throne of England, had, in his American tour and in his
residence in Ireland, won the hearts of all with whom he came in contact.
Prince Alfred had entered the naval service and was, if possible, a still
greater favourite with the public. The Princess Alice had been engaged
to his Royal Highness the Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was now
on a visit to Balmoral. The rest of the Royal children were all that the
fondest parents could desire. The Prince Consort was regarded as the
best of husbands and fathers; and if any one could have pointed out an
individual in her Majesty's dominions as singularly blessed in all the
relations of life, and as likely for many years to enjoy his happy lot, he
would have named the husband of the Queen. He enjoyed good health; he was
in the prime of life, only forty-two years of age; and never perhaps had
he enjoyed life with greater zest. But how soon was this bright prospect
overcast! Who could have imagined that before the end of the year that
home would be visited by death, and that the Queen, then so happy, should
become a heartbroken widow--smitten down by a calamity the shadow of
which was to rest upon her spirit throughout the whole of her future life?

[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA AT OSBORNE.

AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR EDWIN LANDSEER, R.A.]

The Queen left Balmoral on the 22nd of October, and slept that night in
the palace of Holyrood. On the following day the Prince Consort laid
the foundation-stone of the new General Post Office in Edinburgh, and
afterwards performed the same ceremonial for the Industrial Museum of
Scotland. On the same evening the Royal party resumed their journey to
England, and arrived at Windsor Castle at half-past eight the following
morning. On the 1st of November the Queen, as Sovereign of the most
exalted Order of the Star of India, held her first investiture in great
state. This Order had been instituted a few months before, to provide a
means for adequately recognising and honouring services rendered to the
British Crown in India, whether by native princes or by British subjects.
It consisted of a Grand Master (who was the Viceroy of India for the time
being), and twenty-five knights, together with such extra and honorary
knights as her Majesty might from time to time see fit to appoint.

Nothing unusual was heard of the Royal Family till the middle of
December; and the heavy toll of the great bell of St. Paul's gave the
first intimation to many of the people of London that the Prince Consort
had been suffering from any dangerous illness. On the previous Saturday
the _Court News_ had announced that the Queen had driven out in an open
carriage, and that the Prince had been confined to his apartments during
the week by a feverish cold, attended with pains in the limbs. On the
following Wednesday a bulletin stated that he was suffering from fever
not attended by unfavourable symptoms, but likely from its nature to
continue for some time. On Saturday, however, rumours were abroad at the
West-End that the Prince was dangerously ill and that he was sinking fast.
Then it was reported that he had rallied and that even at the Castle no
serious alarm existed. When, therefore, the bell of St. Paul's tolled
at midnight over the hushed city, it inspired a feeling of apprehension
which was too sadly realised next morning. The news of the death of the
Prince on the 14th was then flashed along every wire throughout the United
Kingdom and over the Continent of Europe. It being Sunday, it was not till
the people went to church and noticed the omission of the Prince's name
in the Liturgy, that the truth was realised. The grief was universal,
pervading every household, as if each had lost some dear and honoured
relative. The funeral took place on the 23rd of December. At the express
desire of the departed Prince, it was of a private character; but all
the chief men of the State attended the obsequies at the Royal Chapel.
Nature seemed to sympathise with the national feeling of depression and
gloom. The weather was cold and damp, the sky dull and heavy. There was
a procession of State carriages to St. George's Chapel, at the door of
which the Prince of Wales and the other Royal mourners were assembled to
receive the corpse. The grief of the Royal children was very affecting;
little Prince Arthur especially sobbed as if his heart were breaking. When
all was over, and the last of the long, lingering train of mourners had
departed, the attendants descended into the vault with lights, and moved
the bier and coffin along the narrow passage to the royal vault. The day
was observed throughout the realm as one of deep solemnity. The bells of
all the churches were tolled, and in many churches special services were
performed. In the towns the shops were closed, and the window blinds of
private residences were drawn down. A large number of persons appeared in
mourning, and in seaport towns the flags were hoisted half-mast high. The
words of the Poet Laureate were scarcely too strong when he said--

    "The shadow of his loss drew like eclipse
    Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
    We know him now: all narrow jealousies
    Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
    How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise;
    With what sublime repression of himself,
    And in what limits, and how tenderly;
    Not swaying to this faction or to that:
    Not making his high place the lawless perch
    Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage ground
    For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of years
    Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
    Before a thousand peering littlenesses,
    In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
    And blackens every blot: for where is he
    Who dares foreshadow for an only son
    A lovelier life, a more unstain'd than his?"

Indeed, were it not that his character lacked variety, and from its
German formalism was sometimes out of harmony with English sentiment, the
Prince was an ideal Sovereign. The loss that the nation had sustained
naturally occupied the attention of Parliament at the opening of the
ensuing Session. In the Royal Speech, which was delivered by commission,
the following allusion was made to this all-engrossing subject:--"We are
commanded by her Majesty to assure you that her Majesty is persuaded that
you will deeply participate in the affliction by which her Majesty has
been overwhelmed, by the calamitous, untimely, and irreparable loss of
her beloved Consort, who has been her comfort and support. It has been,
however, soothing to her Majesty, while suffering most acutely under this
awful dispensation of Providence, to receive from all classes of her
subjects the most cordial assurances of their sympathy with her sorrow,
as well as of their appreciation of the noble character of him, the
greatness of whose loss to her Majesty and to the nation is so justly and
so universally felt and lamented." In the Queen's answer to the Address we
have the mournful key-note of many an utterance that afterwards came from
her widowed heart. Her Majesty said:--"I return you most sincere thanks
for your dutiful and affectionate Address, especially for the manner
in which you have assured me of your feelings on the irreparable loss
sustained by myself and the country, in the afflicting dispensation of
Providence which bows me to the earth."

Parliament had met on the 6th of February. In the Royal Speech the
death of the Prince Consort was naturally the prominent topic. Among
other results of the deep and universal sympathy with the Queen in her
sorrow, was a general determination, rather tacit than expressed, on the
part of statesmen of all parties, that the Session should be a quiet
one. The first question warmly debated this Session related to the new
code of regulations, commonly called "the Revised Code," which had been
promulgated by the Committee of Council for Education in the preceding
summer. Two great defects had gradually become apparent in the working
of the system by which State aid was extended to primary schools. The
nature of the first will be apparent when it is stated that, till now,
every teacher in a school receiving an annual grant, and every pupil
teacher, had been separately recognised and dealt with by the Education
Department; and since the number of such schools had been enormously
increased since the Committee of Council commenced its operations, the
strain on the organisation of the Department had by this time become
nearly intolerable. The other defect of the system of annual grants Mr.
Lowe (then Vice-President of the Council) considered to be this, that,
notwithstanding the check of Government inspection, it did not provide
sufficient security for the economical application of the public money. A
large proportion of the teachers--such was his argument--concentrate their
attention on their highest classes and their cleverest boys; the annual
examination thus becomes an occasion for the display of carefully selected
pupils, and ceases to be a careful scrutiny. It was on the strength of
considerations such as these that Mr. Lowe drew up his Revised Code, which
was at once to relieve the strain on the administrative machinery of the
Department, and to introduce the principle of "payment by results." All
recognition of, and all grants to, teachers and pupil teachers were to
cease, and the Department was henceforward to have dealings with none
but the managers of schools. Secondly, the establishment grants for
fixed sums, which had been hitherto made to teachers and pupil teachers
certified to be efficient by the Government inspector, were to be replaced
by capitation grants, regulated in the following manner:--On the day of
the annual examination, all pupils who during the previous twelve months
had attended school at least one hundred times, might be presented by
the teacher to be examined by the inspector in reading, writing, and
arithmetic. Six "standards," varying in difficulty with the age of the
pupils, were settled in each of these subjects; and a certain small grant
was to be obtainable in respect of any pupil who might pass satisfactorily
in any one of the three. The plan of the Government was severely
criticised by many Conservative members, and met with little favour out
of doors among those who had been most active in the establishment, and
continued most zealous in the support, of primary schools. Especially
the clergy of the Church of England complained of the suddenness of the
change, of the utter disregard shown to the claims and services of the
pupil teachers, of the pecuniary difficulties in which they themselves as
managers would in many cases be involved by it. Mr. Walpole moved, on the
11th of March, a series of resolutions, declaring it to be inexpedient to
adopt the principle of payment by results exclusively and censuring many
other portions of the Code. The House, however, went into Committee; but
shortly before the Easter recess the Government took into its serious
consideration the objections that had been raised to their plan, and
resolved to introduce such modifications as would disarm the opposition of
the more influential and reasonable objectors. The chief concession was
the re-introduction of a small establishment grant, having nothing to do
with "payment by results," to the extent of 4s. per annum for each child
in daily attendance; something also was done for the pupil teachers. The
Opposition was satisfied and Mr. Walpole withdrew his resolutions; and
the scheme for regulating the apportionment of the public grant in aid of
primary schools received the sanction of Parliament.

[Illustration: FUNERAL OF THE PRINCE CONSORT. (_See p._ 327.)]

The progress of the Civil War in America excited a restless feeling
in Britain, which naturally found its expression within the walls of
Parliament. An incident happened in January which brought forcibly home
to the minds of Britons the difficulties and embarrassments of that
neutrality in the American struggle which we had proclaimed, and were
resolved honestly to maintain. An armed steamer, named the _Nashville_,
ran up the Southampton Water and anchored near the town. It soon
transpired that she was a Confederate cruiser, and that, having just
captured at sea a large American merchant ship, the _Harvey Birch_, she
had, after removing her crew and such plunder as was not too bulky, set
fire to and destroyed her. This proceeding was an inevitable consequence
of the British proclamation forbidding either belligerent to bring
prizes into any British port. In a few days the United States steam
frigate _Tuscarora_, her captain and crew boiling over with wrath and the
desire for battle, came up the Southampton Water and anchored within a
short distance of the _Nashville_. To avert a collision, the Admiralty
immediately sent a man-of-war to Southampton. Greatly to his chagrin,
the captain of the _Tuscarora_ found himself compelled to conform to the
provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which enjoined the authorities
of any port in which two vessels belonging to belligerent States might
be present at the same time, to allow to the one that should leave first
a clear interval of twenty-four hours before the other might pursue.
Thanks to this provision, the _Nashville_ (which was no match for the
_Tuscarora_) made her escape; but her career was of no long continuance,
as she was soon afterwards chased into Gibraltar and there sold.

The tidings of sanguinary conflicts occurring along the whole frontier
territory, from the west of Missouri to the shores of Virginia, shook the
mind of Britain to its inmost depths and, according to the preconceived
sympathies of different characters and classes, were variously judged and
interpreted. Merchants, impatient at the cotton famine, found spokesmen
in Parliament to inveigh against the fitfulness and inefficiency of the
blockade of the Southern ports and to urge the Government to interfere.
But since, to say nothing of the strong evidence produced on the other
side proving that the blockade was as effective as was possible in the
circumstances, the very fact that there was a cotton famine established
the point to any reasonable mind without more ado, the advocates of
British interference on this ground gained nothing by their motion.
Mr. Lindsay, the chief representative of that portion of the mercantile
community of Britain which desired the recognition of the Confederacy
as an independent State, proposed a resolution, in July, suggesting the
propriety of offering mediation with a view of terminating the hostilities
between the contending parties. The matter was warmly discussed, but in
the end the counsels of prudence and caution prevailed and the resolution
was rejected. In order to meet the distress in Lancashire occasioned
by the cotton famine, a measure was passed, called the "Union Relief
Aid Bill," for enabling the Unions in that county to borrow money,
when the pressure and burden of pauperism had reached a certain point,
upon the security of the rates. Alarmed by the formidable destructive
efficacy which the Confederate ironclad the _Merrimac_ (or _Virginia_)
had exhibited in her attack upon the wooden ships of the Federals,
the Government proposed, and the House readily sanctioned, a vote of
£1,200,000 for the strengthening and reconstruction of our forts and
arsenals.

Sir Baldwin Leighton's Act, the object of which was to enlist the services
of the county police as assistant gamekeepers to the country gentlemen,
had been originally introduced in the Upper House by Lord Berners, but
failed to pass. The Bill was then adopted by Sir Baldwin Leighton in the
Lower House, and by careful tactics, and arranging that a sufficient
number of its friends should always be within call so as to ensure a
superiority of force at the decisive moment, the country gentlemen
carried it through all its stages and passed it. The Lords then had no
scruple about accepting a Bill that naturally could not but command their
sympathies and the Bill became law. This result was the more singular,
inasmuch as the Government opposed the Bill at every stage. But, owing
to the apathy of the borough members (an apathy proved by the smallness
of the numbers on the division lists), the opposition failed. The Bill
empowered a constable to search a person suspected of being in the
possession of game, and imposed a penalty not exceeding five pounds.

Although in the debates of the Session there had been, according to that
joint understanding with which it was begun, little exhibition of party
heat or rancour, yet the spectacle of a large section of the Tory party
almost openly avowing their sympathy with Lord Palmerston and his policy,
and the evident congeniality between him and them, were not suffered to
pass without observation. Towards the close of the Session, Mr. Cobden,
in a carefully prepared and powerful speech, arraigned the policy of
the Prime Minister as that of a man who was fighting, or pretending
to fight, under a banner not his own, and whose acts were nicely
calculated to gain the approval of his ostensible adversaries and carry
discouragement into the ranks of his nominal adherents. He asked, What had
been the professed principles of the Liberal party? They were economy,
non-intervention, and reform. But the present was the most extravagant
Government that had administered the affairs of the country in time of
peace during the present generation. This assertion he supported by an
elaborate comparison, and proceeded to ascribe the whole of this increased
expenditure to Lord Palmerston, who himself represented a policy that
had cost the country no less a sum than £100,000,000. After adverting
to the wars with China, where Colonel Gordon, who was afterwards to
die at Khartoum, was saving the empire from the anarchy of the Taeping
rebellion, as instances of the departure of the Ministry from the policy
of non-intervention, he turned to the state of great Liberal questions
and of parties in the House, which, he said, was not an honest state.
Lord Palmerston was not governing the country by his own party, but with
the aid of his political opponents, who were then in power without the
responsibility of office. He analysed Lord Palmerston's Liberalism by
his acts. The Ballot, and other questions in which members on that side
of the House took an interest, were going back under the noble lord's
leadership. Rather than continue as they were, he would prefer being in
opposition. Comparing Lord Palmerston with Mr. Disraeli, he thought the
latter would be quite as desirable upon the Treasury bench. The veteran
Premier defended himself against this vehement attack with the skill
and adroitness which his thorough knowledge of Parliament, his tact,
_bonhomie_, and cheerful elasticity of temper, rendered habitual and
natural to him. He urged that if his zeal in the cause of Reform appeared
to have grown somewhat cold, he was therein only reflecting faithfully the
general feeling of the House, while the House no less faithfully reflected
the general feeling in the country. As to economy, he could, of course,
urge the continual rise in the costliness of national armaments, owing to
the invention of new engines of destruction, and maintain that to spend
money on fortifying the points where it was vulnerable to attack, was, in
fact, a nation's best and truest economy. On the delicate question of the
state of parties and Conservative support he said little, and that little
was eminently judicious and discreet.

Parliament was prorogued on the 7th of August, and home affairs went on as
quietly as usual for the remainder of the year. Pauperism increased, owing
to the collapse of industry in Lancashire; nevertheless, the population
was greater by a quarter of a million at the end of the year than it
had been at the beginning of it. But a number of persons equivalent to
about one half of this increase emigrated in the course of the year. In
the autumn the honest and law-abiding citizens of London were alarmed by
the outbreak and rapid increase of a new species of crime, the "garotte
robbery." The villains who introduced it did not observe an absolutely
uniform practice, but the usual _modus operandi_ was this:--The victim
who had been marked out for attack was seized from behind round the
throat by one of the confederates; at the same instant another coming
up in front dealt him a violent blow in the stomach; he was then thrown
violently down on his back, thus being rendered insensible, and in this
position his pockets were rifled, murderous blows and kicks being freely
administered in case of any symptom of returning consciousness. After
many cases of garotte robbery had occurred, in some of which the victims
had died of the injuries received, while in all the constitution and
health were permanently shaken, the garotting of a member of Parliament,
Mr. Pilkington, drew the special attention of the Home Secretary to the
condition of the streets. The police became suddenly active and arrested
a number of known criminals on suspicion; these were tried _en masse_ by
Baron Bramwell, and all who were identified as having been implicated in
garotte robberies were sentenced to heavy terms of penal servitude. The
class of ferocious human wolves to which the condemned persons belonged
was partly dispersed, partly cowed, by this judicious severity.

About this time the _Alabama_ escaped from the Mersey through a want of
vigilance on the part of the British authorities; and, inasmuch as her
evasion led to such momentous consequences, we propose to narrate in some
detail the circumstances connected with that event. There can be no doubt
that, on the part of those who ordered and paid for her, the _Alabama_ was
intended from the first for a Confederate vessel of war. She was built
in the yard of the Messrs. Laird, Birkenhead. Of course, her armament
was not put into her till after she had left the Mersey. But that she
was being built and fitted for a vessel of war no one who knew anything
about naval architecture could doubt. Indeed, the matter was notorious at
Liverpool, where the sympathies of the mercantile community ran strongly
in favour of the Confederates. While she was building much correspondence
passed between the Federal Consul at Liverpool and his Government and the
American Minister in London; but Mr. Adams desired to wait until he could
lay before Earl Russell sufficient evidence to justify him in attaching
the vessel and prosecuting the builders under the Foreign Enlistment Act.
Meanwhile, on the 15th of May, the vessel was launched under the name of
the "290."

On the 23rd of June Mr. Adams thought that he had acquired sufficient
proof. On that day he wrote to Earl Russell, saying that a new and
powerful vessel was being fitted out at Liverpool "for the especial and
manifest object of carrying on hostilities by sea," and soliciting such
action as might "tend either to stop the projected expedition, or to
establish the fact that its purpose is not inimical to the people of the
United States." Before replying, Earl Russell obtained a report on the
subject from the Customs department at Liverpool, which, on the 4th of
July, he enclosed to Mr. Adams. The report stated that there had been
no attempt on the part of the builders of the "290" "to disguise, what
is most apparent, that she is intended for a ship of war." It proceeded
to recommend that the American Consul at Liverpool should submit such
evidence as he could obtain to the collector there, who would thereupon
take such measures as the Foreign Enlistment Act would require, and
concluded by saying that the officers at Liverpool would keep a strict
watch on the vessel. Mr. Adams then instructed the consul to follow the
course indicated in the Customs officials' report. The consul accordingly
submitted a statement on the 9th of July, but the collector replied that
the details given were not, in a legal point of view, sufficient to
justify him in taking upon himself the responsibility of the detention of
the ship. Mr. Dudley (the consul) then directed his utmost endeavours to
obtaining direct legal proof, and in this he at last succeeded, laying it,
in the form of affidavits, before the collector on the 21st of July. The
affidavits were on the same day transmitted by the collector to the Board
of Customs at London, with a request for instructions by telegraph, "as
the ship appeared to be ready for sea and might leave any hour."

Up to this point, if the action of our authorities had not been all that
the Federal Government might have desired, at any rate it had been neither
unfriendly nor inefficient. The collector at Liverpool could not proceed
to detain the vessel without legal evidence; but as soon as such evidence
was supplied, he immediately sent it to the head of his department and,
while requesting instructions, indicated the extreme urgency of the case.
But now there unfortunately occurred an act of gross administrative
_laches_, of which the American Government and people had just reason
to complain. From the Board of Customs at London the affidavits and
the collector's letter were sent to the Treasury. This must have been
done--at any rate, ought to have been done--on the 22nd of July, and the
Treasury, seeing the urgency of the case, should, if unwilling to act
on its own responsibility, have laid the affidavits immediately before
the law officers of the Crown and requested their opinion. Nor was it
by this channel only that the affidavits showing the true character of
the _Alabama_ reached Government. Copies of the most material among them
were sent by Mr. Adams to Earl Russell on the 22nd of July, together with
the opinions of an eminent counsel, Mr. Robert Collier, and again on the
24th. One would have thought that here, again, either immediate action
would have been taken or the opinion of the law officers obtained with all
practicable expedition. But what happened? The affidavits were considered
by the law officers of the Crown _on the 28th of July_, six days after
the letter from Liverpool had reached London, stating that the vessel
might leave any hour. They soon made up their minds and their report was
in Earl Russell's hands on the morning of the 29th. Orders were then
immediately sent to Liverpool to stop the vessel. But it would appear that
in some mysterious manner intelligence of the intention of the Government
to detain the vessel had reached the persons at Liverpool who had charge
of her. The Customs department at Liverpool, on receiving the order for
detention, telegraphed that "the vessel '290' came out of dock last night,
and left the port this morning." Even then she might have been detained
by the British authorities in other ports. Lord Russell advocated this
proceeding in the Cabinet, but none of his colleagues, except the Duke of
Argyll, supported him, and the project was most unfortunately dropped.

In a conversation with Mr. Adams, two days afterwards, at the Foreign
Office, Earl Russell remarked that a delay in determining upon the
case of the "290" "had most unexpectedly been caused by the sudden
development of a malady in the Queen's advocate, Sir John D. Harding,
totally incapacitating him for the transaction of business. This had made
it necessary to call in other parties, whose opinion had at last been
given for the detention of the gunboat, but before the order got down
to Liverpool the vessel was gone." Such an excuse could not be expected
to satisfy the American Government, but neither is it satisfactory from
a British point of view. The matter being known to be urgent, if, on
its being referred to Sir John Harding, that official was found to be
incapacitated by ill health or any other cause, what was done ultimately
should have been done at first--"other parties" should have been called
in. This too easy-going, _laissez aller_ mode of conducting public
business on the part of Government departments in 1862 cost the United
Kingdom three millions sterling in 1873.

[Illustration: HINDOOS BRINGING COTTON THROUGH THE WESTERN GHAUTS. (_See
p._ 336.)]

The _Alabama_ steamed down the Mersey and proceeded to Moelfra Bay, on
the coast of Anglesey, where she lay two days. The American Government
considered, and it is difficult to contravene their opinion, that there
was culpable negligence somewhere in permitting a ship, the seizure of
which had been ordered, to lie unmolested in British waters for two whole
days. From Moelfra Bay the vessel proceeded to the Azores, and remained
at Terceira till the arrival of a vessel from London, having on board six
guns, ammunition, coals, etc., for the new cruiser. Two days afterwards
the screw-steamer _Bahama_ arrived, having on board Commander Raphael
Semmes, of the Confederate navy, and other officers, besides two more
guns. The transfer of the guns and stores having been completed without
hindrance from any one, Captain Semmes hoisted his flag on the 24th of
August, and the _Alabama_, now first known by that name, sailed from
Terceira with twenty-six officers and eighty-five men.

The British Government was all the more unpopular with the North Americans
because the operations of the war were by no means decisive. General
Grant, after a severe battle at Pittsburg, cleared Tennessee of the
Confederates and they slowly lost ground in Arkansas. On the other hand,
the Federal general McLellan was driven out of Virginia by General Lee,
who also routed with great loss the covering army under Pope, and, though
Lee could make no impression upon Maryland, he carried off the honours
of the campaign by driving Burnside from before Richmond. In Kentucky
Bragg foiled the Northerners at every point. The capture of New Orleans
in April by the gallant Farragut was undoubtedly a serious blow to the
Confederates, but one that might have been retrieved had resources been
equal to demands. As the world now knows, they were not; but to close
observers at the time, for instance the Emperor Napoleon, the cause of the
Southerners appeared to be still in the ascendant.

A revolution, more akin to the ridiculous than to the sublime, took place
this year in Greece. In October, while King Otho and his queen were
absent from Athens, the people rose, the troops mutinied, the Bavarian
dynasty was declared to have ceased to reign, and a provisional Government
installed itself in office, with Demetri Bulgari at its head. A plebiscite
was decreed, in humble imitation of the Napoleonic prototype, for the
election of a king of Greece; every Greek above twenty years of age was
to have a vote. The result of the voting was, that Prince Alfred, second
son of Queen Victoria, was chosen king by an overwhelming majority. But it
had been previously agreed between the plenipotentiaries of the protecting
Powers, Britain, France, and Russia, that all members of the reigning
families of these nations should be excluded from the Greek succession.
The election of Prince Alfred was thus nullified. The further progress of
the Greek revolution belongs to a later year; nevertheless, it will be
convenient to give at this place a connected view of the whole series of
transactions, so that it will be unnecessary hereafter to return to the
subject. At the end of December, 1862, Mr. Henry Elliot was commissioned
by the British Government to inform the provisional Government at Athens
that England was disposed to cede the Ionian Islands (over which she had
exercised a protectorate since the Congress of Vienna) to Greece, provided
that the form of government remained monarchical; that Greece abstained
from aggression against neighbouring States; that the king selected were a
prince "against whom no well-founded objection could be raised;" lastly,
that the cession were shown to be in accordance with the unanimous, or
nearly unanimous, wish of the Ionian population. The Greeks and Ionians
accepted the proffered terms with enthusiasm. After long consideration
and discussion, a suitable occupant for the throne was found in Prince
George, son of the King of Denmark, and brother to the Princess of Wales.
A Greek deputation, proceeding to Copenhagen in June, 1863, tendered
the Crown to Prince George, who accepted it and soon afterwards went to
Greece, where he was received with general enthusiasm. Britain, thoroughly
satisfied with this selection, proceeded to carry out her promise. Sir
Henry Storks, the Lord High Commissioner, dissolved the Ionian Parliament
in August, and summoned a new one, on which the express mandate should
devolve of taking into consideration the contemplated re-union of the
islands to Greece. The new Parliament met, and unanimously ratified the
cession. One difficulty, however, still remained. Greece was a weak State:
Corfu possessed a capacious and important harbour and, by the care of the
protecting State, had been converted into a formidable fortress: were
the fortifications handed over intact, it might be apprehended that, in
some future European war, a great Power allying itself to Greece would
employ the fortifications of Corfu for the purpose of strengthening its
own position in the Mediterranean. The British Government, therefore, in
concert with the four other great Powers, decided that the Ionian Islands
should, from the time of their cession to Greece, "enjoy the advantages
of a perpetual neutrality," and that the fortifications that had been
constructed in Corfu, as no longer required after the concession of such
neutrality, should be demolished previously to the evacuation of the
island by the British garrison. This was in November, 1863; the demolition
was at once proceeded with; but it was not till far on in 1864 that the
troops finally quitted the island, and the annexation to Greece was
consummated.

The year 1862, during which the truce of politics continued, was marked
by a second grand display, on a scale of colossal magnitude, of the
products of the material and artistic civilisation of the age, contributed
by the industry of all countries, but especially by that of Britain
and her colonies. The Society of Arts, a body through whose exertions
the Exhibition of 1851 in great measure originated, began, with the
countenance of the Prince Consort, to take preliminary measures in 1858
and 1859 for the purpose of ascertaining whether a sufficiently strong
feeling existed in the country in favour of decennial repetitions of that
great experiment to justify the prosecution of the scheme. The Continental
war of 1859 caused a temporary suspension of proceedings; but on peace
being restored, the Society resumed the consideration of the question,
although at a period too late to allow of the Exhibition being ready by
the year 1861, which was their original desire. The Society obtained
decisive proof of the existence of a general desire for a second Great
Exhibition in the most satisfactory form--namely, the signatures of
upwards of 1,100 individuals for various sums of from £100 to £10,000, and
amounting in the whole to no less than £450,000, to a guarantee deed for
raising the funds needed for the conduct of the Exhibition. The scheme
having thus been started, the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851,
in the most liberal spirit, placed at the disposal of the managers of the
new undertaking, free of all charge, a space of nearly seventeen acres on
their Kensington Gore Estate, and afterwards, when the original area was
found insufficient, an additional plot of eight acres, being all the land
that could be made available for the purpose. In this way was the scheme
originated, the cost of the necessary buildings provided for, and an
eligible site obtained.

The contractors for the greater part of the work were Messrs. Kelk and
Lucas, and it could not have been in abler hands. But for the eastern dome
the contract was taken by the Thames Iron Company. This dome was begun
long before that on the western side; but a "generous rivalry" sprang up
between the builders, which resulted in something like a neck-and-neck
race between them at last. The work was commenced in the latter part
of 1861, and the contractors were bound to deliver the shell of the
building, complete, to the Royal Commissioners on the 12th of February,
1862. The contract was kept, and the building handed over on the 12th
of February. Applications for space from exhibitors were then invited,
and the fitting up of the courts and galleries was proceeded with; but
with such numerous and varied interests to adjust, the commissioners
could not ensure the same rapid progress as that made in the erection of
the building; and a large part of the edifice was still in confusion,
heaped up with packing-cases and litter, when the Exhibition was opened
on the 1st of May. Thirty thousand persons witnessed the spectacle. The
procession of the Queen's Commissioners for opening the Exhibition was
formed at Buckingham Palace, and proceeded, fortunately under a bright and
sunny sky, to the entrance of the building in Cromwell Road. As was to be
expected, neither the Queen nor any of her children was present; but the
Royal Family was ably represented by the Duke of Cambridge, supported
by the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other
august personages. The Lord Mayor of London lent his historical presence
to the ceremonial, coming in great state, with a suite of aldermen,
common-councilmen, and City officers, in seventy carriages.

The Exhibition was like an enormous bazaar, containing everything that the
fancy and the invention of all countries had at any time taxed themselves
to produce for the use and the enjoyment of men. According to the
ground-plan of the Exhibition building, there was an immense area, in the
angle between the southern transept and the nave, reserved for the French
department; and a curious circumstance occurred in connection with this,
which, when one thinks of the later relations between France and Prussia,
is not without interest. The French asked and obtained permission to
enclose their court, and they accordingly erected high wooden partitions
all round it, greatly to the disgust of Prussia, exhibiting in a more
limited space west of the south transept. The French were appealed to to
reduce the height of their partitions; but the representatives of "la
grande nation" would not recede an inch: they agreed with their Emperor
that "when France is satisfied, the world is at rest," at any rate, ought
to be; and as the partitions perfectly answered the purpose of the French
exhibitors, why should they put themselves out of the way for the sake of
the semi-barbarous peoples beyond the Rhine?

A few words now as to the magnificent collection of pictures. England had
an advantage here over foreign countries; for, whereas it was allowable
to exhibit any English picture painted within the century previous to the
opening of the Exhibition--and, in fact, the best part of the collection
did date from the last century--the foreign collection included, with but
trifling exceptions, none but works by living artists. Six thousand works
of art, exclusive of sculpture, were displayed in these galleries. Such a
gathering of the masterpieces of our best artists--Reynolds, Gainsborough,
and Hogarth--was never seen before. The Pre-Raphaelite school, and all
the more eminent living or recently deceased artists, with the exception
of J. M. W. Turner, were well represented. The productions of the British
colonies occupied a considerable area near the eastern dome, and were
exceedingly interesting, especially those from Australia and New Zealand,
in the curiosities from which there was a large native element that gave a
piquant and peculiar character to the display. The Exhibition was closed
on the 1st of November, having been open for the period of six months.
Yet vast as were the multitudes that daily thronged it, the concourse of
visitors did not quite come up to the number in 1851. The total number
was found to have been 6,117,450, about 50,000 under the gross number of
visitors to the Exhibition of 1851.

[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.]

The year 1863, on which this history now enters, was one which, so far as
England was concerned, was unmarked by political agitation and unclouded
by the anxieties of war. There was much distress in Lancashire, owing to
the entire or partial stoppage of innumerable looms, till now dependent
on American cotton. The world was hunted through by the agents of the
great cotton industry, in order to find out new sources of supply, or, by
introducing or fostering cotton culture in various suitable localities, to
secure at least an increased supply in the future. In India, every road
leading down the Western Ghauts was traversed by an unwonted string of
country carts, conveying the precious commodity to some port of shipment;
still, notwithstanding all that could be done, the supply of cotton
remained exceedingly limited, and much of what came was of a very inferior
quality. A general subscription, set on foot towards the end of 1862,
produced in the first month of 1863 the sum of £750,000 for the relief of
the distress, and in April £2,735,000. It was observed that the general
trade and industry of the country continued to prosper, notwithstanding
the collapse of this one branch of it. Especially in every branch of
the hardware trade, particularly in the sale of arms and munitions of
war, immense quantities of which were made in Great Britain to the order
of both belligerents, an activity was apparent exceeding all former
experience. The basis upon which, under the régime of Free Trade, the
industry of this country reposed, was proved by this experience to be
far broader and more solid than the most destructive storm, so long as it
affected only one portion of the field, could seriously impair.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES. (1863).

FROM THE PAINTING BY G. H. THOMAS IN THE ROYAL COLLECTION.]

Parliament was opened by commission in the first week of February. The
first clause of the Royal Speech informed both Houses of what every one
was aware of, that, since they last met, her Majesty had "declared her
consent to a marriage between his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and
her Royal Highness the Princess Alexandra, daughter of Prince Christian
of Denmark." The marriage was celebrated in the following month, and the
rejoicings which accompanied it were so genuine and so universal that it
seems worth while to dwell at some length on the circumstances of the
auspicious event. The preliminaries were settled during a visit paid by
the Queen to the Continent in the autumn of 1862, and the Princess became
a guest at Osborne in November. Her father, Prince Christian of the House
of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was then Heir-Presumptive to
the Crown of Denmark, to which he succeeded in 1865. The yacht _Albert
and Victoria_ received the bride and her suite on board at Antwerp, and
an escorting squadron, among which was the then formidable ironclad the
_Warrior_, attended and welcomed her to the shores of her new country.
The Princess, after a fine passage, landed at Gravesend on the 7th of
March, and travelled to Windsor. Demonstrations of loyal and affectionate
interest were not wanting along any part of the line of route. The
marriage took place on the 10th of March, and the ceremonial employed
on the occasion was brilliant and effective to a degree which public
pageants in England seldom reach. Four processions or _cortèges_ left the
castle in succession. The first, that of the Royal guests, among whom
were the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, and a crowd of petty German princes not
yet Bismarckised, set out an hour before the time fixed for the wedding.
The second _cortège_, in eleven carriages, conveyed the Royal Family and
the Queen's household. The third _cortège_ was the procession of the
bridegroom, and the fourth the procession of the bride. The marriage
was performed in St. George's Chapel. The Archbishop of Canterbury, of
course, officiated, and the Eton boys cheered lustily as the happy pair
drove away, _en route_ for Osborne. On the same night London and all the
principal towns in England were illuminated. An immense and thoroughly
good-humoured crowd filled all the streets, and admired the coloured
transparencies, the Prince of Wales's feathers, the true love-knots,
the A A's, and fifty other devices, which the inventive affection of the
people had rapidly improvised. At Birmingham the outline and the chief
structural lines of the tower and cupola of St. Philip's Church stood out
in flame against a dark and starless sky. The city of Edinburgh, whose
situation lends itself to effective displays of this sort, was strikingly
illuminated. The noble castle was lined with small paraffin lamps, which
clearly defined its contour, and fireworks blazed till a late hour from
the Salisbury Craigs and Arthur's Seat. In London the illuminations were
characterised by the utmost splendour, but untoward events cast a shadow
over the popular rejoicing. Though nothing could be more orderly and
well-disposed than the behaviour of the crowd, yet the pressure of the
enormous multitudes that filled the City thoroughfares up to a late hour
of the night was fatal to six women, crushed or trodden to death between
the Mansion House and the foot of Ludgate Hill, and was the cause of more
or less severe injuries to not less than a hundred persons. The Prince
of Wales addressed a feeling letter to the Lord Mayor on the subject
of these sad accidents, expressing his deep regret that what was meant
for rejoicing should have become an occasion of mourning. The House of
Commons, on the motion of Lord Palmerston, cheerfully granted to the
Prince and Princess of Wales, in addition to and augmentation of, the
revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, amounting to about £60,000 per annum,
a revenue of £50,000 a year from the Consolidated Fund, of which sum
£10,000 was separately settled on the Princess. It was further proposed
by the Premier, and assented to, that a jointure of £30,000 a year should
be secured to the Princess in the event of her surviving her husband.
Among the subsequent ceremonies at which the Royal pair assisted was the
inauguration of the Albert Memorial at South Kensington.

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES (1863).

FROM THE PAINTING BY G. H. THOMAS IN THE ROYAL COLLECTION]

The financial statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone,
was made on the 16th of April, and was universally considered to be a
masterly and very satisfactory _exposé_ of the monetary and commercial
condition of the country. The estimates of revenue and expenditure for the
coming financial year showed a large probable surplus; and this surplus
Mr. Gladstone applied to the reduction of the tea duty and of the income
tax. Certain minor features of the financial programme were not allowed to
pass unchallenged. One such consisted in levying a licence duty on clubs,
on the ground that, as wine and spirituous liquors were sold in them
to the members, they ought not to be exempted from the burden which every
hotel-keeper and licensed victualler was liable to. But as there were not
wanting many to point out the obvious and essential differences between
a club and a public-house, this portion of the financial scheme was
abandoned. The other feature referred to was Mr. Gladstone's proposal for
the taxation of charities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had conceived
the notion that the exemption from income tax enjoyed by charitable
institutions was equivalent to a burden of corresponding amount imposed
on the general body of taxpayers. The sum lost to the revenue through
the exemption from income tax of the property of charities was estimated
by Mr. Gladstone to amount to at least £250,000. The great charitable
institutions of the metropolis and elsewhere at once took the alarm, and
a deputation, formidable in numbers, rank, and respectability, was soon
organised to wait on the adventurous financier. In the end it became so
evident to Government that the feeling of the House was opposed to the
taxation of charities that the measure was withdrawn.

Towards the end of February there was great agitation among the
well-wishers and ill-wishers of the Church of England, on account of a
suit brought in the Chancellor's Court at Oxford by the Rev. Dr. Pusey
against Professor Jowett, charging him with having maintained heresy in
certain of his published writings, particularly in the publication so well
known as "Essays and Reviews." The Assessor, Mr. Montague Bernard, after
hearing the case fully argued, gave judgment. He first of all overruled
the exception which the defendant had made to the jurisdiction of the
Court; and then, after examining the statute under which he thought
himself empowered to try the case, he decided that it was so vague in its
terms as to leave him, in his opinion, a discretionary power whether to
proceed to judgment or not; in the exercise of which power he declined to
let the case go forward. Notice was given of appeal against this judgment,
but the intention was afterwards abandoned.

Seldom has a year witnessed the disappearance from the scenes which their
genius, valour, or virtue had adorned, of a greater number of illustrious
men than the year 1863. Two of the heroes of the Indian Mutiny, Sir James
Outram and Lord Clyde; four distinguished statesmen, Lord Lyndhurst,
Lord Lansdowne, Lord Elgin, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis; the veteran
politician, Mr. Ellice, often called the Nestor of the Whig party; and
two great authors, Archbishop Whately and Thackeray, were among those who
within the twelvemonth paid the debt of nature.

The desperate effort made this year by the gallant and unfortunate Poles
to shake off the despotic yoke of Russia, riveted the gaze and engaged the
sympathy of nearly every nation in Europe. We say nearly, for Prussia, as
represented by its Government, assisted, on grounds at the time little
understood, the Muscovite gaoler to remanacle his victim. In January
the Russian Government revived by an ukase the system of conscription.
Lord Napier, the British ambassador at St. Petersburg, described it as
"a design to make a clean sweep of the revolutionary youth of Poland; to
shut up the most energetic and dangerous spirits in the restraints of the
Russian army: it was simply a plan to kidnap the opposition, and carry it
off to Siberia or the Caucasus." At midnight on the 14th of January police
agents and soldiers commenced the work in Warsaw and the revolution began.
The misfortunes of Poland led to one of those diplomatic and didactic
interventions of which Britain about this time was so liberal and of which
the issue was so invariably and so notoriously unfortunate. Earl Russell
wrote (March 2nd, 1863) in a somewhat curt style of remonstrance to Lord
Napier at St. Petersburg, setting forth the view of the British Government
concerning the rights of the Poles under the Treaty of Vienna, maintaining
the right of Great Britain, as a party to that treaty, to interfere,
with a view to the sincere execution and fulfilment of its stipulations,
declaring that since the time of the Emperor Alexander I. Russia had
broken faith with Poland in withholding the free institutions which had
been promised, and concluding with the demand that a general amnesty
should be proclaimed, and the just political reforms required by the Poles
conceded. Prince Gortschakoff, "acting in a spirit of conciliation,"
declined to send a written reply to Earl Russell's despatch, but expressed
to Lord Napier, in conversation, his adverse views upon its principal
clauses. Nevertheless an amnesty was granted, but rejected by the
insurgents.

Earl Russell had by this time formulated, in concert with Austria and
with the knowledge of France, the plan for the regeneration of Poland
which he had been long meditating, and was now prepared to propose for
the acceptance of the Russian Government. The plan, as unfolded in his
despatch of the 17th of June, comprised the following six points or
articles:--

    1. A complete and general amnesty.

    2. National representation in a form resembling that which had been
    granted by Alexander I.

    3. A distinct national administration carried on by Poles and
    possessing the confidence of the country.

    4. Full and entire liberty of conscience, involving the repeal of
    the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship.

    5. The Polish language to be recognised in the kingdom as the
    official language and used as such in the courts of law and in the
    schools.

    6. The establishment of a regular and legal system of recruiting.

All these reforms were just and desirable _per se;_ but to propose them
was tantamount to an interference in the internal politics of a foreign
State. "The Principal Secretary of State of her Britannic Majesty," said
Prince Gortschakoff, writing in July, "will dispense us from giving an
answer to the proposed arrangement for a suspension of hostilities.
It would not resist a serious examination of the conditions necessary
for carrying it into effect." Turning the tables on the remonstrating
Powers, he said that the speedy re-establishment of order depended
largely "upon the resolution of the Great Powers not to lend themselves
to calculations on which the instigators of the Polish insurrection found
their expectation of an active intervention in favour of their exaggerated
aspirations." The end of the diplomatic comedy was not far off. The
Emperor Napoleon, observing that the views of the three Powers--Britain,
France, and Austria--as expressed in their communications to their
representatives at St. Petersburg, were not precisely in accord, proposed
to the other two Courts to take, in the form of a convention or protocol,
an engagement to pursue in concert a regulation of Polish affairs, by
diplomatic methods, or otherwise if necessary. The meaning of these words
plainly was, that if diplomatic methods failed, the three Powers would
not shrink from the arbitrament of war, in order to compel Russia to do
justice to Poland. "Our proposition," the statement quoted from drily
continues, "was not accepted." The Russian Government consequently assumed
a defiant tone, and Prussia came to her assistance by drawing a military
cordon against the fugitives round the frontier. The propositions of
the three Powers were quietly ignored; Russia proceeded in her task of
restoring order by the methods familiar to despotic Governments and the
fate of Poland was sealed.

Pacific modes of obtaining redress were not invariably preferred by
Earl Russell. When an act of vigour could be performed that did not
risk involving the country in war, he was ready to perform it. Thus he
justified the conduct of the British Envoy at Rio Janeiro, Mr. Christie,
who had instructed (January 2, 1863) the British naval commander on the
station to seize several Brazilian merchant vessels in reprisal for
the pillage of the _Prince of Wales_, an English merchant ship. Much
angry correspondence ensued; the Brazilian Government dismissed two of
its officials for want of promptitude in the matter and prosecuted to
conviction eleven other offenders; but the British Government still
considered that more vigorous measures should have been taken, in order
to prevent such outrages for the future, not less than to punish the
actual offenders. A claim for compensation on account of the pillage of
the cargo was advanced by the British Government; this claim seems to have
been regarded in Brazil as excessive. Mr. Christie was then instructed to
propose arbitration, but accompanied with conditions which the Brazilian
Government thought it inconsistent with their honour to accept. Reprisals
were then authorised to be made and were carried out as above mentioned.
The Brazilian Government then paid the sum demanded under protest and a
rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries ensued. Another
matter that had caused ill feeling--the unwarrantable arrest of three
officers belonging to a British frigate, the _Forte_, by a guard of
Brazilian police--had been referred to the arbitration of the King of the
Belgians, who pronounced his opinion (June 18, 1863), that in the mode in
which the laws of Brazil had been applied towards the English officers,
there was neither premeditation of offence nor offence given to the
British navy.

The British squadron in Japan, under Admiral Kuper, was under the
necessity, this year, of resorting to measures of coercion against one of
the Daimios, or half independent princes, of Japan, which involved the
loss of many lives. The Prince of Satsuma was the ruler of a large and
fertile territory in Kiusiu, the southernmost of the islands of Japan,
and it was at a place within his jurisdiction that an Englishman, Mr
Richardson, was murdered, and a murderous assault committed on an English
lady and two gentlemen who were riding with him, in September, 1862. The
British Government, when the news of this outrage was received, directed
Colonel Neale, the British chargé d'affaires in Japan, to demand ample
compensation for the murder, from the Tycoon, the temporal sovereign of
Japan, and from the Prince of Satsuma. The former was required to pay
£100,000 as an indemnity, the latter £25,000. After much parleying, the
Tycoon agreed to pay the sum demanded, which was accordingly brought
to Yokohama, in June, 1863, and counted out in the presence of Colonel
Neale. But the Prince of Satsuma could in no way be brought to reason, for
which contumacy his ships were taken, his town was burnt, and his palace
destroyed by the British squadron from Yokohama. The Prince had certainly
suffered reprisals to an extent exceeding many times the amount of the
indemnity demanded. Yet these very injuries--so strange is the working of
the Asiatic mind--appear to have induced him to make overtures for peace.
These were signs of overwhelming power, and power is almost the only thing
that the Asiatic truly reverences. As a matter of fact, before the close
of the year the Prince offered to pay, and actually paid, to the British
chargé d'affaires at Yokohama, the £25,000 which had been originally
demanded from him as compensation money for the murder of Mr. Richardson!

The civil war continued, meanwhile, to rage in America, where at the
beginning of the year General Lee found himself confronted by Hooker
at the head of a powerful force. The latter's attempt to force the
position of Fredericksburg was a complete failure, though the victory of
Chancellorsville was dearly purchased by the death of "Stonewall" Jackson,
most daring of the Confederate soldiers. Lee thereupon advanced upon
Gettysburg, where a series of battles resulted in his decisive defeat and
he was again forced to retire into Virginia. Elsewhere the cause of the
Confederates was gravely affected by the constant successes of General
Grant in Mississippi. They were forced to retire from Jackson and on the
3rd of July the important fortress of Vicksburg surrendered. Bragg held
his own in Tennessee until Grant, fresh from his victories, was sent
to supersede Rosecrans. Ably seconded by Hooker, he forced Bragg into
Georgia; and the fortunes of the Federals were obviously in the ascendant,
when Meade followed Lee into Virginia and harassed him during another
campaign. Upon the coast-line the naval superiority of the Northerners
caused itself to be powerfully felt; and after a preliminary attempt on
Fort Wagner had failed, the siege of Charleston began on August the 21st
and continued until the end of the year. Fort Wagner was abandoned by the
Southerners on the 7th of September, but then the operations declined into
a languid bombardment. Nevertheless the inevitable end of the struggle
could now be foreseen.

While the United States were thus distracted by civil war, and not in
a position to assert, much less to enforce, what is called the Monroe
doctrine, that is, the claim of the United States to prevent European
States from intervening in the internal affairs of American States, the
French Emperor was playing a singular game in Mexico. The enterprise had
sprung out of the unpretending joint expedition agreed to by Britain,
France, and Spain at the close of 1861. Mexico had so vexatiously and
so long evaded its pecuniary obligations to its British and Spanish
creditors, and had left so many outrages on individual Britons and
Spaniards unredressed, that the Governments of the two countries were at
last compelled to resort to coercive measures. France also desired to be
a party to the convention, nor was it at first understood that the aims
of the French Emperor differed materially from those of his confederates.
The expedition sailed in December, 1861, having on board 6,000 Spanish
soldiers; the British military contingent was only a force of 700 marines;
the French contingent was at first weaker than that of Spain, but it
was soon increased. A landing was effected, without resistance, at Vera
Cruz. On the 10th of January, 1862, the allied Commissioners published a
manifesto, addressed to the Mexican people, couched in somewhat ambiguous
language, yet declaring that neither conquest nor political dictation was
the object of the allied Powers, which had long beheld with grief a noble
people "wasting their forces and extinguishing their vitality through the
violent power of civil war and perpetual convulsions," and had now landed
on their shores to give them an opportunity of constituting themselves in
a permanent and stable manner. Yet all this time the views of the French
Emperor were extended to ulterior aims of which his allies never dreamed.
A pamphlet, well known to be "inspired," from the facile pen of M. de la
Guerronière, appeared in Paris, clearly pointing to the regeneration of
Mexico by Cæsarism--to an Emperor and a plebiscite.

When, then, after the issuing of the manifesto, the commissioners of the
allied Powers began to exchange ideas, the divergence of view between
the French and the other two commissioners soon became apparent. The
object of Britain and Spain was simply, by occupying a portion of the
Mexican seaboard, to obtain a material guarantee for the redress of the
wrongs of which their subjects had to complain. Whether this was done
by the Government of Juarez (who was then President) or by any other
Government, was a matter of perfect indifference to Britain and Spain. But
the French Commissioner--with an eye to the eventual introduction of an
imperial régime--refused, on the plea of perverseness, renewed outrages,
and general impracticability, to hold any communication with the Juarez
Government. However, the British and Spanish Commissioners, Sir Charles
Wyke and General Prim, opened negotiations with the Government of Juarez.
But there was a certain General Almonte in the French camp, who was well
known as a promoter of the scheme for substituting imperial for republican
institutions. The Mexican Government required that Almonte should be sent
away; but to this the French Commissioner refused to consent. A conference
between the commissioners of the allied Powers and others to be deputed
by the Mexican Government, to meet at Orizaba, in April, 1862, was agreed
to by Prim and Sir Charles Wyke, but rejected by the French Commissioner,
who insisted that, instead of negotiating with Juarez, the proper course
for the Allies was to march at once upon Mexico. Hereupon Prim and Sir
Charles Wyke, finding that their views and those of their colleague were
irreconcilable, withdrew on the part of their respective Governments from
the expedition. Nevertheless the French forces, increased by 2,500 troops
under the command of General Forey, appeared entirely successful. Puebla
was captured in May, 1862; Mexico, the capital, occupied in June, and
Juarez, though breathing defiance, was forced to retire into the interior.
An assembly of notables resolved that Mexico should adopt monarchical
institutions and the Crown was offered in 1863 to the Archduke Maximilian
of Austria.

From the mysterious central lands of Africa information of the most
interesting character came this year to England, being communicated by
the enterprising travellers Captain Speke and Captain Grant, who landed
at Southampton on the 17th of June, and five days afterwards received a
public welcome at a special meeting of the Royal Geographical Society.
Starting from Zanzibar, and penetrating the country in a north-westerly
direction, Captain Speke had, though with incredible difficulty, and
through the exertion of wonderful patience and adroitness in bribing,
coaxing, mystifying, or browbeating the native rulers whose kingdoms he
traversed, reached the shores of a vast lake, to which he gave the name
of Victoria Nyanza, and seen the White Nile flowing out, at its northern
end, in the direction of Gondokoro. Captain Speke too hastily assumed that
he had found the true source of the Nile in the Victoria Nyanza, just
as, nearly a hundred years earlier, Bruce was convinced that he stood at
the fountain head of the great river when he had merely traced up the
lesser current of the Blue Nile. The brave explorer's career came to a
premature and tragic end. A day had been fixed, in the autumn of 1864,
for a discussion between him and Captain Burton on the question of the
Nile sources, before a meeting of the British Association at Bath, when
a sudden and lamentable accident put a period to Speke's life. He was
shooting in Neston Park, in Wiltshire; and from the posture in which the
body was found, he appeared to have been getting over a low stone wall,
when by some mischance his gun exploded while the muzzle was pointed at
his breast. Death ensued in a few minutes.




CHAPTER XXII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).

    Peace and Prosperity in 1864--Birth of an Heir to the Prince of
    Wales--Lord Derby's happy Speech-Fruitlessness of the Parliamentary
    Debates--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--Mr. Stansfeld and Mazzini--The
    Government and the London Conference on the Danish Question--Votes
    of Censure in both Houses--Mr. Gladstone on Parliamentary
    Reform--The Premier's Forecast--Resignation of Mr. Lowe--Lord
    Westbury on Convocation--Garibaldi's Visit to England--His
    Reception in London--The Duke of Newcastle and Nassau Senior--The
    Shakespeare Tercentenary--"Essays and Reviews" again--The
    Colenso Controversy--Mr. Disraeli and the Angels--The Fenians in
    Dublin--Origin of the Belfast Riots--Their Progress--Excesses of
    Orangemen and Roman Catholics--The Military Called Out--Trials of
    the Rioters--The Ashantee War--The Maori War--Waitara Block and its
    consequences--Suppression of the Rebellion--Final Defeat of the
    Taepings--Bombardment of Simonasaki--The Cyclone at Calcutta--Its
    Ravages.


The year 1864 was for Britain as uneventful as the years which immediately
preceded and followed it. The course of peaceful industry and the
accumulation of wealth went on undisturbed, and the gradual abatement
of the distress in Lancashire diffused a general feeling of relief and
satisfaction. The revenue was found to display a wonderful elasticity. The
Session of Parliament was opened by commission on the 4th of February.
In the Royal Speech her Majesty expressed her confidence that Parliament
would sympathise with her in her gratitude to the Almighty on account of
the Princess of Wales having given birth (January 8) to a son, "an event
which has called forth from her faithful people renewed demonstrations of
devoted loyalty and attachment to her person and family."

In the debate on the Address Lord Derby adverted, with that felicity
of phrase for which he was notorious, to the birth of an heir to the
Prince of Wales, afterwards known as Prince Albert Victor and the Duke of
Clarence and Avondale. "At this time last year," he said, "we offered our
humble congratulations to her Majesty on the auspicious marriage of the
heir to the Throne with a Princess every way qualified to share the high
destiny reserved for him, and whose personal beauty and attractions, and
the natural and unaffected charm of whose manner, secured for her, from
the first moment of her entrance into this kingdom, the admiration and, I
may say, the affection of her adopted country. On this occasion we have
to congratulate her Majesty and the nation on the happy issue of that
marriage, in the birth of an heir to the Throne in the second generation;
and although, my lords, happily for this country monarchical institutions
are so firmly established in the hearts and affections of the people, and
their attachment to them has been so strengthened by the private virtues
and personal qualities of the illustrious lady who occupies the throne
that it is not with us, as it might be with other countries, a subject of
additional congratulation that we thereby obtain greater stability for the
Throne, or greater security for the dynasty, yet we may be permitted to
rejoice at the prospect we have before us of a direct line of succession
from the present illustrious wearer of the crown and her immediate
descendants--from a Sovereign who has done so much to cast a lustre on
that crown, and also to strengthen the hold which monarchical institutions
have upon this nation.... I am sure there is not one of your lordships
who does not offer up a fervent prayer to the Throne of Grace that that
bright prospect may remain unclouded, and that, long after the youngest of
your lordships has passed away from this scene, the throne of these realms
may be occupied by the descendants of the illustrious Prince and of his
new-born heir--

    Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis."

In the course of this Session many measures of political or social
reform--the Ballot, the Reduction of the County Franchise, the Abolition
of Church Rates and of Tests, the Permissive Bill--were introduced
into Parliament and discussed, but in no single instance were they
carried. Sterility attended all the legislative throes of our political
assemblies. Nor are the debates on foreign affairs either pleasant or
profitable reading; for in the midst of much acrimonious criticism of the
proceedings of the Ministry, the general result comes out clearly, that
the critics, had they been in the place of the Government, would have
pursued substantially the same policy. Thus, although Mr. Cobden, in his
speech on the resolution brought in by Mr. Disraeli censuring the foreign
policy of the Government, severely blamed the proceedings of Lord Russell
with reference to Schleswig-Holstein, the grounds of his censure were,
not that we had disregarded treaties, or broken faith with Denmark, but
that we had laboured so much as we had done to maintain the former and
preserve the latter. Similarly, the cautious and pacific temper of the
man of business, so strikingly contrasted with the temper of the senators
and statesmen which in former times inspired our policy, appeared in the
review which he took of the British army and navy, dispersed about the
world, and engaged in the protection of our colonies; thence inferring
that to engage in a war with any of the great Continental Powers would be
for Britain attended with extreme difficulty and expense. And the same
prudential spirit appeared, in various degrees, to animate the majority of
our public men.

The financial statement of Mr. Gladstone was again, among all the
domestic transactions of the Session, the chief point of attraction. His
expectations of buoyancy and expansion in the revenue, as a consequence of
that very reduction in fiscal burdens which ostensibly tended to diminish
it, were again remarkably verified. On a comparison of the revenue with
the expenditure of the past year, it appeared that there was a surplus
of £2,037,000. On the general prosperity of the trade of the country,
Mr. Gladstone entered into some striking details. The aggregate amount
of that trade, it appeared (including imports and exports), had been,
in 1861, £377,000,000; but in 1863 it had risen to the unprecedented
sum of £444,000,000. The disposal of the surplus was the next point of
importance. A great fight was made by the farmers' friends to prevail
upon the Government to apply at least a portion of it to the reduction of
the malt tax. But the Government wisely resisted all these overtures, and
in so doing were supported by a decided majority of the House. That tax,
producing so many millions to the revenue, was felt to be too important
to be made the subject of experiments; if it was to be touched at all, it
must be thoroughly and systematically revised. But although the Government
thus resisted the attempts to take off or diminish the duties on malt used
in the manufacture of beer, they made a concession to the agriculturists
in the shape of a remission of so much of the duty as had been hitherto
levied upon malt used for the consumption of cattle. The House finally
agreed to apply the surplus in the manner proposed by Mr. Gladstone--that
is to say, partly in effecting a substantial reduction in the duties on
sugar, partly by taking off a penny in the pound from the income tax.

In course of the discussions on the Navy Estimates a singular incident
occurred, which cost the Government the services of one of the Junior
Lords of the Admiralty. A trial had recently been held in Paris, in which
two conspirators, Greco and Trabucco, were charged with a plot against
the Emperor's life. In the course of the trial the Procureur-Général
stated that a paper had been found on the person of Greco, directing him,
if in want of money, to apply to a Mr. Flowers, at 35, Thurloe Square,
Brompton. This, the Procureur added, is the residence of an English
member of Parliament, who, in 1855, was appointed banker to the Tibaldi
conspirators against the Emperor's life. A reference to the Post Office
Directory showed that the member in question was Mr. Stansfeld, the
member for Halifax, and one of the Junior Lords of the Admiralty; nor was
it difficult to discover that Mr. Flowers, alias M. Fiori, was no other
than Mazzini, the ex-triumvir. Mr. Cox, one of the members for Finsbury,
first drew the attention of the House, and of the member for Halifax,
to the passage in the Procureur-Général's speech, when Mr. Stansfeld,
in reply, expressed great indignation that the Crown prosecutor of a
friendly Power should have ventured to connect him, a member of the
British Parliament and a Minister of the Crown, with the atrocious crime
with which the prisoners were charged. He knew nothing either of Greco or
of Mr. Flowers, whose letters were addressed to his house. As to Mazzini,
he gloried in the friendship of such a man, the greatness and nobility
of whose character were little appreciated; and he was persuaded that to
say that Mazzini had ever incited to assassination was as base a libel as
could be uttered. Mr. Stansfeld's first explanation left the matter still
involved in considerable mystery. The subject was revived by Sir Laurence
Palk a few nights afterwards and warmly discussed, Mr. Pope Hennessy
reading extracts from letters written by Mazzini, with reference to other
transactions, in which he appeared to justify assassination in certain
cases. Again, on the motion for going into Committee of Supply, Sir H.
Strachey moved as an amendment, "That the speech of the Procureur-Général
on the trial of Greco, implicating a member of this House, and of her
Majesty's Government, in the plot for the assassination of our ally the
Emperor of the French, deserves the serious consideration of this House."
Mr. Stansfeld admitted that he had at one time allowed his name to be
inscribed on bank-notes (issued probably by the society of Carbonari, or
revolutionary conspirators to procure the liberation of Italy), which he
believed would have been used, not in the interest of assassins, but
to aid in the establishment of a free and united Italy; but, acting on
the advice of friends, he had withdrawn the permission. Lord Palmerston
and other members of the Government warmly defended their colleague,
and the amendment of Sir H. Strachey was rejected by a majority of ten.
Nevertheless, Mr. Stansfeld resigned his post as Junior Lord.

[Illustration: MR. PHELPS PLANTING THE SHAKESPEARE OAK ON PRIMROSE HILL,
LONDON. (_See p._ 348.)]

The existence of the Government was seriously imperilled in July, when
Lord Malmesbury, in the Lords, and Mr. Disraeli, in the Commons, moved
the following resolution: "That this House has heard with deep concern
that the sittings of the conference recently held in London have been
brought to a close without accomplishing the important purpose for which
it was convened. That it is the opinion of this House, 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 in the councils of
Europe, and thereby diminished the securities for peace." The event
concerned is related in the following chapter; at present we notice it
merely as an incident in the political history of the Session. In the
Lords the Government was defeated by a majority of nine; but this was not
unexpected. In the Commons there were some brilliant passages of arms
between the party leaders; but Mr. Horsman, it was generally felt, was not
far from the truth when he said that "the Government had made mistakes,
but their opponents had endorsed them; so the parties were pretty much
upon an equality." On a division, the amendment to Mr. Disraeli's
resolution, moved by Mr. Kinglake, was carried by a majority of eighteen
in a very full House, and Government was saved.

On the question of Parliamentary Reform little interest was at this time
felt in the country, and the apathy of the constituencies extended itself
to their representatives in the House of Commons. Yet the question may
be justly held to have advanced a stage, in consequence of a remarkable
declaration made by Mr. Gladstone during the debate on Mr. Baines'
Bill for substituting a £6 rental qualification for the existing £10
householder franchise in boroughs. The previous question had been moved by
Mr. Cave; but Mr. Gladstone declared that although there was a concurrence
of opinion that the present was not a suitable time for the introduction
by the Government of a comprehensive measure of Reform, yet he could
not vote for the amendment, because it went to deny that the question
of the reduction of the franchise was one which ought to be discussed
and, if possible, settled. Mr. Baines' Bill was lost by the adoption of
the previous question, but it was evident to all that the £10 limit was
condemned in general opinion, and could not much longer be maintained. On
account of these and similar utterances of his Chancellor, Lord Palmerston
said to Lord Shaftesbury, "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way,
and whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange doings."

Another Minister was compelled by circumstances to execute upon himself
the "happy despatch" before the end of the Session. This was Mr. Lowe,
the Vice-President of the Council, whom Lord Robert Cecil (afterwards
Lord Salisbury) charged with mutilating the annual reports of Inspectors
of Schools, and cutting out passages that did not chime in with his own
views, before submitting them to the House. An adverse resolution grounded
on this allegation was carried in a thin House, and Mr. Lowe had no choice
but to resign. But the explanation which he afterwards offered made it
so abundantly clear that the charge was founded on a misunderstanding,
and that he had done nothing but what the practice of his and other
departments justified, that Lord R. Cecil frankly admitted that, had this
explanation been made at first, he should have abandoned his charges;
and the House was induced with little difficulty, on the motion of Lord
Palmerston, to rescind the inculpatory resolution which it had just passed.

The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury--which, instead of being
prorogued immediately after its opening, as had been the case since
the reign of Anne, has gradually obtained the royal licence, since
the friendly intervention of Lord Derby in 1852, of proceeding to the
despatch of business--after discussions of extraordinary prolixity,
passed what was called a "Synodical Judgment" (June 21, 1864), condemning
the well-known work entitled "Essays and Reviews." Some time afterwards
the matter was brought before the Peers, Lord Houghton desiring to know
what was the legal effect of the judgment, and whether, in passing it,
the Convocation had not exceeded its powers. On this occasion the Lord
Chancellor (Lord Westbury) made a speech, the like of which for scathing
wit and contemptuous banter, has been seldom heard. "There are," he said,
"three modes of dealing with Convocation, when it is permitted to come
into action and transact real business. The first is, while they are
harmlessly busy, to take no notice of their proceedings. The second is,
when they seem likely to get into mischief, to prorogue them, and put
an end to their proceedings; the third, when they have done something
clearly beyond their powers, is to bring them before a court of justice
and punish them." He went on to state that should any attempt be made to
give validity to any act of Convocation, without the consent of the Crown,
the persons so offending would incur the penalties of _præmunire_. "I am
afraid my noble friend has not considered what the pains and penalties of
a præmunire are, or his gentle heart would have melted at the prospect....
I have not ventured--I say it seriously--I have not ventured to present
the question to her Majesty's Government; for, my lords, only imagine what
an opportunity it would be for my right honourable friend the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to spread his net, and in one haul take in £30,000 from
the highest dignitary, not to speak of the bishops, deans, archdeacons,
canons, vicars, all included in one common crime, all subject to one
common penalty.... Assuming that the report of the judgment which I have
read is a correct one, I am happy to tell your lordships, that what is
called a synodical judgment is simply a series of well lubricated terms--a
sentence so oily and so saponaceous that no one could grasp it. Like
an eel, it slips through your fingers--it is simply nothing; and I am
glad to tell my noble friend that it is literally no sentence." Bishop
Wilberforce, to whose nickname, "Soapy Sam," the last passage was an
obvious allusion, made a vigorous and dignified reply to this masterpiece
of irony.

Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of July; and the records of the
remaining five months of the year contain little or nothing of public
interest. Earlier in the year, the visit of a distinguished foreigner
had been attended with so much of popular excitement and enthusiasm that
it deserves a passing notice. There was sufficient real feeling and real
knowledge about the Italian question among the masses of the metropolis
to secure the champion of a free Italy a warm reception, but before his
arrival the infectious enthusiasm of the well-informed few had spread
to the ignorant many, to those who scarcely knew that such a country as
Italy existed, and only thought vaguely of Garibaldi as a friend of the
poor and oppressed. All along the line from Southampton to the capital
crowds filled the stations, while at Nine Elms, where the General was
to alight, a multitude of working men, arranged in procession according
to their trades, awaited him on that April afternoon. Side by side with
them stood peers and members of Parliament, and when Garibaldi arrived he
was received like a prince, though there was a touch of passion in the
reception which is granted to few princes. At Wandsworth Road a halt was
made while a monster procession of trades unions filed past. Upwards of
30,000 men took part in it, and as they passed the General one and all
broke out in cheers and cries. To the dense multitude gathered at Vauxhall
and Kennington, 30,000 men would have been as nothing. Trafalgar Square
was one vast sea of faces as the procession entered it, while along Pall
Mall the clubs were lit up, and the windows and balconies filled with
spectators. At last Stafford House was reached, and the long, fatiguing,
exciting journey came to an end. Garibaldi was hoarse and wearied; the
excitement had been almost too much for him, and after his introduction
to the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, his friends saw his retirement in
the care of his host with relief. So far his visit had been an unexampled
success; London had given him a noble welcome, as the most cynical
confessed. He was fêted, the best houses in London were open to him,
while the leaders of society vied with one another in efforts to please
and amuse him. Throughout it all he remained his simple unconscious self,
unfeignedly pleased by the admiration and attention shown him, but always
glad when he could escape the throng around him for a minute or two, and
chat in a corner with a friend. On the 20th, when he went to receive the
freedom of the City of London, the same unmixed enthusiasm greeted him. It
began to be said, at the end of the General's visit, that the red shirt
was an emblem of revolution, and that if he stayed longer in England, a
dangerous temper might be developed among the workmen who cheered him so
lustily. That his visit was shortened by a hint from the Government is
well known, but the actuating motive was not fear of a rising at home, but
the representations of the Austrian and Italian Ministers. On the 27th of
April he quitted Plymouth in the _Undine_.

Few of those who departed in the course of this year from their wonted
places among men awakened in the hearts of the mourning survivors more
sad and sympathetic regrets than Henry Pelham Clinton, fifth Duke of
Newcastle. But fifty-three years old, and endowed by nature with an eager
and buoyant temperament, he was just the man who might have been expected
to pass a long life in doing good and faithful service for his country,
and then to die in harness. But the gloom of a ghastly private sorrow had
long hung over him; the incurable wound of an intolerable injury rankled
in his soul. Nassau William Senior, the eminent political economist, died
this year at the age of 74. He was an eminent and representative member
of the English school of economists, in whose hands the science of wealth
tended to be mathematical and precise and aimed at excluding those moral
and sentimental considerations from which most Continental economists
thought that it could not be disjoined. His mind, remarkable for the clear
dry light that it brought to the analysis and classification of facts, was
deficient in imagination and sensibility, though it made advances in this
direction in the course of his later years, as his journals and letters
testify.

On the 23rd of April, 1864, exactly three hundred years would have
elapsed since the birth of Shakespeare; and before the anniversary
arrived there was a general stir in literary and dramatic circles,
out of a persuasion that a date so marked should be signalised by a
national festival of a splendid character, which would show the world
how England honoured her greatest poet. Something, eventually, was done,
and, to some limited extent, well done. A pavilion was erected by public
subscription at Stratford-upon-Avon, which was to serve the threefold
purpose of dining-room, theatre, and hall of discussion. On the morning
of the 23rd of April the Mayor of Stratford received, in the Town Hall,
an address from the "Free German Institute of Arts and Sciences at
Frankfort-on-the-Main." Professor Max Müller, in presenting this address,
delivered a remarkable and somewhat inconclusive speech. He urged that
hero-worship should henceforward replace for England that veneration of
the saints which was so dear to our forefathers. In London the memory
of Shakespeare was honoured in various ways, but the only truly public
demonstration was that arranged by the Working Men's Committee. It was
resolved to plant an oak in honour of Shakespeare at the foot of Primrose
Hill. A young oak sapling was, by the Queen's permission, obtained from
Windsor Park; a procession of trades was organised from Russell Square;
and after an oration had been delivered by Mr. George Moore, the chairman
of the committee, Mr. Phelps, the celebrated actor at Sadler's Wells
Theatre, planted the tree, and a Mrs Banks, sprinkling it with water
brought from the Avon at Stratford, christened it "Shakespeare's Oak."

The progress of Rationalism on all sides, and even among the clergy of the
Establishment, made itself felt this year in various ways. The same Lord
Chancellor, who made so merry in Parliament with the "synodical judgment"
of Convocation upon "Essays and Reviews," had previously, in the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, given to two of the contributors to that
volume the full benefit of the extremely latitudinarian character of
his own theological sentiments. Dr. Rowland Williams and Mr. Wilson had
been condemned in the Court of Arches on two of the reformed articles of
charge exhibited against them, and sentenced to a year's suspension. One
article exhibited against Dr. Williams which the Court below held to be
proved, charged him with maintaining that the Bible, or Holy Scripture,
was "an expression of devout reason," and the written voice of the
congregation--not the Word of God, nor containing any special revelation
of His Truth, or of His dealings with mankind, nor of the rule of our
faith. Another charged him with alleging that "the doctrine of merit
by transfer is a fiction," and argued that this was at variance with
the express language of the eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles, which
teaches that "we are accounted righteous before God only for the merits
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not of our own works
and deservings." With regard to the first article, the judgment of the
Judicial Committee, as delivered by the Lord Chancellor, was to the effect
that the language used by Dr. Williams had been harshly interpreted; as
to the second, the Court accepted Dr. Williams's explanation, that by the
term "fiction" he did not intend "false or fictitious statement," but
merely "the phantasm in the mind of an individual that he has received or
enjoyed merit by transfer." Upon the whole, the committee were of opinion
that Dr. Williams had not outstepped the limits imposed by the formularies
of the Church of England on the freedom of thought and discussion, and
therefore decided that the sentence of a year's suspension must be
reversed. In the case of Mr. Wilson, charged with encouraging the hope
that the last judgment of God upon the wicked might not be really one
consigning them to eternal punishment, the committee similarly held that
this opinion was fairly tenable by clergymen of the Church of England, and
therefore reversed the penal sentence of the Court of Arches.

An incident in the great Colenso anomaly, which occurred partly in
this and partly in the following year, when stripped of the legal
technicalities in which it was enveloped, resulted no less favourably
for the advocates of free thought than the trial of Dr. Williams and
Mr. Wilson. In virtue of letters patent issued from the Crown, erecting
Capetown into a metropolitan see, with Dr. Gray for its first bishop, and
Natal as one of the suffragan sees--giving also to the metropolitan bishop
jurisdiction over his suffragans, with a right of appeal only to the
Archbishop of Canterbury--Bishop Gray had cited Bishop Colenso to appear
in his diocesan court of Capetown and answer to the charges of heresy,
founded on the novel doctrines broached in his Essay on the Pentateuch,
which had been brought against him. Dr. Colenso denied the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Capetown _in hac re_, and declined to appear; nevertheless,
Bishop Gray proceeded to hear the charges and, having decided them to be
proved, pronounced a sentence of deposition against Bishop Colenso, and
prohibited his clergy from paying him canonical obedience. Dr. Colenso,
however, in due course lodged an appeal with the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council, as the depositary of the royal supremacy in
ecclesiastical causes, and prayed, not only that the sentence against him
might be declared null and void, but that the letters patent conferring
jurisdiction on the Bishop of Capetown might be declared to have been
illegal and of no effect _ab initio_. The case was argued on the 14th of
December and following days, but the judgment of the Judicial Committee
was not delivered till March in the following year, when the court decided
that the proceedings of Bishop Gray were null and void as law. The fact
was that the zeal of the Bishop had outrun his discretion and entirely
disregarded the remonstrances of Dr. Tait, the judicious Bishop of London.

But the Rationalising and anti-dogmatic party were not allowed to carry
all before them; their flank was vigorously assailed by Mr. Disraeli, in
November, who, in a speech delivered at a meeting of the Oxford Diocesan
Society, attacked the new scepticism with all the resources of his bitter
wit and unsparing rhetoric. He spoke of the clerical underminers of the
doctrines which at their ordination they had vowed to maintain, whose
works, he said--insufferably dull and interminably prolix--would, if we
were compelled to peruse them, go far to realise for us that perpetuity
of punishment which their authors denied. The highest science, he went on
to say, was that which interpreted the highest nature, namely, the nature
of man; but when he compared the new interpretations with the old, he was
not prepared to say that the lecture-room was more scientific than the
Church. "What is the question which is now placed before society with the
glib assurance which to me is most astounding? That question is this--Is
a man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels. I
repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new-fangled theories.
I believe they are foreign to the conscience of humanity; and I say
more--that even in the strictest intellectual point of view I believe the
severest metaphysical analysis is opposed to such conclusions."

[Illustration: SCENE IN THE BELFAST RIOTS. (_See p._ 350.)]

In Ireland, the unhappy consequences which result from the secular
oppression of one race or religion by another were painfully illustrated
this year by the riots at Belfast. Earlier in the year a significant
event had occurred in Dublin, which first disclosed the strength and wide
extension of the Fenian conspiracy. A Fenian convention had met the year
before in America, but that the society numbered thousands and tens of
thousands of enthusiastic supporters in Ireland itself was not generally
known before the Rotunda meeting, on the 23rd of February, 1864. This
meeting--having been called by The O'Donoghue, Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and
other leaders of the National party, to testify their indignation at
the proposal to erect a monument in Dublin to the memory of the Prince
Consort--was mobbed, soon after the proceedings began, by a preconcerted
attack of Fenians, and after a good deal of fighting vanquished and
dispersed.

But the desperate riots which took place at Belfast, in the autumn, threw
all minor scuffles into the shade. There had been a great demonstration
at Dublin, on the 8th of August, in honour of Daniel O'Connell, and a
monument had been inaugurated to his memory. The demonstration itself
went off quietly. But the Protestants of Belfast felt, when the accounts
of the Dublin proceedings reached them through the newspapers, extremely
annoyed. Accordingly they eagerly prepared a counter-demonstration. An
insulting effigy of O'Connell was made and carried through the streets,
attended by thousands of mill-workers; and in the evening it was publicly
burnt. Nor was this all. Next day the Protestants announced that having
burnt O'Connell, they must now proceed to bury him. A coffin was prepared
and borne solemnly to the gate of the Friar's Bush Cemetery, where it was,
of course, refused admittance; after which it suffered the same fate as
the effigy, and the ashes were thrown into the river running through the
town. The bonfire, however, was still blazing, and the crowds around it
were still engaged in hooting the "Liberator," when it became known that
the Catholics were out in the Protestant quarters of the town, smashing
windows and breaking furniture.

Night put an end to the disturbance for the time, but on the following
day matters became serious. Between five and six o'clock in the morning,
affrays occurred between various bodies of mill-workers going to work.
The day passed off quietly, but in the evening an encounter took place
between the Catholics and the inhabitants of Brown Square. The Catholics
were for the time beaten off; but returning, armed with brickbats and
other missiles, they fell upon the constabulary, who had by this time
arrived upon the scene, leaving five or six severely wounded. All through
the night the fray continued. The police made some captures, but nothing
damped the spirit of the Catholic mob, and the rioting continued unabated
during the whole of the following day, and throughout Friday and Saturday.
Sunday was quiet, but Monday brought with it fresh scenes of disorder. A
body of Roman Catholic navvies attacked the Protestant houses in Brown
Street and the national school, wrecking both the buildings and their
contents. While thus engaged, they were set upon by a party of exasperated
Orangemen, and a regular fight ensued. The authorities saw that it was
high time extreme measures were taken. The military were called out, under
Mr. Lyons, J.P., and posted in the Protestant districts. But the Irish
blood was up, and the sight of the soldiers produced none of the hoped-for
effect upon the reckless mob. Next day, both soldiers and police fired
upon the people. Two were shot dead in the _mêlée_, and between fifty
and sixty seriously injured. There was a fearful rumour in the course of
the day that the ship-carpenters, mostly Orangemen, had seized upon the
gunpowder stores. The gunpowder, however, was saved by the prompt action
of the authorities. On the 17th the ship-carpenters vowed vengeance upon
the navvies, who had wrought such havoc at the outset of the riots, and
having forced their enemies into the mudbanks in the harbour, they fired
upon them from the shore, killing one and wounding nine or ten. It being
quite evident that the Belfast authorities had no adequate force at hand,
large reinforcements were sent to the number of about 4,000 men. These
troops, encamped in the city, succeeded in preventing any further violence
on a large scale. At length, on the 24th, Belfast was reported tranquil,
and the bruised and sobered rioters began to look forward uneasily to
the reckoning to come. Unfortunately, the mischief did not end with
Belfast; other parts of Ireland caught the spirit of the rioters. But the
authorities had been put on their guard, and the prompt despatch of troops
to Dundalk and Newry nipped the disturbances there in the bud. At the
spring assizes in the following year, 1865, many persons concerned in the
riots were brought up for trial. The judge dwelt on the serious nature of
the disturbances. According to the report of Dr. Murney, surgeon to the
General Hospital, 316 persons had received more or less severe injuries,
219 had recovered, 11 died; while at the time the report was presented
(November 6, 1864) there were 98 cases of gun-shot wounds still under
treatment. "This," said Baron Deasy, "reads more like the _Gazette_ after
a very serious military or naval engagement, than the return presented
to a judge of assize at the assizes in this country." In most cases a
verdict of guilty was returned, and the sentences varied from two years'
imprisonment with hard labour to three months'.

It can seldom happen in a vast Empire that a year should pass without
some hostile collision taking place, either in one of its outlying
colonies, or in one of the semi-civilised yet wealthy communities which
its merchants frequent. In 1864 little wars raged at the Cape Coast in
Africa, and in New Zealand, at that time Britain's youngest and fairest
colony; while both in China and Japan hostilities, in which we were more
or less engaged, were carried on. The Governor of Cape Coast Castle having
refused to give up to the King of Ashantee two of his slaves who had
taken refuge within British territory, the King made an incursion into
the lands of the Fantees, a friendly tribe inhabiting that portion of the
coast which adjoins our settlement. Thereupon Governor Pim ordered a force
to proceed on an expedition into the Ashantee country, which, however,
produced no coercive effect on the barbarian, and resulted in a heavy
loss in officers and men, owing to the pestiferous nature of the climate.
The matter was of no great consequence, yet, when it came to be debated in
the House of Commons, it nearly upset the Government. Sir John Hay moved
a resolution of censure, and, while acquitting the inferior authorities
of blame, endeavoured to fix it all on the Cabinet. Sir John Hay's
resolution, in a rather full House, was rejected by the narrow majority of
seven.

In New Zealand, where a native war had existed since 1860, some decided
advantages were gained this year by General Cameron, and certain native
tribes gave in their unconditional submission. The war arose out of a
quarrel respecting what was known in the colony as "the Waitara purchase."
An individual Maori, named Teira, belonging to the tribe of Wiremu Kingi
(_Anglicè_, William King), offered to the Government for sale, in 1859,
a block of land on the river Waitara, near Taranaki. The Government,
believing that no other rights over the land existed except those of the
vendor, agreed to purchase it; but this decision was vehemently protested
against by Wiremu Kingi. Troops were sent to Taranaki in 1860, by the aid
of whom the block of land was occupied; and thus commenced a harassing
and inglorious Maori war, in the course of which the town of Taranaki was
seized and plundered, and the entire settlement ravaged by the native
insurgents. To Major-General Pratt, who did little more than hold his
ground against the Maoris, succeeded Major-General Cameron, an officer
of great vigour and ability; but still the resistance of the Maoris,
favoured by the wooded nature of the country, and the sparseness of the
European population, continued. In 1861 the Duke of Newcastle summoned
Sir George Grey (formerly Governor of New Zealand for several years at
a most critical period) from the Cape Colony, and entrusted him with
the government of New Zealand. After a careful investigation into the
original cause of quarrel, Sir George Grey wrote to the Duke of Newcastle
(April, 1863) that it was his settled conviction "that the natives are,
in the main, right in their allegations regarding the Waitara purchase,
and that it ought not to be gone on with." Proclamation was accordingly
made to the natives that the purchase was abandoned. But the passions of
the Maoris had been roused by the long continuance of a state of war;
the proclamation, therefore, produced little effect. On the part of the
natives, the war chiefly consisted in the surprise and murder of scattered
settlers, or in a guerilla warfare against outposts and small detachments
of the troops; on our part, it consisted in a series of attacks on their
fortified _pahs_, or stockades, and in the securing of our flanks and rear
by the construction of good military roads. In some cases _pahs_ were
stormed with little loss; but the troops were not always so fortunate.
The Maori position of Orakau (April, 1864) cost us a loss of sixteen
killed and fifty-two wounded to storm; and in an attack on a strong _pah_
at Tauranga, on the north coast, the troops were actually repulsed, with
a loss of ten officers and twenty-five rank and file killed, and four
officers and seventy-two rank and file wounded. The _pah_ was evacuated
by the Maories on the following night, and they were soon after routed
with heavy loss while endeavouring to entrench themselves near Tauranga.
The Maoris of this district soon afterwards (August, 1864) submitted
themselves unconditionally to the Governor, who expressed his intention
of dealing leniently with them. The war was thus at an end on the north
coast, but lingered on for some time longer in the Waikato country and
around Taranaki.

In China, the rebellion of the Taepings was this year almost entirely
suppressed, chiefly through the aid of British officers. An Order in
Council had been passed authorising British subjects to enter into the
service of the Emperor of China; and Colonel Gordon, taking advantage
of the order, assisted by other English and American officers, drilled
and disciplined a body of Chinese soldiers in the European fashion, and
employed them in driving the Taepings and other disorderly characters
beyond the thirty-five mile radius which had been stipulated for on
behalf of the treaty ports. Following up his advantage, and co-operating
with the military mandarins, Gordon, in the summer of 1864, aided them
to reduce the town of Soochow, the last stronghold of the Taepings, of
whom 30,000, including women and children, were cruelly massacred by the
mandarins after the surrender. When the news of the massacre reached the
British Government, the Order in Council authorising British subjects to
enter the Chinese service was immediately revoked. This, however, did
not avert a severe arraignment of their policy in Parliament, in which
the Opposition were joined by several non-intervention Radicals. Lord
Palmerston's reply was cogent and unanswerable. He pointed out that the
general policy of Great Britain towards China was guided by the principle
of the extension of commerce, and all the interferences of the Government
had been rendered necessary by circumstances connected with the protection
of the mercantile interests of Englishmen. As to the cruelty and perfidy
of the imperialists, however that might be, the Taepings were infinitely
the worse of the two, each of them possessing the normal characteristics
of the Chinese.

In Japan several more horrid murders of Englishmen were committed by
fanatical natives during the year; and an attempt was made, which was
only partially successful, to destroy the batteries of Simonosaki. These
batteries commanded the entrance into the inland sea of Japan, and the
ruler of the place was in the habit of trying their range on any foreign
vessel, of whatever nationality, that attempted to pass. An expedition,
consisting of British, French, and Dutch ships-of-war, was organised at
Yokohama and, sailing to Simonosaki, subjected the batteries to a heavy
cannonade (September 5th), which was, however, vigorously returned and
with considerable loss to the expedition. Parties of sailors and marines
landed, spiked the guns in some of the batteries, and brought others,
to the number of sixty, with three mortars, on board the ships. On the
10th of September a Minister from the ruler of the country, the Prince of
Nagato, came off, armed with full powers to conclude a convention, which
was ultimately arranged on the following terms:--(1) That the Strait of
Simonosaki should be opened to the vessels of all nations; (2) that the
shore batteries should neither be armed nor repaired; (3) that the Allied
Powers should receive an indemnity, the amount of which was to be fixed by
their representatives at Jeddo.

An appalling calamity befell the capital of our Indian empire in the
autumn of this year. On the morning of the 5th of October a heavy gale
set in from the north-east at Calcutta; gradually it veered round to the
eastward, increasing in fury all the time, then to the southward, and
finally to the south-west, so as to leave no doubt that it was a true
_cyclone_, or revolving storm. Nearly all the churches and chapels in
Calcutta were unroofed or otherwise seriously damaged, and scarcely a
house in the city escaped without some injury. The native huts, especially
in the suburbs, were nearly all blown down. Except the cocoa-nut and other
palms, hardly a tree was anywhere left standing after the storm had passed
away. The beautiful avenues in Fort William were entirely destroyed and
the Eden Gardens turned into a wilderness. But it was on the river that
the storm was attended with the most disastrous consequences. Of more than
two hundred ships in the Hooghly, it was said that only ten were left at
their moorings after the storm, the rest having been stranded or sunk. The
_Bengal_, one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamers, another
British steamer, and a French ship were fairly lifted up and deposited on
shore. The total loss of life was very considerable, but does not appear
to have been accurately ascertained. In the city and suburbs of Calcutta
it was reported at forty-one natives, and two Europeans, besides some
twenty seriously wounded by the fall of their houses, and some hundreds of
lives were lost on the river. Great distress ensued owing to the scarcity
of food, and a relief fund was promptly opened in England and the three
Presidencies. In one day Bombay subscribed no less than £10,000.

[Illustration: AMALIENBORG PALACE, COPENHAGEN.]




CHAPTER XXIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Schleswig-Holstein Question--The Nationalities of Denmark--The
    Connection between Schleswig and Denmark--The Declaration of
    1846--Incorporation of Schleswig with Denmark--The Rebellion
    and its Suppression--The Protocol of London--Defects of the
    Arrangement--Danification of the Duchies--A Common Constitution
    decreed and revoked--The King's Proclamation--Schleswig
    incorporated in Denmark--Federal Execution voted--Russell's
    high-handed Diplomacy--Death of Frederick VII.--The Augustenburg
    Candidate--Austria and Prussia override the Diet--Russell's abortive
    Conference--The Austrian and Prussian Troops advance--Collapse
    of the Danes--Russell proposes an Armistice--Russell and M.
    Bille--France declines to interfere--Possibilities of Swedish
    and Russian Intervention--The Cabinet divided--An Armistice--A
    futile Conference--The War resumed--Fate of Denmark is sealed--To
    whom do the Spoils belong?--Summary of Events in Mexico and North
    America--Southern Filibusters in Canada--Their Acquittal at
    Montreal--Excitement in America--The Sentence reversed.


The series of transactions on which we have now to enter is one in regard
to which few Englishmen, even of those most wedded to the principle of
non-intervention, can look back to the part played by their country
without pain and some degree of misgiving. In 1864, Schleswig and
Holstein, provinces that had been dependent on the crown of Denmark
(though under different titles), the first since 1027, the second since
1386, were invaded and overrun by the armed hosts of Austria and Prussia,
and forcibly severed from the Danish crown. This was done in disregard of
the remonstrances and in defiance of the menaces of England, and in spite
of the known disapproval of France. But first for the sake of clearness,
a few geographical details may properly be given. Continental Denmark
consisted, before the war of 1864, of four provinces--Jutland, in the
extreme north; Schleswig to the south of Jutland, bounded on the south by
the river Eider; Holstein between the Eider and the Elbe; and Lauenburg, a
small province to the east of Holstein, lying between it and Mecklenburg.
The language and nationality of Denmark proper are wholly Danish; in
Schleswig the population is pretty nearly divided between those who speak
Danish and those who speak German, the former occupying the northern, the
latter the southern districts of the duchy. Holstein and Lauenburg are
wholly German. In religious profession there was no difference of any
moment throughout the Danish monarchy; Lutheranism was the prevailing
creed of Danes and Germans alike.

Let us now trace back to its origin the connection of the Duchies with
Denmark. In the fourteenth century Schleswig, which had previously been
conquered by Denmark, was ceded to a Count of Holstein, on the condition
that it should never be united to Denmark. Thus the Count-Duke, while
still owing allegiance to the German Empire in respect of Holstein,
did homage to the Sovereign of Denmark for the Duchy of Schleswig. His
line expired in 1375, when it was succeeded by a branch of the House
of Oldenburg. In 1448 Duke Adolf's eldest nephew, Count Christian
of Oldenburg, had been raised to the throne of Denmark, and soon
afterwards, probably not without pressure from his uncle, he confirmed
the Constitution, first made in 1326, to the effect that Schleswig should
never be united to the Danish Crown. Moreover, when, by Adolf's death, the
ducal throne was vacant, the Landrath, or Estates, of Schleswig-Holstein,
with whom by ancient constitutional right the choice of a new ruler
rested, met in 1460, and elected their late Duke's nephew, Christian I.,
King of Denmark, to be their Duke, "not as a King of Denmark, but out
of affection towards his person." A personal union was thus established
between Denmark and Schleswig, which was tolerably well respected during
the next two centuries. The incoming King of Denmark was elected, as a
matter of course, Duke of Schleswig (and also Count of Holstein), provided
that he first swore to ratify the ancient rights and privileges of the
united lands. But the union between Denmark and Schleswig became gradually
closer, and was extended, in 1533, to offensive as well as defensive
alliance. The arrangement was confirmed in 1773, when Schleswig-Holstein
reverted to Denmark under the same conditions as had held good under
Christian I.

After 1773 there is nothing in the relations between Denmark and Schleswig
that need detain us until we come down to the nineteenth century. During
the disruption of the German Empire in 1806 the Duchies were formally
incorporated into his kingdom by Christian VII., and even after 1815
the German Diet declined to interfere at the request of the Holsteiners.
The old Estates having long before come to an end by desuetude, Frederic
VI., in 1831 and 1834, granted separate constitutional Chambers to
Schleswig and Holstein, by which they were accepted and worked till
February, 1848. After 1835, the probability of the extinction of the
male line of the House of Oldenburg, through the eventual death without
issue of Frederic, only surviving son of Christian VIII., became
stronger with each succeeding year. To keep the Danish monarchy together
became, therefore, the one paramount object of Danish statesmanship.
At first the Danish Court thought of persuading or bribing the Duke of
Sonderburg-Augustenburg, representing the younger branch of the elder or
royal line of the House of Oldenburg, to whom, if females were excluded,
both Schleswig and Holstein would descend at the failure of male heirs
in the royal line, to resign his right to the succession. This plan
was abandoned by Christian VIII., who appointed a special commission
to examine the ancient laws, treaties, and other historic documents
in the Danish archives. The result of the commission appeared in the
King's letters patent of 8th July, 1846, in which Christian VIII. stated
it as his firm conviction that, so far as Schleswig was concerned, in
consequence of the letters patent of 1721, and the homage then done, the
succession in Schleswig was now the same as in Denmark, and that he should
exercise and maintain his right accordingly; while, in regard to Holstein,
or certain parts of it, there existed facts militating against an equally
positive opinion.

In the ferment that arose in every capital of Europe after the Revolution
in Paris of February, 1848, a violent Danish national feeling manifested
itself at Copenhagen, and forced the King, Frederic VII., to issue a
proclamation declaring that Denmark and Schleswig were thenceforth to
form an inseparable union under a common free constitution. The Duchies,
incited by a strong democratic and national feeling that had arisen in
Germany, regarded this proclamation as a breach of their Constitution,
and broke out into rebellion. They were aided, but in a hesitating,
irresolute way, by the King of Prussia, and carried on the war with
Denmark with various success to the end of the summer of 1850. By the
end of 1849 Austria had subdued both Hungary and Sardinia, and had now
leisure to look after her interests in Germany. She disapproved of the
advances which Frederic William had made to the German democracy, and of
his making war on Denmark, and convened a meeting of the Diet at Frankfort
with the view of counteracting Prussian schemes. The weak King immediately
yielded, especially as Russia was giving urgently and imperiously the
same advice, abandoned the Duchies, made peace with Denmark (July 2nd,
1850), and actually assisted her in the task of subjugation. The Duchies
resolved to continue the war, but they were defeated in a great battle
and soon afterwards compelled to submit. Schleswig was thus recovered;
but the Danish troops halted on the frontier of Holstein, in obedience to
an article in the Treaty of the 2nd of July, 1850, requiring Denmark to
apply for the intervention of the Bund before resorting to hostilities
against Holstein. This application was made; and, in reply to it, an
Austro-Prussian army, acting in the name of the Bund, marched into
Holstein and required the _de facto_ Government to lay down its arms.
Thus was the whole of Schleswig-Holstein pacified (January 11, 1851); but
military occupation of Holstein was still retained by the German Powers,
pending the attainment of a definitive arrangement for the affairs of the
Duchies. Negotiations were at once opened between the King of Denmark,
on the one part, and Austria and Prussia, representing the Bund, on the
other part, and were protracted through the whole of the year 1851. By the
Protocol of London of August, 1850, and the Treaty of 1852, the succession
to the Kingdom and Duchies was assigned to Prince Christian of Glucksburg;
the integrity of the whole Danish monarchy was declared permanent, but the
rights of the German Confederation in respect of Holstein and Schleswig
were reserved. This arrangement was mainly the work of Lord Palmerston,
and was signed by England, France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark.
Count Vitzthum, in "St. Petersburg and London," declares that it was
imposed upon him by Russia as the price for the Czar's acquiescence in
his coercion of Greece; but there is no reason for supposing that he was
acting otherwise than _proprio motu_.

The matter thus seemed to be settled, but it really was not. For, in
the first place, all that the Princess Louise, niece to Christian VIII.
and wife of Christian of Glucksburg, could surrender to any one was her
right to the succession in Denmark (and possibly in Schleswig); she had
no right whatever to the succession in Holstein, because that could only
pass to male heirs. Secondly, it was highly questionable in law whether
the Princess could execute a valid renunciation of her rights in favour
of one who did not stand next in the order of succession to herself,
without the consent of those whose right intervened between her and him;
but no such consent was ever obtained. Thirdly, the Duke of Augustenburg
might with some reason allege that his abandonment of his rights was not
made freely, but under compulsion, or else one of his sons (as actually
happened) might declare that his father's act did not bind him. Fourthly,
even supposing the renunciation of the Duke of Augustenburg and his family
to be persevered in, there were other Princes of the Sonderburg line
whose rights, at any rate to the Holstein succession, were prior to that
of Prince Christian, and who had not renounced those rights. Fifthly,
and chiefly, the German Confederation was not a party to the Treaty of
London; it was therefore free to resist the arrangement it contained, if
it considered the interests of Holstein and the Bund to require it.

Yet, after all, the arrangements provided by the Treaty of London would
probably have resulted in a solid settlement, had not the relations
between the Danish Government and the German population of the Duchies,
during the eleven years following the Treaty of London, become strained
and embittered to a dangerous extent. For this result Denmark was chiefly
responsible, and it was in flagrant breach of the Treaty of London, by
which Denmark was pledged to observe the ancient rights of the Duchies.
The majority in the Rigsraad was largely influenced by the views of the
Eider Dane party, a set of politicians fanatically bent upon the elevation
and extension of the Scandinavian nationality. This party, unable to expel
from their minds the feelings of animosity which the war had engendered,
regarded the German inhabitants of the Duchies as the population of a
conquered country, and resolved, so far as they dared, and in spite of
the engagements by which their King was bound to Austria and Prussia, to
make them feel and taste their subjection. The protective Danish tariff
was extended to both Duchies, their revenue appropriated to the interests
of the kingdom; their military establishment, hitherto kept separate from
the Danish forces, was incorporated in that army. The best offices in
Schleswig were given to Danes. In the churches and schools of Schleswig
the Danish language was substituted for the German, even in districts
where not one in twenty understood a word of Danish, and the inhabitants
were prohibited from employing private German teachers in their families.
It is therefore abundantly clear that the engagement, by which Denmark
had pledged her word to Austria and Prussia that "the German and Danish
nationalities in Schleswig should meet with equal protection," was not
kept. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that the engagement--"That all
ties of a non-political kind between Holstein and Schleswig should remain
intact"--was not faithfully observed. But, in point of form, it was not
the breach of either of these engagements, but that of a third, binding
Denmark to submit the common Constitution of the monarchy to the previous
examination of the four local Diets, which led directly to the Federal
execution and all its momentous consequences. The sequence of events
was as follows:--A common Constitution for the monarchy was framed in
1854, and having passed the Danish Parliament, was published by Royal
Ordinance (October 2nd, 1855), for the Duchies of Holstein, Schleswig, and
Lauenburg, without any previous consultation of their Diets. The matter
was taken up by the German Federal Diet, which, in 1858, declared that by
Federal law the common Constitution proclaimed in 1855 was illegal, so far
as Holstein and Lauenburg were concerned, because it had not been assented
to by the Legislatures of these States, and decreed a Federal execution in
Holstein in case of the non-abrogation of that Constitution. After many
endeavours to evade compliance, Denmark (November, 1858) did abrogate the
common Constitution, so far as Holstein and Schleswig were concerned.
The execution was accordingly stayed (1860), but on the understanding
that the king and his Holstein subjects would in concert frame some
arrangement by which, in a manner acceptable to them and to the Diet,
Holstein might participate in the common Constitution. But on the 30th of
March, 1863, the king published, of his own mere motion, a proclamation
fixing the future position of Holstein in the monarchy. The ruling idea
of this proclamation was, that since Holstein would not come in to the
common Constitution on Denmark's terms, and since it was backed up by
the Bund in this resolve, it must be allowed to remain outside; while,
as between Denmark and Schleswig, the common Constitution of 1855 should
still be maintained. The most important clause was this: That, as regarded
the common affairs of the monarchy, the legislative power should be
exercised by the king and the Holstein Diet conjointly. The effect of the
proclamation was--or would have been--the severance of the Danish monarchy
into two distinct groups, united by the personal _nexus_ only--the
line of intersection falling between Holstein and Schleswig. When this
proclamation became known in Germany, it aroused a strenuous spirit of
opposition. The Diet, in July, demanded the retractation of the Ordinance
of March 30th, and on the Danish Government's refusal to comply, decreed
that Federal execution should take place with the due forms. So far from
attempting to appease the rising wrath of Germany, the Danish Government
made matters worse by issuing (November 18th) a new Constitution for
Denmark and Schleswig, intended to complete the scheme of government which
the Patent of March 30th had commenced.

On the 7th of December the Diet voted for immediate execution, and
entrusted the fulfilment of its mandate to Saxon and Hanoverian troops.
Denmark then withdrew the Ordinance of March 30th; but the excitement in
Germany had by this time risen to such a point that the execution could no
longer be stayed, though its character was somewhat altered. The Danish
troops quietly marched out of every town of Holstein just before the
Germans marched in. In most places the Danish arms were then taken down,
and the Schleswig-Holstein tricolour was hoisted; but the execution was
completed without bloodshed, and on the last day of the year the troops of
the Bund were facing the Danes along the line of the Eider.

It is now time to ask what part Britain had been taking in the
transactions and negotiations that had resulted in so grave a
complication. In September, 1862, Lord Russell had proposed, with
reference to the dispute between the Bund and Denmark as to the common
Constitution, that the schedule of "common affairs" should be greatly
curtailed, and that a large part of what had been hitherto deemed such
should be placed within the legislative competence of the local Diets.
This proposal Denmark had rejected, on the ground that its adoption
must inevitably lead either to anarchy or to a return to arbitrary
government. Again, in July, 1863, some days after the decree of the Bund
ordering execution in Holstein, Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, had
declared, in his place in Parliament, with reference to the proceedings
of the German Powers, that (in certain circumstances) "it would not be
with Denmark alone they would have to contend." This public declaration
inspired the Danes with a firm confidence that England would come to
their assistance in case of need, and doubtless made them resist the
demands of Germany more obstinately. The despatches of Lord Russell
to Lord Bloomfield at Vienna (July 31st) and to Sir Alexander Malet at
Frankfort (September 29th) assume a high--almost a menacing--tone. Taught,
however, by their experience of British intervention in favour of Poland,
German diplomatists were not disturbed by the vehemence of tone that
characterised the despatches from the British Foreign Office. Baron von
der Pfordten, the Bavarian Envoy to the Diet, told Sir Alexander Malet
one day that "he looked on Earl Russell's despatches as so much waste
paper." Still the greater German Powers thought it expedient to proceed
with caution; and as Lord Russell, in a Memorandum dated November 24th,
1863, had said that "should it appear that Federal troops had entered the
Duchy on international grounds, her Majesty's Government might be obliged
to interfere," Austria and Prussia persuaded the Diet to proceed by way of
execution, and not, as Bavaria and other States would have wished, by way
of "_prise de possession_"--a formally hostile and therefore international
act. Up to the end of 1863, then, although British remonstrances had not
met with much attention, the general policy of Great Britain in regard to
Denmark had not suffered a defeat.

[Illustration: LORD PALMERSTON. (_From a Photograph by Fradelle & Young._)]

But even before the execution an event had occurred that aggravated
tenfold the difficulties of the situation. Frederic VII., King of Denmark,
died suddenly on November 15, 1863. On the next day Prince Frederic of
Augustenburg, son of a Duke of Augustenburg who had accepted a sum of
money for his forfeited estates from Denmark in 1852, and agreed not
to oppose the new succession, issued a proclamation, addressed to the
"Schleswig-Holsteiners," in which he claimed the succession to both
Duchies. The minor States of Germany were inclined to support him; for
an independent German State of Schleswig-Holstein would have been an
accession of strength to their party in the Diet, and helped them to
stand their ground against their two great overbearing confederates,
Austria and Prussia. But by this time Count Bismarck, whose one guiding
thought was the aggrandisement of the Prussian monarchy out of all these
complications, had decided upon his policy. For some months in 1863
the minor States had carried matters their own way; and Baron von der
Pfordten, the Bavarian envoy, the ablest exponent of their policy, was for
a time the most powerful man in Germany. But now Bismarck, having secured
the cordial support of Austria by guaranteeing, on the part of Prussia,
the integrity of her possessions, proceeded to take the initiative. On the
28th of December Prussia and Austria proposed to the Diet that since the
new Danish Constitution of the 18th of November amounted to a distinct
violation of the pledge given in 1851-2, not to incorporate Schleswig
with Denmark, nor to take any steps leading thereto, the Diet should,
upon international grounds, order the military occupation of Schleswig,
as a material pledge for the fulfilment by Denmark of her engagements.
Bismarck had probably satisfied himself that no opposition of a material
kind would be offered by England in any circumstances; or else, now that
Prussia was firmly allied with Austria, he did not fear such opposition.
No action was taken by the Diet on this proposal for the moment, and
a few days afterwards it was renewed with greater urgency by the two
Governments, on the ground that the 1st of January, 1864, was the day
on which the new Constitution was fixed to come into force. The minor
States had different views; they wished first to get Duke Frederic firmly
enthroned in Holstein, after which they would have proceeded quietly to
take up the question of Schleswig. When the proposal came to be voted upon
in the Diet (January 14, 1864), a combination of the minor States rejected
it by a majority of 11 to 5. The representatives of Austria and Prussia
then informed the Diet that their Governments intended to carry out the
proposal in spite of the adverse vote.

Yielding to the advice of Lord Russell, the Danes had offered no
resistance to the execution; but when--probably after hearing of the
proposal made to the Diet by Austria and Prussia on the 28th of
December--the Foreign Secretary sent Lord Wodehouse to Copenhagen to
induce the Danish Government to revoke the Constitution of the 18th
of November, the mission was ineffectual. In a despatch of the 31st
of December Lord Russell proposed to the Diet that a conference of
representatives of the Powers who signed the Treaty of London, together
with a representative of the Bund, should meet and take into their
consideration the points in dispute between Denmark and Germany; and that
in the meantime, and until the conference had finished its labours, the
_status quo_ should be maintained. The proposal was received with cold
disapproval by most of the members of the Diet, and Sir Alexander Malet
wrote, a few days afterwards (January 8th, 1864), "there is an absolute
persuasion that England will not interfere materially, and our counsels,
regarded as unfriendly, have no weight."

Prussia and Austria, having announced their intention of acting
independently of the Diet, carried out their plans with energy and
celerity. The Danes saw the gathering storm, yet made no sign of yielding.
The truth is, Denmark reckoned with tolerable confidence on receiving
material aid from the Western Powers, particularly from England; and this
hope was encouraged by the knowledge that Earl Russell was indefatigable
in writing to, and sounding the intentions of, nearly every Court in
Europe, and that in a despatch to Paris he had spoken of "material
assistance" to Denmark to prevent her dismemberment. The Danes also placed
considerable reliance on the strength of the Dannewerke, an immense
system of earthworks, strengthened by forts, but it was carried on the
5th of February. Retreating northwards, the Danes concentrated under
the guns of the fortress of Fredericia, on the borders of Schleswig and
Jutland, and behind the lines of Düppel, which command the approach to
the island of Alsen. On the 7th of February Wrangel, commander of the
Austro-Prussian army, issued a proclamation announcing that Austrian and
Prussian commissioners would administer the civil government of Schleswig,
and ordered that the German language should be thenceforth used in all
branches of the administration. The fortified lines of Düppel were
stubbornly defended by the Danes, and their gradual reduction was not
effected without severe loss to the assailants. On the 18th of April the
last remaining bastions were stormed, and the Prussians became masters of
the place. The main body of the Danish army, or rather garrison, retreated
into Jutland, leaving a pretty strong force to occupy Alsen. Fredericia,
which had been expected to offer a serious resistance, was evacuated soon
after the fall of Düppel, the garrison crossing over into Fünen. The
Prussians, satisfied with having taken Düppel, made for the present no
attempt upon Alsen, and there was a pause in the strife.

The only expedient which seems to have occurred to Earl Russell was to
write (February 10th) to Berlin, urging that the belligerents--the war
having lasted exactly ten days--should agree to an armistice! The request
was, it need hardly be added, ineffectual. But now the Danish Government
took measures formally to remind Lord Russell of the obligations under
which England lay. M. Torben Bille, the Danish Minister in London, in a
despatch, dated February 11th, 1864, stated that his Government indulged
the hope that Earl Russell appreciated the steps which Denmark had taken
with a view to the maintenance of peace, seeing that these steps had been
taken by the Danish Government on the pressing advice of the Cabinet of
London; that, however, the pacific desires of Denmark had been frustrated
by the ambition of Austria and Prussia, and war had actually broken
out; that in this war Denmark, if unaided, must eventually be crushed
by the overwhelming numerical superiority of her opponents; that it was
necessary, therefore, that, while there was yet time, the Powers friendly
to Denmark should come to her aid, "and among those Powers there is none
which the Danish Government address with more confidence than England."
This was a categorical request, and the chilling reply which it elicited
from Lord Russell must have been a bitter mortification to the overmatched
and harassed Danes. After admitting generally that Denmark had followed
the advice of the British Government, without which that Government "could
not have given even its good offices to Denmark to prevent, if possible,
the outbreak of hostilities," Lord Russell remarked that, as to "the
request that friendly Powers should come to the assistance of Denmark,
her Majesty's Government could only say that every step they might think
it right to take in the further progress of this unhappy contest could
only be taken after full consideration and communication with France and
Russia." Such a reply plainly foreshadowed that Great Britain did not
intend to fulfil her engagements if other Powers did not fulfil theirs.

Still there can be no doubt that Government felt a real reluctance to
abandon Denmark to its fate; and if France had shown any zeal in the
matter, it seems not improbable that intervention would have gone the
length of material assistance. But the French Emperor had been not a
little mortified by Lord Russell's abrupt and decided rejection of his
proposal for a general Congress of Powers, made in the autumn of 1863.
That proposal, starting from the assumption that the Treaties of 1815 were
"upon almost all points destroyed, modified, misunderstood, or menaced,"
urged the expediency of a joint endeavour, on the part of the nations of
Europe, "to regulate the present and secure the future in a Congress."
No other European Power, great or small, had absolutely rejected the
Emperor's proposal; most had assented to it on the condition of a previous
definition of the subjects that should be laid before the Congress;
but Lord Russell's unconditional refusal had caused the scheme to fall
through. The feeling of mortification thence arising in the mind of the
French Emperor led him to view the diplomatic efforts of Great Britain on
behalf of Denmark with coldness, and her proposal for a limited Conference
on Danish affairs with little favour. Still France, like Great Britain,
was bound by the Treaty of 1720, and the fidelity of the Danes to the
first Napoleon, and the sufferings which they had undergone in his cause,
constituted a moral claim that ought not to have been lightly disregarded.
But the Emperor was also deeply mortified by the refusal of Great Britain
to interfere on behalf of Poland; accordingly, when Lord Clarendon went to
Paris, he was informed, without much circumlocution, that France did not
intend to stir in the matter of assisting the helpless Danes.

It may, however, be questioned whether, considering the small number of
troops that England could bring into the field, there was any chance of
a material intervention being successful in the face of the numerous
battalions of two great military monarchies. Had both Austria and Prussia
entered into the design of despoiling Denmark with equal heartiness, it
may be admitted that material intervention on our part, though it might
have retarded, would not have prevented, the catastrophe. But this was not
the case; the Austrian Government was acting in the matter rather from a
jealous disinclination to allow Prussia to take the lead and decide by
herself questions in which German feeling was so deeply engaged, than
because it desired to turn Denmark out of a Duchy which had been linked
to it for 800 years. It is also nearly certain that Russia and Sweden,
whose people sided most warmly with Denmark, would have immediately joined
us had we resolved upon giving material aid. Both Russell and Palmerston
wished to risk the chance, but their colleagues declined to countenance
the step. Accordingly no action was attempted, though Palmerston made what
he called "a notch off his own bat" by informing the Austrian Minister,
Count Apponyi, that if the Austrian fleet sailed along the British coast
and went to the assistance of the Prussians in the Baltic, he, for one,
would not endure such an affront. Even this threat produced a strenuous
remonstrance from Lord Granville.

The exertions of the Foreign Secretary to procure the consent of the
belligerents and other great Powers to a Conference were at last crowned
with a certain measure of success. Austria and Prussia agreed to the
Conference but without an armistice. The first meeting was held on the
25th of April, and the prime immediate object of the plenipotentiaries
of the non-belligerent Powers was to obtain a suspension of hostilities.
Denmark at first insisted that during the armistice her fleets should be
allowed to maintain the blockade of the German ports, as an equivalent
for the military occupation of the Duchies; but to this the German Powers
would not consent. Ultimately Denmark, pressed by Lord Russell, consented
to give up the blockade, and an armistice was arranged to last from the
12th of May to the 12th of June. It is painful to trace the course of the
negotiations that followed, and their complete futility may dispense us
from the task of doing so at any considerable length. It soon became clear
that the German Powers deemed the Treaty of 1852 to have been cancelled
by the outbreak of war, and the envoy of the Diet declared that Germany
would not consent to the re-union of the Duchies to Denmark under any
conditions whatever. Austria and Prussia proposed that Schleswig and
Holstein should form an independent single State, under the sovereignty
of Prince Frederick of Augustenburg; but such a solution the Danish
Plenipotentiaries declared to be wholly inadmissible. Lord Russell then
brought forward the English proposal, which was that Holstein, Lauenburg,
and the southern part of Schleswig, as far as the Schlei and the line
of the Dannewerke, should be separated from the Danish monarchy. This
arrangement, to the principle of which the Danish Plenipotentiaries
acceded, would have left Denmark in possession of about three-fourths
of the Duchy of Schleswig. The negotiations being now placed upon the
basis of a partition of territory, the neutral Powers obtained with
great difficulty the extension of the armistice from the 12th to the
26th of June. Austria and Prussia agreed to a partition, but insisted
that the line of demarcation should be traced from Apenrade to Tondern,
thus leaving less than half of the Duchy to Denmark, and depriving her
of the purely Danish island of Alsen. Denmark would not yield this, and
Prussia and Austria would concede no more. On the 18th of June, eight days
before the expiration of the armistice, Lord Russell proposed that the
question of boundary should be referred to the arbitration of a friendly
Power, but to this neither belligerent would consent. Finally, the French
Plenipotentiary proposed that the method of _plébiscite_, or popular vote,
should be resorted to, and that the votes of the communes in Schleswig
should be taken on the question whether they preferred continued union
with Denmark or separation. The Danish Envoy, M. de Quaade, positively
negatived this proposal, which was also extremely unpleasing to Austria,
in whose Italian dominions the application of the principle of the
_plébiscite_ would have instantly terminated her rule. Thus the debates of
the Conference came to an end, having produced no result.

The remainder of this melancholy history may be told in a few words.
Hostilities recommenced, and on the 29th of June the Prussians forced
their way across the narrow sound which divides the island of Alsen from
the mainland, and stormed with great gallantry the fieldworks that had
been thrown up on the opposite shore. The Prussians carried the position,
but the greater part of the Danes made good their escape out of the
island. The strong fortress of Fredericia had previously been abandoned;
the Prussians were preparing to cross to Fünen; and now nothing remained
for the Danes, isolated as they were and without hope of aid, but to
submit. Negotiations were opened immediately at Vienna, and on the 1st
of August the preliminaries of peace were signed, and embodied in the
following October in a formal treaty--the Treaty of Vienna. Denmark ceded
Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, without reserve, to the Emperor
of Austria and King of Prussia. Though thus compelled to ratify her
own spoliation, the brave little kingdom came out of the struggle with
honour, and with an undiminished right to the respect of Europe: it were
much to be wished that of all the neutral Powers that looked on and did
nothing the same could be said. During the second spell of war Russell
made several applications to the Emperor of the French to induce him to
interfere in concert with England. At one moment Napoleon wavered, but
when Russell discovered that his projects embraced the liberation of
Venetia and the conquest of the left bank of the Rhine, he as abruptly
withdrew his overtures. Accordingly the war ended in the complete
humiliation of British diplomacy. But Prussia declined to surrender the
Duchies to the Augustenburg candidate, much to the indignation of the
German Diet, and it was clear that another appeal to arms must occur
before the spoils could be divided.

[Illustration: THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE "ALABAMA" AND THE "KEARSARGE." (_See
p._ 361.)]

Meanwhile, stirring events were in progress in the New World. In Mexico
the Archduke Maximilian, having in an evil hour accepted the fatal gift
of Napoleon, assumed the Imperial crown, and, aided by French bayonets,
proceeded to put down the resistance of the Juarists. But clearly his
position was tenable only whilst the expeditionary corps remained, and
the American Republic was occupied by its internal dissensions. There,
however, the end was in sight, thanks to the overwhelming resources of
the North. It is true that the Confederates snatched marked successes
in the outlying districts of the vast territory, but in Virginia Grant
made good his threat--"I propose to fight it out on this line if it
takes all the summer," and, though Lee's masterly disposal of his forces
thwarted the advance upon Richmond and the capture of Petersburg, the
Confederate strength was being rapidly drained. In Western Virginia
Grant's subordinate, Sheridan, easily held his own against Early and then
proceeded to lay waste the territory. Meanwhile Sherman was executing his
famous march into Georgia, by which he cut his way through the heart of
the enemy's territory, and divided it in twain by a broad belt of wasted
country. His progress was facilitated by the substitution of the rash
Hood for the cautious Johnston, and, thanks to the incapacity of that
general, Savannah, one of the most important towns in the Confederacy, was
Sherman's before the end of the year. The naval transactions comprised
an action between the notorious _Alabama_ and the _Kearsarge_, which
resulted in the former being sunk off Cherbourg, while the capture
of the Mobile forts closed one of the few harbours still open to
blockade-runners. The re-election of President Lincoln for a further term
of office showed that the North was not going to blench when the supreme
crisis was at hand.

An unpleasant incident occurred in the autumn, which, but for the firm
and moderate attitude of Mr. Lincoln, might easily have involved us in
a serious difficulty with the United States. A considerable number of
Confederate refugees had gradually gathered in Canada, men rendered
desperate by the wreck of their property and the misfortunes of their
country. Some twenty-five of these men, in the month of October, crossed
the border into the State of Vermont, and entering the little town
of St. Albans in the dead of night attacked and plundered the bank,
shooting dead several of the townspeople, and escaping back into Canada.
They were soon arrested by the Canadian authorities and the money was
recovered. The case being an important one, it was removed from the
jurisdiction of the magistrates of St. John's to that of the Supreme
Court at Montreal and a writ of _habeas corpus_ was refused. The American
Consul, Mr. Edmonds, was instructed to demand their extradition, but this
was refused on legal grounds and an investigation was instituted into
the affair under the Ashburton Treaty. In the end Judge Coursol decided
that his court had no jurisdiction in the case and ordered the release
of the raiders from custody. The Canadian Government wisely resolved
that so flagrant a miscarriage of justice should not be permitted; in
fact, their law advisers gave it as their opinion that the Judge's
decision was bad in law; and accordingly warrants were issued for the
reapprehension of the criminals. But the news of the Judge's decision,
releasing the raiders, had reached New York before the subsequent
conduct of the Canadian Government was announced, and it aroused, not
unnaturally, great excitement and indignation. However, in his message
to the new Congress (December 6, 1864) Mr. Lincoln expressly stated that
the colonial authorities of Canada were not deemed to be internationally
unjust or unfriendly towards the United States; but that, on the contrary,
there was every reason to expect that, with the approval of the home
Government, they would take the necessary measures to prevent new
excursions across the border. These anticipations were fully justified
by the subsequent conduct of the Canadian Government. A strong force of
militia was stationed at various points along the frontier, several of the
raiders were arrested under the warrant for their re-apprehension, the
Court at Montreal reversed its former decision and declared that it had
jurisdiction, those captured were tried anew, and at least one of them was
adjudged on the evidence to be guilty of robbery and ordered to be given
up to the United States.




CHAPTER XXIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The National Prosperity in 1865--Debate on the Malt Tax--Remission
    of Fire Insurance Duty--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--The Army and
    Navy Estimates--Academic Discussions of large Questions--Mr.
    Lowe on Reform--The Union Chargeability Bill--The New Law Courts
    Bill--Debate on University Tests--The Catholic Oaths Bill--Other
    Ecclesiastical Discussions--The Edmunds Scandal--The Wilde
    Scandal--Mr. Ward Hunt's Motion--Lord Westbury resigns--The
    General Election--Mr. Mill and Mr. Gladstone--Result of the
    Polls--Fictitious Prosperity of Trade--The Rinderpest--Suggestions
    of the Commissioners--Inaction of the Government--Spread of the
    Disease--The Fenian Conspiracy--Its Constitution--Lord Wodehouse's
    Measures--Raid upon the Office of the _Irish People_--Stephens the
    Head-Centre--His Arrest and Escape from Richmond Gaol--The Special
    Commission--Trial of Luby--Documents and Informers--Obituary of the
    Year--Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden.


When Parliament met for the Session of 1865 the Lord Chancellor truly
described in a few words the state of Great Britain. "Her Majesty," said
the Queen's Speech, "commands us to inform you that the general state of
the country is satisfactory, and that the revenue realises its estimated
amount." In truth, the opening of the year was as calm, both at home and
abroad, as could possibly be, excepting the echoes of storm that still
continued to be heard in the West. India was prosperous, save for the
cyclone that broke over Calcutta a few months before. In one only of the
colonies, New Zealand, was anything visibly disturbed, and there the Maori
war seemed to have passed its climax. At home, Lancashire distress had
abated; the harvest had been good; the public purse was full. Everybody,
so far as politics was concerned, was waiting quietly for the dissolution
of Parliament, for which, as Lord Derby said, "all its experienced
advisers could do was to find it some gentle occupation, and take care
that its dying moments were not disturbed by any unnecessary excitement."

In financial matters, before Mr. Gladstone brought forward his Budget,
there had been two important debates in the House of Commons which bore
upon it. The first was that on a resolution moved by Sir Fitzroy Kelly,
afterwards Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, to the effect, "That in
any future remission of indirect taxation, this House should take into
consideration the duty on malt, with a view to its immediate reduction
and ultimate repeal." The malt duty, from which at that time the revenue
received six or seven millions sterling a year, had always been more or
less of a grievance to the agriculturists; and the representatives of
agricultural constituencies were ever ready to argue against it. Sir
F. Kelly and his supporters--Sir E. B. Lytton, the novelist, being his
seconder--brought forward several plausible arguments for his motion,
principally selected or parodied from the grammar of Free Trade. But
Mr. Neate, the member for Oxford, always notable in the House for the
crotchety cleverness with which he handled questions of political economy,
turned the tables upon the landed interest by an amendment. He moved,
"That considering the immunities from taxation now enjoyed by the owners
and occupiers of land, they are not entitled to any special consideration
on account of the pecuniary pressure of the malt tax; and that if, on
other grounds, that tax should be reduced or abolished, compensation to
the revenue should be sought, in the first instance, by withdrawing from
landed property the advantage it now has in the shape of total exemption
from probate duty, and partial exemption from succession duty and income
tax." This, however, the House of Commons could not stand; it was too
much, at least for an unreformed Parliament. The supporters of the
Government--especially Mr. Milner Gibson, who was its spokesman--contented
themselves with attacking the resolution and left the amendment alone. The
question was met on two grounds--first, that the revenue could not afford
to do without it; and secondly, that though malt was a raw material,
stimulants and their components were fit subjects for taxation. Sir
Fitzroy Kelly's motion was rejected, the previous question having been
carried by a majority of 251 to 170.

The other point in which it was proposed to give an instruction to
the Government as to the disposal of part of the surplus was Mr. R.
B. Sheridan's motion for extending last year's remission of the fire
insurance duty to "houses, household goods, and all descriptions of
insurable property." This resolution was carried by a large majority,
though the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed it, thinking it rash
to bind the Government to any special course before the exact surplus
was known. The vote secured that Mr. Gladstone should carry out the
reduction in question in his Budget. When the day came for the Budget
to be presented, Mr. Gladstone found himself, as usual, in the presence
of a crowded and eager House. He did not disappoint his hearers. His
Budget speech was, in the words of one of his admirers, one of those
"deliverances, crammed with arithmetic and argument, epigram and
eloquence, figures and fancy," which he and no other Finance Minister
that ever lived in England knew well how to give. In this instance Mr.
Gladstone had an unusual opportunity for effective display, from the fact
of Parliament having arrived at the end of its existence; he had five
previous years spread out before him for review, and could strike out
brilliant comparisons and draw large inferences at his pleasure. Some
of his figures may be given. He said that the actual expenditure of the
year that had just elapsed was £65,951,000, a reduction of £1,514,000
upon the first year of that Parliament and that Ministry, and a reduction
of £6,547,000 upon the year 1860-61, when the alarms consequent on the
Italian War had caused us to spend vast sums upon the army and navy. As
to a comparison between revenue and expenditure, he found himself with
a surplus in hand of £3,231,000. Customs, Excise, and all other great
heads of revenue had given more than their estimated amount, Excise
especially yielding a million and a half of increase. The prosperity of
the country he tested on an even larger scale than this, by a comparison
of annual revenues during the last twenty-five years; and showed that
whereas the average growth of the revenue from year to year, from 1840
to 1852, was £1,030,000, the same growth was, from 1853 to 1859, at the
rate of £1,240,000, and from 1859 to 1865 at the rate of £1,780,000. The
paper trade, in spite of the outcry of the papermakers when he abolished
the duty, was increasing, the amount of raw material imported in 1865
being exactly five times what it had been in 1859. The trade with France,
thanks to Mr. Cobden's Commercial Treaty, had doubled in five years. The
total amount of exports during the year ending September 30, 1864, was
£487,000,000, an increase of £219,000,000 since 1854. In other words, the
export trade of the country had nearly doubled in ten years. To all this
encouraging retrospect Mr. Gladstone added his own gifts for the future.
He had a large surplus to dispose of, and what was he to do with it? As
he said, there are always "crowds of hungry claimants" for a surplus;
everybody who suffers from a tax that his neighbours are exempt from
thinks he suffers an injustice and struggles to get it redressed. It is
enough to say that the malt tax was not touched; and that the duty on
tea was lessened by sixpence per pound, and the income tax lowered from
sixpence to fourpence in the pound. It is needless to add that these
reductions were received with gladness by the House and the country,
though the irrepressible malt tax repealers felt themselves hardly used.

The other two important financial statements were, of course, those made
in moving the Army and Navy Estimates. Of neither is there very much that
needs to be recorded. The Marquis of Hartington showed great clearness
of head and general administrative ability in moving the Army Estimates;
but he had little to say except to move for a reduction of 4,000 men in
the establishment. The alarm of 1860 had passed away, and the alarm of
1870 had not come; so there was neither increase nor re-organisation to
be accomplished. The only difficulty with which Lord Hartington had to
deal was the everlasting gun question, new phases of which were always
demanding full consideration. Similarly with the navy, for which a little
over ten millions were voted, there was to be a reduction, especially in
the coastguard and marines; and fresh ships were also to be built on fresh
models. Lord Clarence Paget, who moved the Estimates, pronounced himself
satisfied with the efficiency and discipline of the service; and the House
generally agreed with him.

Turning from finance to the other departments of public business, one
is not surprised to find that in the last Session of an old Parliament,
with Lord Palmerston still living and directing its course, but little
positive legislation was accomplished. An expiring Parliament is never
fertile: it produces infant measures, but has not the force to bring them
to maturity; and in the consciousness of approaching death, it makes its
peace with the future by recording good resolutions. Lord Palmerston, too,
in the last year of his life, showed no intention of departing from his
well-known home policy--namely, to let things be ever doing, never done.
Thus it happens that the history of the Session of 1865 reads like a table
of contents of the five or six Sessions that followed it. Almost all the
important questions that were afterwards solved, or at least handled,
by the Government of Mr. Gladstone, were brought forward, discussed,
and left unanswered in 1865. The Irish land question was touched upon,
in a debate on a motion of Mr. Pope Hennessy, at the beginning of the
Session, and discussed at length on Mr. Maguire's moving, on March 31st,
for a select committee. The Irish Church question was raised by Mr.
Dillwyn, and the debate which followed was remarkable as extracting from
Mr. Gladstone a clear statement of the views that he afterwards put into
effect. Mr. Berkeley brought forward his Ballot Bill, but in vain. The
Test question was raised by Mr. Goschen. National Education, both in
England and Ireland, was before the House of Commons in two important
debates. The O'Donoghue moved an Address to the Crown referring to the
question of University Education for Ireland. And lastly, Mr. Baines took
the feeling of the House on the question, soon to become all-important,
of Parliamentary Reform. Besides these, which may be called premonitory
symptoms of future legislation, there was, of course, a good deal of
important but unpretending work accomplished, which we may shortly record.
But first it will be worth while to dwell for a moment upon one of the
abortive measures, that of Mr. Baines, the highly respected member for
Leeds.

[Illustration: CONFEDERATE RAID INTO VERMONT. (_See p._ 362.)]

The main object of Mr. Baines' Bill was substantially the same as that
of the Government Bill of the next year--namely, to reduce the limit of
the borough franchise from a rental of £10 _per annum_, where it had
been fixed by the Reform Bill of 1832, to a rental of £6. The measure
was, as we said, abortive; its introduction seems indeed to have been
only intended to stimulate popular interest in the question of Reform;
but the debate has become historical from the great speech in which Mr.
Robert Lowe, member for Calne, in Wiltshire, passed at once and beyond
all question from the second to the front rank of Parliamentary orators.
Mr. Lowe had chosen his opportunity well. In proportion to the popular
interest in the question, in proportion to the shortness of its own
remaining life, was the dislike of the existing House of Commons to the
very name of Reform. Hence from the Whig as well as from the Conservative
benches--from all, in fact, except the benches below the gangway on the
Liberal side--the cheers rang out as Mr. Lowe, the most impartial of
cynics, the narrowest of utilitarians, a Liberal without enthusiasm, a
Tory without prejudices, delivered the first of his famous philippics
against the democracy of the future. The line of argument that he adopted
was, first, to show the vanity of any assumption of an abstract right
of all men to have a share in their own government--in other words, to
establish one standard by which questions of this kind were to be judged,
namely, the standard of public utility; and next, to show that in this
case public utility demanded that the qualifications for the franchise
should remain as they were. "If these abstract rights to a vote exist,"
said Mr. Lowe, "they are as much the property of the Australian savage and
the Hottentot of the Cape as of the educated and refined Englishman. Those
abstract rights are constantly invoked for the destruction of society and
the overthrow of government, but they can never be successfully invoked
as a foundation upon which government may securely rest." This kind of
protest against the doctrine of "abstract rights" was followed by a
series of illustrations, immensely relished by the House, of the evils of
democracy in other countries and of the ruin it would bring upon England.
Mr. Lowe attacked in turn "the sentimental argument," "the fatalistic
argument," and "the argument of necessity;" denying that the franchise,
when made cheap and vulgar, would elevate the working classes; denying
that sooner or later the upper class would have to give way; and denying
that the working classes were "thundering at the gates" of the upper class
and demanding admission with dangerous noise. The rest of the debate is
not specially memorable. Sir George Grey, speaking from the Treasury
bench, expressed the feelings of the Whigs when he declared, almost in
so many words, that the Government had not made up its mind and when he
implied that he at least approached the whole question with reluctance.

But, as we said above, not all the measures proposed in this Session
failed to be carried; one at least of great practical importance became
law. This was the Union Chargeability Bill, brought in by Mr. Villiers,
the President of the Poor Law Board. The object of this Bill was to
improve still further the working of the new Poor Law of 1834. The
principles of the law were, that while all necessitous persons had a
claim to relief, this relief was only to be given on conditions--namely,
in the case of the able-bodied, in exchange for labour, and this labour
to be given, not at the pauper's own home, but in the workhouse. The
increased importance of workhouses led to their being consolidated.
Instead of a separate and, probably, ill-appointed house in each parish,
a large and well-appointed house was established for Unions of parishes,
and these were to be under the control of properly elected guardians and
of a central office. It appeared from Mr. Villiers that, however well
this system had worked in general, much inequality was caused by the
overburdening of some parishes, and the inducement which the landowners
and occupiers in some others had to drive away the poor. Hence followed a
capricious distribution of the burden of the rates. Mr. Villiers proposed
the simple plan--a plan, however, strongly opposed by the strenuous
defenders of the strict parochial system--that the Union fund should for
the future have to support all the poor within the Union, so that where
its administration reached its charges should reach too. This very simple
and just measure, denounced by some and applauded by others as the first
step towards a system of national rating, was a good deal opposed by
members of the Conservative party, but was finally carried both through
the Commons and the Lords by considerable majorities. Mr. Villiers
acknowledged that he proposed it as an instalment towards the removal of
"settlement" altogether--that is, towards allowing a pauper to claim to
be taken in to any workhouse, no matter what his domicile or "settlement"
might be. Few other measures of importance passed into law during this
Session. One at least, however, was important enough: this was the Bill
for the concentration of the courts of justice into one great building,
the site indicated by the promoters being either one on the Thames
Embankment, near the Temple, or the space of ground between the Strand
and Lincoln's Inn Fields. The proposal was received with satisfaction by
the House, the lawyers, and the country; and every sane man was gratified
at the thought that English law would be at last administered in courts
that were properly built and decently ventilated. Only a few objectors,
led by Lord St. Leonards, found fault with the proposal for paying the
cost of the building out of the accumulated "Suitors' Fund" in Chancery.
It was thought, however, that the great public convenience to be gained
amply justified the wrong done to purely imaginary sufferers. The Bill was
passed, and, as all Londoners know, the Carey Street site, between the
Strand and Lincoln's Inn, was decided upon. But, as is equally well known,
beyond choosing the site and demolishing the houses upon it, and selecting
a plan to be modified periodically, nothing was done for many years. In
due course, however, the Royal Palace of Justice was completed and opened
in November, 1882. Greenwich Hospital was also reformed in this Session. A
Public Schools Bill was brought forward, but postponed.

This year was a quiet one in the religious world. In the course of it
several interesting measures relating to religious tests and subscriptions
were brought into Parliament; and though in the end little or nothing was
done towards a practical settlement of the questions raised, still public
attention was kept alive to them and to the importance of the convictions
and feelings at issue. Thus regarded, as steps in an inevitable road,
even abortive Reform Bills and Tests Bills lost in the Commons have
a lasting interest and value. The University Tests Bill of 1865 was
introduced by Mr. Goschen, then one of the members for the City of London,
and the motion for the second reading was seconded by Mr. Grant Duff.
The Bill, said Mr. Goschen, did not propose to admit Dissenters to the
governing body of the University, although it might lead to that result
eventually, but to enable degrees to be conferred without reference to
religious tests. It would also go beyond the Cambridge Act and give a
vote in Convocation; whilst it would admit to certain privileges and
emoluments, to obtain which under the present system the degree of Master
of Arts was an essential qualification. He could not believe that these
concessions would lower the tone or impair the prestige of Oxford. So
far from injuring the University, they would rather widen its basis and
make it more useful and acceptable to the country, for he was convinced
that no system could flourish that practically excluded one half the
population from their traditional seat of learning. In a short effective
speech Mr. Grant Duff gave three reasons for his support of the Bill: (1)
That it would be beneficial rather than hurtful to the Church; (2) that
it was an act of simple justice to the Dissenters, who had been from the
beginning of their history altogether excluded from the higher education
of England; (3) that it would be useful to the University, by enabling it
to understand more fully its duties to the nation and the proper scope
of its influence and training. But the time was not yet come for the
admission of the principle upon which these arguments were based. Lord
Cranborne and Mr. Gladstone, alarmed by certain conclusions advanced in
Mr. Goschen's speech and persuaded that the effect of the Bill would be to
give over the government of the University to Dissenters, offered a warm
opposition to it. The promoters of the Bill, said Mr. Gladstone, openly
avowed their desire to separate education from religion, and that was a
principle to which he was resolutely opposed. Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr.
Henley followed suit. Finally, Lord Cranborne's amendment--that the Bill
should be adjourned for six months--was negatived by 206 votes to 190.
But it was felt that with so small a majority it was useless to push the
Bill any farther. If such was the temper of the Commons it was well known
that the Lords would make short work of it and the measure was temporarily
abandoned.

The Roman Catholic Oaths Bill again brought forward the subject of
religious tests, only, however, to afford another triumph to religious
conservatism. The object of Mr. Monsell, its introducer, was to alter
the form of the oath required from Roman Catholic members of Parliament
under the Relief Act of 1829, and to substitute for it the simple oath
of the Queen's supremacy. The oath as administered under that Act
required a Roman Catholic member to swear that he renounced, rejected,
and abjured the doctrine that princes excommunicated or deposed by the
Pope or any authority of the See of Rome might be deposed or murdered by
their subjects or by any person whatever; that he disclaimed, disavowed,
and abjured any intention to subvert the Established Church; and that he
would never disturb or weaken the Protestant religion, or the Protestant
Government in the United Kingdom. Such an oath, it was argued, was not an
anachronism; it was a grievance and a degradation. The oath was, indeed,
a remnant of the state of things before Catholic Emancipation, and there
could be no doubt that the just and liberal course would have been to
oblige all members of Parliament, without exception or variation, to take
a uniform oath. A strong and finally successful opposition, however,
was advanced. Mr. Whalley's and Mr. Newdegate's Protestant consciences
took the alarm; "in the interests of social and political order and the
peace of families," they felt themselves bound to resist the measure. Sir
George Grey, who supported the Bill, was taunted with his Ultramontane
leanings; and, according to Mr. Whiteside, the proposed change affected
the Constitution, the Church, and the property of the country! However,
by the help of Government support, given, said the Opposition, from
electioneering motives, the Bill was read a second time and successfully
maintained in committee. Substantially unaltered, it was sent up to the
Lords, where, however, a night's debate disposed of it. Lord Derby made
a long and powerful speech, appealing to every Tory cry and every Tory
prejudice, till the measure assumed such formidable proportions that it
frightened even its supporters. Lord Harrowby, Lord Chelmsford, and others
followed suit, and, in spite of the efforts on the Liberal side, the Bill
was lost on division by twenty-one votes.

A word of notice is called for by some other Parliamentary discussions
that took place this year on ecclesiastical matters; but as none led to
any practical result, they may be dismissed with a word. Mr. Dillwyn's
motion about the Irish Church has been already mentioned; it called forth,
as we have said, an emphatic declaration from Mr. Gladstone, and to that
declaration is to be traced, in a great measure, his rejection by Oxford
University. Mr. Newdegate attempted, but without success, to substitute
a rate of twopence in the pound on real property for the existing Church
rates. In the House of Lords Lord Lyttelton, with the approval of most
of the Bishops, proposed a resolution in favour of an increase of the
Episcopate--a subject always dear to the High Church party, but considered
by the Evangelical party to be of less importance than a development of
the parochial system. The dioceses of Exeter, Winchester, and London were
pointed to as those that ought to be relieved by the creation of new
bishoprics. The resolution, however, was not put to the vote, nor had it
any legislative result.

The end of the Session of 1865 was troubled by certain transactions
that caused great tribulation to the Government of Lord Palmerston and
proved fatal to the career of one of the highest officers of State. These
transactions are commonly grouped together under the name of "the Edmunds
scandal." The case of Mr. Edmunds was as follows:--In 1833 Lord Brougham,
at that time Lord Chancellor, had appointed Mr. Leonard Edmunds to the
post of Clerk of the Patents, at the salary of £400 a year, afterwards
increased to £600. In 1854 a quarrel took place between Mr. Edmunds and
Mr. Woodcroft, also an official of the Patent Office, and each charged
the other with irregularities, mismanagement, or worse. Two lawyers of
position--Mr. Hindmarch and Mr. Greenwood, both Queen's Counsel--were
appointed to make a full inquiry into the cross-accusations; and their
finding was adverse to Mr. Edmunds. The authorities, however, were lenient
enough to allow him to resign, on his repaying the sums due to the
Treasury. Then arose the question which brought Lord Chancellor Westbury
into his unfortunate position. Mr. Edmunds, as well as being clerk in
the Patent Office, was clerk in the House of Lords; and it was to his
evident interest to resign that post before rumours of his troubles in his
other office should reach the ears of the Parliament Office Committee and
defeat his chance of a pension. Accordingly the Lord Chancellor himself
presented Mr. Edmunds' petition; himself moved that the resignation
should be accepted and that the question of pension should be referred
to a select committee, of which he was to be one; and this without one
word of reference to the grave charges hanging over the head of Mr.
Edmunds. The select committee was appointed and recommended to the House
that a pension of £800 a year should be conferred on Mr. Edmunds; and
this recommendation the House adopted. Meanwhile, the Lord Chancellor
appointed his son, the Honourable Slingsby Bethell, to the post in the
House of Lords vacated by Mr. Edmunds. Before long, however, the floating
rumours about Mr. Edmunds' conduct in the Patent Office had caught the
public attention, and Lord Stanley expressed the general uneasiness about
the affair in some questions that he addressed to the Attorney-General
in the House of Commons. Next night the Lord Chancellor himself took up
the matter and, courting inquiry, moved for the appointment of a select
committee to examine all the circumstances. The committee sat; reported
that the charges against Mr. Edmunds were fully proved by evidence; and,
by a majority of one, gave it as their opinion that the Lord Chancellor
had failed in his duty when he presented Mr. Edmunds' petition without
informing the committee of the facts of the case. But, by way of softening
their censure, the select committee added, "that they had no reason
to believe that the Lord Chancellor was influenced by any unworthy or
unbecoming motives in thus abstaining from giving any information to the
before-mentioned committee."

[Illustration: THE FOREIGN OFFICE, LONDON, FROM ST. JAMES'S PARK.]

Upon this, the House revoked Mr. Edmunds' pension and there apparently
the matter ended. The committee had not condemned the Lord Chancellor;
his position remained as before; and yet everybody felt uncomfortable.
Hence it was in no lenient mind that the public heard rumours of a fresh
scandal, touching the Lord Chancellor still more nearly, in the matter
of certain appointments in the Leeds Bankruptcy Court, which Mr. Ferrand
brought before the House. The appointment of a select committee followed,
and five members were chosen, with Mr. Howes for chairman, to inquire
into the whole affair. The result of their investigations, during which
all the persons concerned, including the Lord Chancellor, were examined,
was to bring to light a most lamentable state of things, the principal
facts being the following:--Mr. Wilde, the Registrar of the Leeds Court of
Bankruptcy, had been charged, in the year 1864, with improperly passing
the accounts of his subordinates, and with borrowing money of them "to
the destruction of his independence and efficiency." The Lord Chancellor,
through Mr. Miller, the Chief Registrar, called upon him, in May, 1864,
to explain the charges; but apparently no satisfactory explanation was
forthcoming, for, on the 26th of June, Mr. Miller, by order of the
Chancellor, wrote to Mr. Wilde, offering him in a peremptory way the
option of resignation, or of appearing in open court to show cause why he
should not be dismissed. But Mr. Miller added, without the Chancellor's
authorisation, that if Mr. Wilde chose to resign upon a medical
certificate, he might perhaps claim a pension; and he took the hint. Mr.
Wilde was allowed to retire on a pension, and Mr. Welch was appointed by
Lord Westbury to the office he had resigned. Now Mr. Welch was a friend
of Mr. Richard Bethell; he was a barrister on the Northern Circuit, and
he had money; Mr. Bethell, on the other hand, had, in the month of May,
been compelled by his father to resign his post as Registrar in Bankruptcy
on account of debt, and money was of importance to him. Here came the
scandal. A certain Reverend George Harding gave his evidence before the
committee to the effect that, in May, 1864, an arrangement had been made
between himself, Mr. Welch, and Mr. Richard Bethell, of the following
nature. Mr. Welch was to give Mr. Bethell £500 for his good influences
with his father, the Lord Chancellor, and a further £1,000 on receipt of
an appointment, one-third of this latter sum to go to Mr. Harding as his
share in the transaction. In February, 1865, after Mr. Bethell had been
for some time abroad, his claims for a new office were pressed on the
Chancellor by Mr. Miller; and hopes were held out that Mr. Welch might be
transferred to London, and Mr. Bethell appointed to Leeds. Presuming on
this, he went down to Leeds on the 24th, and talked to the officials as
if the arrangements were concluded, but meanwhile the Lord Chancellor had
changed his mind, and did not appoint his son. The report of the select
committee acquitted the Lord Chancellor "from all charge except that of
haste and want of caution in granting a pension to Mr. Wilde;" but it went
on to say that the inquiry had been a most necessary one. The newspapers
were immediately filled with criticisms of the Chancellor's conduct; but
Parliament was just about to be prorogued and it was generally supposed
that he was to be left free from authoritative censure. But just before
the prorogation a motion on the matter was put on the notice-book of
the House of Commons by Mr. Ward Hunt, member for Northamptonshire, and
afterwards Mr. Disraeli's Chancellor of the Exchequer. He proposed that
the Lord Chancellor should be compelled to resign; and a lively debate
ensued on the question whether, on the one side, scandalous blunders in
the matter of patronage were to be held a capital offence, or whether,
on the other side, the blunders were to be held venial and condoned by
a comparison of them with the Chancellor's services and successes. The
debate ended in the adoption, after the Government had been defeated on
the question of adjournment, by a majority of 14 in a House of 340, of
an amendment, proposed by Mr. Bouverie, substantially the original vote
of censure clothed in milder terms. The next day Lord Westbury resigned,
and on the day after made a farewell statement in the House of Lords--a
statement in which a genuine contempt for the majority which had condemned
him was veiled by language of the most respectful submission. He passed
from the Woolsack, to be succeeded by Lord Cranworth, Chancellor for the
second time; and the public career of one of the greatest of law reformers
closed in disgrace.

A scandal of this kind was by no means a pleasant end to the life of a
Parliament, and for the Government by no means a pleasant prelude to a
general election. But it cannot be said that public feeling was very
deeply or very generally stirred. There was no question of deciding
upon the life or death of a Ministry; it was a "natural dissolution;"
Parliament had died of old age, and not by the violent hands of a
defeated Minister. So most of the constituencies fought out their battles
quietly and uneventfully; the Liberals making Reform their war cry, and
the Conservatives making answer that Reform was neither necessary nor
expedient. It was generally expected that Lord Palmerston's Government
would have a considerable majority. Only two contests were looked upon
with a very high degree of interest--that for the University of Oxford,
where Mr. Gladstone was opposed by Mr. Gathorne Hardy; and that for
Westminster, where Mr. John Stuart Mill came forward as a candidate. It
was almost the first time, perhaps the very first time, in English history
that a philosophical and economical writer of the first rank had come
forward to ask for the vote of a constituency solely on the ground of his
writings. A large committee was formed, including most of the leading
Liberal names in England, to carry him into Parliament at no expense to
himself. The exertions of his admirers, the novelty of the experience, and
the influence of Mr. Mill's own dignified presence, seen as it was by so
many for the first time, carried him to his seat. But enthusiasm for an
idea does not hold its ground for very long in England, and thus it came
to pass that at the general election of 1868 Mr. Mill was sent back again
to private life.

The other election which concentrated public attention was that for
the Oxford University. Mr. Gladstone had represented that exceptional
constituency for eighteen years, though many attempts had been made to
remove him from his seat, as from time to time his opinions showed fresh
divergence from those of his youth. On this occasion a powerful opponent
was brought forward in Mr. Gathorne Hardy, one of the most influential
members of the Conservative party. The constituency of the University was
composed of the members of its Convocation--that is, of all persons who
had taken a degree not lower than that of Master of Arts, and who retained
their names on the register by certain payments. In this election, for
the first time, it was legal to use voting-papers, which enabled members
to vote without coming up to Oxford to record their votes in person. This
provision, passed only in the last Parliament, was fatal to Mr. Gladstone.
His Liberalism, supposed to be extreme, and believed to favour views
not wholly adverse to the disestablishment of State Churches, cost him
his seat. He was beaten by Mr. Hardy by a majority of 180, the numbers
being--Hardy 1,904, Gladstone 1,724. Mr. Gladstone took his farewell of
the University in an address that expressed his "profound and lasting
gratitude" for its support during the "arduous connection of eighteen
years." The very night of his defeat, he owned, in the Liverpool
Amphitheatre, that he had "clung to the representation of the University
with desperate fondness." That day, the 18th of July, was typical of
the whole of his life. He stood, to use words of his own, between the
"ancient, great, and venerable University" and the "hives of teeming
enterprise." He went from Oxford to South Lancashire, and after a campaign
of magnificent speech-making, was returned by a narrow majority. We shall
have to record, in the history of the next election, his subsequent
loss of the same seat; but that loss mattered comparatively little. The
real turning-point in his political career, and in the history of his
party, was his rejection for Oxford University. From that moment he was,
politically speaking, another man.

The total result of the elections was the return of 367 Liberals and 290
Conservatives--a gain of nearly fifty votes to the former party. It will
be seen, however, that a large number of those who described themselves
as Liberals soon showed their dissent from the policy of the Liberal
Government; so that the majority was in reality very much smaller than
might have been supposed. The political history of the year ends with
the elections. From July to December political passions slept, political
voices were dumb; only the Cabinet were at work on the questions of the
next year--questions which, after Lord Palmerston's death, became more
pressing and important.

Trade and finance were prosperous during this year, though the cotton
market had not quite recovered from the shock of the American War. It
had, however, partially recovered; and to the manner of its recovery,
indeed, is to be indirectly traced much of the disastrous panic of 1866.
The history of that panic will be told in a future chapter; at present
we may remark that the stoppage of the American supplies caused first
of all a stoppage, more or less complete, of English trade; that a new
cotton supply was looked for from India, and that hence new and various
channels were opened for trade; that thus arose all kinds of feverish,
unsteady, and unwise speculation, the newspapers being crowded with daily
advertisements of new enterprises, many of them on a gigantic scale.
For this year, all went well. Two hundred and eighty-seven new "Limited
Liability" companies were started, embracing every kind of undertaking,
from the negotiation of foreign loans to the manufacture of an improved
blacking. Everybody turned investor. The price of Consols went down
from 91³⁄₈ in April to 86³⁄₄ in December, showing that where so many
profitable investments were open, people would not buy stock which would
pay them only three per cent. In a word, everything looked well, and every
one was busy; the crash was as yet far distant, and all had their fortunes
to make.

The general prosperity of the country received, however, a severe blow in
the outbreak of the cattle plague, which first appeared in June in this
year; but by the end of December had carried off more than forty thousand
head of cattle. The disease, which was in a high degree contagious, was
that known in Germany under the name of _Rinderpest;_ and all that was
ascertained of its origin is told in the admirable First Report of the
Royal Commissioners (Lord Cranborne, Mr. Lowe, Dr. Lyon Playfair, and
several others) who were appointed to investigate it. Two English cows,
says the report, were purchased at the Islington Cattle Market on the 19th
of June, and on the 27th a veterinary surgeon first noticed symptoms of
disease in them. They were in the shed of the cowkeeper who had bought
them. Two Dutch cows, bought at the same time and place, were also taken
with the disease in another shed. Immediately afterwards, the plague--for
it had become a plague--broke out in numerous London sheds, and spread
very fast and very destructively. The Islington cowkeeper lost her whole
herd, ninety-three in number. In a very few weeks the disease had passed
out of London to nearly every county in England, and even to Scotland.
It had gone across the sea to Holland with some Dutch oxen that had been
sent for sale to the London market, but which were sent back again,
because they could not be sold at a remunerative price. Now, among the
foreign cattle that had been sold in the Metropolitan Cattle Market about
this time were some oxen from Revel on the Baltic; and it was shown that
some of these were ill at the time of their landing with what afterwards
proved to be the disease. But this, though not improbable in itself, was
considered by the Commissioners to be not proved; and they left it an open
question whether the plague had been imported this way or _viâ_ Holland.
Anyhow there was and is little doubt that the original home of the disease
is the steppe country of Southern Russia. Four times at least in previous
centuries had the plague, or one very similar to it, appeared in England;
the last attack--which continued for the twelve years from 1745 to 1757,
carrying off several hundred thousand cattle--formed a precedent of great
value for the guidance of the authorities in the present visitation.

The Commissioners found the only regulations in force to be certain
Orders in Council, published as a Consolidated Order in September, 1865,
under the authority of an Act of Parliament originally passed in 1848,
which gave to orders of the kind the force of law. This Consolidated
Order appointed inspectors, or caused them to be appointed by the local
authorities, gave these inspectors full power to enter any shed, etc., and
then and there destroy any infected animal; and made strict regulations
forbidding the transit of diseased animals, and closing the Metropolitan
Cattle Market, "except for purposes of immediate slaughter." This order,
as the Commissioners said, was good but insufficient. The report told
the country plainly that difficulties and sacrifices must be expected;
that London must import her meat dead and not alive; that the only way
to get rid of the disease quickly was to prevent the movement of cattle
absolutely. But at the same time such a prohibition would have been a very
serious step; it would have caused a sudden and alarming interruption in
trade and would probably have led to an evasion of the law. Hence the
Commissioners--though a majority of them ventured to recommend the total
stoppage of all movement of cattle as the best course--advised certain
alternative measures in case the difficulties of that course should be
found too great. These alternative recommendations forbade the transit
of lean or store stock, and imposed strict regulations on the movements
of fat stock for slaughter. The report also suggested great restrictions
on the importation of foreign cattle; such as that they should only be
allowed to land at certain ports, that the fat stock should be immediately
slaughtered, and that various forms of quarantine should be imposed upon
the stock not immediately meant for the butcher. For Ireland, where the
disease had not appeared, the Commissioners urged the extreme importance
of being prepared in case it should appear, and of being ready and able to
stamp it out.

These recommendations were, of course, open to the objection that the
measures they pointed to were centralising, imperial--in other words,
un-English. It was in vain that it was answered that it was the disease
which was un-English; that it was against the disease that the objection
lay and not against the recommendations. Lord Russell's Government knew
that the very breath of an Englishman's life is the liberty "to do
what he likes with his own." So the Ministry did what commended it to
the people, and what did less than nothing to check the disease. It
"empowered the local authorities." It gave to mayors of boroughs and to
the county quarter sessions certain powers, apparently extensive, really
very limited, towards hindering the plague. It did not even empower the
justices in quarter sessions to prevent the movement of sheep, or pigs,
or goats from place to place within their jurisdiction. The result was,
that the tradition of English liberty was preserved, and that the disease
spread like wild-fire. The first report of the Commissioners was dated
October 31, 1865; the orders followed very soon; and yet the number of
animals attacked, which had been 11,300 up to October 7, increased by
January 27 to 120,740. To mark the mortality from the disease it may be
observed that of these hundred and twenty thousand, only 14,162 are known
to have recovered. Although the fear of approaching contagion drove the
farmers to send unusually large numbers of cattle for slaughter--and,
therefore, the supply, instead of falling off, increased--the price
of meat rose enormously. Instead of eightpence or ninepence, tenpence
or a shilling became the common price for a pound of meat. With this
increase came a corresponding and more justifiable rise in the price
of milk, especially in London. The 7,000 cattle that had been attacked
in the London district up to the end of the year were almost entirely
milch-cows. Of course, an immediate rise in the price of milk followed
and a dislocation of the London milk trade. The dairymen became importers
instead of producers. The railways began to develop new facilities for
the carriage of milk from the country into London; and then were first
to be noticed on a large scale, trucks loaded with great broad-bottomed
cans bringing up the produce of the country meadows for the use of the
metropolis. No disinterested person can regret this at least among the
results of the plague.

Among the results of the American War, that which came home most rapidly
and strikingly to the English mind was the organisation of the Fenian
Conspiracy. Every American knows well the extent of the "Irish element"
in the United States. The end of the war threw hundreds of Irishmen out
of work. It mattered little whether they had fought for North or South;
hatred of "the Saxon," and the chance of making a display in the cause of
Erin, were strong bonds of union. Hence arose the Fenian Brotherhood--a
military conspiracy, with civil branches, having for its object "the
overthrow of the Queen's government in Ireland, and the establishment of
the Irish Republic." No one seems to know certainly the origin of the
name "Fenian;" but it is probably derived from "Fianna," the ancient Irish
militia. At all events, the name of the organisation was suggested by
John O'Mahony, of New York, a Celtic scholar of some repute, who had to
fly from Ireland, with his life in his hands, in "'48," for an abortive
attempt to excite the Tipperary peasantry to armed resistance. "There is
no time to be lost," wrote one of the leaders (John O'Leary, afterwards
editor of _The Irish People_); "this year--and let there be no mistake
about it--must be the year of action.... The flag of Ireland, of the Irish
Republic, must this year be raised." "I was told," said a witness at one
of the Fenian trials, "that arms were to be given to carry out those
objects.... They told me that the Fenians in Ireland were to be officered
by French officers; and since the war was over in America, that they were
to be officered by Federal officers." Again a Thomas Mooney wrote, "We
have an Irish leader in John O'Mahony, backed by 50,000 veteran Irish
soldiers in America ready for the word." These are a few indications,
taken at random from many documents that were produced at the trials of
various prisoners.

[Illustration: ARREST OF HEAD-CENTRE STEPHENS. (_See p._ 375.)]

In the possession of one of the convicted prisoners, by name Moore, a
blacksmith, was found a pamphlet containing the rules and by-laws of the
Fenian Brotherhood, from which the following passages are extracted. They
are sufficient to show that the abortive Fenian movement was a thing that
had been undertaken in earnest by serious men.

"CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS.

"1. _The Fenian Brotherhood._--The Fenian Brotherhood is a distinct and
independent organisation. It is composed, in the first place, of citizens
of the United States of America, of Irish birth and lineage; and in the
second place, of Irishmen, and of friends of Ireland, living elsewhere
on the American continent, and in the provinces of the British Empire
wherever situated. Its headquarters are, and shall be, within the limits
of the United States of America. Its members are bound together by the
following general pledge:--

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

"3. _Form of Organisation._--The Fenian Brotherhood shall be subdivided
into state organisations, circles, and sub-circles. It shall be directed
and governed by a Head Centre, to direct the whole organisation; State
Centres, to direct state organisations; Centres, to direct circles; and
Sub-Centres to direct sub-circles. The Head Centre shall be assisted by a
central council of five; by a Central Treasurer, and Assistant Treasurer;
by a Central Corresponding Secretary, and a Central Recording Secretary;
and by such intermediate officers as the Head Centre may from time to time
deem necessary for the efficient working of the organisation.

"4. The Head Centre shall be elected annually by a general congress
of representatives of the Fenian Brotherhood, which congress shall be
composed of the State Centres and the Centres, together with elected
delegates from the several circles of the organisation--each circle in
good standing being entitled to elect one delegate."

This document is sufficient to show the kind of organisation and the
nature of the designs of the brotherhood. Although a prosecution had been
resolved upon before it came into the hands of the authorities, enough
was known to make severe measures not only justifiable, but necessary,
if Ireland was to be saved from civil war. Lord Wodehouse (afterwards
created Earl of Kimberley) was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland at the time,
and the credit or responsibility of most of the measures taken rests
with him. The blow of authority first fell on the press. A paper called
_The Irish People_ had for some time been published in Dublin and widely
circulated, which made no secret that its design was to incite the people
of Ireland to insurrection and to a forcible severance of the union with
England. A Privy Council was held at the Castle on the evening of the
15th of September; Mr. Stronge, the Chief Magistrate, was instructed to
draw out warrants; a strong body of police was told off for sudden duty.
The warrants were given to the police and they were marched to Parliament
Street to the office of _The Irish People_. Ten persons were arrested
in the house, the principal of whom was O'Donovan Rossa; and an immense
amount of letters, printed papers, type, and numerous important lists
of Fenians were seized and carried off to the Castle yard. Very little
disturbance and absolutely no resistance ensued. Nor was any greater
difficulty encountered by the Cork police, who made a descent upon the
Fenians in that city at the same time. Indeed, the Irish police in general
showed themselves very active at this juncture and many of the southern
towns were the scene of interesting captures. Each important arrest led
to more, or gave a direction to the search, from the discovery of papers
compromising other people. One person, for instance, who gave his name
as Charles O'Connell, but whose real name was Rafferty, was arrested as
he entered Queenstown harbour in a steamer from New York. He had been an
American captain and his papers gave an illustration of the aid which
Fenian agents had received from officers of high rank on the Federal side.

There were at this time two Head Centres--one in the United States (John
O'Mahony), and one in Ireland (James Stephens). This latter--a personage
of the highest importance in the brotherhood--was known under many names;
his commonest designations being "J. Powell," and "James Stephens;" though
he occupied his comfortable house in the neighbourhood of Dublin under the
name of James Corbett. Stephens, it ought to be related, had passed three
years in the country previous to the establishment of _The Irish People_.
He had traversed and re-traversed the country in a variety of disguises
and under a cloud of _aliases_, sounding the peasantry as to their
readiness for rebellion and succeeding even in corrupting the loyalty
of small portions of the Irish regiments. He went so far as to try his
capacity for "organisation" by making overtures to the Orangemen of the
North, but his advances were coldly repelled. The movement, however, was
doomed to failure almost from its inception. When the long-threatened blow
was on the eve of being struck, discontent broke out amongst the rank and
file of the insurrectionary battalions. Hundreds of men who had worn the
American uniform were starving in the garrets and kennels of Dublin and
London; whilst the great Head Centre and financial fountain himself was
living in an extravagant manner. Disgusted at their treatment, about fifty
of the immigrants proposed to end the matter promptly by shooting him
and precipitating a rebellion on their own responsibility. Stephens was
warned of the plot and took steps to pacify his infuriated subordinates.
He distributed money amongst them freely and to this sudden outburst of
judicious liberality he probably owed his life. This generosity came
too late, for America unexpectedly ceased to send supplies and the old
murmurings broke out again with redoubled vehemence. This it was that
broke the back-bone of the conspiracy and saved Ireland from the horrors
of civil war. The police discovered that this James Corbett was the man
they were in search of and accordingly surrounded his house early one
morning. They met with little resistance, though Stephens and his friends
were well supplied with arms. In the same house with Stephens three
other prominent Fenians were arrested, one of them being the "Charles J.
Kickham" who had been looked for ever since the razzia upon _The Irish
People_ newspaper. When the prisoners were brought up for examination,
Stephens protested most indignantly against the very existence of the
law under which he was to be tried; he refused to take measures for his
defence and defied punishment. As it happened, and as perhaps he had
guessed beforehand, he never came in want of legal assistance or in danger
of punishment. "Bolts and bars could not hold him." He escaped from
Richmond Bridewell on the night of November 24, and no amount of police
activity or Government reward could secure his recapture. The naked truth
is, that at a meeting of the Fenian Secret Council, held in Townsend
Street, in Dublin, on the morning of November 22, it was decided to spend
£250 in rescuing the imprisoned chief. The service had been offered, the
reward was punctually paid, and the "General," as his followers called
him, was rescued from his gaolers. It was plainly impossible that an
escape of the kind, managed simply by unlocking seven of the prison doors
one after another, could have been effected without collusion with some
official or other. So Government thought, and suspended the governor of
the gaol, and got Byrne, the turnkey, committed for trial. But Stephens
never came back. It was not without reason that he had defied English
punishments.

But even though the Head Centre was lost, there were enough prisoners in
hand to make it necessary to try them by means of a Special Commission.
In this case the judges were Baron Fitzgerald and Justice Keogh--both of
them men of marked ability and neither likely to act with much leniency
towards convicted political prisoners. Their work lasted more than a
fortnight in Dublin; then they went to Cork; and then again returned to
Dublin, where it was several weeks before the work was over. An example
of the mode of trial and of the evidence produced may be found in the
case of Thomas Clarke Luby (a man whose father was a Senior Fellow and
who was himself a student of Trinity College), which was the first that
came before the court. Mr. Luby had been a registered proprietor of _The
Irish People_ newspaper, jointly, it appears, with O'Donovan Rossa.
Indeed, he was the foremost writer in that paper; to which Stephens,
during his entire connection with its _personnel_, contributed only one
sorry article, headed "Isle and Doom." So popular, however, did the
journal become amongst the disaffected classes that the older "National"
organs had reason to tremble for the security of their existence. Luby was
indicted for the crime of treason-felony--a crime newly created by Act
of Parliament. According to the Act that creates it, treason-felony may
consist of either or all of three offences--compassing or intending to
depose the Queen from her Royal authority as Queen of Great Britain and
Ireland; intending to levy war against the Queen in order to induce her to
change her measures; and conspiring to invite foreigners to invade this
realm. It was with these three offences that the prisoner was charged; the
Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr. Lawson) prosecuting him and Mr. Butt
defending him. The trial seems to have been meant chiefly as an exposure
of the nature of the conspiracy and this the evidence certainly effected.
Among the documents, perhaps the most important was a letter or commission
found in the prisoner's house at the time of his arrest, sealed with black
wax and addressed to "Miss Frazer." The police-sergeant who arrested Luby
opened this, though he was told it was "a private matter between Mrs. Luby
and a lady friend;" and he found it to be the following:--

"I hereby empower Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, and Charles J.
Kickham, a committee of organisation, or executive, with the same supreme
control over the home organisation--England, Ireland, and Scotland--that
I have exercised myself. I further empower them to appoint a committee
of appeal and judgment, the functions of which committee will be made
known to every member. Trusting to the patriotism and abilities of the
executive, I fully endorse their actions beforehand. I call on every man
in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that concerns the
military brotherhood.

    "J. Stephens."

Side by side with this document, which, while it incriminated Luby, threw
further light upon the proceedings of the Fenians, came the evidence of
the two informers, Pierce Nagle and Patrick Power. They were both Fenians;
Power at least had taken the Fenian oath, and Nagle "acted as a member
of the society, but did not take the oath." Nagle told of meetings of
the society, mostly near Clonmel; of intriguing in America, in which he
had had a part; of "swearing in" new brethren; and of Luby's complicity
with all this. He described the way in which the enumeration of members
was managed:--"Papers ruled in squares by means of perpendicular and
horizontal lines; the squares did not extend to the top, but there was a
blank space on which the name of the captain or B was entered; the squares
then showed how the captain, the sergeant or C, and the rank and file
or D, were armed, also the strength of the company.... A 'V' signified
a man armed with a rifle. If it was an inverted 'V,' it signified a man
armed with a gun or pistol. A stroke signified that a man was armed with
a pike. Where there was a circle, it signified a man--captain, sergeant,
or private--not armed at all." Farther on, Nagle described the mode of
enrolling:--"I myself enrolled ten or twelve into the society. The mode
of enrolling a member was, in the first instance, to administer the
oath, which in substance was, that the party should be a member of the
Irish Republic, now virtually established, and should be ready to take
up arms at a moment's notice." Again, "Cornelius Dwyer Keane reported
to Stephens that there were nearly 500 new men in the neighbourhood of
Clonakilty. Stephens said he did not know what he should do with the
number of men he had, there were so many of them." Evidence also was given
as to the manufacture of arms in Ireland, especially pikes. "Give bearer
fifty rods," said a note of the Head Centre; and "rods" was the pleasant
_alias_ of the formidable "pikes." Lastly, one more document was read at
Luby's trial from the packet addressed to "Miss Frazer." It contained
three resolutions, and was signed by the great John O'Mahony himself; the
first two being a pledge on the part of the American Fenians to get the
Irish Republic recognised by every free Government in the world; and a
declaration, "that the national organisation at present existing on Irish
soil is almost entirely owing to the devoted patriotism and indomitable
perseverance of its Head Centre." What was proved, then, in his trial (for
we have given the principal points of the evidence) was the existence of
a widespread conspiracy, having its roots in America and having for its
object the forcible extinction of British rule in Ireland. Luby, also,
was proved to have been a prominent conspirator. He was the first to be
found guilty and was sentenced--as were some others after him, though many
received less--to the punishment of twenty years' penal servitude.

Perhaps a greater number than usual of distinguished persons died in
1865. The names of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden will occur to every
one. Of persons less widely famous, the English army lost one of its
patriarchs in Viscount Combermere, and one of its most distinguished
officers in General Sir George Brown; science lost Sir William Jackson
Hooker; and popular scientific enterprise Sir Joseph Paxton and Sir John
Richardson; the Roman Catholics of England lost their Cardinal Nicholas
Wiseman; and literature lost its distinguished sons Charles Waterton and
Isaac Taylor, and its still more distinguished daughter Mrs. Gaskell.
On the afternoon of the 18th of October in this year, the news arrived
in London of the death of Lord Palmerston, which had taken place that
morning at Brockett Hall, Hertfordshire. Had he lived two days longer,
he would have been eighty-one years of age; but for some months the
strength of the hale old man had been failing, and for a week it had
been pretty well known that the end was near. Lord Palmerston had been
for fifty years a personage of such importance in British and even
European politics, that his death, however much expected, was deeply felt
throughout all classes of English society. All alike regarded it as the
end of a political period. What was to follow, some looked on with hope,
others with dread, none with indifference. Still his genuine if somewhat
cynical patriotism was gratefully remembered. Just six months before his
own death, Lord Palmerston rose in Parliament to call attention to "the
great loss which the House and the country had sustained in the death
of Mr. Cobden." There was something strange and a little jarring in the
words of official praise in which the successful veteran spoke of the
merits of the simple, unobtrusive, yet greater man that was gone, though
he, too, had his limitations. More true, more touching, were the few
sentences in which his friend and brother-worker, Mr. Bright, told of his
own sorrow in Cobden's death; and all who read the words the next morning
felt a throb of sympathy. "Sir," he said, "I feel I cannot address the
House on this occasion, though every expression of sympathy has been most
grateful to my heart; but the time which has elapsed since I was present
when the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever actuated or tenanted a
human form took its flight is so short, that I dare not even attempt to
give utterance to the feelings by which I am oppressed. I shall leave it
to some calmer moment, when I may have an opportunity of stating to some
portion of my countrymen the lesson which I think may be learned from the
life and character of my friend. I have only to say now that, after twenty
years of the most intimate and the most brotherly friendship with him, I
little knew how much I loved him until I found that I had lost him."

[Illustration: RECEPTION OF THE FRENCH FLEET AT PORTSMOUTH. (_See p._
380.)]




CHAPTER XXV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Quietness of Europe--Debate on Poland--The English Prisoners
    in Abyssinia--Mr. Newdegate and the Encyclical--Visit of the
    French Fleet--Conclusion of the American War--Sherman's victorious
    March--Sheridan's Campaign--Lee's last Efforts--Evacuation
    of Richmond and Petersburg--Lee's Retreat--The Surrender at
    Appomattox--Grant's General Order--The Death of Lincoln--Inflated
    Prosperity of India--The Canadian Defences--The Maori War
    continues--Mr Cardwell's Policy--The Jamaica Rebellion--Grievances
    of the Blacks--The Trespass Laws--Governor Eyre--The First
    Riots--Excesses of the Negroes--Their Extent exaggerated--The
    Rebellion spreads--Governor Eyre proclaims Martial Law--"The
    Suppression"--Anderson the Informer--Colonel Hobbs--The
    Maroons--Elkington's Letter--Gordon Ramsay--Some typical Trials--G.
    W. Gordon--The Court-Martial--The Evidence produced--Gordon is
    hanged--The total of Deaths--Excitement in England--The Jamaica
    Committee--Eyre committed for Trial--The Chief Justice's Charge--The
    Bill thrown out--Recovery of Jamaica--Reform again--It becomes a
    Government Measure--The Bill of '66--Mr. Gladstone's Speech--Mr.
    Lowe and Mr. Horsman--"The Cave"--The Easter Recess--The second
    Reading--Lord Grosvenor's Amendment--A brilliant Debate--Mr.
    Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone--A Majority of Five--The Government
    perseveres--The Redistribution Bill--Its Details--Mr. Bouverie's
    Amendment--It is accepted--Captain Hayter's Amendment--Mr.
    Disraeli's Strategy--Lord Stanley's Attack--Mr. Walpole's
    Amendment--Amendments of Mr. Hunt and Lord Dunkellin--Gross
    Yearly Rental and Rateable Value--The Debate on the Dunkellin
    Proposal--Defeat of the Government--Their Resignation--Mr.
    Gladstone's Statement--Earl Russell and the Queen--Lord Derby's
    Conservative Ministry--The Refusals--Mr. Disraeli's Election
    Speech--Peace in Parliament--Indian Finance--Prohibition of the
    Hyde Park Meeting--The Procession marches--Destruction of the
    Railings--Mr. Walpole weeps--Discussion on his Conduct--The Queen's
    Speech and the Rinderpest.


In European history the year 1865 will always be looked upon as an
interregnum, a breathing time, between the two eventful years that
preceded and followed it. It was the interval between two wars; and its
history is the history of passions that smouldered and of intrigues that
worked in secret. The underground records of diplomacy have much to tell
of it; but as for events, there are none. Nor, so far as England is
concerned, is there very much to record under the head of foreign policy.
The dullness of such foreign debates as Parliament saw in this year
contrasts sharply with the keen excitement of the debates of 1864, when
Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone flung in each other's face their opposing
views of what constitutes the honour of England. Schleswig and Holstein
were irrevocably gone now; rightly or wrongly we had stood by and seen
them taken; and it was of no use to protest after the event, or to debate
about our duty. On the other hand, the quarrel about the division of the
spoil had not yet broken out; so we have few despatches from Lord Russell
and few scoldings by the _Times_. The only debate on European affairs
that need be chronicled was one on a motion brought forward by Mr. Pope
Hennessy on the treatment of Poland by Russia. The terms of the motion
referred to Russia's palpable violation of the Treaty of 1815 and entered
a protest against it. But Lord Palmerston, and the good sense of the House
with him, refused to entertain the resolution; for such a resolution means
less than nothing unless it means war if its request is not complied with.
Neither Mr. Pope Hennessy nor any one else thought seriously of a war with
Russia. In this matter of Poland, in this year at least, we escaped the
blunder which we had committed so often and so ludicrously in 1864; as we
did not mean to enforce our opinion, we kept it to ourselves.

It was in this year that the public began to hear stirring accounts of the
British prisoners in Abyssinia, who were, a short time afterwards, to be
raised to a position of such national importance. The full story of their
captivity is perhaps better deferred till the time comes for treating of
the Abyssinian War, set on foot to rescue them; but the points at issue
may shortly be recorded here, as they were told by Lord Chelmsford in the
House of Lords during this Session. In July, 1862, Captain Cameron had
been sent to Abyssinia as consul, with flattering messages and presents
to King Theodore, a half-savage chieftain professing a kind of spurious
Christianity. He was well received by the King and treated with honour;
especially when, on the breaking out of a war between Egypt and Abyssinia,
he attempted to mediate in favour of King Theodore. But this mediation
was ill received by the Egyptian authorities and Consul Cameron was
induced to desist. This made the King very angry; especially as he had
received no answer to an autograph letter that he had written to Queen
Victoria on Captain Cameron's arrival in July. With the fickleness of
a savage, he turned round upon the consul and began to treat him with
great indignity; and matters were complicated by the action of certain
missionaries, Mr. Stern and some others, whom the King and his grandees
considered to have been acting against the interests of Abyssinia. One of
Mr. Stern's interpreters was beaten to death; he himself was also beaten
very severely; and then first he and the other missionaries and afterwards
Consul Cameron himself were imprisoned and loaded with chains. So they
continued for a long time: the British Foreign Office found itself in the
difficult position of having either to leave British subjects to take
their chance, or run the risk of rousing to fury an African chieftain
renowned for his fierce temper, and of arming him against the lives of
the unhappy captives. Matters had been in this position about eighteen
months, when Lord Chelmsford in the House of Lords, and Sir Hugh Cairns
in the Commons--both great Opposition lawyers--questioned the Government
very severely about the whole circumstances of the case. Lord Russell and
Mr. Layard both made the same defence of the Foreign Office--that it could
literally do nothing without sending the captives to certain death. It is
well known that the event proved the Foreign Office wrong. But we shall
give at a later stage an account of the war of release undertaken by Mr.
Disraeli's Government; and to that chapter we must defer the rest of the
romantic story.

There was considerable excitement abroad at the opening of this year,
especially among the clergy, concerning the Pope and the Roman Question.
It will be remembered that in September, 1864, there had been a Convention
between France and Italy, under which Italy guaranteed the undisturbed
possession of the Pontifical Dominions to the Pope, while France on the
other hand engaged to withdraw her troops from Rome. M. Thiers spoke out
boldly on the subject of this convention; he saw in it the beginning of
the end, and professed little faith in the guarantees of Italy. The object
of the French Government was, he maintained, to appear to Italy willing to
help her to the possession of Rome, while persuading all the rest of the
world to the contrary. The Ultramontanes therefore were distrustful and
alarmed, and--when the Encyclical Letter arrived in France, and a circular
was issued by the Minister of Justice, forbidding the clergy to distribute
the letter among their flocks, or to read in public the first half of it,
on the plea that it contained "propositions contrary to the principles on
which is founded the Constitution of the Empire,"--several of the more
prominent Anti-Gallican bishops broke out into warm remonstrance. The
fame of the Encyclical Letter next reached England and created some stir
among the ultra-Protestant party. Mr. Newdegate, speaking in the House
of Commons on the Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, said that, in his opinion,
that was a singularly inopportune moment to propose any change in the test
imposed upon Roman Catholic members, seeing that the French Government
were just then occupied in grave discussions on the best means of dealing
with the latest Papal aggression in the shape of the Pope's Encyclical
Letter, which in the interests of order and peace could not be allowed to
pass unnoticed. How the Encyclical Letter could affect the question of the
Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, Mr. Newdegate's hearers failed to see; it was
one of that gentleman's many cries of "Wolf" in Roman Catholic matters.
The Convention between France and Italy had no doubt disappointed the
Papacy, and the Letter may be looked upon as more or less an expression of
that disappointment; but the French Government knew very well that Rome
lay too much in the power of France for any serious affront to be offered,
and after a little more diplomatic skirmishing they let the matter drop.

Towards the end of August in this year there was a pleasant interchange
of courtesies between the French and British fleets at Portsmouth. A
British squadron of six ships, five of which were ironclads, received the
French Fleet at Spithead. Eleven fine screw steamships and screw frigates,
headed by the Emperor's yacht, the _Reine Hortense_, hove in sight on
the morning of the 28th, and were greeted by our ironclads with a gay
display of flags, manned riggings, and a succession of deafening salutes.
The Admiralty yacht, _Osborne_, having on board the Duke of Somerset and
the other Lords of the Admiralty, went out to meet the _Reine Hortense_,
and accompanied her into the harbour of Portsmouth, the _Victory_, that
gallant old relic of a bygone day, saluting the yachts with nineteen guns
as they passed. No sooner were they anchored than the naval grandees on
board the _Osborne_ passed over to the _Reine Hortense_, to pay their
respects to the French Minister of Marine, M. Chasseloup-Laubat, and the
French admirals accompanying him. The usual compliments were paid, the
usual invitations given, after which the Minister of Marine, accompanied
by his staff, Chief Almoner, Monseigneur Coquereau, and a splendid show
of English vice- and rear-admirals, entered a State barge, and was landed
at the King's Stairs in the dockyard. The day was spent by the French
guests in paying visits to the different officers of the garrison and
in inspecting some new barracks and forts close to Portsmouth; while in
the evening the First Lord of the Admiralty entertained them at dinner
on board the _Duke of Wellington_. The landsmen, not to be outdone by
the sailors, illuminated Portsmouth and gave a banquet to the French
officers. On the 30th of August the same round of visits and festivities
was gone through. At a great dinner given at the Royal Naval College in
the evening, the Duke of Somerset, after expressing the pleasure which
he and his colleagues felt in being able to return the hospitalities
showered by France upon the British fleet a month previously at Brest and
Cherbourg, proposed the health of the Emperor and Empress, to which M.
Chasseloup-Laubat responded by proposing that of the Queen in a speech
marked by that French grace and ease which makes a French public dinner
so much less formidable than an English one. The French Minister had
hardly sat down, and the cheers were still ringing in answer to the toast
of "Queen Victoria," when there was a discharge of guns and rockets from
the _Victory_, and immediately the calm summer sea beyond the harbour
was alive with thousands of twinkling lights; every ship in the allied
squadron stood outlined in many-coloured fires, and hundreds of rockets,
sent up from every deck, fell in showers through the clear air of an
August evening. Again and again, just as the distant hulls were growing
dark, the fairy-like spectacle was renewed. Nor was the town behind-hand;
illuminations ran along the shore, and land and sea vied with one another.
This magical scene lasted for about half an hour, then one by one the
ships faded from sight, the sparkle on the water died out, and, peer
as it might into the darkness gathering round Spithead, the eye could
distinguish nothing but a distant group of black forms on a grey sea. The
dinner was then resumed and a few more toasts and speeches followed; but
the event of the evening was over and at an early hour the French guests
returned to their ships. For three days more festivities were kept up, and
balls, concerts, and _déjeuners_ followed each other in quick succession.
The French squadron left Portsmouth on the 2nd of September, after a visit
full of pleasure and amusement to all who took part in it.

To the great relief of England the long agony of the Southern
Confederation was now rapidly approaching its termination. Sherman's
great march had brought him and his army of 60,000 men to Savannah, the
capital of Georgia; but it did not end there. His movements were delayed
by heavy rains; but on the 1st of January, 1865, he set forth, moving his
army directly northward, as if Augusta were the point of attack. Suddenly
turning to his right, and crossing the river Savannah, he entered the
swampy fertile plains of South Carolina. Devastation marked the track of
his columns. Beauregard had not a force under his orders sufficient for
the defence of Columbia, and he therefore directed General Wade Hampton,
who was in command there, to evacuate the city. That general did so,
having first caused to be brought out into the streets and set on fire all
the large stores of cotton which the place contained, lest it should fall
into Federal hands. A portion only of Sherman's army entered the town, in
the middle of the day on the 17th of February, but before the night it was
in flames. The loss of Columbia involved the fall of Charleston, including
Fort Sumter and other defences; for since the sea was closed against them
from behind by the blockading fleet, no hope of ultimate escape remained
for the defenders, if they waited till they were hemmed in by a superior
force on the land side. From Columbia Sherman advanced on the 23rd of
February, but instead of marching to the attack of Raleigh, the capital
of North Carolina, he struck off to the right, crossed the Great Pedee
River, and passing the State boundary at Sneedsboro', again concentrated
his army at Fayetteville (March 11). General Johnston, who ought never
to have been superseded, was now re-appointed to the command of the
Confederate army opposed to Sherman. As the Federal left, under Slocum,
was advancing from Fayetteville towards Goldsboro', Johnston vigorously
attacked at Bentonville (March 20) hoping to envelop and crush it before
it could be supported; but the success of the attempt did not correspond
to his expectations. Sherman's victorious march terminated at Goldsboro',
for to that point a strong Federal force under General Schofield had
fought its way up from the coast just before his arrival.

[Illustration: GENERAL GRANT.]

The last act of the great drama was now to open. The campaign in Virginia
was commenced by Sheridan, who, at the head of a well-equipped and
most formidable force of 10,000 cavalry, moved from Winchester in the
Shenandoah valley (March 2nd) with the intention of striking Lynchburg,
the town among the ranges of the Alleghanies whence Richmond now drew its
principal supplies. Early met him at Waynesboro' and was utterly routed;
but the intelligence that he received from his scouts led Sheridan to
believe that Lynchburg was too well defended to fall to a mere cavalry
force; he changed his plan, therefore, and led his troopers round the left
and rear of Lee's army, intending to join Grant in his encampment before
Petersburg. The Confederate arrays of cavalry, which two years before had
been the terror of Pennsylvania and Washington, were now so attenuated
by death and hardships that no effectual resistance could be offered
to Sheridan, who, carrying blight and destruction in his train, burning
bridges and stores, tearing up railways and destroying canals, moved
across the enemy's country to White House on the Pamunkey river, whence he
marched to the James, and reported to Grant in front of Petersburg on the
27th of March.

Seeing that the force in his front was continually being augmented, Lee
appears to have concluded that the only course left for him was to deal
a heavy and unexpected blow at the least guarded point about the centre
of Grant's lines, which, if successful, would cut his army in two,
enforce new arrangements for concentration, and perhaps leave time for
the detachment of a portion of Lee's army to the assistance of Johnston,
sufficient, with the troops under that general's command, to meet and
defeat Sherman. The point which he selected was Fort Steadman, nearly due
east of Petersburg. Here General Gordon, with two divisions, bore down at
daybreak on the 25th of March on the Federal lines, and captured at the
first onset Fort Steadman and three adjoining batteries, turning their
guns against the retreating defenders. But an overwhelming force was soon
brought up by General Meade, which not only drove the Confederates out of
the works they had occupied, taking 2,000 prisoners, but, pursuing the
advantage, pushed back the whole of that part of the Confederate line,
thus rendering Lee's contemplated movement into North Carolina more than
ever hazardous. A still more decisive success was gained on the 1st of
April, when Sheridan, attacking Lee's right wing, under Pickett, at Five
Forks, with a force two or three times as numerous, turned its left at
the same time that he attacked in front, and, being successful in both
operations, utterly broke and routed the Confederates, 5,000 of whom
were taken prisoners. On the next day (Sunday, April 2) Grant ordered a
general advance against the defences of Petersburg. The attack was made
at daybreak, and although the exhausted Confederates stood bravely to
their arms, so great was the preponderance of numbers that they could not
prevent the Federals from wresting several redoubts from their hands, so
that Petersburg itself stood in danger of falling before the next vigorous
assault. Such was the position of affairs at 11 o'clock, when Lee, who
had just seen A. P. Hill, one of the most trusted of his lieutenants,
shot dead while directing a charge to regain a portion of the works, and
fully recognised the imminent peril to which Richmond was exposed through
the inability of the gallant army that had so long defended it to hold
its ground any longer against the overwhelming masses of the enemy, felt
it his duty to send a message of warning to the Confederate President.
The message was in nearly these words:--"My lines are broken in three
places. Richmond must be evacuated this evening." Before retiring General
Ewell set some warehouses on fire and soon a full third of the city was
destroyed. Petersburg was evacuated simultaneously with Richmond. After
desperate attempts to evade his pursuers of whom Sheridan was the most
persistent, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court-house on April
the 9th.

The capitulation of the Army of Virginia was a signal for the close of
hostilities everywhere. Sherman, on hearing of the fall of Richmond and
Petersburg, advanced from Goldsboro' against Johnston, who soon proposed
to surrender upon terms. Sherman was induced to sign a provisional
convention (April 18th), the effect of which would have been to continue
and confirm to the existing State Governments in the Confederate States
the enjoyment of legislative and executive powers. Of course, this
convention was instantly disallowed at Washington, and in signing it, even
provisionally, it is clear that Sherman exceeded his powers. Johnston
then surrendered his army (April 26th) on precisely the same terms as
those that had been granted to Lee. A general order, addressed by Grant
on the 2nd of June to the "Soldiers of the Armies of the United States,"
in thanking them for their patriotic exertions, formally announced the
termination of hostilities. The armies were everywhere disbanded as soon
as possible, the men returning to the pursuits of industry; by the 15th of
October upwards of 785,000 men had been mustered out of the service. But a
terrible crime cast a gloom over the rejoicings with which the people of
the Northern States were celebrating the conclusion of the war, namely,
the assassination of Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, Washington, by the actor,
John Wilkes Booth. The great President was shot on the 14th of April
and died on the following day. In the course of the war recruits to the
number of 2,688,523 men had been enlisted into the armies of the Union. Of
these, about 1,500,000 were effective soldiers. On the Union side, 275,000
men were either killed outright or died of their wounds, or perished by
disease; and on the Confederate side the loss of life must have been
little if at all less.

"Her Majesty rejoices at the continued tranquillity and increasing
prosperity of her Indian dominions; and she trusts that the large supply
which those territories will afford of the raw material of manufacturing
industry, together with the termination of the Civil War in the United
States of North America, will prevent the recurrence of the distress
which long prevailed among the manufacturing population of some of the
northern counties." These words, from the Queen's Speech which closed the
Session of 1865, give a true insight into the state of the most important
of the dependencies of Britain. India was, in 1865, very tranquil and
exceptionally prosperous. As the events of the next year showed, it was
even too prosperous; the successful attempt to introduce the cultivation
of cotton, and, partially at least, to make India take the place of
America as a source of cotton-supply, had led to over-speculation and
a reckless spirit of investment. It is the fault of all speculators in
exceptional times to fancy that the exceptional times will last for
ever. The Bombay merchants, with rashness, and, indeed, ignorance that
must now appear scarcely credible, presumed upon the long continuance
of the American War; they imagined an eternal blockade of Charleston
and thought that the mills of Manchester would look for ever to the
cotton-fields of Gujerat. Hence this year of which we are speaking was a
year of extraordinary prosperity in India. The prosperity, too, affected
the revenue; and Sir Charles Wood was able to present a satisfactory
Indian Budget when he made his financial statement before the House of
Commons. As usual, the statement was deferred till the end of the Session,
for Parliament had little patience for the concerns of its vast Eastern
empire; but the figures showed a surplus, and a surplus is always welcome.
The most notable point was Sir Charles Wood's statement of the money
that had been spent in public works during the six previous years. This
amounted to no less than seventy-three millions sterling; £34,500,000 on
irrigation, roads, buildings, etc., and £38,500,000 on railways. This
last figure speaks volumes; some notion of the extension of the internal
commerce of India may be derived from it.

It was natural that the termination, or the approach of the termination,
of the American War should cause some anxiety as to the views of the
United States with regard to Canada. This anxiety was not lessened by a
notification that was received early in this year from the Washington
Government to the effect that the United States intended to withdraw from
an agreement entered into with Britain in 1817, by which both Powers had
agreed not to equip naval armaments on the Canadian lakes. This intention
of the United States Government was the result of certain "raids" made
by Confederate guerillas from a base of operations in Canada, without
encouragement of course, but unfortunately without successful hindrance,
from the Canadian authorities. The two Houses of Parliament took prompt
notice of the action of the United States; and the matter was linked
on to the question of a grant for the defences of Quebec, moved in the
Commons by Lord Hartington, Secretary at War. A good deal of vigorous
language was used, not too friendly to America, not too complimentary to
Government; for many persons felt that there was a possibility of serious
complications, even of war, between the two countries, on the ground of
supposed breaches of neutrality on the part of Great Britain during the
American struggle. Events, however, have proved that Mr. Bright was right
when he said that if there came a war, it would be one not arising out
of national necessities, but out of Cabinet manœuvring; "and that," he
said, "I consider a most improbable event." The matter ended by a vote
of £50,000, part of a larger installment, being carried for the defences
of Quebec; it being understood that the Canadian Government were to
fortify Montreal out of their own revenues. But a few days afterwards Mr.
Cardwell eased the apprehension of the House by announcing the receipt
of intelligence that the Washington Government intended to withdraw its
notice for the abrogation of the agreement of 1817. In the course of a
few months the American War ended, as has just been described, and the
relations between the United Kingdom and the United States entered upon a
new phase.

With the exception of the events in Jamaica about to be related, nothing
of much importance seems to have taken place in the remaining colonies
of Great Britain during the year 1865. The Maori War, however, in New
Zealand still dragged on, and formed the subject of a debate in the House
of Commons, which called forth from Mr. Cardwell the views of Government
as to the proper policy to be pursued by Britain. Mr. Cardwell's statement
indicated that there was a disposition on the part of the home authorities
to consider whether the time had not come for taking a new departure.
He said that "the former arrangement, by which the colony could command
the services of a large force of the Queen's troops on paying a merely
nominal contribution to the expenses incurred for that force, was at
an end." It was decided, in other words--and this with the willing
acquiescence of the Governor, Sir George Grey--that the best policy for
the interests of the colony was to leave it pretty much to take care of
itself. British opinion declared strongly against a war of extermination,
in the outset of which the natives had, by the confession of the British
Governor, been in the right; and it was thought that, by teaching the
colonists that they could not always look to Britain to fight their
battles for them, a more pacific mode of dealing with the natives would be
entered upon, to the benefit both of the colonists and the Maoris.

[Illustration: MEETING OF LEE AND GRANT AT APPOMATTOX COURT-HOUSE. (_See
p._ 382.)]

It was towards the end of October in this year that the alarming news
arrived of an insurrection of the negroes in Jamaica, which was at once
seen to be the most serious event that had happened in any British colony
or dependency since the Indian Mutiny. Few, however, suspected that
the importance of the event itself would be lost in the still greater
importance of the secondary issues which it raised--the questions of
the duties of Colonial Governors, of the legality of martial law, and
so forth. These, as will appear in the sequel, were the questions to
which the Jamaica insurrection, or riot, gave rise. They were argued in
the newspapers, in Parliament, and in courts of law, with passionate
earnestness on both sides; for both those who approved of the acts done in
the suppression, and those who disapproved of them, felt that a crisis of
great magnitude had arrived, and that a proper settlement of the points at
issue was essential to the welfare of the colonies, and, through them, to
the welfare of Britain.

[Illustration: THE ATTACK ON THE COURT-HOUSE, ST. THOMAS-IN-THE-EAST.
(_See p._ 386.)]

Jamaica, as everybody knows, is the largest of the British colonies in
the West Indies, and has been in British possession since the time of
Cromwell. Commercially and socially, the island had never recovered the
collapse that followed the abolition of slavery in 1834. Thus, while
in 1830 the amount of sugar exported was 100,000 hogsheads, in 1850 it
had fallen to 40,000; while in 1809 the coffee exports were 52,500,000
lbs., in 1850 they were 5,120,000, or not quite one-tenth. This state
of things, distressing to every one, and especially to those who regard
the emancipation of the slaves as a right act, is clearly shown by a
comparison of the accounts with those of all the other West India Islands
to have been the result of some cause not operating in them. That cause
was bad government. Distress was very prevalent in 1865, especially in
the eastern part of the island; wages were extremely low; capital was
withdrawn from the country; everything pointed to such legislation and
such administration of the law as should conciliate, and even relieve,
the great and growing poverty of the labouring class. Instead of this,
new "Trespass Laws" were made, creating offences out of what the negroes
had always as their right--gathering yams, picking occasional sugar-canes
in passing by a field, and so on; and also converting into a "trespass"
the occupation of certain lands, to which the occupiers thought they had
a right rent free. Popular opinion, naturally warm enough on points like
these, was roused to great heat by agitation, especially by a letter
directed in 1865 to Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary of State for the Colonies,
by Dr. Underhill, a well-known Baptist. This letter was taken up by the
local Radical party, led by Mr. G. W. Gordon; meetings were held in many
places, and, as is natural from the character of the negro, the language
used was often not over-wise. Still there were real grievances; and it is
an undoubted fact that these grievances were met in a scandalous manner
by the Government of the island. Mr. Gordon was treated by Governor Eyre,
not as the representative of a suffering class, but as a firebrand whom
it was right to extinguish. The magisterial benches--badly constituted,
as the Royal Commission afterwards declared--were filled up by unpopular
men; the complaints of the blacks were hardly noticed; memorials sent up
to the Colonial Office through the Governor were tampered with in transit;
obnoxious laws remained unrepealed; the "piccaninny gangs," or gangs of
children for field labour, were not discouraged;--in a word, nothing was
done to remedy a very serious condition of affairs; they were left to
break out in a violent explosion--the natural result.

Whatever doubts may exist as to the antecedent events, and the state of
the island before the outbreak, the facts of the outbreak itself, and of
the measures taken in suppression or retaliation, are clear beyond all
question, and may be told on the authority of official documents, and of
the statements of witnesses before the Royal Commissioners. The early
stages of the riots have been recorded by one of the victims of the 11th
of October, Baron von Kettelholt, custos of St. Thomas-in-the-East. They
comprised the beating and illegal imprisonment of some policemen by the
mutineers, and further outrages were anticipated. His letter was dated
the 10th of October, and was received by Governor Eyre on the morning of
the 11th, and he immediately ordered Major-General O'Connor, the senior
military officer, to send off 100 men in a man-of-war to the scene of the
disturbances. Meanwhile, however, the regular attack which the custos had
dreaded had been made. The magistrates and others were in the court-house
at about three o'clock in the afternoon; the volunteers, thirty or so in
number (according to the evidence of Mr. Rutty, who was one of them), had
been drawn up for two hours or more, when a bugle was heard and a large
mob was seen approaching. They were armed with "cutlasses and bayonets
fixed on long sticks, muskets and pistols, and various kinds of weapons."
They advanced irregularly; once they halted; a bandsman went forward
extending his arms as if to make peace, the custos from the court-house
shouted "Peace," and then, when they were within a few yards of the
volunteers, there came a shower of bricks and stones. The order was given
to the volunteers, whether from their captain or the custos is uncertain,
to fire and a volley was poured in. The mob was roused to frenzy; the
volunteers retreated into the rooms under the court-house and into other
shelter, and the people fired in upon them and upon those assembled in the
court-house, through the windows. Presently the school-house was set on
fire and soon the burning spread to the court-house, in which the whites
were assembled. Mr. Georges, who was one of them, tells us that he leaped
out of a back window and got into the committee-room underneath, and that
while there he saw Mr. Walton leap out after him and run for his life, but
to no purpose. Baron Alfred von Kettelholt, son-in-law of the custos, just
escaped; but his father-in-law was killed. Mr. Georges, with three gunshot
wounds in his thigh, lay hidden in some shrubs till midnight and so
escaped. Dr. Gerrard was allowed his life, "because he was the doctor;"
but the negroes kept him among them by the expedient of taking his boots
off. Mr. Rutty, a volunteer, tried to pass for his assistant, but was
beaten almost to death, stripped to his shirt, and left to die or recover
as he might. Mr. Price, a negro, was with the custos and the magistrates,
so he was pronounced "a black man with a white heart" and was killed.
Lieutenant Hall, Captain Hitchings, Mr. Herschell, a clergyman, and many
more of the whites assembled, were killed.

Many charges of revolting barbarity were made against the rioters; but
it is only just to say that nothing more atrocious than murder has been
proved against them. For instance, in Governor Eyre's first despatch
to Mr. Cardwell he mentioned numberless rumours of horrible deeds--how
Lieutenant Hall had been pushed into a building which was set on fire,
till he was "literally roasted alive;" how the fingers of the custos were
cut off "and kept as trophies by the rebels." It was proved, however, by
Mr. Rutty, who was present, that Lieutenant Hall was shot dead in the
heat of the struggle, and the hand of the custos was mutilated, but not,
apparently, with any specially barbarous intent. He and many of the rest
were put to death with "cutlasses," that is, the knives or bill-hooks used
in dressing the sugar-cane; and cutlasses in the hands of a mob are likely
to be wildly used. These facts it is important to bear in mind; for half
the criminality of the proceedings of the soldiers afterwards springs
from the fact that they were done upon hearsay evidence, upon rumours
of barbarities which, dreadful as the original murders had been, were
enormously exaggerated. Neither during the attack on the court-house, nor
in the plunder of Amity Hall, nor elsewhere, were any women or children
injured, though, in many cases, the rioters had them in their power. This
fact, at least, happily distinguishes the deplorable Jamaica outbreak from
such carnivals of savagery as the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

During the next day or two there was undoubtedly great excitement among
the negro population throughout all the east end of Jamaica, and the white
residents were in danger. The Morant Bay rioters broke up into parties,
and dispersed in two or three directions--up Blue Mountain valley, towards
Manchioneal, towards Golden Grove, and elsewhere. In some parts they
were joined by the negroes of the neighbourhood; many excesses, almost
entirely in the way of plunder, were committed. A mob attacked Hordley
estate and wrecked the furniture and set fire, but without effect, to one
of the "trash-houses" (a house used in sugar-making); but something may
be learned of the absence of the worst kind of ferocity from the fact
that the ladies of the house were in the other trash-house and were never
looked for or discovered. The great cry was "Colour for colour," but more
energy was spent in shouting the cry than in seeking out whites to wreak
vengeance on.

These events were, of course, enough to move the white population of the
island to a high pitch of excitement and to call for prompt action from
the Government. Governor Eyre's proceedings may be told nearly in his
own words, as given in his report to Mr. Cardwell and in his evidence
afterwards before the Royal Commission. His official residence was Spanish
Town, an inland town, fourteen miles from Kingston. His private residence
was at Flamstead, fourteen miles from Kingston and twenty-three from
Spanish Town, where, according to the Opposition papers in the colony, he
spent a good deal of time rearing chickens. How Mr. Eyre wrote to General
O'Connor, requesting 100 men to be sent to Morant Bay, has been already
told. After that order had been sent, Mr. Eyre returned to his residence
at Flamstead, "to be present at a dinner-party which was to meet there the
next day." This was Thursday, the 12th, the day after the riot; and the
news came just in time to spoil the Governor's dinner-party. At half-past
five a letter came from a magistrate with the news and the Governor at
once rode off to Kingston, to concert fresh measures. It is enough to say
that 200 men were immediately despatched to Morant Bay; a detachment of
white troops was ordered to march from Newcastle to intercept the march
of the "rebels" into Blue Mountain valley; and the Governor himself took
measures for proceeding to the scene of action. Just before he started,
that is, between eight and ten on the morning of the 13th, he presided at
a council of war and, on the advice of the Attorney-General of the island,
drew up a proclamation of martial law.

The events which followed, and which had their support and authority in
this proclamation, are commonly called "the suppression." From the time
when Captain de Horsey, of the sloop _Wolverine_, wrote to Governor Eyre
that he had landed a company of soldiers at Morant Bay, and was preparing
to detach 114 of his own sailors to co-operate with them, to the time
when "Martial Law" expired, not only was all law suspended throughout
the east of the island, but all the guarantees of evidence were dispensed
with, and the life of every negro man and negro woman hung upon the will
of an angry soldiery and an excited Provost-Marshal. Hence the Morant
Bay disturbance--which, grave and shocking as it was, has been proved
beyond question to have been a local riot and not the first outbreak of a
rebellion--was seized upon without question and at once as a rebellion,
and to be punished as such. The soldiers, sailors, and marines acted in
three or four directions at once; from Morant Bay, from Port Antonio on
the north-east side, and from Newcastle towards the mountainous region
in the centre of the country. The towns were all occupied and their
inhabitants, who were as much frightened as Governor Eyre had been,
were not much injured by the soldiery; but the whole of the country
districts were scoured with troops; negroes, unarmed as well as armed,
were shot down as they ran from soldiers, or captured, tried by summary
courts-martial, convicted on the evidence of informers, or on no evidence
at all, and hanged or flogged, or flogged first and hanged afterwards. It
was enough that a man should have been unpopular with the authorities of
his district, or that he should have a bad character, or that a witness
should inform against him, or that he should have been "seen with Bogle,"
and he was forthwith hanged or flogged as a rebel. This last charge, in
fact, touches the root of the whole matter. Paul Bogle, the leader of the
attack on the court-house, was a dangerous man and a rebel. Undoubtedly
he was guilty of high treason and his life was forfeit. But by all the
evidence given before the Commission, and notably that given by William
Anderson, the informer, it appears that the only real "rebels," that
is, the only persons who intentionally and of their own free will took
up arms against the Government of the Queen, were Paul Bogle, M'Laren,
and perhaps half a dozen more. The rest were on the first day a riotous
mob, who thought that, by making a demonstration before the court-house,
they would obtain the repeal of a burdensome law and the removal of an
unpopular custos; and afterwards they were a mob afraid for their lives,
herding together for defence against the "white men," and still acting,
without power of resistance, as Paul Bogle bade them. The part played
by this William Anderson, from whose evidence that statement comes, is
typical of the nature of the "suppression." He was one of those who went
with Bogle, on Bogle "calling for five tamarind switches to make a rod,
and for guns." He ran away on the first opportunity; he was taken up by a
constable, tried by court-martial, and was offered his life on condition
that he would be a guide to the soldiers. It was Colonel Hobbs, commanding
the 6th Royals, who undertook the task of acting upon the evidence of this
Anderson, who, of course, was careful to ensure his own safety by handing
over a sufficient number of his countrymen to the colonel's justice. Nor
were the soldiers of Colonel Hobbs alone or exceptional in their method
of vengeance. The "black soldiers," that is the maroons, descendants of
the old Spanish slaves, and the enemies of the African negro population,
shot one hundred and sixty on the road to Manchioneal. One thousand houses
of the natives were burnt down by the soldiers. And how these acts were
regarded by the superior officers at Kingston, cannot be better shown than
in the words of the afterwards celebrated letter of Lieutenant-Colonel
Elkington, Deputy Adjutant-General, to Colonel Hobbs. "I send you an
order," he wrote on the 18th of October, "to push on at once to Stony Gut,
but I trust you are there already. Hole is doing splendid service with his
men all about Manchioneal, and shooting every black man who cannot account
for himself (sixty on the line of march): Nelson, at Port Antonio, hanging
like fun by court-martial." Nor was it the officers alone who had life
and death in their hands--it was the soldiers individually; above all, it
was the Inspector of Police, Gordon Ramsay. For instance, some soldiers,
accompanied by the same Dr. Morris who fired two shots with his revolver
into the body of the negro Donaldson as he was hanging, dragged out of his
cabin one Ned Bryan, tied him to a tree and forthwith shot him. Bryan and
his brother had been at Kingston all through the riots, and only landed at
Manchioneal on the 15th of October! That is one instance, literally taken
at random from a mass of evidence. To illustrate Ramsay's proceedings is
easier still. He owned to the hanging of 184, six of them females; to the
flogging of 237, eight of them females--but in this last respect he was
perhaps outdone by Captain Hole, who owned before the Commission that he
had flogged sixteen women and among them one woman twice! Those who care
to read of Ramsay's brutality, and of the nature of the "cat" frequently
used--whipcord mixed with knotted wire--had better consult the evidence of
R. Clarke, of P. Bruce, and of Ramsay himself.

But the story would only be half instructive were we to omit the record
of the quasi-judicial proceedings by which some of the barbarities were
guaranteed. Three memorable reports of trials are printed at the end of
the Commissioners' blue-book, and to them, as showing what a court-martial
may be, what a foregone conclusion, what a mockery of justice, we may
refer any curious readers. The cases are those of William Grant, George
M'Intosh, and Samuel Clarke--all of whom were sentenced to death by
court-martial. The case of M'Intosh is, perhaps, the most instructive of
the three. He was sentenced by Colonel Lewis--and General Nelson approved
the sentence--literally for no crime at all, except for having spoken at a
public meeting in the house of Mr. George William Gordon, whose friend he
was. The evidence which hanged the others was about equally valuable.

But the case that was the most outrageous, and rapidly became the most
famous of all, was that of Mr. G. W. Gordon himself. On his trial
and execution was based the greater part of the attempt to obtain
legal redress in the English courts of law; around his body, so to
speak, was fought the question of the legality of martial law, of the
responsibility of officers and colonial governors, and of the rights of
colonists. The story need not be told at great length. It is sufficient
to say that Mr. Gordon was a negro gentleman, a member of the Jamaica
Assembly, a prominent Baptist and leader of Opposition, the friend of
the poorer classes of negroes, and in high disfavour with Governor Eyre.
This gentleman was residing peacefully at Kingston at the time of the
outbreak. Governor Eyre's own words show how little he cared for legality.
"Throughout my tour in the _Wolverine_ and _Onyx_," writes the Governor
to Mr. Cardwell, "I found everywhere the most unmistakable evidence that
Mr. George William Gordon, a coloured member of the House of Assembly,
had not only been mixed up in the matter, but was himself, through his
own misrepresentation and seditious language addressed to the black
people, the chief cause and origin of the whole rebellion. Mr. Gordon was
now in Kingston, and it became necessary to decide what action should
be taken with regard to him. Having obtained a deposition on oath that
certain seditious printed notices had been sent through the post-office,
directed, in his handwriting, to the parties who have been leaders in the
rebellion, I at once called upon the custos to issue a warrant and capture
him. For some little time he managed to evade capture; but finding that,
sooner or later, it was inevitable, he proceeded to the house of General
O'Connor, and there gave himself up. I at once had him placed on board the
_Wolverine_ for safe custody and conveyance to Morant Bay."

[Illustration: STREET SCENE, KINGSTON, JAMAICA.

(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Son, Dundee._)]

Now, even supposing the proclamation of martial law to have been legal,
which we believe it not to have been, it expressly excluded Kingston
from the operation of martial law. What Governor Eyre did, therefore,
was to seize a political opponent, to carry him off in a ship of war
from a district under civil jurisdiction to a district under military
jurisdiction, and then to hand him over to the tender mercies of a
court-martial. The court was composed of two naval lieutenants and an
ensign lately gazetted; one of the lieutenants being the same Lieutenant
Brand who with a couple of "dingy boys" from his ship, had "had the
pleasure" (his own words) of hanging the first "rebel," and shooting him
with his own revolver as he hung; who had openly said that "nothing would
give him greater pleasure than hanging this----Gordon." Mr. Gordon was an
old man; he had been barbarously treated; he was wretchedly ill. Before
his trial he was called out by Ramsay, the Provost-Marshal, to witness the
execution of Grant, who had been a political friend of his. "Look there,"
said Ramsay; "that is your friend Grant, and you will be hanged like him."
A Mr. Joseph G. Smith, a volunteer, thus tells, in his evidence before the
Commission, how witnesses were collected against Mr. Gordon:--

"Afterwards I went into the guard-room, and he [Ramsay] was then swearing
five of the prisoners, with their hands fastened and a rope round their
necks, and he was swearing them in these words, 'You shall well and truly
state what G. W. Gordon has to do with the rebellion;' and between each
part of this a sailor came down with the whip over their shoulders."

On evidence of this kind, the evidence of men who had had the promise of
their lives if they would accuse him, Mr. Gordon was tried. As to the
taking of the evidence, we have the words of the Lord Chief Justice of
England, Sir Alexander Cockburn, in his famous charge to the grand jury
in the case of Nelson and Brand: "He could not be tried on that evidence.
No competent judge acquainted with his duties could have received that
evidence. Three-fourths--I had almost said nine-tenths--of the evidence
upon which that man was convicted and sentenced to death, was evidence
which, according to no known rules--not only of ordinary, but of military
law--according to no known rules of right or justice, could possibly have
been admitted." But even supposing it had been admitted, all that was
proved was that Mr. Gordon had written letters to, and been on friendly
terms with, some of the rioters; but none of the letters were produced
except one, where he said that "the people of Jamaica were very wretched."
He was proved to have called the Governor "a bad man." He was proved
to have had an action-at-law against the late custos von Kettelholt.
Above all, he was proved to have spoken at public meetings, and to have
dwelt on the misery of the negroes and the way in which their case was
misrepresented to the Colonial Office. For these offences--literally
for none other--he was sentenced to death. Lieutenant Brand signed his
sentence, and Brigadier Nelson approved it. "He asked to see the Reverend
Mr. Panther, Wesleyan minister," wrote Brigadier Nelson; "I considered
it inexpedient." Without the consolations of religion, condemned on
less than no evidence by an unauthorised and incompetent tribunal, Mr.
Gordon was hanged on the 23rd of October, 1865. He had been in life
the representative of the negroes of Jamaica in their cry for equal
government; in death he was their representative in their cry for justice.

"The total number of deaths caused by those engaged in the suppression
amounted to 439, and the total number of dwellings burned was 1,000....
The whole number subjected to the degrading punishment [of flogging],
during the continuance of martial law, we think could not be less
than 600." These are the words of the Report of the Royal Commission,
consisting of General Sir Henry Storks, Governor of Malta, Mr. Russell
Gurney, Recorder of London, and Mr. Maule, Recorder of Leeds, who were
sent out to Jamaica in the beginning of 1866, and who sat for fifty-one
days examining witnesses. Long before the Commission went out, however--in
fact, as soon as the news of the "suppression" arrived in England--public
opinion had been roused. Public meetings took place, and a committee--the
Jamaica Committee--was formed headed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, to see
that full investigations were made, and that legal remedies were sought
against those who had been guilty of illegal excess. Mr. Carlyle came
forward as a champion of Governor Eyre. The Jamaica Committee announced
that, "having been advised that the facts disclosed in the Report of
the Royal Commissioners afford a proper ground for an indictment for
murder to be preferred against Mr. Eyre and the other persons concerned
in the trial and execution of Mr. Gordon, and that no other mode of
vindicating the law in reference to those facts is open to them, they
have instructed their solicitors to proceed forthwith with an indictment
against Mr. Eyre." They did proceed with an indictment against Mr.
Eyre, Brigadier Nelson, and Lieutenant Brand. Mr. Eyre was domiciled
in the country--he had been recalled from Jamaica and superseded--and
the question of committing him for trial was argued before a Shropshire
bench of magistrates. The Shropshire bench of magistrates declined to
commit him. The London stipendiary magistrate, being a trained lawyer,
understood his duty differently in the case of Nelson and Brand; he
committed them for trial at the Central Criminal Court. The prosecution
failed in the end; but not before it had elicited from the Lord Chief
Justice a charge to the grand jury so elaborate, so learned, so telling,
and so clear, that it may be said to have once for all defined the scope
of "martial law," and to have once for all settled the rights and duties
of local authorities in dealing with riot or insurrection. Two points
stand out clear from the Chief Justice's charge: first, that martial law,
exercised in Great Britain or in any of her dependencies, means the law
administered by courts-martial--the law, that is to say, which is laid
down for the trial of military offenders by military courts; secondly,
that, by the Petition of Right and all the statutes and examples which
have confirmed it, civilians are in no case amenable to this law. What,
then, the Governor and the military authorities in Jamaica had the right
to do, was to use all diligence in suppressing what, for a moment--though
probably wrongly--appeared to be a formidable insurrection; and to do
this by military force. They had undoubtedly the right to put to death or
flog any rebel captured with arms in his hands; their justification in
this was, that highest law--necessity and the right of self-preservation.
They had also the right to seize any dangerous persons and hand them
over to the civil courts. But they had no right to assume a jurisdiction
over the whole actions of civilians, to hang and flog and burn on mere
charges of "complicity" or of past guilt. The trial of Mr. Gordon--all
the trials that took place in the county of Surrey in that dreadful
time--were no trials at all; they were military cruelty and race tyranny
aping the forms of law. The grand jury threw out the bill, but made a
formal presentment, "strongly recommending that martial law should be more
clearly defined by legislative enactment." Mr. Eyre and his subordinates
escaped, and in 1872, numerous suits instituted by his opponents having
failed and a considerable revulsion of feeling having taken place in
his favour, his expenses were paid by Government. It is a consolation
that the changes which followed upon her ordeal of fire were fruitful to
Jamaica. After Sir Henry Storks returned from his temporary government of
the island, a new Governor was found in a distinguished and able Indian
official, Sir John Peter Grant. Under his rule security was established
and brought a moderate measure of prosperity in its train.

During the whole of the year 1866 two great subjects occupied everybody's
mind--the war in Germany, its antecedents and its consequences, and
Parliamentary Reform at home. We may proceed at once to tell the story
of the unsuccessful attempt of Lord Russell's Government to carry the
Reform Bill, and of the serious popular agitation that followed upon their
overthrow. The cause of the defeat of the Bill of 1860 was undoubtedly
the indifferent attitude of Lord Palmerston, which represented that of
the public. In 1865 Mr. Baines brought in a Bill, which was defeated.
Soon afterwards Lord Palmerston died and the principal barrier to a
successful Bill was removed. Even before his death, in the months that
were spent in canvassing for the general election, "both among Liberal and
Tory candidates," said Mr. Bright, "the question of Reform was mentioned
in some way or other, either in their written or spoken addresses to
their constituents." But when, after the news arrived that the veteran
Prime Minister had died, Lord Russell succeeded to his place, and Mr.
Gladstone took the position of unfettered leader of the House of Commons,
it was known that Reform was to be immediately approached as a Government
measure. Many of their colleagues were averse from re-opening the question
and to overcome their scruples a mild Bill was promised.

Parliament opened amid general interest and excitement with regard to
Reform; and in March Mr. Gladstone brought in his "Bill to extend the
Right of Voting at Elections of Members of Parliament in England and
Wales." This important Bill, upon which was based so much of the Reform
Bill of 1867, was at first sight extremely moderate. In the first place,
it advanced the property qualification for the borough franchise which
Lord Russell's Bill had fixed at £6 to £7--a step which Mr. Gladstone
explained as follows: "A £6 rental, calculated upon the most careful
investigation, and after making every allowance and deduction that ought
to be made, would give 242,000 new voters, whom I should take as all
belonging to the working class. I should then arrive at a gross total
of 428,000 persons" (that is, by adding together old and new electors),
"which would, in fact, probably place the working classes in a clear
majority upon the constituency. Well, that has never been the intention
of any Bill proposed in this House. I do not think it is a proposal that
Parliament would ever adopt.... I do not think that we are called upon
by any overruling or sufficient consideration, under the circumstances,
to give over the majority of the town constituencies into the hands of
the working class. We therefore propose to take the figure next above
that which I have named--namely, a clear annual value of £7." Under the
£7 qualification it was calculated that 144,000 voters of the working
class would be admitted to the borough franchise--enough to give the
artisan class its due weight and share in elections, without swamping
the other elements of the constituency. Mr. Gladstone also proposed--by
means of the abolition of the ratepaying clauses of the Reform Act of
1832, by registration of compound householders, and by a lodger franchise
applicable to persons occupying rooms of the annual value of £10--to
further increase the number of borough voters by 60,000, giving a general
increase of 204,000. To this increase must be added the proposed number of
new county voters, "fourteen-pound tenants," 172,000 in number; and the
depositors in saving-banks, etc., 24,000 more. In all, the number of new
voters to be added by the Bill was estimated at 400,000, equally divided,
according to the belief of the framers of the Bill, between the middle
class and the artisans.

Mr. Gladstone introduced his Bill on March 12th, 1866, in a speech worthy
of the occasion. At the outset he read the passage in the Queen's Speech
which bore upon the question:--"When that information (relative to the
existing rights of voting) is complete, the attention of Parliament will
be called to the result thus obtained, with a view to such improvement
in the laws which regulate the rights of voting in the election of
members of the House of Commons as may strengthen our free institutions
and conduce to the public welfare." Words like these gave him a good
starting-point. He appealed to them and to the numerous occasions on which
the same recommendation had been given from the Throne. "By no less than
five Administrations, in no less than six Speeches of the Queen anterior
to that of the present year," had the need of Reform been suggested to
the House. Such an accumulation of authority, he went on to say, seemed
to excuse him from the necessity of arguing the abstract question of the
advisability of Reform. He took that for granted. Again, Mr. Lambert's
work had been so well and quickly done that Government found itself
ready to offer the Bill at once, without waiting a year. But--here was
the important point--partly with a view to break up the opposition to
Government's proposals, partly to prevent the Bill from becoming unwieldy
and its progress too slow, it was to consist really of two Bills. The
first was a Bill for the Extension of the Franchise; the second, to be
considered after the settlement of the first, was to be concerned with
the Redistribution of Seats. Into Mr. Gladstone's details we need not
follow him, for we have already sketched the main provisions of his Bill.
He commended it to the House, hoping that "if, unhappily, issue was to
be taken adversely upon the Bill, it would be, above all, a plain and
direct issue"--that is, whether or not there ought to be enfranchisement
downwards. In other words, Mr. Gladstone, though he had nearly ignored the
general question of the need of Parliamentary Reform, courted discussion
of that general question. He brought in his Bill, not like a Trojan horse
(he said) "approaching the walls of the sacred city, and filled with
armed men, bent upon ruin, plunder, and conflagration," but rather as
bringing recruits to the Parliamentary army--children to the Parliamentary
family. "Give to these persons," ran his peroration, "new interests in
the Constitution; new interests which, by the beneficent processes of the
law of nature and Providence, shall beget in them new attachment; for the
attachment of the people to the Throne, the institutions, and the laws
under which they live is, after all, more than gold and silver, and more
than fleets and armies; at once the strength, the glory, and the safety of
the land."

The night following the introduction of the Bill was marked by the
second of Mr. Lowe's famous Reform speeches, and the first of those
fierce attacks upon the Russell Ministry which more than anything else
contributed to bring in the Conservatives in the following year. Mr. Lowe
was then member for Calne. He had held office under Lord Palmerston as
Vice-President of the Council from 1859 to 1864, and had long been known
in the House as an accomplished man and ready debater; but probably few,
in 1866, had any idea of the real greatness of his oratorical gift, and
of the splendid displays he was to make of it before the close of the
Session. At the very outset of his speech on the 13th of March he denied
the necessity of Reform altogether. And then came the famous passage
that made Mr. Lowe the bugbear of the working classes. "Look at what a
[working-class] majority implies. I shall speak very frankly on this
subject, for--having lost my character by saying that the working man
could get the franchise for himself, which has been proved to be true,
and for saying which, he and his friends will not hate me one bit the
less--I shall say exactly what I think. Let any consider--I have had such
unhappy experiences, and many of us have--let any gentleman consider the
constituencies he has had the honour to be concerned with. If you want
venality, if you want ignorance, if you want drunkenness and facility
for being intimidated; or if, on the other hand, you want impulsive,
unreflecting, and violent people, where do you look for them in the
constituencies? Do you go to the top or to the bottom?" Lastly, Who asked
for the Bill? Not the people, not the House of Commons, but the Radical
leaders, as a salve for a theoretical and not a practical grievance!
"All I can say," concluded Mr. Lowe, "is, that if my right honourable
friend does succeed in carrying this measure through Parliament, when
the passions and interests of the day are gone by, I do not envy him his
retrospect. I covet not a single leaf of the laurels that may encircle
his brow. I do not envy him his triumph. His be the glory of carrying it;
mine of having, to the utmost of my poor ability, resisted it." The cheers
that greeted this speech--and not only the Opposition, but for a moment
the Ministerialists, were carried away by its eloquence and wit--were a
kind of omen of the difficulties that the Government were to meet with
during the progress of the measure. In this debate on the first reading,
Mr. Horsman, the Liberal member for Stroud, took up the same position of
hostility to the measure as Mr Lowe; and it was in answer to him that
Mr. Bright threw out his famous nickname for the new party. "He has
retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam, and he has
called about him every one that was in distress, and every one that was
discontented." The name of "Adullamites" was ever afterwards given to the
group of seceding Liberals, and their position was called the "Cave."

[Illustration: JOHN STUART MILL. (_From a Photograph, by F. Hollyer, of
the Painting by G. F. Watts, R.A._)]

The Bill was brought in, and read a first time, and the House adjourned
for the Easter Holidays to think over the situation. It was evident that
a storm was coming and questions perhaps graver than that of the fate of
a Cabinet or of a measure were dependent on the issue. A great meeting
was held at Liverpool, at which Mr. Gladstone made a speech in defence
of the Bill. Mr. Lowe's Liberal constituents at Calne wrote him a strong
protest against his conduct and clearly indicated that he must not ask for
a continuance of their confidence. His answer to them was, in fact, an
answer to a perfect chorus of invective with which he was greeted by every
Liberal newspaper and in every meeting of Liberals throughout the country.

He maintained that he had but fulfilled the announcement which he had
made to them at the time of his election in 1865, when the words of his
address had been, "I attach too much importance to the blessings we
already enjoy, to risk them in pursuit of ideal perfection, or even of
theoretical improvement." And, while with perfect frankness he affirmed
his belief that "ignorant, drunken, venal, violent" people were to be
found at the bottom of the constituencies, he denied that he had meant the
words to apply to a whole class of his countrymen. But this disclaimer
availed little; the words had been spoken, and they stuck. The popular
excitement which they caused continued after the failure of the Bill
and throughout the winter of 1866, and was directed mainly against the
"renegade Liberals." Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech was of the most
uncompromising kind. "We do not desire," he said, "we should be the first
to resist, sudden and violent sweeping changes; but the progressive
enlargement of the popular franchise--with due regard to the state and
circumstances of the country--we do not consider liable to the application
of any of these epithets. Having produced this measure, framed in a spirit
of moderation, we hope to support it with decision.... We stake ourselves,
we stake our existence as a Government, and we also stake our political
character, on the adoption of the Bill in its main provisions. You have
a right to expect from us that we should tell you what we mean, and that
the trumpet which it is our business to blow shall give forth no uncertain
sound. Its sound has not been, and I trust will not be, uncertain. We have
passed the Rubicon, we have broken the bridge and burned the boats behind
us.... The defeat of the Bill, what would it procure? an interval, but not
an interval of repose--an interval of fever, an interval of expectation,
an interval for the working of those influences which might extend even to
the formidable dimensions of political danger."

The great debate on the second reading began on the 12th of April; and
never within living memory had a finer display of eloquence, argument,
and energy been witnessed within the walls of the House of Commons. Mr.
Gladstone had seen enough of the spirit of opposition that had been
awakened to render it necessary for him to make an elaborate speech on
moving the second reading, directed mainly against the amendment of
which notice had been given by Lord Grosvenor, the eldest son of the
Marquis of Westminster. This amendment, which was to be seconded by Lord
Stanley, was to the effect "that it was inexpedient to consider this Bill
until the House had before it the whole scheme of representation;" that
is to say, that it was inexpedient to break up the Reform legislation
into two parts, to separate the question of the franchise from the
question of redistribution. Mr. Kinglake, a supporter of Government,
moved an amendment to the same effect, though he was ready to postpone
redistribution until the second reading had been carried. This compromise
was accepted by Government. It is not necessary to go through the points
that Mr. Gladstone raised; for to do so would be to anticipate the course
of the debate, so exhaustive and voluminous was his eloquence. The
former part of the speech was of a more general kind than that which
had introduced the Bill originally; it was a sort of answer to Mr. Lowe
and to those who had denied the necessity and the demand for Reform,
and it dwelt with immense force upon the pledges given in past years by
Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Horsman, and others, now strenuous opposers of Reform
in any shape. Mr. Gladstone had previously denounced as a "deplorable
arrangement," "a gross blunder springing from that kind of cleverness
which so often outwits itself," the design of the opponents of the Bill
to place themselves under the guidance of "the representatives of two of
our noblest and most ancient houses." Indeed, it looked very much like
a combination of aristocracy against democracy, when from the Liberal
side of the House rose Lord Grosvenor to move an amendment, and from
the Conservative side rose Lord Stanley to second it. Lord Grosvenor's
speech was not specially effective, except from the family weight of the
speaker. It mainly turned upon the affront put upon the Whig families by
Government, in not having sufficiently taken them into their counsels.
Lord Stanley was more telling. Alluding to the coming general election,
he protested against the chance of allowing the extension of the suffrage
to be dealt with by one Parliament, and the redistribution of seats by
another. The Franchise Bill, if carried, would confer a great increase
of power upon the Radical element in the constituencies--an increase of
power which would lead to the return of a much more Radical Parliament
than the present, pledged by the very circumstances of its existence to
extreme measures. Was it safe to leave to its tender mercies a question
involving so many complicated interests as that of the redistribution of
seats? Mr. John Stuart Mill, in an able speech, followed Lord Stanley, and
had no difficulty in showing this to be the real grievance and bugbear of
the great families who had still so much influence over British politics,
though Lord Stanley had hardly ventured to put it into such a definite
form; but were there any real grounds for this fear of the working
classes? For it was at bottom that and nothing else. The blue book of Mr.
Lambert, said Mr. Mill, after an eloquent vindication of the rights of the
workmen as a class, had revealed the fact that but twenty-six per cent. of
the electors were of the working classes.

Mr. Mill's speech may be said to have established his parliamentary
reputation, and many of the subsequent speakers took great pains to answer
his arguments. Indeed, it was necessary to do so, if the opposition to
the Bill was to be justified, for Mr. Mill's speech had been a vigorous
attempt to show that on many important questions legislation would be
wiser and better if the working classes were more represented. Education,
sanitary reform, the diminution of pauperism, the diminution of crime--in
a word, the social side of politics--would, he maintained, be better
handled by a reformed than by an unreformed Parliament; and, if so, an
approach to democracy should rather be welcomed than feared. These were
the points chiefly dwelt upon by the Opposition speakers--by the orthodox
Conservatives like Sir Hugh Cairns, by Mr. Disraeli, by the "Cave,"
represented by Mr. Laing, Mr. Horsman, Lord Elcho, and notably Mr. Lowe.

Mr. Disraeli's summing up of the case of the Opposition was clever,
but not very telling; it was, except at the end, too vague. The end,
however, gave Mr. Gladstone what he wanted. Quoting from the late Sir
George Cornewall Lewis, and addressing himself to Mr. Gladstone's famous
assertion that the working classes were "the same flesh and blood" as the
upper classes, Mr. Disraeli said:--"Sir George Lewis would not have built
up the constituent body on the rights of man. He would not have entrusted
the destiny of the country to the judgment of a numerical majority. He
would not have counselled the Whig party to reconstruct their famous
institutions on the American model, and to profit in time by the wisdom of
the children of their loins. Sir, it is because I wish to avert from this
country such calamities and disasters that I shall vote for the amendment
of the noble lord."

When the leader of the Tory party sat down, Mr. Gladstone rose and took
for his starting-point the last words of Mr. Disraeli. "At last, sir," he
said, "we have obtained a clear declaration from an authoritative source;
and we now know that a Bill which, in a country with five millions of
adult males, proposes to add to the present limited constituency 200,000
of the middle class and 200,000 of the working class is, in the judgment
of the leader of the Tory party, a Bill to reconstruct the Constitution on
American principles." The speech which followed was, for sheer eloquence,
one of the very greatest of Mr. Gladstone's parliamentary efforts; it
began at one o'clock in the morning, and, after reviewing the whole course
of the debate, it ended at three. "You may drive us from our seats," he
ended, "you may slay, you may bury the measure that we have introduced.
But we will write upon its gravestone for an epitaph this line, with
certain confidence in its fulfilment--

    'Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor!'

You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social
forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and which the tumult
of these debates does not for a moment impede or disturb, those great
social forces are against you; they work with us; they are marshalled
in our support. And the banner which we now carry in the fight, though
perhaps at some moment of the struggle it may droop over our sinking
heads, yet will float again in the eye of heaven, and will be borne by the
firm hands of the united people of the Three Kingdoms, perhaps not to an
easy, but to a certain and not distant victory."

It was three o'clock in the morning when Mr. Gladstone finished his
speech, but the crowded and excited House showed no signs of fatigue.
When the Speaker put the question, the roar of "Ayes" and "Noes" which
answered him was heard far beyond the walls of the House by the waiting
crowds outside. Amid great excitement the two camps parted into their
respective lobbies, and shortly afterwards the result of the division
was announced as follows:--For the second reading, 318; against it,
313. Majority for Government, 5. Both sides of the House cheered the
announcement of these critical numbers--the Liberals for the fact of a
majority, the Conservatives for the smallness of it. When the uproar
had somewhat abated, Mr. Gladstone stated that he would declare what
course the Government proposed to take on the Monday following, the
30th of April. In the few days which intervened there were many rumours
abroad as to the probable resignation of the Cabinet. However, when the
House re-assembled, Mr. Gladstone announced that the Government did not
consider the division on Lord Grosvenor's motion any sufficient reason
for resigning, and that they were prepared to proceed with the Bill in
the manner which the House seemed to prefer. They would now lose no time
in producing the Redistribution Scheme as well as the Scottish and Irish
Bills, and they promised that the House should have ample time to consider
the Redistribution Scheme before going on with the Franchise Bill. In
answer to some reproaches of inconsistency from the Opposition benches,
Mr. Gladstone replied that the Government had indeed pledged themselves
to stand or fall by the Bill, but as yet the Bill had not fallen--the
alteration now effected in it was, after all, a question of arrangement
only, and did not affect any vital principle of it.

On the 7th of May the Redistribution of Seats Bill was introduced. The
Bill provided, first, for the redistribution of seats, properly so called;
and secondly, for a more accurate settlement of borough boundaries
than had been accomplished by the Reform Bill of 1832. With regard to
the first question, Mr. Gladstone announced that Government had no
intention of trying to get rid of bribery by a wholesale extinction of
small boroughs. In the first place, to get rid of bribery was not the
object of the Bill; and secondly, corruption, that "leprosy of English
politics," was not confined to small boroughs, and no hard and fast line
of electoral purity could be drawn between boroughs above or beneath
the ten thousand line of population. Moreover, the question of small
boroughs had since the Reform Act assumed a very different aspect. In
1832 the extreme measure of extinction--"capital punishment," as Mr. Lowe
called it--had to be employed wholesale, since in many places throughout
England the exercise of the franchise had become a mere "mockery of the
representative system." Now, however, every member did in some way or
other represent the views, as well as the interests, of a real local
community; and the representation of the small boroughs was in so much
better a state generally that no such summary measures as those adopted
in 1832 ought now to be taken with regard to it. No borough, then, was
to be absolutely extinguished, but "the fair demands of justice and
growing population," in other words, the electoral deficiencies of the
great manufacturing towns, were to be met by the milder expedient of
arranging small boroughs in groups--a principle which had been already
successfully adopted in Scotland and Wales. These groups were to be
arranged according to geographical convenience; in some cases they were
to consist of two boroughs, in others of three, and in one case of four.
"When the population amounts to less than fifteen thousand we propose to
assign one representative, and when it exceeds that number we propose
to give it two." Mr. Gladstone then proceeded to run through the names
of the various groups proposed. There were eight pairs of boroughs: in
seven instances the group was composed of three, and in one, as we have
said, of four. That is to say, that where two or more small towns had
been accustomed to return each of them a representative, they were, in
future, to constitute a group returning one jointly. Mr. Gladstone
calculated that by these arrangements forty-nine seats would be set
free for redistribution, and having now sketched the disenfranchisement
side of the scheme, he proceeded to consider the still more important
question of enfranchisement. The franchise was to be given for the first
time to the six boroughs of Burnley, Stalybridge, Gravesend, Hartlepool,
Middlesborough, and Dewsbury. Government proposed to apportion the
remaining forty-three seats as follows:--Twenty-six additional members
were to be given to the English counties, a third member to Liverpool,
Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, one member to the University of London,
four additional members to the metropolitan constituencies of Chelsea
and the Tower Hamlets, and one to the borough of Salford. The seven
seats still remaining were to be handed over to Scotland. Ireland and
Wales, Government considered, were already adequately represented, and
they were, therefore, left out of account in this division of the spoils
of redistribution. With regard to the question of borough boundaries,
a vexed and difficult one, the Bill proposed little in the way of
actual legislation. It provided that "wherever the municipal boundary
includes any area that is not now within the parliamentary boundary, the
parliamentary boundary is to be so far enlarged as to include that area."
The Commissioners of Enclosures were to decide the boundaries of the newly
enfranchised towns, of the newly separated halves of the Tower Hamlets,
and, in cases of municipal extension--such as occurred when any outlying
suburb of a town became large enough and united enough to claim municipal
privileges--the parliamentary line was to follow whatever local line might
be adopted.

In conclusion, Mr. Gladstone stated that Government was prepared to treat
the two Bills--the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill--exactly
as the House thought best. They were willing, if the House desired it,
to make one Bill out of them, but in no circumstances would Ministers
advise a prorogation of Parliament till both questions had been disposed
of. This marked concession to the demands of the Opposition only produced
some captious remarks from Mr. Disraeli, to the effect that Government
did not know its own mind; and that, in leaving the choice of the mode of
procedure to the House, it was abdicating its functions.

[Illustration: SCENE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS: A NARROW MAJORITY. (_See p._
395.)]

After leave was given to bring in the Bill, the Scottish and Irish Reform
Bills were introduced. The Scottish Bill provoked some discussion,
but, on the whole, the House seemed to have made up its mind to let
the Franchise question comparatively alone till the Redistribution of
Seats, which most members considered a far more personal and pressing
question, should have been settled. In the week that intervened between
the introduction and the second reading of the Redistribution Bill, two
notices were put upon the order book of the House, which gave Government
ample warning of a troublesome time coming. One was Mr. Bouverie's motion
to consolidate the Franchise Bill and the Redistribution Bill and make
one measure of them; the other and more important one, moved by Captain
Hayter, was to the effect "that in the opinion of this House the system
of grouping proposed by Government is neither convenient nor equitable,
nor sufficiently matured to form the basis of a satisfactory measure."
Before they came on for discussion, however, the Redistribution Bill
passed the second reading without formal opposition, though Mr. Disraeli
took the opportunity of making a vigorous defence of small boroughs.
After the Whitsuntide holidays the hottest part of the contest began.
Lord Russell wrote a strong appeal to Lord Grosvenor, but without effect.
Government announced that they were prepared to fuse the two Bills, and
that they were willing to give every facility for discussion of Captain
Hayter's amendment, but the "Cave" and the Conservatives were not to be
conciliated; and Sir Rainald Knightley's motion, to add to the twofold
Bill, already unwieldy in size, provisions against bribery and corruption
at elections, both surprised and annoyed Ministers. Mr. Gladstone opposed
it warmly. As he said afterwards, "We had already an overweighted measure,
and it was impossible to find time to consider it alone," without adding
to it any fresh material for discussion. But the Opposition rallied round
the motion, and it was carried by a majority of ten against Government.
Mr. Gladstone once more gave way and announced that if Sir Rainald
Knightley could produce a matured scheme for the prevention of bribery
at the proper time and place, Government would not oppose the discussion
of it. Captain Hayter's amendment against the system of grouping was
brilliantly debated for five nights. Mr. Mill, Mr. Lowe, Sir Hugh Cairns,
Mr. Gladstone, and Mr. Disraeli showed themselves at their best; and
the clever skirmishing of Mr. Lowe, and the more serious but hardly
more logical speeches of Mr. Disraeli, contrasted well with Mr. Mill's
grave sarcasms upon the "dense solid force of sheer stupidity" in the
Conservative party, and the sincere enthusiasm of Mr. Gladstone. Mr.
Disraeli, in the speech which concluded the debate, did his best to defend
his party from the charge of factious opposition; but when one considers
what a much more sweeping Bill than the one they were at present opposing,
on the ground of its Radical tendencies, was passed by him and his party
in the following year, his arguments appear hardly convincing. When he
resumed his seat, the amendment was negatived by 403 to 2, the greater
part of the Opposition having left the House to avoid voting, seeing that
Lord Grosvenor's defection from their ranks left them little or no chance
of obtaining a majority against Government.

So far, and upon questions of general principles, Government had in the
main, though with great difficulty, and at least one hair-breadth escape,
been successful; that is to say, the House as a whole, with the exception,
perhaps, of Mr. Lowe, were agreed that Reform in some shape or other was
inevitable. But the Opposition were also agreed in the determination not
to let the Russell Ministry settle the question. A successful Reform
Bill would have continued the Liberals in power, as later it kept the
Conservatives in office, and Mr. Disraeli saw his opportunity and seized
it. Reform, especially that side of it which is concerned with the
redistribution of seats, rouses the most apathetic Conservative member,
and Mr. Disraeli could therefore count upon the undivided support of his
party. But Mr. Gladstone's majority would have baffled all their efforts,
had it not been for the unexpected defection of the "Cave." The opposition
of Lord Grosvenor, Mr. Lowe, Mr. Horsman, and others to the Bill meant
victory to the Conservatives; and Mr. Disraeli would not have been Mr.
Disraeli had he not known how to use the advantage thus given him. So
that while in committee the fortunes of the Bill went wavering backwards
and forwards over the debatable ground of "rateable value," or "gross
yearly rental," all the world knew that it was in reality no question of
details, no question indeed of Reform, but a question of a Liberal or
a Conservative Ministry that was being so obstinately fought out. The
general consciousness of this gave an unusual piquancy to the discussion
of even the dullest of those details of which a Reform Bill is full. The
cleverness and determination of the opponents of the Ministry were notably
shown in a most unexpected attack upon the Bill made by Lord Stanley on
June 7th. The House in committee was engaged in debating the 4th clause
of the now consolidated Bill, relating to the county franchise, which it
was proposed to reduce to £14. Mr. Gladstone had just made an elaborate
defence of the clause against a hostile amendment moved by Mr. Walpole,
and all seemed going on as usual, when, to the amazement of the Tory side
of the House, no less than of the Liberals, Lord Stanley, the member for
Lynn, advanced quietly to the table and moved "that the portion of the
joint Bill which relates to the redistribution of seats be taken first,"
or, in other words, that the Franchise Bill should be postponed _sine
diê_. "This brief speech," says the historian of the year, "had the effect
of a _coup de théâtre_." Lord Stanley went on to give various plausible
reasons for the motion, but the House, in spite of its astonishment, was
not to be taken in.

The tendency of the motion and the animus which prompted it were very
plainly visible, and the indignant Liberal benches applauded every word of
Mr. Gladstone's speech in answer to it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
ironically complimented the Opposition upon their perfect knowledge of
the "art of ambush." At last, it seemed, they had made up their minds,
so long in uncertainty, as to what step they should take next, and this
new strategy was the result of their cogitations. Loudly cheered by his
supporters, Mr. Gladstone went on to say that Government would never
suffer the conduct of the measure to be taken out of their hands by such
a motion. They were pledged to accomplish, or at least to attempt, the
enfranchisement of the people, and to that object they would adhere so
long as they retained the support of the House. Lord Stanley's motion was
defeated by a majority of 27, a larger majority than had yet fallen to
the lot of Government since the beginning of the Reform debates, for the
strong sense of unfair treatment among the Liberals kept several waverers
loyal to the Ministry who would otherwise have voted with the Opposition.
Nor was this all. "The engineer was indeed for once hoist with his own
petard," for the feeling awakened by Lord Stanley's motion did Government
good service in the next division which they had to encounter, namely,
upon Mr. Walpole's amendment, the debate on which had been interrupted by
Lord Stanley's speech. Mr. Walpole was beaten by a majority of 14.

A far more vital question, however, was raised on June 11th by Mr. Ward
Hunt, member for Northamptonshire, and one leading to much more important
consequences. He proposed to make the basis of the county franchise, not
the "gross yearly rental" of any given property, but its "rateable value;"
while Lord Dunkellin followed suit with a similar motion with regard to
the borough franchise. The Bill as originally drawn up gave the borough
franchise "to the occupier, as owner or tenant of premises of any tenure
within the borough, of a clear yearly value of seven pounds or upwards;"
and the same expression was used in the case of the county franchise;
clear yearly value meaning the same as "gross estimated rental."

The "gross estimated rental" of a house, according to the Union Assessment
Committee Act of 1862, is defined as "the rent at which the hereditaments
might reasonably be expected to let from year to year, free from all usual
tenants' rates and taxes and tithe commutation rent-charge, if any."
But the rateable value, the yearly value, that is to say, at which the
house is assessed in the rate-books for rating purposes, is computed from
the "gross estimated rental" by making various deductions. The scale of
these deductions varies according to local needs; thus, in some places,
"rateable value" is ascertained by deducting 10 per cent. from "gross
estimated rental," in others 15 per cent., and in others as much as 35
or 36 per cent. The substitution of "rateable value" for "clear yearly
value" in clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill would considerably diminish the
number of new voters to be enfranchised by the Bill. That is to say, a £5
rating franchise would even hardly admit as many voters as the £7 rental
franchise, because the "rateable value" was always something below the
"gross estimated rental," and sometimes, as we have seen, very much below
it. Mr. Ward Hunt said frankly that the object of his amendment was to
raise the county franchise to a higher standard than if the clause passed
without amendment. He thought the £14 franchise would admit an excessive
number of votes.

Mr. Gladstone in a short, clear speech defended the basis adopted by
Government, and once more patiently explained what was meant by the terms
"rateable value" and "gross estimated rental," an explanation of which
many members of the House stood greatly in need. A smart passage of arms
followed between the Solicitor-General and Mr. Disraeli; and finally, upon
a division, the amendment was negatived by a narrow majority of seven
votes. Lord Dunkellin's motion, to the same effect with respect to the
borough franchise, met with very different success. Its mover supported
the principle of rating rather than rental, because he believed it, he
said, to be the more convenient, inexpensive, and constitutional method
of giving the franchise of the two. Whatever were the inequalities of
rating, the inequalities of rental, he contended, were greater still.
Mr. Gladstone again rose in answer, this time to give so determined a
statement of the course Government intended to pursue, that it was at
once felt that the crisis of the whole matter had at last been reached.
A warm and exciting debate followed. Mr. Bright strongly supported
Government, urging that if the amendment were carried, the great aim and
object of the Bill would be defeated, and the legitimate hopes of the
working classes once more disappointed. Other speakers followed, but
all the world knew there was not much to be said now on either side.
Finally, Mr. Gladstone clinched his first speech by the brief repetition
of Government's determination not to accept the amendment, and to regard
the carrying of it as incompatible with the further progress of the Bill.
It was a quarter-past one o'clock when the crowded House divided, and amid
a scene of great excitement the following numbers were announced: For the
amendment, 315; against it, 304. Majority against Government, 11. Long and
loud was the cheering of the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli had won his battle,
and the immediate political future, at least, was in the hands of the
Conservatives.

On the day following this important division it was generally known
that the Russell Ministry was at an end; in fact, in the evening Lord
Russell and Mr. Gladstone formally announced to the two Houses that the
Ministry had sent in their resignations to the Queen, and motions of
adjournment to the following Monday, the 25th of June, were agreed to. It
was on Tuesday, the 26th, however, that Mr. Gladstone made his promised
statement in the House of Commons. The House was crowded in every part,
and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer rose, he was greeted with a
burst of tumultuous cheering. "Sir," he said, "the suspense, which the
House yesterday so kindly consented to prolong, is at an end, and her
Majesty has been pleased to accept the resignation of their offices,
which was last week tendered by the Government. The House is aware that
her Majesty thought fit in her wisdom to postpone the acceptance of that
tender when it was first made. It appeared to her Majesty that, upon the
first aspect of the vote which led to the tender of our resignation, it
might, perhaps be considered as a matter of mere machinery and detail,
susceptible of adjustment, rather than as one which tended to break up
the framework of the Bill; and her Majesty also felt, and I think the
House and the country, without distinction of party, will agree in that
sentiment, that, in the present state of affairs on the continent of
Europe, there is necessarily a disadvantage in a change of Government.
Without the slightest approach to any invidious preference or distinction,
it may truly be said that at such a moment it is not easy for any incoming
Administration to step at once into the exact conditions of relations with
Governments and Ministers abroad which was enjoyed by their predecessors;
and that difficulty, whatever may be its amount, is in itself a public
disadvantage." Upon these grounds, then, the Queen had been for some
little time unwilling to accept their resignation, until a long conference
with Lord Russell had convinced her that the step was inevitable, and the
resignations were accepted.

The accuracy of this statement is fully borne out by the correspondence
between Lord Russell and the Queen, published by Mr. Spencer Walpole in
his "Life of Lord John Russell." From the first her Majesty had desired
that, in view of the serious state of the Continent, the Ministry should
act in a spirit of compromise and conciliation. The Prime Minister fully
acknowledged the critical condition of foreign affairs, and therefore
strongly advised her Majesty to postpone her visit to Scotland. But he
also wrote that "Lord Russell would ill serve your Majesty's interests
and those of the country if, by any premature concession, he were to
expose his own character and that of Mr. Gladstone to the loss of public
confidence, and those who would most taunt and reproach them with such a
concession would be their implacable and inveterate enemies." This was
before the division on Lord Dunkellin's motion; after it had occurred,
he wrote that the proceedings of the last few weeks had convinced the
Ministry that nothing was to be gained by protracted discussions on the
Bill, that the reasons against a dissolution, founded on the general
apathy of the South of England, appeared to them valid, and that there
was no alternative to a resignation. The Queen replied that she had
been completely taken by surprise, as she understood that there was no
crisis, and that she did not consider Ministers were fulfilling their
duty to herself or the country by abandoning their posts in consequence
of a defeat on a matter of detail and not of principle. The Premier
stuck to his text that Lord Dunkellin's amendment was a vital issue; he
thought, however, that it might be possible to postpone the Bill with a
declaration that it would be submitted unaltered to the present or a new
Parliament. Finally, the Cabinet determined that if they could obtain
from the House an expression of confidence together with a desire for the
reintroduction of the Bill at an early period, they would retain their
offices. When there appeared no reasonable prospect of the fulfilment of
these conditions, they had no option but to resign.

The dislocation of the Liberal party was so complete that no reasonable
prospect remained of a stable Government being formed by any of the
fractions into which it had been temporarily shivered. When, therefore,
the Queen sent for Lord Derby and requested him to form a Ministry, that
statesman, although the Conservative party was in so decided a minority in
the House of Commons, accepted without hesitation the responsibility of
undertaking the government of the country. Mr. Disraeli became Chancellor
of the Exchequer; Mr. Walpole went to the Home Office; Lord Stanley and
Lord Cranborne were appointed Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for
India respectively; General Peel and Sir John Pakington accepted the chief
posts in the War Office and the Admiralty; Lord Carnarvon became Secretary
for the Colonies; and the Marquis of Abercorn accepted the Vice-royalty
of Ireland. This, it will be evident, was a purely Conservative
Administration; such, however, had not been the desire of Lord Derby,
who made overtures to some of the leaders of the recalcitrant Liberals,
which were declined. Mr. Lowe was approached, so were Lord Grosvenor and
Lord Lansdowne; the last would have joined, had not his sudden death
intervened. Lord Shaftesbury also declined, and so did Lord Clarendon,
either because, according to Bishop Wilberforce, he "hated Disraeli," or
because, according to Lord Malmesbury, the Conservative irregulars were
preparing an attack on his foreign policy. The Adullamites would have
joined a Government under Lord Stanley, whose explanation of his father's
ill success with the dissentient Whigs made a few days later to his
constituents at Lynn, was doubtless the true one. "We have not desired,"
he said, "to form our Administration upon any narrow party basis There
are many of the Whig party whose sympathies are well known to be with
us, whose support in debate and divisions we have no doubt of receiving,
and whose official co-operation, where it has been asked, has only been
withheld not on account of any real or wide difference of political
opinion, but rather from that natural and honourable scruple which makes
men shrink from the appearance of changing their party--of walking, as the
phrase is, across the floor of the House--under circumstances where they
may possibly appear to be personal gainers by the change."

[Illustration: THE LOBBY, HOUSE OF COMMONS.]

Mr. Disraeli went down for re-election to his constituents in
Buckinghamshire, and there delivered an address that adumbrated with
considerable clearness the course which the new Government intended
to, and which it actually did, pursue. There was a notion that the
Conservatives were more favourable to intervention in the affairs of
foreign countries than the Liberals; that in their hands the country was
more likely to drift into war; and this notion, so fatal to the popularity
of any political party with that pacific generation of Englishmen, Mr.
Disraeli took great pains to dispel. "The abstention of England from any
unnecessary interference in the affairs of Europe is the consequence, not
of her decline of power, but of her increased strength. England is no
longer a mere European Power; she is the metropolis of a great maritime
empire, extending to the boundaries of the farthest ocean. It is not
that England has taken refuge in a state of apathy, that she now almost
systematically declines to interfere in the affairs of the continent
of Europe. England is as ready and as willing to interfere as in old
days, when the necessity of her position requires it. There is no Power,
indeed, that interferes more than England. She interferes in Asia, because
she is really more an Asiatic Power than a European. She interferes in
Australia, in Africa, and in New Zealand, where she carries on war often
on a great scale. Therefore it is not because England does not recognise
her duty to interfere in the affairs of the continent of Europe, that
persons are justified in declaring that she has relinquished her imperial
position, and has taken refuge in the _otium cum dignitate_ which agrees
with the decline of life, of power, and of prosperity. On the contrary,
she has a greater sphere of action than any European Power, and she has
duties devolving upon her on a much larger scale." On the subject of
Parliamentary Reform Mr. Disraeli was decidedly explicit. He would not
for one moment allow that Reform was a Liberal preserve, and that in
dealing with the question the Conservatives were poaching on forbidden
ground. "I hear very often," he said, "that the subject of Parliamentary
Reform is the great difficulty of the present Ministry, and will be their
stumbling-block. I am quite of a different opinion. I see no difficulty in
the subject at all; and if we stumble, rest assured we shall not stumble
over the subject of Parliamentary Reform. If Parliamentary Reform is to
be dealt with, I consider the present Government have as good a right to
deal with it as any body of statesmen in existence. The great Reform Bill
of 1832 was mainly devised by Lord Derby, and was entirely carried by his
energy; and with regard to the only measure on the subject, since the
great Reform Bill, ever mentioned with respect, why, I myself brought it
in. I have remarked, during the recent campaign in the House of Commons,
that every division that took place, and every strong manifestation of
opinion which was expressed, ratified the principle upon which the Bill of
1859 was founded. And night after night, sitting in that House opposite to
me, distinguished Liberals of all hues rose, and, in a tone of courteous
penitence, publicly avowed how much they regretted they had voted against
the Bill of 1859."

On the 9th of July, the new arrangements having been completed, Lord Derby
made a Ministerial statement in the House of Lords, the leading ideas of
which were in close agreement with those enunciated by Mr. Disraeli in the
speech from which we have just quoted. At this late period of the Session,
the Budget for the year having been already discussed and settled, it was
out of the question that the new Government should do more than wind up
the business of legislation with all possible despatch, and then dismiss
the members to their homes. In a considerable section of the large Liberal
majority that now crowded the Opposition benches, a determination was
apparent to give the new Ministry a fair trial, and neither to join in,
nor permit the success of, any factious or precipitate attempt to place
them in a minority.

Besides that of the Premier, but one important Ministerial statement
was made before the close of the Session; this, which was delivered by
Lord Cranborne on the 19th of July, related to the finances of India,
and was regarded on both sides of the House as a masterly and lucid
exposition. Though so far satisfactory, inasmuch as it showed that, during
the last three years, the Indian Government had very nearly succeeded
in establishing an equilibrium between receipts and expenditure, it was
calculated to occasion some anxiety on account of the proofs which it
afforded of the inelastic character of a large proportion of the sources
from which the Indian revenue is derived, of the complete failure of
the income tax, on the introduction of which such ardent hopes had been
founded, and of the degree in which the prosperity of Indian finance was
dependent on the rise or fall of the opium tax. The estimate of revenue
from this single tax was £8,500,000; and Lord Cranborne reluctantly
admitted that "opium had become the essential element in Eastern finance."
Yet the general picture which he drew of the material condition of India
was eminently satisfactory. The railway expenditure had been a source of
enormous success; the Great Indian Peninsula line paid 7 per cent. on its
capital, and the East Indian nearly 5 per cent., though neither of them
was fully and thoroughly opened. Taking a comprehensive survey of the
condition of India, he said that "education was progressing; public works,
particularly of irrigation, were going on; railways advancing; the Ganges
Canal had been rendered more fitted for its great purposes; and there was
much evidence of prosperity."

The administrative skill and prudence of the new Home Secretary were
severely tested before the close of the Session. On the committee of the
Reform League of London Mr. Edmond Beales and Colonel Dickson were the
most influential persons, and in a series of meetings they had taught
their audiences to believe that without manhood suffrage and the ballot
the British Constitution was one-sided and imperfect. The advent to
power of a Conservative Ministry raised the ardour of the Leaguers to a
pitch of yet more enthusiastic warmth than before, and it was announced
that a great public meeting would be held in Hyde Park, on the evening
of the 23rd of July, in order to demand the immediate extension of the
suffrage. The authorities feared that the demonstration, occurring at
so late an hour, might be taken advantage of by the "roughs" to create
a disturbance, under cover of which thefts on a large scale might be
perpetrated; it was resolved, therefore, that this meeting should be
prohibited. Placards signed by the Chief Commissioner of Police, Sir
Richard Mayne, were, early in the afternoon, extensively posted throughout
London, stating that the park gates would be closed to the public at five
o'clock. The League and its adherents viewed the attempt to suppress their
oratory with the deepest indignation, and a written notice was forwarded
by the "Demonstration Committee" to the various sub-committees, to the
effect that the members were to march in procession to the park, and, if
prevented from entering it, were then to form four deep, and proceed by
way of Grosvenor Place, Victoria Street, and past the Houses of Parliament
to Trafalgar Square. The Procession of Leaguers was formed on Clerkenwell
Green, when several speeches of a highly inflammatory nature were
delivered before the march was commenced.

The procession set out shortly before five o'clock, and proceeded along
Holborn and Oxford Street to the Marble Arch. Here things presented an
animated appearance. A force of foot and mounted police, numbering 1,600
or 1,800, had been assembled within the park, under the direction of Sir
Richard Mayne and Captain Harris; and at five o'clock the gates were
closed. A large number of spectators had previously entered the park, to
witness the arrival of the procession; and with these the police did not
interfere. Arrived at the Marble Arch, Mr. Beales, Colonel Dickson, and
other prominent Leaguers, alighted from the foremost carriages, and going
up to the gate, demanded admission to the park from the police. This was
refused, on the authority of "our Commissioner;" and then Mr. Beales,
re-forming the procession as well as he could in the midst of the dense
crowd, led as many as would follow him down Park Lane, and, by the streets
already named, to Trafalgar Square. Here several speeches were delivered,
but all accounts represent the proceedings as remarkably tame.

Meanwhile the mob that had gathered about the Marble Arch, both in Park
Lane and in Bayswater Road, exasperated at the loss of the excitement
which the meeting would have afforded them, and partly, no doubt, animated
by resentment at what seemed needlessly arbitrary conduct on the part of
the police, pressed close up to the park railings; the bolder spirits
seized them, shook them; grasped by hundreds of strong hands at once,
they swayed--they gave way. In an instant a hundred practicable breaches
afforded that admission into the park which the police had denied.
Down came the police, horse and foot, upon the invaders; but they were
distracted by the multitude of inroads, and disconcerted by the ease with
which the railings were laid prostrate in every direction. They used their
truncheons freely, and many a head was cut open; but the mob, besides the
advantage of overwhelming numbers, took to stone-throwing, and many of
the police were severely injured. Sir Richard Mayne, who had himself been
wounded, then sent for the military. A detachment of Foot Guards soon
arrived, followed by a troop of Life Guards. The mob cheered the soldiers,
who posted themselves near the Marble Arch, occasionally marching upon
any specially dense assemblage of persons, and compelling them to shift
their ground. Speeches were made by excited orators at various points
within the park, after the mob had forced their way in; but the confusion
that prevailed was such that little attention seems to have been paid to
them. On the southern side of the park also, in the Knightsbridge Road,
a number of mischievous persons congregated, and broke down two hundred
yards of the park railing. After the arrival of the soldiers, the police
endeavoured to make a number of arrests, in doing which they met with
violent resistance, and were in many cases severely handled. The partisans
of order were presently reinforced by a second detachment of Foot Guards,
who, with the first detachment, received orders to be in readiness to
fire, should it become necessary. Encounters between the police and the
mob then grew less frequent, and finally quiet was restored when another
body of Life Guards arrived, and assisted in removing the mob from the
park. Much stone-throwing was all this time going on in the streets,
and the windows of the Athenæum and United Service Clubs, as well as of
a number of private houses, were broken. No lives were lost, though a
considerable number of persons received severe injuries.

Mr. Walpole, the new Home Secretary, a man of remarkable humanity and
gentleness, was afflicted beyond measure by the turn matters had taken.
He received a deputation of the Leaguers at the Home Office two days
afterwards, and in conversation with them actually shed tears, and came to
the somewhat ignominious understanding with them, that Government would
cause the police and the military to be withdrawn from the park until the
question as to the legal right of the people to claim admission to it had
been decided, the League meanwhile undertaking to do its best to prevent
any breach of the peace or other misconduct within the park enclosure!
The consequence of such deplorable weakness may be conceived. In a London
paper of the following week it was stated: "The park is still infested,
night after night, by numerous bands of thieves and ruffians, who are
left to prey on defenceless passengers or unwary loungers after dusk,
without the slightest interference of the park-keepers or the police.
Several gross outrages, perpetrated in Hyde Park, about eight or nine
o'clock in the evening, since the enclosure was destroyed last week, have
been narrated by the sufferers themselves, or by witnesses to the fact,
in letters to the daily papers.... A herd of men and boys, estimated at
300 or 400, of the worst class of habitual malefactors, are permitted
to assemble and prowl about the ground, waiting for an opportunity of
plunder."

In Parliament the conduct of Government in prohibiting the meeting was
much canvassed and, by some speakers, severely censured. Mr. Ayrton said
that, instead of appealing at once to force, the Home Secretary ought to
have met the people in a conciliatory spirit on the matter of right and
should have issued a temperate notification explaining how the case really
stood. Mr. Mill declared that if the people had not a right to meet in
the parks, they ought to have it. He added that, as Government seemed
inclined to enrol their names on the list of those who could do more
mischief in an hour than others could repair in years, he exhorted them
to consider seriously the gravity of what they had done on this occasion.
But the majority of speakers on both sides of the House, including
statesmen of long experience, were of opinion that Government, though
perhaps every step taken by Mr. Walpole might not have been judicious,
were substantially justified in what they had done; and Mr. Disraeli
declared that "it had never entered the minds of Ministers that the real
working man, whose general orderly conduct he cordially acknowledged,
would commit acts of riot, but they believed that the scum of the great
city would take advantage of such an assemblage, and the justice of their
apprehensions was proved by the event."

The Queen's Speech at the close of the Session was read by the new Lord
Chancellor (Lord Chelmsford) on the 10th of August. It contained several
paragraphs on the Fenian conspiracy, and the doings of the Fenians both in
Ireland and in Canada, recording in terms of grateful acknowledgment the
good faith and promptitude of the United States Government in checking at
the outset "any attempted invasion of a friendly State." It alluded with
satisfaction to the fact that, although the late Ministry, in the presence
of a financial crisis of almost unexampled severity, had authorised the
Bank of England to infringe the letter of the Bank Charter Act of 1844, if
such a step were required for the accommodation of their customers, yet no
such infringement had actually taken place, the Bank having been able to
weather the storm without it. It spoke of the gradual mitigation of the
cattle plague, of the late visitation of cholera, and of the successful
laying of the Atlantic cable. The murrain had, indeed, continued its
ravages during the earlier half of the year; but, fortunately, as time
went on, the stringent precautions that had been enforced by the Privy
Council produced the desired effect: the cases showed a progressive
reduction in number; and by the end of the year the plague, though not
extinct, was in a material degree abated. Wales continued almost wholly
exempt from the disease; in the South of England its virulence was
continually on the decline; only in the north-western counties it seemed
to hold its ground tenaciously, and in the dairy farms of Cheshire many
ancient pastures were given up in despair to the plough. The total loss
to the country from the disease, even in this year of improvement, was
computed at not less than £3,500,000 in money.

[Illustration: REFORM LEAGUERS AT THE MARBLE ARCH. (_See p._ 403.)]




CHAPTER XXVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Cholera--Laying of the Atlantic Cable--Previous Failures--The
    _Great Eastern's_ first Attempt--Her second Voyage--The
    Undertaking accomplished--Recovery of the broken Cable--Reform
    Demonstrations--The Guildhall Meeting--Meetings at Manchester,
    Leeds, and Elsewhere--Mr. Bright and the Queen--The Government
    prepares a Bill--"Black Friday"--The Overend and Gurney
    Failure--Limited Liability--Royal Marriages--Prize-Money--The
    Loss of the _London_--A bad Harvest--The Fenian Trials--Lord
    Wodehouse's Letter--Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act--Rapid
    Legislation--Wholesale Arrests--The Army purged--Renewal of the
    Act--Lord Kimberley's Speech--Sweeny and Stephens--The Niagara
    Raid--General Spear's Exploit--A peaceful Winter--Whewell and Keble.


The visitation of the cholera in England in 1866 was light in comparison
with what it was in some foreign cities, and with what it had been in
former years in London. The deaths did not materially affect the returns
of mortality for the year; they fell short of eight thousand. In Austria
it was computed that at least 100,000 persons were carried off by cholera
in this year, and there was hardly a week in which the deaths in London
were not exceeded by those in some Continental cities with scarcely a
tenth of its population. This result was certainly owing in great part
to the sanitary precautions and improvements carried out by the Cholera
Committee. The disease kept extending itself as the summer advanced, until
it reached its culminating point in the fortnight between the 21st of July
and the 4th of August; in the week ending on the last-named day 1,053
deaths from cholera were reported in London. Then all at once it began
to subside, and before the month of August had passed, the Lord Mayor
was enabled to suggest a large appropriation of the funds which had been
liberally subscribed by charitable persons (the Queen sent £500) for the
formation and support of cholera hospitals, to the assistance of those who
had been left orphans by the epidemic.

The enterprise of laying an insulated electric cable at the bottom of
the Atlantic in order to secure instantaneous telegraphic communication
between Europe and America--first attempted in 1857, crowned with a
fleeting and illusory success in 1858, and partially accomplished in
1865--was in the summer of this year completely realised, not only by
the successful laying of the cable of 1866, but by the recovery from the
bottom of the sea of the cable of 1865, which was then pieced on to a new
wire rope, and carried safely onward to the shore of Newfoundland. A brief
survey of the previous unsuccessful attempts will not be uninstructive.
In the first, that of 1857, the cable was of a clumsy and ponderous
description, if compared with the lighter and relatively stronger ropes
afterwards adopted. Two men-of-war, the _Agamemnon_ and the _Niagara_,
composed the expedition; the _Niagara_ paying out the cable. When 380
miles had been paid out, the cable broke and the ships returned to port.
In 1858 the same ships were employed and a new plan was tried. The ships
proceeded to the middle of the Atlantic, each with 1,500 miles of cable
on board; here they effected a splice of the two ends of their respective
cargoes and proceeded in different directions, the _Agamemnon_ to the
eastward, the _Niagara_ to the westward, paying out as they went. Even
to the uninitiated this plan would appear to expose the cable to a
needless amount of additional strain, and therefore to increase the risk
of fracture. Twice the cable broke after less than fifty miles had been
paid out; a third time the cable broke, when about 140 miles had been
submerged; a third time the vessels returned to the watery rendezvous,
but they now failed to meet, and each returned separately to Queenstown.
A fourth attempt, at the end of July, was more successful; though the
signalling was repeatedly interrupted during the paying-out process, the
cable did not actually break and the object was supposed to have been
accomplished. The _Niagara_ brought her end to Trinity Bay on the 5th of
August, and on the same day the _Agamemnon_ brought hers to Valentia.
Messages of congratulation were interchanged between the Queen and the
President of the United States (Mr. Buchanan), and for a short time there
was exultation. But a suspiciously great expenditure of electricity was
required on one side of the ocean in order to affect the instrument on
the other. The indications became feebler and feebler, and before any
commercial use had been made of the cable, they ceased entirely.

Much disappointment was felt in both continents and for some years no
fresh attempt was made. In 1864 a new company was formed, under the
auspices of which a new cable was manufactured on a simpler and better
plan, and in July, 1865, the _Great Eastern_, accompanied by the _Sphinx_
and the _Terrible_, men-of-war, commenced to lay it from Valentia. One
thousand two hundred miles of cable had been paid out, and a distance of
only 600 miles remained to be traversed, when, while engaged in hauling in
upon the cable, in order to discover and remove a "fault," the adventurers
had the mortification of seeing it suddenly part. All three ships then
began to fish for the cable with the greatest diligence; but although
repeatedly grappled, it always snapped before it could be raised to the
surface and, after losing an inconceivable amount of rope, the expedition
returned to England.

From the diary kept by the Secretary of the Anglo-American Telegraph
Construction Company on board the _Great Eastern_, we extract a few
interesting particulars with reference to her successful voyage in 1866.
She took her departure from Berehaven, Bantry Bay, on the 12th of July,
having the cable stowed away in large coils in two immense tanks, one
forward, the other aft. The ship was commanded by Captain Anderson;
the "cable crew" and everything connected with the laying of the cable
were under the superintendence of Mr. Canning. The plan was, that the
immense vessel, propelled both by paddles and screw, and, therefore, more
manageable than a vessel dependent on one source of motion, should steam
slowly ahead, paying out the cable as she went over the stern, through
machinery invented for the purpose in the preceding year by Messrs.
Canning and Clifford, which had been found to answer admirably. The shore
end of the cable, which had been laid at Foilhummerum Bay, in Valentia
Island, some days previously, was brought on board the _Great Eastern_ on
the 13th, and made fast to the cable; as soon as the splice was effected,
the paying-out process immediately commenced. For some days the weather
was everything that could be wished. Three men-of-war took part in the
expedition, ready to give immediate aid, if necessary--the _Terrible_,
the _Albany_, and the _Medway_. The insulation of the cable was perfect;
communication between the ship and Valentia was uninterruptedly
maintained, and the last news from Europe, received through the cable,
was printed each day on board, under the title of _The Great Eastern
Telegraph_. The chief check to the prosperous progress of the undertaking
occurred on the 18th of July, and it was a very alarming one. A "foul
flake," or tangle, took place in the after-tank, containing, originally,
more than 800 miles of cable, while the paying-out was tranquilly going
on, a short time after midnight, and was not cleared for an hour and a
half. From this time no incident of much moment marked the progress of
the expedition. As the _Great Eastern_ neared Newfoundland, the weather
became foggy, and the _Albany_ was sent on to Heart's Content, a harbour
in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, to clear the north-east side of the harbour
of shipping, and place a boat with a red flag for Captain Anderson to
steer to for anchorage. By dint of good management--the men-of-war forming
a line of communication between the shore and the _Great Eastern_, and
that one which was nearest to her guiding her through the fog by the
repeated firing of guns--she was piloted into Trinity Bay without accident
on the morning of the 27th of July. The shore end was quickly laid and
the electric union of Europe and America was at last complete. On the
28th Lord Carnarvon telegraphed to Lord Monck at Ottawa felicitations on
the happy result of an enterprise which could not fail to draw closer the
ties of amity and fellowship uniting Canada to England; and on the 30th
congratulatory messages were exchanged between the Queen and President
Johnson.

But this was not all. The task of fishing for the broken end of the cable
of 1865, which the loss of all her spare rope had, as we have seen,
compelled the _Great Eastern_ to abandon in the previous September,
was now resumed with all the eager hope and confidence engendered by
success. The cable had been lost at the depth of about 2,000 fathoms, and
experience had shown that to pick it up at one lift from that enormous
depth was impracticable, the mere weight of the cable, in its resistance
to the force employed by the picking up machinery, being sufficient to
snap it. It was arranged, therefore, that the _Great Eastern_ herself, and
the attendant men-of-war, tracing back the cable for the space of several
miles from the point of fracture, should grapple for it, and when found
raise it, not to the surface, but to various heights from the bottom, so
that several miles of cable should be raised to an altitude intermediate
between the bottom and the surface, and be secured there by buoys attached
to the grappling ropes; and thus the final lift, being only from this
intermediate altitude, might present reasonable chances of success. But
this plan of operations, simple though it be in the telling, involved
a great amount of anxious and exhausting labour, and mechanical and
practical difficulties of various kinds. Eventually it was recovered on
September 1st and was found to be perfectly sound.

The miscarriage of Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill led to periodical
demonstrations during the summer and autumn in favour of the extension of
the franchise. An organised agitation provided that mass meetings should
be held in several of the largest cities in Great Britain at convenient
intervals of time. The riots in and near Hyde Park arose, as we have
seen, out of a Reform demonstration; and the irrepressible Mr. Beales,
whom Mr. Walpole's exquisite sensibility on the subject of broken heads
had probably rather emboldened than mollified, arranged, in concert with
the London Working Men's Association, a great Reform meeting in the
Guildhall on the 8th of August. The Lord Mayor took the chair and opened
the proceedings with the melodramatic declaration that "the man must have
a heart of stone who could witness this magnificent sight without the
deepest emotion." Mr. Beales, in moving the first resolution, feelingly
alluded to the perils which he had undergone in the cause of the people
on the 23rd of July, and concluded by saying, "The prohibition of the
League meeting on the 23rd July, and the exclusion of the public from
Hyde Park on that day, have done far more than a hundred such meetings
could have done to advance the cause of Reform, and unite the people in
its support.... No half-and-half measure of Reform will now be listened
to. The banner of the League, having inscribed on it, 'Residential and
Registered Manhood Suffrage, and the Ballot,' is now hailed in all
quarters." Mr. Odger, seconded the next resolution, which menaced the
existing Government with the withdrawal of all sympathy and support on the
part of the Reformers if they did not speedily introduce a Bill for the
amendment of the representation of the people. Mr. Coffey, also, and Mr.
Charles Bradlaugh spoke in the course of the evening.

About six weeks after this (September 24th) a meeting, supposed to
be larger than any that had been ever assembled in England, was held
at Manchester. Bodies of men from the numerous manufacturing towns
and villages in the neighbourhood were marching into Manchester all
the morning, carrying flags inscribed with the words "National Reform
Union," and proceeded to a large open space called Campfield, where six
platforms had been erected. Notwithstanding the torrents of rain that
continued throughout the day, the numbers assembled were estimated at
between 100,000 and 200,000 persons. In connection with each of the six
platforms three identical resolutions were moved and passed; the general
effect of these resolutions was to identify the people of Manchester, in
opinions and political action, with Mr. Beales and his fellow-agitators.
A high tribute was paid to some of the members of the late Government
and other friends of Reform, particularly Mr. Bright, and Mr. Mill. A
resolution passed in the evening at a great meeting in the Free Trade
Hall showed how deeply the eloquent and sarcastic invectives of Mr. Lowe
were felt and resented by their objects:--"This meeting, while recording
its indignation at the insults offered in Parliament and by the press
to the working classes and their advocates, calls on the people of this
country to allow themselves no longer to be trifled with by an oligarchic
few, and to rally round those men who have upheld their cause." On the
8th of October a great Reform meeting was held at Leeds. The dreary
open space above the town, called Woodhouse Moor, was the scene of the
gathering, at which it was estimated that not less than 200,000 persons
were collected. Resolutions of a similar character to those adopted at
Manchester were passed; several speakers fiercely attacked Mr. Lowe and
vindicated the character of the working men from the aspersions that
had been heaped upon it; nor was the usual vote of confidence in Mr.
Bright forgotten. A similar demonstration took place in Edinburgh in
November. An immense working man's meeting had been arranged for the 3rd
of December, to be held at Beaufort House, Kensington, but it proved to
be less imposing than the promoters had intended, not much more than an
eighth of the 200,000 working men whose presence had been reckoned upon,
actually making their appearance. The oratory was somewhat reckless, but
an antidote was speedily forthcoming. At a Reform meeting of the London
Trades in St. James's Hall (December 4th), Mr. Ayrton was understood to
censure the Queen for not recognising the people when they gathered in
such numbers in front of one of her palaces. In reply to these remarks,
Mr. Bright said:--"I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who
are possessors of crowns, but I could not sit and hear that observation
without a sensation of wonder and of pain. I think that there has been,
by many persons, a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her
desolate and widowed position. And I venture to say this, that a woman--be
she the Queen of a great realm, or be she the wife of one of you labouring
men--who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object
of her life and affections, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great
and generous sympathy with you." Every sentence of this vindication
was greeted with cheers, and at its close there was loud and prolonged
cheering, amidst which the body of people in the hall arose and sang a
verse of "God save the Queen."

[Illustration: A COTTAGE BEDSIDE AT OSBORNE.

AFTER THE PAINTING BY GOURLAY STEELL, R.S.A.]

So persevering and wide-spread an agitation in pursuit of a political
object in a country constitutionally governed must have disposed the
Conservative Government, even if originally averse from mooting it, to
make the question of Parliamentary Reform the serious subject of their
counsels. But we have already seen, from the speech of Mr. Disraeli in
Buckinghamshire, that, although the Government regarded itself as wholly
unpledged, the question of Reform was one that had no terrors for the
versatile and experienced leader of the party in the House of Commons; and
in the course of the winter it became known that the Ministry were engaged
in framing a large and comprehensive measure, and would introduce it early
in the ensuing Session.

[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF THE "GREAT EASTERN" AT TRINITY BAY. (_See p._
407.)]

One of the severest commercial crises ever known in Great Britain will
make the months of May and June, 1866, memorable in the history of banking
and finance. The crash that caused so many goodly and solid-seeming
commercial and financial structures to topple over and collapse in
irretrievable ruin was the natural reaction after a period of feverish,
over-sanguine, and partly unsound speculation. The year 1865 had witnessed
the launch on the money market of a vast number of new undertakings,
carried on by companies offering the advantage of limited liability to
their shareholders, and professing to hold out to the fortunate investor
opportunities of enriching himself beyond the wildest dream of avarice.
As the spring of 1866 wore on, the solvency and utility of some of these
speculations came seriously into question, and a tendency to realise
manifested itself. There was one immense financing firm which in the
magnitude of its discounts had no equal in London. This was the Limited
Liability Company of Overend, Gurney, and Co., the shareholders of which
had, as a great privilege, purchased the goodwill of the business of
the well-known firm of Overend and Gurney the year before, for the sum
of £500,000. At the time they thus sold their business, the firm, as
the subsequent judicial investigation proved, was hopelessly insolvent
to the extent of many millions. The representatives of the new company
must have been either quixotically confiding, or culpably remiss, or
financially incompetent, not to have obtained some inkling, at the time
of the negotiations for the purchase, of the real state of affairs; it
seems certain, however, that their ignorance was as complete as that
of the world outside. In March or April it became known that certain
firms and companies, with which Overend, Gurney, and Co. had had large
transactions, were in difficulties or had suspended payment; a feeling of
uneasiness arose; the shares of the company, which had been quoted at a
good premium, fell below par; and some of the new shareholders, becoming
alarmed, commenced to sell out. An immediate further depreciation of
the shares was, of course, the consequence; this led to increased alarm
and to pressure from the company's creditors. The directors, perceiving
ruin to be imminent, sought assistance from the Bank of England; but the
authorities of that establishment, after investigating the affairs of the
company sufficiently to convince themselves that no slight or temporary
measures of relief would be of the least avail, declined to grant the
accommodation requested. Meanwhile, the run upon them was increasing, and
the price of the shares continually falling; and on the afternoon of May
10th the company had no choice but to close its doors and suspend payment.
The liabilities were stated at the enormous sum of £11,000,000; the
assets, it was feared, and with great reason as the events proved, would,
even if realised in the most favourable circumstances, leave an enormous
margin of indebtedness. Friday morning ushered in a day of universal
panic and consternation in London city, such as had not been seen since
the disastrous year of 1857. The multitude of buyers and sellers, bulls
and bears, knaves and dupes, brokers and investors, who swarm during the
business hours of the day in the streets surrounding the Royal Exchange,
consented together, as if by a tacit understanding, to call the day "Black
Friday." Every half-hour some well-known firm or company, which but the
day before had presented a smiling and prosperous front to the world,
was announced to have suspended payment. Crowds of despairing depositors
collected round the door of Overend, Gurney, and Co., in Lombard Street,
and discussed in tones of anger or despondency the prospects of the
bankruptcy. Upon all the private banks the run was intensely severe; the
managers of these sought assistance from the Bank of England, and, when
the securities were unexceptional, were in no instance refused. But the
consequence was that the Bank, whose reserves at the beginning of the
day were close upon £7,000,000, although it charged 9 per cent. all day
for accommodation, found itself, when the business of the day was over,
with the reserves reduced to little over £3,000,000. What measures the
Bank authorities were driven to in face of this alarming reduction will
presently be related. The crash of falling houses was resounding all day
in the financial ear. The English Joint-Stock Company was one of the first
to go, dragging down with it thirty-one provincial branches in its fall.
Failures for less than half a million were so comparatively unimportant
as to arouse little attention. The convulsion reached its climax towards
the close of the day, when the stoppage of the great firm of railway
contractors, Peto, Betts, and Co., with liabilities exceeding £4,000,000,
was announced. The authorities of the Bank of England communicated to
the Treasury, as in duty bound, the drain that menaced the exhaustion of
their reserves. The emergency was so serious that Lord Russell and Mr.
Gladstone, after conferring with a great number of bankers and directors
of finance companies, agreed to allow the credit of the country to be
employed, though the permission involved an infringement of the law. Late
on Friday night Mr. Gladstone announced in the House of Commons that an
authority would be sent next morning from the Treasury to the Bank, to
continue discounting good bills, even though their reserves should thereby
be reduced below the minimum required by law, provided that they made no
such discounts at a lower rate of interest than 10 per cent. The panic
in the City was greatly allayed when the decision of the Government was
made known; confidence began to revive; and eventually the Bank did not
find it necessary to infringe the law. Yet one more gigantic failure
occurred before the crisis passed. This was the stoppage of Agra and
Masterman's Bank, a house of old standing, and with a most extensive
Indian connection, the business of which, as in the case of Overend and
Gurney, had been lately transferred by its former proprietors to a limited
liability company. The run on this particular bank was so persistent that
in the four weeks which intervened between the beginning of the crisis
and their own stoppage, they paid away more than £3,000,000 over the
counter, yet were unable to avert the catastrophe.

In consequence of the disasters thus described, and many other minor
failures that we have not noticed, numbers of families found themselves
reduced from affluence to poverty; many had to descend to a lower position
in society, and an extensive contraction of expenditure took place,
the effects of which were felt through all the channels of trade, and
especially by those who minister to the amusements and luxuries of the
affluent. It was remarked that the principle of limited liability, which,
when first introduced, was held to confer so great a boon upon investors,
inasmuch as it sheltered the individual proprietors of any joint-stock
adventure from that awful responsibility for the whole debts of the
concern, which the law, as it formerly stood, imposed upon them--had
come to be so worked in practice as to make this immunity from risk, in
numberless cases, illusory. It had become customary to announce a new
company with a nominal share capital of large amount, but to state in
the prospectus that only one or two pounds would be called up on each
share, and skilfully to induce the belief, by glowing accounts tending to
impress the reader with a sense of the safe and lucrative character of
the speculation, that no further calls would require to be made. Suppose
there to be five new companies, each coming out with a share capital of
£200,000, in £20 shares, and calling up £1 per share, with an intimation
that it was not probable that any further call would be necessary, but
that in no possible circumstances, so certain was the prospect of speedy
and ample profits, could the calls exceed £3 per share. A man who had
saved £3,000 might think he was following a wise and safe course by
investing part of that sum in the shares of the five companies, buying,
let us say, two hundred shares in each, on which he would have to pay up
£1,000, and supposing that, if the worst came to the worst, he would not
be called upon for more than his £3,000. But a commercial crisis arrived;
the companies got into difficulties; they had, perhaps, launched out into
expense far exceeding the amount paid upon the shares, and every one who
had a claim upon them turned round and pressed for his money. In such
circumstances, whether the companies suspended payment or not, they were
obliged to make fresh calls upon the unpaid portion of the shares. Thus
our imaginary investor might find himself, in an extreme case, called
upon to furnish £20,000 upon his shares, instead of the £3,000 which he
had fondly fancied to be the utmost that would ever be demanded of him. It
was in this way that the shareholders of many limited liability companies
found themselves, unless persons of large capital, face to face with ruin,
because they had unthinkingly entangled themselves in a liability which,
limited as it was, yet, when pressed to its full extent, was more than
they could sustain.

A variety of minor incidents falling under the year 1866 may here be
briefly noticed. The House of Commons gave proof of its unabated loyal
attachment to the House of Hanover by voting to the Princess Helena,
on the occasion of the announcement of her intended marriage to Prince
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, an annual
allowance of £6,000 a year, and a dowry of £30,000--a donation similar to
that which had been granted to the Princess Alice. The marriage took place
at Windsor Castle on the 5th of July. Another marriage, which excited
much popular interest--for the well-known geniality and good-nature of
the bride made her a universal favourite--was that of the Princess Mary
of Cambridge, at Kew, on the 12th of June, to the Duke of Teck. The great
Banda and Kirwee prize-money case was argued, and decided in this year.
From the magnitude of the booty which was the subject of litigation, and
the number and position of the claimants, the pleadings were followed
with interest. In the course of the campaign of 1858 in Central India,
which stamped out the last remains of the mutiny in that region, General
Whitlock had led a British force to Banda, driven out the Nawab, and
taken possession of a rich booty in gold and jewels collected there, the
value of which was estimated at not less than £800,000. The question
to be decided was--to whom did this booty of right belong? Ought it
to be awarded to General Whitlock's force exclusively, by which Banda
was taken--or were other divisions, even though serving at a distance,
entitled to their share, on the ground that it was by their co-operation
that the taking of Banda was rendered possible? The family of Lord
Clyde, who was Commander-in-Chief in India at the time, also appeared as
claimants. Dr. Lushington delivered judgment in the case on the 30th of
June. He included under the description of "General Whitlock's forces,"
to whom he awarded the sum in litigation, "any troops left by General
Whitlock on his march, but which at the time of the capture formed a
portion of his division, and were still under his command." Lord Clyde
and his staff were also declared entitled to share in the booty captured
at Banda and Kirwee; but the claim of Sir Hugh Rose and his army,
employed at the time in the important collateral operation of the siege
of Jhansi, but which had never effected an actual junction with General
Whitlock, and all other claims, were disallowed. The foundering of the
_London_, a large iron steamship, in the Bay of Biscay, in the January
of this year, with a loss of two hundred and twenty lives, including Dr.
Woolley, the principal of the new Sydney University, and the well-known
actor, Gustavus Brooke, was memorable for the calm courage displayed
by the captain, Captain Martin, who sent off his chief engineer in the
only boat that could be launched, saying that his own duty was to stay
by the ship. This boat, with nineteen persons on board, was picked up by
a passing vessel. The wonderful procession of meteors, radiating from a
point in the north-eastern sky, seen on the night of the 13th of November,
though not a proper subject for a political and social history, could
never be forgotten by any that witnessed it. A deficient harvest deepened
the painful impression which the monetary disasters of 1866 had left on
the minds of the people. In the critical months of August and September
the weather was unusually wet and stormy, and the wheat crop suffered
much in consequence. A great deal of corn was housed in bad condition
and no inconsiderable portion wasted or spoiled. The result was a yield
considerably below the average and the prices of grain were consequently
much enhanced. The prices of other necessaries were also raised; although
this was probably to a great extent due to a permanent cause, with which
the bad harvest had nothing to do-viz. that gradual rise in the price
of all articles of necessary consumption, which, commencing from the
discovery of the gold-fields of California, the continual influx of gold,
in quantities before unknown, into the markets of the world, slowly but
surely effected. These untoward circumstances, combined with a contraction
of the demand for labour, arising from commercial failures and discredit,
made the winter of 1866-67 a period of considerable suffering to the poor
in England.

The state of Ireland in 1866 was such as to excite grave and sorrowful
reflections. We have described in a former chapter the circumstances
in which Stephens, the chief head-centre, effected his escape from
confinement in 1865, and how a special commission was appointed, in order
to try Fenian prisoners. During January the Fenian trials were going on
in Dublin before Mr. Justice Keogh, and a number of the accused were
sentenced to terms of penal servitude, varying from ten to five years.
But the terrors of the law, and the grave and solemn tones of ermined
justice, reprobating the guilt and folly of the Fenian conspiracy, were
contumaciously set at naught by many of the prisoners. Patrick Hayburne,
of the "Emmet Guard," in the Fenian brotherhood, a young man, the only
support of his mother, on being found guilty, requested the judge to
sentence him to a term of penal servitude rather than to two years'
imprisonment. Mr. Justice Keogh expressed his pity for the misguided
youth, and passed the latter sentence, on which the prisoner exclaimed, "I
will have the same principles afterwards." In Dublin, and still more in
Limerick, the populace loudly cheered Fenian prisoners as they were being
taken to gaol. A number of strangers continued to arrive in Dublin, many
of them betraying by their military bearing that they had seen service
in the field, whom the police knew to be in communication with those
suspected of Fenianism, but who were careful to commit no overt act that
would bring them within the grasp of the law, and, on being questioned,
said that they were come to Ireland to see their friends. Arms of all
kinds were continually being seized; even three pieces of artillery
were discovered, just on the point of being despatched to Drogheda.
The attempts to seduce soldiers from their allegiance, in spite of the
severity of the Special Commission against this particular offence, were
found to increase in frequency. In addition to the former reward of £1,000
offered by the Government for the apprehension of Stephens, a further sum
of £1,000 was now offered for such private information as should lead to
his capture; but no informer came forward. All this was generally known
before the meeting of Parliament; but the despatch of the Lord-Lieutenant,
dated February 14th, proposing the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act,
proved that matters were more grave than the public had any idea of. Lord
Wodehouse wrote:--

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE OF PRINCESS HELENA.

FROM THE PAINTING IN THE ROYAL COLLECTION, BY C. MAGNUSSEN.]

"The state of affairs is very serious. The conspirators, undeterred by
the punishment of so many of their leaders, are actively organising an
outbreak, with a view to destroy the Queen's authority. Sir Hugh Bose
details the various plans they have in contemplation, and he draws no
exaggerated picture. There are scattered over the country a number of
agents, who are swearing in members, and who are prepared to take the
command when the moment arrives. These men are of the most dangerous
class. They are Irishmen, imbued with American notions, thoroughly
reckless, and possessed of considerable military experience, acquired
in a field of warfare [the Civil War in America] admirably adapted to
train them for conducting an insurrection here. There are 340 such men
known to the police in the provinces, and those known in Dublin amount
to about 160, so that in round numbers there are 500. Of course, there
are many more who escape notice. This number is being augmented by fresh
men constantly arriving from America. In Dublin itself there are several
hundred men (perhaps about 300 or 400) who have come over from England
and Scotland, who receive 1s. 6d. a day, and are waiting for the time
of action. Any one may observe these men loitering about at the corners
of the streets. As to arms, we have found no less than three regular
manufactories of pikes, bullets, and cartridges in Dublin. The police
believe that several more exist. Of course, bullets are not made unless
there are rifles to put them in. The disaffection of the population
in some counties, such as Cork, Tipperary, Waterford, and Dublin, is
alarming; and it is day by day spreading more and more through every part
of the country. But the most dangerous feature of the present movement
is the attempt to seduce the troops. Are we to allow these agents to go
on instilling their poison into our armed force, upon which our security
mainly depends?" Lord Wodehouse concluded his despatch by declaring that
he could not be responsible for the safety of the country if power was not
forthwith given to Government to seize the leaders; on that condition he
hoped still to avert serious mischief.

[Illustration: ROBERT LOWE (AFTERWARDS LORD SHERBROOKE).

(_From a Photograph by Fradelle and Young, London._)]

On the receipt of this letter, Sir George Grey, then Home Secretary,
immediately requested Lord Russell to summon a meeting of the Cabinet and,
when it was convened, laid Lord Wodehouse's letter before them, and urged
that his application with regard to the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act should be acceded to. The Cabinet unanimously agreed that there was
no choice but to accede to the application, and it was determined that
a Bill for the purpose should be introduced into the House of Commons
on the next day (Saturday, February 17th), and carried through all its
stages, so as to receive the Royal Assent, and become law on the same
day, and be carried into execution by the Irish Government not later than
Monday. This was accordingly done. At twelve o'clock next day Sir George
Grey brought in a Bill to suspend for six months the Habeas Corpus Act
in Ireland. His arguments were chiefly derived from Lord Wodehouse's
letter, and they were of a nature that the governments of nations, in
the legislative no less than in the executive branches, usually find
irresistible. Yet it was a saddening thought, that sixty-five years after
the Union, and thirty-four years after the first Reform Bill, so little
progress had been made in attaching the masses of the Irish people to the
Constitution under which an Englishman thought it his happiness to live!
Mr. Bright gave impressive utterance to this feeling, when he spoke of
the shame and humiliation which he felt at being called on for the second
time, in a Parliamentary career of twenty-two years (the first occasion
was at the time of Smith O'Brien's rising in 1848), to suspend the Habeas
Corpus Act in Ireland. He asserted that Ireland was in a state of chronic
agitation, and that the numerical majority of the Irish people were in
favour of a complete separation. Although this was not the occasion for
entering upon the general question of the state of Ireland, and the
nature of the remedial measures that were required, he could not but
express his conviction that the institutions under which Irishmen were
required to live were not such as could command their affection or call
forth their loyalty; yet he believed there was a mode of making Ireland
loyal, and he threw the responsibility of discovering it on Government and
on the Imperial Parliament. Mr. Roebuck, alluding to the asserted fact
that the Catholic clergy in Ireland were opposed to the Fenians--who on
their side scouted the notion of submission to priestly authority, and
endeavoured to undermine the influence of the clergy over the people--said
that nevertheless he attributed much of the present discontent to the
Roman Catholic priesthood, who for years had taught the people to hate
English rule, but who, now that they found themselves threatened by
this conspiracy, had become wondrous loyal. He went on to ridicule the
sentiment of nationality, on the ground that every great empire in the
world's history had been made up of different nationalities. Leave was
given to introduce the Bill by a majority of 364 to 6 votes; it passed
through all its stages without further discussion and was then sent up to
the Lords, who disposed of it with equal celerity. But the Royal Assent
had to be given before the measure could become law; and the Queen was at
this time at Osborne. As soon as the Bill had passed the Lords, a telegram
announcing the result was sent to Earl Granville, who was in attendance
on her Majesty at Osborne, and who thereupon solicited and obtained the
Queen's signature to the usual formal document, authorising her assent
to be given to the Bill by Commission. The sittings of both Houses were
suspended till 11 p.m., by which time it was calculated that the special
train conveying the document might have arrived. But midnight came and
still the messenger did not appear; at half-past twelve, however, the
despatch box, bearing the important document, was brought to the Lord
Chancellor. Some time elapsed before it was properly filled up and then
the clerk entered, carrying the Royal Commission. The House of Commons was
sent for to hear the Royal Assent given to the Bill in question, and soon
the Speaker, accompanied by about fifty members, appeared at the bar of
the House. The Commissioners then stated that it was her Majesty's will
and pleasure to give her assent to the Bill and it became law. This was
about twenty minutes to one on the Sunday morning. Probably no statute
could ever pass with much more celerity than this, the first Act of the
new Parliament.

But rapid as were the operations of the legislature, the Dublin
executive considered the state of affairs so critical as to justify it
in anticipating the passing of the law. On Saturday morning, February
17th, the arrests of suspected persons commenced, and were continued
through the day, nearly 250 persons being in custody at nightfall. No
resistance was in any case offered to the police, nor were any captures
of arms effected on this day. Thirty-seven American citizens, of Irish
extraction, most, if not all, of whom had served in the Civil War, were
among the persons arrested. The suddenness of the blow appears to have
utterly disconcerted the conspirators. The suspicious-looking strangers,
who had for weeks past haunted the streets of Dublin, disappeared; the
steamers to Liverpool were crowded with passengers; and for several
days the steamboats sailing for America took away numbers of bellicose
gentlemen, who found that the Irish revolution was not to come off just
yet. The authorities, however, neglected no necessary precaution; the vans
conveying prisoners to Kilmainham or Richmond were guarded by troops; all
the soldiers of the garrison not on duty were confined to their quarters
all night, ready to turn out at a moment's notice; and no strangers were
admitted within the gates of the Pigeon-house Fort, which guards the mouth
of the Liffey, on any pretence. The most important arrest was believed
to be that of Patrick J. M'Donnell, said to have been at the head of the
movement since the escape of Stephens. In the provinces some noteworthy
incidents occurred. On the same night on which the arrests were effected
in Dublin, a body of Fenians were practising drill at a place called
Cullen in county Tipperary; a patrol of police came up and endeavoured to
disperse them; the Fenians then fired upon and wounded some of the police,
one man mortally. At Trim, in county Meath, several arrests were made,
among them that of Mr. Malone, one of the wealthiest and most respectable
merchants in the town; other persons moving in a respectable position
were also captured. At Queenstown, about a month later, two of the Town
Commissioners were arrested. These instances showed that the passage in
the Queen's Speech at the opening of the Session, speaking of the Fenian
movement as "a conspiracy adverse alike to authority, property, and
religion, and disapproved and condemned alike by all who are interested in
their maintenance," was unfortunately not quite exact.

In making a great display of force at the outset, the Irish executive
was probably pursuing the wisest and also the most humane course. Troops
kept pouring into Dublin; the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards and
the 85th Regiment arrived there before the end of February, and were
followed by the 6th Dragoon Guards and a body of artillerymen, as well as
a detachment of the Military Train corps from Woolwich. The most stringent
measures were taken for stamping out any signs of disaffection that might
manifest themselves among the troops; nor was this severity without cause,
for not privates only, but several non-commissioned officers, were found
to have either taken the Fenian oath, or uttered treasonable language,
or been seen habitually in the company of notorious Fenians. Through the
greater part of March frequent arrests continued to be made; and by that
time the ranks of the disaffected were so depleted and discouraged, partly
by the arrest of the leaders, partly by the rush to America and England of
those who knew themselves to be most compromised among their followers,
that all fear of an outbreak was at an end.

The Act for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus was originally passed
for six months only, and would have expired on the 1st of September; but
as the new Ministry felt that to allow it to expire would endanger the
public peace, they sought and obtained from Parliament at the beginning of
August the enactment of a Bill renewing the former Act for an indefinite
period. Lord Naas, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, stated that from the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act up to the 23rd of July, 419 persons
who had been imprisoned had been discharged, generally on condition that
they should leave the country. From every authority he learned that it
would be dangerous to permit the sudden and simultaneous liberation of the
320 prisoners who remained in custody; yet such liberation was unavoidable
if the Act were allowed to expire. He spoke of the fact that, although
suppressed in Ireland, at any rate as to any public manifestations, the
Fenian conspiracy still existed in force in another country; that there
were still in Ireland newspapers advocating the Fenian cause, which
disseminated seditious and treasonable sentiments through the country;
and that secret drillings of the population had been lately renewed. Mr.
Maguire protested against the renewal of the Act, on the ground that there
was no disorder now in Ireland which the ordinary powers of the law were
not adequate to deal with. On the other hand, Mr. Gladstone--while stating
his opinion that the renewal of the Act burdened Government with a very
heavy responsibility, and made it incumbent on them to investigate with
renewed ardour, and to remove by wise legislation, whatever grievances and
inequalities, existing in the laws and institutions of Ireland, supplied
a necessary aliment to the disaffection of the Irish people--declared
that if the late Government had been still in power it would have been
their duty to have made the same application to Parliament as that which
was then being made by the existing Government. The Bill was passed by a
large majority in the Commons, and on being sent up to the House of Lords,
was supported in a remarkable speech by the Earl of Kimberley, formerly
Lord Wodehouse. The ex-Lord-Lieutenant declared that if he had remained in
office he should have recommended the adoption of this Bill by Parliament.
No one except those intimately acquainted with the facts could be aware
how formidable the Fenian conspiracy had been. Since 1798 there had not
existed so dangerous a condition of the public mind as in the past year.
The promoters of the scheme had not been found in the poorer and more
ignorant classes, but belonged to the class that was best described as
artisans and small tradesmen; whilst in the south-west of Ireland, if a
rebellion had broken out, there was no doubt the farmers also would have
been ready to take part in it. Adverting to the alleged grievances of
Ireland, the speaker observed that the question of land tenure was one
that must shortly occupy the earnest attention of Parliament, and that
the anomaly of the Irish Church must also be considered. The Bill soon
became law; and, although nothing like an open rising was attempted during
the remainder of the year, nor was a drop of blood shed, still it is
impossible to doubt but that the extraordinary powers placed in the hands
of the executive enabled them to act with far greater promptitude against
the first symptoms of insurrection, and with far less of friction and
popular irritation, than would have been possible in conjunction with the
somewhat cumbrous safeguards and formalities which in quiet times protect
the personal liberty of the subject.

Seditious and alarmist articles in Irish papers, rumours carefully
propagated of Fenian expeditions about to land on some point of the Irish
coast, and the certainty that arms were being continually manufactured
or imported, and distributed through the country, kept the Government
on the _qui vive_ all through the autumn; but the rumours were probably
malicious, and certainly false, and no actual outbreak occurred. In
America matters did not proceed quite so smoothly. Since the arrival
of Stephens in the United States, the Fenians in that country had been
distracted by a split that arose between their leaders. That the British
Empire should be destroyed was a political axiom admitted both by Sweeny
and Stephens: it was only upon the _modus operandi_ that these redoubtable
chiefs differed. Sweeny appears to have considered that it was necessary
to annex Canada first, and thence proceed to the conquest of Ireland;
Stephens, on the other hand, desired that all other plans should be made
subordinate to the preparation of a formidable Fenian expedition, which
should disembark at some point in the west of Ireland. Loud was the debate
and voluble the discussion. The Fenian "senate" and most of the American
Fenians adhered to Sweeny, while the Irish whose expatriation was of
recent date swore by Stephens. Sweeny denounced Stephens as a "British
spy," and doubtless Stephens was not at a loss for a fit epithet by which
to characterise Sweeny. The valiant Sweeny, as the year wore on, took
measures to test the soundness of his strategic plan for the invasion of
Ireland _viâ_ Canada. On the morning of the 1st of June, 1866, a body
of Fenians, numbering 1,000 men, under the command of a Colonel O'Neil,
crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, where it enters Lake Erie, and
occupied the farm or hamlet called Fort Erie on the Canadian shore. The
news of this absurd raid, with which the Fenians of the United States
had been threatening Canada for months past, quickly reached Toronto;
and the authorities there at once despatched all the troops they could
collect to the scene of action. One thousand five hundred men, mostly
regulars, under the command of Colonel Peacocke, marched by way of the
Falls of Niagara and the village of Chippeway; while 500 militiamen, under
Colonel Dennis, were sent by rail to Port Colborne. The Fenians made no
forward movement that day, nor were they molested at Fort Erie; but by
some extraordinary accident Colonel Dennis and a few of his men allowed
themselves to be taken prisoners by them. The command of the militia then
devolved upon Colonel Booker, who, on the morning of June 2nd, led his
men forward from Port Colborne, along the margin of Lake Erie, to attack
the invaders. Colonel Peacocke, misled by a report that the Fenians were
marching upon Chippeway, led his forces to that place, and thus had no
share in the trifling action that ensued. Arrived at a village called
Ridgway, about half-way between Port Colborne and Fort Erie, Colonel
Booker fell in with the Fenian column, which was advancing along the lake.
A skirmish ensued, in which six militiamen were killed and forty wounded,
the Fenians suffering about equally. Finding himself outnumbered, Colonel
Booker retired towards Port Colborne. The Fenians did not pursue; probably
by this time they had heard of the proximity of Colonel Peacocke with
his regulars. Wisely deeming discretion the better part of valour, they
recrossed the Niagara on the night of the 2nd of July, leaving a few of
their wounded and some stragglers--in all about sixty men--in the hands of
the loyalists.

[Illustration: KILMAINHAM GAOL, DUBLIN.

(_From a Photograph by W. Lawrence, Dublin._)]

Another raid, still more foolish and reckless than the first, was
executed by the Fenians on the 7th of June, when, to the number of
2,000 or 3,000 men, led by a General Spear, they crossed the frontier
from the State of Vermont and occupied a little village called Pigeon
Hill, not far from Montreal. Some slight skirmishes between this force
and some bodies of yeomanry and militia that were hastily sent against
them took place; after which Spear led his warriors back again, and was
immediately arrested, along with Sweeny and another Fenian leader called
Roberts, by the United States authorities. Indeed, nothing could be more
honourable than the conduct of the American Government during the whole
affair. President Johnson issued a proclamation denouncing the act of the
Fenians in carrying war into the territories of a friendly nation as a
gross violation of the laws of the United States, and requiring all Union
officials to repress such illegal acts by every means in their power, and
to place under arrest any persons who should be found committing them. The
indignation of the Canadians at these outrages--as disgraceful as they
were absurd--was very great; and the funerals of the slain militiamen were
celebrated with extraordinary pomp, and attended by an immense concourse
of persons.

Fenianism had its victims in America; in Ireland, as has been seen, its
ebullitions were so far bloodless. The day before Christmas-day, which
rumour had assigned as the date of a rising, passed off in tranquillity;
and the threats and predictions of the national journals were found to be
mere waste of words. The conspirators must have been conscious that their
proceedings hitherto had been less formidable than ridiculous, and they
determined, if they could, to give the authorities some justification for
the additional precautions that had been taken.

One of the most strongly marked personalities of the day--that of William
Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge--was taken from English
society in the March of this year. Cambridge men all over the world
associated for many years their recollections of the University with
the well-known form of the Master of Trinity. His towering and stalwart
form, flashing eye, strong vibrating voice, the generally menacing and
formidable aspect of the man, were external characteristics that deeply
impressed every freshman on his arrival, and were never forgotten in
after life. Many works on various subjects attested the activity and
versatility of his intellect; but it is only those on mathematical and
physical problems that possess exceptional value. John Keble, who died at
Bournemouth on the 29th of March, in his seventy-fourth year, participated
but little in the public life of England. His was not the dignified and
conspicuous career of the ecclesiastical luminary of a great city; the
press did not circulate the masterpieces of his pulpit eloquence; nor was
he a frequenter of missionary or charitable platforms; yet it is probably
no exaggeration to say that for thirty years no one man so powerfully
influenced the inner life of the Church of England as the vicar of
Hursley. The readers of Cardinal Newman's "Apologia" will remember how
strikingly this point is brought out by him, how clearly he traces back to
the mind of John Keble, rather than to that of any other single man, the
germ of the great Tractarian movement, while the "Christian Year" appealed
to the devotional necessities of innumerable souls.




CHAPTER XXVII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Schleswig-Holstein Difficulty--Austria favours a
    Settlement--Bismarck's Terms rejected--His high-handed
    Proceedings--Convention of Gastein--Bismarck at Biarritz--The
    Italian Treaty--Question of Disarmament--Fresh Austrian
    Proposals--Bismarck advocates Federal Reform--La Marmora's
    Perplexity--He abides by Prussia--Efforts of the Neutral
    Powers--Failure of the projected Congress--Rupture of the Gastein
    Convention--The War begins--The rival Strengths--Distribution
    of the Prussian Armies--Collapse of the Resistance in North
    Germany--Occupation of Dresden--The Advance of the Prussian
    Armies--Battle of Küniggrätz--Cession of Venetia--Italian
    Reverses--The South German Campaign--Occupation of Frankfort--The
    Defence of Vienna--French Mediation--The Preliminaries of
    Nikolsburg--Treaty of Prague--Conditions awarded to Bavaria and the
    Southern States--The Secret Treaties--Their Disclosure--Humiliation
    of the French Emperor--His pretended Indifference.


While the strife of parties was raging in the lobbies of the House of
Commons during the Reform debates of 1866, a warfare of a more decisive
kind was in course of preparation in Germany. Its connection with English
history, however, being of the slightest, we shall confine ourselves to a
brief notice. At the close of 1864 the first symptom of ill-will between
the allied Powers that had cut with the sword the Schleswig-Holstein
knot made itself apparent. To Austria every day during which the joint
occupation was prolonged brought fresh cause of trouble and anxiety.
However long she might keep her troops in the duchies, not an acre of
soil, she knew well, could ever fall to her share; the expense of the
occupation was considerable; and a quarrel with Prussia must instantly, as
she clearly foresaw, render her position untenable. Her policy, therefore,
was to get the Schleswig-Holstein question settled as soon as possible
and settled in the way that would least benefit Prussia, and be most for
the advantage of Austria's position in Germany. The Austrian Government
thought that they saw their way to such a satisfactory settlement when
they observed the continued loyalty and enthusiasm with which the German
population of the duchies clung to the Prince whom they regarded as their
rightful Duke, and also noted the strength of the desire that animated
the Governments of the middle and many of the minor German States to
favour the erection of an independent State and disappoint the ambition
of Prussia. The Prussian Minister seemed himself to waver in the face of
the compact opposition which the disclosure of the designs of Prussia
upon the duchies had called forth, though he secured a declaration from
the Prussian jurists that the claims of the Augustenburg candidate were
invalid. In February, 1865, he sent a despatch to Vienna, in which he
expressed the willingness of the King that Schleswig-Holstein should
become an independent German State, but upon condition that its military
force should be at the disposal of Prussia, and that to the same Power
certain fortresses in the duchies, with suitable territory attached
to them, should be made over. These proposals were rejected by Count
Mensdorff and the German Diet. Bismarck thereupon proceeded to fresh
aggressions. Prussia transferred her naval station on the Baltic from
Dantzic to Kiel, and declared her intention of fortifying the harbour:
the Austrian commissioner protested, and ordered up two Austrian ships
of war to Kiel; yet his Government gave way, and Prussia established
herself firmly at that important harbour. Bismarck also ejected from
Schleswig-Holstein the Prince of Augustenburg. It was clearly seen at
Vienna that the plan of joint administration would no longer work: if war
was to be staved off, some different _modus vivendi_ must be established
in the duchies. But the Minister was moving too fast for his master,
accordingly, a meeting was arranged between the King of Prussia and the
Emperor of Austria at Gastein, in Tyrol. Hither came the Sovereigns in
August, attended by their chief Ministers; an understanding was speedily
arrived at, and the Convention of Gastein was the result.

By this convention, dated August 14th, 1865, it was agreed that the
joint occupation should cease; that--although the right of sovereignty
of either Power over both duchies, as acquired by the Treaty of Vienna,
remained inviolate--Austria should for the future confine her troops and
officials to Holstein, and Prussia hers to Schleswig; that the Powers
would propose to the Diet to erect Rendsburg into a Federal fortress; that
the duchies should join the Zollverein, or German Customs-union; and that
the Emperor of Austria should cede to the King of Prussia his sovereign
rights over Lauenburg, acquired by the before-cited Treaty of Vienna,
in exchange for the sum of 2,500,000 Danish rix-thalers. The Prussian
Chambers, the members of which were still for the most part favourable to
the Augustenburg claim, disliked this convention, and let it be understood
that they would not vote the money required for the purchase of Lauenburg;
but the King of Prussia paid the stipulated sum out of his private purse,
and the convention was carried into effect without delay, Austrian troops
withdrawing from Schleswig, and Prussian troops withdrawing from Holstein.
General Manteuffel was appointed Prussian Governor of Schleswig, and
Austria placed General von Gablenz in the similar post in Holstein.

Bismarck was still determined on war. One point alone was doubtful
and disquieting--what would France do in the event of war breaking
out between Prussia and Austria, especially if Italy took part in the
contest? Count Bismarck resolved to seek an interview with Napoleon, in
order, if possible, to gain some security that France would be neutral.
What passed in the interviews between him and Napoleon at Biarritz is
variously stated; but the result proved that the success of the Prussian
statesman was complete. On his return through Paris, Bismarck saw the
Italian Minister, the Chevalier Nigra, and told him that war between
Prussia and Austria was inevitable. "He showed himself full of confidence
that France would not be hostile to it;" and so deeply had he reflected
on all the conditions of the political problem, so keenly did he realise
the importance to Prussia of the Italian alliance, in distracting the
attention and dividing the forces of Austria, that he playfully said to
Nigra that "if Italy did not exist, it would be necessary to invent her."
The French Emperor is supposed to have approved of the project of alliance
between Prussia and Italy; and it is certain that he looked forward with
pleasure to the severance of Venetia from the Austrian Empire as one
result of the anticipated war. But how was France to be indemnified if
she observed a friendly neutrality? There can be no doubt that Bismarck,
in spite of his later denials, held out such hopes of territorial
extension for France, either on the side of the Rhine, or in the form
of an annexation of Luxemburg or some part of Belgium, to be actively
aided by Prussia, as induced the French Emperor to regard the Prussian
programme with favour and hopeful anticipation, and readily to give the
desired promise of neutrality. Napoleon would the less care to exact a
distinct promise from Bismarck in regard to territorial indemnification,
because he, like the rest of Europe at the time, did not share in the
superb confidence which the negotiator expressed of the ability of Prussia
to overpower Austria; he must have reckoned on the war lasting for a
considerable time, with mutually exhaustive results, in which case France
might play the part of a mediator, and, while performing that dignified
office, not lose sight of her own interests in the general re-adjustment.

Step by step, as though by an inevitable destiny, or unalterable
concatenation of events, the fatal hour drew on. At the end of March
General Govone was in Berlin, charged by the Italian Prime Minister,
General La Marmora, with the duty of negotiating a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, with Prussia. That Italy would forego the
opportunity which a rupture between Prussia and Austria afforded her
of obtaining by force the Venetian territories of the latter Power, was
hardly to be expected; for such a chance, once let slip, might never
occur again. But to Prussia also the alliance of Italy was of the highest
importance. With her vast superiority of population, Austria, could her
military force have been wholly concentrated against Prussia, though she
might have lost battles, could not have been crushed and compelled to
yield; such a consummation was only rendered possible by the division
and dilution of her strength necessitated by the attack of Italy upon
Venetia. Could even Austria have been content to cede Venetia itself, and
take Venetia's money value, she might have rid herself of her Transalpine
foe and employed her whole strength in Bohemia. Secret overtures had been
made at Vienna by the Italian Premier, in the autumn of 1865, for the
cession of Venetia by purchase; but the Emperor conceived his military and
ancestral honour to be involved and absolutely rejected the proposal. On
April 8th the treaty of alliance between Prussia and Italy was signed at
Berlin. Prussia, under it, reserved to herself the right of declaring war
within three months, in which case Italy bound herself to attack Austria;
but Prussia did not bind herself to declare war in Germany, or to help
the Italians on their own ground, if Austria attacked Italy. Each Power
bound itself not to make peace separately from the other, and to continue
the war till Italy had gained Venetia and Prussia secured a corresponding
augmentation of territory in Germany. Already--between March 29th and
31st--orders had been issued for the mobilisation of the whole Prussian
army, and the necessary movements were effected with extraordinary
celerity. Austria, though she had commenced her preparations earlier,
was soon distanced by her opponent, and, when the war broke out, her
arrangements were still far from complete. The King of Italy published a
decree on the 25th of March, increasing the Italian army by 100,000 men.

For several weeks after the treaty between Prussia and Italy had been
signed, continual diplomatic fencing was maintained on the part of the
two Governments. First there were criminations and recriminations on the
question of priority of armaments. On the 6th of April a note from the
Prussian Foreign Office was sent to Vienna, insisting on the magnitude
of the Austrian preparations, which could not be adequately accounted
for by the alleged apprehension of disturbances in Bohemia, and ending
with the declaration that nothing was farther from the views of the
King than an offensive war. Yet only two days after this, as we have
seen, the alliance was concluded with Italy. Nevertheless, there was a
basis of truth in the statement as to the King of Prussia's inclinations:
he was, in truth, earnestly, almost superstitiously, averse from being
the first to resort to arms; and Bismarck had infinite trouble to bring
his royal master up to the point of commencing the war. Accordingly the
negotiations were conducted in a conciliatory tone. The real feelings of
Count Bismarck we learn from a telegram from Count Barral, the Italian
Minister at Berlin, sent on the previous day to the Italian Premier,
General La Marmora, and published by the latter in his remarkable work,
entitled, "A Little More Light on the Political and Military Events of
the Year 1866." Count Barral telegraphed, "The impression of the General
[Govone] and myself is, that Bismarck is disappointed by the Austrian
proposition, and visibly discouraged by the new pacific phase upon which
the conflict is about to enter." But now Count Mensdorff found himself in
a difficulty. The attitude of the Italian army on the frontiers of Venetia
was believed at Vienna to have grown so menacing that it was impossible
for Austria to replace matters on a peace footing in Venetia, short of
a positive understanding with Italy similar to that which seemed on the
point of being concluded with Prussia. We have the distinct assurance of
General La Marmora, in the work just quoted, that at this time Italy had
made no concentrations of troops whatever--had, in fact, taken no warlike
step of any kind. But he admits that the impression to the contrary which
prevailed at Vienna was a _bonâ fide_ one, and accounts for its existence
in a very curious manner. It was, he thinks, the British Government--the
warm and importunate advocate of European peace--which, misled by
reports from English diplomatic agents in Italy, who had imagined some
inconsiderable movements of troops that were really directed against
brigands to be part of a scheme for concentrating the Italian army near
the frontier, had conveyed, of course, with the most friendly intentions,
this false information to the Austrian Cabinet. However this may have
been, the effect of the erroneous persuasion as to Italian armaments,
which Austria had taken up, in overclouding the prospects of peace was
soon apparent.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF KONIGGRÄTZ. (_See p._ 427.)]

Besides disarmament, two other important subjects were debated in the
correspondence between Austria and Prussia in these critical weeks.
One related to Schleswig-Holstein, the other to the reform of the
Confederation. Anxious to withdraw from her hazardous position in the
duchies, but to make her withdrawal in such a way as would augment her
popularity with the minor German States, Austria invited the Prussian
Government, in a note dated April 26th, to make in the Diet a joint
declaration that the two Powers would cede the rights acquired by them
under the Treaty of Vienna to that claimant of the sovereignty of the
duchies whom the Diet recognised as having a predominant right to the
succession. Although some collateral offers, such as that Prussia should
have full and permanent possession of certain strategic points in the
duchies, at Kiel and elsewhere, were added to the main proposal, in order
to make it more palatable to the condominant Power, Count Mensdorff
probably expected a refusal, and he was not disappointed. Count Bismarck,
in his reply (May 7th), professed in the strongest terms Prussia's
intention to adhere faithfully to the Treaty of Vienna and the Gastein
Convention, but maintained that by those instruments the intervention of
any third party, not excepting the Diet, in the affairs of the duchies was
precluded. The note went on to say that Prussia, while repudiating the
interference of any third party, was always ready to treat with Austria as
to the conditions on which she would be disposed to cede her share of the
rights accruing to her by the Treaty of Vienna. King William's hesitation
was fast disappearing.

The other subject discussed was the reform of the Confederation. The
Prussian Envoy proposed in the Diet on the 9th of April that, within a
period to be precisely fixed, the Diet should decree the convocation of
a National Assembly to be elected by universal and direct suffrage, for
the purpose of receiving and deliberating on the proposals of the German
Governments for the reform of the Confederation. This proposition, which
caused great surprise and excitement in Germany, was referred by a Dietal
vote of the 21st of April to a committee of nine; at the same time the
Diet requested Prussia to state the nature of the proposals which it
intended to submit to the Assembly when convened. Count Bismarck sharply
replied (April 27) that the determination of the date at which such a
Parliament or Assembly should meet was of the essence of the Prussian
proposition; the modes of procedure habitual to the Diet would, he knew,
lead to the indefinite adjournment and final miscarriage of the project;
however, he would bring under the notice of the committee such information
as would show to what regions of political life the Prussian proposals
would extend. This promise he redeemed on the 11th of May by laying before
the Committee of the Diet the heads of the changes that Prussia deemed
necessary. These included the completion of the central power by means
of a freely elected German Parliament, the concession to the central
power so reorganised of a wide legislative competency, the removal of all
fetters on German trade, an improved military system, and the formation
of a German navy. Bavaria, as chief of the secondary States, acceded to
the proposal on condition that both parties should disarm. Promises were
given, but as Austria declined to discontinue her preparations against
Italy, Bismarck was able to charge her with insincerity.

Italy, though she had enlarged her army, had not made any distinctly
warlike preparations before the appearance of General La Marmora's
circular of the 27th of April. From that time war was looked upon as
inevitable; and in order to enlist the national feeling more fully in
its favour, a decree was published at Florence on May 8th ordering the
formation of twenty volunteer battalions, to be placed under the immediate
command of Garibaldi. But the Italian Premier was in sore perplexity. He
thoroughly distrusted Bismarck, whom he thought quite capable of patching
up a peace with Austria and leaving Italy in the lurch, and he had
received tempting offers from Paris. On the 5th of May General La Marmora
received a telegram in cipher from Paris, of which the first words were,
"Decipher for yourself." After he had done so, he found the purport of the
telegram (which was from the Chevalier Nigra) to be this--that Austria
was willing to cede Venetia to the Emperor Napoleon, who would at once
transfer it to the King of Italy, on condition that she should be left
free to recoup herself at the expense of Prussia. La Marmora telegraphed
back that his first impression was that it was a question of honour and
good faith for Italy not to break her engagements with Prussia. Again
(May 6th) came the tempting voice from Paris, saying that the Emperor had
told Nigra that Prince Metternich was formally authorised to sign the
cession of Venetia in exchange for a simple promise of neutrality. If his
resolution had been momentarily shaken, other telegrams soon arrived, of
a nature to confirm him in it. On May 6th Count Barral telegraphed that
he had been just informed by Count Bismarck that the Prussian army might
now be regarded as entirely mobilised; and on the 9th Nigra telegraphed
from Paris that Govone had just arrived from Berlin, and was under the
full conviction that Prussia had absolutely decided to draw the sword, at
latest, towards the beginning of June, and would, in any case, declare
war if Italy were attacked. Setting against the risks of war the odium
which the acceptance of the French proposal, involving as it did a direct
breach of faith with Prussia, would bring down upon the young Italian
kingdom, and the painful and inconvenient consequences that might ensue
from Italy's debt of obligation to France being so greatly extended, the
Italian Premier wisely determined to be true to his first faith; and the
project for the cession of Venetia to France vanished for the present into
space.

The efforts of neutral and friendly Powers were, of course, not wanting to
the cause of peace. From the beginning of May the project of a Congress of
the five great Powers, together with Italy and the German Confederation,
to discuss the three European questions of the most urgent interest--the
cession of Venetia, the fate of Schleswig-Holstein, and the reform of the
German Confederation--had found favour with the Emperor Napoleon. Russia
had cordially accepted the scheme, and Britain also was favourable to
it, though with a proviso that marks the progress which Lord Russell,
through sad experience and many failures, had made in his diplomatic
education. For, although the actual Foreign Minister at this time was
the Earl of Clarendon, yet the _empressement_ with which the British
Government, at the outset of the negotiations, volunteered a statement
that its interference would in no possible circumstances be carried beyond
the limits of persuasion, evidently bespeaks the hand of the Minister
whose previous attempts at a dictatorial intervention had failed so
disastrously. The Marquis d'Azeglio telegraphed on May 11th from London,
that "England accepted the Congress in principle, and also the bases which
France proposed with reference to the three urgent questions, but refused
categorically to bind herself to impose any decision of the kind otherwise
than by persuasion."

Some time elapsed before the three mediating Powers could arrive at a
precise understanding as to the form in which the Congress should be
proposed to Prussia and Austria. Of the three topics for discussion,
the first was described by France as "the cession of Venetia;" this was
afterwards modified to "the question of Venetia"; but even in this form
the Russian Government considered that there was something in the phrase
wounding to the susceptibilities of Austria, and obtained the consent of
France to the substitution of the words, "difference between Austria and
Italy." Everything at last appeared to be in train; it was arranged that
the Congress should be held in Paris, and that the principal Ministers
for Foreign Affairs in the different States should attend it. Bismarck,
knowing the settled resolve of the Emperor Napoleon to facilitate and
promote the cession of Venetia to Italy, was not disposed to refuse the
invitation to the Congress; he said to those around him that it would end
in nothing and that they would simply adjourn from the Congress-chamber to
the battle-field; and he told Count Barral (May 26th) that the Congress
was a vain _simulacrum_, and that he saw no human power capable of
preventing war. Yet even Bismarck, three days later, was confounded by
the insistance with which France appeared to labour to avert war, and
said to Barral, in a tone of deep dissatisfaction, "The Emperor of the
French now wishes for peace at any price." To go to war against the will
of France was, as Bismarck had before admitted to Govone, hardly within
the bounds of possibility. An unfriendly neutrality west of the Rhine
would have compelled a concentration of Prussian troops in Westphalia and
Rhineland which would have left her too weak to contend with Austria in
Saxony or Bohemia. On the 28th of May, notes, couched in almost identical
terms, from the Governments of France, Britain, and Russia, communicated
to the Powers at variance the proposal of the mediating Courts for
the convocation of a Congress. Count Bismarck, while stipulating that
the proceedings should be brief, and that the opening of the Congress
should not be delayed if the representatives of the Confederation were
not nominated in time, accepted the proposal for Prussia, but he took
an opportunity of declaring to the French Ambassador, M. Benedetti, in
vehement and impassioned tones, that the position of affairs was become
intolerable and must be brought to a close at all risks. Italy also
agreed to the Congress, as well she might, knowing the settled opinion
and desire of the Emperor Napoleon with regard to the cession of Venetia.
For Austria, the desirable course was not so clear. If she rejected the
Congress, she alienated the good opinion of the neutral Powers. Yet
if she accepted it, she knew that she could expect no good from its
deliberations. The Chevalier Nigra wrote to La Marmora, on the 24th of
May, that the French Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, had assured him
that it was "well understood between the three neutral Powers that the
Congress should discuss the cession of Venetia." Beyond question the
existence of this "understanding" was known at Vienna; the Austrian
statesmen knew that they would enter a Congress the members of which had
already made up their minds on the one subject of discussion that vitally
affected her interests and her honour. It is true that Austria had a
month before offered to cede Venetia; but at that time she reckoned on
compensation. If Italy could be induced by the cession to stand neutral,
Austria hoped to overrun and annex Silesia. Yet to refuse the Congress
absolutely was not to be thought of. Austria, therefore, hit upon a
middle course; she professed a readiness to send a plenipotentiary to the
Congress, but only on condition that no combination should be discussed
which would result in an extension of territory for any one of the States
invited. Such a limitation--especially when the preconceived views of the
neutral Powers are remembered--was felt on all sides to render the project
of a Congress nugatory, and it was accordingly dropped.

Simultaneously Austria invited the Diet to take the affairs of
Schleswig-Holstein under its direction, and convoked the Holstein estates.
In reply Count Bismarck sent a despatch, on June 3rd, to Vienna, renewing
the protest that had been made by the Prussian Envoy in the Diet against
the infraction by Austria of the Convention of Gastein, and declaring
that Prussia now considered herself justified in reverting to the basis
of the Treaty of Vienna, and that the Government had consequently placed
the defence of its condominate rights in the hands of General Manteuffel.
At the same time, the Prussian Minister addressed a circular to the
Prussian representatives at all foreign Courts, accusing Austria of giving
direct provocations to Prussia, with the manifest intention of settling
the matters in dispute by an appeal to arms. This circular was couched
in terms of the bitterest invective and sufficiently indicated that all
prospect of accommodation was renounced. Already General von Gablenz
had retreated from Holstein before Manteuffel into Hanover. Thereupon
Austria demanded from the Diet the mobilisation of the Federal armies,
whereupon the Prussian representative, declaring the union dissolved,
withdrew from Frankfort, after handing in his plan of reform. Diplomatic
relations between Austria and Prussia were suspended on June 12th; on the
15th Bismarck requested Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse-Cassel to disarm. They
declined and the war began.

The forces ranged against each other at the opening of the war of 1866 may
be briefly exhibited in tabular form, thus:--

    Prussian army (exclusive of depôt and garrison
    troops)                                        351,000
    Armies of German States allied with Prussia     28,600
    Italian army                                   240,840
                                                   -------
                                          Total    620,440

    Artillery: Prussian guns, 1,092; Italian guns, 480: total, 1,572.

    Austrian army:--Infantry, 321,140; cavalry,
    26,621; artillery, 24,601; engineers and pioneers,
    11,194: total                                       383,556
    Armies of German States allied to Austria           160,586
                                                        -------
                                                Total   544,142

    Artillery: Austrian guns, 1,036; German guns, 360: total.
    1,396.

Thus, merely reckoning the field armies on both sides, the accession of
Italy threw a decided preponderance, even of numbers, into the scale of
Prussia. Austria, to oppose the Italian army, was obliged to keep 150,000
of her best troops south of the Alps; had one-third of these stood in line
at Königgrätz, the fortune of the day would probably have been different.
In the special and scientific services Prussia had an additional
superiority over Austria; she had 30,000 cavalry, 35,000 artillery, and
18,000 pioneers, while the Austrian strength in each of these branches
was considerably smaller. Besides, the Austrian system was thoroughly
obsolete, and its organisers had neglected to adopt the needle-gun despite
its proved superiority in the Danish war. The Prussian army, thanks to
Von Roon and Von Moltke, had been raised, on the contrary, to the highest
degree of efficiency.

The forces of the Prussians, which were formed into three armies, were
distributed in the following manner. The First Army, commanded by Prince
Frederick Charles, the King's nephew, consisted of three infantry and one
cavalry corps, numbering 120,000 men; its headquarters were at Görlitz,
close to the eastern frontier of Saxony. The Second Army, commanded by
the Crown Prince, contained the Guards corps and three others, numbering
125,000 men; the headquarters were at Neisse in Silesia, being purposely
placed so far to the south in order to induce a belief that the objective
of this army was Olmütz or Brünn, and to disguise as long as possible the
real design of leading it across the mountains into Bohemia. The Third
Army was that of the Elbe, commanded by General Herwarth von Bittenfeld,
whose headquarters were at Halle; it numbered about 50,000 men, including
cavalry. Besides these three armies, which were all designed to act
against Austria, special forces to the number of about 60,000 men were
prepared to invade Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, and afterwards to operate
against the forces of the southern States friendly to Austria, as
circumstances should direct. The forces that were to attack Hanover were
under the command of Lieutenant-General von Falkenstein, the military
governor of Westphalia. Those that were detailed against Hesse-Cassel
were commanded by General Beyer, whose headquarters were at Wetzlar, the
chief town of a small Prussian _enclave_, surrounded by the territories of
Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, and Hesse-Darmstadt.

[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF LANGENSALZA. (_See p._ 426.)]

In the North of Germany the campaign was brief indeed, although it
opened with a Prussian reverse. Through some mismanagement the real
superiority of force which the Prussians could bring to bear against the
Hanoverians was not made available, and Major-General Flies, the Prussian
commander, was about to attack an army considerably more numerous than
his own. Misleading reports as to the movements both of the Bavarians and
Hanoverians had reached Von Falkenstein at Eisenach. He therefore ordered
Goeben with his division to watch the Bavarians, who were supposed to be
advancing from the south, and despatched Manteuffel towards Mühlhausen,
a town between Göttingen and Langensalza, under the erroneous belief
that the Hanoverians were now retreating northwards, and meant to seek
a strong position among the Harz Mountains. The Hanoverian general,
Arenttschildt, entertained no such intention, but, expecting to be
attacked from Gotha, he had drawn up his little army on the northern bank
of the Unstrut, a marshy stream that runs past Langensalza in a general
easterly direction, to join the Saale near Leipsic. The Prussians advanced
gallantly, drove in the Hanoverian outposts on the right or south bank
of the Unstrut, and attempted to cross the river. But the Hanoverian
artillery, judiciously posted and well served, defeated this attempt. A
number of partial actions, in which great bravery was exhibited on both
sides, occurred in different parts of the field. The Prussians, however,
being decidedly over-matched, were unable to gain ground; and about one
o'clock General Arenttschildt ordered his brigade commanders to cross
the Unstrut and assume the offensive. This was done--ineffectually for
a time on the Hanoverian left, where the swampy nature of the ground by
the river presented great obstacles to an advance--but with complete
success on their right, where General Bülow drove the Prussians steadily
before him, and was able to use his superior cavalry with considerable
effect. The excellent military qualities of the Prussian soldier, and the
deadly rapidity of fire of the needle-gun, prevented the retreat from
becoming a disaster. However, General Flies had no choice but to order a
general retreat, and fall back in the direction of Gotha. Two guns and
two thousand stand of arms fell into the hands of the victors, whose
cavalry continued the pursuit till half-past four, making many prisoners.
The Hanoverian situation, however, was really desperate, and on the
arrival of the main body of the Prussians the Hanoverians were compelled
to capitulate. The King fled into Austria, but his ally the Elector of
Hesse-Cassel was made a prisoner of war.

On June 16th Prince Frederick Charles, moving from Görlitz, crossed the
Saxon frontier, and advanced upon Dresden. A junction was effected with
Herwarth near Meissen, and both marched to Dresden, which was occupied
without opposition on the 18th. By the 20th of June, the whole of Saxony
(with the exception of the virgin fortress of Königstein in the Saxon
Switzerland) was in the hands of the Prussians. The war had lasted but
five days, and already the vigour and rapidity with which Prussia dealt
her blows had secured for her advantages of inestimable value. Her right
flank was now secure from attack through the prostration of the power of
Hanover and Hesse-Cassel; the prestige and the terror of her arms were
greatly enhanced by the occupation of the beautiful capital of Saxony;
and the conquest of that kingdom had rendered possible the union of two
Prussian armies, and secured a corresponding shortening and strengthening
of her lines. The Saxon army retreated into Bohemia, and joined the main
body of the Austrians under General Benedek.

The Prince broke up his headquarters at Görlitz on the 22nd of June, and
marched thence with the main body of the First Army direct for Zittau,
the last town in Saxony towards Bohemia. The passes through the mountains
were found to be undefended; in fact, the rapid movements of the Prussians
had left no time for Benedek to take the necessary measures. Count Clam
Gallas, in command of the 1st Austrian Corps, was defeated in a series
of battles, extending from the 26th to the 29th of June, and driven
behind Gitschin. While the First Army and the Army of the Elbe were thus
advancing from the north, the Second Army was moving from Silesia, in
circumstances of far greater difficulty and peril, to effect a junction
with them in Bohemia. After a defeat at Trautenau, the Crown Prince
established communications with Prince Frederick Charles, the movements
of the three armies being directed by telegraph from Berlin by Moltke,
the chief of the staff. On the 30th the King of Prussia, accompanied by
Count Bismarck and General Moltke, left Berlin, and reached headquarters
at Gitschin on the 2nd of July. Thus the First Army and the Army of the
Elbe were brought into communication with the Army of Silesia; and the
imminent peril which had existed of an attack by Benedek, in overwhelming
force, upon one of these invading armies, before the other was near
enough to help it, was now at an end. Military authorities are agreed in
casting great blame on the generalship of Benedek. That he did not take
the initiative by an advance into Saxony was probably not his fault; but
if compelled to receive the attack, it was manifestly his policy, as he
knew the Prussians to be advancing on two sides, to detain one of their
armies by a detachment, with orders to throw all possible difficulties in
its path, while avoiding a pitched battle; but to fall upon the other with
the full remaining strength of his own army, and endeavour to inflict upon
it, while isolated, a crushing defeat. He had been thwarted by the energy
of the Crown Prince's attack, and, seeing that the campaign was lost,
had telegraphed to the Emperor on the 1st of July that a catastrophe was
inevitable unless peace was made.

The position which Benedek had taken up, on a mass of rolling hilly
ground, the highest point of which is marked by the village and church
of Chlumetz, bounded on the west by the Bistritz, and on the east by the
Elbe, and with the fortress of Königgrätz in its rear, would have been
an exceedingly good one, had he had no other army but that of Frederick
Charles to think of. As against the First Army, the line of the Bistritz,
with its commanding ridge, its woods affording shelter for marksmen, and
the difficulties presented by the (in places) marshy character of its
valley, presented a defensive position of the first order. But Benedek had
to reckon also with the army of the Crown Prince, and this he well knew;
for an Austrian force had been driven out of Königinhof by the Prussian
Guards on the evening of the 29th. Prince Frederick Charles attacked at
daybreak, advancing through the village of Sadowa, and for hours sustained
an unequal struggle with the superior forces of the Austrians. Herwarth
was also, about one o'clock, checked in his advance. The First Army could
do no more; it was even a question whether it could hold its ground; and
the Prussian commanders on the plateau of Dub turned many an anxious
glance to the left, wondering why the columns of the Crown Prince did not
make their appearance. The King himself frequently turned his field-glass
in that direction. The heavy rain that had fallen prevented the march of
the Crown Prince from being marked by those clouds of dust that are the
usual accompaniment of a moving army. Some Austrian guns about Lipa, it
is true, appeared to be firing towards the north, but it was not certain
that they were not directed against some movement of Franzecky's division.
Yet all this time two corps belonging to the army of the Crown Prince had
been in action since half-past twelve with the Austrian right, and one of
them was pressing forward to the occupation of ground the defence of which
was vital to the continued maintenance of its position by the Austrian
army. Their onslaught on Benedek's right at once decided the battle, and,
effecting a retreat across the Elbe with the utmost difficulty, he fled
eastwards, leaving 18,000 on the field and 24,000 prisoners.

The Emperor, seeing his capital threatened, and the empire menaced with
dissolution, determined to rid himself of one enemy by removing the ground
of dispute. He accordingly ceded Venetia to the Emperor of the French,
with the understanding that it was to be transferred to the King of Italy
at the conclusion of the war. Napoleon accepted the cession, and from
that time was unremitting in his endeavours to bring hostilities to a
termination. His proposal of an armistice was accepted in principle by
the King of Prussia, with the reservation that the preliminaries of peace
must first be recognised by the Austrian Court. Meanwhile the Italians had
suffered decisive defeats at the hands of the Austrians. La Marmora, who
took command, crossed the Mincio with 120,000 men, but was defeated by the
Archduke Albrecht with smaller numbers upon the field of Custozza (June
24th), and compelled to fall back in disorder. A naval action at Lissa off
the Istrian coast also terminated in a complete victory for the Austrians
under Admiral Tegethoff.

The course of events in the western portion of the theatre of war must
now be briefly described. It will be remembered that, for the purpose of
sudden and simultaneous operations against Hanover and Hesse-Cassel, a
considerable Prussian force had been collected--drawn partly from the Elbe
duchies, partly from the garrisons of neighbouring fortresses--and placed
under the command of General Vogel von Falkenstein. After the surrender
of the Hanoverians on the 29th of June, this force was concentrated
about Gotha and Eisenach, and was free to act against the armies that
had taken the field in the cause of Austria and the Diet farther
south. Falkenstein had two separate armies in his front--the Bavarians
under their Prince Charles, now numbering upwards of 50,000 sabres and
bayonets, with 136 guns, and the 8th Federal Corps, commanded by Prince
Alexander of Hesse and numbering little short of 50,000 men, with 134
guns. Devoid of co-operation, they suffered a series of defeats at the
hands of Falkenstein and Manteuffel in a campaign marked by small battles
and intricate manœuvres. On the 16th of July the Prussians marched into
Frankfort with all military precautions, a regiment of cuirassiers with
drawn swords leading the way. They posted two guns in the great square,
and stacked their arms there and in the Zeil. Late at night they broke
into groups, and went to the different houses, on which, without previous
consultation with the municipality, they had been billeted, forcing their
way in without ceremony wherever a recalcitrant householder was found.
It was observed that especially large numbers of soldiers were billeted
on the houses of those citizens who were known to be anti-Prussian in
their politics. One of these, Herr Mumm, was required to lodge and feed
15 officers and 200 men. General Falkenstein took up his quarters in the
town, having issued a proclamation announcing that, by orders of the King
of Prussia, he had assumed the government of the imperial city, together
with Nassau, and the parts of Bavaria that were in Prussian occupation.
He at once imposed upon the citizens a war contribution of 7,000,000
gulden (about £600,000), besides 300 horses, and other contributions in
kind. The Burgomaster Fellner and the Syndic Müller visited this modern
Brennus, to endeavour to obtain some diminution of the impost; but they
were only treated to a Prussian version of the classic declaration, "_Væ
Victis_." Falkenstein roughly told the burgomaster that he used the rights
of conquest; and is said to have threatened that if his demands were not
promptly complied with, the city should be given up to pillage. Thus Count
Bismarck paid off his old scores against the German Diet.

Meanwhile the victorious career of Prussia was carrying her arms without
a check to the banks of the Danube and under the walls of Vienna.
Marshal Benedek, after having put the Elbe between the Prussians and
his exhausted troops, had to decide instantly what was to be done. An
armistice was thought of; and Von Gablenz was sent on a mission to the
Prussian headquarters to see if one could be obtained; but on this, and
on a subsequent visit made with the same object, he failed. Benedek found
that his army was so disorganised and disheartened by the defeat of the
3rd of July, that it was idle to think of defending the line of the Elbe.
He resolved, therefore, to retire within the lines of the fortress of
Olmütz, and there re-form his broken ranks and recruit his dilapidated
resources. But the press and populace of Vienna clamoured vehemently for
his dismissal from the post of Commander-in-Chief; and this was presently
done, though not in such a manner as to disgrace him. The Archduke
Albrecht, the victor of Custozza, was appointed to the command of the
Austrian Army of the North, with General von John for his Chief of the
Staff. Benedek was left in command at Olmütz, with orders to send all
the corps lately under his command, as soon as they were ready for the
field again, by rail to Vienna, there to be united under the Archduke for
the defence of the capital. The junction was effected, but the Prussian
advance was alarmingly rapid, and on the 20th of July the advance-posts of
Herwarth were within fifteen miles of Vienna.

Another battle lost--and with inferior numbers, inferior arms, and
inferior strategy, the Austrians could not reasonably count on
victory--must have laid Austria utterly prostrate at the feet of
Prussia, and would probably have resulted, considering the difficult and
exasperating constitutional questions at that time still unsettled between
the Emperor's government and the subject kingdoms, in her dismemberment
and political degradation. From this fate Austria was saved, not by the
moderation of Prussia, but by the firm and friendly mediation of France.
The Prussians, both officers and soldiers, were eager to march on to
the assault of Vienna, though the Government was deterred by the facts
that Hungary was still intact, and the Italian army paralysed by the
dissensions of its commanders. But France, having accepted Venetia as a
pledge that she would discharge the office of mediator, discharged it
effectually. That description of mediation, to which Lord Russell was so
much attached, which proclaimed beforehand that it would employ no other
agency but "persuasion," did not commend itself to the French mind. It
is absurd to suppose that Count Bismarck would have paid any attention
to the pleadings of Benedetti had he not well understood that France was
mediating sword in hand. On this point the Count's own frank declaration,
made in the Prussian Lower House in the December following the war--though
its immediate reference is to the question of Schleswig--does not permit
us to remain in doubt. He said: "In July last France was enabled, by the
general situation of Europe, to urge her views more forcibly than before.
I need not depict the situation of this country at the time I am speaking
of. You all know what I mean. Nobody could expect us to carry on two wars
at the same time. Peace with Austria had not yet been concluded; were we
to imperil the fruits of our glorious campaign by plunging headlong into
hostilities with a new, a second enemy? France, then, being called on by
Austria to mediate between the contending parties, as a matter of course
did not omit to urge some wishes of her own upon us." Everything seems to
show that Austria owed to France, at this critical moment, her continued
existence as a great Power.

But for the time the negotiations hung fire, as Napoleon declined to
recognise the federation of all Germany under Prussian leadership, even
though Bismarck hinted that France should be allowed to annex Belgium by
way of compensation. On the 17th of July the King of Prussia arrived at
Nikolsburg, a place about forty miles to the north of Vienna, close to
the frontier line of Moravia and Lower Austria. Benedetti was already at
Nikolsburg, empowered by the Emperor of Austria to agree to an armistice
of five days, nearly upon the conditions originally proposed by Prussia,
viz. that Austria should withdraw all her troops, except those in
garrisons, to the south of the Thaya; in other words, abandon all Moravia
except the fortress and entrenched camp of Olmütz, to the Prussians.
On these conditions an armistice was concluded at Nikolsburg, to take
effect from noon on the 22nd of July, and to last till noon on the 27th.
It was well understood on both sides that this armistice was preparatory
to negotiations for peace. These were conducted actively at Nikolsburg,
Austria being represented by General Degenfeld and Count Karolyi; Prussia
by General Moltke and Count Bismarck. Preliminaries of peace between the
two Powers were signed on the 26th of July. The terms agreed to were--That
Austria should cease to be a member of the German Confederation; that
she should pay a contribution of 40,000,000 thalers towards Prussia's
expenses in the war; and that she should offer no opposition to the steps
that Prussia might take with regard to Northern Germany. The principal
measures thus sanctioned were--the annexation of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel,
Nassau, and the portion of Hesse-Darmstadt which lies to the north of
the Main; the concession to Prussia of the reversion of Brunswick on
the death of the Duke then living, who was without issue; the entry of
Saxony into the new North German Confederation about to be formed; and
the grant to Prussia of the supreme military and diplomatic leadership in
that Confederation. The Prussian armies were to be withdrawn beyond the
Thaya on the 2nd of August, but were to occupy Bohemia and Moravia till
the conclusion of the final treaty of peace, and to hold Austrian Silesia
until the war indemnity was paid. It was with great difficulty that the
Emperor Francis Joseph wrung from the King of Prussia his consent to the
continued independence of Saxony. But the little kingdom and its monarch
had stood so nobly by Austria during the war that honour demanded of the
Emperor that he should not permit them to be sacrificed, even though, by
insisting, he risked the re-opening of hostilities.

[Illustration: COUNT VON MOLTKE.]

The definitive treaty of peace between Austria and Prussia was signed at
Prague on the 23rd of August. Austria was represented in the negotiation
by Baron Brenner, and Prussia by Baron Werther, Bismarck having been
obliged to return to Berlin to be present at the opening of the Chambers.
In substance the treaty did little more than put into precise and legal
form the stipulations agreed to at Nikolsburg. The article respecting
Venetia declared that, "his Majesty the Emperor of Austria on his part
gives his consent to the union of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom with
the kingdom of Italy, without imposing any other condition than the
liquidation of those debts which have been acknowledged charges on the
territories now resigned in conformity with the Treaty of Zurich." The
fifth article transferred to Prussia all the rights that Austria had
acquired in the Elbe duchies under the Treaty of Vienna; but the influence
of the French Emperor, who would not miss what seemed to him so good an
opportunity for the application of his favourite principle of the popular
vote, obtained the addition of a clause providing that "the people of the
northern district of Schleswig, if by free vote they express a wish to be
united to Denmark, should be ceded to Denmark accordingly." With regard to
Saxony, the King of Prussia declared himself willing (Article VI.), "at
the desire of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria," to allow the territory
of that kingdom to remain within its existing limits, reserving to himself
the right of settling in a separate treaty the share to be contributed by
Saxony towards the expenses of the war, and the position which it should
eventually hold within the North German Confederation. This separate
treaty was not concluded till the 21st of October of the same year. Under
it Saxony retained little more than a nominal independence. She agreed to
pay a war contribution of 9,000,000 thalers, to give up all her telegraphs
to Prussia, and to enter the North German Confederation; her troops were
to form an integral portion of the North German army, under the supreme
command of the King of Prussia; Königstein, her strongest fortress, was
to be given up to Prussia, and Dresden to be held by a garrison half
Prussian, half Saxon. While Prussia was stipulating for the cessation
of all common interests between her and Austria, and for the exclusion
of the latter from Germany, the question naturally rose: What relations
are to subsist hereafter between Prussia and the other South German
States--such as Bavaria and Baden--which are neither to join the North
German Confederation, nor yet to be excluded altogether from Germany?
This question was answered in the fourth article of the treaty, in which
the Emperor of Austria, after promising to recognise the North German
Confederation which Prussia was about to form, "declares his consent that
the German States situated to the south of the line of the Main should
unite in a league, the national connection of which with the North German
Bund is reserved for a further agreement between both parties, and which
will have an international independent existence." The Treaty of Prague
further settled that from the war indemnity of 40,000,000 thalers which
Austria had agreed to pay, a sum of 15,000,000 thalers should be deducted
on account of war expenses claimed by the Emperor from the duchies of
Schleswig and Holstein, and a further sum of 5,000,000 thalers on account
of the maintenance of the Prussian troops in the Austrian States which
they occupied till the conclusion of peace. The remaining net indemnity
of 20,000,000 thalers was to be paid within three weeks of the exchange
of ratifications. This sum, it may be mentioned, amounts to £3,000,000 of
English money. The principal articles of the treaty between Austria and
Prussia having been thus briefly summarised, it now only remains to state
that the ratifications of the treaty were formally exchanged at Prague on
the 29th of August.

The war was over, but the task of establishing the new internal relations
that were henceforth to prevail in Germany remained. Armistices were
agreed to on the 2nd of August between Prussia, on the one hand, and
Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, and Hesse-Darmstadt, on the other, to last
for three weeks. At first Bavaria was very roughly dealt with. The
Bavarian Ambassador, Baron von der Pfordten, was some days at Nikolsburg
before he could obtain an audience of Count Bismarck. At last (July 27th)
he obtained a few minutes' conversation with the Prussian Minister,
who curtly stated as the terms of peace, the cession of all Bavarian
territory north of the Main to Prussia, the cession of the Bavarian
Palatinate to Hesse-Darmstadt, and the payment of a war indemnity. But
the final treaty of peace, signed at Berlin on the 22nd of August,
was less onerous for Bavaria, it imposed, indeed, a contribution of
30,000,000 gulden; abolished shipping dues on the Rhine and Main, where
those rivers were under Bavarian jurisdiction; and transferred all the
telegraph lines north of the Main to Prussian control; but it required
no such cessions of territory as were exacted by the preliminaries. The
causes of this apparent lenity, which must have puzzled those acquainted
with the Prussian character, will be explained presently. The treaty
with Würtemberg, signed on the 13th of August, imposed a war indemnity
of 8,000,000 florins on that kingdom, and provided for its re-entry
into the Zollverein. A similar treaty with Baden, signed on the 17th
of August, burdened the Grand Duchy with a war indemnity of 6,000,000
gulden. Peace with Hesse-Darmstadt was only concluded on the 3rd of
September. Great resentment was felt in Prussia against the Grand Duke,
who had been throughout a staunch friend to Austria. On the other hand,
the Court of Russia, for family reasons, intervened with urgency on
behalf both of Würtemberg and of Hesse-Darmstadt; and the terms imposed
on these States were consequently more lenient than had been expected.
Darmstadt was required to give up Hesse-Homburg and certain other
portions of its territory to Prussia; it was, however, indemnified to a
considerable extent at the cost of what had been the independent States
of Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort; the general effect being to
consolidate and render more compact the territories both of Prussia and
of Darmstadt, where they were conterminous. Hesse-Darmstadt, moreover,
though, in respect of that portion of her territories which lay south of
the Main, she was a South German State, agreed to enter the North German
Confederation.

Besides the public treaties with the States of South Germany which
have been just described, Prussia concluded with them at the same time
certain secret articles, which were not divulged until months afterwards.
According to these, Bavaria, Baden, and Würtemberg severally entered
into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with Prussia, with
guarantee of their respective territories, and the concession of the
supreme command in time of war to the King of Prussia. Count Bismarck
knew that he had been playing a perilous game; he had mortified and
exasperated the French Emperor, immediately after the close of the war, by
refusing to cede to him certain demands for the Bavarian Palatinate and
the Hessian districts west of the Rhine. French vanity had been wounded
by the victories, French jealousy had been aroused by the aggrandisement,
of Prussia. The whole North German Confederation did but represent a
population of 25,000,000; if Germany was to be safe against France, she
must be able to dispose at need of the military resources of a population
of at least equal magnitude. Weighing all these things with that profound
forecast which characterised him, Count Bismarck would seem to have
purposely imposed at first harsh conditions on Bavaria in order that he
might obtain, as the price of their subsequent remission, the adhesion of
that kingdom to an arrangement that would bring its excellent soldiers
into line with those of Prussia. Upon all these South German States he
skilfully brought to bear an argument derived from the recent demand of
France for German territory which he promptly divulged--a demand which,
he said, would infallibly be renewed; which it would be difficult in all
circumstances to resist; and which, if it had to be conceded, could hardly
be satisfied except at the expense of one or other of them. Isolated,
they could not resist dismemberment; united with Prussia, and mutually
guaranteeing each other's territories, they were safe.

These secret treaties between Prussia and the South German States first
came to light in April of the following year. Count Beust, who was then
the Austrian Premier, commenting on the disclosure in his despatches to
Austrian representatives at foreign Courts, said that Austria would make
no complaint and ask for no explanations; at the same time, with much dry
significance, he directed their attention to the fact, that the Prussian
Government had actually concluded these treaties with the South German
States before it signed the Treaty of Prague, the fourth article of which
was by them rendered null and meaningless. The Count justly pointed out
that an offensive alliance between two States forced the weaker of the two
to endorse the foreign policy and follow in the wake of the stronger, and
practically destroyed the independence of the former.

For the French Emperor, in spite of the efficacy of the French
intervention in favour of Austria, the events of this year must have been
full of secret mortification. In Mexico, the empire that he had built
up at heavy cost was crumbling to pieces; and he did not feel himself
strong enough on the throne--nor was he, in fact, gifted with sufficient
strength of moral and intellectual fibre--to persevere in the enterprise
against the ill-will of the American Government and the carpings of the
Opposition at home. He made up his mind to withdraw the French troops
from Mexico, and get out of the affair with as little loss of credit
as possible. In spite of checks and disappointments, Napoleon still
wore a bold front, and in his public utterances continued to assume the
oracular and impassable character that had so long imposed on the world.
In the sitting of the Corps-Législatif on the 12th of June an important
letter from the Emperor to M. Drouyn de Lhuys was read, in which it was
declared that France would only require an extension of her frontiers,
in the event of the map of Europe being altered to the profit of a great
Power, and of the bordering provinces expressing by a formal and free vote
their desire for annexation. The last clause was a judicious reservation,
particularly as the doctrine of the popular sovereignty, expressed through
_plébiscites_, was not at all consonant with Prussian ideas, so that
there was no chance of Rhine Prussia, or any part of it, being allowed
the opportunity, supposing it had desired it, of voting for annexation
to France. However, notwithstanding the imperial declaration, the map of
Europe was altered to the profit of a great Power, and France obtained
no extension of territory. Soon after the close of the Austro-Prussian
War, the Emperor asked from the Prussian Government the concession of a
small strip of territory to the extreme south of her Rhenish provinces,
including the valuable coalfield in the neighbourhood of Saarbrück and
Saarlouis, besides acquiescence in the annexations from Bavaria and
Hesse-Darmstadt. This was the last of a series of demands for compensation
dating from 1862, by judiciously playing with which Bismarck had kept
Napoleon quiet during two European wars. Count Bismarck met the request
with a decided refusal, on the ground that the state of national feeling
in Germany rendered the cession of a single foot of German territory to
a foreign Power an impossible proceeding. The Emperor's mortification
must have been extreme; he concealed it, however, and nothing was more
hopeful or optimistic than the tone of the circular which he caused to
be sent on the 16th of September to the French diplomatic agents abroad.
Its object was to convince the nation and all the world that France had
not been humiliated, nor disappointed, nor disagreeably surprised, by the
late events; on the contrary, that she was perfectly satisfied with what
had happened. As to annexations, France desired none in which the sympathy
of the populations annexed did not go with her--in which they had not the
same customs, the same national spirit with herself. From the elevated
point of view occupied by the French Government, "the horizon appeared to
be cleared of all menacing eventualities."

[Illustration: THE PALACE, DRESDEN.]

[Illustration: WAR OFFICE, PALL MALL.]




CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Parliamentary Reform--Mr. Disraeli's Resolutions--Their Text--Mr.
    Lowe's Sarcasms--The "Ten Minutes" Bill--Sir John Pakington's
    Revelations--Lord John Manners' Letter--Ministerial Resignations--A
    New Bill promised--Meeting at Downing Street--Mr. Disraeli's
    Statement--The Compound Householder--The Fancy Franchises--Mr.
    Gladstone's Exposure--Mr. Lowe and Lord Cranborne--The Spirit of
    Concession--Mr. Gladstone on the Second Reading--Mr. Gathorne
    Hardy's Speech--Mr. Bright and Mr. Disraeli--The Dual Vote
    abandoned--Mr. Coleridge's Instruction--The Tea-Room Cabal--Mr.
    Gladstone's Amendment--His other Amendments withdrawn--Continued
    Debates and Divisions--Mr. Hodgkinson's Amendment--Mr. Disraeli's
    _coup de théâtre_--Mr. Lowe's Philippic--The County Franchise--The
    Redistribution Bill--Objections to It--The Boundaries--Lord
    Cranborne and Mr. Lowe--Mr Disraeli's Audacity--The Bill in the
    Lords--Four Amendments--Lord Cairns's Minorities Amendment--The
    Bill becomes Law--The "Leap in the Dark"--_Punch_ on the
    Situation--The Scottish Reform Bill--Prolongation of the Habeas
    Corpus Suspension Act--Irish Debates--Oaths and Offices Bill--Mr.
    Bruce's Education Bill--The "Gang System"--Meetings in Hyde
    Park--Mr. Walpole's Proclamation and Resignation--Attempted
    Attack on Chester Castle--Collapse of the Enterprise--Attack on
    the Police Van at Manchester--Trial of the "Martyrs"--Explosion
    at Clerkenwell Prison--Trades Union Outrages at Sheffield--The
    Crimes of Broadhead--Tailors and Picketing--The Buckinghamshire
    Labourers--Distressing Accidents--Royal Visitors--Foreign
    Affairs--The French Evacuation of Mexico--The Luxemburg
    Question--The London Conference--Neutralisation of the Duchy--The
    Austrian Compromise--Creation of the Dual Monarchy--The Autumn
    Session--The Abyssinian Expedition--A Mislaid Letter.


On the 11th of February, 1867, in pursuance of the pledges given by
the new Ministry in their various speeches before the beginning of the
Session, the House of Commons was once more invited to consider the
question of Reform, under the guidance, however, of Mr. Disraeli, instead
of Mr. Gladstone. The Conservative party naturally felt somewhat strange
to the work; they had turned out the Liberal Government upon various
pleas, all of which they were to abandon, more or less completely,
before the close of the Session of 1867; they had no such traditional or
inherited policy to guide them in framing a popular Reform Bill as the
Liberals had; and they had a dread of the Opposition, which, considering
their own conduct towards the defeated Reform Bill of the preceding year,
was, perhaps, not unreasonable. Still the fact that the whole question
had been already fully canvassed and discussed--that the House had become
familiarised with the details as well as the general principles of Reform,
and that its members had, one and all with more or less sincerity, it is
true, pledged themselves to Reform in some shape or other--was in their
favour. When the _pros_ and _cons_ of the situation are considered, the
course adopted by Mr. Disraeli, in introducing the subject, seems, at
first sight, both natural and ingenious. "We desire no longer," said
the Conservatives, "to risk the settlement of the whole question upon a
question of detail; the House is pledged to Reform; let us then, instead
of dictating to it a definite policy, instead of bringing in a Bill of our
own immediately, endeavour to ascertain the general sense of the House
upon disputed points before framing it, that we may not frame it in the
dark, and meet the common fate of those Ministries that have hitherto
dealt with the subject." This was the meaning of Mr. Disraeli's famous
Resolutions, which he explained to the House in his opening speech. In
this speech, throughout ingeniously indefinite, the new Chancellor of
the Exchequer provided such men as Mr. Lowe, possessing a keen sense
of humour, with ample food for ridicule. After the resolutions had
been sufficiently debated, Government promised to bring forward a Bill
embodying the general opinion of the House, so far as the discussions on
the resolutions should have enabled them to ascertain it. Mr. Gladstone,
in answer to Mr. Disraeli, reproached Government with wishing to shift the
whole responsibility in the matter from their own shoulders to those of
the House. The principle of Ministerial responsibility was one sanctioned
by long usage, and was not to be lightly abandoned. With regard to the
resolutions themselves, though at first sight he disliked the plan, he
was willing to give them a fair trial, provided they were not mere vague
preliminary declarations which it would be of no practical advantage to
discuss. The resolutions appeared in the papers next day, and produced
general disappointment. It was felt that Government, in spite of all
their protestations, were really "angling for a policy," and that they
were treating neither the House nor the nation straightforwardly. The
resolutions were as follows:--

1. "That the number of electors for counties and boroughs in England and
Wales ought to be increased.

2. "That such increase may best be effected by both reducing the value
of the qualifying tenement in counties and boroughs, and by adding other
franchises not dependent on such value.

3. "That while it is desirable that a more direct representation should be
given to the labouring class, it is contrary to the Constitution of this
realm to give to any one class or interest a predominating power over the
rest of the community.

4. "That the occupation franchise in counties and boroughs shall be based
upon the principle of rating.

[It will be remembered that it was upon this very question of rating, as
against rental, that the Russell Ministry had been thrown out of office in
the preceding year. After Lord Dunkellin's amendment, the Conservatives
were bound to make the principle of rating a part of any scheme brought
forward by them. How much they were obliged to modify it before the end of
the matter, and how amply justified Mr. Gladstone's arguments against it
were proved to be, will be seen hereafter.]

5. "That the principle of plurality of votes, if adopted by Parliament,
would facilitate the settlement of the borough franchise on an extensive
basis.

6. "That it is expedient to revise the existing distribution of seats.

7. "That in such revision it is not expedient that any borough now
represented in Parliament should be wholly disfranchised.

8. "That in revising the existing distribution of seats, this House will
acknowledge, as its main consideration, the expediency of supplying
representation to places not at present represented, which may be
considered entitled to that privilege.

9. "That it is expedient that provision should be made for the better
prevention of bribery and corruption at elections.

10. "That it is expedient that the system of registration of voters in
counties should be assimilated as far as possible to that which prevails
in boroughs.

11. "That it shall be open to every Parliamentary elector, if he thinks
fit, to record his vote by means of a polling paper, duly signed and
authenticated.

12. "That provision be made for diminishing the distance which voters have
to travel for the purpose of recording their votes, so that no expenditure
for such purpose shall hereafter be legal.

13. "That a humble Address be presented to her Majesty, praying
her Majesty to issue a Royal Commission to form and submit to the
consideration of Parliament a scheme for new and enlarged boundaries
of the existing Parliamentary boroughs where the population extends
beyond the limits now assigned to such boroughs; and to fix, subject to
the decision of Parliament, the boundaries of such other boroughs as
Parliament may deem fit to be represented in this House."

The House and the country were naturally dissatisfied with such vague
statements as these, and between the 11th and the 25th of February, when
Mr. Disraeli promised something more definite, many attempts were made to
induce Government to declare themselves more plainly. "The Resolutions
of the Government," said Mr. Lowe later, borrowing a happy illustration
from the "Vicar of Wakefield," "have no more to do with the plan of the
Government than Squire Thornhill's three famous postulates had to do with
the argument he had with Moses Primrose, when, in order to controvert
the right of the clergy to tithes, he laid down the principles--that a
whole is greater than its part; that whatever is, is; and that three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles." However, Mr. Disraeli
kept his secret, in spite of attacks from Mr. Ayrton and arguments from
Mr. Gladstone, till the night of the 25th, when he rose to explain the
resolutions and to suggest certain constructions of them on the part
of Government; a very different thing, it will be understood, from
bringing in a Bill by which the framers of it are bound in the main to
stand or fall. In the first place, then, Government proposed to create
four new franchises--an educational franchise, to include persons who
had taken a university degree, ministers of religion, and others; a
savings bank franchise; a franchise dependent upon the possession of
£50 in the public funds; and a fourth dependent upon the payment of £1
yearly in direct taxation. By these means the Government calculated that
about 82,000 persons would be enfranchised. In boroughs the occupier's
qualification was to be reduced to £6 rateable value, and in counties to
£20 rateable value--reductions which it was supposed would admit about
220,000 new voters. With regard to the redistribution of seats, four
boroughs, convicted of extensive corruption, and returning seven members
between them, were to be wholly disfranchised; and in addition to these
seven members, Mr. Disraeli appealed "to the patriotism of the smaller
boroughs" to provide him with twenty-three more, by means of partial
disfranchisement. The thirty seats thus obtained were to be divided as
follows:--Fifteen new seats were to be given to counties, fourteen to
boroughs (an additional member being given to the Tower Hamlets), and one
member to the London University. The points of likeness and unlikeness
between this scheme and that of the Liberals in 1866 will be easily
perceived by any one who takes the trouble to examine the two plans.

This meagre and unsatisfactory measure, however, was short-lived; and the
secret history of it, as it was afterwards told by various members of
the Government, affords an amusing insight into the mysteries of Cabinet
Councils. The fact was that before the beginning of the Session, and
during the time that the thirteen resolutions were lying on the table of
the House, two Reform schemes were under the consideration of Government,
"one of which," said Lord Derby, "was more extensive than the other." When
it was seen that the House would have nothing to say to the resolutions,
and that a Bill must be brought in without delay, it became necessary
to choose between these two schemes. At a Cabinet meeting on Saturday,
February 23rd, the more extensive one, based upon household suffrage,
guarded by various precautions, was, as it was supposed, unanimously
adopted, and Mr. Disraeli was commissioned to explain it to the House of
Commons on the following Monday, the 25th. The rest of the story may be
told in Sir John Pakington's words. "You all know," he said, addressing
his constituents at Droitwich, "that, on the 23rd of February, a Cabinet
Council decided on the Reform Bill which was to be proposed to Parliament.
On Monday, the 25th, at two o'clock in the afternoon, Lord Derby was to
address the whole Conservative party in Downing Street. At half-past
four in the afternoon of that day--I mention the hour because it is
important--the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to explain the Reform Bill
in the House of Commons. When the Cabinet Council rose on the previous
Saturday, it was my belief that we were a unanimous Cabinet on the Reform
Bill then determined upon. [Lord Derby, however, afterwards stated that
General Peel, one of the three seceding Ministers, had some time before
the Cabinet of the 23rd expressed his strong objections to the Reform Bill
then adopted, but had consented to waive his objections for the sake of
the unity of the Ministry.] As soon as the Council concluded, Lord Derby
went to Windsor to communicate with her Majesty on the Reform Bill, and
I heard no more of the subject till the Monday morning. On the Monday,
between eleven and twelve o'clock, I received an urgent summons to attend
Lord Derby's house at half-past twelve o'clock on important business. At
that hour I reached Lord Derby's house, but found there only three or
four members of the Cabinet. No such summons had been anticipated, and
consequently some of the Ministers were at their private houses, some at
their offices, and it was nearly half-past one before the members of the
Cabinet could be brought together. As each dropped in, the question was
put, 'What is the matter? Why are we convened?' and as they successively
came in, they were informed that Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and
General Peel had seceded, objecting to the details of the Bill which we
thought they had adopted on the Saturday. Imagine the difficulty and
embarrassment in which the Ministry found themselves placed. It was then
past two o'clock. Lord Derby was to address the Conservative party at
half-past two; at half-past four Mr. Disraeli was to unfold the Reform
scheme [adopted on the previous Saturday] before the House of Commons.
Literally, we had not half an hour--we had not more than ten minutes--to
make up our minds as to what course the Ministry were to adopt. The public
knows the rest. We determined to propose, not the Bill agreed to on the
Saturday, but an alternative measure, which we had contemplated in the
event of our large and liberal scheme being rejected by the House of
Commons. Whether, if the Ministry had had an hour for consideration, we
should have taken that course was, perhaps, a question. But we had not
that hour, and were driven to decide upon a line of definite action within
the limits of little more than ten minutes."

In Lord Malmesbury's "Recollections" is to be found a letter from Lord
John Manners, which corroborates this ingenuous confession. "I am truly
sorry," he wrote on February 26th, "to hear of the cause of your absence
from our distracted councils, and hope that you will soon be able to bring
a better account of Lady Malmesbury. I really hardly know where we are,
but yesterday we were suddenly brought together to hear that Cranborne and
Carnarvon withdrew unless we gave up household suffrage and duality, upon
which announcement Peel said that, although he had given up his opposition
when he stood alone, now he must be added to the remonstrant Ministers.
Stanley then proposed that to keep us together the £6 and £20 rating
should be adopted, which, after much discussion, was agreed to. We have
decided to abandon the Resolutions altogether, and to issue the Boundary
Commission ourselves. We are in a very broken and disorganised condition."

It was soon felt, however, by the Ministry that this condition of things
was unsound, and could not last. The measure explained on the 25th
satisfied neither Conservatives nor Liberals. A large meeting of Liberals
held at Mr. Gladstone's house decisively condemned it; while from their
own friends and supporters Government received strong and numerous
protests against it. What was to be done? Lord Derby once more called
his Government together, and they agreed to retrace their steps, even at
the cost of the three objecting Ministers. Upon the 4th of March Lord
Derby, in the House of Lords, and Mr. Disraeli, in the Commons, announced
the resignation of Lord Cranborne, Lord Carnarvon, and General Peel (who
were replaced by the Dukes of Richmond and Marlborough and Mr. Corry),
the withdrawal of the measure proposed on the 25th, and the adoption by
Government of a far more liberal policy than that represented. Both in the
House and in the country there were naturally some rather free criticisms
passed upon a Government who, three weeks before the announcement of a
Reform Bill brought forward by them, had not come to an agreement upon its
most essential provisions, and upon a sudden emergency, and to keep their
members together, adopted and introduced a makeshift measure, which their
own sense of expediency, no less than public opinion, afterwards obliged
them to withdraw. In these marchings and counter-marchings of Government
much valuable time had been thrown away. "No less than six weeks of the
Session," said Lord Grey, "have been wasted before any step whatever has
been taken." The Conservative leaders, however, vehemently protested that
it was no fault of theirs; and now that the confession had been made, and
the three refractory colleagues got rid of, affairs did at length assume a
businesslike aspect. "It is our business now," said the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, "to bring forward, as soon as we possibly can, the measure of
Parliamentary Reform which, after such difficulties and such sacrifices,
it will be my duty to introduce to the House. Sir, the House need not fear
that there will be any evasion, any equivocation, any vacillation, or any
hesitation in that measure."

In the interval between these Ministerial explanations and the production
of the real Reform Bill in Parliament meetings of their supporters
were held by the lenders of both parties. At a meeting held in Downing
Street on the 15th of March, Lord Derby explained to 195 members of
the Conservative party the distinctive features of the proposed Bill.
Startling as the contemplated changes in the franchise must have seemed
to every Conservative present, only one dissenting voice was heard--that
of Sir William Heathcote, who declared, in strong terms, that he wholly
disapproved of the measure, and that he believed, if carried out, it
would destroy the influence of rank, property, and education throughout
the country by the mere force of numbers. The scheme, of which only a
few fragments were as yet generally known, was given to the public on
the 18th of March, when Mr. Disraeli described it at much length in the
House. And although the measure at first proposed was so largely altered
in its passage through Parliament that by the time it had become part of
the law of England its original projectors must have had some difficulty
in recognising it as theirs, it is worth while to take careful note of its
various provisions as they were originally drawn up, that the action of
the two great parties engaged throughout the subsequent struggle may be
the more plainly understood.

[Illustration: LORD MALMESBURY.

(_From a Photograph by Elliott & Fry, Baker Street, W._)]

The first quarter of Mr. Disraeli's speech was taken up by a review of
the past history of the question--an old and well-known story, somewhat
impatiently listened to by the House. He picked the various Reform schemes
of his predecessors to pieces, and finally declared that the principle
at the bottom of them all--the principle of value, regulated whether by
rental or rating--had been proved by long experience to be untenable and
unpractical, and Government were now about to abandon it altogether. Nor
was Mr. Disraeli slow to disclose his secret. The very next paragraph
of his speech announced that, in the opinion of Government, any attempt
to unite the principle of value with the principle of rating, any such
solution as a £6 or £5 rating franchise, would be wholly unsatisfactory.
In the boroughs of England and Wales, Mr. Disraeli went on to say, there
were 1,367,000 male householders, of whom 644,000 were qualified to
vote, leaving 723,000 unqualified. Now, if we examined these 723,000, we
should find that 237,000 of them were rated to the poor and paid their
rates. So that if the law were changed in such a manner as to make the
borough franchise dependent upon the payment of rates only, unrestricted
by any standard of value, these 237,000 would be at once qualified to
vote, making, with the 644,000 already qualified, 881,000 persons in the
English and Welsh boroughs in possession of the franchise. There would
still remain 486,000, belonging mostly to the irregular and debatable
class of compound householders--householders paying their rates, not
personally, but through their landlords. Now, since Government thought
that the franchise ought to be based upon a personal payment of rates,
it became a great question as to what was to be done with these 486,000
compound householders. "Ought the compound householders to have a vote?"
As a compound householder Government thought he ought not to have a vote.
But he was not to be left altogether in the cold. Ample opportunities
were to be afforded him for raising himself out of the anomalous position
to which the Small Tenements Acts had consigned him. Let him only enter
his name upon the rate-book, and claim to pay his rates personally; and
having fulfilled the constitutional condition required, he would at once
succeed to the constitutional privilege connected with it. It had been
said that the working classes did not care enough about the suffrage to
take so much trouble to obtain it. "That, however," said Mr. Disraeli,
oracularly, "is not the opinion of her Majesty's Government." Thus 723,000
additional persons might, if they wished, obtain the franchise under the
new Bill. To these were to be added all those who paid 20s. a year in
direct taxes, whether compound householders or not; while, to prevent
the working classes from swamping the constituencies and nullifying the
influence of the middle and upper classes, Government brought forward the
curious expedient of dual voting. "Every person," said the Chancellor of
the Exchequer," who pays £1 direct taxation, and who enjoys the franchise
which depends upon the payment of direct taxation, if he is also a
householder and pays his rates, may exercise his suffrage in respect of
both qualifications."

The dual vote, however, provoked such hot opposition that, as will
shortly be seen, Government eventually withdrew it. The direct taxes
qualification, Mr. Disraeli calculated, would add more than 200,000 to
the constituency; and the three other "fancy franchises," as they were
called--the education franchise, the funded property franchise, and the
savings bank franchise--another 105,000. In all, Government held out
the splendid promise of an addition of more than 1,000,000 voters to
the borough constituency. In counties the franchise would be lowered to
£15 rateable value--a reduction which would enfranchise about 171,000
additional voters; while the four lateral franchises mentioned above
would bring the number of new county voters up to about 330,000. With
regard to the redistribution of seats, Government had substantially the
same proposals to make as those originally described to the House on
the 25th of February. Mr. Disraeli, however, vigorously defended them
from the charge of inadequacy which had been brought against them in
the interval. Neither Government nor the country, he said, was prepared
to go through the agitating labour of constructing a new electoral map
of England; and this being the case, all that would be done would be to
seize opportunities as they arose of remedying grievances and removing
inequalities by some such moderate means as those proposed in the Bill.

Alas! for Mr. Disraeli's figures when they came to be handled by Mr.
Gladstone. Instead of 237,000, it was stoutly maintained by Mr. Gladstone
that scarcely 144,000 would be admitted to the franchise by extending
it to all who personally paid their rates. And as to the facilities to
be offered in such tempting profusion to the compound householder for
obtaining a vote, they amounted to this--that he was to have the privilege
of paying over again that which he had already paid. It was difficult to
believe that he would ever avail himself of this privilege to any great
extent. Practically, the Bill did nothing for the compound householder;
so that, while it would introduce household suffrage--nay, universal
suffrage--into villages and country towns where there was no system of
compounding for rates, in large towns, like Leeds, with a population
of a quarter of a million, where the majority of the inhabitants were
compound householders, its effect would be little or nothing. In fact, the
results of the Bill, had it been passed as it was originally drawn up,
would have been almost grotesque. In Hull, for instance, where the Small
Tenements Act was almost universally enforced, the number of personally
rated occupiers under the £10 rental who would have been enfranchised by
the Bill would have been 64 out of a population of 104,873; while in the
small borough of Thirsk, where the system of compounding for rates was
not in use, 684 would have obtained the franchise as personal ratepayers.
In Brighton, where compound householders abounded, the Bill would have
enfranchised 14 out of every 10,000 occupiers under the £10 line; while in
York it would have enfranchised 100 out of every 1,000. The enfranchising
effect of the Bill would have been between "six and seven times as great
in the boroughs not under Rating Acts as in the others." It is more than
probable that in framing their measure Government foresaw none of these
anomalies, and that they were revealed to them and impressed upon them in
the course of debate. There was, in fact, no adequate knowledge among them
of the working of those complicated details of rating machinery upon which
they made the whole effect of their Bill ultimately depend. With regard
to the secondary franchises--the direct taxes franchise, the education
franchise, etc.,--Mr. Gladstone contended that the figures quoted by Mr.
Disraeli were wholly erroneous and visionary, and that the new voters it
was supposed they would admit were no more substantial than Falstaff's men
in buckram. For himself, he had no belief in the principle of rating as a
bulwark of the Constitution; and to base the possession of the franchise
upon the personal payment of rates, he thought fundamentally wrong. To
the proposition of dual voting as a safeguard of household suffrage, he
declared himself inflexibly opposed. It could only serve as a gigantic
instrument of fraud, and was nothing less than a proclamation of a war
of classes. And where was the lodger franchise, so highly praised by the
Conservatives in 1859, which all the world had expected to find in the
Bill? If that were added, and the so-called safeguards of dual voting and
personal payment of rates done away with, the Liberal party would accept
the Bill as a whole.

A short debate followed, in which Mr. Lowe reappeared, to do battle as
warmly against the Reform Bill of the Conservatives as he had formerly
waged it against that of the Liberals. Mr. Lowe had been duped, but he was
not yet prepared to confess it. Later, when concession after concession
had been made by Government, and a far more Radical measure than any
Liberal Ministry had ever dreamt of was on the point of becoming law,
Mr. Lowe did indeed make ample and public confession of his mistake, and
loud and bitter were the expressions of his wrath and mortification.
But at this stage of the matter the "Cave" had still some confidence in
Conservative principles and time-honoured Conservative traditions, and
refused to believe that the party they had helped to put into power would
ever betray them so completely as was afterwards actually the case. They
disliked the Bill and said so; but for some little time they trusted to
the genuine Conservative influence still existing behind the Ministerial
benches for its modification. Lord Cranborne, a seceder from the Tories,
as Mr. Lowe had been from the Liberals, made a short but energetic attack
upon the Bill on this occasion. "If the Conservative party accept the
Bill," he said, "they will be committing political suicide: household
suffrage, pure and simple, will be the result of it, for no one can put
any faith in the proposed safeguards; and, after their conduct last
year, it is not the Conservatives who should pass a measure of household
suffrage."

During the interval between the introduction of the Bill and the motion
for the second reading, an important meeting of the Liberal party was held
at Mr. Gladstone's house on March 21st, to consider whether opposition
should be offered to the second reading. Mr. Gladstone said, "Since the
printing of the Government Bill, having applied myself day and night
to the study of it, I have not the smallest doubt in my own mind that
the wiser course of the two would be to oppose the Bill on the second
reading." He thought, however, "that the general disposition of the
meeting would not bear him out in that course;" and to maintain the unity
of the party, he was willing to sacrifice his own personal opinion. "If
Ministers were content to abandon the dual voting, and to equalise the
privileges and facilities of the enfranchised in all cases, however the
qualification arose, then the measure might be made acceptable. If they
would not concede these points, then he thought that the Liberals should
not permit the measure to go into committee." It was already evident that
both sides had made up their minds to pass some kind of Reform Bill during
the Session, and that both were prepared to make concessions rather than
offer to the country once more the pitiable spectacle of a great measure
of necessary Reform overthrown by party spirit and party warfare. Still
the Liberals were determined to wrest certain points from Government; and
in his speech on the second reading (March 25th) Mr. Gladstone thus summed
up the defects in the Bill, which must, he said, be amended before the
Liberals could give in their adhesion to it:--

1. Omission of a lodger franchise. 2. Omission of provisions against
traffic in votes of householders of the lowest class, by corrupt payment
of their rates. 3. Disqualifications of compound householders under the
existing law. 4. Additional disqualifications of compound householders
under the proposed law. 5. The franchise founded on direct taxation. 6.
The dual vote. 7. The inadequate distribution of seats. 8. The inadequate
reduction of the franchise in counties. 9. Voting papers. 10. Collateral
or special franchises. Every one of these ten points, except the second,
was finally settled more or less in accordance with the demands of the
Liberals,--an instructive comment on the experiment of "government by
minorities," which Mr. Disraeli was making with such great success.

In contradistinction to Lord Cranborne, Mr. Gladstone maintained that
while the Bill seemed on the face of it to be a measure of household
suffrage, it was in reality nothing of the kind; every concession in it
was balanced by a corresponding restriction, and what it gave with one
hand it took away with the other. For the dual vote he had nothing but
hard words: "At the head of the list stand those favoured children of
fortune--those select human beings made of finer clay than the rest of
their fellow-subjects--who are to be endowed with dual votes. Upon that
dual vote I shall not trouble the House, for I think that my doing so
would be a waste of time." And, indeed, the general opinion of the House
had already pronounced so decidedly against it, that no purpose would have
been served by discussing it at length. Mr. Gladstone went on to declaim
afresh against the fine which the Bill would inflict upon the compound
householder before he could obtain his vote. Then followed an elaborate
and masterly examination of the probable results of the Bill if passed in
its original form. Making use of some important statistics, the return of
which had been lately moved for by Mr. Ward Hunt, he attacked the Bill
as one that would "flood some towns with thousands of voters, and only
add a few in other towns." After reading a long series of these damaging
statistics, Mr. Gladstone might well ask, "Is it possible that any one
on the Treasury benches can get up in his place, and recommend those
clauses respecting the compound householder with all their anomalies?"
Men, however, were not lacking to defend them, and to defend them with
ability and vigour. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, then Commissioner of the Poor
Laws, after a graceful tribute to the power of Mr. Gladstone's speech,
made out, perhaps, the best case for the Ministerial measure that had yet
been attempted. He denied that the Bill was a Household Suffrage Bill; the
proper name for it was a Rating Franchise Bill; and so far from excluding
anybody, as Mr. Gladstone had tried to prove, it opened the franchise to
every one who chose to claim it. And as to the "fine" which it was said
would be imposed upon the compound householder by the Bill, he could
recover whatever rates he paid from the landlord--a statement in support
of which Mr. Hardy quoted an Act of Queen Victoria, allowing "any occupier
paying any rate or rates in respect of any tenement where the owner is
rated to the same, to deduct from his rent or recover from his landlord
the amount so paid." The Act, however, did not really bear out Mr. Hardy's
argument, since it only enabled the tenant to recover the reduced rate,
while the Bill obliged him to pay the full rate before obtaining his vote.
The personal payment, of rates, and the two years' residence clauses,
were, he admitted, meant as safeguards and limitations; but he believed
them to be just and reasonable, and such as would be approved by the
country.

The debate was vigorously kept up--the Ministry being only represented
by Mr. Gathorne Hardy and Mr. Disraeli, and supporters and opponents of
the Bill being found promiscuously on both sides of the House. In truth,
people had not yet got over their surprise, and neither Liberals nor
Conservatives quite knew what to think of a measure so Liberal at heart,
though cased with Conservative safeguards, brought in by a Conservative
Government. It was only towards the end of the debate, when Mr. Bright
spoke, and Mr. Disraeli made answer on the whole case, that the country
began clearly to see which way things were going. Mr. Bright was in a
happy vein; he mixed in an effective way solid criticism on the details
of the Bill with sarcastic descriptions of its framers, and earnest
denunciation of what he called the "deception and disappointment" of which
it bore the marks. He regarded the Bill as really equivalent to a measure
for £8 suffrage, and therefore less thorough than the Bill of the previous
year. It was too much inclined to a "set off"--the enfranchising of
higher class voters to counteract the lower, which, of course, would not
be the removal of the real grievance that the workmen felt. Then, after
protesting that he would be the first person in the House to support a
"fair and honest measure" of Reform, Mr. Bright went on: "I will be no
party to any Bill which would cheat the great body of my countrymen of the
possession of that power in the House on which they have set their hearts;
and which, as I believe, by the Constitution of this country, they may
most justly claim."

[Illustration: TEA-ROOM, HOUSE OF COMMONS.]

When Mr. Disraeli rose to end the debate, the House clearly saw that,
though he was supporting his Bill most strenuously, he was really speaking
in the spirit of his own resolutions. Those, it will be remembered, had
been brought forward early in the Session with the avowed purpose of
"feeling" or "taking the sense of" the House. Mr. Disraeli made no secret
then of his readiness to do as he was bid by the majority; and now,
though he pretended to make a secret of it, the same readiness was to be
detected in his speech. There was a vast amount of epigram directed at
Mr. Gladstone; but Mr. Disraeli, in taking up the amendments indicated by
him, confessed that "if satisfactory arguments were brought forward in
committee," no doubt the House would adopt them; and the House might adopt
them, he implied, without endangering the Government Bill. To the lodger
franchise--of which Mr. Disraeli claimed himself to be the father--he was
not personally opposed; it might be left to the committee. The compound
householder amendment--why was it that Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone,
in schemes of their own, had wished to keep up the distinction between
classes of ratepayers, and now wished to abolish those distinctions? Yet
that amendment might be referred to the committee. In the same way with
the amendment about voting papers, about the qualification of residence,
about the county franchise, about redistribution of seats. On one and all
of these points Mr. Disraeli's watchword was "elasticity." The Bill's
chief merit was that it was elastic, whereas Mr. Gladstone's £5 rating
Bill would have been rigid and hard. This Bill, he said, was so drawn as
to secure the "fitness and variety" that were to become security against
democracy. Then Mr. Disraeli ended, saying that it was the one wish of
Government to co-operate with the House in settling this question once
for all. Till the settlement was arrived at they would not desert their
posts. Any concessions, he implied, any withdrawal of obnoxious clauses,
or substitution of amending clauses, would be consented to. Government,
the House, the country, only asked for one thing--settlement. The Bill
must be passed at any cost; no personal feeling should make Government
either withdraw it or resign until it had been passed. "Pass the Bill," he
concluded, "and then change the Ministry if you please." A speech of which
this was the tone very naturally disarmed the Opposition. The only danger
was lest the Conservative rank and file, irritated by their leader's tone
of concession, should mutiny. There was no mutiny, however, though there
was some murmuring, and the Bill was read a second time on the 26th of
March, without a division.

The committee was fixed for the 8th of April. On the 1st Mr. Disraeli
made the first of his promised concessions; he announced that Government
were prepared to withdraw the clause relating to the dual vote. That
removed one of the bugbears of the Liberal party, and left them to direct
their interest to the interminable and vexatious question of the compound
householder. The enormous number of small occupiers who compounded for
their rates--amounting, it was confidently said, to two-thirds of the
occupiers under £10--showed the importance of the question. The compound
householder rose first into prominence at a large meeting of Liberal
members held at Mr. Gladstone's house on the 5th of April. There it was
agreed that the point in the Government Bill that lay most open to attacks
from the Liberals, now that the dual vote had been withdrawn, was this
point of the personal payment of rates. Without amendment on this head the
Government Bill was illusory; it gave with one hand what it took away with
the other. Mr. Gladstone recurred to what he had himself said earlier in
the Session--that there should properly be a "hard and fast line," below
which occupiers should neither pay rates nor exercise the suffrage. This
was, in fact, a proposal for a £5 rating franchise; for the abolition of
all distinctions between persons who paid their rates directly and those
who paid them through their landlord; and for the relief of all those who
occupied tenements at less than £5 rateable value from the liability to
be rated at all. With a view to carrying his amendment, he proposed that
Mr. John Duke Coleridge, member for Exeter, should move an instruction to
that effect.

At the meeting where this line of action was planned there was some
criticism, but little open dissent from the course. During the three days
that were to elapse before the proposal of Mr. Coleridge's amendment,
however, an ominous change took place in the position of affairs. Mr.
Disraeli had promised he would not resign, and that he would not withdraw
the Bill; but he had not promised that he would not dissolve Parliament,
supposing the conduct of the Opposition were to drive him that way.
Now, the threat of a dissolution is always terrible to many members.
Hence, when the word "dissolution" began to be whispered, the Opposition
began to disunite. A meeting of dissatisfied members took place in the
tea-room of the House of Commons, transformed for the moment into a new
cave of Adullam; and a cabal was formed for breaking up the plans of
the Liberals in reference to Mr. Coleridge's instruction. Forty-eight
members of the Liberal party agreed to vote against the amendment, and a
deputation waited upon Mr. Gladstone to inform him of their decision. In
the face of such a defection it was, of course, impossible to proceed.
Mr. Coleridge practically withdrew his instruction, reserving his right
to proceed on the subject of it in committee; Mr. Gladstone began to feel
that, as concerned really Liberal amendments, his hands were not so free
as he hoped; and Government faced the committee with new strength and
satisfaction.

Mr. Gladstone, however, was not satisfied with the result of the tea-room
cabal; for much of the discontent that had promoted it had been directed
at the "hard and fast line" of the £5 rating franchise. It was resolved,
therefore, to divide upon a different amendment--one which should relieve
the compound householder from the disabling clauses of the Bill, but which
should still keep to the original basis of household rating suffrage.
Mr. Gladstone's amendment inserted in the restrictive clause the words
"whether he in person, or his landlord, be rated to the relief of the
poor;" and the arguments which, with his usual force, he urged upon the
House in its support were, first, that the houses below £10 rental that
compounded for their rates were two-thirds of the whole number of such
houses, and that therefore a Bill that excluded compounding householders
from the franchise was an illusion; and secondly, that the case standing
so, the "settlement" for which Government were clamouring would not be
attained unless the Bill were amended. The debate on Mr. Gladstone's
amendment occupied two nights, and was chiefly valuable as showing the
extraordinary difference of opinion that prevailed among the supporters
of the Bill, and the equally different points of view from which members
were found to oppose it. When the division came, however, Government
triumphed. The numbers were found to be--For the amendment, 289; against,
310--majority for Government, 21. This was an important majority, and,
as the division lists showed, it implied far more unanimity among the
Conservatives (in spite of the defection of Sir W. Heathcote and Lord
Cranborne) than among the Liberals. Twenty-five of the old "Adullamite"
party voted with Mr. Disraeli--a fact sufficiently indicating the opinion
which was held as to the tendency of the amendment. The Adullamites voted
for the original Bill because they wanted the compound householder--the
dangerous being who occupied a house below £10 annual rent--to be kept
without his vote.

The immediate effect of this division was to draw from Mr. Gladstone an
important statement of policy. He wrote a letter to Mr. R. W. Crawford,
member for the City of London, to say that he felt it useless to proceed
personally with the other amendments standing in his name. He was
compelled to own that the Liberals who thought together on the question
of Reform were not a majority, but a minority, "and they have not the
power they were supposed to possess of limiting or directing the action
of the Administration, or of shaping the provisions of the Reform Bill.
Still," Mr. Gladstone went on, "having regard to the support which my
proposal with respect to personal rating received from so large a number
of Liberal members, I am not less willing than heretofore to remain at
the service of the party to which they belong; and when any suitable
occasion shall arise, if it shall be their wish, I shall be prepared
again to attempt concerted action upon this or any other subject for
the public good.... I shall not proceed with the amendments now on the
paper in my name, nor give notice of other amendments such as I had
contemplated; but I shall gladly accompany others in voting against any
attempt, from whatever quarter, to limit still further the scanty modicum
of enfranchisement proposed by the Government, or in improving, when it
may be practicable, the provisions of the Bill." This letter showed that
Mr. Gladstone was disheartened, but his discouragement only increased the
zeal of the reforming party throughout the kingdom. The House broke up
for the Easter holidays immediately after the vote; and during the recess
meetings were held in every important town in England and Scotland, to
express confidence in Mr. Gladstone and to encourage him and his followers
in their attempts to liberalise the Bill. The number, enthusiasm, and
unanimity of these meetings had, in all probability, much to do with Mr.
Disraeli's later concessions.

When the House met again, the first important act of the committee was
to accept Mr. Ayrton's amendment, substituting one year for two years as
the period of residence necessary for borough voters. There seems to have
been a general idea in the House that to require two years' residence
in a borough before a man could be entitled to vote in an election of
members of Parliament was vexatious; and in spite of the strenuous
efforts of Government, Mr. Ayrton's amendment was carried by the large
majority of 81. A majority as large as this is never, however, so much to
be dreaded by a Government as one a fourth of its size. Accordingly Mr.
Disraeli stated on the next day that he and his colleagues "deferred to
the opinion of the House." Then came Mr. Hibbert's notice to amend the
Bill, by allowing all compound householders who chose to pay personally
to pay reduced rates--a proposal that became celebrated, from the conduct
of the Government "whip" with regard to it. It came out in the course
of the debate--Mr. Bernal Osborne revealed it--that the whip, Colonel
Taylor, had undertaken, "as a gentleman and a man of honour, to press
upon the Cabinet the desirability of adopting Mr. Hibbert's amendment;"
and also that Colonel Taylor had stated to Mr. Dillwyn, a Liberal member,
that "he believed Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli to be personally in favour
of accepting it." That is to say, just before a division, the Government
whip entered into negotiations with some of the enemy's forces, and
endeavoured to win them over to his side by a statement--afterwards
disavowed on authority--of the opinions of his chief. The episode afforded
an interesting comment upon the manœuvres of party government.

The debate on Mr. Hibbert's motion turned on the question--Whether,
supposing a compound householder wanted a vote (which, according to
the Bill, would require him to pay his rates personally), he should be
compelled to pay as much as other non-compounding householders, or whether
the same amount should be accepted from him personally as had been
accepted previously from his landlord on his account? Mr. Disraeli aimed
not only at making him pay the full rate, but even at repealing a section
of Sir William Clay's Act (14 and 15 Vict., c. 14) which had defined
certain electoral rights of householders above £10. That Act had allowed
non-rated occupiers--compounders above £10--to claim to be rated, in
order to be put upon the register of voters, and had declared them liable
only for the reduced or commuted rate. Under that Act, according to Mr.
Bright, electoral rights were guaranteed to not less than 94,000 persons;
and Mr. Disraeli's proposal, to say nothing of its immediate effect in
excluding new voters, simply amounted to a proposal either to disfranchise
these 94,000 altogether, or to make them pay higher rates than they had
previously paid. We can understand the spirit in which Mr. Bright spoke of
this as an "audacious proposal." Still, audacious or not, the proposal of
Government for the time succeeded. The division was taken on the question,
whether the borough voter should be rated as an "ordinary occupier,"
always and without exception, and Government had a very great majority
with them, affirming that he should. The numbers were--Ayes, 322; Noes,
256--majority for Government, 66.

Eight days afterwards they had changed their minds. Another amendment
was proposed in the meantime, and Mr. Gathorne Hardy, in the debate
that followed, gave an artless explanation of what Government intended
by their emphatic cry of "personal payment." He said--"The Government
insisted upon the personal payment of rates. But the Bill had not the
phrase, 'personal payment of rates.' That was a description rather of the
Government's intention. The Bill required that a man should be responsible
for his rates. It was necessary, in order to come within the provisions
of the Bill, that a man should have his name upon the rate-book, and
be personally responsible." But Mr. Hardy forgot, in stating this as
the essential principle of the Bill, that he was only stating what was
already law. He forgot that the Small Tenements Act provided that rates
assessed upon the landlord are recoverable, not only by distraint upon
the landlord's goods, but by distraint upon the occupier's, "in the same
way as if the rates were assessed on such occupier." That is to say, the
occupier was, and always had been, responsible for his rates. The compound
householder was as much responsible as the non-compounding householder.
Mr. Disraeli's Bill, if this was its foundation, was founded upon an
illusion. This fact seems to have suddenly dawned upon the minds of the
House of Commons between the 13th and the 17th of May. On the latter day,
Mr. Hodgkinson, member for Newark, moved the insertion of the following
words, which Mr. Disraeli afterwards calmly called, "not an amendment,
but a proviso,"--"Provided always that, except as hereinafter provided,
no person other than the occupier shall, after the passing of this Act,
be rated to parochial rates in respect of premises occupied by him
within the limits of a parliamentary borough, all Acts to the contrary
notwithstanding."

This was to cut the Gordian knot at a stroke, by abolishing the compound
householder altogether. Mr. Hodgkinson brought forward his amendment,
the effect of which would be to make all occupiers of tenements personal
ratepayers, and therefore, according to the Bill, voters. In other words,
household suffrage pure and simple was offered to the acceptance of the
House. Mr. Gladstone saw the importance of the moment; he saw that the
question lay between "an extension of the franchise, limited, unequal,
equivocal, and dangerous," accompanied with certain social and economical
advantages, and "an extension of the franchise which was liberal, which
was perfectly equal," without those social and economical advantages. As
the leader of the Liberal party, he chose the "lesser evil," he preferred
the liberal extension, and he was willing to sacrifice the convenience of
compounding. That was only to be expected from the Liberal leader; but
what was the amazement of the House when Mr. Disraeli, by a sudden _coup
de théâtre_, rose to accept Mr. Hodgkinson's amendment likewise! Nay, he
rose not only to accept the amendment, but to greet it with strong welcome
and approval. It is true that, on the 9th of May, eight days before, Mr.
Disraeli had declared that the advice of those who wished to supersede or
repeal the Rating Acts was "rash counsel." It is true that, on the 13th,
only four days before, Mr. Disraeli had branded with two names, which
immediately became famous--"obsolete incendiaries," and "spouters of stale
sedition"--a deputation of 360 gentlemen, headed by seventeen members of
Parliament, which had waited on Mr. Gladstone, with a view to remove the
disqualification laid by the Bill on the lower class of ratepayers. It
is true that, on the morning of the 17th, the Government "whip" had sent
a circular to the Conservatives, asking their attendance at the House,
plainly with the intention of opposing Mr. Hodgkinson's amendment. These
facts, however, were nothing to Mr. Disraeli. He was bent on a _coup_, and
he made it. The Bill was entirely transformed in a single evening; and
Government, through their Chancellor of the Exchequer, vowed that they had
all along been meaning to produce the transformation scene themselves.
To show the importance of the change, it is enough to say that the total
number of new voters which the original Bill would have made was 118,400,
and that the number of new voters added by the Bill, plus Mr. Hodgkinson's
amendment, was 427,000. Nothing more is needed to show that the compound
householder was a person of importance, and that it was only natural that
his destiny should be a matter of interest to both sides of the House.

[Illustration: MEETING AT THE REFORMERS' TREE, HYDE PARK, LONDON. (_See
p._ 454.)]

The concession made by Mr. Disraeli was not accepted without a protest on
the part of some of his own followers, and a still louder protest on the
part of the consistent anti-reformers, Lord Cranborne and Mr. Lowe. Lord
Cranborne insisted upon at least an adjournment, that the House might not
vote blindfold; and Mr. Lowe spent the three days' recess in preparing a
new philippic. Both sides of the House came in for their share of reproof
from this impartial censor; both alike, he said, were weary of the subject
of Reform, and willing to adopt any solution of the question; both were
afraid of a dissolution; both alike were miserably anxious not to give
offence to the classes about to be enfranchised. He declared that no
great number of members really and honestly either desired or approved
the change about to be made. Which party in the House, save and except a
few of the extreme Liberals below the gangway, really wanted household
suffrage and the enfranchisement of the new voters? The question had
changed since last year. "The question now is not--what is the opinion
of the _élite_ of the working classes? but--what is the opinion of the
unskilled labour class? For instance, in the borough which I represent you
will, I rather think, give us some Wiltshire labourers with 8s. a week
wages. Will any gentleman favour me with a précis of the politics of these
men?" It was like 1866 over again; but Mr. Lowe was powerless to change
the intentions of the House. The amendment was adopted without a division
on May 20th, though Mr. Disraeli attempted, a short time afterwards, to
tone it down and practically to replace what it had abolished, by making
it optional to continue the compounding system. The attempt, doubtless
suggested to him by some timid follower, was unsuccessful; and the law
came to be that "no owner of a dwelling in a parish, either wholly or
partially within a borough, is to be henceforth rated to the poor rate
instead of the occupier." In this way the vexed question of "personal
rating" was solved, and household suffrage in its simple form was
established in the boroughs.

With regard to the county franchise, the history of the Bill was not
so full of incident. The original proposal of Government had been to
give the franchise to "rated occupiers of premises of any tenure within
the county of the rateable value of fifteen pounds and upwards;" the
words "any tenure" referring to the various modes--freehold, copyhold,
leasehold, annual tenancy, etc.--on which premises may be held. There
were also various "fancy franchises" proposed in the counties as in the
boroughs, but these were very soon withdrawn. The substantial proposal
of Government was modified in various ways. On Mr. Colvile's motion, the
franchise was extended to copyhold tenants of premises of the value of
£5 per annum--that is, to such persons as, without being freeholders,
were practically the owners of their dwellings; and very soon afterwards
Government acceded to the proposal of Mr. Hussey Vivian to extend the
franchise to "leaseholders under sixty years' leases of lands worth £5 a
year." Finally Mr. Locke King proposed to substitute £10 for £15 as the
figure down to which county occupiers were to have a vote; and though he
did not press his motion, he obtained from Government the concession of
reducing the figure from £15 to £12.

The part of the Bill that related to the redistribution of seats was very
roughly handled during the early stages of the Bill, and the treatment it
received in committee was equally severe. But when all was done, there
still remained much that failed to satisfy the reforming party in the
country. Government proposed to deal with thirty new seats--namely, with
the seven provided for them by the total disfranchisement of Lancaster,
Reigate, Great Yarmouth, and Totnes, and the twenty-three from the same
number of small boroughs which were to lose one of their two members.
This number was soon enlarged. On May 31st Mr. Laing, member for the
Wick Boroughs, moved that "no borough which had a smaller population
than 10,000 at the census of 1861 shall return more than one member to
Parliament." This motion, which gave thirty-eight seats to the House in
place of twenty-three, was carried by a great majority (306 to 179),
though the Chancellor of the Exchequer opposed it. There, however, the
House paused in the process of disfranchisement. Mr. Serjeant Gaselee's
motion to extend the principle of Mr. Laing's amendment, by wholly
depriving towns of less than 5,000 inhabitants of their member, was not
carried.

Mr. Disraeli's treatment of the delicate task of redistribution was this.
He proposed to give twenty-five seats to the counties, two new members
being given to each of the following: Cheshire, Derbyshire, Devonshire,
Essex, West Kent, North Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Somersetshire,
Staffordshire, East Surrey, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and one new
seat being given to South Lancashire. A member apiece was to be given to
thirteen large manufacturing or commercial towns, till now unrepresented:
Barnsley, Burnley, Dewsbury, Darlington, Gravesend, Hartlepool, Keighley,
Luton, Middlesborough, St. Helens, Stalybridge, Stockton, and Wednesbury.
Chelsea and Hackney were to be constituted boroughs, each with two
members. Salford and Merthyr Tydvil were each to return two instead of
one. The Universities of London and Durham were to combine to return one
member.

This scheme enfranchised a certain number of new towns, and its county
redistribution in some cases gave a more direct voice to the industrial
population; but it left the great manufacturing towns of Birmingham,
Manchester, and the rest exactly where they were, and it retained what
was thought to be too much power in the hands of the small boroughs. Mr.
Disraeli, however, declined the proposal of Mr. Laing to give a third
member to the six great manufacturing and commercial towns--Liverpool,
Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, and Bristol; and again he
opposed Mr. Hadfield's and Mr. Berkeley's proposals in favour of Sheffield
and Bristol. And when he assented to Mr. Horsfall's motion to give a
third member to Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, it was only on
condition that the members given to them should be taken away from some
of the other towns which Government admitted to have claims for increased
representation.

The remaining time during which the Bill was in committee was occupied
with a discussion of the complicated question of boundaries. It was
necessary, in order to give completeness to the Bill, to examine the
boundaries of existing boroughs and counties, as well as to determine
those of the new boroughs created by the Bill. For this purpose, after
much debating on minute points connected with the rights conferred by
different kinds of ownership in boroughs and counties, a Parliamentary
Commission was appointed "to inquire into the boundaries of all the
boroughs of England and Wales, with a view to ascertain whether the
boundaries were to be enlarged;" to investigate also the local conditions
of the new boroughs, and to ascertain what alterations should be made in
the divisions of counties. The report of the Boundary Commissioners was to
be laid before Parliament, and, till its adoption, provisional regulations
were made on the points in question. At last, at the end of a long and
weary Session, the moment arrived--the "supreme and solemn moment," as
Mr. Beresford Hope described it--when the Reform Bill was to be read a
third time. It was the evening of the 15th of July. Mr. Disraeli's success
was at hand. But, first of all, although no more divisions were to be
faced, and although the passing of the Bill was certain, Government knew
they were not to escape a whipping from exasperated enemies and candid
friends. In the presence of a crowded House Lord Cranborne rose to deliver
his soul. From the day when he had resigned office, and refused to work
with Mr. Disraeli, the rooted antipathy between the late Secretary for
India and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been growing in strength.
In incisive language, and with the slow measured action to which his tall
figure so readily lent itself, he deliberately charged the Tory leaders
with a betrayal of their trust. He ridiculed the idea of the Bill being
called "a Conservative triumph." "The real parent of the Bill, as we are
about to pass it," he said, "is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer [Mr.
Disraeli], but the member for South Lancashire [Mr. Gladstone]." The Bill
that had been offered to the House in March was wholly unlike the Bill
that was now waiting its final approval. The "checks and counterpoises,"
of which Mr. Disraeli had spoken so confidently, were gone. Mr. Gladstone
had demanded ten alterations in the Bill, and had carried nine of
them--the lodger franchise, the abolition of the compound householder,
the provision against traffic in votes, the abolition of the "taxing
franchise," the omission of the dual vote, enlarged redistribution of
seats, reduced county franchise, the omission of voting papers, of the
educational and of the savings bank franchises. "If the omission of these
clauses, and the adoption of the principles of Mr. Bright, be a triumph,
then the Conservative party has never in the whole course of its history
won a triumph so signal as this." Then, in words of profound seriousness,
he went on: "I desire to protest, in the most earnest language which I am
capable of using, against the political morality on which the manœuvres of
this year have been based. If you borrow your political ethics from the
ethics of the political adventurer, you may depend upon it the whole of
your representative institutions will crumble beneath your feet.... Even
if I deemed this measure to be most advantageous, I still should deeply
regret that the position of the Executive should have been so degraded as
it has been in the present Session. I should deeply regret to find that
the House of Commons has applauded a policy of legerdemain; and I should,
above all things, regret that this great gift to the people--if gift you
think it--should have been purchased at the cost of a political betrayal
which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals."

This, from a seceding Conservative, from one who, even in opposition,
retained the confidence of the Conservative back benches, was severe; and
no less severe was the language of Mr. Lowe, who spoke immediately after.
If Lord Cranborne was bitter because he, and genuine Conservatives with
him, had been sacrificed to keep, as he said, "political adventurers"
in office, Mr. Lowe was furious because he had succeeded in turning out
the Liberal Government in 1866 only to make way for a more revolutionary
Tory Government in 1867. "Was it to be conceived," he said, "that right
honourable gentlemen, who had given no indications of the extreme facility
of changing their opinions and lending themselves to the art of treachery,
would, for the sake of keeping a few of them in office for a short time
and giving some small patronage to half a dozen lawyers, have been
prepared to sacrifice all the principles, all the convictions, all the
traditions of their lives; while others were prepared to turn round upon
their order and the institutions of their country, merely for the purpose
of sitting behind these right honourable gentlemen, and hearing, with
the knowledge that it is all true, language such as that the noble lord
[Cranborne] has used to-night?" However, Mr. Lowe had, in the midst of his
wrath, what may be called "lucid intervals" of foresight and practical
reflection upon the consequences of the Bill. Every one admitted that it
was to pass; every one admitted that its effect would be striking and
immediate. What, then, ought to be the attitude of Parliament and public
opinion? Clearly, to soften "the blow which had been levelled at our
ancient institutions" as much as possible. "We must," said Mr. Lowe, in an
afterwards famous epigram--"we must persuade our masters to learn their
letters."

Several other speeches followed, none of them very complimentary to
Government, and Mr. Disraeli was not happy in his attempt to answer them.
He had to perform the impossible task of showing that the Conservative
party had in this measure acted in a purely Conservative spirit, and in
a manner consistent with previous professions. Instead of taking up the
tenable ground that the Conservative party had seen good cause, on an
examination of figures and facts, to change their old opinions, he boldly
asserted that the old opinions remained unchanged and were embodied in
this Bill. With a noble audacity he declared that even in 1859--the year
when Lord Derby's first Reform Bill was projected--"the Cabinet was
unanimous ... that if we attempted to reduce the borough qualification
which then existed, we must have recourse to household suffrage;"
an assertion which it is sufficient to say was flatly contradicted
soon afterwards by Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords. But neither
questionable paradoxes on Mr. Disraeli's part, nor fierce invective on Mr.
Lowe's, had any influence on the success of the Bill. When the Speaker put
the momentous words from the chair, "That this Bill do now pass," only one
obstinate voice cried "No;" and a shout of "Aye," audible far beyond the
limits of the House, gave Mr. Disraeli the happy assurance that his Bill
had passed the Commons.

The Bill had passed the Commons, but it was not yet law. Indeed, when Lord
Derby rose to move the second reading of the Reform Bill in the House
of Lords on July 22nd--exactly a week after it had left the Commons--he
found his own party by no means so manageable as Mr. Disraeli had found
them in the Lower House. The debate was long and the speeches were able,
and though in the end the second reading passed without a division, yet
the speeches were very nearly unanimous in disapproving of the measure.
Lord Cairns, indeed, approved the Bill warmly, and made no secret of
his hopes from "the _residuum_." "We know that on most subjects there
is a considerable difference of opinion between what are called the
higher artisan class and those below them," said he; that is, we know
that there is a gulf fixed between the bricklayer and the bricklayer's
labourer. Lord Cairns appealed, in the name of the Conservatives, from
the bricklayer to the bricklayer's labourer. This, he said, was the
distinction between the Bill of 1866 and the present Bill: the line of
£7 rental would let in the "higher artisan class" only--a class presumed
to be hostile to Conservatism; and household rating suffrage would let in
the "class below them"--a class easily manageable at election times. This
dangerous argument was, however, not generally supported in the House.
Lord Shaftesbury said: "To proceed as is done by this Bill, to lift by the
sudden jerk of an Act of Parliament the whole residuum of society up to
the level of the honest, thrifty working-man, is, I believe, distasteful
to the working-men themselves. I am sure it dishonours the suffrage."
This was in the debate raised by Lord Grey's amendment, which was to the
effect that "the Representation of the People Bill does not appear to
the House to be calculated, in its present shape, to effect a permanent
settlement of this important question, or to promote the future good
government of the country." Lord Grey, however, did not mean to oppose the
second reading, but only to show to the Commons what the Lords considered
to be weak points in their Bill, and in the end, finding that the common
opinion of the House accepted the Bill as inevitable, he withdrew his
amendment--not, however, before Lord Carnarvon, one of the seceding
Ministers, had spoken in words that almost echoed the furious charges of
Lord Cranborne and Mr. Lowe in the other House. Speaking of Mr. Disraeli's
assertion, to which we have already referred, that household suffrage had
been the secret doctrine of the Conservatives ever since 1859, he gave it
the most emphatic contradiction.

[Illustration: JOHN BRIGHT.

(_From the Portrait by Frank Holl, R.A. By Permission of the Corporation
of Birmingham._)]

In the end four important amendments were proposed by the Lords, who
showed a very different attitude from that which their fathers had
shown in 1832. There was throughout the whole of the speeches of the
peers a note of sadness and dissatisfaction; but none thought seriously
of rejecting the Bill altogether. And the amendments, important in
themselves, did not touch the household suffrage, which was the bugbear
of the Bill, and did not even attempt to restore the compound householder
for the purpose of robbing household suffrage of its sting. The important
amendments were:--(1) To raise the qualification for lodgers to £15,
instead of £10--proposed by Lord Cairns; (2) To restore £10, instead of
£5, as the copyhold qualification in counties--proposed by Lord Harrowby;
(3) To secure a representation of minorities in the "three-cornered
constituencies"--proposed by Lord Cairns; (4) To allow the employment
of voting papers at elections--proposed by the Marquis of Salisbury. Of
these, the first was passed by a majority of 121 to 89; the second by
a majority of 119 to 56. Both these decisions were, however, finally
reversed by the Commons by large majorities; nor was the amendment
allowing the use of voting papers any more successful. The Lords, with
a good grace, submitted to correction, and the Bill remained, in these
respects, the same as it had been when it originally passed the House of
Commons.

With regard to Lord Cairns's more successful amendment relating to the
rights of minorities, a little more may be said. It was not a new idea;
the claims of minorities to a voice in affairs had long been felt to
be a serious question by political theorists, especially Mr. Mill and
Mr. Thomas Hare; and Mr. Lowe had attempted, earlier in the Session,
to get those claims recognised in the Bill by the introduction of some
clauses resembling those of Lord Cairns. Lord Cairns proposed, "That at
a contested election for any county or borough, no person shall vote
for more than two candidates"--adding, a short time afterwards, that in
elections for the City of London, where four members are returned, no one
should vote for more than three candidates. This amendment, the object of
which was to enable the minority in the boroughs of Manchester, Liverpool,
and Birmingham, in the City of London, and in certain counties, to "lump"
their votes on one candidate, and so secure his return, was carried by a
large majority--142 to 91. When the amendment came down to the Commons,
after the amended Bill had been read a third time in the House of Lords,
it was warmly debated. Mr. Lowe's previous motion, to allow any elector
to have as many votes as there were vacant seats, and to give all his
votes to one candidate if he chose, had been rejected by a majority of
141; but now the opinion of many members had changed. The debate was
carried on quite independently of the ordinary party divisions; instead,
the division seemed to be between those who wished in all cases to follow
the outlines of English political precedent, and those who believed
that those precedents were sometimes clumsy and inconvenient. For once,
the House enjoyed the unusual sight of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, and
Mr. Bright all taking one side on a contested question; the principal
supporters of the other side being Mr. Mill and Mr. Lowe. Strange to say,
the accustomed leaders of the House failed to carry their views into
effect. The amendment was passed by a majority of 253 to 204.

It is enough to add that, on the Report being presented to the Lords, that
House agreed to the corrections of the House of Commons, and was content
to have carried one of its four amendments. On August 15th, 1867, the
Royal Assent was given to the "Representation of the People Act;" and for
a time at least the Reform question was settled.

Lord Derby ushered the Bill out of the House on the third reading with
words that immediately became famous: "No doubt we are making a great
experiment, and taking a leap in the dark." That, indeed, was the
feeling of many of the Conservatives, and even of many of the moderate
Liberals; and few of the cartoons of _Punch_ have been more effective
than that which, illustrating the Prime Minister's words, represented him
as a steeple-chaser, charging with shut eyes at a fence of portentous
thickness, beyond which lay an unknown country. But another of _Punch's_
cartoons gave the honour of the Bill to its real author, though there were
long afterwards those who asserted, in agreement with Mr. Bright, that it
was "Lord Derby's Bill." On the walls of the Royal Academy had hung in
that year's exhibition a wonderful picture by a new artist--Mr. Poynter's
"Israel in Egypt." It showed the mighty form of the Sphinx, the mysterious
Egyptian monster that still remains half buried in sand in the Theban
Desert, dragged upon a car to its place by a thousand toiling Israelitish
slaves. The spectator, as he gazed upon the picture, could almost hear the
crack of the slavedriver's whip, and the groan of the miserable wretch
who fell under the wheels; the crowd of bending forms seemed alive, the
car seemed moving. This was the picture that _Punch_ parodied. To a
place in the Temple of Success and Fame a car was moving, dragged by
straining multitudes; the multitudes bore the well-known likeness of the
members of the English House of Commons, and the figure on the car wore
the mysterious, Sphinx-like, Oriental features of Mr. Disraeli! "Israel
in Egypt" became "Disraeli in Triumph;" the slaves bending beneath the
weight, and torn by the merciless lash of necessity, were her Majesty's
Ministers and the blind, dazed, unwilling, but yet obedient members of the
Conservative party.

Parliamentary Reform occupied nearly all the time of the House of Commons
during the first of the two Sessions of 1867; but still on the "off days"
there were several important discussions and some important legislation.
The Reform Bill only applied to England and Wales, and in the unquiet
state of Ireland Government did not propose to make any alterations in
the electoral law of that country. To Scotland they wished to apply a
measure very similar to the English one--only differing from it, in fact,
so far as the exigencies of Scottish law required. Household suffrage
in its simple form in the boroughs, in the counties a reduction of the
qualification like that effected in England, and a moderate redistribution
of seats were the main features of the Government measure. It was not,
however, carried during this year from want of time.

Although Ireland had not assumed that prominence in the debates of
Parliament which she held afterwards, there were "Irish debates" in
plenty; and political prophets saw clearly that Ireland was to be the
immediate question for the Reformed Parliament to grapple with. First
came the proposal of Lord Naas, unfortunately rendered necessary, for
the continued suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Secretary to the
Lord-Lieutenant explained that he had hoped to be able to dispense with
these extraordinary powers, but that fresh signs of activity had appeared
among the disaffected population. When the mysterious "invasion" of
Chester happened (an event to be immediately described), a simultaneous
attempt at a rising was made at Cahirciveen, in the county of Kerry; and
symptoms of revolt made themselves apparent in some of the large towns.
He, therefore, with great regret, asked for the suspension of the Habeas
Corpus Act for three months longer; and the gravity of the emergency was
shown by the fact that the seconder of the motion was Sir John Grey. The
suspension was allowed by the House, and also by the House of Lords; but
it was with considerable alarm that, three months later, the country heard
that Government had found it necessary to apply again to Parliament for
a further suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. The Queen's Speech at the
beginning of the Session had "trusted that Parliament might be enabled to
dispense with the continuance of any exceptional legislation" for Ireland,
and yet the continuance was twice asked for. This was generally felt to
be an instance of a want of foresight on the part of the Ministry; though
Lord Naas announced that the disturbances in Ireland were caused by the
resolutions adopted at a Fenian meeting held at New York in January, when
an attempt at insurrection was decreed. The debate that took place on
Lord Naas making his second proposal called forth a great deal of that
fund of contradictory opinion on Irish questions which was so richly
exhibited in the debates of two years later. The request of Government
was, however, granted without difficulty. Bills tending to the prevention
of discontent, as well as to its cure, were also discussed during the
Session, but they only served to show what was afterwards proved by Mr.
Gladstone's Ministry, namely, that the question of Irish remedies was far
too complicated, far too debateable, to be disposed of in a casual debate
or two thrown in amidst a busy Session. No motions of private members,
such as was that of Sir Colman O'Loghlen, no Ministerial afterthoughts,
like the Bill of Lord Naas for "promoting the improvement of land by
tenants," could solve the Land Question; and the House showed its sense
of this by allowing these measures to drop after short discussions. In
the same way with the Irish Church Question. Sir John Gray brought it
forward on the 7th of May, in the thick of the Reform campaign, and, of
course, his motion--"That the House would on a future day resolve itself
into a committee to consider the temporalities and privileges of the
Established Church of Ireland"--had no chance of success at such a time.
It drew, however, from Mr. Gladstone another of those emphatic statements
of disapproval of the existing Establishment which, begun in 1865, had
cost him his seat for Oxford University, and which ended in 1869, when he
carried Disestablishment. In the House of Lords, Lord Russell moved for a
Royal Commission to inquire into the revenues of the Established Church
of Ireland, and his motion was agreed to. The investigations made by the
Commissioners appointed in consequence of this motion formed the basis of
the action of the Liberal Government two years later.

Other subjects that occupied the attention of Parliament during the year
were, besides various points of foreign policy, Church Rates, Religious
Tests in the Universities, Religious Disabilities in various offices in
Ireland, Increase of the Episcopate, National Education, the Factory
Acts and their possible extension, the Agricultural Gangs, and the Right
of Meeting in the London Parks. In the second and extraordinary Session
of Parliament, which was called together in the autumn to vote supplies
for the Abyssinian expedition, a few other matters were brought forward;
but the principal concern of that short Session was the subject that had
called the House together. That, however, is a matter that may fairly be
left until we come to speak of the year 1868, when the whole story of the
causes, circumstances, and results of the expedition will be told. On the
other questions we have mentioned little actual legislation was achieved,
but the tendency of future legislation was foreshadowed.

The Oaths and Offices Bill had for its object the removal of the
restriction that prevents a Roman Catholic from being Lord Chancellor of
Ireland, and of various small disabilities, relics of the old penal laws,
which Roman Catholics still suffered in Ireland. The Bill was passed after
some discussion. Mr. Coleridge's Bill for abolishing religious tests
required from members of Oxford University in taking certain degrees and
in being elected to certain offices, was not so fortunate. The House of
Lords rejected it after it had been passed by the Commons--and passed
in an extended form, applying to Cambridge as well as to Oxford. The
Lords seem to have thought that their concessions on the subject of
Reform were as much as could be expected from them in one Session. Nor
did they accept with any unanimity Lord Lyttelton's Bill for extending
the Episcopate; and the Bill had to be withdrawn. National Education was
approached, but no more, in a Bill brought in by Mr. Bruce, a prominent
member of the Opposition. Mr. Bruce based his Bill upon many of the same
statistics that afterwards lent strength to Mr. Forster's advocacy of a
similar proposal--as, for instance, where he showed that in the diocese
of London, containing 361,000 children who ought to be at school, only
182,000 (almost exactly one half) were actually at school. The Bill was
in some points singularly like Mr. Forster's Bill of 1870, and in many
points unlike it; it showed the same favour to the local system, and
proposed the appointment of "school committees" with the functions, or
nearly the functions, of the school boards afterwards established; and
it showed the same regard for religious education. It was not proposed
with any intention of being carried into law; it was only an instance
of the common Parliamentary device of inviting a Government to declare
itself, and of showing to the Opposition, in case of an unsatisfactory
Government answer, what the tactics of their own leaders would be if
they were to be restored to power. Other measures especially affecting
the wage-earning classes that were carried into law were measures for
extending the operation of the Factory Acts to certain occupations not
included in them, and thus increasing the protection afforded to women and
children in the great towns; and also strong legislative restrictions upon
what is known as the "gang system." This last, which prevailed especially
in the eastern counties, was the system by which children of both sexes
were gathered together in gangs by a contractor, or "ganger," and let out
to the farmers to work in the fields at weeding or sowing. It is obvious
that a system of this kind was full of danger, both to the physical and
moral well-being of the children. Too often the contractors were hard men,
whose one object was to make as much money as possible out of their gangs;
and for this they would overwork the children's bodies and leave them
morally uncared for. An Act was passed applying the same principles to the
agricultural gangs as had been applied to the factories, and asserting
the right of Parliament to protect the children and limit the powers of
the gang-masters. It laid down hours beyond which it was unlawful for the
children to work, and imposed other restrictions on the employment of
girls. It worked well even at first; and later, when supplemented by the
Elementary Education Act of 1870, it put it still more out of the power
of parents to sell their children's whole time, to give them up body and
soul, to the weary drudgery of farm labour.

[Illustration: "GANG SYSTEM" OF FARMING. (_See p._ 452.)]

The time of Parliament was further occupied with discussions on the
Right of Meeting in the Metropolitan Parks. The way in which, in 1866,
the populace and Mr. Beales took this question into their own hands and
marched into Hyde Park across the ruins of the railings has already been
recorded; and it has been said how keenly Mr. Secretary Walpole felt
the distress of the situation. Again in this year the Reform League was
active. The conduct of Government with regard to Reform had not, at least
early in the Session, pleased the ardent Reformers; they distrusted Mr.
Disraeli's obscure eloquence, they thought the "system of checks and
counterpoises" was far too clever to be satisfactory. Accordingly, it was
resolved by the leaders of the League to hold another meeting in the Park,
on the 6th of May. But on the 1st of May a proclamation appeared whereby
all persons were warned and admonished to abstain from attending, aiding,
or taking part in any such meeting, or from entering the Park with a view
to attend, aid, or take part in any such meeting. This was an instance
of the "spirit of conciliation and compromise" English statesmen are so
fond of, which succeeds so poorly in times of high excitement. Government
intended to leave the Park gates open, and not to attempt to disperse
the meeting by force, and yet it "admonished" people not to attend. Of
course, the proclamation excited much discussion in Parliament; and Mr.
Bright made an energetic statement of his belief that the parks were
"public places," and an energetic protest against the proposal to swear
in special constables--a measure which, he said, always tends to promote
class hostility, and to create breaches between the divisions of the
people. With this declaration of "the Tribune" to back them, the Reform
League carried out its plan in the face of the Government admonition.
Seventy thousand persons formed the audience of the speakers in the
Park; a hundred thousand more, drawn partly by real interest in Reform,
and partly by curiosity, filled the approaches and the open spaces; and
"the Ring" was filled with the carriages of rich people, who had come
to look on. There was absolutely no disturbance. The O'Donoghue, Mr.
Beales, Colonel Dickson, Mr. Odger, Mr. Lucraft, and other well-known
Reformers made speeches, and the meeting quietly dispersed at dusk, with
no occasion for the 5,000 police and the soldiers who were in readiness
close by to come in and restore order. But Government felt that they had
received a check. Mr. Walpole resigned, "in consequence of the onerous
duties imposed upon him," and his place was filled by a man of less
susceptibility and more energy--Mr. Gathorne Hardy. He made many attempts
during the remainder of the Session to pass a Government Bill abolishing
the right of public meeting in the parks, but without success. The Reform
Bill occupied too exclusively the time of the House; and it was felt that
there was a certain invidiousness in passing a measure that would seem to
be directly aimed at the prominent Reformers at the very time when their
demand for Reform was being granted. Immediately after the passing of the
Representation of the People Act, Parliament was prorogued; but before the
year was over it was convoked again for an extraordinary Session, to be
described when we come to speak of the Abyssinian War.

The first occurrences outside Parliament that demand our attention are
those connected with the Fenian outbreak, which this year were marked by
a rare audacity, and occasioned great alarm in the public mind and severe
retributive measures. We have already said that in February a rising took
place in the county of Kerry. In December a martello tower near Cork was
attacked, and the arms were carried away; and in several places gunsmiths'
shops were broken into and robbed of their contents. But the alarm caused
by these outbreaks on Irish soil was as nothing compared with that caused
by certain outbreaks of Fenianism in England. The first of these was a
supposed attempt to take Chester Castle and make off with the arms and
ammunition contained in it.

Chester Castle is a mediæval fortress, and in 1867 it was used as a
garrison for a small number of troops, and a storehouse for arms. As was
afterwards discovered, a meeting had been held in New York early in the
year, in which it had been decided to attempt a rising in Ireland; and
a band of fifty men was sent over in detachments to the United Kingdom
to organise the rising. A central "Directory" of fifteen members was
understood to be established in London, and branch directories were placed
in many of the great towns. In obedience to orders from these authorities,
a movement was made upon Chester on February 11th. The Castle contained
at the time 9,000 stand of Enfield rifles, 4,000 swords, 900,000 rounds
of ammunition, and some arms belonging to the militia; and the only guard
consisted of a handful of men belonging to the 54th Regiment. During the
night of the 10th information was given to the Chester authorities by
the Liverpool police that an ex-officer in the American service--himself
a Fenian--had come to them, and made known the Fenian design, which was
to assemble in large numbers in Chester the next day, seize the Castle,
carry off the arms, break the telegraph wires, and tear up the rails on
the railway, and themselves escape, viâ Holyhead, to Ireland with their
booty. Very early in the morning the information began to be verified, and
large numbers of young men, apparently of the artisan or labouring class,
kept arriving by every train from Manchester, Liverpool, Stalybridge,
Preston, and other manufacturing towns. Meanwhile, the civil and military
authorities of Chester were actively employed; telegrams were passing
between them and the Assistant Adjutant-General at Manchester, and
Government and the Commander-in-Chief were also kept informed. Early
in the morning the volunteers were called out; and Mr. Walpole having
telegraphed instructions that they ought not to be employed as soldiers
in putting down a riot, but that they might as individuals assist the
authorities, and even, if necessary, use their arms, they were sworn in as
special constables. Still the invaders kept massing in the town. For some
reason, though their errand was very well known, they were not arrested
in detachments in the places from which they started, but were allowed to
come to Chester unimpeded. By five o'clock the strangers amounted to 1,500
in number, and yet the only force at the disposal of the authorities was a
company of soldiers of the 54th, some of the county constabulary, and the
volunteers as special constables. Yet, by extraordinary good fortune, this
most inadequate force was not put to the test of fighting. The Fenians,
seeing that some preparations had been made for their reception, suspected
that others might have been secretly made. So no attack was made upon the
Castle, although, between six and seven o'clock, when all the invading
force was present, and the great reinforcements had not arrived for the
defence, there were abundant opportunities, and good hopes of success.
During the evening a public meeting of the "friends of order" was held,
and 500 special constables were sworn in--a poor defence against thrice
their number of desperate men armed with revolvers. But the special
constables patrolled the town throughout the night, and by the morning it
was found that the Fenians had melted away. They had walked off in small
batches to Warrington and the other large towns in the neighbourhood.
After they had gone some relics of their visit were found, in the shape of
two haversacks containing privately-made ball-cartridges, and there were
other indications that they were prepared to fight. During the morning of
the 12th a battalion of 500 Foot Guards arrived from London--too late to
have prevented the attack, supposing the Fenians had made it when they
had so fair a chance; but not too late to relieve the anxious minds of
the inhabitants of Chester from the alarm and terror of the past day. It
is enough to add that sixty-seven "suspicious characters," all of them
probably members of the invading force, were arrested at Dublin, on the
morning of the 12th, as they landed from the Holyhead steamer. Nothing
very conclusive was found upon them to illustrate the history of the
Chester _fiasco;_ but the authorities, acting on the powers conferred
by the Act that suspended the Habeas Corpus, kept them in safe custody
in Richmond Bridewell. Finally some of the ringleaders, among whom was
Michael Davitt, were condemned to terms of imprisonment.

For some months after this Fenianism lay comparatively inactive, and the
public alarm had time to subside. But in September England was again
unpleasantly reminded of it by an event that took place at Manchester,
and which, in the audacity of its design and the desperate manner of
its execution, was sufficiently startling. The Manchester police,
about the 10th of the month, arrested two men who were behaving in a
suspicious manner at dead of night, and on each of them was found a
loaded revolver. From communications held with the Irish police, it was
discovered that these men were Fenians of considerable military rank in
the brotherhood--Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasey. They were remanded at
the police-court on their arrest; and on the 18th, after their second
examination, they were to be removed in the ordinary police-van to the
city gaol. As they were about to enter the van, the police saw two more
suspicious-looking men loitering about, and a constable seized one of
them, who attempted to stab him. This caused the police to handcuff Kelly
and Deasey, and they then entered the van. Seven policemen rode outside
and four more followed in a cab; but none of these were armed except
with the usual policeman's staff. The van drove off along its accustomed
route, over Ardwick Green and along the Hyde Road, in the outskirts of
Manchester. There is a railway-bridge that crosses this road; and the
van approached this bridge about four o'clock. As it did so, a tall
fair-haired young man ran out in front of it into the road, and presenting
a revolver at the driver summoned him to stop. A large body of men made
their appearance at the same moment; and then fired several shots at
the driver and the other policemen on the roof, shot the horses one
after another, hurled a stone that brought the driver from his seat, and
clambered up to the roof of the van to be in readiness to break it open if
the door could not be forced. The small body of unarmed constables made
a brave defence of the door; but axe and crowbar were being vigorously
employed, and forty or fifty men armed with revolvers were carrying on
the attack and firing without mercy. A crowd began to gather, but the
Fenian revolvers kept them back for the most part. Two of the constables,
Bromley and Trueman, were wounded; a civilian named Sprossen was shot in
the ankle. Still the door resisted; a hole had been made in the roof,
and stones had been let fall on the head of Sergeant Brett; he had been
summoned to give up the keys, but he steadily refused. Then a panel of the
door gave way, and one of the assailants, the tall young man who had led
the attack, and who was afterwards identified as William O'Meara Allen,
presented his revolver at the wounded policeman with a fresh demand for
the keys. When this was refused, he fired at the lock of the door and
blew it open. Again he demanded the keys--for the cells of the van were
each of them locked--and again was refused. Then he fired point blank at
the head of Brett, who fell mortally wounded, the bullet having passed
straight through the skull. The keys were now secured, the doors unlocked,
the two prisoners released. As a witness at the trial swore, Allen said to
one of them, "Arrah, Kelly, I'll die for you before I'll deliver you up!"
Then Kelly and Deasey made off, Allen threatening to shoot any one who
followed. The Fenians then dispersed, running across the fields or into
the town; and all of them escaped for the time with the exception of four,
including Allen, who were run down. Brett died very soon after receiving
the shot.

It may be imagined that so bold a rescue created consternation in the
minds not only of the inhabitants of Manchester, but of all English
people. It was the most reckless act the Fenians had as yet attempted;
and the uncompromising use of force, while it horrified people, showed
them once for all what a dangerous thing the Fenian conspiracy was. The
seriousness of the occasion was such that Government issued a special
commission for the trial of the prisoners, who, with the four who were
captured just after the rescue, numbered twenty-nine. The judges were
Justices Blackburn and Mellor, and before them twenty-six of the men who
had been arrested were arraigned, in different detachments, on counts
extending from the charge of wilful murder to the charge of riot and
assault. There is no need to state the facts of the trial at length;
when the law had once been laid down, the case became one simply of
identification. The Attorney-General, Sir John Karslake, held the Crown
brief, and explained the law--namely, that if men conspired and combined
to effect a rescue, prepared to use force if they were opposed, and if
from their action during the rescue death resulted, that amounted to the
crime of murder. The prisoners Allen, Larkin, Gould, Maguire, and Shore
were all identified by numerous witnesses as having led the attack on the
van; and many witnesses swore to Allen's having fired the fatal shot. They
were all found guilty, and, though each of them denied having actually
committed the murder, they were sentenced to death. To Maguire, however,
who was convicted in spite of very clear evidence of an _alibi_, the Home
Office sent a pardon; and Shore's punishment was commuted, because he
had not been armed with a revolver, but had only thrown stones. But with
the others the law took its course. Great efforts were made to obtain
a reprieve, and much energy was displayed by a section of the press in
showing that the crime for which they were to suffer was political, and
was not murder. But it was of no avail; the Ministry then in power was not
likely to take that view, nor even to recognise the proposition that no
political offences are capital. On November 23rd Allen, Larkin, and Gould
were executed at Manchester, in the presence of enormous crowds of people.
Their memory was consecrated by "processions" of their countrymen, held
on December 1st--a Sunday--in Manchester, and in Dublin, Limerick, and
other Irish towns. The Irish populace persisted in regarding the three men
as martyrs, and Mr. T. D. Sullivan commemorated the deed in the popular
ditty, "God save Ireland."

Whatever ultimate effect the execution had, it did not prevent certain
desperate sympathisers from outdoing in nefarious audacity the executed
men. It was known that the feelings of a large class of Irishmen were
embittered by the execution; but it was not suspected that within a very
short time a deed would be perpetrated in London that would throw the
Manchester rescue into the shade. Such a deed was, however, done; and,
once for all, it implanted in the minds of all classes of English people a
feeling of intense hatred towards Fenianism.

[Illustration: FENIAN ATTACK ON THE POLICE VAN IN MANCHESTER. (_See p._
455.)]

Two men, named Burke and Casey, had been arrested in London on a charge of
being Fenians; they were imprisoned, under a remand, in the Clerkenwell
House of Detention. This prison had an exercising-ground within its
walls, and at a fixed hour in the afternoon the prisoners were exercised
there. The wall of the exercising-ground ran along Corporation Lane; it
was about twenty-five feet in height and two feet in thickness, becoming
slightly thinner towards the top. The partisans of the Fenian prisoners
determined to blow down this wall during exercise-time, to give them a
chance of escaping in the confusion. Accordingly, about a quarter to four
on the afternoon of December 13th, a man came along the lane wheeling a
truck, on which was a barrel covered with a white cloth. This truck he
left opposite the wall, disappeared for a moment, and returned with a long
squib, which he fixed in the barrel. He then coolly borrowed a light from
some boys who were playing about close by, applied it to the squib, and
ran off. In a few seconds a horrible explosion took place, sounding like
the discharge of a park of artillery, and sending a shock through all that
district of London. The prison wall tottered and fell. The houses opposite
were shaken to their foundations, and several of them, after rocking for
a moment, came crashing down. The screams and groans of wounded people
mingled with the noise of falling rafters, and the clouds of dust that
rose from the ruins, choking the light of such lamps as stood the shock,
added to the horror of the scene. When search could be made, it was
found that at least forty people, many of them women and children, were
seriously hurt; one was dead already, and three died soon afterwards in
the hospital. The others, with their various degrees of injury, were taken
care of at St. Bartholomew's and at the Free Hospital, Gray's Inn Road,
until their recovery. It may be added that Burke and Casey did not escape,
the governor of the prison having, for that day, changed their hour of
exercise, so that when the explosion came they were safely in their cells.
Thus the attempt of the miscreants to release the prisoners was completely
frustrated. The excitement caused by this outrage was such as cannot be
described. Crowds of people thronged the scene of the explosion, and 500
police and a body of soldiers were necessary to keep order. Rumours of all
kinds found their way about London--that the Bank of England was blown up
and sacked; that the Tower of London was destroyed; that the explosion
was but the first of a series of plotted outrages meant to avenge the
"Manchester martyrs." These ideas, however, subsided when the facts
came to be known. Nevertheless Mr. Gladstone afterwards declared that
the Fenian outrages, by fixing public attention upon deeply-rooted Irish
grievances, had brought the Disestablishment of the Irish Church "within
the region of practical politics."

It was in this year that society was startled by certain revelations of
the proceedings of trades unions which were made before a commission
sitting at Sheffield. A number of mysterious outrages had taken place
periodically in that town; and a Royal Commission, which had been
appointed to investigate the nature and working of trades unions,
determined to probe to the bottom the supposed connection between these
acts and the unions. Accordingly it delegated its functions to three
barristers, of whom Mr. Overend, Q.C., was chairman, and sent them down
to Sheffield to inquire into the matter. A special Act of Parliament was
passed, allowing these gentlemen to give "certificates of indemnity" to
any witness who should confess to any illegal acts, for it was known
that without such certificates the questions of the commissioners would
never be answered. The result of the inquiry was to discover facts that
thrilled all England. A kind of _vehmgericht_, or secret tribunal, seemed
to have been set up, which passed sentence of death, and had its sentences
executed; which punished offenders against its secret laws by acts the
perpetrators of which could never be brought before their country's
justice; and which deprived obnoxious workmen of the means of life,
setting the rules of the trade in the place of law.

The cases that most excited public interest were those of crimes
instigated by one Broadhead, the secretary of the Sawgrinders' Union.
A man named Linley had broken the rules of the trade by taking more
apprentices than the proper number. In the words of the trade, he was
"filling it with lads." For this offence, which was supposed to injure
the chances of the men, Broadhead confessed that he had "set on" two
workmen, named Crookes and Hallam, to "do for" Linley--that is, to disable
him, or even to kill him, if necessary. This fact, which is but one out
of many, was revealed first of all by Hallam himself. When called upon
to give his evidence he was completely unmanned. He twice fainted away;
and when he came to himself, he could only speak in a whisper. In this
way he confessed with slow articulation how they had murdered Linley.
They had first bought a revolver and followed Linley about every night
for six weeks, watching their opportunity. Then they changed their plan
and bought an air-gun, of which they first of all made trial upon some
rabbits in a neighbouring wood. Afterwards they marked Linley down in a
public-house in Scotland Street; they entered a backyard, and saw him
sitting in a parlour. Then with great difficulty Hallam induced Crookes to
shoot. The bullet entered Linley's head and he died some time afterwards.
The two murderers ran off and escaped, and the coroner's jury was obliged
to return a verdict of "wilful murder against some person or persons
unknown." Hallam got £7 10s. for the deed. He confessed that he did not
know Linley, and that he owed him no personal grudge. He took his life
merely because he was injuring the trade. Hallam's evidence was confirmed
by Crookes, and the evidence of both by Broadhead. The revelations made by
the latter were what really brought home to the public mind the strength,
the rigour, the unscrupulousness of the trade organisations. Under promise
of a certificate he confessed not only to the murder of Linley, but to
the destruction of machinery, the blowing up of houses, the mutilation,
or attempted mutilation, of whole families. "I hired Dennis Clark," he
said, "for £3 or £5, to blow up Hellewells." He owned that he had paid a
large sum to blow up the house of a certain Parker, and £19 for blowing
up Reaney's engine-house; and he admitted many more acts of the same
kind. Moreover, he admitted that he had arranged many of the outrages
with the secretaries of other unions--one, Bromhead, secretary of the
Pen and Pocket Blade Grinders', and William Hides and William Skidmore,
secretaries of the Saw-handle Makers' and of the Jobbing Grinders'. He
even confessed that he had written letters to the newspapers, denouncing,
as "infamous deeds" and "hellish deeds," the very acts that he had himself
instigated and paid for. The outrages were very varied in character, some
being merely cases of rattening--that is, preventing a man from working
by spoiling his tools or machinery; others being cases of injury to the
person, or of the destruction of premises. The most common form of these
grosser outrages was to hang a canister of gunpowder in the chimney of the
obnoxious workman or master, or to fling a canister of powder into the
fire through the window. In other cases, as in that of Linley, shooting
was resorted to. The evidence of Broadhead and others revealed the whole
system in its full details; and disclosures of the same kind, scarcely
less terrible, were made before commissioners who sat at Manchester.

Other proceedings of the trades' unions, which attracted much attention
during the present year, were those connected with the strike of the
London tailors, and of the engine-drivers on the London and Brighton
Railway. The former began on the 28th of April and lasted for several
months. In August, ten of the working tailors were indicted at the Central
Criminal Court for a misdemeanour in "conspiring together, by unlawful
ways, contrivances, and stratagems, to impoverish Henry Poole, George
Wolmershausen, and certain other persons, in their trade and business, in
restraint of trade, and the freedom of personal action." In the course of
the trial the public learnt many facts about the system of "picketing,"
which was a common device of workmen on strike towards workmen who would
not join them. One witness said, "On the 3rd of May I saw over 200
opposite Mr. Stohwasser's shop in Conduit Street. The general conduct of
the persons acting as pickets was the following and hissing workmen who
had not struck on leaving their work in the evening. They were called
cowards, and by other offensive names. That was the general conduct of
the pickets from time to time. The pickets also used to resort to certain
public-houses--ten or a dozen--which they called committee-rooms. I have
seen them meet there early in the morning, and then go on picketing."
Another witness, a pensioned sergeant of police, said that he had seen
customers go to shops in carriages, and the pickets hang about the
carriages until the customers went away. Much evidence was given of a
similar character, showing that, although no outrages like the Sheffield
outrages were committed, the union had used its forces to prevent
obnoxious workmen, by threats, abusive language, and other annoyances,
from working at their trade. Baron Bramwell, who presided at the trial,
laid down the law on the matter very clearly. He said that the common law
of the land made it a criminal offence for two or more persons to conspire
by threats, intimidation, or molestation, to deter or influence another
in the employment of his industry, talents, or capital. On the other
hand, an Act of 1859 declared that "no workman, merely by reason of his
endeavouring peaceably, and in a reasonable manner, and without threat
or intimidation, direct or indirect, to persuade others from working or
ceasing to work, should be guilty of an offence under the former Act
of Parliament." After some deliberation, the jury found the leading
defendants guilty, but strongly recommended them to mercy on the ground of
the obscurity of the law; and a similar verdict was returned immediately
afterwards in a case of some more of the tailors. The judge, however, did
not wish the conviction to be more than a warning, and the defendants were
released on entering into their own recognisances to come up for judgment
when called upon.

In the case of the engine-drivers' strike, the dispute ended by the
directors conceding most of the points in dispute, and the grave public
inconvenience that had been feared was happily avoided. Another strike,
however, took place in the same month of March, which, though it was not
immediately successful, was the beginning of a movement that within a few
years acquired national importance. This was a strike of agricultural
labourers in Buckinghamshire, rising in revolt against the system that
allowed a family to starve on nine shillings a week. It was not, however,
till some years later that the agricultural labourers became organised and
succeeded in obtaining their rights.

This year was memorable for various distressing accidents, some of them
destructive only of property, others grievously destructive of life. Her
Majesty's Theatre in London was burnt down; and not only was the building
itself, the scene of many operatic triumphs during seventy-five years,
destroyed, but the music library with all its priceless manuscripts of
Handel, Rossini, and the rest, perished. But more lamentable than this
was the memorable ice accident in the Regent's Park, London, on the 15th
of January. There was a severe frost, and the ice on the Ornamental Water
was crowded with skaters. Suddenly it began to part away from the bank,
and for a moment the skaters found themselves supported by a floating
sheet of ice. Almost instantly this broke up and two hundred persons were
in the water. It need only be added that, in spite of all the efforts of
the bystanders and of the Humane Society's men, more than forty persons
were drowned. The depth of the water was afterwards reduced in accordance
with the recommendation of the coroner's jury. Before the year ended,
other accidents as startling, though happily not so widely destructive of
life, took place. An explosion of gunpowder at the Faversham Powder Mills,
in the month of December, blew eleven men into the air; a still more
frightful explosion of nitro-glycerine, at Newcastle, killed five men, and
showed that the destructive power of modern chemical invention is liable
to nullify all measures of safety that can be taken to counteract it; and
a fire that took place in March at Accrington, by which nine children
were burnt alive in their schoolroom, added an unprecedented element of
horror to the catalogue of accidents.

There was, however, as if to compensate for these darker facts, an unusual
amount of gaiety imported into England during the summer months by the
arrival of certain distinguished foreign visitors. The Belgian volunteers
came over, more than a thousand strong, and were entertained in a very
fraternal manner by their English brethren. The Viceroy of Egypt came, and
was fêted by the richer classes of England with considerable expenditure
and effect. But his star paled before the greater glories of a visitor who
arrived when the Viceroy had been a few days in London--no less a person
than the Commander of the Faithful himself. Britain is so much an Asiatic
power, and has under her sway so many millions of Mohammedans, that it
was excusable for her to make the most of her opportunity of welcoming
the Sultan of Turkey, the recognised head of all those who profess the
orthodox Mussulman faith. All questions as to the real character of the
man and of his government were lost sight of by the London public in the
contemplation of his retinue, his jewels, his swarthy complexion, and the
white Arab that he rode. He was bandied about from dinner to opera, from
opera to ball; the days were filled with reviews, and processions, and
fêtes. The Lord Mayor gave him a ball at the Guildhall; the Secretary for
India spent £10,000 out of the revenues of India upon a single evening's
entertainment at the India Office. But the noblest and most creditable
display attempted in his honour was the naval review at Spithead. Fifteen
ironclads and sixteen unarmoured ships, with sixteen gunboats, formed a
mighty avenue, through which the royal yacht, bearing her Majesty and the
Sultan, the Prince of Wales, and other great personages, passed, amid
deafening salutes. Only one thing was wanting to complete the Sultan's
full enjoyment of the scene. A strong north-easter was blowing all the
time, and, by common consent of the staff of his Majesty, the spectacle of
the naval review proved rather impressive than pleasant. The Sultan left
England on the 23rd of July, after a visit of twelve days.

The year 1867 was a time of profound peace in Europe, except so far as it
was disturbed by revolutionary movements which had for their object the
overthrow of the Papal Government, and which collapsed with the defeat
of Garibaldi at Mentana. Besides the consummation of the failure of his
costly experiment in Mexico, a new mortification befell the Emperor of
the French this year in connection with the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. Yet
he continued to put the best face upon everything, to claim increasing
influence for Napoleonic ideas, and to credit his foreign policy with
success in all directions. Justly indeed might he declare--in the speech
delivered at the opening of the Chambers on February 14th--that "the voice
of France had influence enough to arrest the conqueror at the gates of
Vienna." But when, in the "Livre Jaune" (the "Yellow Book," containing the
usual annual exposition of the views of the French Government on foreign
policy), the recall of the French troops from Mexico was said to have been
"resolved upon in the full plenitude of our liberty of action,"--when it
was intimated that "anything having the character of external pressure
could only have placed us in the position, despite ourselves, of having
to prolong a state of things which we should wish to abridge,"--when he
said that "the Government of the United States understood that want of
conciliation would only have prolonged the occupation [of Mexico], and
embittered relations which, for the welfare of both countries, should
remain friendly,"--these brave words could not hide from the keen-witted
politicians of France the real nature of the pusillanimous surrender they
were intended to disguise. Still less could the truth be hidden when the
unfortunate Maximilian, dissuaded by his followers from abdication, was
taken prisoner and ignominiously shot (June 19, 1867). Many keen observers
prophesied that the Second Empire was nearing its end.

[Illustration: SKATING DISASTER IN REGENT'S PARK, LONDON. (_See p._ 459.)]

The Emperor formally opened the Paris International Exhibition on the
1st of April. Two days before, a question had been discussed in the
North German Parliament which might easily have rekindled another war in
Europe. The discussion bore on the negotiations, then first divulged,
that had been proceeding for some time between the Emperor Napoleon and
the King of Holland for the cession of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg to
France. The King of Holland, as ruler of Limburg and Luxemburg, had
voted on the side of Prussia in the memorable division of the 14th of
June, 1866; Count Bismarck had therefore no excuse for seizing Luxemburg
as he did Hanover and Hesse-Cassel. When the war was over, and the
organisation of the new North German Bund was being gone on with, the
King of Holland expressed his desire that neither Limburg nor Luxemburg
should be included in the new Bund. To this Prussia acceded, yet retained
her garrison in Luxemburg. Such a possession as the Grand Duchy,
separated by Belgian territory from his Dutch dominions, and interposed
between two powerful States the relations between which were continually
becoming more perilous and inflammable, was productive of more anxiety
than profit to the King of Holland; and could he have quietly ceded it
to France, for a consideration, nothing would have pleased him better.
It came to this, that the King of Holland declared himself ready to
sell Luxemburg to France, if the consent both of the population and of
Prussia could be first obtained. But it was quite another thing to gain
the consent of Prussia. The King of Holland had no sooner given to the
Prussian Government an intimation of the contemplated cession, than the
matter was debated in the North German Parliament, and warmly, not to
say angrily, canvassed in newspapers, in streets, and in houses, through
the length and breadth of Germany. It was an intolerable thought to men
who had just won so large a measure of national unity, and were full of
pride and exultation in the retrospect, that an old German land, which
had formerly given a line of emperors to Germany, should pass under the
power of France. The negotiation respecting Luxemburg, had it now been
transferred from the Hague to Berlin, must, considering the excitement
of German feeling, have become acrimonious, and would probably have
ended in war. For this the Emperor, who was engaged in plans for the
re-organisation of the French army, and the introduction of a new weapon,
was not as yet prepared; he therefore abandoned the notion of purchasing
Luxemburg, forbore to open direct negotiations with Berlin, and called in
the assistance of the neutral Powers. It was arranged on the initiative of
the Russian Government that the King of Holland, in his capacity of Grand
Duke, should be invited by Britain, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Belgium,
to propose a Conference, to be held in London, for the settlement of the
Luxemburg question. The King of Holland did so. Representatives of France
and Prussia also, as well as the Powers above mentioned, were sent to the
Conference, which held its first meeting in London on the 7th of May,
1867. The nature of the work to be done was pretty generally understood
before the Conference met, and its deliberations were soon over. On the
18th of May a treaty was signed, by which it was stipulated that Luxemburg
should remain, as before, under the rule of the House of Orange-Nassau,
without any political connection with Holland, but that it should be
for the future a neutral State, its neutrality being guaranteed by the
Powers that were signatories to the treaty, with the exception of Belgium,
itself a neutral kingdom. In accordance with its acquired character of
neutrality, the capital of the Grand Duchy was to cease to be a fortified
town; its fortifications were to be razed within a specified time; and the
Prussian troops were to be withdrawn after the ratifications of the treaty
had been exchanged. In this way the question was equitably and honourably
settled without war, thanks to the diplomacy of Lord Stanley, who had
actively promoted the project of a Conference. Earlier in the year he had
written to Lord Malmesbury that unless the Prussian garrison was withdrawn
from Luxemburg "Napoleon must fight."

Elsewhere Englishmen observed with satisfaction the healing of old
sores. Austria, with her armies shattered and her prestige departed,
burdened with debt, and distracted by the demands of a dozen different
nationalities, displayed in this year that wonderful tenacity of life
which she has before exhibited on many a historic emergency. In Count
Beust, the late Saxon Minister, the Emperor found a statesman of great
capacity, astuteness, and perseverance, whom he appointed to the post of
Foreign Minister at the end of October, 1866. At that time dismemberment
was openly talked of; for the difficulties of the monarchy were so great
that no one could see his way out of them. The other chief Ministers
were Prince Esterhazy and Count Belcredi, the authors of what was called
the policy of "inhibition," under which, until a common and equal
representation of the whole monarchy could be devised, the Constitution
of February, 1861, giving a Parliament or Reichsrath to Western Austria,
was suspended; the central power governed absolutely; and parliamentary
life throughout the empire was confined within the walls of the
provincial Diets. Hungary still held aloof from the rest of the empire,
like a half severed limb, having its own Parliament for local affairs,
but unrepresented in the imperial councils, and sullenly obeying the
administrative and executive dispositions of the central power. Count
Beust placed two leading political aims before him--to effect a compromise
with Hungary, and to revive constitutional and parliamentary life in
Western Austria. To bring about the first, it was necessary to come to an
understanding with M. Déak and the party which he represented, since he,
above all other living men, possessed the confidence of the Hungarians.
Now M. Déak was firmly convinced that a system of complete dualism between
Austria and Hungary would alone meet the exigencies of the case--a system
under which, certain common affairs being reserved and separately provided
for, all Hungarian affairs should be managed by a separate Administration,
appointed indeed by the Emperor, but responsible to the Hungarian
Parliament. At the opening of this Parliament, on the 19th of November,
1866, an imperial rescript was read, holding out hopes of a responsible
Ministry for Hungary, and of concessions to the views of M. Déak. The
plans of Belcredi, who desired to convoke an "Extraordinary Reichsrath,"
representing all the other nationalities along with Austria, but excluding
Hungary, were swept away; and he himself was compelled to resign soon
afterwards. Count Beust was then made Prime Minister. A deputation from
the Hungarian Diet, headed by Count Andrassy, arrived in Vienna about
the end of January, and proceeded to negotiate with Count Beust and the
other Austrian Ministers respecting the terms of the compromise. Early
in February, 1867, the Emperor appointed Count Andrassy his Minister
President for Hungary, and entrusted him with the formation of a Hungarian
Ministry. At last, on the 17th of February, appeared the imperial and
royal rescript, restoring to Hungary her full parliamentary rights as
they had existed before 1848. The terms of the compromise between Austria
and Hungary were settled in the following manner:--"Common affairs" were
defined to include the foreign policy of the empire, with its diplomatic
representation abroad, and a joint army under the command of the Emperor.
Both parts of the Empire were to contribute proportionately to the cost of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of the army; and this proportion was
afterwards fixed, somewhat unjustly, at 70 per cent, for Austria and 30
per cent, for Hungary. Hungary was likewise to contribute to the payment
of the interest of the State debt. All international treaties were to
receive the sanction of both Legislatures. All other affairs requiring
a joint consideration, such as the Customs duties, indirect taxes, and
the currency, were to be regulated by treaties, subject to the approval
of both moieties of the realm. On the 8th of June a memorable pageant
graced the streets, the noble river, and the ancient cathedral of the
double capital of Hungary. On that day the Emperor Francis Joseph, who had
never yet received the crown of St. Stephen, was solemnly crowned King
of Hungary in the cathedral of Buda, amidst the joyful acclamations of a
reconciled people.

So passed an uneventful recess. The necessity for sending an armed force
to Abyssinia, in order to compel the Sovereign of that country to release
a number of British subjects, made it advisable for the Government of
Lord Derby to convene Parliament for a short winter Session, in order
that the exact state of the question might be explained to both Houses,
their approval of the expedition secured, and the grant of the necessary
advances obtained from the House of Commons. Parliament accordingly was
summoned to meet on the 19th of November for the despatch of business, and
was opened by commission. With regard to the legislative labours of the
Session, Reform Bills for Scotland and Ireland were promised, which should
assimilate the franchises of those countries to those recently established
in England, and also measures on public schools and elementary education.
On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, £2,000,000 were voted
for the Abyssinian expedition, the total cost of which, unless the Emperor
Theodore should succumb, and give up his prisoners without fighting, was
estimated by Government at about £3,500,000. To meet this expenditure,
the House of Commons voted the addition of a penny to the income tax,
and sanctioned the payment of the Indian troops engaged out of Indian
revenues. Objections were raised to the expedition from various quarters,
but they were sustained with little earnestness. In the Commons it was
said that the Ministers had involved the country in war without keeping
Parliament duly informed of the progress of the difficulty in its earlier
stages; in the Upper House, a noble lord predicted failure, and said that
for the army to keep up its communications with the sea after having
penetrated into the highlands of Abyssinia would be found impossible.
However, the general feeling, both in Parliament and in the country, went
along with Government in thinking that all peaceful modes of settlement
had been exhausted, and that there remained only the alternative of an
appeal to arms.

In one of the debates in the House of Commons respecting relations
with Abyssinia, a singular and really strange fact came to light. Mr.
Bernal Osborne and Colonel Sykes drew the attention of the House to a
certain letter addressed by King Theodore to Queen Victoria several years
before, to which no answer had been sent. It now appeared from the papers
published in the Blue Books that Theodore's resentment on account of this
slight had much influenced his later conduct. A lively debate ensued.
Mr. Layard, who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Lord
Russell at the time (February, 1863) when Theodore's letter reached the
Foreign Office, gave the best explanation that he could of the neglect,
but it was a very lame one. He said that he himself (owing to some
division of duties between himself and the permanent Under-Secretary,
Mr. Hammond) had never seen the letter; but that when, after a delay of
eighteen months, the despatch of Consul Cameron, covering the King's
letter, was looked for and found, it appeared that it had a minute written
on it by Lord Russell, directing the correspondence to be sent to the
India Office, "which was the usual course taken in all matters relating
to Abyssinia." It was found afterwards, first, that Theodore's anger was
caused by the writings of the missionaries, in which they had alluded, one
to the King's mother's history in disrespectful terms, and the other by
reflecting on his own conduct; secondly, that Consul Cameron had returned
to Abyssinia against the King's injunction without taking back with him an
answer to the letter addressed to the Queen.

But what became of the letter after it had reached the India Office?
The answer was given by Colonel Sykes, who had obtained his information
from the officials at the India Office. This letter, on which the most
momentous consequences hung--in which the ruler of the one Christian
nation in Africa entreated the Christian Queen of a Christian nation to
co-operate with him in his endeavours to drive the encroaching, cruel,
bigoted Turks from his ancestral domains--this letter, on reaching the
India Office, appears never to have passed beyond the notice of the chief
clerk. It was supposed that the letter had been already answered from the
Foreign Office, and so no action was taken about it. Years passed away
and still Theodore received no answer to his letter. One may conceive
what interpretations, what crude reflections and deductions, would sweep
through the soul of a passionate semi-barbarian monarch at finding the
letter into which he had thrown all the rough sincerity of his heart
treated with silent contempt.

"The postage of that letter," said Colonel Sykes, "will cost us five
millions."




CHAPTER XXIX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    More Coercion for Ireland--The Scottish Reform Bill--Government
    Defeats--The Church Rates Bill--Mr. Disraeli succeeds Lord
    Derby--Reunion of the Liberals--The Irish Reform Bill--Mr.
    Gladstone's Irish Church Resolutions--His Victory--Disraeli's
    Strategy--Neither Dissolution nor Resignation--Maynooth Grant
    and the _Regium Donum_--The Suspensory Bill--Remainder of the
    Session--Lord Stanley's Foreign Policy--General Election--Mr.
    Disraeli resigns--Mr. Gladstone's Ministry--Attempt on the Life
    of the Duke of Edinburgh--Trial of O'Farrel--Murphy Riots--Martin
    _v._ Mackonochie--Obituary of the Year--Lord Brougham, Archbishop
    Longley, and Others--The Abyssinian War--Christianity in
    Abyssinia--The Crescent and the Gallas--European Intercourse--Mr.
    Plowden--Rise of Theodore--His enlightened Views--Deaths of
    his best Friends--Arrival of Consul Cameron--The unanswered
    Letter--Theodore's Retaliation--Provincial Rebellions--Mr.
    Rassam's Mission--His Interview with Theodore--The King's Charges
    against Cameron--His Humour changes--Dr. Beke's Letter--Theodore
    becomes obdurate--Rassam's Arrest--Mr. Flad's Journey--The
    Captives' Treatment--Merewether's Advice--Lord Stanley's
    Ultimatum--Constitution of Sir R. Napier's Expedition--Annesley
    Bay--Difficulties of Transport--Arrival of Napier--Friendliness
    of the Natives--Attitude of the Chiefs--Two Plans--An unopposed
    March--Proceedings of Theodore--Massacre of Prisoners--Advance
    on Magdala--Destruction of Theodore's Army--Negotiations with
    Theodore--Release of the Prisoners--A Present of Cows--Bombardment
    of Magdala--Suicide of Theodore--The Return March--The "Mountains of
    Rasselas"--Sketch of Continental Affairs.


On the 7th of December Parliament was adjourned till the 13th of February,
1868. When it recommenced its sittings on that date the political
situation was, of course, unchanged; the Tory Government was in a minority
of from sixty to seventy voices in the House of Commons; yet, through
the amazing suppleness, versatility, and adroitness of its leader in
the Commons, ably seconded by the heavier metal of Lord Cairns, it made
headway for a time against all its opponents with surprising courage and
success. One of the first measures proposed by Government was to renew
the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland for a twelvemonth.
Already had the Habeas Corpus Act been suspended for two years in the
sister island; yet, although Fenianism was less menacing than it had been,
it still appeared to the Irish Government unsafe to dispense with the
extraordinary powers for the repression of disorder that had been first
granted in 1866. In asking leave to bring in a Bill for the continuance
of the suspension, Lord Mayo, Chief Secretary for Ireland, stated that
though the Fenian leaders had recently transferred the scene of their
active operations to England, there were still events occurring in Ireland
that made it necessary that the Government should have this power. That
the enlarged powers of repression conferred by the law on the executive
had not been ineffectual, he proved by reading an extract from an American
paper, which showed that out of forty-three military leaders sent from
America to aid and direct the Fenian movement, the three principals had
never reached Ireland, and the others had either been brought to justice
or were exiles. The Bill passed through all its stages in both Houses
with very little opposition.

[Illustration: LORD CAIRNS. (_From a Photograph by Russell and Sons._)]

Time had failed in the Session of 1867 to carry through Parliament
measures for the enlargement of the constituencies in Scotland and Ireland
similar to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill for England. The matter was now
taken up by Government, and Bills were introduced, and eventually passed,
for reforming the representation of the people both in Scotland and
Ireland. The circumstances attending the progress of these Bills were in
some respects unprecedented, and such as involved no slight humiliation
to the Government, which, in spite of all Mr. Disraeli's adroitness,
was compelled either to allow the details of the measures to be settled
pretty nearly as the opposing majority might think fit, or to resist at
the imminent peril of defeat and expulsion from office. The measure for
Scotland was introduced by the Lord Advocate, Mr. Paton, on the 17th of
February. It proposed that the franchise should be settled on nearly the
same basis as in England, both for counties and boroughs; so that in the
former there would be an ownership franchise of £5 clear annual value, and
an occupation franchise of £12; while in boroughs every householder rated
and paying rates would have a vote. It further gave seven additional seats
to Scotland, without disfranchising any boroughs in England or Ireland;
so that, if the Bill had passed in this form, there would have been a
permanent increase in the numbers of the House of Commons. No sooner was
the draft Bill in the possession of the House, than Scottish members, as
if by one consent, set to work to tear it to pieces. It is unnecessary
to repeat all the objections that were raised, and the more so because
all parties ultimately agreed to pass the second reading, affirming the
principle of the Bill; each trusting to obtain the modifications desired
in committee. So far all had gone well for Government; but when the House
went into committee, their practical powerlessness was apparent to all
the world, and must have been painfully mortifying to themselves. Mr.
Baxter moved, "That it be an instruction to the committee that, instead
of adding to the numbers of the House, they have power to disfranchise
boroughs in England having by the Census returns of 1861 less than 5,000
inhabitants." He pointed out that there were ten such small boroughs in
England; these he proposed to disfranchise, and to add the ten seats thus
obtained to the representation of Scotland. Sir Rainald Knightley proposed
that, instead of disfranchising any boroughs, the committee should take
one member from each of those boroughs in England returning two members to
Parliament which in 1861 had less than 12,000 inhabitants. Mr. Disraeli,
on the part of the Government, accepted Sir Rainald Knightley's proposal.
But Mr. Gladstone seconded the motion of Mr. Baxter, and it was carried on
a division by a majority of 217 to 196. Government was fain to acquiesce;
and the only modification that Mr. Disraeli could obtain consisted in
reducing the number of the boroughs marked out for immolation from ten to
seven. Another and still more damaging alteration in the Government Bill
was carried by Mr. Bouverie, who proposed to get rid of the ratepaying
qualification in Scotland altogether, by omitting the words making the
payment of rates (as in the English Bill) a necessary condition of
the franchise. We have seen, in the course of the Reform debates, how
devotedly, one might almost say sentimentally, attached was Mr. Disraeli
to the principle of the rating franchise. Yet, when defeated on Mr.
Bouverie's motion, he resigned himself with a sigh to the excision of
his darling principle, not only with reference to boroughs, but also to
counties. The occupation franchise for counties was fixed at £14, the
reference to rateable value being omitted. Thus amended, the Bill passed
through committee, and, meeting with hardly any opposition in the House of
Lords, became law.

The author of "Church and State" succeeded in carrying through Parliament
this year a Bill for the abolition of church rates. In the debate on the
second reading Lord Cranborne said, "What shall we gain if we adhere to
the principle of 'No surrender'? That is a question which must be answered
by the circumstances of the time. We must look not only to the disposition
of the nation out of doors, but to the course of events in this House--the
principles upon which parties guide their movements--the laws by which
public men regulate their conduct. Looking to these matters, and taking
the most impartial view in my power, I am bound to say that I do not
think any gain to the Church will arise from prolonging the resistance."
After speaking of the deep reluctance he felt to give up anything that
the Church possessed, he concluded with the words, "I think it wiser to
accept the terms that are now offered to us, because I am distinctly
of opinion that we may go farther and fare worse." The passing of this
measure, though it could not be said to have reconciled the main body of
the Dissenters in any appreciable degree to the existence of the Church as
an establishment, at least closed a long and wearisome chapter of local
bickerings, distinguished by cheap martyrdom on one side and indiscreet
coercion on the other.

Age and the undermining effects of his hereditary malady, the gout, had
told heavily this winter on the vigorous constitution of Lord Derby, and
he felt no longer equal to the cares and toils of office. His retirement
from the Ministry was announced by his son, Lord Stanley, in the House
of Commons on the 25th of February, and drew forth expressions of warm
and respectful sympathy from both sides of the House. The way was thus
naturally opened for the gratification of the great and worthy ambition
of a lifetime. Mr. Disraeli was sent for by the Queen, and requested to
take the post of Premier and reconstruct the Government. On the 27th
Mr. Disraeli had an audience of her Majesty, and kissed hands upon his
appointment as First Lord of the Treasury. To pass over two or three
minor changes, the new Premier declined to include the Chancellor, Lord
Chelmsford (Sir Frederic Thesiger), in the re-constructed Ministry; and
that high functionary, despite an appeal to Lord Derby, was therefore
compelled to resign the seals, which were given to Lord Cairns. The great
ability, industry, and readiness in debate of the new Chancellor were
much needed to strengthen the Ministerial side in the House of Lords. On
the 5th of March Mr. Disraeli addressed a meeting of his Parliamentary
supporters, and encouraged them to look hopefully forward to the future,
and to remember through what storms and sunken rocks they had been safely
steered.

He admitted the difficulties that lay in their path as a minority having
to deal with the great question now pressing on their attention. But
the past two years had given them great triumphs, and he had every
confidence that with a firm front they might add to them fresh triumphs
in 1868. But there were others who felt confident, and with better
reason--unfortunately for him--than Mr. Disraeli. That condition of the
Liberal party described in the caustic observation of Mr. Bouverie,
when it had "leaders that wouldn't lead, and followers that wouldn't
follow," was now at an end. Mr. Gladstone, who assiduously felt the
pulse of his party, soon discovered that those who had played truant
were willing to submit to discipline once more, and his exultation was
extreme. "Having put our hand to the plough," he said, at a dinner given
to Mr. Brand, the Liberal whip, at the end of March, "we shall not look
back. I have entertained from the first a confident hope and belief that
a long and arduous struggle would be accompanied by complete success."
The battle-ground which the Liberal leader had chosen was well adapted
to bring together all the scattered sections of the party; it was the
proposal to disestablish the Irish Protestant Church. The perturbed and
discontented state of Ireland was a continual source of anxiety. The
proposal to abolish the State Church was satisfactory to the Liberals who
were only politicians, because it involved what they deemed a useful and
tranquillising concession to the feelings of the Roman Catholic majority
of the Irish people. It was also satisfactory to that large and important
class of Liberals who had Dissenting sympathies, because it aimed at doing
away with an Established Church, and reducing its ministers to find their
subsistence through reliance on the principle of Voluntaryism.

Although we shall be departing from the strict order of time, we prefer
to describe the more important measures that the Government succeeded
in carrying through Parliament this Session, before entering upon the
narrative of the party contest which resulted in their defeat and paved
the way for their resignation. These measures were three in number. Of
one, the Scottish Reform Bill, we have already given the history; the
two others were the Irish Reform Bill, and the Bill for defining the
boundaries of boroughs in England and Wales. The Irish Reform Bill was
brought in by Lord Mayo on the 19th of March. It was in appearance a
much simpler affair than the corresponding Bill for Scotland; it gave to
Ireland no new members, and made no change in the county franchise, which
had been fixed at a £12 rental for Ireland some years before. In the
boroughs the Bill enacted that the rates of all houses valued at less than
£4 a year should be paid by the landlord, and fixed the franchise at £4
a year rental. Practically, therefore, it was a ratepaying franchise as
in England. It also contained a redistribution scheme, which proposed to
disfranchise six small boroughs, and allot one of the seats thus obtained
to Dublin, and the other five to different counties that were inadequately
represented. The Bill was read a second time on the 7th of May, and then
the real battle began. The redistribution scheme appeared to please no
one, and Government withdrew it. The Irish Liberal members complained that
the Bill, which only added about nine thousand new names to the register
of voters, was absurdly insufficient; they alleged that the qualification
for the county franchise was far too high, and that the retention of the
freeman franchise was an error. Sir Colman O'Loghlen moved an amendment
which, if carried, would have swept away the freeman franchise of Dublin
and other cities; and Colonel French endeavoured to reduce the county
qualification from £12 to £8. Other amendments also were moved; but from
some cause or other Government were always victorious when it came to
a division; and the Bill passed through committee substantially as its
authors had framed it, minus the redistribution clause. The Irish members
complained bitterly of this result, declaring that but for the apathy of
English and Scottish Liberals, who had neglected to come to the House to
support them, they would have carried the amendments above described, and
greatly improved the Bill. As for the county qualification, Sir John Gray
declared that though nominally the same as in England, a rental of £12 a
year in Ireland was really equivalent to one of £30 a year in England.

The Bill for regulating the boundaries of boroughs in England and Wales
was founded on the report of a Royal Commission that had minutely
investigated the subject. When introduced into the House there appeared to
be an indisposition to accept it as it stood, because the municipalities
of a number of boroughs whose boundaries had been extended by the
commissioners remonstrated against such extension and petitioned the House
that the ancient boundaries might be preserved. A motion was accordingly
made and accepted by Government, that the Bill should be referred to a
Select Committee. The recommendations of the Select Committee went to
undermine many of the conclusions of the Commission, and independent
members moved amendments that were derogatory to the recommendations of
the committee. Great wrangling and confusion ensued, but in the end the
Bill was carried as altered by the Select Committee; and fifteen important
boroughs--among which Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, and Manchester were
included--were permitted to retain their ancient boundaries, contrary to
the recommendations of the Commission. The Bill was not passed by the
House of Lords till near the end of the Session.

At a much earlier period Mr. Gladstone sprang his first mine against
the Government position with destructive effect. Three years before,
when Mr. Dillwyn had brought up the question of the anomalous spectacle
presented to Europe by the Irish Church, Mr. Gladstone had both spoken and
written to the effect that, while admitting the scandal and the danger
of the existing state of things, he did not believe the question to be
within the range of present politics, and considered that a long period
must elapse before it would be ripe for settlement. Now, however, he had
convinced himself that "the hour was come, and the man." On the 23rd of
March he laid three resolutions before the Commons, of which the first
declared that, "in the opinion of this House, it is necessary that the
Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an establishment,
due regard being had to all personal interests, and to all individual
rights of property." The object of the second and third resolutions was
to prevent the creation of any more vested interests for the future.
Vacancies occurring in the higher ecclesiastical appointments were not, if
in public patronage, to be filled up pending the decision of Parliament;
and the Queen was to be humbly solicited by the House to place at the
disposal of Parliament with a view to the aforesaid purposes, her interest
in the archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other ecclesiastical dignities
and benefices of Ireland. Mr. Disraeli, had all his Cabinet been of one
mind, would probably have met the resolutions by a direct negative. But
his Secretary for Foreign Affairs--Lord Stanley--the high descent and
great wealth of whose family, coupled with his own unquestioned ability,
enforced consideration for his opinions--was by no means disposed to
maintain a war _à outrance_ in defence of the Church of Ireland. It
was accordingly agreed that Mr. Gladstone's resolutions should be met
at the first stage by an amendment, to be moved by Lord Stanley: "That
this House, while admitting that considerable modifications in the
temporalities of the united Church in Ireland may, after pending inquiry,
appear to be expedient, is of opinion that any proposition tending to the
disestablishment or disendowment of the Church ought to be reserved for
the decision of the new Parliament." The amendment was ingeniously framed,
because it contained an implied menace that the Government, if defeated
on the resolutions, would dissolve Parliament sooner than allow the Irish
Church Question to be dealt with by the "unreformed" constituencies;
thus sending back members to their constituents to face all the trouble
and expense of an election many months before the time that they had
calculated upon. This disagreeable prospect might again, it was hoped,
cause a split in the Liberal party. But the manœuvre did not succeed this
time. The debate on the resolutions commenced on the 30th of March, and
was continued over four nights; the question being, whether the Speaker
should leave the chair so that the House might go into committee on the
resolutions, or whether Lord Stanley's amendment should be affirmed.
In the course of the debate, Mr. Lowe, the great deserter, who had now
returned to his colours, made a vehement and powerful attack on Government
for their attempt to link the fortunes of the Church of England with those
of the sister Establishment in Ireland. This, he said, was a Mezentian
union--an attempt to link the living with the dead.

The division resulted in the rejection of Lord Stanley's amendment by a
majority of 61; the numbers being 270 for, and 331 against it. No further
progress was made for the moment, as the defeat of Government occurred
on the eve of the Easter recess. During the short interval the sense of
the country was variously expressed by two great meetings held in St.
James's Hall--one for, the other against, Disestablishment. At the first,
presided over by Lord Russell, the Chairman professed himself ready to
sacrifice what was, in his own opinion, the best course--the plan of
concurrent endowment by paying the priests. Great unanimity prevailed. At
the Conservative meeting, the only argument put forward that was of much
weight was this--that the ill-feeling which prevailed in Ireland towards
England was more deep-seated than most Englishmen supposed; and that the
disestablishment of the Irish Church, which was far from being a generally
unpopular institution, would do nothing to remove this feeling in the
minds of the majority, while it would tend to diminish the attachment of
the Protestant minority to Great Britain. Parliament resumed its sittings
on the 20th of April, and the 27th was fixed for the debate in committee
on Mr. Gladstone's first resolution. Three more nights were consumed in
the discussion of the question in all its bearings; on the 30th of April
the division took place, and resulted in the affirmation of the first
resolution, by a majority against Government of sixty-five.

Upon the numbers being announced, Mr. Disraeli rose and said that the
vote at which the committee had arrived had altered the relations between
Government and the House; he therefore moved that the House should
adjourn to Monday, the 4th of May, to enable Government to consider
their position. Few imagined that after defeats so decisive Government
would be able to follow aught but one of two courses--either immediate
resignation or immediate dissolution. Many, indeed, of the Liberal leaders
maintained that the only constitutional course open to the Ministry was
resignation. But his opponents did not know all that the accomplished and
versatile Premier was capable of. Mr. Disraeli was not yet at the end of
his resources. He contrived to extract out of defeat a secure tenure of
office for seven months longer, and all the rage and vituperation of the
baffled victors could avail nothing against his imperturbable front. On
the 4th of May he rose in his place, and stated that, having waited on
her Majesty, he told her that "the advice which her Ministers would, in
the full spirit of the Constitution, offer her, would be that her Majesty
should dissolve this Parliament, and take the opinion of the country upon
the conduct of her Ministers, and on the question at issue; but, at the
same time, with the full concurrence of my colleagues, I represented to
her Majesty that there were important occasions on which it was wise
that the Sovereign should not be embarrassed by personal claims, however
constitutional, valid, or meritorious; and that if her Majesty was of
opinion that the question at issue could be more satisfactorily settled,
or that the interests of the country would be promoted by the immediate
retirement of the present Government from office, we were prepared to
quit her Majesty's service immediately, with no other feeling but that
which every Minister who has served the Queen must entertain, viz. a
feeling of gratitude to her Majesty for the warm constitutional support
which she always gives to her Ministers, and I may add--for it is a truth
that cannot be concealed--for the aid and assistance which any Minister
must experience from a Sovereign who has such a vast acquaintance with
public affairs. Sir, I, in fact, tendered my resignation to the Queen. Her
Majesty commanded me to attend her in audience on the next day, when her
Majesty was pleased to express her pleasure not to accept the resignation
of her Ministers, and her readiness to dissolve Parliament so soon as
the state of public business would permit. Under these circumstances, I
advised her Majesty that, although the present constituency was no doubt
admirably competent to decide upon the question of the disestablishment of
the Church, still it was the opinion of her Majesty's Ministers that every
effort should be made that the appeal should, if possible, be directed to
the new constituencies which the wisdom of Parliament provided last year;
and I expressed to her Majesty that, if we had the cordial co-operation
of Parliament, I was advised by those who are experienced and skilful in
these matters that it would be possible to make arrangements by which that
dissolution could take place in the autumn of this year."

[Illustration: SCENE IN THE BIRMINGHAM "NO POPERY" RIOTS. (_See p_. 475.)]

This speech, so charmingly blended and tempered as it was, concealed under
a cloud of plausible words the exact point which every one wanted to
know--how far the Ministerial plan was due to the Queen's own initiative,
and how much was suggested to her by the Premier. The only point about
which there could be no mistake was that the Ministers meant to stay in
till the autumn. The Liberals were greatly incensed; and although many of
them must have keenly relished the joke, and internally done homage to the
genius of this master of political legerdemain, the leaders of the party
felt it as a very serious matter to be kept so long out of the fruits
of a triumph which they had deemed secure. Mr. Disraeli was questioned
and cross-questioned as to the exact nature of the communications that
had taken place between the Queen and himself, and as to an apparent
discrepancy between his own explanation of the circumstances, and that
given by the Duke of Richmond in the other House. Nothing could be more
ingenuous and candid than Mr. Disraeli's replies; nevertheless, the
transaction continued to be wrapped in some degree of mystery and Mr.
Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, and others protested against the course taken by
the Ministry as unconstitutional and unprecedented. According to Lord
Malmesbury, Mr. Gladstone wished to stop supplies, but could not obtain
the support of his party. Mr. Bright, however, severely chastised Mr.
Disraeli for his use of the Queen's name, and the Prime Minister winced
under the castigation. To the statement of Mr. Lowe, that in not resigning
the Ministry was treating the House with disrespect, since the large
majorities by which Government had been defeated on the Irish Church
Question amounted virtually to a vote of want of confidence, Mr. Disraeli
replied that many of those who sided with the majority on these occasions
had assured him that they did not so understand the votes they gave; and
he challenged Mr. Lowe and those who agreed with him to propose a direct
vote of want of confidence, which could be argued and decided on that
plain issue. The challenge was not taken up, and the excitement on this
particular matter gradually subsided.

To the three original resolutions of Mr. Gladstone a fourth was added
in the course of the discussion, relating to the Maynooth Grant and the
_Regium Donum_. The former, which was originally fixed at £8,000 a year,
was raised by Sir Robert Peel, in 1845, to £30,000 a year, and charged
upon the Consolidated Fund. It was devoted to the sustentation of the
great Roman Catholic seminary for the training of priests at Maynooth,
and was administered by the Irish bishops, subject to the control of
the Executive. Before Maynooth was established, the Irish priests were
generally educated in France, whence they brought back, as it was
supposed, feelings of alienation and hostility towards England; it was
therefore considered to be an act of wise statesmanship to subsidise a
seminary in Ireland itself, so that the priests might be educated at
home. The _Regium Donum_ was an annual grant of about £38,000, first
instituted by Charles II., in favour of the Irish Presbyterian Church, and
distributed among the ministers in stipends of £75 each. Evidently the
grounds of justice and conciliation upon which Mr. Gladstone relied in
moving for the disendowment of the Irish Church were inapplicable in the
case of the Maynooth Grant and the _Regium Donum_, both of which were of
very modest amount relatively to the size of the religious communities to
which they were allotted, and the payment of which involved no injustice
nor inequality. But it was necessary for Mr. Gladstone to include these
also in his scheme of disendowment, as, otherwise, he would have forfeited
the support of the English Dissenters and the Scottish Radicals. With
these the disendowment of the Irish Church was popular, not so much as an
abatement of an injustice, as because it committed the State _pro tanto_
to the principle of Voluntaryism. "Levelling down" was the only kind of
equalisation which they approved of; they desired that all religious
organisations should be denuded of State aid equally with themselves,
whether that aid were much or little. This applies more particularly to
the Dissenters; with the Scottish members the detestation of everything
Roman Catholic was the chief motive for their claiming that the Maynooth
Grant should be included in the work of demolition. Mr. Gladstone, in
order to preserve the unity of his party, which he had just patched
together again with such infinite trouble, was obliged to consent to
this enlargement of his scheme; and the fourth resolution accordingly
ran thus: "That when legislative effect shall have been given to the
first resolution of this committee, respecting the Established Church of
Ireland, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and the
_Regium Donum_ be discontinued, due regard being had to all personal
interests."

The resolutions having been carried, in their final shape (May 8th), the
Address to her Majesty respecting the temporalities of the Irish Church
was duly presented. Some inconsiderate persons supposed that either Mr.
Disraeli would advise the Queen, or that the Queen herself, under the
influence of an imagined scruple as to the bearing of the Coronation
Oath, would refuse, to surrender to Parliament her interest in the Irish
temporalities in the manner requested. But both Mr. Disraeli and the Queen
knew better the path prescribed to each by constitutional duty. The answer
of her Majesty to the Commons' Address, received at the House on the 12th
of May, stated that, relying on the wisdom of her Parliament, the Queen
desired that her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church should
not stand in the way of the discussion of any measure that Parliament
might deem necessary for the welfare of Ireland. To advise her Majesty to
any other course would have been the less excusable, because it was quite
unnecessary; Mr. Disraeli being serenely confident that the Tory majority
in the House of Lords would allow no measure touching the temporalities to
pass into law--at any rate that year. This was soon made evident, when, as
soon as possible after the receipt of the Queen's consent to legislative
action, Mr. Gladstone brought in a Suspensory Bill, the object of which
was to stop the creation of new vested interests, by preventing for a
limited time any new appointments in the Irish Church, and to restrain
for the same period in certain respects the proceedings of the Irish
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Suspensory Bill passed easily through
the House of Commons; but when it came to the Lords it was criticised
with great severity, and the second reading was refused by a majority of
ninety-five.

The rest of the Session passed away with little that was eventful to mark
its course. Government brought in an Education Bill, which contained
one noteworthy and excellent feature--the provision of a real Minister
of Education, in the shape of a new Secretary of State for that special
department. But the general scheme proposed in the Bill was slight and
not deeply considered; it therefore failed to stand its ground against
the numerous objections raised against it, and was before long withdrawn
by its promoters. The financial statement of Mr. Ward Hunt, the new
Chancellor of the Exchequer, showed that the revenue continued to exhibit
that character of elasticity which it had maintained for several years.
The plan for the public endowment of the Irish Catholic University fell
to the ground at an early period of the Session. The Irish prelates
(Archbishop Leahy and Bishop Derry) who had been appointed to conduct
the negotiation on the part of the University authorities with the Chief
Secretary, Lord Mayo, demanded powers so extensive, not only as to the
appointment and dismissal of professors and other officers, but also as
to the use and prohibition of books, that Government abruptly closed
the correspondence. It afterwards appeared that the prelates had not put
forward these demands as an ultimatum, and might have abated their terms
upon good cause being shown. But it is probable that Mr. Disraeli, knowing
how extremely averse was popular feeling from any concession to Romanism,
felt little regret that the large demands of the prelates had furnished
him with a decent excuse for abandoning the project.

Several measures introduced by Government in the course of the Session
met with a similar fate to that which befell the Education Bill. One
really useful Act was passed--that for enabling the State to treat with
the various electric telegraph companies for the purchase of their lines,
in order that the whole telegraphic communication of the country might be
placed under the control of the Postmaster-General. The adjustment of the
various interests involved was a work of great labour and patience; it
was, however, accomplished, and the telegraph companies agreed to accept
twenty years' purchase of the net profits of their undertakings. It was
calculated that Government would require about £6,000,000 in order to
carry the scheme into full effect, the greater part of which sum would
be borrowed from the Savings Banks Fund; but the financial part of the
arrangement was reserved for the next Parliament. Mr. Scudamore, the
originator of the scheme, calculated that the Post Office would derive a
net profit of £200,000 a year from taking the telegraph lines into its own
hands; but the purchase gave rise, then and afterwards, to much hostile
criticism.

The home policy of the Tory Government, checked and foiled as it was
at every turn, by the fact of its supporters being a minority in the
House of Commons, cannot be deemed, however brilliant it may have been
in inception, to have been more than moderately successful in what it
achieved. With foreign affairs it was otherwise. Lord Stanley presided
over the Foreign Office, and controlled the relations of the country
with Foreign Powers with a firmness and dignity that recalled English
statesmen of the old school. Of his conduct in the Luxemburg business we
have already spoken; of his management of the _Alabama_ question we shall
have to speak hereafter. Making a reasonable deduction for partisanship,
we may admit that there was much truth in the lofty language used by the
Prime Minister with regard to the foreign policy of his Government, in a
speech delivered at a banquet in Merchant Taylors' Hall, on the 17th of
June. "When we acceded to office," he said, "the name of England was a
name of suspicion and distrust in every foreign Court and Cabinet. There
was no possibility of that cordial action with any of the Great Powers
which is the only security for peace; and, in consequence of that want
of cordiality, wars were frequently occurring. But since we entered upon
office, and public affairs were administered by my noble friend, who is
deprived by a special diplomatic duty of the gratification of being here
this evening, I say that all this has changed; that there never existed
between England and Foreign Powers a feeling of greater cordiality and
confidence than now prevails; that while we have shrunk from bustling and
arrogant intermeddling, we have never taken refuge in selfish isolation;
and the result has been that there never was a Government in the country
which has been more frequently appealed to for its friendly offices than
the one which now exists."

A short Act--the Registration of Voters Act--was passed before Parliament
separated, in order to facilitate early elections under the Reform Bill
of 1867; and the Session came to a close on the 31st of July. After
the prorogation of Parliament the Ministry lost no time in making the
necessary preparations for a dissolution and general election. The
registers of the enlarged constituencies were actively proceeded with
and so far completed that it was found possible to dissolve Parliament
on the 11th of November, and to summon a new one, to be elected under
the Reform Act of 1867, for the 10th of December. The great public
question at issue was the existence of the Irish Establishment; and, on
a general view, the verdict of the constituencies was given in favour of
Mr. Gladstone's proposals, and disappointed the sanguine anticipations
of Mr. Disraeli. There was a gain to the Liberal party, as the net
result of the elections, of fifteen seats, equal to thirty votes on a
division. But their triumph was chequered by several minor reverses,
among which the rejection of Mr. Gladstone for South Lancashire was
the most remarkable. Every resource that unflagging industry, careful
organisation, and incessant oratory could put in requisition was resorted
to in order to secure the return of the Liberal leader, but all efforts
were in vain; the Conservative candidates--Messrs. Cross and Turner--were
returned at the head of the poll, Mr. Gladstone having two hundred and
sixty fewer votes than Mr. Turner, who was about fifty below Mr. Cross.
There were two principal causes accounting for this result; one the
extreme unpopularity of the Irish in South Lancashire, owing to the
increased turbulence, drunkenness, and pauperism which their presence in
large numbers occasioned, and also to the fact that their competition
beat down wages; the other, the influence of the house of Stanley and
other great Conservative families in that part of the country. Mr.
Gladstone had to console himself with the suffrages of Greenwich, which
had generously elected him while the issue in South Lancashire was still
undecided. In other parts of Lancashire the same feeling of soreness
against the proposal to disestablish the Irish Church, because it seemed
to involve a triumph for the locally unpopular Irish Catholics, produced
a similar result. This great and representative county, taking boroughs
and shire-divisions together, returned twenty-one Conservatives against
eleven Liberals. On the other hand, the Scottish electors accepted Mr.
Gladstone's proposal with extraordinary favour. Not only did the Scottish
boroughs return Liberals without exception, but many counties which had
returned Conservative members for years were on this occasion carried
for Liberals. Of the whole number of members who came up from Scotland,
only seven were Conservatives. In Ireland also there was a Liberal gain,
though one of less magnitude. At the election for Westminster--to the deep
regret of all who could appreciate the profound political insight and
philosophical treatment of great questions which were thus lost to the
House of Commons--Mr. John Stuart Mill was defeated by the Conservative
candidate, Mr. William Henry Smith.

[Illustration: CORONATION OF THE EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA AS KING OF HUNGARY.
(_See p._ 468.)]

By the beginning of December it was abundantly evident that Mr. Gladstone
would be supported in the new House of Commons by a considerably larger
following than before. Mr. Disraeli thereupon took a bold and judicious
resolution. He would not go through the forms of meeting Parliament as
if he were the master of the situation--of advising a Royal Speech that
must either omit all mention of the Irish Church, or mention it in a tone
at variance with the sentiments of the great majority of the House,--of
renewing or seeing renewed a debate that he knew could only end one way.
He resolved, therefore, to resign office before Parliament met, and this
resolution he communicated to his friends and supporters by a circular
dated the 2nd of December. Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues accordingly
resigned, and the Queen, of course, sent for Mr. Gladstone, as the
recognised leader of the party, and the ablest exponent of the policy
of which the majority of the constituencies had just recorded their
emphatic approval. The outgoing Premier declined a peerage for himself,
but accepted one for his wife, who became Viscountess Beaconsfield. Mr.
Gladstone became First Lord of the Treasury, and the principal offices
were thus filled up:--Lord Chancellor, Lord Hatherley (late Sir W. Page
Wood); President of the Council, Lord de Grey and Ripon; Chancellor of
the Exchequer, Mr. Lowe; Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce; Foreign Secretary,
Earl of Clarendon; Colonial Secretary, Earl Granville; Secretary for War,
Mr. Cardwell; Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Chichester Fortescue; Secretary
for India, Duke of Argyll; First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Childers;
President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Bright; Chairman of the Poor Law
Board, Mr. Goschen; Vice-President of the Council, Mr. W. E. Forster. The
new Ministers, having necessarily vacated their seats on taking office,
were not present at the meeting of Parliament on the 10th of December,
and the only proceedings then taken were of a formal character, including
the re-election of Mr. Evelyn Denison as Speaker, and the swearing-in of
the new members who were more than 200 in number. Parliament was then
adjourned to the 29th of December, at which date, the re-election of the
new Ministers having been in no instance opposed, the House reassembled,
with Ministers all in their places, but only to be again immediately
adjourned to the 16th of February, 1869.

Some events, non-political in their character, which belonged to the
year 1868, may here be brought together. In the course of the spring the
intelligence of an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh while in
Australia created much excitement in London. Prince Alfred, the second son
of the Queen, having taken to a naval life, rose rapidly in the service,
and at the time of the attempt was in command of the _Galatea_, a frigate
attached to the Australian station. In the course of a long visit to
the colony of New South Wales the Prince had consented to be present at
a large picnic at Clontarf (a place on Middle Harbour, Port Jackson),
organised partly to do honour to his Royal Highness, partly to benefit the
funds of a Sailors' Home. Here, under the bright Australian sky, while all
was mirth and enjoyment around, the Prince being engaged in conversation
with Sir William Manning, the Attorney-General, while the Governor (Lord
Belmore) and the Lord Chief Justice were at a short distance, a person was
observed to take deliberate aim at the Prince with a revolver and fire.
The Duke fell forward on his hands and knees, exclaiming, "Good God! my
back is broken." Sir William Manning rushed at the fellow to seize him,
but, seeing him on the point of firing another shot, stooped to evade the
bullet, and in the act of stooping lost his balance and fell. But there
were so many persons on the ground that the criminal had little or no
chance of escape. A stalwart coachbuilder of the name of Vial ran up and
seized him from behind, pinioning his arms to his side. The man struggled
hard, attempting to liberate his right arm sufficiently to discharge the
pistol at Vial over his shoulder; but, finding this impossible, he fired
in the direction of the spot where the Duke was lying, with the supposed
intention of wounding him again. The bullet, which had struck the back and
traversed the ribs, was extracted without difficulty, and the progress
of his Royal Highness to recovery was rapid and without check. While the
Duke was being borne away, a painful scene occurred. Before the police
could take him in charge, the misguided wretch was surrounded by a mob of
infuriated loyalists, incapable of restraining either their feelings or
their fists. By these the criminal was so mauled, so brutally beaten and
bruised, that, when the police at last arrived, he was covered with blood
from head to foot and scarcely retained the semblance of humanity. "Lynch
him!" "Hang him!" "String him up!"--such were the cries that issued from
a hundred throats. When he was brought down to the man-of-war from which
he was to be removed to gaol, the sailors were about to hang him at the
yard-arm incontinently; but Lord Newry interposed and saved him. After
much preliminary investigation, in order to ascertain whether or not the
man had accomplices, he was put on his trial on the 26th of March. He
gave his name as Henry James O'Farrel, admitted that he had intended to
kill the Prince, as a prominent representative of English tyranny over
his native land, and at first used language which pointed, like that of
Mucius Scævola on a similar occasion, to a secret conspiracy in which he
was but one of the adepts and accomplices. When, however, he was condemned
to death, he wrote and signed on the day before his execution (April 21st)
a full and clear statement, declaring that he had had no accomplices,
and that the design of assassinating the Duke had been conceived in his
own brain, and communicated to no other person. He admitted that he was
a Fenian, but denied that he was connected with, or even cognisant of
the existence of, any Fenian organisation in New South Wales. Before he
suffered, he was brought to a becoming sense of the guilt of the criminal
act he had so nearly consummated. The Duke of Edinburgh, after his
recovery, interceded with the Colonial Government, but without effect, for
the pardon of the culprit.

The scandalous scenes caused in 1867 by the discourses of the "No Popery"
lecturer Murphy were renewed in the May of 1868 with yet more calamitous
results. A traveller, passing through the streets of Birmingham, on the
night of June 19th, 1867, saw Park Street in ruins; the traffic stopped in
the great thoroughfare of High Street and Bull Street; Carr's Lane, Moor
Street, etc., strongly occupied by soldiers, and Irishwomen weeping over
the destruction of their little property and their wrecked homes. On the
9th of May, 1868, the furious spirit of bigotry which Murphy's lectures
had awakened in the breasts of his English auditors, at Dukinfield,
Stalybridge, and Ashton-under-Lyne, important manufacturing towns in
South Lancashire, found vent in a combined movement against the quarter
inhabited by the Catholic Irish in the last-named town. Much fighting
ensued, but the party of the assailants was in superior force, and, after
having done considerable damage to a small chapel with its school in the
Irish quarter, they attacked the principal chapel (St. Mary's). The chapel
bell was rung, and the Irish flocked to the aid of their priest; but they
were overpowered by numbers, and the fittings and window-frames of the
chapel were destroyed. Shots were fired, but no lives were lost. On the
11th there was a renewal of rioting; the English attacked Reyner's Row,
the inhabitants of which were mostly Irish, and commenced systematically
to sack and gut the houses, and destroy the furniture. Troops were at last
sent for by the Mayor; the rioters cheered the soldiers, and adjourned to
another street merely to renew the work of devastation. It was the riots
of 1780 repeated on a smaller scale. In one of the rushes made by the
mob a respectable woman was knocked down and trampled to death. A number
of special constables were sworn in; the most mischievous of the rioters
were arrested or disarmed, and the disturbance was gradually got under.
An attempt was made to renew the same outrages at Stalybridge; but here
the authorities were well prepared, and the mob was at once charged and
dispersed by a combined force of constables and specials.

In December, a decision, which had been awaited with deep interest by
both the great parties in the Church, was delivered by Lord Cairns in the
name of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The judgment was
in the case of Martin _v._ Mackonochie. The latter, one of the leading
Ritualist clergy in London, and the incumbent of St. Alban's, Holborn,
was charged with lighting candles on the communion-table at the time of
the celebration of the communion, and with superstitiously prostrating
himself before the elements after pronouncing the prayer of consecration.
On both charges submitted the judgment was against Mr. Mackonochie.
Lighted candles, according to the Judicial Committee, were not "ornaments"
within the meaning of the Rubric; and with regard to the prostrations, it
was evident that they introduced and implied an adoration to a supposed
Divine presence, objectively understood, which the Reformers had carefully
eliminated from the worship of the Anglican Church. Mr. Mackonochie was
condemned in the costs of the appeal, as well as in the costs of the
hearing in the court below.

There died in this year (May 7), at an extreme old age, one whose name
recalled the Liberal reaction that set in in Great Britain at the
beginning of the century, who had worked with Mackintosh and Charles James
Fox, and stood up to defend the unhappy Queen of George IV. This was Lord
Brougham, whose splendid talents were neutralised by a restless ambition,
which had condemned him, since his ostracism by Lord Melbourne, to a long
career of political sterility. Longley, once head-master of Harrow, who
since the death of Sumner had been Archbishop of Canterbury, died this
year (October 27), and was succeeded by Dr. Tait, the Bishop of London. A
life brilliantly commenced, but clouded latterly by many disappointments,
was also closed this year (June 11)--that of Sir James Brooke, the
Rajah of Sarawak. The adventurous story of his early life--how, finding
himself possessed of wealth, and with no special work to do, he fitted
out a yacht, and sailed to the Eastern Archipelago; how he settled down
at Sarawak in Borneo, and, as a beneficent friend and lawgiver, taught
the Dyaks the benefits of law, and the arts and enjoyments of a higher
life; how he warred upon the pirates of the coast and the freebooters
of the interior--all this is told, simply and well, in Captain Keppel's
"Voyage of the _Dido_." Milman, the historian of the Jews and of Latin
Christianity, also passed away; and Bishop Hampden, whose name was
associated with university controversies, and Bishop Jeune, whose name
recalls university reform.

The sequence of events in Abyssinia that terminated in the death of the
Emperor Theodore and the storming of the rock fortress of Magdala,
commenced with the conclusion of a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1848,
between Queen Victoria and Ras Ali, the ruler of central Abyssinia. This
treaty was the work of Lord Palmerston; and to understand his motives,
it is necessary that the reader should have some general knowledge of
the previous history of Abyssinia. The natives of this portion of the
ancient Ethiopia--which, though within the tropics, enjoys a healthy and
delightful climate, on account of its great elevation above the sea--were
converted to Christianity by St. Frumentius, sent from Alexandria by the
great Athanasius in the fourth century of our era. They never for any long
time together broke their connection with Egypt; for centuries the Abuna,
or patriarch, of the Abyssinian Church, had been appointed, whenever the
dignity fell vacant, by the Coptic Patriarch in Egypt, and submissively
accepted by the Abyssinian Christians. Unfortunately, the Copts in Egypt
having ages ago adopted the heresy of the Monophysites, the connection
between the two countries propagated the same heresy in Abyssinia, and
thereby raised in some degree a barrier between the Abyssinians and the
rest of Christendom. But the motive that originally induced the Neguses,
or Emperors, of Abyssinia to seek the head of their Church from Egypt
was wise and laudable; they saw Mohammedanism spreading all around them,
cutting them off from all other Christian countries; and they hoped by
this ecclesiastical arrangement to guard themselves in some measure
against the fatal effects of that isolation.

Ages rolled by and the troubles of Abyssinia continually thickened. Once,
before Mohammed arose, she had had the command of the Red Sea and had
subdued the southern portion of Arabia, where her dominion for a time
promised to be permanent. Gibbon speculates on the strangely different
course which human affairs might have taken if the Christian rulers of
Abyssinia had been able to subjugate the whole of Arabia and stifle Islam
in its cradle. But the Crescent rose higher and higher in the heavens;
the Turkish power gradually extended itself along the shores of the Red
Sea, and about 1570 succeeded in permanently occupying Massowah and other
points on the west coast, thus cutting off Abyssinia from the sea. A still
worse infliction came on the unfortunate country about the same time, in
the invasion of tribes of savage and heathen Gallas from the south. They
came again and again; though often defeated and driven out, they still
returned in greater numbers and with greater ferocity than before. These
intruding Gallas had become Mussulman, while the Galla tribes to the south
remained heathen.

The Portuguese, soon after they had discovered the passage round the
Cape of Good Hope, conceived a high idea of the importance of Abyssinia
as the key of North-Eastern Africa, and opened diplomatic and commercial
intercourse with its rulers. For about a century and a half this heroic
little nation, partly by its soldiers, partly by its Jesuit missionaries,
maintained a close and constant communication with Abyssinia. About the
year 1640 the Portuguese power, succumbing to some mysterious law of
national decay, began everywhere to decline. Thenceforward, till official
relations were opened between Britain and Abyssinia, near the beginning
of the century, it does not appear that any European nation had any
intercourse with the country except through the visits of individual
travellers or adventurers. The ancient royal family, which bore the
sovereign title of Negus (properly "Nagash"), was deposed about 1770,
shortly before the visit of James Bruce, the celebrated traveller; and
Abyssinia was split up into three or more independent States, the chief
of which were Tigré, Amhara, and Shoa. Official communication was first
opened between Britain and Abyssinia in 1810, when Mr. Salt, the British
Envoy, paid a formal visit to Ras Walda Selassyé, the Prince of Tigré,
at Antalo, and presented him with two three-pounder field guns and other
presents. But Mr. Salt's visit was an isolated act, and led to nothing.
Nor was the visit of Major Harris to the King of Shoa, in 1841, undertaken
by orders of the Bombay Government to arrange a treaty of commerce with
that potentate, productive of more lasting consequences; although it
furnished the materials for one of the most popular and interesting
books of travel that the last generation produced. The visit of Walter
Plowden, a private Englishman, who first found his way to Abyssinia in
1843, led eventually to more important consequences than either of the
official visits just mentioned. After a residence of nearly four years
in the country, he returned to England, bearing some presents from Ras
Ali, then chief of central Abyssinia, to the Queen. While in London he
submitted several memoranda on Abyssinian affairs to Lord Palmerston.
The intelligent clearness with which these were written, and the
prospect which they held out of extending British trade and influence in
those parts of Africa, appear to have made a strong impression on Lord
Palmerston, and he appointed Mr. Plowden British Consul at Massowah, for
the protection of British trade in Abyssinia. He also entrusted him (Jan.,
1848) with presents for Ras Ali, and instructed him to conclude with that
ruler a treaty of amity and commerce. Plowden was soon back in Abyssinia
and zealously fulfilled his instructions. Ras Ali, an indolent man, had
no objection to sign the treaty, but he said he did not expect that it
would bring any British traders to Abyssinia. In truth, while the Turks
(or rather the Egyptians, for Turkey ceded her possessions on this shore
in 1866 to the Pasha of Egypt) were allowed to cut off Abyssinia from the
sea, no European trade with the country could flourish.

[Illustration: KING THEODORE'S HOUSE, MAGDALA.]

Consul Plowden had been residing six years at Massowah when he heard that
the Prince to whom he had been accredited, Ras Ali, had been defeated
and dethroned by an adventurer, whose name, a few years before, had been
unknown outside the boundaries of his native province. This was Lij
Kâsa, better known by his adopted name of Theodore. He was born of an
old family, in the mountainous region of Kwara, where the land begins
to slope downwards towards the Blue Nile, and educated in a convent,
where he learned to read, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the
Scriptures. Kâsa's convent life was suddenly put an end to when one of
the marauding Galla bands attacked and plundered the monastery. From
that time he himself took to the life of a freebooter and, through his
superior intelligence and undaunted courage, soon attained the reputation
of being successful in all his enterprises. Adventurers flocked to his
standard; his power continually increased; and in 1854 he defeated Ras
Ali in a pitched battle, and made himself master of central Abyssinia.
His ambition widened in proportion to its gratification; he now sent to
Oobye, the ruler of Tigré, requiring that he should pay him tribute, and
insisted that the Abuna, then resident at the Court of Oobye, should be
sent to Gondar, which, since the fall of Ras Ali, had been Kâsa's capital.
His demands were scornfully rejected, and the Abuna excommunicated him.
But Kâsa was equal to the occasion. Monseigneur de Jacobis, a Roman
Catholic missionary of great ability and saintly life, was at that time
in Abyssinia, with the authority of Vicar-Apostolic; him Kâsa threatened
to recognise as bishop unless the Abuna came to Gondar. The Abuna then
yielded, revoked the excommunication, and came to live at Gondar, thus
giving a kind of religious sanction to the adventurer's power. Fortune
still attended the arms of Kâsa. In 1855 he defeated Oobye at a place
called Derezgye, in the province of Semyen, and all Tigré submitted to
the conqueror. He now resolved to assume a title commensurate with the
wide extent of his dominion. In the church of Derezgye he had himself
crowned by the Abuna as King of the Kings of Ethiopia, taking the name of
Theodore, because an ancient tradition declared that a great monarch so
called would one day arise in Abyssinia. Courtly genealogists were not
wanting who deduced his pedigree from the line of the ancient kings.

These startling events reached the ears of Mr. Plowden at Massowah and
he resolved to visit the new monarch. He arrived at the camp of Theodore
in March or April, 1855, and found that a former fellow-traveller, an
Englishman named Bell, who had married an Abyssinian lady, was already in
Theodore's service, with the title and functions of Grand Chamberlain.
At this time Theodore's character and aims were such as to command the
admiration and respect of Plowden and Bell, both of whom were able and
excellent men. "Plowden said of him that he was generous to excess, and
free from all cupidity, merciful to his vanquished enemies, and strictly
continent; but subject to violent bursts of anger and possessed of
unyielding pride and fanatical religious zeal." His views of government
were far more enlightened than those of the majority of his countrymen.
He abolished the slave trade, put an end to many vexatious imposts on
commerce, and aimed at curtailing or suppressing the feudal privileges
of a number of petty chiefs, who were the tyrants of the districts over
which they ruled. Consul Plowden thus concluded his report on Theodore's
character and policy:--"Some of his ideas may be imperfect, others
impracticable; but a man who, rising from the clouds of Abyssinian
ignorance and childishness, without assistance and without advice, has
done so much, and contemplates such large designs, cannot be regarded as
of an ordinary stamp."

Some years passed and the power of Theodore was ever on the rise.
After his coronation, the first object which he set before him was the
subjugation of the Galla tribes in Abyssinia; after which he said that any
Galla who would not abjure Islam and receive baptism should be expelled
from the country. This object he partly accomplished by the subjection
of the Wolo Gallas to his rule. To keep these wild tribes in check, and
also to serve as his own principal stronghold, he about this time made
choice of Magdala, an _amba_, or natural fortress, beyond the river
Beshilo, east of the Lake of Dembea, and in the midst of the territory of
the Wolo Gallas. He then invaded and reduced Shoa, taking Ankober, the
capital, and bringing away with him Menelek, the young heir of Shoa, to
bring up with his own son. The whole of Abyssinia was now subject to his
power. But a series of misfortunes presently fell upon him and changed
the whole aspect of his career. In 1860 his true and judicious friend and
counsellor, Consul Plowden, while journeying to his camp, was intercepted
by an ally of the chief Negussye, who had set up the standard of revolt in
Tigré; and in the fight that ensued Plowden was mortally wounded and taken
prisoner. Theodore immediately raised from the merchants of Gondar the sum
demanded for his ransom and procured his release; but Plowden died a few
days afterwards. About the same time Bell, the King's Grand Chamberlain,
fell in battle; and within a few months Theodore lost his first wife, the
beautiful and virtuous Tawabeteh. His naturally violent temper was soured
and embittered by these losses. He took a terrible revenge on the chiefs
who had been instrumental in the deaths of Bell and Plowden; and he bade
farewell for the rest of his life to that marital fidelity for which,
while Tawabeteh lived, he had been conspicuous. He married for his second
wife the daughter of Oobye, the Tigré chief whom he had dethroned; but the
union was one of policy, not of affection, and Theodore's illicit amours
were both numerous and scandalous. In 1861 he got the rebel Negussye into
his power, together with his brother, and put them to death with horrible
cruelty.

Theodore was now at the height of his power, and European Governments
evinced a considerable desire to court his friendship. The French
Government nominated M. Lejean as French Consul at Gondar, but on account
of some real or imagined affront paid to an emissary whom Theodore had
sent to Paris, with a letter to the Emperor, M. Lejean was sent at a day's
notice out of the country. The British Government, on hearing of the death
of Plowden, immediately replaced him at Massowah by the appointment of
Captain Cameron. This gentleman arrived at Massowah in February, 1862,
and visited Theodore at his camp in the following October, bearing a few
presents, and a letter in the Queen's name, thanking him for his exertions
in ransoming poor Plowden. Captain Cameron was very well received.
Theodore told him that he had executed 1,500 of the followers of the chief
who had killed Plowden, to revenge his death, and that he might thereby
win the friendship of the Queen of Great Britain. He also spoke with great
bitterness of the encroachments of the Turks and Egyptians, both on the
sea-coast and also on his north-western boundary, on what he called his
ancestral dominions. In the following month, when Cameron left his camp,
he entrusted him with the famous letter to the Queen of England; the
postage of which, as Colonel Sykes said, cost us five millions. In this
letter the two ideas then prominent in his mind--to deserve and win the
friendship of the Queen, by executing wholesale vengeance on those who had
killed Englishmen; and to gain her help in his darling project of humbling
the Mussulman--received distinct expression.

The reader already knows what became of this remarkable letter when
it reached England. Consul Cameron--after expediting the letter to
Massowah, whence it was conveyed to Aden, and home by the Indian mail
steamer--turned aside to visit the district of Bogos, a little Abyssinian
upland, nearly surrounded by the Egyptians and other Mussulmans of the
plains. The Christians of Bogos had on some former occasion complained
to the Consul at Massowah of ravages committed in their territory by the
neighbouring tribes, and Captain Cameron wished to know whether things
were now quiet there, and also whether there was any opening for trade.
Mainly with this latter object, he next visited the Egyptian town of
Kassala. He arrived at Djenda, near the Lake of Dembea, in August, 1863,
calculating that he would thus be in the country when the expected reply
from England to the King's letter arrived. It appears that Theodore, who
had become prone to suspicion, was offended when he heard that Consul
Cameron had been at Kassala, among his mortal enemies the Egyptians; and
his dissatisfaction, probably through the channel of Mr. Walker, the
Vice-consul at Massowah, had become known at the Foreign Office. Moreover,
Lord Russell--who wrote soon after this to a British agent, that "he
trusted that interference on behalf of a Christian country, as such, would
never be the policy of the British Government"--entirely disapproved of
the consul's interesting himself in the Bogos people because they were
Christians; his business was only to promote trade. The letter already
alluded to contained a proposal by Theodore to the Queen of Great Britain
for an offensive and defensive alliance against the Moslem powers. It
was well known that if that eccentric offer had been rejected, which,
of course, could not have been otherwise, the danger of Consul Cameron
and the other British subjects, who were in the power of Theodore, would
become very grave. However, through the indiscretion of Consul Cameron
in having returned to Abyssinia without an answer to the King's letter,
when the missionaries had already got into disgrace, he had to share
their misfortune in ill-treatment and imprisonment. The Rev. Mr. Stern
had fallen under the heavy displeasure of the King, and had been flogged,
almost to death, for having, as Theodore alleged, intruded one day on his
privacy before giving a notice of his intended visit in accordance with
the Abyssinian court etiquette. Stern had also written a book, entitled
"Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia," in which he had reflected
upon the avocation of Theodore's mother as a vendor of a purgative herb
called kosoo. Mr. Stern was called upon to divulge the name of his
informant (who was supposed to be the Coptic Metropolitan of Abyssinia),
and, as he refused to do so, the King had him tortured, together with
his companion Mr. Rosenthal, Consul Cameron, and other British subjects,
until he was forced to confess. They were shortly afterwards sent to the
fortress at Magdala, and put in irons.

Absolute power and sensual indulgence had by this time turned Theodore's
head, and many of his subsequent actions seem hardly to be those of a
sane man. His cruelty, fickleness, and suspicion made his rule more and
more intolerable to all his subjects. Rebellions were plotted in every
province and after a time broke out. Menelek, the young heir of Shoa,
escaped from confinement and, expelling Theodore's lieutenant, established
himself as the independent ruler of that country. The chief Gobazye raised
the standard of revolt in central Abyssinia, and one of his lieutenants,
a chief of the best blood of Tigré, rebelling against his principal,
made himself independent in that province. The fabric of Theodore's
Christian empire, ruined through his own degeneracy, was fast crumbling
to pieces. Meanwhile, the news of Captain Cameron's imprisonment had
caused considerable sensation in Britain. Government resolved to send out
a regular mission, bearing a letter, signed by the Queen, in answer to
Theodore's long-neglected epistle, to demand the release of Cameron and
the other captives. The head of the mission was Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, of
Chaldean nationality, born at Mossul, near ancient Nineveh, since so well
known in connection with Assyrian and Babylonian discoveries. He had held
different important political appointments under the Indian Government.
He was then acting as first Assistant Political Resident at Aden, and
possessed great influence amongst the Arabian and African tribes along the
coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. To Rassam were added Dr. Blanc
and Lieutenant Prideaux, two officers from the Bombay establishment.

[Illustration: MR RASSAM'S INTERVIEW WITH KING THEODORE. (_See p._ 480.)]

A curt permission to enter the country having been granted, Mr. Rassam's
first interview with the King was on the 28th of January, 1866. Theodore
was seated on a sofa, and wore the common robe of the country, called
a _shamma_. The letter of Queen Victoria, dated the 26th of May, 1864,
was presented by the envoy, and Theodore received it graciously. He then
entered upon the subject of his grievances. The cause of all the mischief,
the prime offender, was the Abuna Salama, the Coptic Patriarch, who had
told false and malicious stories about him to various Europeans. Against
the missionaries he had a great deal to say, particularly against Mr.
Stern. Against Mr. Cameron, besides the offence of never having brought
him back an answer to his letter to the Queen, he laid the charge of
having gone to visit the Turks and Egyptians, and of having been friendly
with them; and, on one occasion, when he was at Kassala with the Pasha,
of having brought the King and his army into contempt by ordering his
Abyssinian servants to imitate the war-dance of the royal troops. This
story was told to the King by a discharged servant of Mr. Cameron's,
named Ingada Wark, who had quarrelled with his master, and it is probably
devoid of foundation. We give it here as a sample of the kind of insults
and injuries over which the suspicious and wayward mind of Theodore was
continually brooding, and of which Mr. Rassam's interesting report is
full. When the Queen's letter had been translated for him into Amharic,
Theodore was much pleased with its contents. On the 29th of January
he sent for Mr. Rassam, and told him that, for the sake of his friend
the Queen of England, and in return for the trouble that he had taken in
the matter of Consul Cameron, he was pleased to pardon all the European
captives, and he had ordered their immediate release. He then ordered
a scribe to read an Arabic translation of the letter which he had just
written to the Queen, announcing the release of the captives. There
is a touching humility, a childlike simplicity, in the tone of this
letter, which, coming from one who so often appeared in the light of
a bloodthirsty and capricious tyrant, affords a curious study of the
complexities of human character. A day or two afterwards Mr. Rassam had
another conversation with the King. The misdeeds of Mr. Cameron again
formed a prominent topic; and it is worth while to record a part of the
King's indictment, because the language which he used on this occasion
seems to cast a strong light on the actual sequence of feelings and ideas
that influenced him in committing Cameron to prison. Theodore said that
after he had written his famous letter to the Queen in the autumn of 1862,
he gave it to Consul Cameron, requesting that he would take it down to
the coast, and bring up an answer himself; that he gave him money for
the journey, and ordered the chiefs of all the provinces between Gondar
and Massowah to supply him and his followers with food, and treat him
with respect and honour. What he chiefly wanted to effect by the letter
was this--that since he had no navy of his own, the Queen should send a
vessel to convey his ambassador to Suez, and should procure for him a safe
conduct through Egypt. Instead of complying with his request, Mr. Cameron
"had gone to play with the Turks" (this refers to the visit to Kassala),
and after a long time came back to Gondar, but without an answer to his
letter. Six months afterwards, Cameron sent him a letter, which he had
received from his Government, and demanded his dismissal, that he might go
down to Massowah. The King asked why he had returned to Abyssinia if he
wished to be at Massowah? Getting no satisfactory answer to this question,
Theodore continued, "I sent and told him, by the power of God you shall
be detained in prison until I find out whether you are really the servant
of the Queen." For why, Theodore would naturally argue, if he is indeed
the servant of the Queen, has he not brought me long ere this an answer to
my letter?

[Illustration: THE WHITE TOWER, TOWER OF LONDON

FROM THE PAINTING BY H. E. TIDMARSH.]

[Illustration: THE EMPEROR THEODORE GRANTING AN AUDIENCE.]

But the coming of Mr. Rassam, for whom Theodore, though he afterwards used
him so roughly, seems to have conceived a genuine affection, appeared at
first to have removed all difficulties. It was arranged that the mission
should travel to Korata, a beautiful village on the south-eastern shore
of Lake Dembea, and there await the arrival of the captives from Magdala;
after which they should all leave the country together. For several days'
march the mission accompanied the King and his army; but Theodore turned
aside to Zagé, a place on the western shore of the lake, facing Korata
across the water. Mr. Rassam reached Korata on the 14th of February. Some
weeks elapsed, on almost every day in which the King sent a friendly
message or letter to Rassam. The first indication of difficulty was on the
7th of March, when the King wrote, "When the people [prisoners] reach you,
we will consult;" that is, "You shall not go home at once, as heretofore
arranged, but the whole matter shall be reconsidered." The words filled
Mr. Rassam with dismay. About the same time a letter was delivered to
the King from the traveller Dr. Beke, who had come out to Massowah,
enclosing a petition from the relations of Cameron, Stern, and several
other captives, entreating the King to release them. Colonel Stanton, the
British agent in Egypt, and Sir William Merewether, the Political Resident
at Aden, feared that Dr. Beke's action would perplex the King and lead
him to doubt the reality of Mr. Rassam's mission. They tried in vain to
make Dr. Beke see the prudence of abstaining from any interference in the
difficult and delicate negotiation. For the King had now begun seriously
to entertain the thought of detaining Rassam and his party till the envoy
should have obtained for him from England a scientific man to teach his
people the mechanical arts. On the 12th of March, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Stern,
Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal, and eleven other captives, mostly Germans, arrived
at Korata from Magdala. On the same day the King wrote to Rassam, saying
that he must have them all over to Zagé and put them on their trial
again. Rassam, however, obtained leave to try them at Korata; and, having
gone through the forms of a mock trial, he wrote to the King that they
all confessed that they had done wrong. It was thought prudent that the
captives should throw themselves on the King's mercy; but the fabrication
did no good, and probably would have been better left unattempted. The
King wavered. On the 25th of March he held separate consultations at Zagé,
first with the German artisans, and afterwards with a body of Abyssinian
chiefs, and propounded at each the question, whether to detain Rassam or
let him go? The chiefs and the artisans were equally unanimous in deciding
that Rassam ought to be allowed to depart. Theodore was shaken, and yet
he was not quite satisfied. The pressure, however, seemed to be telling
upon him, and he wrote to Rassam (April 8th), desiring that he would
come and pay him a farewell visit at Zagé "after the light of Easter,"
and bring Mr. Cameron and the other captives with him. This, however,
Mr. Rassam--knowing the hatred that the King bore to Mr. Cameron and one
or two others among the captives--thought it more prudent not to do. He
obtained the King's consent to leave them behind at Korata, with the
understanding that they were to start on a given day on their homeward
journey, and himself proceeded to Zagé, on the 13th of April, along
with the other members of the mission. Unfortunately for them, Theodore
for some time past had been drinking heavily, and the effect of this on
his moody imagination and suspicious temper was to fill his mind with a
thousand preposterous apprehensions. When, therefore, Mr. Rassam with his
two companions arrived at Zagé, to pay, as they supposed their farewell
visit, they were seized, cross-examined, and their money and arms taken.

Such treatment of a mission, which even in Abyssinia ought to have
been safe under the protection of the law of nations, was, of course,
outrageous and unprecedented. At this stage an acute crisis seemed to be
reached, calling for the most careful treatment at every point. However,
there was nothing to be done at the time but to humour Theodore as far as
was practicable, and to use every effort to make their situation known
to the British Government. In effecting the latter object Mr. Rassam
found very little difficulty. Only one of his messengers appears to have
been stopped; all the rest carried safely to the coast, not his letters
only, but frequently large sums of money, with praiseworthy honesty and
regularity. With regard to artisans from England, Theodore wrote to Mr.
Rassam (April 17th), that he wished the envoy to obtain for him, from the
Queen, "a man who can make cannons and muskets, and one who can smelt
iron, and an instructor of artillery." It was thought expedient to comply
with the request, and Mr. Rassam wrote accordingly to the Secretary of
State on the following day. Mr. Flad, a lay missionary, was selected as
the bearer of Mr. Rassam's letter. As his wife and children were left in
Abyssinia in Theodore's power, Mr. Flad's speedy return was counted upon
with confidence.

For several weeks the captives were detained at Zagé. During this period
Theodore's behaviour was almost that of a madman: at one time he would
storm and threaten, throw the captives into irons, and make them tremble
for their lives; at another time he would publicly express his sorrow for
having ill-treated them, and humbly ask their pardon. In June, cholera
having broken out in the King's camp, he transferred his headquarters to
Debra Tabor, a large village about twenty miles to the east of Gondar,
which at that time served him for a capital. Here he arrived--the
captives, of course, accompanying him--on the 16th of June. In regard to
Mr. Rassam and the other members of the mission, his frantic behaviour
reached a climax on the 3rd of July, 1866, when having summoned them to
his presence, he made a wild rambling speech, rehearsing a string of
trumpery charges, old and new, against them and the other captives. A
few days after this interview, it being at the time the King's purpose
to march northward against the rebels, the captives were sent, under the
guard of an escort of 200 men, to be confined in the fortress of Magdala,
where they arrived on the 12th of July. On the broad level top of the
_amba_, so long as they kept within the boundary fence or palisade, they
were free to wander as they pleased; Theodore caused them to be liberally
provided with food; and with the exception that they were detained there
against their will, they had no cause to complain of their treatment.

On his way home to convey to the British Government Theodore's request
for skilled workmen and machinery, Mr. Flad saw Colonel Merewether, the
Resident at Aden, and communicated to him the state of affairs. That
zealous officer, who seems to have thoroughly understood Theodore's
character, and had little hope that he would ever release the captives,
except under compulsion, resolved to return to England with Mr. Flad.
They arrived in England in the summer of 1866, and reported themselves to
Lord Stanley, who had just taken over the administration of the Foreign
Office. Lord Stanley decided that Theodore's request to be supplied with
mechanics should be complied with, in the hope that this would lead to
the liberation of the captives. But, while Colonel Merewether was engaged
in selecting and making agreements with artisans, news reached London that
Rassam and his companions were no longer simply detained, but that they
had been seized and imprisoned. Colonel Merewether now recommended that
Mr. Flad (whose wife and children were in the King's camp) should at once
be sent back to Abyssinia, with a letter demanding the release of all the
prisoners; and that, should this step be vain, prompt measures should be
taken to enforce compliance. But Government, unwilling to renounce the
hope of obtaining the desired end by peaceable means, determined to send
out the artisans, together with a costly cargo of presents, to Massowah,
with instructions to proceed no farther until the captives should have
all arrived safely at that port. Six skilled artisans, headed by a civil
engineer, together with machinery and other presents to the value of about
£3,500, were sent out in November, 1866, and arrived in due course at
Massowah. But after waiting there nearly six months--it being apparent
that the prospect of the release of their countrymen was indefinitely
remote--they were sent back to England. In April, 1867, Lord Stanley
addressed a final letter to Theodore, informing him that the presents
would be sent home again unless the prisoners were released within three
months.

As he perceived that a warlike demonstration was inevitable, Merewether's
recommendation was that the invading force should consist of one European
and six native regiments of infantry, together with other troops, so
as to compose an army of about 6,000 men. However, Government resolved
to let the period of three months expire which had been named in Lord
Stanley's note. When that was over, and still Theodore showed no sign of
yielding, Government decided upon sending out an expedition. Bombay was
fixed upon as the most convenient base of operations, and the Governor of
that Presidency was directed to take the necessary measures. Mr. Seymour
Fitzgerald, the new Governor of Bombay, desired the Commander-in-Chief of
the Bombay army, Sir Robert Napier, to state what number of troops was, in
his opinion, required for the service. That officer reported that, in his
judgment, 12,000 was the smallest number that it would be safe to employ.
Acquiescing in the opinion that so large a force was required, the Bombay
Government considered that Colonel Merewether, who now for some years had
taken the lead in all matters connected with Abyssinia, was too young a
man to be placed in supreme command. Or rather such was the opinion of
the India Council and the War Office at home. Sir Stafford Northcote, on
whom, as Secretary for India, a large share of the responsibility for
the right management of the expedition rested, wrote (August 16th, 1867)
that, while Government trusted that Colonel Merewether's valuable services
would be made available in aid of the expedition, "his rank was not high
enough to enable him to take the supreme command of such a force as it was
probable would have to be employed." In August, 1867, Sir Robert Napier
was appointed to the command of the expedition, and Major-General Sir
Charles Staveley, an officer who had served in the Crimea, was nominated
second in command. The force employed was to consist of 4,000 British and
8,000 Indian native troops. An advanced brigade, consisting of about 1,200
Indian troops, under the command of Colonel Merewether, was despatched
from Bombay in September, preceded by a reconnoitring party under the
immediate orders of the colonel himself. The vessel containing the
reconnoitring party arrived in Annesley Bay early in October.

It was a matter of considerable importance to choose the best point on
the coast where the force should disembark, and whence it should begin
its march on Magdala. Distance from Magdala was one, but not the most
important, element in the selection. The high table-land of Abyssinia
is bastioned on the north and east by ranges of magnificent mountains,
descending frequently in sheer cliffs, many thousand feet high, into
the strip of sandy plain that borders the coast. At Annesley Bay, which
penetrates far into the land, the mountains approach nearer to the sea
than at any other point where the landing of a large force is possible. In
this respect, however, Massowah was little inferior, while in facilities
for landing it was superior, to Annesley Bay, from which it is about
thirty miles distant; but besides that it was somewhat farther from
Magdala, political considerations rendered it inexpedient that the British
Government should incur so great an obligation to the Pasha of Egypt as
would have been involved in the landing of so large an army, with all its
baggage and stores, at a much-frequented Egyptian port. Annesley Bay,
then, was to be the point of disembarkation. The best pass for the march
of an army into the interior was the next subject of inquiry. The first
person to point out to Colonel Merewether the superiority of the Senafé
Pass was Father Zechariah, a native Abyssinian priest educated at Rome.
But the colonel was not satisfied till he had carefully examined several
other defiles leading up to the table-land, and had convinced himself that
the Senafé Pass, difficult as it was, could be made practicable for the
expedition with less trouble than any other.

The route having been decided upon, all that remained was to land the
troops as quickly as possible, organise an efficient transport service,
and then advance upon Magdala. The distance of the fortress from Annesley
Bay was about 400 miles; but the climate on the table-land is magnificent,
the difficulties of the road were easily within the power of the strong
pioneer force that was at the general's disposal to surmount them, and
it became more and more certain that no serious opposition would be met
with. A hitch, however, occurred; and it was, as usual, in the transport
service. Supplies of food, stores, and ammunition could most easily be
transported along the rough and narrow Abyssinian roads on the backs of
mules. The world was accordingly ransacked for mules; from Egypt, India,
Syria, and Spain they were poured into Annesley Bay in thousands. Any
one can buy a mule, but it takes an experienced person to manage him
when bought. The Transport department engaged as muleteers thousands of
men who are described as "the vilest sweepings of Eastern cities"--men
whose languages no one could understand, and who were utterly ignorant
of their business. Again, being landed in such vast numbers on a sterile
plain like that which divides the sea from the mountains at Annesley
Bay, the mules could pick up scarcely anything for themselves; and,
with such unmanageable ruffians for muleteers, it was impossible to
distribute properly among them the forage that had been brought by sea
to the anchorage. In consequence of all this, the mules soon began to
die by scores. To supply the animals with water, since the arid shore
had next to no resources in this respect, the steamers at the anchorage
condensed water at the rate of 32,000 gallons a day (at a cost of nearly
£3,000 a month), which was then conveyed along a shoot 480 feet long,
raised on trestles above the sea, to tanks on shore. But, whether from
the unwholesomeness of this water or some other cause, an epidemic broke
out among the animals on shore, and carried off great numbers of them,
especially the horses. The 3rd Dragoons lost 318 horses out of 499 landed.
In these circumstances Colonel Merewether resolved to push on with his
advanced brigade to the healthier position of Senafé, as soon as ever
the road through the pass was declared practicable. The main body of the
brigade, which had landed on the 30th of October, was accordingly moved
forward from Mulkutto (so the landing-place was called) about the end
of November, and, threading the pass with little difficulty, arrived at
Senafé on the 6th and 7th of December. The Shohos--Mohammedan tribes that
infested the mountain valleys and ravines running to the Red Sea--were
converted by the power of British gold from being rapacious depredators
and thieves into the character of useful traders and carriers.

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT NAPIER (AFTERWARDS LORD NAPIER OF MAGDALA).]

Sir Charles Staveley, with the second brigade, arrived at Annesley Bay
early in December. The 33rd, a British regiment, was with them, and was
before long sent on to Senafé, where it arrived on the 12th of January,
1868. Sir Charles set himself energetically to work to bring things
into order at the port, while the movements of all the departments were
quickened by his presence. The greater part of the troops, as they arrived
were sent up to Senafé. Sir Robert Napier himself landed at Mulkutto
on the 7th of January and assumed the command. Leaving orders that a
transport train should be organised immediately, and a railway laid down
from Mulkutto to the foot of the Senafé Pass, he hastened forward to the
front. He was at first under the impression that no dependence could be
placed for the subsistence of the army on the resources of the country
itself and that it would not be safe to move forward from Senafé until
six months' supply of food had been accumulated there for a force of
9,500 men. But when he arrived at Senafé and found how admirably General
(he had just been made local Brigadier-General) Merewether, and Colonel
Phayre, the Quartermaster-General, had made amicable arrangements with the
principal men of the neighbourhood, and attracted the natives from all
parts to the markets of the camp by the prospect of the liberal payment
which they received for their meat, corn, and other produce, Sir Robert
Napier saw reason to change his opinion. In fact, the friendliness and
openness of the people towards the British were truly strange to European
ideas. Their country was being invaded, and its prestige, if it had
any, humiliated; but this singular people felt no throes of indignant
patriotism, were well pleased to think that the formidable King, who had
come to be a dangerous tyrant and freebooter, was to be put down without
any trouble to themselves, and pocketed with the utmost satisfaction,
inwardly marvelling no doubt at the simplicity of the stranger, the large
new silver dollars which they got for their country produce.

With these reassuring prospects before him, the Commander-in-Chief thought
that he might safely commence the march into the interior before any very
large quantity of stores had been brought up to Senafé. No opposition
was to be feared from the rulers of provinces. Immediately after landing
General Merewether had dispersed as widely as possible copies of a
proclamation, declaring that the sole motive of the British invasion was
the desire to liberate the captives; that Britain's quarrel was with
Theodore, not with the Abyssinian nation; and that the inhabitants, if
they maintained a peaceful attitude, would be treated well and liberally.
Mr. Rassam had been in constant communication with Kassa, the Prince of
Tigré, and also with Wakshum Gobazye, the Prince of Lasta. They both
showed great kindness to his messengers, and rendered them the protection
they needed between Magdala and Massowah for two whole years. As soon as
Rassam informed them of the intention of the British Government to send
a force to punish Theodore, their enemy, they promised their friendship
to the troops, and Wakshum went so far as to cause it to be proclaimed
through his districts by beat of drum that all his subjects were to
supply the British army with whatever they required, and that they were
not to fear, as the troops were Christians, and would pay the full price
for everything. Kassa wrote a letter to General Merewether, offering
friendship and assistance, soon after his arrival at Senafé. To confirm
him in these pacific sentiments, Major Grant, the well-known African
explorer, was sent to his capital of Adowa, where he was received with
great cordiality; and Sir Robert Napier himself, mounted on an elephant,
had a formal interview with Kassa on February 19th near Adigerat. Wakshum
Gobazye--who for the last three years, though fearing to meet Theodore in
the field, had occupied each province of central Abyssinia as Theodore
led his army out of it, and who was now employed in consolidating his
power--probably regarded the British intrusion in much the same light as
Kassa. And there is reason to believe that, after the invasion had been
achieved successfully, Wakshum felt hurt that he had not been treated with
like consideration to that shown to the Prince of Tigré.

The force that Sir Robert Napier considered necessary amounted finally
to upwards of 16,000 men. Four British infantry regiments, the 33rd, the
4th, the 45th, and the 26th, and one cavalry regiment, the 3rd Dragoon
Guards--in all about 3,400 men--besides a company of Sappers, formed part
of the force; the rest were all Indian troops. The men of the Transport
Train numbered 12,600, and the camp-followers about 3,200; so that a
host numbering about 32,000 men, exclusive of those attached to the
Commissariat and Quartermaster-General's Departments, was collected at
Annesley Bay. But a small portion of these was required to overcome the
feeble resistance of Theodore's army, and to scale the height of Magdala.
To oppose to this large and disciplined force, Theodore had only some
3,000 soldiers armed with percussion muzzle-loaders, 1,000 matchlock-men,
a number of spearmen, and about thirty pieces of ordnance, including one
enormous mortar which his German artisans had cast for him at Debra Tabor,
the management of which no one in his army properly understood.

After Sir Robert Napier had come up to Senafé, discussion arose and much
doubt was entertained as to the best method of applying the force in
hand to the attainment of the one paramount object of the expedition,
the rescue of the captives. There were many who thought, forming their
judgment from the ordinary experience of the conduct of uncivilised
rulers, that if Theodore (who was known to be on the march from Debra
Tabor to Magdala) should reach the fortress before the British army, he
would, after the inevitable defeat and dispersion of his army, be certain,
in an access of impotent rage and revenge, to put to death the English and
other prisoners there confined. It was urged therefore that what ought
before all things to be aimed at was to intercept the march of Theodore,
and prevent him from ever reaching Magdala. But to effect this it would
be necessary to march at once with a lightly equipped force of about 2,000
men, who, while drawing a portion of their supplies from the stores that
were already at Senafé, should be largely dependent on the resources of
the country through which they marched. The other plan was to wait till
stores were accumulated at Senafé in sufficient quantity to support a
force capable of marching upon and capturing Magdala (to take which it
was thought that siege operations might be required), with only slight
dependence on local supplies. It was decided that the march should be on
Magdala; and the safety of the prisoners was left to the generosity of the
strange monarch, who in all his cruelties and excesses never wholly forgot
that he was a Christian King.

It would weary the reader if we were to describe in minute detail a march
that was never opposed, and movements of troops involving no triumphs but
those of the Control department. The 350 miles of road that separated
Senafé from Magdala were indeed full of difficulty; for many steep and
lofty ranges had to be crossed; many narrow and uneven tracks to be
repaired and widened; many long marches to be made under a tropical sun.
The advance guard of the army moved from Senafé on the 18th of January;
and the headquarters were established at Buya camp, near Antalo, rather
more than half way from the coast to Magdala, on the 2nd of March. When
the march was resumed a new arrangement of the forces was adopted. A large
proportion of the Indian troops was left at the Buya camp; the column
destined to march on Magdala was formed into two brigades and a pioneer
force. The latter, commanded by the active Quartermaster-General, Colonel
Phayre, consisted of about 500 men. Both brigades were under the command
of Sir Charles Staveley; with the first marched the Commander-in-Chief
and the headquarters. The total strength of the column was about 3,000
men. From the 12th of March, on which day the march was resumed, seventeen
days were required to bring the column to the top of the Wadela plateau,
a distance of 118 miles. This plateau, rising in precipitous cliffs from
the southern bank of the Takkazye river (a large feeder of the Blue Nile)
to the height of nearly 10,000 feet, runs for many miles in a nearly
unbroken wall from east to west, and forms one of the most striking
natural features in the country. At the time when our troops were scaling
Wadela, Theodore arrived in the immediate vicinity of Magdala; that is, he
had outstripped our army by a distance of nearly sixty miles. Marching
to the right along the flat Wadela plateau, descending by a zigzag road
that Theodore had just cut for his guns into the deep valley of the Jidda,
crossing it, and ascending the Dalanta plateau, the British army (April
8th), on reaching the southern edge of this last, above the river Beshilo,
beheld in front of them the goal of their labours--the table-topped
mountain of Magdala.

We must now return to Theodore, who, since he put Mr. Rassam and his
companions into irons, had been chiefly stationed at Debra Tabor, in the
province of Beguemder. Here he kept his German artisans fully employed in
casting guns and mortars, and constructing carriages for their conveyance.
His revenues being gone, he obtained subsistence for his army simply by
plunder, until the people of Beguemder rose against him, and commenced a
desultory warfare against his half-starved soldiers, numbers of whom were
continually deserting. The once noble nature of the man was now marred
by licentiousness, drunkenness, and cruelty. But when--the resources of
the country round Debra Tabor being destroyed by cruel and long-continued
rapine--it became necessary to take and act upon a decision, Theodore,
it would seem, woke up from his sensual dream, and for a while became
himself again. He resolved to return to Magdala, and to transport thither
the heavy ordnance that had just been constructed. First setting fire to
Debra Tabor, his own capital, he began his march on the 10th of October,
1867, with his European workmen, about 6,000 soldiers, and a host of camp
followers. Although the distance to Magdala did not exceed a hundred
miles, the difficulties in the way of transporting guns, owing to the
want of roads and the mountainous nature of the country, were enormous.
Thus labouring on for weeks and months, and conveying his guns and stores
without loss on twenty heavy waggons dragged by his soldiers along the
roads that he had previously built, Theodore arrived at last (March 25th)
on the plateau of Islamgyé below Magdala. On the 29th he came up to
Magdala and sent for Mr. Rassam. The interview was very friendly, and the
King, who seems to have really liked the envoy, was gracious and affable.
His army, through continual desertions, had by this time dwindled down to
about 3,000 men. He afterwards told Mr. Rassam that when he was excited
he was not responsible for his actions. It is to be hoped that it was
so, and that in the fact some palliation may be found for the horrible
massacre that he ordered a few days later. On the 9th of April, having
on the previous day caused all his native prisoners, 570 in number, to
be brought down to Islamgyé from Magdala, he set a considerable number
free, including all, or almost all, the women and children. After that he
drank deeply and went to lie down in his tent. Those who were retained in
captivity, no order having been given to take them back to Magdala, were
kept on the barren top of Islamgyé; and having nothing to eat, they began
to clamour for food. This enraged him to such a degree that, starting
up in a drunken fury, he commanded them all to be put to death, and
commenced the butchery by cutting one down with his sword, and shooting
two others with his pistols. The rest were hurled alive over the precipice
of Islamgyé, and those who showed any signs of life were fired upon by
the soldiers stationed below. The massacre lasted from about 4 till 6.30
P.M., and there were no less than 197 victims, only thirty-five
of whom were criminals.

Meanwhile the toils were being drawn closer round the doomed King. The
12th Bengal Cavalry and six companies of the 45th Regiment, having been
ordered up from the coast by Sir Robert Napier, arrived at the camp on
the 8th of April. The 45th accomplished the distance from Mulkutto to the
Beshilo River in twenty-five days. The force before Magdala, with these
accessions, numbered upwards of 3,700 men, including a rocket brigade
consisting of eighty sailors of H.M.S. _Dryad_. On the 9th of April, the
whole force being now concentrated on the Dalanta plateau, the approaches
to Magdala were carefully reconnoitred. It was suggested to Sir Robert
Napier to send a force round to the saddle connecting Magdala with the
Tanta plateau, so as to cut off Theodore's retreat while he was attacked
in front. But the Commander-in-Chief deemed that the force at his disposal
was not large enough to allow of its being divided with safety. It was
finally resolved to attack the position of Magdala by way of the great
projecting mass of Fâla, from which the lower terrace of Islamgyé could be
easily reached.

Early on the morning of the 10th of April Sir Charles Staveley led the
1st Brigade down the steep side of the Dalanta plateau, forded the
Beshilo, and, mounting the bold spur of Gumbaji, proceeded along it in
the direction of Fâla. His intention was to choose a suitable site for
an encampment, and await the arrival of the 2nd Brigade, led by the
Commander-in-Chief, which was to pass the night in the valley of the
Beshilo. Meanwhile, Colonel Phayre, with the pioneer force under his
command, was moving up the Wark-Waha ravine, parallel with, and to the
left of, the march of Sir Charles Staveley, in order to examine the
position of the enemy. He ascertained that neither in the ravine, nor on
any part of the great open slopes and terraces of which he obtained a
view, right up to the ascent of Fâla, was there any trace of a hostile
force; and he sent back a message to this effect to Sir Robert Napier,
which on its way was read by Sir Charles Staveley. Sir Robert, on
receiving Colonel Phayre's report, ordered the Naval Brigade, Colonel
Penn's battery of mountain guns, and the baggage of the 1st Brigade, which
had been left at the Beshilo by Sir Charles waiting orders to advance, to
press forward up the Wark-Waha ravine. They did so, the sailors leading
the way. It was about four o'clock when the Naval Brigade, followed by the
battery, emerged by a steep ascent from the ravine on to the diversified
surface of the Arogé plains, just above which, to their right, on the
Aficho terrace, the 1st Brigade was posted. Presently a gun, followed
by several others in succession, was fired from the crest of Fâla;
the direction being good, and the elevation from which the guns were
discharged considerable, the shot came plunging into the ground near the
British ranks. Then, from the top of the mountain, rushing down the steep
sides of Fâla, came Theodore's warriors in headlong charge. There were
about 1,000 musketeers, armed with double-barrel guns, 2,000 men carrying
match-locks, and a multitude of spearmen. They reached the bottom of the
hill, and began advancing towards the British, part plunging down a ravine
called Dam-Wanz on the British left, to attack the baggage train.

With such an inequality of arms as existed between the combatants, no
real fighting was possible. The sailors, on seeing the enemy swarming
down the hill, quickly got their rocket tubes into position, and opened
upon them. Sir Charles Staveley ordered all the infantry of his brigade
to come down the steep ascent from Aficho to Arogé, and advance firing
against the enemy. Against the Sniders of the British infantry, what was
the use of smooth-bore muzzle-loaders and undisciplined valour? The brave
chief Gabriyé--Theodore's Fitaurari or Quartermaster-General--after doing
all that man could do to encourage his followers, was shot down, and many
other chiefs with him. Finding it impossible to get near their enemy, the
Abyssinians after a time lost heart and turned to flee. Those who had gone
down into the Dam-Wanz ravine were hemmed in there between the Punjab
Pioneers and baggage guard in their front, and some companies of the
4th, whom Sir Charles Staveley had sent against their left flank, and mown
down with terrible slaughter. As the fugitives retreated up the hill-side,
the Naval Brigade advanced, and sent rockets among them with destructive
effect. Evening closed in; Theodore, who had watched the action from the
top of Fâla, knew that his army was destroyed and his power at an end; the
British army seeing its task well-nigh accomplished, but full of anxiety
for the fate of the captives, bivouacked that night on the slopes of
Aficho and Arogé. The loss of the Abyssinians in this action was estimated
at between 700 and 800 killed, and 1,500 wounded. On the English side
twenty men were wounded, two mortally.

[Illustration: DEATH OF THE EMPEROR THEODORE. (_See p._ 491.)]

Theodore, clearly perceiving all further resistance to be vain, now
desired to come to terms with the British general. Early on the morning
of April 11th he sent down from Selassyé, where he had passed the night,
two of the captives, Lieutenant Prideaux and Mr. Flad, to bear his
proposals to the British camp. They were instructed to say that the King
now desired to be reconciled with the British. The delight and enthusiasm
caused by the presence of Lieutenant Prideaux in the camp may be easily
imagined. But the "reconciliation" sought by the King, which would have
left him seated on his throne, could not, it was thought, be granted.
As far as Britain was concerned, if the captives were all given up, her
honour was satisfied, her aims were fulfilled, and her troops might be at
once withdrawn. But it was considered by the Commander-in-Chief that the
British had been welcomed in their country by the Abyssinians, and that
the various chiefs had abstained from impeding or molesting the march,
on the tacit but clearly implied understanding that Theodore's power was
to be destroyed, and that he was to be a king in Abyssinia no longer. No
terms, therefore, could be granted which did not involve his absolute
submission and deposition from the throne, and a letter to that effect was
conveyed to him, which he haughtily returned, together with a cartel of
defiance. After a frustrated attempt at suicide, the King held a council
of war, and asked the opinions of the bravest and most influential of the
surviving chiefs. Most of them gave counsel, like the soldiers on board
St. Paul's vessel, "to kill the prisoners, lest they should escape,"
and then to fight to the last. It is to the credit of Theodore that he
resisted this counsel. Doubtless he thought that their release might be
the means of relieving him from further demands, but friendly feeling
towards Mr. Rassam, and even towards his poor artisans, had probably much
to do with his decision. About four o'clock in the afternoon (Saturday,
April 11th) the King sent the Governor of Magdala to Mr. Rassam and the
other Europeans with the following message: "Go at once to your people;
you can send for your property to-morrow." The prisoners made haste
to depart, and descended the steep path from Magdala to the saddle of
Islamgyé, and thence to Selassyé, where the King still was. Here Mr.
Rassam had a final interview with him. Theodore acknowledged that he had
behaved ill to the envoy, but said that it was through the conduct of bad
men.

Early on the following morning (Easter Sunday, April 12th) Theodore sent
down a letter to Sir Robert Napier, the object of which was to do away
with the effect of the defiant letter of the previous day, and to request
the acceptance of a present of cows. According to Abyssinian ideas,
the acceptance of a present would mean that the receiver was satisfied
and granted peace to the giver. This letter on reaching the camp was
translated by the bearer from the Amharic into Arabic and from Arabic by
Mr. Rassam into English. Sir Robert Napier afterwards declared that he
authorised no answer to be given that could have led Theodore to believe
that he accepted one jot less than the terms of his first demand; and
he ordered a letter to be prepared (which, however, was never sent),
accepting the cows provisionally, upon the understanding that Theodore
would surrender himself as well as all the Europeans. At the time, he
verbally authorised Mr. Rassam--or the latter so understood him--to accept
the present of cows. Theodore, upon hearing that his gift had not been
spurned, was overjoyed. He believed that life and honour were now safe
and that the victorious general would not require of him the intolerable
humiliation of a personal surrender. He sent down the present, consisting
of 1,000 cows and 500 sheep, being all the live stock that he had in
his possession; and in the course of the afternoon he sent down all the
remaining Europeans and half-castes, fifty-seven in number, with their
baggage, to the British camp.

But on that Sunday evening Theodore was informed by the chief whom he had
sent down with the cattle, that the cows had been stopped at the first
picket and had not been admitted into the camp. He saw at once that he had
been misled and that the British commander intended to abate nothing from
the original terms. At dawn the next morning (Easter Monday, April 13th),
he called on the warriors who loved him to take nothing but their arms and
follow him; the time had come, he said, to seek another home. Followed by
four chiefs and a few soldiers, he went up into Magdala, passed through
it and out at the other side through the gate leading to the saddle that
communicated with the Tanta plateau. But after having gone a little way,
his men refused to follow him, and he returned with them into Magdala,
and thence went down again to Islamgyé. Meanwhile information had reached
the British camp that Theodore had fled from Magdala. The troops were
immediately put in motion, while a notice was sent among the Gallas
offering a reward for the King's capture. The two brigades scaled the
steep ascent of the saddle connecting Fâla with Selassyé, meeting with
no opposition whatever. The British regiments slowly advanced until
they reached the nearer end of the saddle of Islamgyé. Here they found
the greater number of Theodore's guns with their ammunition. A number
of chiefs, richly dressed, were seen at the farther end of Islamgyé,
galloping wildly about and occasionally firing off their rifles. These in
a short time were seen to ascend the steep path leading up into Magdala,
pass through the gate called the Koket Bir, and close it after them.
About this time authentic information reached the general that Theodore
had not escaped, but was still in Magdala. He was one among those who
had been just seen to ascend from Islamgyé into the fortress. Sir Robert
Napier thought it necessary, in these circumstances, to cannonade Magdala
with all the artillery at his disposal. Theodore, and the few followers
who remained faithful to him, upon entering the place at the Koket Bir,
closed the gate and blocked it up with large stones. This gate stood some
distance below the edge of the plateau, at the very brink of which was a
second gate. On the rocks, between the two gates, attended by a faithful
few, Theodore sat and watched the practice of the English guns. The shells
burst all around him; his faithful Minister Ras Engeda and his brother
were killed by the same shell.

At 4 P.M. a storming party--consisting of the 33rd Regiment led
by Major Cooper, the 10th Company of Royal Engineers, and a company of
Madras Sappers--was ordered to attack the Koket Bir. The long line of
red-coats wound up the steep pathway, keeping up a hot fire on the hedge
and gate above them. A feeble dropping fire was the only reply. For when
the bombardment became too hot, nearly all Theodore's followers consulted
their safety and fled, taking refuge in the huts on Magdala. The King,
and about ten persons who still adhered to him, went down into the Koket
Bir when the soldiers commenced to climb the steep, and fired upon them
through some rudely constructed loop-holes. Seven men were wounded by
this fire. When the soldiers reached the gate, it was found impossible to
force it, owing to the large stones with which it had been blocked up;
but, after a short delay, a way was made through the hedge on each side
of the gate, and the 33rd thus got within the place, removed the stones,
and opened the doors to admit the rest of the storming party. The King,
meanwhile, had retired up the hill and passed within the second gate. Of
his ten companions, six were wounded, more or less seriously. Here he
dismissed all his surviving followers, except his faithful valet Walda
Gabir, telling them to leave him and save their own lives. "Flee," he
said, "I release you from your allegiance; as for me, I shall never fall
into the hands of the enemy." As soon as they were gone, he turned to
Walda Gabir, and said, "It is finished! Sooner than fall into their hands,
I will kill myself." He put a pistol into his mouth, fired it, and fell
dead; the ball passing through the roof of the mouth and out at the back
of the head.

So ended the career of a man who, if he had inherited a purer and more
practical Christianity, and learned to control his passions, might have
raised his country's name from obscurity, spread the influences of
religion and civilisation through Eastern Africa, and lived in history as
one of the benefactors of mankind. Wrath and sensuality were his ruin.

The rest may be briefly told. The huts on Magdala were burnt by order
of the British general, and this outpost of Christianity fell again
into the hands of the ferocious Gallas. North of the river Beshilo, Sir
Robert recognised the authority of the Wakshum Gobazye. Theodore's Queen,
Terunesh, and her little boy, Alamayahu, were among the inhabitants of
Magdala at the time of its capture, and were consigned to the care of Mr.
Rassam. The Queen said that it had been Theodore's last wish that his
son should be taken charge of by the British; and this wish was complied
with. The boy, who was about ten years old at this time, was placed in
charge of the Rev. Dr. Jex Blake, then Principal of Cheltenham College.
The unfortunate youth died in 1879. The Queen herself wished to return
to her native province, Semyen; but on the way down she died, and was
buried at Chelicut near Antalo. The British army commenced its return
march on the 18th of April. The arrangements for the march to the coast
and the embarkation were made with great judgment and forethought, and the
last man of the expedition had left Annesley Bay before the end of June.
The landing-piers, wells, roads, and whatever plant had been left behind
as not worth removal, came into the possession of the Egyptians, and
Abyssinia was sealed up again from intercourse with the outer world, as
before the expedition.

Honours were lavished freely on the chief officers in command of the
expedition. Sir Robert Napier received the Grand Cross of the Bath and a
pension, and was made a peer with the title of Lord Napier of Magdala.
General Merewether was made an extra Knight Commander of the Star of
India. In moving that the thanks of the House of Commons be given to Sir
Robert Napier and his army, Mr. Disraeli, after an eloquent enumeration
of the obstacles which they had surmounted, said that that had been
accomplished which not one of them ten years ago could have fancied even
in his dreams, and they had seen "the standard of St. George hoisted upon
the mountains of Rasselas."

Meanwhile Europe was disturbed by those admonitory gusts which portend
a coming storm. In France the year passed over uneventfully, but there
were many indications of growing discontent. Rochefort began to write in
the _Lanterne_ his withering satires against the Imperial Government;
and at a public distribution of prizes at the Sorbonne, the son of
Marshal Cavaignac, encouraged by his mother and by the sympathy of his
fellow-students, refused to receive his prize from the hands of the Prince
Imperial. The continual progress of Russia in Central Asia, silent mostly
and unmarked, like the rising tide, arrested this year the attention of
all Europe, when the news arrived that Samarcand, the ancient capital of
Turkestan, and the favourite residence of Timour, had fallen before the
arms of General Kaufmann. The Ameer of Bokhara was defeated in several
engagements; and Bokhara itself was taken by the Russians, but not
permanently occupied, and thenceforward the Cossack advance towards India
seriously affected British foreign policy. The Cretan insurrection--which
broke out in the summer of 1866, and in which the insurgents, aided by
the continual influx of volunteers and supplies from Greece, had resisted
for two years and a half the utmost efforts of the Turkish monarchy for
its suppression--came to an end at the close of 1868, through the sheer
exhaustion of the islanders. To Turkey also the situation of things had
become intolerable, and the Turkish Minister at Athens delivered an
ultimatum to the Greek Government on the 10th of December, demanding the
dispersion within five days of the volunteers enlisted for the Cretan
insurgents, and a pledge that no more should be permitted to be enrolled;
and requiring Greece to act for the future in conformity with existing
treaties. Greece refused the ultimatum, and diplomatic relations were
broken off between her and Turkey. The Great Powers interposed, and it was
arranged that a conference should be held at Paris early in 1869 to treat
of the relations between Turkey and Greece. At this conference, which
met on the 9th of January, the discussion lasted over ten days. It was
finally decided that Greece should abstain for the future from favouring
or tolerating within its territory the formation of bands destined to act
against Turkey; and should also take the necessary measures to prevent
the equipment in its ports of vessels destined to aid or comfort, in
whatever manner, insurrection within the dominions of the Sultan. In
Spain, the Bourbon sovereign Isabella, driven from the throne this year by
a successful revolution, was compelled to seek as an exile and a suppliant
the land that had nursed her ancestors, thanks to the arbitrary _régime_
of her Ministers. A Provisional Government, with Marshal Serrano for
President and Prim for Commander-in-Chief, was established. Except that
they were not Republicans, the new rulers of Spain proceeded to adopt
measures of the usual revolutionary hue. The absolute liberty of the press
was decreed; and universal toleration was proclaimed, except for the
Jesuits, whose colleges and institutions were ordered to be closed within
three days in Spain and the Spanish colonies, the Order itself being
suppressed and its property sequestrated to the State. The Republican
party was dissatisfied and rose in arms at Cadiz in December. General
Caballero di Roda marched against them and persuaded them to submit to the
Government. The disintegrating tendency was checked for the moment, only
to reappear afterwards in a more virulent form. The general sentiment of
the Spanish people was in favour of monarchy, but no monarch could for
a long time be found and the search was to involve Europe in short but
destructive war.

[Illustration: ST PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL, DUBLIN. (_From a Photograph by W.
Lawrence._)]




CHAPTER XXX.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    England in 1869--The Irish Church Difficulty--The Bishops
    in Debate--The Queen's Speech--Mr. Gladstone unfolds his
    Scheme--Provisions relating to Persons and Property--Private
    Endowments--Churches and Glebe-Houses--Conversion of the Church
    Property into Money--Disposal of the Surplus--The Maynooth Grant and
    the _Regium Donum_--Mr. Gladstone's Peroration--Debate on the Second
    Reading--A Bumper Majority--The Bill passes through the House of
    Commons--Lord Redesdale and the Coronation Oath--The Opposition in
    the Lords--Dr. Magee's Speech--Amendments in Committee--Concurrent
    Endowment--Mr. Gladstone rejects the Lords' Amendments--Lord
    Salisbury's Vigour of Language--Danger of a Collision between the
    Houses--The Queen and Archbishop Tait--Conference between Lord
    Cairns and Lord Granville--Their Compromise--Its Terms accepted by
    Mr. Gladstone--The Bill becomes Law--Its Neutral Results.


The condition of the British empire at the beginning of 1869 was
externally far from unsatisfactory. The successful and complete
accomplishment of the objects for which the Abyssinian expedition
had been undertaken was considered to reflect credit on the military
administration; the state of Ireland was so much improved that the renewal
of the Act suspending the Habeas Corpus in that country was deemed no
longer necessary; above all, trade and finance were beginning to show
signs of substantial recovery from the effects of the collapse of 1866,
and to hold forth the promise of a new and vigorous expansion. With
regard to the new Ministry which the deliberate preference of a large
majority of the constituencies had just installed in power, confidence
in Mr. Gladstone, and in his power to deal adequately with the great
question of the day, was widely felt and freely expressed. Yet the
difficulty of carrying a just and adequate measure of disestablishment,
which should carefully unravel the thousand threads that in the course of
three centuries had variously linked the ecclesiastical with the civil
establishment of Ireland--a measure that should satisfy the just claims
of individuals, and wisely dispose of the portion of the expropriated
property not required for the purposes of compensation--was felt to be
so great that few expected it to be overcome in the present Session. A
succession of contests--a slow and painful adjustment--the attainment
of a practical equilibrium after many trials, spread over two or three
years--such seemed to be the prospect before the country. That the result
was different and that this great work of demolition was accomplished in
a single Session, was due to the thoroughness with which Mr. Gladstone
laboured at the preparation of the necessary measure and to his genius for
the perfecting of details.

There was considerable doubt as to the course that would be adopted by the
Bishops. Wilberforce early made up his mind that some sort of surrender
was inevitable and, as soon as the election returns left no doubt as to
the country's answer to Mr. Gladstone's appeal, wrote to the Archbishop
of Dublin, Dr. Trench--"The time seems now absolutely come, of which we
have so often spoken, when you and we should consider whether any and
what compromise is possible." The Primate, however, looked rather to a
defeat of the Bill in Committee owing to a defection among Mr. Gladstone's
following, when he considered that the Prime Minister, to get out of his
difficulties, would offer terms that might be accepted. The Bishop of
Oxford in a semi-public letter pointed out that such resistance would only
aggravate the situation, and that disestablishment might be considered a
matter determined. "Some believe that the measure may be resisted a little
shorter, some a little longer time, but all are secretly convinced, or
are ready openly to avow their opinion, that it is a question practically
settled. Wholly unprincipled men like Disraeli are content to use
religion, as they would use any other precious thing, as an instrument of
obtaining ever so short a tenure of place at the cost of ever so entire a
sacrifice of what they so use." He thought, however, that a stand might be
made on the question of disendowment and that the following claims must be
advanced: (1) entire freedom from State interference, (2) that the Irish
Church should be constituted a corporation capable of self-government and
of holding property, (3) that the satisfaction-money for vested interests
should be in a common fund under common management. This middle course,
embodied by Bishop Wilberforce in a pamphlet in the form of a letter to
Lord Lyttelton, which, however, he was dissuaded from publishing, was by
no means favoured by the Episcopal majority. Indeed, after two private
debates, on the 10th of February and the 6th of May, they separated
without coming to any conclusion. Though the accuracy of his notes on
these discussions, which are reproduced in the third volume of his
biography, was afterwards disputed, it is clear that many agreed with the
Bishop of Rochester, who abruptly remarked, "I think the Bill iniquitous,
and that it ought not to pass."

The formal business involved in the opening of a new Parliament had been
despatched in the month of December, 1868. On the 16th of February, 1869,
the real Session began. On this unique occasion, the like of which had not
occurred since the assembling of the first Parliament elected after the
passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, it might have been expected that the
Queen would be present and deliver the Royal Speech; that duty, however,
was, as on so many previous occasions, discharged by the Lord Chancellor.
Mr. Gladstone afterwards explained that it had been her Majesty's earnest
wish to meet her Parliament, but that her health, impaired by the severe
nervous headaches to which her Majesty was subject, was found unequal to
the effort; should, however, the House agree to the Address, her Majesty
was desirous of coming to London and receiving it in person from both
Houses of Parliament. This proposal was warmly received on both sides of
the House; but the serious illness of the youngest son of her Majesty,
Prince Leopold, occurring just about this time, prevented the execution
of the design. In the Royal Speech, after allusion had been made to the
settlement lately effected in the Conference at Paris of the rupture
between Greece and Turkey, and to some insignificant disturbances that had
broken out in New Zealand, the great legislative project of the year was
thus vaguely shadowed forth:--"The ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland
will be brought under your consideration at a very early date, and the
legislation which will be necessary in order to their final adjustment
will make the largest demands upon the wisdom of Parliament." The Address
was agreed to in both Houses without difficulty, Lord Cairns observing
that he could not go into the subject of the Irish Church without more
light than was afforded by the "rather fortuitous collocation of nouns
and adjectives in which the Speech alluded to it." In the Commons Mr.
Gladstone, the new Premier, lost no time in giving notice that, on the
1st of March, he should move that the Acts relating to the Irish Church
Establishment and the grant to Maynooth College, and also the Resolutions
of the House of Commons in 1868, be read; and that the House should
then resolve itself into a committee to consider of the said Acts and
Resolutions.

The appointed day arrived, and Mr. Gladstone, after causing the Clerk
to read the titles of the Acts and the Commons' Resolutions of 1868,
proceeded, in a speech of three hours' duration, to unfold to a crowded
and expectant House the particulars of the scheme by which he proposed to
redeem the pledge of disestablishing the Church of Ireland which he had
induced the House to take in the preceding year. So perfect a mastery of
all the details of a very complicated measure, joined to so rare a gift
for marshalling and harmonising his matter, was perhaps never before
found in an English statesman. There were facts to be told, explanatory
narratives to be given, reasons to be unfolded, objections to be met,
changes to be proposed, and arrangements necessitated by those changes
to be precisely defined, as to times, places, and persons; and all these
various requirements were to be satisfied in a single speech, and in such
a manner that the thread of the exposition should never be broken, nor the
interest of the hearer suffered to flag. All this was accomplished by Mr.
Gladstone in this memorable speech.

Certain dates were first of all named, by keeping which in memory it
became more easy to grasp the general bearing of the scheme. On the 1st
of January, 1871 (this, however, was a date which the speaker did not
regard as unalterable), the disestablishment of the Irish Church was
to take legal effect. At that date the union between the Churches of
England and Ireland would be dissolved, all ecclesiastical corporations
would be abolished, the ecclesiastical courts would be closed, and the
ecclesiastical laws would no longer be binding as laws, although they
would still be understood to exist as part of the terms of a voluntary
contract subsisting between clergy and laity till they were altered by the
governing body of the disestablished Church. Secondly, from the date of
the passing of the Act, the Irish Ecclesiastical Commission would cease
and determine, and would be replaced by a temporary Commission, appointed
for ten years, in which the property of the Irish Church would immediately
vest. Thirdly, after a date which it was impossible exactly to define, but
which would give time for the complete execution of all those complicated
arrangements to which the satisfaction of vested interests under the Act
would lead, the residue of the funds of the disendowed Church would be
available for employment in such manners and on such objects as should be
specified in a later portion of his statement.

From this point, since we cannot follow Mr. Gladstone into the extended
exposition of every portion of his plan with which he favoured the House,
we propose to describe the contents of the Bill on a different principle,
and to consider the leading features of the scheme--(1) in its application
to persons; (2) in its application to property.

The persons to whom the provisions of the new measure were to be
primarily applied, who from the official clergy of a State Church were
to be converted into the ministers of a voluntary association, were
these following--two archbishops, ten bishops, and about 2,380 parochial
clergy and curates. Before considering and guarding the rights of these
persons, it was necessary to provide for the case of those who should, by
nomination or election, be added to their number, in the interval between
the passing of the Act and the date fixed for the legal disestablishment
of the Church. It was provided that during this transition period the
patronage exercised in favour of such persons should confer no freehold,
and create for them no vested rights of any kind. In the case of episcopal
vacancies, the Crown would still appoint, but only at the prayer of the
bishops of the province in which the vacancy occurred for the consecration
of an individual to be named by them. These _interim_ appointments would
carry with them no vested interest and no rights of peerage. With regard
to the existing prelates and clergy, the former, as has been already
stated, would lose their right to seats in the House of Lords from the
date of the legal disestablishment. Before the 1st of January, 1871,
the clergy and laity of the Church were invited to meet together and
re-organise the institution on a voluntary basis, appointing at the same
time a "governing body," through which it might communicate with the
Government of the day by the intervention of the Ecclesiastical Commission
nominated in the Act. The Irish Convocation had not met, Mr. Gladstone
said, for a period of fully a century and a half, if not of two centuries;
and not only were there great technical difficulties in the way of its
revival, but there also existed a special statute called the Convention
Act, certain clauses of which rendered it doubtful whether the Convocation
could be legally convoked at all. One of the earliest enactments in the
Bill was, accordingly, the repeal of the Convention Act, so far as it
affected the Irish Church, and the removal of all disabilities of whatever
kind that might hinder the clergy and laity from meeting in synod and
reorganising the Church as a voluntary society. The Government would take
no power for the Crown to interfere in the election of the governing
body, but would merely require that it should be truly representative,
as resulting from the joint action of bishops, clergy, and laity. The
governing body so appointed would be recognised by the Government, and it
would become incorporated under the present Act.

When the 1st of January, 1871, the date fixed for disestablishment, had
arrived, the provisions of the Act for satisfying the vested interests,
not only of the Protestant clergy, but also of the students and professors
of Maynooth, and of the ministers of the Presbyterian Church, would begin
to take effect. What is a vested interest? Mr. Gladstone defined it thus,
after stating that the "expectation of promotion" could not possibly be
comprehended in the definition:--"The vested interest of the incumbent
[whether of a see or a benefice] is this--it is a title to receive a
certain net income from the property of the Church, in consideration of
the discharge of certain duties, to which he is bound as the equivalent
he gives for that income and subject to the laws by which he and the
religious body to which he belongs are bound." In the possession of such
net income, subject only to deductions for the curates whom he might have
permanently employed, every incumbent was secured by the Act for the term
of his natural life, so long as he continued to discharge the equivalent
duties. He might, however, if he chose, commute his right to receive his
net income annually from the State for a capital sum to be calculated
at a rate of interest of three and a half per cent. This commutation
could only be made upon the application of the incumbent, and the sum
of money would then be paid to the Church body, "subject to the legal
trust of discharging the obligation or covenant which we had ourselves to
discharge to the incumbent--namely, to give him the annuity in full so
long as he discharged the duties." This commutation would be voluntary;
but as it would be greatly to the interest of the State to relieve itself
as quickly as possible from the task of maintaining relations of payment
with the individual clergymen, the scale on which it was computed would
be a liberal one; and Mr. Gladstone hoped that it would be very largely
resorted to. The various incidents of the freehold tenure on which the
existing incumbents now held their benefices or lands would be allowed
to subsist during their lifetime, with two exceptions. The Tithe Rent
charge (which, for various important reasons, it was desirable to have
the power of dealing with immediately after disestablishment) would,
from the date of the passing of the Act, vest in the new Commissioners
without any intervening life-interest, the faith of Parliament being, of
course, pledged to the payment of the whole proceeds that the clergymen
could derive from it. The other exception related to ruined churches,
the freehold of which might be in the incumbent; in these cases it
would be taken from him and vested in the Irish Board of Works, with an
allocation of funds necessary to preserve the churches from desecration or
further injury. The vested interest of all incumbents, whether bishops or
presbyters, was thus provided for. With regard to curates, Mr. Gladstone
distinguished between those who were permanently and those who were
temporarily employed. The Act left it to the Commissioners to determine
in each case whether a curate applying for compensation had really been
in permanent employment, stipulating only that, in order to be entitled
to that character, he should have been employed on the 1st of January,
1869; and that he should continue to be so employed on the 1st of January
1871; or that, if he had ceased to be so employed, the cessation should
be due to some cause other than his own free choice or misconduct. Such
curates were to be held entitled to receive their stipends for life or
to commute them, exactly on the same principles as the Act applied to
incumbents. Curates of the transitory class were to be compensated by
simple gratuities, on the principle recognised in the Civil Service
Superannuation Acts.

We now proceed to the consideration of the manner in which the Act
proposed to deal with the property of the Irish Church. The annual value
of that property, roughly stated, came to about £670,000, and was derived
from the following sources of income:--

    Income of Ecclesiastical Commissioners      £93,950
    Revenues of Episcopal Sees                   85,879
    Tithe Rent charge                           404,660
    Glebe and Chapter lands let to Tenants       80,812
    Other sources                                 5,199
                                               --------
                                               £670,500

To this must be added the annual value of glebelands farmed by incumbents,
which was not, however, very considerable.

An important and difficult question immediately presented itself, to the
solution of which Mr. Gladstone devoted all his powers of analysis and all
his resources of expression. It was this: among the various endowments
enjoyed by the Irish Church, which of them were of a public nature, and
had accrued to it as the representative of the ancient endowed Church of
the country? which of them were, on the other hand, of a private nature,
and were made with the full knowledge and intention of the donors that
they were assisting by their benefactions the Protestant Episcopal Church
of Ireland, bound by such and such Articles, and using such and such
a liturgy? In the adjustment of so complicated a matter mathematical
accuracy was out of the question; but Mr. Gladstone considered that
substantial justice would be done by fixing a date, all endowments
anterior to which should be deemed public, and those posterior to it
private. This date he proposed to fix at the epoch of the Restoration,
1660, on the ground that the Irish Establishment did not attain its
regular organisation and definite Protestant character much before that
date. On the whole, he thought that the value of the private endowments,
so limited, did not exceed half a million sterling; and this sum the Act
awarded in compensation for them to the disestablished Church.

[Illustration: ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

(_From a Photograph by Elliott and Fry._)]

By drawing the line at the year 1660, Mr. Gladstone excluded from the
category of private endowments the grants of land in Ulster, which James
I., after having planted large numbers of his Scottish countrymen in the
room of the exterminated native proprietors, assigned to the dominant
Church. These lands were commonly known as the Ulster glebes. A strenuous
effort was made in the House of Lords to effect their retention for
the Church, on the ground that they partook rather of the nature of
private than of public benefactions. But Mr. Gladstone stood firm, and
refused to allow these royal grants, the original motive for which was
unquestionably in large measure political, to be treated differently from
the general mass of the Church property.

An important item of the material belongings of the Establishment, yet
one that could not easily be made to enter into any financial estimate,
consisted in the churches themselves. As to these, the Act provided
that, wherever the "governing body" made an application, accompanied by
a declaration that they meant either to maintain the church for public
worship, or to remove it to some more convenient position, it would be
handed over to them. In the case of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and about a
dozen other churches partaking of the character of national monuments,
the Commissioners were empowered to allot a moderate sum for their
maintenance. Churches not in use, or in ruins, were to be handed over to
the custody of the Board of Works.

With regard to glebe-houses, Mr. Gladstone announced that he had changed
the opinion that he had expressed in the preceding year. Then he was
inclined to consider them as "marketable property," like lands or tithes,
and as such to withhold them from the disestablished Church, and allow
only a life interest in them to their present possessors. But having
investigated the matter more closely, and discovered that although an
expenditure of £1,200,000 upon them could be distinctly traced, their
annual value could not be rated above £18,600, while there was a quarter
of a million of building charges upon them, which the State would have
to pay on coming into possession, he had come to the conclusion that the
glebe-houses were not, in the strict sense of the words, "marketable
property." The Act therefore proposed to hand over the glebe-houses to the
Church body, on their paying the building charges; and they would also
be allowed to purchase a certain amount of glebe-land round the houses
at a fair valuation. The burial-grounds adjacent to churches went with
the churches; all burial-grounds were to be reserved: and other existing
rights to be handed over to the Poor Law Guardians.

The scheme being thus far developed, the aspect of affairs at the end of
two years promised to be this--the churches and glebe-houses, together
with strips of land around the latter, would then be the permanent
property of the disestablished Church, while the tithes and Church lands,
subject to various life-interests, would be vested in the State through
its organ the "Commissioners of Irish Church Temporalities." But that the
State should long retain all this mass of real property in its own hands
was most undesirable. Mr. Gladstone therefore propounded an elaborate
scheme for the final extinction of the tithe rent charge within forty-five
years, and for the conversion of the lands into money. Landlords would be
allowed, if they chose, to purchase the rent charge, so far as it affected
their own properties, at twenty-two and a half years' purchase paid down;
but if they declined to avail themselves of this option, power was taken
for disposing of it to them by a compulsory sale, at a rate which would
yield 4-1/2 per cent. interest, they being at the same time credited with
a loan at 3-1/2, payable in instalments in forty-five years. Thus, if a
landlord's property were burdened with the tithe rent charge to the extent
of £90 a year, the State would compel him to buy it out and out for the
sum of £2,000; which sum, however, he would not have to pay immediately,
but only by instalments coming in the shape of an annual rent of £70, and
terminating at the end of forty-five years. How greatly the landlords were
gainers by this transaction is obvious. With regard to the Church lands,
the tenants on them were to have a right of pre-emption, and three-fourths
of the purchase money might be left on the security of the land; one
way or other, they were to be converted into money with all practicable
despatch.

When by these sales the property of the Irish Church should all have been
realised, and its affairs wound up, Mr. Gladstone calculated that the
balance sheet would stand as follows. The Tithe rent charge would have
yielded £9,000,000; the lands and perpetuity rents would have been sold
for about £6,250,000; these sums, together with a balance of £750,000 in
money, would make a grand total of £16,000,000. Of this, the Bill would
dispose of £7,350,000--viz.: Vested interests of incumbents, £4,900,000;
ditto of curates, £800,000; lay compensation, £900,000; private
endowments, £500,000; building charges, £250,000. To these would have to
be added the sums required for the commutation of the _Regium Donum_ and
the Maynooth Grant, the particulars of which will be given presently,
amounting to £1,100,000; and finally the expenses of the Commission,
£200,000. Consequently there would remain, after the satisfaction of all
claims, a surplus of between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000. After discussing
various suggestions for the disposal of this surplus, and giving his
reasons for not devoting any part of it to the endowment of any religious
body or institution, Mr. Gladstone stated that, in the opinion of
Government, it would be most fitly and profitably applied to the relief
of "unavoidable calamities and suffering," not provided for by the Poor
Law. Assuming that the surplus fund would produce an annual return of
about £311,000 a year, the Act would allot £185,000 of this revenue to
lunatic asylums, £20,000 to idiot asylums, £30,000 to institutions for
the harbouring and training of the blind, and of deaf mutes, £15,000 to
training-schools for nurses, £10,000 to reformatories, and £51,000 to
county infirmaries; thus disposing of the whole revenue.

The arrangements for the extinction of the _Regium Donum_ and the Maynooth
Grant have still to be considered. The sum to be dealt with amounted to
about £70,000, of which £26,000 was the Maynooth Grant, and the remainder
was distributed among the various denominations of Presbyterians. The
expectation of life among the clergy being known to be between thirteen
and fourteen years, Mr. Gladstone had fixed fourteen years' purchase
as the basis of commutation in the case of the incumbents of the Irish
Church, and he now adopted the same scale for the Presbyterian Churches
and for Maynooth. A sum amounting to fourteen times the annual grant in
each case was to be set aside out of the Irish Church Fund, and devoted
to the satisfaction of life-interests, or to their commutation, on
conditions substantially agreeing with those already explained in the case
of the Establishment. About £1,100,000 would be required for the purpose,
two-thirds of which would go to the Presbyterians.

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Gladstone invited criticisms and
suggestions as to the details of the Bill, which it was the desire of its
framers to render as little harsh and onerous as possible, consistently
with the complete and final execution of the task which they had
undertaken. "I trust, Sir," he said, "that although its operation be
stringent, and although we have not thought it either politic or allowable
to attempt to diminish its stringency by making it incomplete, the spirit
towards the Church of Ireland, as a religious communion, in which this
measure has been considered and prepared by my colleagues and myself has
not been a spirit of unkindness. Perhaps at this time it would be too much
to expect to obtain full credit for any declaration of that kind. We are
undoubtedly asking an educated, highly respected, and generally pious and
zealous body of clergymen to undergo a great transition; we are asking a
powerful and intelligent minority of the laity in Ireland, in connection
with the Established Church, to abate a great part of the exceptional
privileges they have enjoyed; but I do not feel that in making this demand
upon them we are seeking to inflict an injury. I do not believe they are
exclusively or even mainly responsible for the errors of English policy
towards Ireland; I am quite certain that in many vital respects they have
suffered by it; I believe that the free air they will breathe under a
system of equality and justice, giving scope for the development of their
great energies, with all the powers of property and intelligence they will
bring to bear, will make that Ireland which they love a country for them
not less enviable and not less beloved in the future than it has been in
the past. As respects the Church, I admit it is a case almost without
exception. I don't know in what country so great a change, so great a
transition has been proposed for the ministers of a religious communion
who have enjoyed for many ages the preferred position of an Established
Church. I can well understand that to many in the Irish Establishment
such a change appears to be nothing less than ruin and destruction; from
the height on which they now stand the future is to them an abyss, and
their fears recall the words used in _King Lear_ when Edgar endeavours to
persuade Gloster that he has fallen over the cliffs of Dover, and says:--

    'Ten masts at each make not the altitude
    Which thou hast perpendicularly fell;
    Thy life's a miracle!'

And yet but a little while after the old man is relieved from his
delusion, and finds he has not fallen at all. So I trust that when,
instead of the fictitious and adventitious aid on which we have too long
taught the Irish Establishment to lean, it should come to place its trust
in its own resources, in its own great mission, in all that it can draw
from the energy of its ministers and its members, and the high hopes and
promises of the Gospel that it teaches, it will find that it has entered
on a new era--an era bright with hope and potent for good.... This measure
is in every sense a great measure--great in its principles, great in the
multitude of its dry, technical, but interesting details, and great as
a testing measure; for it will show for one and all of us of what metal
we are made. Upon us all it brings a great responsibility. We upon this
bench are especially chargeable--nay, deeply guilty--if we have either
dishonestly or even prematurely or unwisely challenged so gigantic an
issue. I know well the punishments that follow rashness in public affairs,
and that ought to fall upon those men, those Phaetons of politics, who,
with hands unequal to the task, attempt to guide the chariot of the sun.
But the responsibility passes beyond us, and rests on every man who has
to take part in the discussion and decision on this Bill. Every man
approaches the discussion under the most solemn obligations to raise the
level of his vision and expand its scope in proportion with the greatness
of the matter in hand. The working of our constitutional government itself
is upon its trial, for I do not believe there ever was a time when the
wheels of legislative machinery were set in motion under conditions of
peace and order and constitutional regularity to deal with a question
greater or more profound. And more especially, Sir, is the credit and
fame of this great assembly involved. This assembly, which has inherited
through many ages the accumulated honours of brilliant triumphs, of
peaceful but courageous legislation, is now called upon to address itself
to a task which would indeed have demanded all the best energies of the
very best among your fathers and your ancestors. I believe it will prove
to be worthy of the task." The right honourable gentleman concluded by
moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

The leader of the Opposition, Mr. Disraeli, said that his own opinion,
and that of his party, remained unaltered; they thought disestablishment
was a political blunder, and disendowment a legalised robbery; but as
the sense of the country had been clearly expressed in favour of dealing
with the question, he should not object to the introduction of the Bill,
but should offer it a determined opposition on the second reading. The
Bill was then introduced, and read a first time, and the 18th of March
was fixed for the second reading. On that day Mr. Disraeli moved in the
usual form that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. In
his speech there was little that was remarkable except where he protested
against the confiscation of the Church property on the ground that it
would probably end in the sole benefit of the landlords. He ridiculed
in particular the project for the extinction of the tithe rent charge,
predicting that the end of the whole operation would be that the property
of the Church would go into the pockets of the landlords; and the
consequence of these sacrilegious proceedings must be such deep discontent
that either there must be restitution, or the same principles must be
applied to the English Church,--and this, he declared, Mr. Gladstone by
his language clearly contemplated. Experience of the absorption of commons
and forests by the large landowners justified, it must be owned, a jealous
and rigorous examination of this part of the measure; which on the very
face of it, as above explained, made a present to the landlords of full
twenty-two per cent. of the tithe rent charge to which their properties
were previously liable. Mr. Bright made a telling speech in favour of the
measure; and the same may be said of Mr. Lowe. On the other side, Sir
Roundell Palmer, who had braved the loss, or, to speak more correctly,
the postponement of high professional promotion, because he could not
go with Mr. Gladstone on this question, disputed the doctrine that the
State had the power absolutely to strip the Church of its property,
though he admitted its right to restrict or reapportion it. Mr. Gathorne
Hardy, who, among the abler opponents of the Bill, was perhaps the only
one who spoke with absolute and entire conviction, delivered a bold and
trenchant philippic, based on the old _dicta_ of the superiority of the
Protestant religion, and the right and duty of England to govern Ireland,
not according to the wishes of the Irish, but upon principles approved by
the majority of Englishmen. After a four nights' debate, the House divided
on the second reading, with the following--for Government--triumphant
result: for the second reading, 368; against it, 250; majority, 118. With
so compact a majority against them, in a very full House, it was useless
for the Conservatives to attempt to make considerable alterations in the
Bill in committee. Substantially unchanged it emerged from the ordeal of
committee, and the third reading was carried by a majority of 114 votes.

[Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR J. E. MILLAIS, BART., P.R.A., IN THE NATIONAL
GALLERY.]

When the Bill reached the House of Lords, it found a tribunal disposed to
view it with unfriendly eyes, and to subject it to a searching criticism.
A question put to Government by a noble lord before the Easter recess
indicated the temper that largely prevailed in the Upper House. Lord
Redesdale asked whether the Ministry intended to propose any alteration
in the Coronation Oath, since according to the present form, as taken by
her Majesty at her accession, the Sovereign undertook to maintain "to
the utmost of his power," not merely the Church, but the Churches of his
dominions in all their rights, the oath having been so modified at the
date of the Union that the Sovereign thenceforward was obliged to swear
to maintain the United Church in the possession of all its rights
and privileges. Lord Granville replied, on the part of Government, that
he entered with reluctance into the line of inquiry started by the noble
lord. He conceived, however, that the Coronation Oath was somewhat in the
nature of a compact between Sovereign and people, and that if the people,
through Parliament, expressed its wish and determination to modify the
terms of the compact, the Sovereign was thereby constitutionally released
from the obligation of observing it more strictly than the altered mind of
Parliament desired. Legislation would be ridiculous, whether the principle
of the noble lord or that adopted by the Government were preferred. If
Government were right that the Sovereign was released by the voice of the
people, as shown by the votes of Parliament, then the passing of a Bill in
both Houses on the particular point in question, and its presentation to
her Majesty for her assent, relieved her _ipso facto_ from the obligations
of the oath. But if, as the noble lord seemed to think, there were some
abstract obligation on the Sovereign, something between her and her God,
which no arrangement or compromise between her and her subjects could
alter, it was clear that any Bill altering the oath would be utterly
inefficacious.

[Illustration: DR. MAGEE, BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH, ADDRESSING THE HOUSE OF
LORDS. (_See p._ 502.)]

The chief brunt of the opposition to the Bill in the House of Lords fell
on Lord Cairns. Warned, however, by the large majorities that had carried
the Bill through every stage in the Commons, the party of resistance
eventually renounced the idea of opposing the second reading, but indulged
the hope that they would be able so to cut up and refashion the Bill in
Committee, in the direction of granting more favourable terms to the
Irish Church, that the disendowing clauses of the Act at any rate would
become little more than nominal. Of course, there were many Tory lords who
hoisted the flag of "No surrender" and would not yield an inch; nor could
the Irish representative bishops be expected to be parties to their own
political annihilation. An eloquent, and in every way remarkable, speech
against the Bill was made by the Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Magee),
who had been recently translated to that see from an Irish deanery by
the Government of Mr. Disraeli. The bishop probed the sores of Ireland
deeply, and told Government that they would get no thanks from the Irish
people unless they carried the expropriation of land much farther than the
present Bill proposed to carry it. "How stands the case?" he argued. "At
the time of the Rebellion, England confiscated large estates belonging
to the Celtic rebels. On nine-tenths of those estates England planted
laymen; on the remaining tenth she planted Anglican pastors. Now I ask
this one question: Was the confiscation of the land of the rebels just or
unjust? If it was unjust, then undo it all. If, in the name of justice,
you are to trace back so far the roots of things in Irish history; if you
are to make your resolutions in the sacred name of justice, then, in the
name of that justice, give back to the descendants of those owners the
confiscated estates that you took from them. But do not mock them--for it
is mocking them--by telling them that Protestant ascendency is an evil
thing. And then, how do you propose to deal with it? By telling them their
land is divided into nine-tenths and one-tenth--the nine-tenths in the
hands of the Protestant landlords, and the one-tenth in the hands of the
Protestant clergy--and we propose to satisfy their demand for justice by
ousting from the land the one proprietor, who is the most popular, most
constantly resident, and least offensive, while you retain, in all the
bitter injustice of their original tenure, the proprietors who are the
most detested, and whose possessions they most covet. Do your lordships
imagine that the Irish people will be satisfied with that? Do not forget
that you have to deal with the most quick-witted people in Europe--people
whose eyes are intently fixed on this question--and do you think that they
will feel other than the most bitter disappointment when you tell them
that you are about to tear down the hateful flag of Protestant ascendency,
and they find that you only tear off a single corner of it--or about the
fortieth part of the whole? The Irish peasant has already given his answer
to your offer of pacification--your pacification consisting in refusing
him the land which he does want, and giving him the destruction of the
Church, which he does not--the Irish peasant writes his answer, and a
terrible answer it is, in that dread handwriting which it needs no Daniel
to interpret, and which so often makes English statesmen tremble; and
in that answer he tells you that he will be satisfied with nothing else
than the possession of the land--which I do the members of her Majesty's
Government the justice to believe they have no intention to give."

After having laboured to prove that the Bill was unjust and impolitic,
the Bishop denounced it with withering sarcasm as ungenerous. "What a
magnanimous sight! The first thing that this magnanimous British nation
does in the performance of this act of justice and penitence, is to put
into her pocket the annual sum she has been in the habit of paying to
Maynooth and to compensate Maynooth out of the funds of the Irish Church.
The Presbyterian members for Scotland, while joining in this exercise
of magnanimity, forgot the horror of Popery which was so largely relied
on, and so loudly expressed, at the last elections in Scotland. They
have changed their mind, on the theory that a bribe to Popery is nothing
if preceded by plunder of the Protestant Episcopacy. Putting two sins
together, they make one good action. Throughout its provisions this Bill
is characterised by a hard and niggardly spirit. I am surprised by the
injustice and impolicy of the measure, but I am still more astonished
at its intense shabbiness. It is a small and pitiful Bill. It is not
worthy of a great nation. This great nation in its act of magnanimity and
penitence has done the talking, but has put the sackcloth and ashes on the
Irish Church, and made the fasting be performed by the poor vergers and
organists."

The opponents of the measure were not sufficiently numerous to prevent
the second reading, which was carried (June 19th) by a majority of 33,
chiefly owing to a large number of abstentions. But now the real work of
the adversaries of the Bill began. The Archbishop of Canterbury moved that
the Ulster glebes be regarded in the light of private endowments, and made
over to the disestablished Church; and this was carried. The same prelate
moved that the preamble be altered by the insertion of 1872 as the legal
date of disestablishment, instead of 1871. This amendment also was carried
by a large majority. Lord Carnarvon moved and carried an amendment to the
clause respecting the redemption of life annuities, giving considerably
more favourable terms to the Church. Lord Salisbury proposed and carried
an amendment, by which the delivery of the glebe-houses to the Church
would be made free of the building charges resting upon them. On the
motion of Lord Cairns, the House made an important alteration in the
preamble of the Bill, wherein it was stated that no part of the surplus
was to be devoted to religious or denominational purposes, but that it
should be wholly applied to the relief of unavoidable calamities and
infirmities. Lord Cairns moved, and successfully, that the whole question
as to the disposal of the surplus should be reserved for the decision of
a future Parliament. The question of the date was then again brought up,
it being understood that the Irish clergy were themselves opposed to the
postponement of the date of disestablishment as proposed by the Archbishop
of Canterbury. On the motion of Lord Cairns, the 1st of May, 1871, was
finally agreed to.

The object and effect of all the amendments hitherto described was to
secure for the Church, after disestablishment, a large portion of its
property, in addition to the sums required for the satisfaction of
life-interests. Many peers saw clearly that if passed in this way, the
Bill, besides causing dissatisfaction among English Dissenters, would
arouse feelings of disappointment and indignation among Irish Roman
Catholics, who had been led to expect that the disendowment would be
real and _bonâ fide_, no less than the disestablishment. Attempts were
therefore made to keep the balance even by applying a portion of the
surplus to the use and benefit of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian
Churches in Ireland. A proposal of the Duke of Cleveland tending in
this direction was rejected; but just before the Bill was read a third
time, Earl Stanhope moved and carried an amendment, authorising a
certain measure of "concurrent endowment." By this amendment, the clause
conveying the glebe-houses to the disestablished clergy received an
enlarged scope, so that it should be in the power of the Commissioners
to make provision for residences, in cases where they were wanting,
for Roman Catholic priests and Presbyterian ministers, as well as for
Protestant Episcopalian bishops and clergy. Government, bound by their
election pledges to the Dissenters, strenuously opposed this amendment;
Lord Granard also, professing to speak for his Catholic countrymen in
Ireland, refused his consent to it. On the other hand, Lord Dunraven,
a Catholic peer, supported it; and Earl Russell expressed an opinion
in its favour, drily remarking, that he doubted whether there would be
much feeling of religious equality in Ireland so long as the Protestant
clergy were comfortably housed, and the Roman Catholic priests lived in
hovels. Lord Stanhope's amendment was carried by a narrow majority, and
the Bill was then read a third time and passed, a protest being first
signed by Lord Derby and forty-three temporal and two spiritual peers.
Lord Derby had previously denounced the Bill with the impressive solemnity
of a dying man. "My lords," he said, "I am an old man, and, like many of
your lordships, past the allotted span of three score years and ten. My
official life is at an end, my political life is nearly closed, and in the
course of nature my natural life cannot be long.... If it be for the last
time that I have the honour of addressing your lordships, I declare that
it will be to my dying day a satisfaction that I have been able to lift
up my voice against the adoption of a measure, the political impolicy of
which is equalled only by its moral iniquity."

The Bill, as amended by the Lords, came back to the House of Commons; and
it became the duty of Government to consider how far they could give way,
in order not to imperil the safety of the Bill. In the main it was deemed
impossible to accept the measure in the altered form in which it came
from the hands of the Lords. Mr. Gladstone announced (July 15th) that he
should propose to disagree from all the more important amendments, with
the exception that, in the case of Lord Carnarvon's proposal, Government
would consent to a modification of the original clause, so as to make
it slightly more favourable to the clergy. A few amendments of minor
importance he was willing to accept. The course proposed by the Prime
Minister was approved by the House, and all the more important of the
Lords' amendments were rejected by large majorities.

Violent language was heard in the House of Lords when the Bill, restored
nearly to its original shape, came back to them from the House of Commons.
The Marquis of Salisbury said that "his reason for opposing the Government
project for appropriating the surplus was that it was false and that it
was foolish. In the first place, it implied a partial application of the
fund for spiritual teaching; and, in the second place, it was a vain
attempt of the House of Commons, which distrusted its own resolution
against concurrent endowment, to bind itself, like a drunkard taking
the pledge, against changing its mind in the future. In truth, the only
argument for it was, that the House of Commons had passed it; and the only
reason why that House had done so was, that the Prime Minister had bidden
it. Why the Prime Minister bade it, he could not search deep enough into
the labyrinthine recesses of that mind to detect, unless it were that
Mr. Gladstone had desired to give this House a slap on the face. So far
from agreeing with the Earl of Shaftesbury's appeal to the House to waive
its amendments in deference to the Commons, he believed this was just
an occasion on which it was the duty of this House to interfere between
the country and the arrogant will of one man." The motion that the House
should insist on its amendment, altering the preamble in relation to the
surplus, was carried by a large majority.

The state of things was now very serious. A collision between the two
Houses seemed to be on the point of taking place which would have
strained the Constitution to the last point of tension. Plans for
overcoming the resistance of the Lords were openly propounded and
generally discussed. It was said that the Ministry would advise her
Majesty to bring the Session immediately to a close, that Parliament would
be summoned to meet again for the despatch of business in the autumn, that
Mr. Gladstone's Bill for disestablishing the Irish Church would then be
passed again by the House of Commons in its original shape, and again be
sent up to the House of Lords; and that this process must and would be
repeated until that House agreed to pass it. Fortunately the new Primate,
Archbishop Tait, whose recommendation had been one of Mr. Disraeli's
last efforts, was a man peculiarly fitted to mediate between contending
parties. Despite his deep sympathies with the cause of Episcopacy in
Ireland, which found expression on May 6th, 1869, in a strongly worded
resolution against disestablishment and disendowment moved by him in St.
James's Hall, he, like Bishop Wilberforce, promptly perceived that the
unmistakable declaration of the constituencies had rendered futile any
further resistance. The Queen was of similar mind, and under her Majesty's
wise command the archbishop had placed himself in communication with Mr.
Gladstone early in February. He found the Prime Minister far more moderate
than some of his lieutenants, and was able to report to the Queen that
the proposed safeguards were admitted in principle, though some of Mr.
Gladstone's intentions, particularly for dealing with post-Reformation
grants and bequests, did not go as far as he wished. On the 8th of May he
held a private conference at Lambeth with eight lay peers, representing
the various parties, and in vain endeavoured to persuade them to consent
to the second reading of the Bill. On the 3rd of June he again received
the Queen's commands to put himself in communication with Mr. Gladstone,
but without much success, nor did a letter to Earl Cairns, asking him
to persuade his followers to consent to the second reading, produce
the desired effect. On the contrary Lord Cairns informed him that at a
meeting held at the Duke of Marlborough's house the Conservative peers
had authorised Lord Harrowby to move the rejection of the Bill. The Queen
wrote in alarm, saying that, though her objections against the measure
still existed in full force, she considered that "the rejection of the
Bill on the second reading would only serve to bring the two Houses into
collision, and to prolong a dangerous agitation of the subject, while it
would further tend to increase the difficulty of ultimately obtaining a
measure so modified as to remove, or at least to mitigate, the fears of
those who are conscientiously opposed to the present Bill as it stands."
Accordingly the archbishop not only advised Lord Granville to introduce
the Bill in a conciliatory speech, but himself spoke in such a moderate
tone as greatly to influence the issue of the debate. After the second
reading had been carried--as we have already mentioned--and the Bill had
been amended in committee, Archbishop Tait received a further despatch
from her Majesty, which ran--"The Queen must say that she cannot view
without alarm the possible consequences of another year of agitation on
the Irish Church, and she would ask the archbishop seriously to consider,
in case the concessions to which the Government may agree should not go
so far as he himself may wish, whether the postponement of the settlement
for another year would not be likely to result in worse rather than in
better terms for the Church." The archbishop accordingly set himself to
mediate between the contending parties as represented by Earl Cairns and
Mr. Gladstone, and his diary, as published in his biography by Dr. Randall
Davidson and Dr. Benham, gives a vivid expression of his hopes and fears.
On Tuesday evening he records "a violent and apparently hopeless quarrel
between Cairns and Gladstone"; on Thursday, after negotiations with all
parties--Irish bishops, Conservative peers, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury,
and Earl Cairns--he could write that "by five o'clock all was settled." On
the 22nd of July Lord Cairns announced the result of these negotiations
to the House. The point about the date he was willing to waive, so that
the legal disestablishment would take place, as originally fixed, on the
1st of January, 1871. Government had made various concessions which,
while still thinking them inadequate to the justice of the case, he was
willing to accept, rather than run the hazard of a collision between the
two branches of the Legislature. They consented that the liabilities
of incumbents for the salaries of curates should be confined to the
case where a curate had been employed for five years. As to diocesan
commutation, Government--who had already added seven per cent. to the
amount of the annuities obtainable by commuting incumbents--now agreed to
grant five per cent. more; this involved a diminution of the surplus by
upwards of £700,000. Better terms for curates had been already conceded.
The acceptance of commutation by three-fourths, instead of four-fifths,
of the clergy of a diocese was to be held sufficient. Government had
also agreed to exempt from the commutation any residence and land in an
incumbent's own occupation if the incumbent should so desire. Lastly,
there was the question of the disposal of the surplus. Government on this
point had consented to amend the 68th clause, so that it would provide for
the employment of the surplus for the relief of unavoidable calamity and
in such manner as Parliament should hereafter direct.

[Illustration: NEW PALACE YARD, WESTMINSTER.

(_From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

A general sense of relief, mingled with admiration for the consummate
ability and discretion with which Lord Cairns had managed his case,
pervaded the House at this announcement. That he deserved less credit for
the arrangement than the Queen and Archbishop Tait must now be conceded,
but the workings of their wise diplomacy were not revealed until many
years had passed. The compromise which the earl had agreed to on his own
responsibility was adopted with hardly a dissentient voice, and the Bill
was then returned to the House of Commons, where (July 23rd) it received a
final consideration. Mr. Gladstone did not conceal that he deemed the last
grant of five per cent. in augmentation of the commutation fund to be a
matter of great importance, and a concession against the principle of the
Bill. But looking to the mischief of leaving the controversy open, and in
deference to the opinion of the House of Lords, and wishing to preserve
the harmony between the two Houses (which had never been so severely
tried, but which, he thanked God, had withstood the trial), Government had
not felt justified in refusing the overtures made to them on the point.
The Lords' amendments were then agreed to; and the Bill received the Royal
Assent on the 26th of July.

This important measure accordingly passed into law. Those who
declaimed against the disendowment of the Church as an act of
spoliation--confiscation--sacrilege, and predicted that the disregard for
the rights of property shown by Government in this instance would fatally
weaken the respect for property in the minds of the general community,
forgot the fact, of which Mr. Chichester Fortescue took care to remind
them, that "the Bill was no more confiscation than the original transfer
of the Church property from Roman Catholic to Protestant hands had been;
and Parliament, which made that change, might now convert the property to
other Irish purposes." On the other hand, the brilliant anticipations of
concord and contentment which Mr. Bright indulged in were not realised.
He said the Bill was put forward by Government as the means of creating
a true and solid union, and of removing Irish discontent, not only in
Ireland, but across the Atlantic. Archbishop Trench could not conceal
his chagrin. The proposal to disestablish the Irish Church was made, he
thought, with levity and precipitation; the Roman Catholics would be but
feebly and languidly pleased, whilst the Protestants would entertain
the liveliest and most enduring resentment for the wrong inflicted upon
them. The former saw that all the changes which the Bill underwent in its
progress through Parliament were in the direction of making fresh inroads
upon the surplus in favour of the disestablished clergy. Even before
the Lords' amendments had so greatly swelled the amounts to be given in
commutation and compensation, the O'Donoghue observed, on behalf of his
Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, that the compensation clauses went much
farther than was the due of the Irish Protestants, and that to increase
them would be an injustice to the Irish people. And while the disendowed
Church was thus being, to a large extent, re-endowed, Lord Stanhope's
clause--the one solitary indication of a friendly feeling towards the
religion of the majority which the Bill would have contained--was
summarily and inexorably rejected. It is true that this rejection was
promoted by the Irish members themselves. A compact had been entered
into between the Irish Liberals and those English and Scottish members
who viewed with uncompromising hostility all national establishment
or endowment of religion, by which, on condition of the Irish members
renouncing everything in the nature of an endowment for the Roman Catholic
Church in Ireland, the English and Scottish Liberals agreed to support
the Irish Land Bill when it should be brought forward. Among politicians
this was well understood; but to the masses of the Irish people the
disestablishment of the Church must have seemed to be carried out in such
a way as to establish little claim on their gratitude.




CHAPTER XXXI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Mr Lowe's Budget--The Surplus disappears--Mr. Lowe creates a
    Surplus and proposes Remissions of Taxes--Cost of the Abyssinian
    Expedition--Sir Stafford Northcote's Explanation--The Endowed
    Schools' Bill--Speech of Mr. Forster--The Commissioners--Religious
    Tests at the Universities--Sir John Coleridge's Bill--Sir Roundell
    Palmer's Speech--The Bill passes through the Commons--It is
    rejected by the Lords--The Mayor of Cork--The O'Sullivan Disability
    Bill--Mr. O'Sullivan resigns--The Bill dropped--Life Peerages--Lord
    Malmesbury's Speech--Fenianism in Ireland--Deaths of Lord Derby and
    Lord Gough--European Affairs: the Emperor prophesies Peace--The
    General Election--The _Senatus Consultum_--Official Candidates--The
    Revolution in Spain--Wanted a King--General Grant the President of
    the United States--The _Alabama_ Convention rejected.


The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lowe, brought forward his Budget,
in a speech of great ability, on the 8th of April, 1869. The state of
the revenue, he said, was moderately flourishing, although the receipts
for the past financial year had fallen somewhat short (to the extent of
about half a million) of Mr. Ward Hunt's estimate. His predecessor had
calculated upon a revenue of £73,180,000, but the actual amount received
did not quite reach £72,600,000. Passing now to the current year, Mr. Lowe
estimated the expenditure at £68,223,000, and the revenue at £72,855,000,
which would leave an available surplus of £4,632,000 at the end of the
year. Nothing could be more satisfactory than such a prospect. Visions
of a lowered income tax, of enlarged grants for special purposes, of
general easiness in money matters, must have flitted before the minds of
the assembled legislators. But Mr. Lowe had no sooner raised the hopes
of his hearers than he dashed them to the ground. The whole of this
large surplus, it appeared, except the trifling sum of £32,000, would be
required to defray the cost of the Abyssinian expedition. The real cost
of that expedition was now for the first time made known. Mr. Disraeli
had asked for and obtained a vote of £3,000,000, in November, 1867, and
a further sum of £2,000,000 had been voted for the expedition in the
early part of the Session of 1868. During 1868 every one supposed that
£5,000,000 would cover the cost; but this was found to be by no means the
case, and a third vote of £3,600,000 was taken in March, 1869. The total
cost, Mr. Lowe feared, would hardly fall short of £9,000,000. Now, of the
£8,600,000 that had been voted, ways and means had been found only for
£4,000,000, so that £4,600,000 had still to be provided for. This sum
would just be covered by the anticipated surplus, leaving a balance of
£32,000.

Here an ordinary financier would have stopped, content to have balanced
the revenue, and to have defrayed out of current receipts, so as not
to add a penny to the National Debt, the heavy and unforeseen charges
entailed by the Abyssinian expedition. But Mr. Lowe was not an ordinary
financier, and, as a surplus did not exist, he resolved that one should
be created. He proceeded to unfold a plan for the more economical
collection of the revenue, by concentrating in one payment, to be made
in January, the income tax and the assessed taxes, instead of dividing
the former into two instalments, payable in April and October. This plan
he proposed to bring into operation for the first time in January, 1870;
so that (no collection being made in October, 1869) the taxes for three
quarters, ending the 31st of March, 1870, should be paid next January,
in which month the whole of the income tax and the assessed taxes would
have to be paid in future years. That is to say, Mr. Lowe proposed to
collect five quarters' taxes within twelve months. The reader will think
that it is not difficult to create a surplus in this way. Nevertheless,
Mr. Lowe showed that the proposed change in the mode of collecting these
taxes was based on common sense and sound economy, and that a sum of
£100,000 would be saved merely by having one collection instead of two,
and employing the Excise officials instead of amateur collectors. He
also discussed the assessed taxes with great force and acuteness, and
proposed to convert most of them into licence duties, following the
successful precedent of the dog tax, and that they should be payable for
the future at the beginning of each year, instead of by two instalments in
April and October. Assuming that the House adopted his scheme, Mr. Lowe
calculated that before the end of the financial year (March 31st, 1870)
there would have been paid into the Exchequer, £600,000 of the Excise
licences, £950,000 of the land tax and assessed taxes, and £1,800,000 of
the income tax--in all £3,350,000--which, with the £32,000 surplus of
revenue over expenditure, would put the Government in possession of a
surplus of £3,382,000. How was this surplus (which Mr. Lowe might well
describe as a "windfall") to be disposed of? As the chief inconvenience
attending the transition from the half-yearly to the annual method of
payment would fall on the income tax payers, Mr. Lowe thought that they
had the first claim to relief from the surplus; he therefore proposed to
take off a penny from the income tax. Next he proposed to abolish the
import duty of one shilling on every quarter of corn, left by Sir Robert
Peel when he repealed the Corn Laws in 1846. This duty, though it produced
£900,000 a year, combined in Mr. Lowe's opinion all the bad qualities
which a tax could possibly have, and prevented England from becoming a
great entrepôt of corn. The fire insurance duties were also to be given
up, though this reduction would not take effect till after Midsummer. The
total remission of taxes thus foreshadowed would amount to £2,940,000,
leaving, when deducted from the estimated surplus, a balance of £442,000.
Mr. Lowe admitted that his plan was attended by certain drawbacks. Under
its operation the Treasury would be in a state of plethora at one part
of the year and starved at another; and there might be taxpayers to whom
the concentration and unification of the State's demands on their purses
might be inconvenient. But he had various expedients to meet the first
objection, the chief among which was that during the non-productive months
of the year Government should be empowered to borrow at their discretion
from the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt; while with
regard to the second objection, the taxpayer, like the eel in the adage,
would find the change nothing when he had become used to it. Mr. Lowe's
Budget was of course sharply criticised, and the delusive character of a
surplus obtained by a financial trick was loudly insisted upon; but the
real merits of the scheme, which were obviously great, carried it through.

The statement made by Mr. Lowe, _en passant_, with regard to the
aggregate expenditure on the Abyssinian expedition naturally attracted
much attention. The Conservative Government had estimated that the
total cost would not exceed £5,000,000; how then, when no unforeseen
circumstance had occurred, none but the most shadowy opposition been
encountered, and no reinforcements been needed, could the expenses have
shot up to the enormous figure of £9,000,000? It appeared that by far
the greater portion of the money--more than £7,000,000--had been spent
by the Bombay Government. The duty of explanation accordingly fell on
Sir Stafford Northcote, Secretary for India in the late Government. Sir
Stafford Northcote stated that when the first estimate was framed (that
for £3,000,000, laid before the House by Mr. Disraeli, in November, 1867),
the expedition had not left India; and that the second estimate (for
£2,000,000, additional) was necessarily vague and loose, and exceeded, in
fact, the information furnished by the departments. He pointed out, among
the reasons for the insufficiency of the estimate, our entire ignorance
of the country into which the expedition was despatched, its actual
barrenness of supplies, and the necessity of taking precautions against
events that never occurred. Much of the excess, he added, had arisen since
the period up to which the estimate extended, and in conveying the troops
from Abyssinia to India after the expedition was over. These explanations
failed to remove the suspicion that there had been culpable laxity on the
part of the Bombay Government. The suddenness of the last rise in the
estimate was quite mysterious. Mr. Ward Hunt stated, in the discussion
that took place in March, 1869, when the supplementary vote of £3,600,000
was demanded, that so recently as the 8th of December, 1868, the Indian
Government had telegraphed that they had only spent £5,000,000.

Although the time of Parliament was too much taken up with discussions
arising out of the Irish Church Act to allow of any comprehensive
educational measure being brought forward in this Session, yet an
important Act was passed, by which a machinery fitted to grapple with the
long-standing abuses connected with the endowed schools of the country
was successfully established. The condition of these schools had lately
been inquired into by a Royal Commission, the report of which had been
laid before the House. Upon the basis of this report Government were
now prepared to legislate, and the duty of preparing a Bill fell into
the hands of Mr. W. E. Forster, the Vice-President of the Council.
The recommendations of the commissioners had been of a very sweeping
character; besides advising that full power of inquiring into the
efficiency of every endowed school, and of putting an end to waste and
abuse of trust funds, should be taken by Government, they had recommended
the formation of a central examining council, and of provincial boards
throughout the country under the control of the central authority. But
Government did not see their way to the appointment of provincial boards
for the present; and the Select Committee to which the Bill was referred,
after the second reading, struck out all the clauses that proposed to
constitute an examining council. What remained, however, of the Bill was
sufficient to make a useful working measure of reform.

[Illustration: THE QUADRANGLE, SOMERSET HOUSE.]

In moving the second reading of the Bill, Mr. Forster took occasion to
explain in general terms the principal conclusions at which the Commission
of Inquiry into Secondary Education, of which he had been himself a
member, had arrived. In estimating the provision already existing in the
country for the education of the "middle classes," the commissioners found
that the schools that came under their observation naturally fell into
three groups--denominated by them respectively first grade, second grade
and third grade schools, according to the age at which the scholars whom
they instructed usually left them. In the first grade schools the average
age of leaving was between eighteen and nineteen; in the second grade
schools, between sixteen and seventeen; while in those of the third grade,
constituting the immense majority in point of numbers, the age of leaving
was about fourteen years. As a rule, the parents of boys in the first
grade schools were persons of wealth, to whom money was little, if at
all, an object in the education of their children The schools themselves
were pretty much on a par with the Public Schools, whose condition had
been inquired into by a separate commission; and, as in the case of
these, a considerable proportion of the scholars left school for the
universities. Schools of the second grade were attended chiefly by the
sons of professional persons, and of those engaged in commercial pursuits,
whose sons were destined to follow similar vocations. In the third grade
schools the scholars were found to be for the most part the sons of small
farmers, small tradesmen and shop-keepers, and superior artisans. In the
schools of all three grades a thorough education was found to be hardly
ever imparted, except in Latin and Greek; and efficiency even in these
branches was chiefly confined to schools of the first grade. Mr. Forster
quoted the evidence of many competent witnesses who had been examined
by the commission, to the effect that secondary education in England,
considered as a preparation for any of the learned professions or for an
industrial career, laboured under grievous deficiencies; yet there was
probably no country in Europe in which the bounty of individuals in past
ages had provided such liberal endowments for secondary education as was
the case in England. Taking these two facts together,--the low standard
of actual education and the liberal provision made for it in endowed
schools--Mr. Forster drew the obvious conclusion that these schools,
under their existing management, failed both to fulfil the intentions
of their founders, and to satisfy the needs of society. In support of
this conclusion, he adduced some curious evidence from the report of the
commission. The head-master of a certain endowed school told an assistant
commissioner that "it was not worth his while to push the school, as
with the endowment (about £200 a year) and some other small source of
income, he had enough to live on comfortably without troubling to do so."
In the case of another school, with an endowment of £651 per annum, the
master put his nephew and son into the posts of second and third masters.
The assistant commissioner "found the discipline most inefficient and
the instruction slovenly, unmethodical, and unintelligent; there was
no one subject in which the boys seemed to take an interest, or which
had been taught with average care or success." At another school, where
the endowment was £613 a year, there were thirteen pupils. At another,
enjoying an income of £792 from the charity, the head-master taught three
boarders and no others and the under master attended when he chose. In a
school where the endowment was £300 a year and a house, one boy was found
under instruction, while there was a private school with eighty boarders
close by. To facts of this kind--lamentable as they were--Mr. Forster
did not desire to attach undue weight; he did not conceal from the House
that among the endowed schools of every grade many excellent and useful
institutions might be found; but he maintained that a case had been made
out for interference on the part of the State, in order that where,
through negligence or worse, the charitable intentions of a founder were
defeated, the endowments might be restored to the beneficial use from
which they had been diverted. Since the plan of provincial boards had
been given up, the organisation which the Bill proposed to create was
exceedingly simple. A small commission, consisting of only three persons,
would be appointed; this commission would send round inspectors to inquire
into the local circumstances of the endowed institutions, and on receiving
their report, would, if change were necessary, draw up schemes for the
future government and conduct of the schools. The schemes, when prepared,
were to be communicated to the trustees of the different endowments, that
they might suggest alterations or modifications; they were then to be
submitted to the Education Department, and that department would, after
approval, lay them before Parliament. After having lain for a certain time
on the table of each House, and not been objected to, a scheme would _ipso
facto_ come into operation.

In the course of the fuller explanations which were required of Mr.
Forster by various members during the debate, he stated that the Bill
dealt with nearly three thousand schools, viz. 782 grammar schools and
2,175 foundations, mostly elementary, with a gross income of £592,000,
and a net income for education of £340,000, a sum which, well applied,
might effect much; but the money was to a great extent wasted. Requested
to name the commissioners to whom he proposed to entrust the preparation
of the schemes, Mr. Forster gave the names of Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Arthur
Hobhouse, and Canon Robinson. After being passed in the Commons, the
Bill was subjected to a searching examination in the House of Lords.
Lord Salisbury proposed to exempt from the jurisdiction of the new
commissioners all endowed schools founded within the last hundred years,
the period named in the Bill being fifty years. But the amendment was lost
on a division, and this valuable measure soon afterwards became law.

A Bill for the abolition of religious tests in the universities and
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge was brought in in February by the
Solicitor-General, Sir John Coleridge. With regard to the universities,
the Bill rendered unlawful not only the requirement of any subscription
or other test from the candidate for any university degree, but also the
exaction of any declaration in the nature of a religious test from any
professor, teacher, lecturer, or university officer of any kind, as a
condition of his taking or holding office. With regard to the colleges,
the Bill only removed all restrictions upon their freedom of action
that had been imposed on them from time to time by the authority of
Parliament itself. "It leaves the colleges," said the Solicitor-General,
"controlled by their statutes; it leaves them controlled by the feelings
of their members; it leaves them controlled by all the associations which
gather round them, and which are, after all, upon most men's minds as
effective as any Parliamentary action can be; and it relieves them only
from those restrictions which have been imposed from time to time by Acts
of Parliament." He mentioned the case of a Jew who had come out Senior
Wrangler at Cambridge that very year, but was deprived by his religion of
that natural culmination and reward of great academical distinction which
a fellowship usually conferred. Other cases, he added, had come under his
knowledge of Oxford men who had renounced fellowships and other offices of
emolument sooner than subscribe their belief unreservedly to every part of
the Thirty-nine Articles. In cases such as these, should a college desire
to open its doors more widely, it would no longer, should his Bill become
law, be impeded in doing so by the operation of any law of the land. Its
own statutes might still hamper its action in the direction of liberty,
but a method of altering these, should the great majority of the governing
body desire it, had already been provided by the University Reform Act of
1854. It was true that there were certain colleges the statutes of which
could not be altered without the consent of their respective visitors,
and that these visitors were sometimes bishops, who were professionally
unlikely to be willing to extend the benefit of the foundation to
Nonconformists. This defect the present Bill did not deal with, but the
Solicitor-General pretty clearly intimated that it would be made the
subject of future legislation.

Mr. Mowbray, the Conservative member for the University of Oxford (who
had lately been elected to the seat held for many years by Sir William
Heathcote), spoke in opposition to the Bill; but the general feeling
of the House was strongly in its favour. It even received the powerful
support of Sir Roundell Palmer, who announced that, since the question
was last discussed in the House, reflection had induced him considerably
to modify the point of view from which he had formerly regarded it. He
was now opposed to tests, partly because they were ineffective for the
purpose intended; partly because, even if effective, they were impolitic.
They were ineffective to keep out the unprincipled atheist or sceptic, who
was ready to swallow with a philosophic smile the toughest theological
formula that might be presented to him. Nor were they of the slightest use
in the case of a man who was orthodox at the time of taking the test,
but had afterwards become a free-thinker, since neither law nor custom
permitted that a man who had once become a member of Convocation should
be liable to any further questioning. But even if they were supposed to
operate effectually to the exclusion of all but orthodox Churchmen, Sir
Roundell Palmer was now disposed to doubt the policy of retaining them. It
was vain, he thought, to endeavour to keep the universities up to a level
of churchmanship essentially higher than that which prevailed in society
at large. In proportion as members of the Nonconformist body forced their
way to the front in all departments of political and social life, in that,
or nearly in that, proportion it was desirable that they should be found
also among the governing and representative men of the universities. If
Churchmen had no cause to dread the competition of Nonconformists on the
former fields, neither need they dread it on the latter. At the same
time, in order to guard the principle of religious education, and give
to it more prominent expression in the language of the Bill itself, Sir
Roundell Palmer proposed a slight alteration in the preamble, and the
introduction of two new clauses. By the first, the established system
of religious worship, education, and discipline within the colleges was
expressly reserved intact. By the second, it was provided that every
professor, tutor, or lecturer in an English university should, after his
appointment, and before entering on the duties of his office, make and
subscribe a declaration before the Vice-Chancellor, or before the head of
his college, that he would "never endeavour, directly or indirectly, to
teach or inculcate any opinion, opposed to the divine authority of the
Holy Scriptures, or to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England
as by law established." A test similar to this, but omitting of course
all reference to the Church of England, was substituted in 1853 in lieu
of the old and rigid Calvinistic test for lay professors in the Scottish
universities. After an admirable speech from Dr. Lyon Playfair, in support
of the Bill, it was considered in committee. Sir Roundell Palmer carried
the first of his two clauses without difficulty, but abandoned the second,
mainly, it would seem, in consequence of an appeal from Dr. Lyon Playfair,
whose long and intimate acquaintance with the Scottish universities
enabled him to speak with authority. The corresponding declaration
required of lay professors in Scotland was, he admitted, not felt nor
objected to, because it was considered to be, on the whole, "innocent
and irrelevant;" but it had degenerated into a mere formality, and could
not be supposed to exercise the slightest preservative effect on the
religious belief of either professors or students. "It is not that test,"
added the honourable gentleman, "which preserves religion in our Scottish
universities, but the inherent truths of religion itself." The Bill then
passed through committee, and was read a third time.

When, however, the University Tests Bill reached the Lords, it was
treated with little ceremony. It was past the middle of July, and the
Peers were still smarting under the sense of the disrespectful treatment
which their amendments to the Irish Church Bill had met with in the other
House, and indignant at the menacing comments of the press. Farther in
the road of Liberalism they were resolved not to be pushed this Session.
Lord Carnarvon, when the Bill came on for the second reading, moved the
previous question, and, after a short and unimportant debate, his motion
was carried on a division by a majority of 91 to 54.

The attention of Parliament was taken up on many nights during this
Session by a singular incident, half painful, half ludicrous, which
occurred in the sister island. Mr. Daniel O'Sullivan had been elected by
the corporation mayor of Cork for the year 1869. Under the Municipal Act
for Ireland the Mayor is a justice of peace for the city of Cork during
his year of office, and cannot be removed either by the Lord-Lieutenant
or by Government. Soon after the beginning of the year Mr. O'Sullivan
commenced to sit as a magistrate in the police court of Cork. From
almost the first day that he took his seat on the bench down to the
beginning of May his conduct was systematically devoted to lowering the
administration of the law and bringing it into contempt, and in using
insulting and abusive language towards his brother magistrates. But all
this was a trifle compared with what followed. On the 27th of April the
mayor presided at a banquet given in Cork in honour of two discharged
Fenian prisoners, called Colonel Warren and Costello. In proposing the
toast of "Our Exiled Countrymen," the mayor said that "he believed a
spirit of concession had been aroused on the part of the dominant race.
He did not say whether it was owing to Fenianism or to the barrel placed
outside the prison at Clerkenwell; but he believed he paid a solemn act
of justice to his own countrymen--as solemn an act of justice as if he
were a high priest--when he said those noble men, Allen, Barrett, Larkin,
and O'Brien, who sacrificed their lives for their country, ought to be
remembered and respected as good Catholics and good patriots. There was
at this moment in the country a young prince of the Irish nation. When
that noble Irishman, O'Farrel, fired at the Prince in Australia, he
was imbued with as noble and patriotic feelings as Larkin, Allen, and
O'Brien were." (Here the speaker was interrupted by great cheering, and
cries of "He was.") This foolish and criminal rant was received with
loud demonstrations of applause by Mr. O'Sullivan's audience. Government
were soon informed of what had happened, and the conduct of the mayor
formed the subject of more than one interpellation in Parliament. The
hands of Government were presently strengthened by receiving a memorial
addressed to the Irish Executive by more than thirty magistrates of
the city of Cork, presided over by the Lord-Lieutenant of the county,
Lord Fermoy, in which complaint was made of the seditious language and
disorderly behaviour of the mayor, as tending to spread disaffection and
throw contempt on the administration of justice. There was not much time
to be lost, for the Mayor of Cork is entitled by his office to sit as
first commissioner in any commission to be executed within the county
of Cork; so that, unless promptly deposed or disenabled, Mr. O'Sullivan
would be associated with her Majesty's judges in the Commission of Assize
during the ensuing summer. There was no resource but legislation; a
general law might be passed, placing the mayors of all Irish corporations
under the control of the Crown; or else a short Act, disqualifying
Mr. O'Sullivan by name, but affecting the rights of no other person.
Government preferred the latter course, and the O'Sullivan Disability
Bill was prepared accordingly, and leave to introduce it was moved for by
the Irish Attorney-General (Mr. Sullivan) on the 5th of May. A long and
animated discussion followed; but in the end leave was given to bring in
the Bill, a copy of which, and of the order for the second reading, was
ordered to be forthwith served on Mr. O'Sullivan. But on the day appointed
for the second reading, when counsel in support of the Bill were about
to be heard, and witnesses examined, Mr. Maguire, one of the members for
Cork, rose and produced a letter, which he read, from Mr. O'Sullivan,
placing his resignation of the mayoralty in the hands of Mr. Maguire and
the O'Donoghue. In fairness to the mayor, one or two sentences from this
letter ought to be quoted. He declared, in the most solemn and emphatic
manner, that the language attributed to him did not in any way express
or represent his real meaning; and, further, he solemnly declared that
he would himself be the first person to rush to the protection of human
life if he knew it to be in danger. "I may also state that I look to the
regeneration of my country through constitutional and remedial measures
such as that [the Irish Church Act] now passing through the House of
Commons, and my belief that the battle of my country is to be fought
on the floor of that House." Mr. O'Sullivan must surely have held with
the cynic philosopher, that "language was given to man to conceal his
thoughts;" for if these were indeed his sentiments, no language could have
been devised better calculated to disguise them than that which he used at
the Fenian banquet. After hearing the letter, Mr. Gladstone rose and said
that, assuming Mr. O'Sullivan's resignation to be, though not technically,
yet really and substantially complete, Government would proceed no further
with the Disability Bill.

[Illustration: SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE (AFTERWARDS EARL OF IDDESLEIGH).]

A fresh attempt was made this year, and was very nearly successful, to
obtain legislative sanction for the creation of life peerages by the
Crown. The subject had slept since the celebrated resolution of the
House of Lords in the case of Lord Wensleydale, to the effect that he,
having been created a peer for the term of his natural life only, was
not entitled to sit and vote in that House. Lord Wensleydale's patent of
creation was then altered into the usual form, and everything remained
as before. Now the subject was revived by Lord Russell, and the Bill
which he introduced was at first received with much favour on both sides
of the House. The Crown was to be authorised to create peers for life,
subject to certain restrictions, the chief of which were, that not more
than twenty-eight such peers should sit in the House at the same time, and
that not more than four should ever be created in the same year. The Bill
made slow but sure progress; it was read a second time; its mover showed
an open and conciliatory spirit in reference to various amendments that
were proposed, and accepted one, limiting the creation of life peers to
two in one year; and even the ordeal of committee was safely passed. The
last stage was at hand; but when (July 8th) Earl Russell moved that the
Bill be read a third time, Lord Malmesbury moved, as an amendment, to add
the words "that day three months." The noble lord ably paraded the reasons
which made it, in his opinion, unnecessary and undesirable to admit life
peers to the privileges of the Upper House. It was unnecessary, because
that House did not, as was asserted, require to be "popularised," since it
possessed, besides great landowners, numerous representatives of the great
commercial, manufacturing, mining, and banking interests of the country,
and also many distinguished officers of the army and navy, besides fifty
peers, at the very least, who had formerly sat in the House of Commons,
so that there could be no pretence that on any subject on which they
were called upon to deliberate with a view to legislation, numbers of
persons would not be found in that House possessed of every qualification
for offering an opinion that experience, ability, and personal interest
could supply. It was undesirable, because those who held these transitory
dignities would not be really the "peers" of the older members of the
House,--because they would be destitute of that which was the very essence
of nobility, the power to transmit their rank and privileges to their
descendants,--and because, since those whom the House would gladly see
added to their numbers would decline to accept so equivocal a position,
the life peers whom the influence of a Ministry might cause to be created
would probably be such persons as the House would not deem a desirable
accession, and would therefore, instead of adding to, impair the lustre of
that assembly, and weaken its influence in the country. This unexpected
attack was feebly met by Earls Russell and Granville, and on a division
Lord Malmesbury's motion was carried by a majority of thirty (Contents,
76; Non-contents, 106), and the Bill was consequently lost.

This year was one of considerable suffering to large masses of the
population, as the increase of pauperism too plainly showed. Trade was
in a state of stagnation, but partially revived towards the close of
the year, and gave indications of a more prosperous future. Although
Fenianism had been so far suppressed in Ireland that Government ventured
to allow the Act for the suspension of Habeas Corpus to expire, the temper
of disaffection was as widely spread as ever, and now took the form of
an agitation to obtain the release of the Fenian prisoners. The same
revolutionary spirit, though under strangely different forms, which caused
sympathy to be widely felt in Italy for the conspirators who blew up the
Serristori barracks, filled thousands of Irish hearts with a wild desire
to obtain the liberation of the heroes of Clerkenwell. Agrarian discontent
also was rife, and several agrarian murders were committed in the latter
part of the year. Some of the Fenian convicts who were less deeply
implicated than the rest were released by Government; but so far was this
lenity from having any good effect, that the first use which the liberated
prisoners made of their freedom was to proclaim their unabated hostility
to the British Government, and, so far as in them lay, before taking
their departure for America, to stimulate the minds of their countrymen
whom they left behind with exhortations to undying animosity. There was
an election for the county Tipperary in the autumn, with the following
result:--O'Donovan Rossa, a Fenian, who was at the time in prison, was
returned at the head of the poll, beating Mr. Heron, a distinguished
Queen's Counsel and a Roman Catholic, by 103 votes. As a matter of course,
the election was declared null and void, and the returning officer
required to make a fresh return.

In October, 1869, a noble and commanding figure, which had occupied for
many years a prominent place in the eyes and thoughts of Englishmen,
disappeared from the scene, namely Edward Geoffrey Stanley, fourteenth
Earl of Derby. The author of the sketch of his life given in the _Times_
thus eloquently sums up the enumeration of his eminent qualities: "We have
spoken of Lord Derby chiefly as a statesman. But, after all, it was the
man--ever brilliant and impulsive--that most won the admiration of his
countrymen. He was a splendid specimen of an Englishman; and whether he
was engaged in furious debate with demagogues, or in lowly conversation on
religion with little children, or in parley with jockeys while training
Toxophilite, or rendering 'Homer' into English verse, or in stately Latin
discourse as the Chancellor of his University, or in joyous talk in a
drawing-room among ladies, whom he delighted to chaff, or in caring for
the needs of Lancashire operatives--there were a force and a fire about
him that acted like a spell. Of all his public acts none did him more
honour, and none made a deeper impression on the minds of his countrymen,
than his conduct on the occasion of the cotton famine in Lancashire. No
man in the kingdom sympathised more truly than he with the distress of the
poor Lancashire spinners, and perhaps no man did so much as he for their
relief. It was not simply that he gave them a princely donation; he worked
hard for them in the committee which was established in their aid: he was
indeed the life and soul of the committee; and for months at that bitter
time he went about doing good by precept and example, so that myriads in
Lancashire now bless his name. He will long live in memory as one of the
most remarkable, and indeed irresistible, men of our time--a man privately
beloved and publicly admired; who showed extraordinary cleverness in many
ways; was the greatest orator of his day, and the most brilliant, though
not the most successful, Parliamentary leader of the last half-century."

The death of the gallant Irishman, Lord Gough, recalled the thoughts of
many to the tumultuous scenes of the Peninsular War in which the earlier
portion of the veteran's life was passed. To Sir Hugh Gough was entrusted
the command of the land forces in the opium war with China in 1842, when
he took Canton, Amoy, Ning-po, and Chin-Kiang-Foo, forced his way, in
conjunction with Admiral Sir W. Parker, for a hundred and seventy miles
up the Yang-tse-Kiang, and dictated peace to the Emperor of China at
Nankin. After this he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, and held
that office during the Sikh War in 1845, though to the tactics of Sir
Henry Hardinge, the Governor-General, who consented to serve under Gough,
the decisive victories of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, and Sobraon are usually
ascribed. When the Sikhs rebelled at the beginning of 1849, Gough marched
against them, and, though he met with a severe check at Chilianwallah,
inflicted such a crushing blow on the enemy at Goojerat, a few weeks
later, that the war was practically brought to an end. A grateful country
did not fail to recognise and reward his military achievements. He was
created a Viscount, received a pension both from the Crown and from the
East India Company, and was raised, in 1862, to the dignity of a Field
Marshal.

All through the year 1869 France remained at peace with all her
neighbours, and the Emperor and his Ministers vied with each other in
making pacific declarations on every suitable occasion. Yet there was a
different ring about a speech which he made to the soldiers at the camp at
Châlons. He told them always to keep alive in their hearts the remembrance
of the battles fought by their fathers, and those in which they had been
themselves engaged, "since the history of our wars is the history of
the progress of civilisation." According to this doctrine, though all
things now wore a peaceful appearance, yet if France were to go to war
for whatever cause (for the justice of a war was superbly ignored by the
speaker), the interests of civilisation would necessarily be advanced.
But for the present the French Government was content to live quietly.
In Italy, according to an announcement made by the Foreign Minister, the
Marquis de Lavalette, though the Pope's Government was making progress in
the organisation of its forces, the time had not yet arrived for France to
return purely and simply to the September Convention, and to evacuate the
Pontifical territory. With regard to Prussia, the language of the Emperor
and of the French Foreign Office was uniformly friendly.

The Chambers which had been elected in 1863 were dissolved in April
of this year, and new elections were ordered. This was a favourable
opportunity for the Emperor's Government to put in practice the
aspirations towards greater liberty and a more constitutional system with
which the Emperor had declared himself to be animated. If the Government
had left the people alone, and allowed them to return the representatives
of their choice, it might have been believed that there was some sincerity
in those aspirations. But, on the contrary, there never were elections at
which the system of official candidates was more unsparingly resorted to,
nor where the freedom of the electors was more unblushingly interfered
with. The elections were going on all through May. Thiers and Jules Favre
were returned for Paris, and Gambetta, Picard, Jules Simon, and other
Liberals for the department of the Seine; yet so Conservative were the
instincts of the general population, and so assiduously did the Government
by its action labour to encourage and reward these instincts, that the
number of Opposition candidates returned for the Legislative Body did not
much exceed thirty. Napoleon seems to have felt that his government was
too successful. Though the Imperial system was founded on the crime of
the 2nd of December, the Emperor, to do him justice, earnestly desired to
make its origin forgotten by conforming it to the march of ideas and to
the needs of French society. It may be questioned whether, in thus acting,
he was really consulting its stability. Perhaps if he had carried on the
government silently and resolutely, keeping the army in good humour by
bribes and flatteries, and not trying to make compromises either with
Liberalism or with the honest patriotism of men like Guizot, he might
have given to it a longer duration. But he wished to be two things at the
same time--a ruler supported on bayonets and a ruler supported on ideas;
and this was not a feat easy of accomplishment. Besides his strength
was being undermined by a wasting and painful disease, and he wished to
preserve the Imperial crown for his son. In the summer he announced his
intention of introducing the system of the responsibility of the Ministers
to the majority in the Chambers, together with various other privileges
and liberties which the French Legislature had been deprived of since
the _coup d'état;_ he declared that the system of personal government
was distasteful to him and that he desired to abandon it. A _Senatus
Consultum_ embodying these reforms was introduced into and discussed in
the Senate with great parade in the month of September. It was received
with something of coldness and reserve by the majority of the Senators,
for which they were rebuked by Prince Napoleon, in a speech which, while
expressing gratitude to the Emperor for what he had conceded, disgusted
by its broad Radicalism the Emperor's best friends and supporters in both
Chambers. Several of the Ministers--among whom were Rouher, Lavalette, and
Baroche--unable to see their way to a practical reconciliation between
the Empire and the maxims of constitutional government, resigned their
posts on the introduction of the _Senatus Consultum_. It was, however,
carried, and with a good effect, doubtless, so far as foreign opinion was
concerned; in France, the measure and motives of the Emperor's liberalism
were so well understood that the new project awakened little interest.

The Corps Législatif, as soon as it was assembled, proceeded to examine
questions connected with election returns. Illegalities and abuses of
power were reported from all parts of the country. That odious tool of
despotism, the "official candidate," had never been so generally and
so offensively put forward. One election in particular, that for the
Haute Garonne, in which the Government nominee, an obscure marquis, had
defeated the illustrious M. de Remusat, attracted special attention from
the impudent illegalities that had been resorted to in order to secure
the seat. In one parish 141 electors had deposited their voting-papers
in the electoral urn, which the mayor then put away in his bedroom! When
the votes came to be examined, 133 were found to be for the official
candidate, and only five for M. de Remusat. But forty-one of the electors
went before a notary and signed a solemn declaration that they had voted
for M. de Remusat. But in spite of corrupt practices of all kinds, which
a scrutiny brought to light in this and other elections, the servile
majority in the Chamber usually sustained their validity. Nevertheless,
the position of the Minister of the Interior, after all these disclosures,
was not an agreeable one; and M. Forcade de la Roquette, together with his
colleagues, resigned office. The Emperor accepted their resignations and
addressed himself (December 27th) to M. Émile Ollivier, formerly a member
of the Opposition, requesting him to form an Administration and submit for
his approval the names of those who were to fill the different offices.

In Spain the revolution continued its desolating course. Early in the year
a republican insurrection broke out at Malaga, and was not suppressed
without much bloodshed. The constituent Cortes, for the election and
assembling of which careful preparations had been made by Serrano and Prim
in the preceding year, met at Madrid on the 11th of February. In a House
of 350 members, about 240 (of whom nearly two-thirds were Progresistas
and the rest Unionists) were found to be supporters of the Government, 70
or 80 were Republicans, and about 20 Carlists. A committee was appointed
to prepare a new Constitution. Its report was read on the 31st of March;
it proposed the retention of monarchy and of the principle of hereditary
succession, the adoption of the system of two Chambers, and of Ministerial
responsibility; the Catholic religion to continue to be the religion of
Spain, but all other forms of belief and worship to be tolerated, subject
only to the laws of universal morality. The article of the Constitution
establishing a monarchy was finally carried (May 20th) by 214 to 71 votes.
But the difficulty of finding a monarch remained for the time insuperable.
Till an eligible candidate could be found, it was thought desirable, in
order to give greater solidity to the Government, to raise Serrano to the
Regency. The ceremony of his installation was performed with great pomp
and circumstance on the 13th of June. Divergences of opinion manifested
themselves among the prime movers of the September revolution. Prim, the
ablest and most daring among them, publicly declared that the late dynasty
should never reascend the throne of Spain, and that he would never,
directly or indirectly, aid in any endeavours in favour of the Prince of
the Asturias. Serrano was more cautious; he was generally supposed to be a
secret adherent of the said Prince. Topete was an avowed supporter of the
Duke of Montpensier. The crown was first offered to the King of Portugal,
but he declined to accept it. Prim then conceived the strange notion of
offering it to the Duke of Genoa, a boy of fifteen, then being educated
at Harrow. With his usual energy Prim overcame all opposition among his
colleagues to this extraordinary scheme, except so far as Topete was
concerned. The sturdy Admiral thought it absurd and quitted the Ministry
rather than have a hand in carrying it out. But the opposition of the King
of Italy and of the young Duke's mother caused this plan to fall to the
ground. In the autumn republican risings took place in many of the large
towns. The insurgents at Valencia proclaimed the democratic and federal
Republic in a high-flown and flowery manifesto, the chief parts of which
consisted in an infatuated and ridiculous eulogy on their own brilliant
virtues. But the troops remained faithful to the Government; Valencia was
reduced after a three hours' bombardment, and in the other cities revolt
was ultimately put down. A law was passed in October, similar in its
object to a Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in England, for the suspension of
individual guarantees.

[Illustration: STREET FIGHTING IN MALAGA. (_See p._ 516.)]

General Grant was inaugurated President of the United States on the 4th of
March, 1869. The convention for the settlement of the _Alabama_ and other
claims, which had been agreed to by Lord Stanley and Mr. Reverdy Johnson,
was rejected by the Senate in the course of the year, and an important
diplomatic correspondence on the subject passed between Mr. Fish, the
American Secretary of State, and Lord Clarendon.




CHAPTER XXXII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Law-making in 1870--The Queen's Speech--The Irish Land
    Problem--Diversities of Opinions--The Agrarian Agitation--Mr.
    Gladstone's Land Bill introduced--Its Five Parts--Grievances of
    the Irish Tenant--Free Contract--The Ulster Custom--Compensation
    for Eviction--The Landlord's Safeguards--The Irish Labourer--Mr.
    Gladstone's Peroration--Direct and Indirect Opposition--The
    Second Reading carried--Agrarian Outrages--Mr. Fortescue's
    Coercion Bill--Mr. Disraeli's Amendment to the Land Bill--A
    Clever Speech--Mr. Lowe's Reply--Progress of the Debate--The Bill
    through the Commons--Tactics of the Lords--Amendments proposed and
    withdrawn--Avoidance of a Collision between the Houses--The Bill
    becomes Law.


By the side of the vast Continental events that made the year 1870 one
of the memorable years of the world, domestic politics looked small
and feeble. And yet they were by no means small; few years, in fact,
had so much to show of work actually done and finished by the cumbrous
Parliamentary machine. It was a well-known maxim of English politics,
that a Ministry could never depend upon carrying more than one measure
of first-rate importance in a single Session. Whatever nominal majority
might sit behind a Minister, he knew that in the actual state of society
interests were so complicated, prejudices so many-sided, that it was hard
enough to lead the majority into the lobby once in the year on a great
question, and he seldom attempted to do more. Yet the year 1870 presented
the strange phenomenon of a Session marked by the carrying of two great
measures, each of them met by vigorous opposition, each of them full of
interference with vested interests--the Irish Land Act and the Education
Act. Mr. Bright expressed the general sense of the difficulty of much
legislation when he said at Birmingham, in January, "You cannot easily
drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar." But Mr. Forster happily
took up his metaphor a short time afterwards: "Let the Irish Land omnibus
pass through first, and Lord de Grey and I will drive our Education
omnibus in afterwards."

Parliament met on the 8th of February, and the great measure of the
Session--the Irish Land Bill--was soon afterwards brought forward. Of
the three branches which, according to Mr. Gladstone's figure, had grown
upon the tree of Protestant ascendency in Ireland, one--the Church--had
fallen; there remained the Land and Education. The last, which proved in
the end the most difficult question, was to be left to a future Session;
but with regard to the Land the Queen's Speech was explicit. "It will be
proposed to you," it said, "to amend the laws respecting the occupation
and acquisition of land in Ireland, in a manner adapted to the peculiar
circumstances of that country, and calculated, as her Majesty believes,
to bring about improved relations between the several classes concerned
in Irish agriculture, which collectively constitute the great bulk of the
people. These provisions, when matured by your impartiality and wisdom,
as her Majesty trusts, will tend to inspire, among persons with whom such
sentiments may still be wanting, that steady confidence in the law, and
that desire to render assistance in its effective administration, which
mark her subjects in general; and thus will aid in consolidating the
fabric of the Empire."

This utterance, clothed in the English peculiar to Speeches from the
Throne, showed definitely that Government were committed to a measure
of a comprehensive kind. All through the previous autumn and winter, in
fact, public opinion had been ripening for such a measure. The newspapers
began to be full of articles on the subject; statistics--official,
semi-official, and unofficial--were being collected and published in
all directions. The _Times_ sent a special commissioner to Ireland,
and published his letters in a place of honour. Pamphleteers abounded;
every one, from crotchety landlords or crotchety tenant-right-men or
peasant-proprietor-men, up to such authorities as Mr. (afterwards Sir)
George Campbell, a well-known Indian administrator, wrote down their
views. The class in possession were uneasy; and yet, as the event
proved, there was very little for them to be uneasy about--or rather,
the limitations that were finally imposed on them were not very severe.
In fact, the history of the treatment of the Irish Land Question is
throughout extremely singular. It is perfectly true, as Lord Cairns
said, that "at all times and in all countries there is no kind of
agitation which ever has been so serious or so difficult to deal with
as an agitation on the subject of land." It is also true in a measure,
to continue his words, that "for fourteen months this subject had been
exciting the minds of the people." Agrarian crime was rife in Ireland--the
Fenian spirit was for the moment all the more savage for the attempt at
conciliation made in the passing of the Church Disestablishment Act.
Fifty-nine grave cases--cases of _delicta majora_--were recorded in 1869;
and of these, eighteen were murders, most of them agrarian. On the other
hand, as we have said, the public press, both in England and in Ireland,
was teeming with discussion of land problems, yet in spite of all this
evidence of excitement, it is undoubtedly true that the Land Bill was
passed through both Houses with far less difficulty than had been the
case with the Church Bill; and that the debates upon it, the criticisms
passed on it, and the reception it met with, were, on the whole, quiet,
satisfactory, and dignified. The "agitation" of which Lord Cairns spoke
was, except for the numerous single crimes that accompanied rather than
belonged to it, singularly temperate. The importance of the occasion,
the strong sense in almost every mind of a dangerous existing injustice,
seemed to compel the advocates of both sides into a course of mutual
forbearance. Fenianism had done at least that good: it had shown that
Irish discontent was a reality and that its first element was an agrarian
element.

The debate on the Address showed clearly what the expectations of both
parties in Parliament were: Mr. Disraeli's speech consisted of indications
of what, according to him, the Government Bill ought not to be; and Mr.
Gladstone's answer was an appeal for a patient hearing. On the 15th of
February Mr. Gladstone brought forward his Land Bill--the anti-Fenian
character of which was shown by a motion proposed a short time before
by him, to the effect that O'Donovan Rossa, the Fenian convict, who had
been elected member for Tipperary, "had become, and continued incapable
of being elected or returned as a member of the House," and 293 members
had voted for this motion against 16 on the other side. The formal motion
of the Prime Minister was "to obtain leave to bring in a Bill to amend
the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland," and
the Bill which he brought forward was divided into five parts. The first
part (secs. 1--31) deals with the Law of Compensation to Tenants, giving
a legal status to the "customs" known as the Ulster tenant-right custom
and others that prevail in different parts of Ireland, and establishing
the principle of compensation to the tenant for improvements and for
disturbance by the act of the landlord. The second part deals with the
Sale of Lands to Tenants; the third, with Advances by, and Powers of, the
Board of Works; the fourth, with Legal Proceedings and the Court which
was to try cases; the fifth, with miscellaneous questions relating to new
tenancies. In his speech--as lucid and interesting as his great expository
speeches always were--Mr. Gladstone began by a review of the history of
the Parliamentary treatment of the question since the first Reform Act.
That history was to be summed up in one word--procrastination. "What I
hope is," he said, "that having witnessed the disaster and difficulty
which have arisen from this long procrastination, we shall resolve in mind
and heart by a manful effort to close and seal up for ever, if it may be,
this great question which so intimately concerns the welfare and happiness
of the people of Ireland." Government had certainly made, he declared,
and were making, this "manful effort;" they had cleared their mind of
all the anti-Celtic prepossessions so common in England; they had made
themselves masters of all the facts which the recent voluminous literature
of the question had brought to light. Then he passed to the "present
sensitiveness" of Ireland, which he traced to recent interruptions of
Irish prosperity, to evictions, and to the conversion of much land from
tillage to pasture. But the flaws of existing legislation had much to
do with it also; notably the Act which in some respects had done much
good, the Encumbered Estates Act. This Act had sprung from a desire to
introduce capital into Ireland, and it created great facilities in the
sale of land owned by impoverished proprietors. But it contained "one
fatal oversight." Lord Devon's Commission in 1845, endorsed by Sir Robert
Peel's Government, had recognised the right of the tenant to be invested
with a title to improvements--that is, to claim a full allowance for the
value of improvements effected by him in the land he occupied. This claim,
Mr. Gladstone said, was doubtless generally admitted by the landlords;
but when the properties came, as they so often did, into the Encumbered
Estates Court, the tenant found himself legally robbed of his equitable
claim. The Court sold the lands just as they were, and took no notice of
the distinction between the soil itself and the improvements made by the
tenant. "So," he went on to say, "the improvements were sold away from
the tenant to persons who paid a price for them and the price was paid to
the outgoing landlord, who undoubtedly ought not to have been entitled
to claim the property in them, and would not have been so entitled if the
legislation recommended in 1845 had been adopted." In this and similar
ways the Prime Minister showed that Acts which had been passed at various
times with the most benevolent intentions towards Ireland, had defeated
themselves, and helped ruin, instead of strengthening, the peace and
prosperity of the country. The same thing, he added, might be said about
emigration--a process natural and divinely beneficial when voluntary and
free; but when compulsory, as was practically the case with Ireland,
hardly to be distinguished from banishment.

These being some among the practical grievances of the Irish people with
regard to their land, it was proposed to do away with them, or at least
to diminish their force, by law. Free contract, said Mr. Gladstone, is
undoubtedly the best arrangement, ideally speaking, in the relations
between landlord and tenant, as in the other relations of life; but free
contract is often practically impossible, and in some cases is with
general approval overridden by the law. "You will not allow the man who
has a factory to contract with the persons he employs on terms which suit
their inclinations, but which you have forbidden.... These are cases which
justify interference; but much stronger is the case for Ireland, because
in substance these contracts, though nominally free, have not been really
free under the peculiar conditions of life which that country offers."
The Irishman is practically dependent on the soil--he has no choice of
careers as he has in a mining and manufacturing country. "Strict freedom
of contract, then, having been proved to be a great evil, what is the
precise nature of that evil? The Devon Commission has pointed it out. It
is that insecurity of tenure which not only abridges the comforts of the
cultivator of the soil, but which limits and paralyses his industry, and
at the same time vitiates his relations in a number of cases with the
landlord, and in a still greater number with the law under which and the
society in which he lives." To remedy this insecurity, a number of plans
were extant; and already some were crying out for stability, some for
perpetuity, some for fixity of tenure--phrases which all meant the same
thing, the conversion of occupiers into owners. These plans Mr. Gladstone
rejected, and went on to ask if no more moderate arrangement had been
discovered, or could be found in the actual facts of Ireland. Certainly
such arrangement could be found, notably in the "Custom of Ulster," and
in the customs more or less analogous to it prevailing in other parts
of Ireland; and to lands held under these customs Mr. Gladstone first
looked. "It is not necessary at present," he said, "to investigate the
history of the Ulster custom; whether it represents the ancient Irish
ideas derived from the period of tribal possession; whether it represents
the covenants which were inserted by James I. in the Charters granted
to the settlers in the province; whether it has grown out of the happy
political relations subsisting, for the most part, between the landlords
and the occupiers, which have induced landlords to view favourably the
growth of such a usage; or whether, lastly, it represents the payment of
a kind of insurance for the safety of the incoming tenant when he obtains
that possession of land which is so prized and valued in that country."
Whatever were the origin of the custom, Government was content to take the
Ulster custom as matter of fact, to convert it into a law, and to allow
it to be examined into as a simple question of fact, in cases where a
dispute might arise, by the Courts which would be established under this
Bill. As such the Ulster custom would be regarded, where it existed, as
including two elements--compensation for improvements, and the price of
goodwill. The customs which prevailed in other parts of Ireland, being all
of them much more partial, vague, and uncertain, were only to be made law
under certain conditions. First, under such customs, a tenant was only
to be allowed to claim payment of money on leaving his holding if he was
disturbed in his tenancy by the act of his landlord. Secondly, he was not
to be allowed to claim if evicted for non-payment of rent. Thirdly, he was
not to be allowed to claim if he sublet his land (except for cottages)
without his landlord's consent. Fourthly, not only arrears of rent, but
damages done to the farm, might be pleaded by the landlord as a set-off.
Fifthly, a landlord might bar the pleading of any such custom if he gave
the tenant a lease, under certain conditions, of not less than thirty-one
years.

[Illustration: MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE (AFTERWARDS LORD CARLINGFORD).

(_From a Photograph by Fradelle & Young, Regent Street, W._)]

But what was to be done where no such protecting custom could be pleaded?
Outside Ulster--outside the shelter of similar usages--the tenant, if
not protected by any lease, "felt the full force of that tremendous evil
of insecurity of tenure." To meet the case of such persons, Government
proposed a scale of damages for evictions, with power to those tenants
"having a farm not rented, but valued in the public valuation at £100 and
upwards, to contract themselves out of this section of the Act." This
was the most important clause in the Bill, and, as will appear, the most
memorable divisions afterwards took place upon it and in connection with
it in committee and in the Lords. The compensation was of course to be
decided by the Courts established by the Bill; and in applying the scale,
the judge, said Mr. Gladstone, "is required by the Act to have regard
to two things--first, the improvements which have been executed by the
tenant on his farm; and, secondly, the loss which the occupier is about
to sustain by being ejected from his holding." The "improvements" were to
include ordinary improvements, such as draining and fencing, and also the
greater improvements, such as permanent buildings and reclamation of land.
The scale was to be--if the holding was valued in the public valuation at
over £10, the judge might award to the tenant a sum not exceeding seven
years' rent; if the holding was between £10 and £50, he might award a
sum not exceeding five years' rent; if between £50 and £100, a sum not
exceeding three years' rent; if above £100, a sum not exceeding two years'
rent. "In the ordinary case of eviction for non-payment of rent," Mr.
Gladstone added, "or for subdividing the land, the House will understand
that the scale does not apply at all." Moreover, the word "improvement"
was rigidly defined, and was to be taken to mean "something which would
add to the letting value of the land, and suitable to the nature of the
holding as an agricultural holding"--not any fancy improvements which were
not suitable to the purposes of agriculture. The great change which the
Bill effected was, in fact, a change in the legal presumption. Previously,
as Mr. Gladstone said, the law had presumed all improvements to be
the work of the landlord, and had given them to him. The Bill proposed
to reverse this presumption, and to presume that improvements were the
work of the occupier, giving to the landlord the business of showing the
presumption wrong in any special case.

The importance which Government attached to these enactments about
improvements is shown by the elaborate machinery which they devised to
enable the landlord, if he chose, to bar the claim. This was a machinery
of leasehold tenure, which was to allow the landlord to keep the general
claim for goodwill off his estate. "This cannot be done by one lease,"
said Mr. Gladstone, "for if the landlord, at the end of one of these
statutory leases, does not think fit to continue the system of leases,
goodwill will immediately grow up as a plant grows from the ground." A
series of leases would be required to do it, and, by continuous leases, a
landlord might keep his land perfectly free from any claim to goodwill.

"I may now, perhaps, be asked," added Mr. Gladstone, "what we have done
for the Irish labourer. For him we have done what the case will permit.
We have allowed the tenant to subdivide and sublet for cottages and
gardens.... We have offered advances from the Public Funds.... But the
one great boon--and it is a great boon--which it is in the power of
the Legislature to give to the agricultural labourer in Ireland, is to
increase the demand for his labour, and, by imparting a stimulus to that
part of the country, to insure its requiring more strong arms to carry it
on, and thereby to bring more bidders into the market for those arms, and
raise the natural and legitimate price of their labour.... If we can only
convince every man that, from the time this Act passes, he will be able to
prosecute his industry in security and in the manner most advantageous to
himself, we shall confer upon the agricultural labourer the greatest boon
which it is in our power to bestow."

These were the main features of the Bill which Mr. Gladstone committed
to the House in a peroration singularly dignified and self-restrained.
It was not, he said, to be expected that evils of such long standing as
Irish evils were should be cured in a day, and it was impossible that
they should be cured if the Bill were to be "poisoned by the malignant
agency of angry or bitter passions." The passing of the Bill was to be
looked on, not as the triumph of party over party, but "as a common work
of common love and goodwill to the common good of our common country."
"With such objects and in such a spirit," he concluded, "the House will
address itself to the work and sustain the feeble efforts of Government.
And my hope, at least, is high and ardent that we shall live to see our
work prosper in our hand; and that in that Ireland which we desire to
unite to England and Scotland by the only enduring ties--those of free
will and free affection--peace, order, and a settled and cheerful industry
will diffuse their blessings from year to year and from day to day over a
smiling land."

A Bill of this complicated kind could obviously not be discussed on the
first reading, so no debate took place until the second reading on the
7th of March. From the reception given to Mr. Gladstone's statement on
February 15th, it was clear that the Conservatives did not mean to offer a
point-blank opposition to the principle of the Bill. Mr. Gathorne Hardy,
who acted as leader of the Opposition on that night, owned that his party
"had a keen sense of the evils existing among the landlords, tenants, and
labourers of Ireland at present," and hinted that they would reserve their
principal criticisms till the Bill was in committee. The direct hostility
to the Bill came from another quarter--from the extreme Irish party. Mr.
Bryan, who was one of them, and Captain White, member for Tipperary,
proposed and seconded an amendment to the second reading, to the effect
that the Bill should be read again that day six months. But the views
of members who protested against the principle of a landlord being ever
allowed to raise his rents, and who openly asked not only for "fixity of
tenure," but for fixity at nominal payments, could hardly hope to find
favour in a Parliament of landlords. The principal speakers who criticised
the Government plan were men of quite other views. Dr. Ball, Colonel
Wilson-Patten, Mr. Henley, Mr. Ward Hunt, and Mr. Disraeli protested,
not against the insufficient rights bestowed upon the occupier, but
against the injury done to the landlord. Dr. Ball, the member for Dublin
University, who brought to the Conservative side a remarkable contribution
of eloquence and force, protested very strongly against the principle of
interfering with freedom of contract. "You in England," he said, "have
been working for centuries to make landlord and tenant not ascertain their
rights by litigation, but have them established on the solid basis of
contract.... I say you have got the best system; and I believe it to be
the best because I believe that Englishmen, having set their hearts on
the best system, would be content with nothing less. What do I ask for
my country? I ask the right to rise to the same standard as yourselves.
I demand that you will not lay down a rule of this kind and say, 'This
is good enough for Ireland. There is a positive incapacity in the Irish
landlord to deal with his tenants by contract, and in the Irish tenant to
take care of himself by contract. The Scotch and English are able to do
it. Therefore the true system shall be reserved as a _privilegium_ for
them; but the Irish shall not be able to attempt it, because we shall
put a clause in an Act of Parliament to prevent it.'" And Mr. Disraeli,
in a similar strain, protested both against legalising the custom of
Ulster ("because it does not exist," he said) and against interference
with the freedom of contract. And yet, as we said, it was plain that the
Conservative party were too well convinced of the strength of Government
to attempt a wholesale rejection of the Bill. In the division that closed
the debate on the second reading, Mr. Gladstone carried them into the
lobby with him, and the principle of the Bill was affirmed by 442 against
11.

This majority was a clear enough intimation that the principles of the
Government Bill were accepted by the House. Among the eleven "Noes"
were found only three Tories--among them the veteran Mr. Henley, whose
staunch adherence to landlord-right was not to be shaken by any amount of
"political necessity," such as Mr. Disraeli talked of. But Mr. Henley, Sir
W. Bagge, and Mr. Lowther--who for once found themselves in the strange
company of the Extreme Left of Home Rulers and Roman Catholics--could only
offer an ineffectual protest against the "tenants' Bill." The principle,
that of legalising customs of compensation where found, and of making a
statutory scale of compensation for loss of occupancy in the absence of
any custom, had been once for all affirmed. It was evident, however, that
the Bill would be severely handled in committee; and the prospect became
all the clearer from certain fresh signs of agrarian terrorism which
began to appear just after the second reading. County Mayo began to be
disturbed by the visits of masked and armed men to the farmhouses, with
the object of making the farmers swear to "break up their pasture lands."
These outrages--more like the proceedings of Australian bushrangers
or American Ku-klux men than of inhabitants of these islands--did not
dispose Parliament to leniency in regard to Irish disaffection. Mr.
Chichester Fortescue proposed, on the 17th of March, a Bill which would
effectually meet these agrarian cases; and in a fortnight it became law.
Its effect was to place certain districts of Ireland practically in a
state of siege; it forbade the possession of firearms by unlicensed
persons; it gave rights of search to constables; it took more stringent
measures against threatening letters; it allowed discretionary arrests of
suspected persons; it allowed the grand jury to give damages, chargeable
on the county, to the families of murdered men; and it increased almost
indefinitely the right of Government to seize newspapers. This Bill, which
nothing but extreme necessity could have justified, passed Commons and
Lords almost without a struggle; the Lords especially agreeing with Lord
Salisbury, who said, "You must teach the Irish people to fear the law
before you can induce them to like it."

Never has a Bill been visited with a more imposing show of amendments
than the Land Bill in committee. Three hundred alterations, like the
three hundred conspirators against King Porsenna, were banded together
to work its fall, or at least to hamper its activity. The Ulster custom
was debated for many hours, and met with all kinds of observations--from
those alike who said with Mr. Disraeli, "You cannot legalise the custom
of Ulster, because it does not exist," and those who regarded the Bill
as a poor instalment of reform, to be accepted under protest. When the
third clause came before the House, Mr. Disraeli brought forward an
important amendment, directed against the principle of compensation for
eviction as distinguished from compensation for improvements. He wished to
insert the words, limiting the compensation, "in respect of unexhausted
improvements made by him, or any predecessor in title, and of interruption
in the completion of any course of husbandry suited to the holding." Mr.
Disraeli charged Government with changing their original Bill in one
most important point--namely, with intending to bring in a new clause
practically extending the Ulster custom to the other parts of Ireland. The
third clause, as originally drawn, proposed to give the outgoing tenant
compensation for the improvements--"a subject on which both sides were
unanimous; the marrow of all Land Bills; the result on which investigation
and discussion have enabled the country to arrive at a mature conclusion,
and which, if secured," said Mr. Disraeli "would, in my opinion, do all
that in justice is required." But there were words at the end of the
original clause which were ambiguous; "that compensation should be given
for the loss sustained by the tenant on quitting his holding." These
words Mr. Disraeli declared that he and his friends had understood to
mean what his amendment now stated--namely, that over and above receiving
compensation for his improvements, "the tenant would, on quitting his
holding, be secured the fair usufruct of any husbandry or skill in the
tillage of the land which he had not yet received." So that Mr. Disraeli
had originally intended his amendment to be a mere declaratory amendment,
for the removal of a verbal ambiguity. But to his great surprise, he found
that at the last moment Government had themselves amended the clause;
that they had thrown the proposal for compensation for improvements into
the background, and brought out as a chief part of the clause "that
compensation is to be given to any tenant at the termination of his lease,
on the assumption that the termination of his occupancy is a grievance
for which the tenant ought to be compensated. This clause, then, in its
later form, is a clause which does not conceal that, in the opinion of the
framers of the Bill, occupation involves a right of property."

[Illustration: A VISIT FROM CAPTAIN MOONLIGHT. (_See p._ 523.)]

Here was ground on which the question of the Bill might very well have
been fought on the second reading; and it is not unlikely that, if the
clause had originally been drawn as it afterwards was, Government would
not have been allowed to wait so long without a struggle. That "occupation
should be held to involve a right of property"--that a tenant should
have a right to claim part-ownership in the land he occupied--was a
notion which the English landlord shuddered to contemplate. Mr. Disraeli
played very skilfully upon that landlord sentiment. He dwelt upon the
fact that the principle was "opposed to all the fundamental principles
of our legislation for the country generally;" and protested against
applying principles to Ireland without considering their effect upon
England and Scotland. And even in Ireland, he maintained, this admission
of tenant-right in so extreme a form would have disastrous results. The
landlord, finding that the new law gave his tenant a right to a third
of his freehold--seven years' rent; twenty-one years' rent being the
average value of a freehold in Ireland--and seeing an escape from this
claim in the clause which barred the right in the case of non-payment of
rent, would take advantage of this, "the only position of strength left
him." He would wait till the tenant did not pay his rent--a very frequent
occurrence in Ireland--and then he would evict mercilessly. To escape
a repetition of the danger he would consolidate his farms, and the old
tenants would have to wander away to new homes. They, to avoid this last
extremity, would appeal to "those rural ethics with the consequences of
which we are all familiar." The rural logic of the Irish tenant would run
thus: "I have lost my holding because I did not pay my rent. Can anything
be more flagrantly unjust than that a man should be deprived of his
contingent right to a third of the freehold because he does not pay his
rent?" Or in other words, "Am I to lose seven years' rent because I have
failed to pay half a year's?" As a consequence the Irish tenant would act
upon his rural ethics, and either have his landlord's land or his life.
"So far from the improvement of the country, so far from terminating all
these misunderstandings and heartburnings which we seem now so anxious
upon both sides of the House to bring to a close, you will have the same
controversies still raging, only with increased acerbity, and under
circumstances and conditions which inevitably must lead to increased
bitterness and increased perils to society."

[Illustration: AN EVICTION IN IRELAND.]

Mr. Disraeli's speech, which, clever as it was, struck rather at the
exclusion of tenants evicted for non-payment of rent from the benefits of
the Bill than at the compensation given for eviction on other grounds, was
answered both by Mr. Lowe and Mr. Chichester Fortescue. Mr. Lowe called
his language a "declaration of war;" and indeed an amendment moved by the
leader of the Opposition upon a Government Bill is seldom anything else.
Mr. Lowe dwelt upon the "terrible state of Ireland" springing from the
habit of wholesale eviction; upon the need of sometimes transgressing the
strict laws of political economy; upon the happy mean of the Government
Bill, which verged neither towards the Scylla of Mr. Disraeli nor towards
the Charybdis of the advocates of fixity of tenure. "There is no doubt,"
he said, "that harsh conduct by the landlord, and evictions in times long
past, have popularised murder in Ireland, and have made people look upon
a murderer as a man not entirely in the wrong. When this feeling has once
been created, observe the progress it makes. It has now passed from the
landlord and tenant to the people themselves; outrages which used to be
mainly directed against the landlord and persons in his employ are now
directed against others: no injury is too slight--the discarding of a
servant, the dismissal of a porter by a railway official, underselling
by a tradesman--anything is a sufficient excuse for shedding blood. What
is the fountain of bitterness from which these waters first flowed? Has
not this demoralising practice sprung up mainly because the law did not
give the tenant relief, and the tenant grew to think he was entitled to
take the law into his own hands?" Again, what better established rule
of political economy was there than that every man should be free to
exercise any calling he liked? Yet we had a system of trade licences--a
plain violation of this rule; and other rules might be found similarly
violated for purposes of State necessity--the Government monopoly of the
Post Office, for instance. And as to the "middle course" of Government,
"we have gone," said Mr. Lowe, "to neither extreme. We have endeavoured,
without shaking the foundations of property, to give adequate relief to
the tenants; we have entirely repudiated the notion of fixity of tenure;
and I think the Irish landlords are very wise in acquiescing. What
would be the only result suppose the Bill failed? Why, they would be in
this most miserable position: they would find themselves in the claws
of the right honourable gentleman who would then be at the head of the
Government, with a fine working minority in the House. When that time
came," said the speaker, in allusion to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, and
his power of "educating his party"--"when that time came they might indeed
tremble. I think I already hear the speech which the right honourable
gentleman would make to the House. He would say it was a mockery and a
delusion to give compensation to the tenant in case of eviction; such a
remedy would fail because it did not go deep enough; and the only panacea
for Ireland was fixity of tenure, with a periodical re-valuation of rents."

This gloomy prospect, however, was not to be realised. It was not
reserved for Mr. Disraeli to repeat the tactics of 1866 and 1867, and
first to turn out a Government on Conservative grounds, and then out-Herod
their Liberalism by a Bill of his own. The debate flowed on. Mr. Gathorne
Hardy was furious with Mr. Lowe, and then went on to denounce the clause:
"I say that by doing this you are creating a property that did not exist
before. You are giving a man something which he never had before; and you
cannot give it him without taking it from somebody else." Sir Roundell
Palmer, who, on questions of property as on ecclesiastical questions,
was always rather Conservative than Liberal, took the opportunity of
criticising the whole Bill from the point of view of "caution," and
suggested many difficulties in the way of the treatment of prospective
tenancies. But Mr. Chichester Fortescue, and Mr. Gladstone after him,
maintained both the moderate character of the Bill generally, and the
fact that "this clause was the central and essential part, without which
it would not be worth the while of Parliament to pass the Bill." Mr.
Gladstone's speech was at once temperate and firm. He dwelt upon the fact
which Mr. Disraeli had slighted--the fact that the Bill was "wholly and
absolutely exceptional." He did not attempt an abstract justification of
its principles; on the contrary, he admitted fully that such interference
with the laws of political economy was only to be justified by stern
necessity. In fact, Government hoped that this measure might soon work
such a cure in the Irish temper as to cut away the ground of necessity
from under its own feet, in which case it would naturally fall into
abeyance. "Twenty years, and thereafter until Parliament shall otherwise
determine"--that was to be the limit of the operation of the Bill: a limit
clearly showing both the conviction of Government as to its exceptional
character, and their hope that it would one day cease to be necessary.
But at present no such alteration could be made in it as that which Mr.
Disraeli proposed, aimed, as it was, against "one of the main pillars of
the Bill." "One of the grand provisions of the Bill was the confirmation
of Irish customs. Another grand principle was that improvements made by
the tenant were the property of the tenant. And a third principle of the
Bill, which was by far the most prominent in the lengthened statement it
was my duty to inflict upon the House, was that damages for eviction were
to be paid to the tenant."

The division which followed upon this debate was perhaps the most
important of the Session, and it was a great triumph for the Government.
The Ayes were 220; the Noes, 296; so that by a majority of 76 the new
principle, which did most undoubtedly confer a new property upon the Irish
tenant, was affirmed by the House of Commons. With this great victory
the success of the Government Bill became assured; and the frequent
divisions upon the later clauses, and upon amendments moved from both
sides of the House, were one and all Government successes. The next
night to that on which Mr. Disraeli's amendment was lost, Mr. Gladstone
carried his own amendment, inserting after the word "compensation," the
words, "for the loss which the Court shall find to have been sustained
by him in quitting his holding," by a majority of 111. The further
alteration which the clause underwent, was that all tenants of holdings
at £50 a year and upwards were placed in the class of those with whose
freedom of contract the Bill did not interfere--a different thing from
excluding them altogether from the right to claim damages for eviction
in the absence of contract. The former amendment was consented to by Mr.
Gladstone, although unwillingly; the latter, proposed by Mr. W. Fowler,
was lost by a majority of 32. But there is no necessity for us to follow
the Bill through every little stage of its progress through committee. On
the 30th of May it appeared in its amended shape, waiting for the third
reading; and it passed without a division, amid murmurs of protest from
the Conservative benches, and articulate protest from Mr. Hardy, who
confessed that he looked to the Lords to assert themselves in the interest
of landed property, and remedy the injustice of "damages for eviction."
Mr. Gladstone knew his strength, and said little on that point. He only
appealed to the consciences of the Irish landlords. "If," he said, "we
were to put to the Irish landlords, categorically, the question, 'Will you
take the Bill as it is, or will you have it lost?' I may be wrong, but my
firm conviction is that the cry of those landlords would be, 'Let the Bill
pass into law!'" And, so far as the House of Commons was concerned, it
did pass into law that night.

There remained the House of Lords. The second reading was moved by Lord
Granville, who had, of course, a much less difficult task to perform
than Mr. Gladstone had had on the first introduction of the Bill in the
House of Commons. The subject had been so long before the public, the
discussion of it had been so full, that not only did the Lords know the
details of the Bill already, but their own opinions of it were pretty
well known to one another. Lord Granville did not expect much opposition
to the main outlines of the Bill, nor did he meet with much. The Duke of
Richmond, the Conservative leader, fixed mainly upon the duration of the
leases specified by the Bill, and wanted to shorten the length of those
leases which would exempt parties from its operation from thirty-one to
twenty-one years. When this was the chief objection made by the leader
of the Opposition, it was evident that the Bill would not be seriously
imperilled, though Lord Salisbury might "condemn with his whole heart"
the principle of compensation for eviction; though Lord Leitrim might
object to "every part of it, from the title downwards;" and though Lord
Clancarty might cry out that "it was a Bill of pains and penalties against
the Irish landlord." The second reading passed without a division, though
the Opposition declared their intention of making serious alterations
in committee. Committee, indeed, is the proper battle-ground--the only
possible battle-ground--for a Bill of this nature. A Bill may be rejected
on the second reading when it is a Bill of one principle, definite and
unmistakable; but the Irish Land Bill had three principles at least,
according to Mr. Gladstone's enumeration; and according to the Lord
Chancellor's, it had six. To reject it on the second reading, therefore,
would have been to reject not one principle, but three, or even six,
which, as the House of Commons was not composed entirely of Mr. Henleys,
nor the House of Lords of Lord Leitrims, was hardly possible.

In committee the Duke of Richmond appeared much more hostile than he
had appeared on the second reading. He carried, by 92 to 71--not large
numbers, considering the importance of the question and the number of the
Peers who actually compose the House--a most important amendment, reducing
the scale of compensation for eviction. He demanded that the full scale of
seven years' rent should only be awarded in the case of holdings under £4
a year--not under £10, as the Government figure stood; and the rest of the
compensation clause was altered by him in a similar spirit. Of the other
amendments carried by him, the most notable were--one which forbade a
tenant to claim compensation if he had "assigned," _i.e._ let, his farm to
another, without the landlord's approval; another, which aroused a feeling
of indignation in many hearts, forbade a tenant to let gardens to his
labourers under penalty of losing the protection of the Act; another was
the same as that which he had given notice of at the time of the second
reading. Two other amendments of great importance were also carried--one,
by Lord Salisbury, fixing £50, instead of £100, as the maximum rental
under which a tenant might claim compensation for eviction; and one,
by Lord Clanricarde, removing the legal presumption which the Bill had
declared was to be in favour of the tenant, and providing that all claims
for compensation for improvements should be proved by actual evidence. But
before the Bill was finally sent down to the Commons, the chances of a
collision between the two Houses, which seemed threatening, were very much
lessened by the spontaneous reversal by the Lords of many of their own
amendments. In particular, that of Lord Salisbury--which he had carried
in defiance of the nominal chief of his party; and which, if persisted
in, would have robbed the measure of half its force--was withdrawn. In
the end, the only one of the Lords' amendments that was allowed to remain
in the Bill was that which assured to the landlord a modified veto on
his tenant's right to assign; and with this alteration the Bill was read
for the third time. It received the Royal Assent on the 1st of August--a
memorable day in the history of emancipation; and thus this measure, so
novel in principle, so bold and yet so temperate in design, took its place
among the laws of the United Kingdom. To say that it had much immediate
effect in quieting the temper of the Irish people would be untrue; but it
must be remembered that the bitterness of centuries is not cured in a year.

[Illustration: THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON.

(_From a Photograph by Elliot & Fry, Baker Street, W._)]

[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE LONDON SCHOOL BOARD, THAMES EMBANKMENT
(1892).]




CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Elementary Education Bill--Mr. Forster--The existing
    State of Education--Deficiencies of the System--The Union
    and the League--Mr. Forster and the Cabinet--Mr. Forster's
    Speech--"Good Schools"--Undenominational Inspection--The
    Conscience Clause--Voluntary Schools and Compulsion--The School
    Boards--Districts and Fees--Powers of School Boards--The
    Religious Difficulty--Attendance--Mr. Forster's Peroration--Mr.
    Dixon's Amendment--Mr. Forster's Reply--Mr. Winterbotham's
    Speech and the Churchmen--Mr. Dixon's Motion withdrawn--Partial
    Concessions--The Cowper-Temple Amendment--Amendment moved by
    Mr. Richards--Mr. Forster's admirable Conduct--Changes in the
    Bill--It becomes Law--Outrage in Greece--Seizure of Tourists by
    Greek Brigands--Negotiations for their Ransom--The Brigands demand
    an Amnesty--Intrigues of the Opposition--The Greek Government
    determines on a _coup de main_--Mr. Erskine's Negotiations--The
    Troops move on Oropus--Murder of the Prisoners--Indignation
    in England--Army and Navy Estimates--The Budget--Other
    Legislation--Disaster in the Eastern Seas--Obituary of the Year.


Two days after the introduction of the Irish Land Bill, on the 17th of
February, Mr. Forster, the Vice-President of the Council, brought in his
Elementary Education Bill, a measure which, fair as were its opening
prospects, was destined ultimately to become far more of a bone of
contention in England than many Irish questions. Mr. Forster had kept his
secret admirably. It was, of course, known that Government had pledged
themselves to deal with the Education Question during the Session, and
that the construction of an Education Bill had been long ago entrusted
to Mr. Forster. As the Radical member for Bradford, Mr. Forster had many
times proved his Liberal principles, and had already gained the respect
and attention of the House before taking office. His vigorous character,
his capacity for hard work, and his known ability seemed to point him
out as specially fitted to deal with the vexed and intricate problem
of National Education. But how was he going to deal with it? What line
were Government, as represented by him, about to take up with regard
to the great questions of free education, compulsion, and State aid to
denominational schools? The London newspapers guessed in vain. No one
out of the Cabinet had any idea of the provisions of the Bill before the
night of the 17th of February, when Mr. Forster disclosed his scheme to a
crowded House. His speech, as a speech, was perhaps a greater success than
any he had achieved before. Perfect mastery of his subject gave a freedom
and self-possession to his manner in which it had sometimes been wanting,
and his whole demeanour was that of a man who had gone to the bottom of a
great question, and who felt himself to be the most competent person to
lead the opinion of the House and the country to a satisfactory decision
with regard to it.

Before describing the means by which Government hoped to effect a radical
change in the educational condition of the country, it may be as well to
glance over the system of National Education as it existed at the time of
Mr. Forster's speech. The whole system of National Education in England
before the Act of 1870 was a matter of voluntary effort. In bygone ages,
Greek philosophy had held the education of children to be one of the
most essential duties of the State as such--a duty which could not be
relegated to private hands, and which the State was bound to conduct with
reference to the general welfare of the community. In more modern times
Prussia had recognised this political view of education, and had made
the training of every Prussian child a State matter. In England alone,
with her over-fondness for self-government, and her love for the system
of local provision for local needs, voluntaryism remained intact; and
the education of the poor was left wholly at the discretion and in the
hands of their richer and more intelligent neighbours. Voluntary effort
must come first; then, indeed, State help would follow in the shape of
building grants or annual grants, coupled with the condition of Government
inspection; but in all cases the help given by the State had to be called
forth by the prior voluntary action of some particular individual or some
particular neighbourhood. It had long been felt that the results of this
system were most unsatisfactory and inadequate; and as the Reform question
advanced, and political enfranchisement had to be yielded step by step
to the working classes, the gross and widespread ignorance prevailing
among the lower orders began to force itself more and more strongly
upon the attention of the country. Mr. Lowe only expressed the general
feeling in a bitter and cynical way when, after the passing of the Reform
Bill of 1867, he pointed out the power that it had conferred upon the
working-man, and uttered the famous phrase, "Let us educate our masters!"
The amount of educational destitution existing in England in 1870 may
be roughly gathered from the following statistics. From the Census of
1851 it appeared that about one-fourth of the population of England
were of an age to go to school--that is to say, from the ages of three
to thirteen or four to fourteen. In 1870 the population of England was
twenty-one millions, so that about five millions and a half of children
would be of what is technically called the school age. Of these, 23 per
cent. had to be allowed for as absent from school from allowable causes,
such as sickness; half a million were at school for the upper or middle
classes; and rather less than two millions and a half of the remaining
three and a half millions were actually at school. There remained about
one million one hundred thousand children who were not at school at all.
Nor did this represent by any means the whole extent of the deficiency.
Of the two and a half millions represented as actually at school, only a
very small proportion indeed could possibly derive real benefit from the
education offered them, because, as was abundantly proved by statistics,
far the greater number of children were removed from school before their
twelfth year--that is to say, before the age when the average child,
much more the child of poor and uneducated parents, becomes capable of
anything like lasting and profitable learning. This evil of short-lived
and irregular attendance had been increasing during the years preceding
1870 rather than diminishing, and it was admitted on all hands to form one
of the most serious elements of the educational difficulty. With regard
to local deficiencies, especially to the educational needs of our large
towns, let Mr. Forster speak for himself. "It is calculated," he said,
"that in Liverpool the number of children between five and thirteen who
ought to receive an elementary education is 80,000; but, as far as we can
make out, 20,000 of them attend no school whatever, while at least another
20,000 attend schools where they get an education not worth having.
In Manchester--that is, in the borough of Manchester, not including
Salford--there are about 65,000 children who might be at school; and of
this number 16,000 go to no school at all.... As a Yorkshireman I am sorry
to say that, from what I hear, Leeds appears to be as bad as Liverpool;
and so also, I fear, is Birmingham."

The educational need, then, could scarcely be denied, though extreme
Conservatives, like Lord Robert Montagu, might attempt to palliate it.
But the question of "how is this need to be supplied?" admitted of very
different answers; and opinion was indeed divided into at least two
hostile camps with regard to it, represented by the National Education
Union and the famous Birmingham League. The avowed object of both was "to
bring a good education within the reach of every child in the country."
But the Union proposed to accomplish this by means of the existing
system, supplemented and reformed; the League, on the contrary, aimed
at the destruction of the existing system, and at the gradual erection
of something wholly different upon its ruins. The Union desired, above
all things, to keep education in England denominational and founded upon
religious teaching; while the League asserted strongly that education
ought to be wholly undenominational, that State aid should only be given
to secular instruction, and that religion should be provided by the
voluntary efforts of all religious sects, the Church of England included.
The doctrines of the League were supported inside the House of Commons by
men like Mr. Mundella, Mr. Dixon, and Mr. Fawcett; and outside it, by the
bulk of the Dissenting communities, who saw in the programme of the League
a protest against the undisputed supremacy of the Church in education. On
the other hand, the sequel showed that the partisans of the more moderate
policy advocated by the Union had Mr. Forster himself in the main on their
side, a large majority (both Liberals and Conservatives) in the House, and
the whole influence and power of the Church of England. The Church talked
of her "claims," and pointed triumphantly to the work done by her, and by
her alone, in the cause of education; while the Dissenters complained of
grievances, accused the clergy of intentional violations of the Conscience
Clause then existing, and professed to regard their zeal for education as
a mere cloak for widespread projects of priestly aggrandisement. Between
these contending factions Mr. Forster had to take his stand, and to frame
a Bill which should if possible satisfy both.

Mr. Forster had set about his great undertaking in that spirit of
conscientious thoroughness which characterised him through life. From
his well-known biography by Sir Wemyss Reid, we gather that so early as
the 21st of October, 1869, he had submitted to the Cabinet an exhaustive
memorandum, in which the four ideals of the Birmingham League, the
National Education Union, Mr. Bruce's Bill of 1868, and Mr. Lowe's plan
for supplementing voluntary effort by compulsory rates were submitted to
the most searching criticism. He decided that Mr. Lowe's scheme was the
best of the four, but suggested that it might be strengthened in various
ways, and concluded--"In venturing to submit the above suggestions, I
may be allowed to add my conviction that in dealing with this Education
Question boldness is the only safe policy; that any measure which does not
profess to be complete will be a certain failure; but that we shall have
support from all sides if, on the one hand, we acknowledge and make use of
present educational efforts, and, on the other hand, admit the duty of the
central Government to supplement these efforts by means of local agency."
His views found favour with the Ministry, but meanwhile the Birmingham
League had begun to stir, and Mr. Forster was much annoyed by rumours that
the Cabinet was of divided mind, and that the measure would in consequence
be postponed. On the 6th of December we find him writing to Mr. Glyn, the
Ministerial Whip, an earnest protest against procrastination. He received
a fairly reassuring reply; nevertheless there were dissensions in the
Cabinet. Mr. Gladstone was immersed in Irish land tenure, and Lord De
Grey, the President of the Council, had to bring considerable pressure
to bear so as to prevent the measure from being shelved. In the end Mr.
Forster's memorandum was practically adopted, though his proposals for
compulsion were made less stringent, and his provision that the aid given
to already existing schools should be confined to secular education was,
somewhat injudiciously, toned down.

We cannot do better than let Mr. Forster describe his Bill mainly
in his own words. The first problem, then, to be solved, said the
Vice-President of the Council, was this: "How can we cover the country
with good schools?" The answer to this must be influenced by three
considerations--considerations of the duties of parents to their children,
of the duty of Government to the taxpayer, and of the duty of every
educational reformer to those who were already labouring in the cause
of education, and to the system which they at great cost had built up
and supported. That is to say, "in solving this problem, there must
be, consistently with the attainment of our object, the least possible
expenditure of public money, the utmost endeavour not to injure existing
and efficient schools, and the most careful absence of all encouragement
to parents to neglect their children." The principles upon which the
present Bill is founded, he continued, "are two in number--legal enactment
that there shall be efficient schools everywhere throughout the kingdom;
and compulsory provision of such schools, if and where needed, but not
unless proved to be needed. So much for the principles of the Bill.
Coming now to the actual provisions by which they are to be enforced, it
will suggest itself to the minds of all that there must be to begin with
a system of organisation throughout the country. We take care that the
country shall be properly mapped and divided so that its wants may be duly
ascertained. For this we take present known divisions and declare them
to be school districts, so that upon the passing of this Bill there will
be no portion of England or Wales not included in one school district
or another. We have taken the boundaries of boroughs as regards towns,
and parishes as regards the country--and when I say parish, I mean the
civil parish, and not the ecclesiastical district. With regard to the
metropolis, we have come to the conclusion, subject to the counsel and
advice of the metropolitan members, that the best districts we can take in
the metropolis are, where they exist, the school districts already formed
for workhouse schools; and where they do not exist, the boundaries of the
vestries. Having thus got our districts, our next duty is to ascertain
their educational condition, and for that purpose we take power to collect
returns which will show us what in each district is the number of schools,
of scholars, and of children requiring education. We also take power to
send down inspectors and officers to test the quality of the schools and
of the education given in them. Then if in any one of these districts we
find the elementary education to be sufficient in quantity, efficient
in quality, and suitable in character, that is to say, hampered by no
religious or other restriction to which parents can reasonably object,
we leave that district alone; and we shall continue to leave it alone so
long as it fulfils those conditions. And I may as well state that for the
purpose of ascertaining the condition of a district we count all schools
that will receive our inspectors, whether private or public, whether aided
or unaided by Government, whether secular or denominational."

Here Mr. Forster, before describing the means by which districts
insufficiently supplied with schools were to be sufficiently supplied,
explained an important change in the character of Government
inspection to be introduced. "Hitherto," he said, "the inspection has
been denominational; we propose that it shall no longer be so." The
reasons for this change were obvious. In the first place, an invidious
distinction was kept up between Church inspectors and inspectors of other
denominations--the former alone having the right to inquire into the
teaching of doctrines in any school. Thus both sides were in many cases
aggrieved. Clergymen complained that their school children were subjected
to examination in religious doctrine by an inspector whose religious views
differed from their own, while a Wesleyan or an Independent school could
not be subjected to any such examination at all. On the other hand, the
Dissenters were justly irritated by a distinction that seemed to imply
that their peculiar tenets were not, and could not be, recognised by the
State in the same way as the doctrines of the Church. The denominational
character of the inspection also very much complicated the whole system of
inspection, introducing many practical difficulties into the division of
inspecting-districts, and so on. In consideration of all these objections,
and believing that the existing system was favourable neither to religion
in general nor to the Church cause in particular, "we propose," said Mr.
Forster, "that after a limited period one of the conditions of public
elementary schools shall be, that they shall admit any inspector without
any denominational provision."

The next provision of the Bill concerned the framing of a stringent
conscience clause to be accepted by every elementary denominational school
before public money would be granted to it. There had been at one time
strong opposition on the part of a fraction of the Church party to any
conscience clause whatever. It became evident, however, several months
before the introduction of the Education Bill, that public opinion, both
lay and clerical, was strengthening in its favour, and the adoption of
a conscience clause into the programme of the National Education Union
virtually settled the matter. The Conscience Clause in the Bill of 1870
ran as follows:--

"No scholar shall be required, as a condition of being admitted into or
of attending or of enjoying all the benefits of the school, to attend or
to abstain from attending any Sunday school, or any place of religious
worship, or to learn any such catechism or religious formulary, or to be
present at any such lesson or instruction or observance as may have been
objected to on religious grounds, by the parent of the scholar sending his
objection in writing to the managers or principal teacher of the school,
or one of them."

By far the most practical objection that had been made to a conscience
clause had been that it would be in reality of little or no use in any
case where the clergyman or other manager of a school should be bent on
setting it aside. "That, however," said Mr. Forster, "is not the view that
I have formed from my personal experience. In the first place, I do not
know any case in which our present conscience clause has been applied in
which it has not been found thoroughly effective; but our new clause will
be different in this important respect, that whereas the old clause was
applicable only in some cases to building grants, the new one will apply
to all grants, and especially to all annual grants. It is perfectly clear
in its operation, and I am quite sure that no manager of a school will
risk the loss of the annual grant by violating its conditions."

[Illustration: MR. W. E. FORSTER. (_From a Photograph by Russell & Sons._)]

Mr. Forster went on to state that every opportunity would be afforded
to the upholders of the voluntary system to do what was necessary for
themselves, and thus avoid the interference of Government. "We have said,"
he continued, "that we must have provision for public elementary schools.
The first question then is, by whom is it to be made? Now here for a time
we shall test the voluntary zeal of the district. Not only do we not
neglect voluntary help, but, on condition of respecting the rights of
parents and the rights of conscience, we welcome it. To see, then, whether
voluntary help will be forthcoming, we give a year to test the zeal and
willingness of any volunteers who may be disposed to help; but we ought
not to give longer time, because we cannot afford to wait." If therefore
the educational need had not been met in any given district by voluntary
effort at the expiration of the year of grace, the State would step in
and supply the deficiency. The next point was one of great importance.
The Bill admitted the principle of compulsion, so often attacked as
un-English; and in certain districts and under certain conditions,
elementary education was in future to be enforced. It will be seen that
Mr. Forster was afterwards obliged to defend himself from the charge of
timidity and half-heartedness in this matter of compulsion. Having gone
so far, it was asked, why not go farther; and having once admitted the
justice of the principle of compulsion, why not make it the general law of
the land, instead of allowing its application to depend upon the caprice
of individual school boards who might adopt it here and there? Yet Mr.
Forster was not to blame, but the Cabinet, though he loyally held his
peace and never let it appear that he was defending a principle to which
his private convictions were opposed.

The machinery of school boards--the newest and most prominent feature in
the Bill--by means of which education was to be provided by the State
where voluntaryism failed, had next to be explained to the House. For
Government did not propose to educate the nation by means of an enormous
and omnipotent central department. This would indeed have been un-English,
for local action and self-government have been throughout English history
the mainstays of English life. Local resources were still to supply local
wants, but they were to be made to do this in a far more effective,
systematic, and public manner than heretofore. "Voluntary local action,"
said Mr. Forster, "has failed, therefore our hope is to invoke the help
of municipal organisation. Where we have proved the educational need, we
supply it by local administration--that is, by means of rates, aided by
money voted by Parliament, expended under local management, with central
inspection and control.... Undoubtedly this proposal will affect a large
portion of the kingdom. I believe it will affect almost all the towns and
a great part of the country."

With regard to the area of the school districts, Mr. Forster had already
indicated the boundaries established by the Bill. In the provinces, the
parish was to be looked upon as the unit of area--Government of course
reserving to themselves the power of throwing two or more parishes
together if necessary--rather than the union, as being smaller, more
convenient, and freer from practical difficulties. In London the existing
school districts were to be taken, and, where these did not exist, the
boundaries of vestries. And in every school district where the voluntary
system had proved inadequate to meet the educational demand, a school
board was to be elected--that is to say, a body of responsible and
official persons, whose business it would be to provide sufficient and
suitable education for the whole district over which their power extended.
"But the next question that arises is--How are we to elect our school
boards in the provinces (London having been already provided with school
boards under a previous Bill), and whom are they to elect? Now first
who is to elect? Well, the electoral body we have chosen for the towns
is the town council. I do not think there can be much dispute upon that
point. In the country we have taken the best body we can find--the select
vestry where there is one, and a vestry where there is no select vestry.
Secondly--Whom are they to elect?" The answer to this was very simple.
The electors were to choose whom they thought fit without limitation of
choice; but there was to be a limit of numbers. The school board was to
consist of never less than three or more than twelve members. Mr. Forster
had come to the conclusion that it was not desirable to add _ex officio_
members to the board, thinking very rightly that "the very men fit to be
_ex officio_ members would come in with greater influence and almost equal
certainty if subjected to popular election." Nor were the boards to be
saddled with Government nominees--a proceeding that would make Government
responsible for the failures as well as the successes of any given board.
Government only reserved to themselves the rights of a final court of
appeal in any case where the work of the board was either carelessly
done or done in opposition to the spirit of the Act. In any such case
Government claimed a right to step in and manage the district for as long
as it thought fit.

The important question of school fees, important in one way to the poor
parent and in another to the taxpayer, came next to be considered.
Government, however, said Mr. Forster, had no intention of making
elementary education in England free. In the first place, such a change
could only be effected at the cost of a great sacrifice to the country--a
sacrifice of some six or seven hundred thousand pounds yearly--an amount
that it might fairly be calculated would be reached by the parents' pence
under the new scheme. And in the second place, supposing that the country
were ready to undertake the sacrifice, the framers of the Bill were, on
general principles, wholly averse from it. To relieve the parent of all
payment for his children's education would be, said Mr. Forster, to
weaken the sense of parental obligations in him, and to pauperise those
who had hitherto kept themselves free from the taint of pauperism. Some
provision, however, was to be made for extreme poverty, and real inability
to pay school fees was in no case to prove a bar to any child's education.
"We take two powers," said the speaker, "we give the school board power to
establish special free schools under special circumstances, which chiefly
apply to large towns, where, from the exceeding poverty of the district,
or for other very special reasons, they prove to the satisfaction of the
Government that such a school is needed and ought to be established.... We
also empower the school board to give free tickets to parents who, they
think, cannot really afford to pay for the education of their children;
and we take care that those free tickets shall have no stigma of pauperism
attached to them. We do not give up the school fees, and, indeed, we keep
to the present proportions--namely, of about one-third raised from the
parents, one-third out of the public taxes, and one-third out of local
funds. Where the local funds are not raised by voluntary subscription,
the rates will come into action." A question of rates is always, as Mr.
Forster went on to say, treading on delicate ground, but the future
education rate need alarm no one. Should it ever exceed threepence
in the pound--a most unlikely event--Government would step in with a
"very considerable extra grant out of the Parliamentary votes." And the
education rate would save the prison rate and the pauper rate, and might
thus prove the most hopeful and satisfactory of all economies.

With regard to the other powers to be granted to school boards, they were,
first of all, to be allowed the choice of alternative courses--either they
might meet the need of a particular district by providing extra schools
of their own, or they might supply it by assisting and extending existing
schools. But supposing they decided upon the latter alternative, they were
to exercise their right in no prejudiced or limited manner. "If they do
go on the principle of assisting, they must assist all schools on equal
terms. They may not pick out one particular denomination and say, 'We
shall assist you, but not the other.'" To this part of the Bill belonged
the afterwards famous 25th clause, by which school boards were enabled
to pay the fees of indigent children at denominational schools out of
the rates--a point that was attacked with equal ardour by the liberal
philosophers of the _Fortnightly Review_, the members of the Birmingham
League, the Dissenters generally, and all other advocates of secular
education, but the supposed iniquity of which was not discovered until
after the Bill had passed through committee. For these last Mr. Forster
held out no word of hope. Speaking of the restrictions that ought or ought
not to be laid upon school managers with regard to religion, he denied the
existence of any real religious difficulty at all, the great plea of the
secularists. Or rather, he held that there was a theoretical difficulty
that might occur to and perplex an honest man in his study, but no
practical difficulty that would affect the parents and children considered
by the Bill. The Bill decreed that no restriction was to be laid upon
school managers with regard to religion. If the neighbourhood that elected
them chose, they might leave religious teaching altogether alone, but they
certainly should not be forbidden, in any case, to teach or to explain
the Bible. "Now just look," said the speaker, "at the age of the children
with whom we have to deal. The great majority of them are probably under
ten years of age.... We want a good secular teaching for these children,
a good Christian training, and good schoolmasters. It may be said that as
these children can hardly be supposed to require doctrinal or dogmatic
teaching to any great extent, 'Why do you not then prescribe that there
should be no doctrinal teaching--why not, in the first place, prescribe
that there shall be no religious teaching at all?' Why do we not prescribe
that there shall be no religious teaching? Why, if we did so, out of the
religious difficulty we should come to an irreligious difficulty.... If we
are to prevent religious teaching altogether, we must say that the Bible
shall not be used in our schools at all. But would it not be a monstrous
thing that the book which, after all, is the foundation of the religion
we profess, should be the only book that was not allowed to be used in
our schools? It may be said that we ought to have no dogmatic teaching.
But how are we to prevent it? Are we to step in and say the Bible may be
read, but may not be explained? Are we to pick out Bible lessons with
the greatest care, in order that nothing of a doctrinal character may
be taught to the children?" A hard and thankless labour indeed, but one
which Government would undertake were it convinced that such was the wish
of the country. But it was convinced, on the contrary, that the country
wished no such thing; and in no case could such a matter be satisfactorily
undertaken or discharged by the central Government. In fact, the framers
of the Bill felt confident that the religious difficulty would turn out to
be one of words and theories only. "Get your school boards together," they
said; "give them the practical work to do of providing efficient secular
education, and you will see that at the same time they will find ways and
means of managing the religious education satisfactorily also. Put the
fiercest of controversialists to the practical handling of details, and he
will soon find that the imaginary parent possessed by an imaginary hatred
of all religion, or a stubborn and exclusive preference for one form of
religious teaching rather than another, is almost wholly the creature of
his own fancy; and that the so-called religious difficulty is a phantom
which vanishes before the open work-a-day atmosphere of facts."

Having now described the school districts, the school boards, and the
various minor arrangements connected with them, Mr. Forster came finally
to the important question of attendance. In other words, "Having got
our schools, how are we to get the children to come to them in anything
like sufficient numbers, and with anything like sufficient regularity?"
In his answer to this, Mr. Forster enlarged upon the direct compulsion
permitted by the Bill. The Short Time Acts, on which so many depended for
securing the attendance of children, would no doubt contribute greatly to
that object, and they might be so amended as to render them still more
effectual. But the difficulty could not be met by their aid alone, and
compulsory attendance was therefore to be resorted to, though as we said
before, only in a limited and partial degree. "What we do in the Act,"
said Mr. Forster, "is no more than this. We give power to the school
boards to frame by-laws for the compulsory attendance of all children
within their district from five to twelve. They must see that no parent is
under a penalty--which is restricted to 5s.--for not sending his child to
school if he can show reasonable excuse,--reasonable excuse being either
education elsewhere, or sickness, or some unavoidable cause, or there not
being a public elementary school within a mile. These by-laws are not to
come into operation unless they are approved by the Government, and unless
they have been laid on the table of this and the other House of Parliament
forty days and have not been dissented from."

Having thus described his Bill, with every detail of which he had shown
himself perfectly familiar, Mr. Forster concluded in words of genuine and
sincere enthusiasm, which could not but awaken the sympathy of all who
had listened to him:--

"Upon the speedy provision of elementary education depends our industrial
prosperity. It is of no use trying to give technical teaching to our
artisans without elementary education. Uneducated labourers--and many
of our labourers are utterly uneducated--are, for the most part,
unskilled labourers; and if we leave our work-folk any longer unskilled,
notwithstanding their strong sinews and determined energy, they will
become overmatched in the competition of the world. Upon this speedy
provision depends also, I fully believe, the good, the safe working of
our constitutional system. To its honour, Parliament has lately decided
that England shall in future be governed by popular government. I am
one of those who would not wait until the people were educated before I
would trust them with political power. If we had thus waited, we might
have waited long for education; but now that we have given them political
power, we must not wait any longer to give them education. There are
questions demanding answers, problems which must be solved, which ignorant
constituencies are ill fitted to solve. Upon this speedy provision
of education depends also our national power. Civilised communities
throughout the world are massing themselves together, each mass being
measured by its force; and if we are to hold our position among men of
our own race or among the nations of the world we must make up for the
smallness of our numbers by increasing the intellectual force of the
individual."

[Illustration: OFFICE OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, WHITEHALL.]

The short debate that followed was extremely flattering to Mr. Forster
personally. Liberal and Tory complimented the speech and the Bill,
regretting only that the framer should occupy what was nominally, at
least, a subordinate position in the Ministry, and should speak as the
Vice-President of the Council under its President, Lord de Grey, instead
of as "the responsible Minister of Public Instruction." Scarcely a
murmur of the coming struggle disturbed the amiability of the House, and
on the morning of the 18th of February the newspapers were full of Mr.
Forster and Mr. Forster's admirable Bill. For a while it seemed as if
the concessions of the Bill, and the conciliatory tone of its advocate,
had silenced both the League and the Nonconformists, until a series of
ominous articles in the _Daily News_ dispelled the illusion, and a cloud
of hostile talk and writing began to gather definitely round certain
portions of the proposed Act. By the time the second reading arrived, all
the world knew that the Government would find the passing of the measure
by no means a matter of such plain sailing as had seemed likely at first.
And the motion for the second reading was met, in fact, by a motion of Mr.
Dixon's (member for Birmingham and founder of the League), to the effect,
"That no measure for the elementary education of the people could afford
a permanent and satisfactory settlement which left the important question
of religious instruction to be determined by the local authorities." Mr.
Forster might well point out with some warmth that the success of such
an amendment at the present stage of matters could have no other effect
than to throw out the Bill and the Government. Such a question, he argued,
should be discussed in committee; only when approached in detail could the
religious difficulty be either satisfactorily debated or satisfactorily
settled. "Unsectarian education"--which, however, throughout he carefully
distinguished from secular education--he thought not at all difficult to
reach in practice, though extremely hard to define, and personally he
strongly supported it. But unsectarian education could never be attained
by definite and minute legislation. "Surely," he said, "the time will come
when we shall find out how we can agree better on these matters; when men
will discover that on the main questions of religion they agree, and that
they can teach them in common to their children. Shall we cut off from the
future all hope of such an agreement, and say that all those questions
which regulate our conduct in life and animate our hopes for the future
after death, which form for us the standard of right and wrong--shall
we say that all these are to be wholly excluded from our schools?... I
confess I have still in my veins the blood of my Puritan forefathers, and
I wonder to hear descendants of the Puritans talk of religion as if it
were the property of any class or condition of men. The English people
cling to the Bible, and no measure would be more unpopular than that which
should declare by Act of Parliament that the Bible shall be excluded from
the schools!" Cut the knot of the religious difficulty in this way, and
a far greater irreligious difficulty would be created. Instead of the
few individuals who might, were the Bill passed in its present form,
object to paying the school rate, multitudes would be found objecting to
an education from which religion was left out. The greater part of Mr.
Forster's speech consisted of an appeal on behalf of local government as
against central government. What the amendment proposed, he said, was to
force the central government to adopt one rigid line of policy, regardless
of all the varying circumstances and wishes of the different localities,
the result of which could only be to produce endless opposition and
heart-burning. Under the Bill the will of the majority in any given
neighbourhood would always take effect, whether that will was in favour of
secular or religious education. Only let the House set its face against
any abstract proposition like the present amendment. In committee would
be the place and time to discuss the several points as they arose, fairly
and calmly, and to take the sense of the House upon the religious question
detail by detail.

The second night of the debate upon the second reading was marked by an
effective and brilliant speech, in behalf of secular education, from Mr.
Winterbotham, the young Liberal and Nonconformist member for Stroud.
All the opinions and prejudices which the great majority of the House
had been accustomed to consider as the mere vulgar talk of back-alley
Dissent, they were now to hear expressed in logical and forcible English
by a man of liberal culture and large experience, who, while freeing
himself from what were regarded as the worst and most narrowing influences
of the Nonconformist creed, was yet true to all its main articles, and
unfeignedly proud of being a Dissenter. The speech represented far
better, and more vividly than anything else in the Education debates,
the real feeling of the great Nonconformist party. It embodied their
whole claim, and stated their whole grievance with singular sharpness and
vigour. It went to the root of the question, and the Church party were
fairly startled by the depth and bitterness of the feeling disclosed.
The cultivated Churchman, or the philosophic essayist, might equally
deplore the additional narrowness and heat imported by Mr. Winterbotham
into the controversy upon Education, when he represented the question
as so largely affected by social differences and social jealousies. But
the fact remained, and subsequent history only brought out more clearly
the unhappy and lamentable truth, that the difference between Church
and Dissent was, at least in many places throughout England, marked
by the worst characteristics of a class quarrel. Such a speech as Mr.
Winterbotham's could not but rouse the Churchmen of the House. The
challenge was taken up in turn by Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. Beresford Hope,
who thought it "impossible to conceive a speech worse-timed, or struck in
a more unfortunate key," and that Churchman of Churchmen, Sir Roundell
Palmer, who rebuked the Dissenters through Mr. Winterbotham, not without
some dignity and reason, for "inflaming the religious difficulty." He
declared in decisive language, "that the views advocated by the member
for Stroud were such as never could be accepted as the basis of a common
system of national education by that portion of the people who belonged
to the Established Church." He argued from "the broad facts of existing
schools" that the mind of the country as a whole was strongly opposed to
the principle of secular education, and in favour of that of religious
education. On the other hand, Mr. Miall and Mr. Auberon Herbert spoke
strongly in favour of the amendment; while Mr. Samuelson, also a member
of the League, announced, as did Mr. Mundella on the third night of the
debate, that, while approving heartily of the principle of the amendment,
he should vote against it, believing that the advocates of unsectarian
education should reserve all their strength for the amendment of the
Bill in committee, rather than risk, by such a motion as Mr. Dixon's,
the indefinite postponement of the whole question. Mr. Lowe had as usual
a witty remark to make upon the situation. It reminded him, he said, of
a fine herd of cattle in a large meadow, deserting the grass that was
abundant all about them, and delighting themselves by fighting over a bed
of nettles in the corner of the field--the bed of nettles being of course
the religious difficulty. He denied altogether that Government had "nailed
their colours to the mast," and were determined to make no concessions. In
fact, his cry was the same as Mr. Forster's: "Let us get into committee;
then will be the time to make concessions on both sides." The third night
of the debate was marked by several fine speeches. First of all came a
clever, popular, _ad captandum_ attack upon the Government by Mr. Vernon
Harcourt. He returned Mr. Lowe's hard hits with others equally hard, and
drew an amusing picture of the municipal elections of the future, when the
Bill had introduced into them the fatal element of religious disagreement.
Mr. Mundella and Mr. Jacob Bright took up the middle position of voting
against the amendment for conscience' sake, the speech of the former being
memorable for its moderation and fairness of tone. Conservative speakers
like Sir Charles Adderley were, of course, strong in their denunciations
of Mr. Dixon's proposal; but though Government were sure of their
majority, it was thought politic not to alienate their Radical supporters
by allowing the question to proceed to a division. Mr. Gladstone rose to
play the part of peacemaker--which, indeed, was his _rôle_ throughout the
Education debates--and promised large concessions on the three important
points of compulsion, the election of school boards, and the relation of
religious to secular teaching. With this promise the recalcitrant Liberals
professed to be contented. Mr. Dixon withdrew his amendment, and the Bill
was allowed to pass the second reading.

Except for an occasional question and answer as to the meaning of certain
portions of the Bill, the subject of Education was not again brought
forward in the House till three months had passed away. That time was
spent by the Education Office in a careful collection of statistics, in
the preparation of reports, and in various other routine business. And
by the statesmen in charge of the Bill it was spent to great profit in
observing and noting the true direction of public feeling on the matter.
The general current of Liberal opinion was indeed unmistakable, and it
was felt on all hands that concessions must be made to it in committee.
And concessions indeed were made, so far as Mr. Forster considered the
essential principles of the Bill allowed. Meanwhile he had to endure much
undeserved opprobrium, since the League persisted in treating him as a
scapegoat, and affected to exonerate the rest of the Ministry at his
expense. There was a moment when Mr. Gladstone was disposed to yield to
the clamour, but Mr. Forster, though much dispirited by the attacks of
his former friends, particularly in Bradford, was resolute in adhering
to the principles of voluntary schools and Bible teaching. Mr. Gladstone
opened the debates in committee on the 16th of June by the announcement
that the Government, while rejecting a motion of Mr. Vernon Harcourt's for
"undenominational education," combined with "unsectarian instruction in
the Bible," on the ground that such phrases were vague and unpractical,
were prepared to accept Mr. Cowper-Temple's amendment, "to exclude from
all rate-built schools every catechism and formulary distinctive of
denominational creeds, and to sever altogether the connection between the
local school boards and the denominational schools, leaving the latter to
look wholly to the central grant for help." This amendment was practically
identical with a compromise, which Mr. Forster had himself suggested in
a letter to Lord Ripon written on the 18th of May. In consequence of
this, the central grant to all schools, rate-built or voluntary, was to
be increased from one-third to one-half the total cost. The remaining
half was to be rates and school-pence in the case of board schools, and
voluntary subscriptions and school-pence in the case of denominational
schools. Mr. Disraeli, in reply, had a great deal to say with regard
to this proposal, which he described as an "entirely new Bill;" but
Government knew very well that at this particular juncture they had little
to fear, and everything to hope, from the Conservatives, and the policy of
the League was just now far more important to them than any skirmishing
of Mr. Disraeli's. An amendment by Mr. Richards, to the effect that "in
any national system of elementary education the attendance should be
everywhere compulsory, and the religious teaching supplied by voluntary
effort, and not out of public funds," provoked another long debate on the
"religious difficulty," in which a few irreconcilable Conservatives joined
with Mr. Winterbotham and Mr. Vernon Harcourt to harass the Government.
Once more did Mr. Forster defend his position, winding up a practical and
temperate speech with language unexpectedly determined. The Government,
he said, meant to yield no more ground. "We have considered," he said,
"the whole of the religious question, and we present the Bill to the House
in the form in which we think we must adhere to it." Upon the supporters
of the amendment, should it be successful, must "rest the responsibility
of defeating the Bill, and preventing the settlement of the Education
Question this year." Once more did Mr. Gladstone endeavour to pour oil on
the troubled waters, promising that "effectual guarantees should be taken
against the violation of conscience in rate-schools through the acts of
a narrow or sectarian spirit," and pointing out to the Nonconformists
that, in return for the great concession that was being made to them,
in excluding all creeds and catechisms from rate-built schools, they
owed some counterbalancing forbearance and consideration to the Church
party, which felt as strongly as they, and had greater educational
services to plead. But come what might, Government would stand by their
Bill, and no more would be yielded. Mr. Richards' amendment, however,
was thrown out by 421 to 60--figures which might well give Government
confidence. Nor were these proportions substantially altered in later
divisions. The Bill was carried through triumphantly, in spite of ardent
Churchmen like Sir Stafford Northcote, who were strongly opposed to the
Government concessions, no less than of Mr. Dixon and Mr. Jacob Bright.
In his diary Mr. Forster described the 30th of June as the day on which
the Bill passed through its crisis, and shortly afterwards his position
was greatly strengthened by promotion to a seat in the Cabinet. Night
after night did he sit through the tedious debates, ready to answer every
question and parry every attack, evincing throughout such unfailing good
humour, combined with such unflinching determination, that the House was
at once impressed and conciliated. Strong in the general support of the
Conservatives, joined to that of the moderate Liberals, he defended his
Bill at every essential point, regardless of the telling and often bitter
criticism of the League. Still certain important alterations were made
before the Bill became law; chiefly that the school boards were to be
re-elected every three years; that the school rate was not to be levied
under a distinct name; that the election of school boards should be on
the cumulative principle--that is, that where each voter had a number of
votes, he might bestow them all on a single candidate if he chose, instead
of being compelled to divide them equally. Finally, after a debate of
twenty-one days, the Bill passed the third reading without a division, but
amid the anathemas of both classes of irreconcilables. While Mr. Dixon
pronounced that Government had aroused "the suspicion, distrust, and
antagonism of some of their own most earnest supporters," Mr. Gathorne
Hardy charged them with "inaugurating a system of hypocrisy, treachery,
and baseness." Mr. Forster enjoyed the fate of all neutrals--of being
heartily abused by both belligerents.

In the House of Lords the Bill was well treated, the only important
amendment being moved and carried by the Duke of Richmond, to the
effect that vote by ballot should not extend to other than metropolitan
elections. With this alteration the Bill passed through its last stages
and became law, and it may be added that, whatever its defects, it
marked an epoch in the history of our educational system. The religious
difficulty did not disappear with the passing of the Bill, as was natural
to a difficulty which after all was primarily not religious but social.
The platforms of the League and the Union--of Nonconformity and the
Established Church--were the platforms on which the later elections for
school boards were generally fought; but the first elections largely
showed that the Bill was being loyally accepted by all parties, and Mr.
Forster was greatly pleased when Lord Lawrence, ex-Viceroy of India,
agreed to become Chairman of the first School Board for London. Certainly
the Act brought education within the reach of every English child, and
"covered England with good schools;" and the rancour of the League
defeated its own ends when Mr. Forster, on addressing his constituents in
the autumn, was received with a vote of censure.

All minor legislative undertakings of the year, even the Land Bill and the
Education Act themselves, were for the time wholly eclipsed and driven
out of public memory by news that arrived in England, by telegraph,
on the 22nd of April--news fraught with personal loss and sorrow to
many, which roused throughout England generally a storm of grief and
indignation. The facts were these: On the morning of the 11th of April,
a party of residents and tourists, comprising Lord and Lady Muncaster,
Mr. Herbert, Mr. Vyner, Mr. Lloyd, his wife and child, and Count de Boyl,
set out from Athens to visit the battle-field of Marathon, that famous
crescent-shaped piece of flat sea-shore, where the destinies of Europe
were once staked upon a single throw, and the "teeming East" received that
decisive check, the importance of which to subsequent European history
none can over-estimate. The gentlemen of the party before setting out had
made stringent inquiries in Athens respecting the rumoured presence of
brigands in the country round Marathon. Mr. Herbert had received official
information to the effect that Attica, was safe, and, the Government
declared, perfectly free from brigands. Still, to guard against any
possible danger, the Government engaged to send with them an escort of
four mounted gendarmes, who were to be joined _en route_ by others. Thus
provided, they set out, and, after such a day as a party of cultivated
people were likely to spend in such a place as Marathon, they were driving
back to Athens in the warm spring evening. Only the four gendarmes were
in sight of the carriage--two riding in front, and two behind; but the
inmates knew that at least six foot-soldiers were a little way behind
them, while it was rumoured that a further body of twenty-five soldiers
had left Marathon in their wake, ready to render help if necessary.

[Illustration: CAPTURE OF ENGLISH TOURISTS BY GREEK BRIGANDS. (_See p._
542.)]

What followed may be described in the words of Mr. Erskine's despatch of
the 12th of April to Lord Clarendon. "Just before they were to change
horses," he says, "and as they were approaching the bridge of Pikermes,
at about twelve or fourteen miles from Athens, they were suddenly fired
at from the brushwood bordering the road; and at the first discharge
the two gendarmes in front fell, badly wounded, from their horses. The
carriage then stopped, and the whole party were compelled to alight, and
with the two remaining mounted gendarmes, were hurried up the side of the
mountain"--Mount Pentelicus, famous in old Greek days. In the midst of the
general panic and uproar, the six foot-soldiers came up and opened fire on
the brigands. But alas! they were now too late, whatever their help might
have been worth a few minutes earlier. The brigands--of whom Mr. Herbert
counted at least twenty-one--had formed themselves into a compact square,
of which their captain made the centre. Thus arranged, they retreated
gradually under the fire of the soldiers, which must for some little time
have placed the lives of the prisoners in the utmost danger. Seeing that
they produced no effect, and fearing to injure those whom they had been
ordered to protect, the soldiers at last discontinued the pursuit and made
off to Athens to give the alarm. The eight unfortunate travellers found
themselves wholly at the mercy of this wild-looking band of black-browed
men, who dragged them roughly up the slopes of Mount Pentelicus without
any regard to the fatigue of the ladies and the strength of the little
child who clung to them. At the top of the mountain a halt was made,
and the ladies were told that they were to be immediately sent back to
Athens, in a country cart that happened to be at hand. Ink and paper were
supplied to Mr. Herbert, and he was peremptorily ordered to send by them
to his friends in Athens a demand for the immediate payment of a ransom of
£32,000. Driven by the countryman who owned the cart, the poor ladies--one
of whom (Mrs. Lloyd) little knew that she had parted from her husband for
the last time on earth--made their way back to Athens.

On the morning of the 13th, a note, conveyed by one of the mounted
gendarmes--who had been liberated at the same time as the ladies--reached
Mr. Erskine from Takos, the chief of the brigands, saying that if in three
days a sum of £50,000 was not forthcoming for the ransom of the "lords,"
and if all pursuit throughout the kingdom was not suspended, the prisoners
would be put to death. In the course of the day Lord Muncaster arrived
in the capital, sent by the brigands to negotiate for the ransom. He
brought the same message. Let the troops but come into collision with the
brigands, and the lives of all the captives would be at once sacrificed.
Mr. Erskine of course renewed the most strenuous representation to the
Greek Government on the subject, and received in return from the Minister
for War, General Soutzos, a solemn assurance that the brigands should
remain unmolested till the prisoners were safely restored. General Soutzos
treated the whole matter very lightly, would not allow for a moment that
the lives of the prisoners were in any danger, and said that he had no
doubt the amount demanded for their ransom might be considerably reduced
if their friends felt inclined to make any difficulty about it. No thought
of bargaining with the brigands, however, entered Mr. Erskine's or Lord
Muncaster s head, and the ransom was speedily collected with the help of
the chief banker in Athens, who showed himself most active and efficient.
But, alas! no sooner was the money forthcoming, and means of transporting
it secured, than a new element entered into the situation, and darkened
the whole aspect of affairs. This was no less than a demand on the part
of the brigands for a complete amnesty for all offences, not only for
themselves, but also for such members of the band as had once belonged
to it, but were now in prison. And should this fresh demand be refused,
they again threatened to destroy their prisoners. The Greek Government
found themselves thrown into a fatal dilemma, and it was to their reckless
attempt to extricate themselves from it that the whole of the subsequent
tragedy was owing. Under the Constitution that secured the throne of
Greece to Prince George of Denmark, the King and Ministers were pledged to
put down brigandage, the curse of Greek society, with the utmost rigour
of the law. How, then, grant such an amnesty as this to the most powerful
and most notorious band in Greece? Besides, the Ministry felt from the
first that there was more in the demand than met the eye. Such a condition
formed no part of ordinary brigand law, and would not have occurred
spontaneously to any band of lawless men who saw the prospect of getting
a large sum of money immediately after releasing their prisoners. It
appeared only too clearly afterwards that the demand was originally none
of their making, and that they were throughout supported and influenced by
the corrupt and reckless chiefs of the Greek Parliamentary Opposition. It
was a party move, meant to secure the downfall of the Ministry; and the
brigands, no less than their unfortunate prisoners, were but pieces in the
game. Once suggested, the notion no doubt caught the fancy of Takos, the
head of the band, a man of superior education to the rest; and elated by
the rank and importance of his captives, he may have made up his mind to
secure every possible advantage. The other members of the band were by no
means eager for the amnesty, and when a few days later they were flying
before the soldiery, they bitterly reproached their chief with having
demanded it.

Fully alive to the gravity of the situation, Mr. Erskine sent telegram
after telegram to Lord Clarendon. Lord Clarendon's answer was clear
and peremptory. Britain could allow no constitutional consideration to
weigh against the lives of her subjects. The Greek Constitution had
been violated before in the same manner in the Cretan insurrection and
in other cases; and Englishmen were not to be sacrificed to keep a weak
Ministry in power. The Ministry meanwhile were preparing a desperate
attempt to recover their reputation and escape from the snare laid for
them. They hoped for a successful _coup de main_, which should at once
rescue the prisoners, annihilate the brigands, relieve Government from the
responsibility of the ransom, and strengthen the position of the Ministry.
At the same time Mr. Erskine was still allowed to believe that, although
the amnesty could not be granted, no movement of the troops against
the brigands would be permitted until the prisoners were safe. Relying
upon this, Mr. Erskine sent a messenger to the brigands, reiterating
the assurance of the Government that no pursuit would be attempted; and
entreating that they would leave the mountains and bring their prisoners
down into the plains, where such delicate men as Mr. Herbert and Count de
Boyl need not be exposed to all the hardships of an open-air life. The
brigands, who had vowed to trust the word of no Greek Minister, believed
Mr. Erskine, left their mountain camp and brought their captives down to
the village of Oropus, where they seem to have been on the whole fairly
well treated. A few days were then taken up in fruitless negotiations,
conducted by a certain Colonel Theagenis, on behalf of the Greek
Government--a man afterwards denounced by Sir Henry Bulwer in the House
of Commons as the real murderer of the prisoners--and by Mr. Erskine, on
behalf of Great Britain.

It is difficult to give a consecutive account of what followed. The
Government had made up their mind to take the risk of employing the
troops. Mr. Erskine was, above all, anxious that the brigands should not
move their prisoners from Oropus, and he seems to have countenanced the
action of the Government so far as to consent to a blockade of Oropus, to
prevent them from doing so, insisting at the same time in the strongest
terms that the brigands should not be in any way molested by the soldiery
till the prisoners were safe. Colonel Theagenis was entrusted with the
conduct of the whole matter, and it appeared plainly afterwards that he
received instructions of which Mr. Erskine knew nothing, and to which he
would never have consented. The suspicions of the brigands had been by
this time aroused; the Government had been for some days silently moving
up troops in the direction of Oropus, and the scouts of the band, posted
on all sides of the village, were not slow to discover and report their
movement. On the 20th of April, the day before the massacre, letters
reached Mr. Erskine from Mr. Herbert, Mr. Lloyd, and Mr. Vyner, which
must indeed have thrown him into despair. All spoke of the imminent
danger in which these suspected movements of the troops had placed
them, and entreated that something might be done to stay the progress
of the soldiers. Mr. Noel, an English resident in Eubœa, who had taken
a prominent part in the negotiations, telegraphed to say that he felt
assured the terms offered would be accepted by the brigands, but that
the soldiers must be withdrawn. The band were going to a place not far
from Oropus called Sykamenos, whither he was about to follow them with
every hope of a successful issue. It was this movement of the brigands,
coupled with the orders given to the troops to pursue them should they
leave Oropus, that brought about the tragedy of the 21st. On that day the
brigands, suspecting the neighbourhood of troops, left Sykamenos before
Mr. Noel could come up with them. The troops received information of their
movement, followed them, and fired upon them. The brigands, driven to
desperation, turned savagely upon their prisoners. They shot Mr. Lloyd
before the eyes of the soldiers, who became infuriated at the sight of
this murderous act, and made a fierce attack upon the brigands. Six of
them were killed, including Christos Arvanitakis (Takos), and one or two
were taken alive. The others fled up the country, dragging the other
prisoners with them; and upon reaching a place named Skimatari, they
stabbed them one by one, Mr. Vyner being the last to suffer. In an hour
or two all the labour and anxiety of the last ten days had been rendered
fruitless, and four noble and valuable lives had been sacrificed to the
culpable rashness and incapacity of those who had sworn to protect and
rescue them. Mr. Noel telegraphed the fatal news to Mr. Erskine, and it
almost seemed for a time as if another death were to be added to the list,
so fearful was the effect of the tragedy upon the man who for ten days had
strained every nerve to prevent it.

For a time all England was roused to a frenzy of wrath and grief. At
one time it seemed as if nothing less than a war with Greece and the
annihilation of her whole existing political system would satisfy
English indignation. But there was one person in Greece for whom English
people felt almost as much pity as for the victims themselves--and
that was the poor young king, who throughout had been the dupe of the
unscrupulous partisans about him,--who once in a moment of alarm had
made the romantic offer to give himself up to the brigands in the
place of the captives,--and who, now that all was over, wrote the most
touching letters, full of keen personal shame and grief, to the English
Government, while later he made large offers of indemnification out of
his own private property to the families of the victims. It was well
for Greece that nearly a month elapsed before the question came to be
debated to any purpose in Parliament. During the interval the capture of
nearly all the brigands had done something toward satisfying the public
indignation. The wily leaders of the Opposition, at whose door lay the
greater part of the blame, had laid their plans so cunningly that it was
extremely difficult to detect and expose them. And after the confessions
of the brigands had thrown some light upon this part of the matter, and
a steady public opinion in England might perhaps have exacted a heavy
penalty for the lives so basely trifled with from those who had used
them only as so many pieces in the political game, English attention was
diverted by the gigantic impending tragedy of the French and German War;
and in the overwhelming interest of those first battle-fields of Wörth and
Forbach, the fate of the captives of Marathon was, for the time at least,
inevitably forgotten.

The story of the Greek massacre may now give place to the story of the
tamer debates in Parliament that still remain to be described. The two
great Acts that have already been recorded naturally fill the chief place
in the Parliamentary history of the year; but there still remain some
discussions that are worth describing, some measures whose fate has to be
told. First in order come the naval and military proposals of Mr. Childers
and Mr. Cardwell--memorable as showing the naval and military condition
of Britain at the opening of the great war year, and as indicating
more or less completely the lines upon which reorganisation afterwards
proceeded. The Naval Estimates of Mr. Childers carried out very thoroughly
those principles of economy on which the Liberal Government had laid so
much stress on its accession to power. The proposals of the First Lord
also included a scheme for the retirement of officers, and were full of
details about the intentions of the Admiralty with regard to ships and
guns--those never-ceasing perplexities of the modern naval administrator.
The gross estimates reached a total of £9,250,000--three quarters of a
million less than those of the previous year, and £1,700,000 less than
those of 1868. This saving had been arrived at by different expedients;
and, popular as the broad result was, the expedients, taken severally,
were most of them doubtfully welcomed both in and out of Parliament. The
most notable one had been the closing of several of the dockyards, and
the consequent throwing out of employment of several thousand workmen.
But Mr. Childers presented not only a justification of his policy to
the House, but showed that Government had done very much to lessen the
distress of the discharged workmen. Thus, of 2,000 who were thrown out
of work by the closing of Woolwich Dockyard, 1,000 had been transferred
to other establishments, 200 pensioned, gratuities given to 200, and 300
helped to emigrate. This, in fact, was all that could be done. Government
found themselves in a dilemma--either they must abandon retrenchment, or
they must harass certain interests. They chose to pursue their policy of
retrenchment, trusting to their own remedial measures and to the chances
of the market for providing for the discharged workmen. Mr. Childers'
proposals with regard to keeping up a proper supply of ships were "to push
on the most powerful class of armoured ships and the fastest cruisers,"
experience having shown that these were the two classes most likely to
be of use in modern wars--the one for fighting, the other for pursuit.
He had much to say about new guns; he promised to send another flying
squadron round the world; he detailed his measures for forming a reserve
of sailors; and, above all, he unfolded his new scheme of retirement for
officers. The details of this scheme, stated shortly, were that admirals
of the fleet were to be compelled to retire at 70 years of age, admirals
and vice-admirals at 65, rear-admirals at 60, captains at 55, commanders
at 50, and lieutenants at 45. With this he proposed a scale of pensions,
and promised that the result would be a considerable benefit to the
service and a saving to the country of about £300,000 a year.

[Illustration: "REARING THE LION'S WHELPS."

FROM THE PAINTING BY W. L. WYLLIE, A.R.A.]

[Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, ATHENS. (_From a Photograph by Rhemaidez
Frères, Athens._)]

Mr. Cardwell's army proposals need not be described at length, for they
merge into the far more comprehensive proposals of the next year, when
the war had compelled the country to look its military affairs in the
face, and to consent to a thoroughgoing scheme of reorganisation. Still,
even in this year, Mr. Cardwell struck the note of a very decided reform.
He proposed reductions both in the colonial and the home army, and laid
down the two principles, though he did not fully work them out, upon
which the reorganisation of 1871 was based--namely, short service and
abolition of purchase. He abolished the rank of ensign and cornet, as a
first step towards the latter; he announced his plan of enlistments for
twelve years, six to be passed in the regular army and six in the reserve,
as a preparation for the former. He proposed to disband the Canadian
Rifles, the Cape Mounted Rifles, the 3rd West Indian Regiment, and the
African Artillery. He reduced the Indian establishment, and proposed an
elaborate method of reducing the strength of all home regiments. By all
these measures he brought about a reduction of £1,136,900 on the estimates
of the previous year, and of £2,330,800 on those of the year before. The
figures by which he described the strength of the army at the beginning
of this year were:--Regulars and others available for all services, home
and foreign, 109,225; second army of reserve, 20,000; militia, 63,000;
yeomanry, 15,300; volunteers, 168,477. In other words, a total of 376,002,
nearly half of them being volunteers--figures that tempt one to speculate
what would have been the result of all this reduction and economy had the
German armies made their appearance before London instead of before Paris!

The revenue of the year, as Mr. Lowe announced in his Budget speech,
amounted to £76,505,000; a sum of which nearly four millions were due
to the new mode of collecting taxes instituted by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer--a mode that for the first year caused the revenue to appear
far greater than it really was. The expenditure was £68,223,000; and the
surplus was devoted to paying about half the cost of the Abyssinian War,
to a reduction of the income tax by a penny in the pound, to a reduction
of the sugar duties, and to various smaller reductions. In finance, at
least, the _annus mirabilis_ cannot be pronounced unfortunate, so far as
England was concerned.

The history of Parliament in 1870 must be completed by a mention of a few
Bills that became law, and a few that did not. This year saw the passing
of a Bill that practically repealed the law that Pitt had carried in order
to exclude Horne Tooke from the House of Commons--a Bill, moved by Mr.
Hibbert, to remove the civil disabilities of clergymen. This provided that
any clergyman wishing to relinquish the office of priest or deacon might
do so by signing a deed, to be registered by the bishop. From the moment
of his signing, he was to become free to practise any trade or profession,
and to sit in Parliament--to become, in fact, a layman. It may be added
that a considerable number of distinguished clergy took advantage of
the Act soon after it was passed. Mr. Russell Gurney's Married Women's
Property Bill was another of great practical importance; but unfortunately
its success was only partial. It proposed to give married women the
absolute control of their own earnings, instead of allowing the husband
to seize them at his pleasure. The Bill was of course directed mainly
towards the class of wage-earning people, where the wife often contributed
largely to the family stock by the labour of her hands; and no one who had
any knowledge of this class could be ignorant of the fearful amount of
misery that a drunken or worthless husband might cause by compelling his
wife to keep him in drink and idleness. Mr. Russell Gurney's Bill aimed
at curing this state of things; and, in spite of the difficulties of the
question, the advantage of protecting married women in the possession of
their actual earnings was evident to almost everybody. But in the House
of Lords, where there were no members pledged to support women's rights,
the Bill was severely handled by the law lords and others. The unbelief
of Lord Westbury, the peculiar experience of Lord Penzance, induced them
to "amend" the Bill in its most essential points. It passed, but passed
mutilated; yet its advocates had helped to familiarise the public mind
with its principle, and a measure much more consistent and comprehensive
became law in a later year. The House of Lords also threw out for this
Session the Bill of Sir John Coleridge for abolishing religious tests in
the Universities, and also the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which the
House of Commons had passed. This Bill, which has been described as "a
Bill to enable a woman to marry her deceased sister's husband," found
great favour with the Dissenters, and was pushed through the Lower House
mainly by their exertions. But the House of Lords was more open to High
Church influence--Lord Salisbury was a greater power there than Mr.
Beresford Hope in the Commons--and was never too willing to pass Bills for
the simple removal of disabilities, matrimonial or other.

In the first month of the year, before Parliament met, a terrible
catastrophe occurred in the Eastern seas, through which a fine ship-of-war
belonging to a friendly nation was run down by an English mail steamer
and sunk, the accident being attended by a lamentable loss of life. The
United States steam corvette _Oneida_ left the anchorage at Yokohama, the
port of Yedo, in Japan, at about five o'clock on the evening of the 24th
of January, 1870. Two hours later the noble vessel had sunk beneath the
waves and the greater part of her crew had been swept into eternity. It
was nearly 7 P.M.; the officers were at dinner below, when the
look-out man shouted, "Steamer lights ahead," and the midshipman on watch
gave the order to port the helm. The approaching vessel (which proved to
be the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamship _Bombay_) was steering
due north, and making for the port of Yokohama; the _Oneida_ appears to
have been steering a south-easterly course. Captain Eyre, commanding the
_Bombay_, afterwards deposed on oath, that when the _Oneida_ was first
sighted, she was about a mile distant, and that he immediately ported
his helm, and kept porting it for a considerable time, in order to clear
her. While the _Bombay_ was still heading off to starboard, Captain Eyre
deposed that he saw the stranger putting her helm hard a-starboard, and
crossing the bow of the _Bombay_ with full sails and steam. The night
being dark, the vessels were at that moment not more than a hundred feet
apart. Captain Eyre instantly stopped his engines, and put his helm hard
a-starboard, hoping to go clear of the approaching vessel. Unfortunately
the vessels were too close together for this, and a collision occurred,
the bows of the _Bombay_ cutting into the starboard side of the _Oneida_,
about the mizen rigging. Neither ship was entangled with the other; and
Captain Eyre, not hearing or seeing, as he said, any signal of distress
from the other ship, and being informed that the _Bombay_ was making
water, ordered the engines to be set going at full speed and made the
best of his way for Yokohama. The unfortunate crew of the _Oneida_ felt
themselves to be cruelly abandoned; for, besides the shock and the
danger of the collision itself--in consideration of which the unharmed
or slightly harmed vessel ought in common humanity to have waited to
ascertain the effects of the accident upon the other, before proceeding
on her course--several of the _Oneida's_ guns, which happened to be
loaded at the time, were almost instantly fired to attract the attention
of the _Bombay_ and bring her back. Two of the ship's boats, containing
fifty-six men, floated after she had gone down, and were picked up and
brought safely to Yokohama; the rest of the officers and crew--a hundred
and twenty in number--went down with the ship. A court of inquiry was held
at Kanagawa, in Japan, to investigate the circumstances of the collision,
and the result was that Captain Eyre's certificate was suspended for six
months. The Board of Trade afterwards ratified the finding of the court of
inquiry, and expressed their opinion that the sentence of suspension was
"inadequate to the gravity of the offence."

We must now turn to the obituary of the year, omitting, however, according
to our custom, the domains of literature and art, which are reserved for
a later chapter. A statesman of high rank, a judge of great and long-lived
reputation, some illustrious soldiers, were among those who died. Of
several of these--of Sir De Lacy Evans, of Sir G. F. Seymour, of Sir
William Gordon, and of General Windham--it is not necessary to speak; nor
of Dr. Gilbert, the cultivated Bishop of Chichester, once the well-known
Principal of Brasenose College. More famous than these was Sir Frederick
Pollock, formerly Chief Baron of the Exchequer, who began his public
career by coming out as Senior Wrangler at Cambridge in 1806, and ended it
sixty-four years later as a judge who had carried into his retirement the
respect and affection of his colleagues and the bar. He was, too, a member
of a notable family--for Sir David Pollock, once Chief Justice of Bombay,
and Field-Marshal Sir George Pollock, the famous Indian soldier, were his
brothers. It is rare for three brothers to reach, as they did, the very
highest posts in their different professions, especially if, like these,
they start with no advantages of wealth or birth. Lord Clarendon, who
died on the 27th of June, had started with those advantages, but he had
turned them to good account. He was the head of the Clarendon branch of
the Villiers family, which has for a long time been Whig; and he carried
out through a long official life the best traditions of Whig policy as a
diplomatist, Foreign Secretary, and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, though the
chief responsibility for the Crimean War must always rest upon his memory.

[Illustration: THE BOULEVARD MONTMARTRE, PARIS.]




CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    France in 1870--The Ollivier Ministry--Diminution of Imperial
    Prestige--Constitutional Reforms submitted to the Popular
    Vote--Resignation of Daru and Buffet--The _Plébiscite_--The Military
    Vote--Lull in European Affairs-The Hohenzollern Incident--The
    Duc de Gramont's Speech--Excitement in France--The Candidature
    withdrawn--Benedetti at Ems--His Second Interview with King
    William--The Alarmist Telegram--War declared at Paris--Efforts of
    the British Government--Bismarck divulges a supposed Franco-German
    Treaty--Benedetti's Explanation--Earl Russell's Speech--Belgian
    Neutrality guaranteed--Unpreparedness of the French Army--Hopes
    of Alliances--The Emperor's Plans--Saarbrück--Weissenburg--The
    Emperor partially resigns Command--Wörth--MacMahon
    at Châlons--Spicheren--The Palikao Ministry--Bazaine
    Generalissimo--Battle of Borny--Mars-la-Tour--Gravelotte--English
    Associations for the Sick and Wounded--Palikao's Plan--MacMahon's
    Hesitation--De Failly's Defeat--MacMahon resolves to
    Fight--Sedan--The Surrender--Napoleon and his Captors--Receipt
    of the News in Paris--Impetuosity of Jules Favre--A Midnight
    Sitting--Jules Favre's Plan--Palikao's Alternative--Fall of the
    Empire--The Government of National Defence--Suppression of the Corps
    Législatif--The Neutral Powers: Great Britain, Austria, and Italy.


At his usual New Year's Day reception (the 1st of January, 1870) the
Emperor Napoleon expressed himself to the diplomatic body as highly
satisfied with the relations existing between his Government and
all Foreign Powers. He added, "The year 1870, I am sure, cannot but
consolidate this general agreement, and tend to the increase of concord
and civilisation." So it might easily have done, had not the rise or fall
of his own prestige, and that of his family, been matters of much greater
importance in the Emperor's mind--notwithstanding these fine words--than
the peace of Europe and the happiness of France.

M. Ollivier, having succeeded in inducing several public men of a higher
stamp than had ever before served the Emperor--notably Count Daru and M.
Buffet--to join him in the effort that he declared himself resolved to
make to give real political liberty to France, appeared before the Chamber
with his Ministry fully constituted on the 3rd of January. But these
honest politicians of the Left Centre--these men of honour, and character
and known antecedents--must have felt considerable surprise, not to say
mistrust, when they found what sort of persons they were associated with
in the Government and in what hand the executive force of the Empire
really lay. Marshal Lebœuf was continued in the post of Minister of War;
and courtiers like Marshal Vaillant, the Duc de Gramont, and General
Fleury knew the Emperor's secrets and influenced his determinations
much more than his responsible Ministers. M. Ollivier himself was a
vain, impetuous man, abounding in self-confidence, but lacking in
self-respect,--who was dazzled by the attentions shown him by the Emperor,
and believed that he had converted his master to Liberal principles;
whereas his master did but make a tool of him all along, and in the end
caused him to lose the respect of everyone.

[Illustration: EMILE OLLIVIER. (_From a Photograph by Benque and Co.,
Paris._)]

Although the country was materially prosperous, the popularity, and
therefore the stability, of the Empire had greatly diminished in the
last five years. With the temper that ruled in the breasts of French
politicians, the aggrandisement of a neighbouring State was necessarily
regarded as a check to the policy and a kind of outrage to the feelings
of France. Even so moderate a writer as Jules Favre seemed to think
that if the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern had not been
withdrawn when it was, the elevation of a Prussian prince to the throne
of Spain would have constituted a real _casus belli_ for France. The
line of French thought would appear to be this: "Prussia, by annexing a
number of provinces without our consent, and not offering us a share, has
brought herself relatively nearer to us in power than she was before,
and has thereby done us a grievous wrong; if now the ambitious House of
Brandenburg, not content with this provoking increase of power, should
try to seat one of its princes on the throne--even though it be but a
revolutionary throne--of Spain, we Frenchmen will not submit to it; our
feelings will boil over; and we must go to war rather than allow it."
It is true these things were little felt by the working and trading
millions, to whom "peace was their dear delight;" yet even to them a
little "glory" now and then was necessary in order to embellish their
existence; and, moreover, the Emperor was a man of ideas, knew the French
people, and could calculate the force of epigrams and the undermining
power of a hostile sentiment. Certainly he could not afford, nor could
the Empire afford, to lose any more _prestige_. Yet at this very moment
an incident of the most damaging and discreditable character covered the
name of the Bonapartes with infamy, namely, the death of the journalist
Victor Noir at the hands of the Emperor's ruffianly cousin Pierre, and the
latter's acquittal before the High Court of Justice at Tours.

The position of the Government was strange and precarious; no one seemed
exactly to understand it: with the exception of the extreme parties--the
courtiers on one side, and the "Irreconcilables" on the other--all the
actors on the political stage were moving they knew not precisely whither.
M. Ollivier on one occasion (February 23rd) announced that the Government
disapproved of the system of official candidatures, and would no more use
pressure at the elections. No intelligence could be more unwelcome to a
large proportion of the members on the Right, who had owed their seats to
Government pressure, and knew that without it they had no chance of being
re-elected. A split therefore began to develop itself in the ranks of the
majority. But the Emperor still continued to support Ollivier and to play
his Liberal game. His instincts and opinions were without doubt genuinely
Liberal; and his life was consumed in the attempt to reconcile the
gratification of these instincts with the conservation of his dynasty. And
yet there must have been something in the apologetic tone that Ollivier
often assumed in the Chamber, which must have been a little galling to
Napoleon's pride. The Emperor resolved to teach his Liberal supporters
a lesson and at the same time to reimpress a large and awkward fact on
the minds of his enemies--namely, that he and his system were the choice
of France. He instructed M. Ollivier (March 21st) to prepare a _Senatus
Consultum_ for the redistribution of powers between the two branches
of the Legislature, so that the Senate--the less popular body--should
be curtailed of many privileges which it had before enjoyed; while the
Corps Législatif--the more popular body--would have its powers extended,
especially by giving it the right of originating all money Bills. M.
Ollivier introduced the measure into the Senate on the 26th of March. But
a few days later he was startled on being informed by the Emperor, that
since, in his opinion, the new constitutional changes involved a departure
from the basis that the popular vote had ratified in 1852, he was resolved
to submit them also to the ordeal of universal suffrage. Ollivier
remonstrated vainly against this decision: the Emperor stood firm; and
the Minister, either not seeing or not wishing to see the vast difference
that his consent made in his position, agreed to continue at the head of
affairs and arrange the machinery of the _plébiscite_.

But Count Daru and M. Buffet, more clear-sighted and self-respecting
than their flighty colleague, refused to have anything to do with a
_plébiscite_. For the meaning of it was simply this--that the popular
vote covered everything, and was itself the source of right and legality;
that France had no right to liberty and just government unless the masses
voted to that effect; and that similarly the _plébiscite_ of 1852, having
sanctioned a system that arose out of perjury and violence, had made
that system immaculate and unquestionable. In taking office, Count Daru
and M. Buffet had never intended so to commit themselves; and they now
accordingly resigned their _bureaux_. The Duc de Gramont, a courtier,
received the charge of the Foreign Office in succession to Count Daru.

In resorting again to the device of a _plébiscite_, we cannot doubt that
the Emperor had one main object in view--increased stability. The tide of
Liberalism, he felt, was continually pushing him onward; piece by piece,
the system of administration on which he had ruled France for eighteen
years was giving way to its assault; and then, as he had once before said
to M. Ollivier, "one always falls on the side on which one leans." Feeling
the advances of age--conscious that his powers both of body and mind were
being undermined by a harassing and incurable malady--he became more than
ever desirous to secure the peaceable transmission of power to his son.
If all France could be got to ratify the changes that were now being made
in the system of government as decisively as it ratified his assumption
of power after the _coup d'état_ of 1851, surely the dynasty might then
breathe freely. One would have thought that the friendship and the
pledged word of two or three leading generals would have offered a more
substantial security for the succession of his son than the illusory test
of a _plébiscite_. Perhaps, however, the Emperor had by this time half
convinced himself that a popular vote, taken on a matter which the masses
cannot properly judge of, was an honest and lawful mode of devolving
power, and also a mode that imparted a peculiar strength and durability
to the decision arrived at. The vote was taken in all the departments of
France, and separately in the army and navy, with the following result:
_Oui_, seven millions of civilian votes, and three hundred and nine
thousand in the army and navy; _Non_, one million and a half (within five
thousand) of civilian votes, and fifty-two thousand in the army and navy.

When, in the autumn of 1852, the Emperor demanded from the popular voice a
condonation of the past and a sanction for the future, the Ayes numbered
nearly 8,000,000, the Noes only 253,000. The returns of the voting in 1870
marked a notable progress of dissatisfaction since the commencement of
the Empire. But it is known that the nature of the military vote was that
which chiefly disquieted the Emperor. These fifty thousand soldiers who,
in spite of the restraints of discipline and the ties of self-interest,
had, by their "Noes," expressed their disapproval of the Imperial system,
could not but be regarded as the more active and intelligent spirits
in the army, who were more likely, unless their aims were attained, to
estrange from the Empire the still loyal majority, than to be absorbed
in that majority themselves. What, then, were their aims? In a warlike
nation, where the humblest day-labourer is possessed by the sentiment of
military glory, the more stirring and ambitious characters in the army are
prone to become impatient in a long-continued peace; and this feeling is
likely to be enhanced when a neighbouring people, the rival and antagonist
of the soldier's country in many an historic campaign, has been winning
_spolia opima_, and gaining victories of extraordinary brilliancy. Such
reflections must have agitated the mind of Napoleon as he thought of those
fifty thousand "Noes;" and the conviction must have come upon him with a
lurid clearness, that the only way to regain the loyalty of the army and
to secure the succession of his son lay through war. When the ruler of
a great nation, having the absolute control of its military resources,
arrives at such a conclusion as this, an occasion is not likely to be long
wanting.

But for a time everything wore a peaceful aspect, and the results of the
_plébiscite_ were even considered on the whole to have strengthened the
Emperor's position. It was a matter of course that, on receiving from M.
Schneider (May 21st) the official report of the results of the voting,
the Emperor should use the language of serenity and cheerful hope. "We
must," he said, "more than ever look fearlessly forward to the future."
In a debate on the Bill for fixing the army contingent for 1870, M.
Ollivier, to whom the Emperor's mind was a sealed book, declared that the
Government had no uneasiness whatever; that in no epoch was the peace of
Europe more assured; and that no irritating question anywhere existed.
When, after the death of Lord Clarendon, Earl Granville repaired to the
Foreign Office to take up the portfolio of the deceased statesman, he was
informed by Mr. Hammond, the Under-Secretary, that in all his experience
he had never known so great a lull in foreign affairs. Two hours later, a
telegram from Mr. Layard, the British Minister at Madrid, communicated the
decision of the Spanish Council of State to offer the crown of Spain to
Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. On the same afternoon, the Duc de Gramont
informed Lord Lyons, the British ambassador at Paris, that France would
use her whole strength to prevent the election of a Prussian Prince, and
he requested the co-operation of Britain in warding off this danger to the
peace of Europe. On the following day (July 6th) the Duc de Gramont read
in the Chamber a memorandum of the views of the Government, the unusual
and menacing language of which spread alarm through all the capitals of
Europe. "We do not believe," he said, "that respect for the rights of a
neighbouring people obliges us to suffer a Foreign Power, by placing a
prince upon the throne of Charles V., to disturb the European equilibrium
to our disadvantage, and thus to imperil the interests and honour of
France. We entertain a firm hope that this will not happen. To prevent
it, we count upon the wisdom of the German nation and the friendship of
the people of Spain; but in the contrary event, with your support and the
support of the nation, we shall know how to do our duty without hesitation
or weakness." These words were received with wild and enthusiastic
cheering.

The candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern had been first broached
so far back as March, 1869, but at that time it met with no encouragement
at Berlin; while M. Benedetti, under instructions from the French
Government, represented that such an election could only be viewed by
France with serious dissatisfaction. Now, after an interval of more than
a year, the project was resumed, and that in circumstances of apparent
trickery and intrigue that called forth disapprobation, not in Paris only,
but also in London. At a later date the Duc de Gramont suggested, though
he had no means of proving, that the idea of reviving the candidature
of Prince Leopold came to General Prim from a Prussian source; and he
pledged his veracity for the existence of a letter written to Prim by
Count Bismarck some time in June, 1870, in which the Prussian Chancellor
said that the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern was in itself an
excellent thing, that it must not be abandoned, and that at a given moment
it might be serviceable. The duke declared that though he had never seen
this letter himself, it had been read by well-known eminent men. These
and other details were related by the Duc de Gramont in order to bear
out his theory that Prussia, and in particular Count Bismarck, was the
real originator of the war, by means of a series of studied provocations
and affronts, designedly framed so as to awaken the warlike passions of
the French people, and hurry them into a strife for which he knew that
Prussia was far better prepared than France. Whatever may be thought of
this theory, it is certain that the suddenness of the whole thing (for the
Council of Ministers at Madrid decided on the 5th of July to propose the
Prince of Hohenzollern to the Cortes, and to convoke that body for the
purpose on the 20th of July) was viewed with suspicion and disfavour in
Britain, where no prejudice existed either against Prussia or France. The
excitable imagination of Frenchmen immediately developed the incident into
a hundred painful and humiliating consequences. "Prussia," they thought,
"desires first to isolate us in Europe, and then to crush us. Just as she
ruined Austria in 1866 by placing her between two fires--herself on the
north, and Italy on the south--so it is her present aim to place France
also between two fires--North Germany on the one side, and Spain, with a
Prussian prince on its throne and its army reorganised on the Prussian
system, on the other."

But the candidature was not adhered to; and this fact, in the absence
of more weighty evidence on the other side than has yet been adduced,
suffices in the judgment of most men to saddle France with the chief
responsibility of the rupture. Lord Granville exerted all his influence
at Berlin to procure the withdrawal of the dangerous candidature; and M.
Olozaga, the Spanish Minister at Paris (a statesman of great experience,
and sincerely friendly to France), alarmed at the terrible excitement
around him, took measures with the Prince Anthony of Hohenzollern, the
father of Prince Leopold, to induce him to exercise his parental authority
and bring about the renunciation by his son of the honour proposed for
him. Could this be accomplished, it seemed certain that the storm would
blow over, for the Duc de Gramont himself said to Lord Lyons, on the 8th
of July, that the voluntary renunciation of his candidature by Prince
Leopold would be "a most fortunate solution" of the difficulty. Prince
Anthony accordingly wrote to General Prim renouncing all pretensions
to the crown of Spain on the part of his son; Prim communicated the
renunciation to Olozaga, and by him it was conveyed to the French
Government. M. Ollivier was greatly elated, and went about in the lobbies
of the French Chambers, telling his friends that all difficulty was at an
end, "_l'incident est vidé_." But, in fact, he was not behind the scenes:
to the secret councils of the Emperor, in which the issues of peace or war
were discussed, he was not summoned.

[Illustration: "À BERLIN!"--PARISIAN CROWDS DECLARING FOR WAR. (_See p._
554.)]

Finding, as the result of its pressing representations since the first
announcement of the candidature, that the Prussian Government declined all
responsibility in regard to it, and professed to consider it as a matter
that only concerned the King of Prussia in his capacity of head of the
Hohenzollern family, the French Government instructed M. Benedetti to seek
an interview with the King, who was then at Ems, and obtain from him an
explicit disavowal of all share in the project. "We are in great haste,"
wrote Gramont, "for we must gain the start in case of an unsatisfactory
reply, and commence the movements of the troops on Saturday in order to
enter upon the campaign in a fortnight." M. Benedetti accordingly went to
Ems, where he obtained an interview with the King on the 10th of July. At
first, the King of Prussia said that he had certainly consented to the
Prince of Hohenzollern's accepting the crown of Spain; and that having
given his consent, it would be difficult for him to withdraw it. Two days
later, the Prince's renunciation was known at Paris, and it became then a
serious question with the French Government what course it should take. By
the peremptory and unusual language that they had employed in the tribune,
they had excited the passions and raised the expectations of the people
to an extraordinary height, so that merely to accept the renunciation
of the candidature appeared too lame and poor a conclusion to the tumult
they had raised. The Duc de Gramont accordingly explained to Lord Lyons,
on the 13th of July, that while the withdrawal of the candidature put
an end to all question with Spain, from Prussia France had obtained
literally nothing. M. Benedetti was ordered again to wait on the King and
procure from him a guarantee that the project of raising his kinsman to
the Spanish throne should not be renewed. The exact terms of the French
demand, according to a memorandum placed by the Duc de Gramont in the
hands of Lord Lyons, were these: "We ask of the King of Prussia to forbid
the Prince of Hohenzollern to alter his present resolution. If he does
so, the whole matter is at an end." M. Benedetti saw the King again at
Ems, on the 13th, and endeavoured to obtain from him the assurance for the
future required by the French Government. But to this the King, although
M. Benedetti insisted warmly, and hinted at the serious consequences
that might follow upon a refusal, declined to consent. Later in the day
Benedetti sent to request another interview; but the King sent word that,
as his mind was made up, and he had no other answer to give than that
which he had given in the morning, it would be useless to re-open the
question. This message--which seems to have been sent naturally and with
perfect sincerity and in which M. Benedetti himself, as his despatches
prove, saw no discourtesy--was so magnified and distorted as to create,
on the minds of all who received the intelligence, the impression of an
already consummated rupture. From Berlin the incident was officially
telegraphed to most of the European Courts to the following effect--that
M. Benedetti had accosted the King in the Kurgarten at Ems, and preferred
his last extravagant demand; and that the King had thereupon turned round
and ordered an aide-de-camp to tell M. Benedetti that there was no reply
and that he would not receive him again.

In France the rumour flew that the King had affronted the French
Ambassador and the ardour for war rose to fever heat. Immense crowds
of Parisians gathered on the Boulevards (July 14th), singing the
"Marseillaise" and eagerly discussing the chances of war. Three meetings
of the Council of Ministers were held that day. At the first the peace
party had the upper hand, but the voice of the Empress prevailed and at
the third meeting, held shortly after midnight, the vote was given for
war. At Berlin, on the same day, the King was received, on his return
from Ems, by the acclamations of an immense multitude of persons, all
animated by stern and enthusiastic resolution. On the next day occurred
the memorable scene in the French Chambers which left no doubt remaining
that the die was cast, and that the terrible eventuality of a war between
France and Prussia was close at hand. The Duc de Gramont in the Senate,
and M. Ollivier in the Corps Législatif, communicated a Ministerial
message, in which it was stated that the King had refused to give the
engagement required by France; that, notwithstanding this, in consequence
of their desire for peace, they did not break off the negotiations; but
that they had learned, to their surprise, that the King had refused to
receive M. Benedetti and had communicated the fact officially to his
Cabinet. "In these circumstances, we should have forgotten our dignity
and also our prudence, had we not made preparations. We have prepared to
maintain the war which is offered to us, leaving to each that portion of
the responsibility that devolves upon him."

The Ministerial announcement produced an indescribable ferment in the
Legislative Body. The majority applauded vehemently every expression that
had a warlike sound; but there were a few sober-minded and independent
men on the Opposition benches who endeavoured to gain a hearing,--who
demanded that the despatches on which the action of the Government was
founded should be laid before the Chamber,--who declared that since the
withdrawal of the Hohenzollern candidature they could see no sufficient
cause for war. Among these objectors the most prominent was M. Thiers. His
remonstrances were met by passionate cries and invectives. "Offend me,
insult me," he cried; "I am ready to endure anything to spare the blood of
my countrymen, which you are ready to shed so imprudently. You will not
reflect for a moment; you will not demand the contents of the despatches,
upon which your judgment ought to be founded." "Keep your advice, we do
not require it," exclaimed the violent Imperialist, M. Jérôme David. The
sitting concluded with the vote of a credit of fifty millions of francs
for extraordinary military expenses, as demanded by the Government, by
a majority of 245 to 10 voices. On the next day, the Senate, with its
President, M. Rouher, at their head, waited upon the Emperor with an
address, conceived in the worst French taste, and marked by that appalling
disregard of moral considerations which led a noble country into such
terrible misfortunes. "Your Majesty," he said, "draws the sword, and the
country is with you, trembling with indignation at the excesses that an
ambition over-excited by one day's good fortune was sure, sooner or later,
to produce." As a matter of fact the war was popular in some sixteen only
of the eighty-seven Departments of France.

All through the period of nine days that intervened between the
announcement of the French Government on the 15th of July and the speech
made by the Duc de Gramont on the 6th, the British Government had laboured
heartily and indefatigably for the preservation of peace. All was,
however, in vain. The French Ministry had, by the needless publicity and
_empressement_ which they had imported into the affair, raised such a
tempest of passion and excitement, that soon neither they nor the Parisian
public were in a condition to listen to reason. On the other hand, Count
Bismarck, while remaining perfectly cool, was not disposed to take
extraordinary pains to avert a struggle which he believed to be sooner or
later inevitable, and which he was too well informed as to the comparative
armaments of the two countries to view with apprehension.

The same spirit of rivalry and combativeness that impelled Count Bismarck
in 1866, against the traditions of his country and the declarations of his
whole life, to employ revolutionary agencies against Austria because they
furnished him with a convenient weapon, now induced him, in contempt of
the usages of men of honour and the _bienséances_ of diplomacy, to bring
forth from some secret drawer in the Prussian Foreign Office a document
that he rightly thought was calculated seriously to damage France and the
Emperor in the judgment of the neutral States. On the 25th of July there
appeared in the _Times_ what purported to be a textual copy of a project
for a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between France and
Prussia. The paper containing it was communicated to the _Times_ from the
Prussian Foreign Office and was stated to be in the handwriting of M.
Benedetti. The Emperor and the King agreed to the following bases: That
France should recognise all the Prussian acquisitions of 1866, and should
engage not to oppose the incorporation of the South German States, with
the exception of Austria, in the North German Confederation; and that
the King, on his part, would facilitate for France the acquisition of
Luxemburg by means of an indemnity to be paid to the King of Holland, and
would also "lend, if need were, the support of his arms for the conquest
of Belgium." At the reading of this audacious proposal, a sentiment of
stupefaction came upon the English mind, succeeded by a feeling of lively
indignation. But as further correspondence developed accurately what had
occurred, the case against France assumed a less unfavourable aspect. On
the 29th of July the Duc de Gramont transmitted to London a letter from
Benedetti, containing the following explanation of the circumstances. In
the first place, he pointed out, that, if the project was a villainy,
there were evidently two parties to it; on the very face of the document
it was manifest that Prussia was not more averse from entertaining the
question of the absorption of Belgium than was France. Secondly, whereas
Count Bismarck had stated that this was but one of many such schemes
with which he was continually being pestered by the French Ambassador,
Benedetti asserted that since 1866 he had had no communications with
the Prussian Chancellor upon any matter of the kind; but that in that
year, and particularly while the negotiations for the Treaty of Prague
were going on, Bismarck, fearful lest France should be provoked by the
annexation of Hanover, Frankfort, etc., to Prussia, laid several proposals
of this nature before him and discussed them with apparent seriousness.
On one such occasion, wishing to put the substance of the conversation in
a tangible shape, Benedetti wrote, almost under the direction of Count
Bismarck, the rough draft now made public by the Prussian Government;
Bismarck took it from him, saying he would show it to the King; after
that Benedetti saw and thought no more of it. But when the project was
submitted to the Emperor, Benedetti added, he at once rejected it; and he
believed that it was also rejected by the King of Prussia.

Whatever might be the exact balance of truth between the conflicting
statements, the painful impression was left on the minds of English
statesmen, that neither France nor Prussia would have much scruple about
destroying the independence of Belgium; and that, if that independence
were worth preserving, from the point of view both of the honour and of
the interests of Great Britain, new guarantees for its maintenance had
become necessary. It is a pleasure to record the manly stand taken on
this question by Lord Russell (which was in marked contrast with his
abandonment of Denmark, in 1864), when (August 2nd) the subject came up
in the House of Lords. Britain's duty, he said, was clear. "It is not a
question of three courses. There is but one course and one path--namely,
the course of honour and the path of honour--that we ought to pursue.
We are bound to defend Belgium. I am told that that may lead us into
danger. Now, in the first place, I deny that any great danger would
exist if this country manfully declared her intention to perform all her
engagements and not to shrink from their performance." After saying that
all these intrigues arose from the doubt that prevailed on the Continent
whether Britain would adhere to her treaty engagements, he proceeded: "I
am persuaded that if it is once manfully declared that England means to
stand by her treaties, to perform her engagements--that her honour and her
interests would allow nothing else--such a declaration would check the
greater part of these intrigues, and that neither France nor Prussia would
wish to add a second enemy to the formidable foe which each has to meet."

Being strongly urged forward by the expressions of opinion delivered
both in and out of Parliament, Mr. Gladstone's Government acted on this
critical occasion both promptly and skilfully. Earl Granville prepared
the text of a treaty guaranteeing the independence of Belgium during the
continuance of the war and twelve months afterwards, and proposed its
acceptance, simultaneously, but separately, to the two belligerent Powers.
The substantial proviso of the treaty was to this effect: "His Majesty
[Emperor of the French, or King of Prussia] having declared that, in spite
of the state of war existing between [France and North Germany], he is
determined to respect the neutrality of Belgium as long as it shall be
respected by [North Germany, or France], her Majesty the Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland declares, on her part, that if, during the continuance
of hostilities, the [North German, or French] armies should violate that
neutrality, she will be prepared to co-operate with [his Imperial Majesty,
or his Prussian Majesty] with the view of defending, in such manner as
shall be mutually agreed upon, by employing to that end her naval and
military forces, and of maintaining, in conjunction with [his Imperial
Majesty, or his Prussian Majesty], then and afterwards, the independence
and neutrality of Belgium." The other contracting Power agreed to
co-operate with Great Britain for the accomplishment of the same end. The
treaty was to be in force during the continuance of the war between France
and Germany, and for a term of twelve months after the ratification of
any treaty of peace concluded between those Powers; after which time,
the independence and neutrality of Belgium would continue, so far as the
high contracting parties were respectively concerned, to be maintained, as
heretofore, in accordance with the first article of the Quintuple Treaty
of the 19th of April, 1839. This treaty was accepted and signed by Prussia
immediately, and by France also, after a little hesitation. Its provisions
slumbered indeed, but there is no reason to suppose that they were without
effect. Had there been no such treaty, it is possible that, during the
operations near the Belgian frontier which terminated in the capitulation
of Sedan, the neutrality of the Belgian territory would have been forcibly
violated by one or the other belligerent; the area over which the
devastating effects of war were experienced would have been extended; and
serious political complications, from which it would have been difficult
for any one of the great Powers to hold aloof, must infallibly have
supervened.

So much heat and haste had been apparent in the proceedings of the French
Government since the first rise of the Hohenzollern incident that it
was generally expected that very few days would pass after the formal
declaration of war (July 19th) before the French Army of the North would
be arrayed along the frontier of Rhenish Prussia, ready to take the field
in overwhelming force. But day followed day and nothing decisive was done.
It appears that the arrangements for mobilisation--especially in what
relates to transport--were found to be extremely defective. In truth, the
military system of France was rotten and honeycombed with abuses; wherever
unexpected pressure was applied, it gave way. In the subordinate posts
there were many excellent and honourable men--it needs but to mention such
names as MacMahon, Trochu, and Vinoy to establish the fact--but the real
power lay with the Emperor and his personal friends or favourites. He is
said, after the first great disaster had occurred, to have had continually
on his lips the words, "I have been deceived." Doubtless he had been
deceived; "cooked" reports had been submitted to him; money received for
substitutes, instead of being so applied, had gone no one knew where, and
the regiments were disgracefully attenuated in consequence; jobbery and
corruption, extending into every department, made every service on which
the usefulness of soldiers depends less efficient by many degrees than it
ought to have been. Thus it happened that it was not till quite the end of
the month that a respectable French force was collected at the frontier,
and it was in sore stress for provisions. Meanwhile, the Prussians
silently mustered three powerful armies behind the Rhine, intending to
fall with an irresistible onset, when the fitting moment should arrive, on
the heedless and vainglorious foe. The Emperor left Paris on the 28th of
July, accompanied by his son Louis, and assumed the chief command of the
army at Metz on the following day.

[Illustration: COUNT VON (AFTERWARDS PRINCE) BISMARCK.]

Napoleon appears to have reckoned even to the last moment that dislike and
jealousy of Prussia would move the South German Governments to separate
their interests from hers in the great struggle that was impending, or
at least to wait and see how events fell out before finally committing
themselves. How--knowing as he did the existence of the secret treaties
of 1866, by which Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Baden bound themselves to
assist Prussia, if attacked--he could seriously entertain such a hope,
it is not easy to understand. The Governments of those States, on this
occasion in full sympathy with their subjects, were animated by a hearty
indignation at the unwarrantable attack made on Germany and they speedily
sent in their adhesions to Prussia. Their military contingents were
assigned, under the supreme command of the King of Prussia, to the third
of the great armies that were being formed for the protection of German
interests. These armies furnished a grand total of 338,000 men, to which
enormous force France could for the moment only oppose 200,000. Marshal
Lebœuf unfortunately imagined that the Foreign Office had concluded
alliances with Austria and Italy, and that a great part of the Prussian
army would in consequence be detained on the southern frontier. He was
justified to this extent that Austria was willing enough to wound
Germany, but yet afraid to strike. Count Beust saw that an immediate
participation of Austria in the war would involve the appearance of Russia
in the field on the side of King William. He determined therefore to
restrict himself for the present to armed mediation in concert with Italy
and to that end advised Napoleon III. to place the Italians in possession
of Rome. Here were obviously the materials for a triple alliance and
affairs were further advanced on the 2nd of August when the Papal States
were evacuated by the French Government. Austria and Italy, however,
stipulated for the preliminary success of the French troops as a condition
of their armed support, in which case they promised to assume a position
of armed neutrality, then to demand the exact performance of the treaty of
Prague, i.e. the independence of the South German States, and to take the
field in the event of refusal by the 15th of September. According to the
Duc de Gramont a draft treaty had actually been drawn up, but before it
could be signed the French armies had been dispersed.

The Emperor's plan of campaign, as explained in a pamphlet which he drew
up while at Wilhelmshöhe, was to draw together 150,000 men from Metz and
100,000 from Strasburg, and with a force of 250,000 men cross the Rhine
at Maxan, between Rastadt and Spires, while his rear was covered by the
advance of a reserve force of 50,000, under Marshal Canrobert, from
Châlons to Metz. Marching towards Dresden, the Emperor hoped to meet and
defeat the North German forces, and, being thus interposed between North
and South Germany, to intimidate the South German Powers into an attitude
of acquiescence while he followed up his advantage against Prussia, and
endeavoured to break up the newly cemented and, as he fain would believe,
fragile ties that united Prussia to the countries annexed in the last war.
If Germany had been unready; if Bismarck had been no more far-seeing than
Persigny, and Moltke no more vigilant than Lebœuf; lastly, if the Emperor
could have disposed of a hundred thousand more men, the plan might have
been promising, perhaps even feasible. But when the Emperor remembered
the enormous strength of the Prussian armies in 1866, and reflected that
the populations then annexed were instantly brought within the cords of
the Prussian military system, it is wonderful (even supposing him to have
been under a complete delusion as to the probable conduct of Bavaria and
Würtemberg) that he did not see that 250,000 men--on paper--was an
utterly inadequate force wherewith to attempt so vast an enterprise as
that he meditated.

The 2nd Corps, under General Frossard, was at Forbach, close to the
Prussian frontier, just within which, on the river Saar, was the
flourishing little town of Saarbrück, held by a battalion of infantry and
three squadrons of cavalry belonging to the 8th North German Corps (First
Army). General Steinmetz had assumed the command of that army at Coblenz
on the 28th of July, and at the beginning of August had concentrated it
in a position where it covered Trèves, and guarded against any sudden
inroad into the Rhine province on the side of Thionville. On the 2nd of
August Frossard received orders to drive the Prussians out of Saarbrück.
The action began at 10.30 A.M., and soon afterwards the Emperor,
with the Prince Imperial, arrived on the ground from Metz. The Prussians,
though greatly outnumbered, held their ground tenaciously, but were
gradually pushed out of the villages to the south of Saarbrück, and
finally compelled to evacuate the town and retreat to the wooded heights
that look down upon it from the north. The French did not attempt to
occupy the town, nor to dislodge the enemy from the heights beyond.

Forty-eight hours after the French made this unmeaning demonstration at
Saarbrück, the concentration of the German armies was completed, and
their heavy masses were ready to be moved down to and across the French
frontier. To the Third Army was given the honour of striking the first
blow--doubtless because in it were arrayed the contingents from the South
German States, and Prussia desired that France and the world should
be convinced without delay of the futility of all calculations that
took German dissension for their basis. On the 3rd of August the Crown
Prince sent orders from Spires to his corps commanders to advance upon
Weissenburg, just across the Alsatian frontier. At this point MacMahon had
stationed his second division, commanded by General Abel Douay, in order
to cover his communications with the 5th Corps, under De Failly, which was
stationed round Bitche. Douay's force, which did not exceed 12,000 men,
was left absolutely without reinforcements. The French were outnumbered,
probably two to one, but they had a very strong position, and their field
guns and chassepôts scattered destruction through the German lines as they
slowly forced their way up the height. At one o'clock the assailants were
in possession of the castle of Geissberg, near the top of the hill. The
leading brigade attacked from the eastward; the other, edging round to the
left, and scaling the southern face of the hill, threatened to cut off
the French from their line of retreat. Douay had been killed early in the
action, and the officer who succeeded to the command, judging that further
resistance was unadvisable, ordered a retirement.

On the day after the affair at Saarbrück the Emperor was exceedingly
unwell, and the physicians would not allow him to quit his room. It was
probably from a sense of great weakness that he came to the resolution
of divesting himself of a portion of the responsibility of command, by
appointing Marshal Bazaine to the command of the three corps (2nd, 3rd,
and 4th) that formed the left wing of the Army of the Rhine, and Marshal
MacMahon to that of the 1st; 5th, and 7th Corps, forming its right wing.
This was carried out on the 5th, till which day Bazaine remained in
ignorance of the Emperor's plan of campaign. The three corps that this
order placed at the disposal of MacMahon--namely, his own at Strasburg
and Hagenau, De Failly's at Bitche, and Félix Douay's at Belfort--would,
if united, have formed an army of about 80,000 men. He wished to effect
a concentration, but was overruled by the Emperor, who feared the
political consequences of a retreat. Accordingly, in the course of the
5th, MacMahon drew up his army along the high ground to the west of the
Sauer. In the first line were the three divisions of his own corps that
had not yet been engaged; in the second line he placed the troops who had
been beaten at Weissenburg, a division of the 7th Corps that had come
up from Belfort and two brigades of cavalry, one of which consisted of
two fine regiments of cuirassiers. De Failly was expected with his corps
in the course of the day. On the 5th of August, the Crown Prince, still
holding the 1st Bavarian Corps in reserve, moved the main body of his
army, marching in four columns as before, from the Lauter towards the
Sauer. At the headquarters of the Crown Prince no thought was entertained
of fighting a battle on the next day, during which the Prince intended
to have remained quietly at Sulz. But early on the morning of the 6th of
August the impetuosity of the divisional commanders brought on a general
battle, after the Germans had suffered severely for their rashness.
Soon after twelve, the Crown Prince, finding that the troops already on
the field were hotly engaged, and that the French showed no signs of an
intention to retreat, determined to bring his whole force into action, in
order to deal a crushing blow to an enemy whose greatly inferior numbers
could not expect from any quarter to be adequately reinforced. A long
cannonade ensued, to which the French, who were deficient in artillery,
could not make an effective reply. Then Kirchbach ordered the advanced
guard to storm Wörth, which was done about 12.30, and the victorious
troops advanced up the hills on the left bank of the Sauer. Soon, however,
they were brought to a stand by a biting fire from the French position
and made no progress for a long time. A great artillery duel went on for
hours on the centre and right of the line. About 11 A.M. the
French right had made a forward movement across the Sauer, and drove the
Germans out of Gunstett, but were unable to hold it long. Fresh troops
continually coming up, General Bose moved his corps across the Sauer in
support of Kirchbach; the Würtembergers also joined in this advance,
and turning towards the north, after crossing the river, Prussians
and Würtembergers steadily pressed forward, and took from the French
the village of Elsasshausen about two o'clock; but the resistance was
stubborn and the loss proportionately heavy. It was while the Germans were
advancing by Elsasshausen that Michel's brigade, composed of two regiments
of cuirassiers, made its celebrated but useless charge. With wild fury
these devoted horsemen charged into the advancing masses, but the rapid
discharges of the needle-gun smote and crushed their ranks, and not more
than 150 unwounded men remained after the battle in the whole brigade.
Froschweiler, the village to the north of Elsasshausen, attacked both from
the south and from the east, was taken at 3.30. MacMahon, outnumbered and
beaten, was now compelled to retreat. Keeping his centre and left pretty
well together, he fell back on Niederbronn, where he found a division
of De Failly's corps, which, through some telegraphic mistake, had not
arrived in time to take part in the battle. These fresh troops checked
the German pursuit. The French right, demoralised by defeat, and losing
almost all its organisation, fled in headlong flight towards Hagenau and
Strasburg.

On the day following the battle, MacMahon reached Saverne, on the
Strasburg-Paris railway, and proceeded to despatch his troops to Nancy
and Châlons. His only course now was to reorganise his army at the camp
of Châlons, while Bazaine, with his portion of the Army of the Rhine,
detained the enemy round Metz. De Failly, prevented from marching towards
Metz by the rapid advance of the First and Second German Armies into
French territory, in consequence of the success we are about to describe,
fell back from Bitche in a southerly direction, struck the Strasburg-Paris
railway, and brought his corps to join MacMahon. The remainder of the
7th Corps was brought up to Châlons soon afterwards from Belfort. The
Crown Prince, before crossing the Vosges in pursuit of MacMahon, detached
General Werder with the Baden division to invest and besiege Strasburg.
General Beyer, the divisional commander, summoned General Uhrich, the
governor of the fortress, to surrender, but of course with no result. The
town was then invested (August 10th) and several regiments of Prussian
Landwehr were presently added to the besieging force.

A second disaster happened on the same day as the battle of Wörth. On the
previous day, General Frossard, commanding the 2nd Corps, withdrew his
troops from the valley of the Saar to the heights of Spicheren, where his
right rested on a difficult wooded country; on his left was the little
town of Forbach and the railway to Metz. General Kameke, commanding a
division of the 7th Corps (First Army), pushed troops over the Saar
at Saarbrück on the morning of the 6th, who came into action with the
French batteries on the Rothe Berg (a hill jutting out from the Spicheren
plateau) about 11.30 A.M. From that time the battle raged with
varying success all through the day till nightfall. Von Göben came up and
took the command about three o'clock; about five the Prussians carried
the greater part of the heights of Spicheren, though at a terrible cost
of life. On the other hand, the French left, between six and seven,
advanced along the railway from Stiring and drove back the Germans nearly
to the Saar. The bravery of the French in this battle was conspicuous;
the losses they inflicted on the Germans were far heavier than those they
themselves suffered; and there seems little reason to doubt that with
more clear-sightedness and determination on the part of Frossard, and
more energetic co-operation on the part of Bazaine (who was at St. Avold
with the 3rd Corps, about fifteen miles from Spicheren), or, perhaps, on
the part of Bazaine's lieutenants, the Germans would have been repulsed
with heavy loss. Frossard does not appear to have held the plateau with
a sufficient force; and in a critical period of the action, when German
reinforcements were coming up from all sides, he telegraphed to Bazaine,
asking him to send him a regiment! It was not till towards six o'clock
that he telegraphed to Bazaine to assist him with all the forces at his
disposal; but it was then too late. The French were sadly demoralised by
their defeat. Frossard retired upon Saargemund, and thence, with what was
left of his corps, joined the army that Bazaine was collecting near Metz.

On that fatal Sunday (August 7th) the full truth concerning Wörth and
Forbach was known at Paris. A telegram from the Emperor was published,
admitting that the army had suffered reverses, but feebly adding, "_Tout
peut se rétablir_" ("All may yet be regained"). An indescribable ferment
agitated all minds and hearts. The cry in the streets was for a _levée en
masse_, and the word "_déchéance_" ("deposition") was often heard. The
Corps Législatif met on the 9th of August. Jules Favre and the party of
the Left urged the Emperor's recall from the army, and the appointment of
a committee with full power for the conduct of war. Ollivier, who showed
little sense of the terrible gravity of the situation, spoke in defence
of the Ministry, but his speech was received with vehement interruptions
and loud denials, and the majority cared not now to screen him from the
attacks of the Left. A middle course was taken. The Empress sent for the
Count de Palikao (August 10th), and requested him to form a Ministry. He
was in command of the military centre of Lyons when summoned to Paris
by the Empress. He succeeded in forming a Ministry, in which Magne took
charge of the Department of Finance; the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne,
of Foreign Affairs; and Palikao himself became the Minister of War.
Vigorous measures were instantly taken to make timely preparation for
the worst, in case the armies still in the field should not be able to
prevent the Germans from marching upon Paris. General Trochu, a brave and
honest soldier, but a little too rigid and positive in his opinions, was
appointed to the command of the forces of Paris; a new war loan of one
thousand millions of francs was set on foot; the ranks of the National
Guard and Mobiles were filled; and great efforts were made to bring into
Paris as large a supply of provisions as possible from the surrounding
country.

After Forbach there was nothing to hinder the Germans from pushing
forward their armies into France. The First and Second Armies, facing
to the westward, marched in the direction of Metz--Steinmetz keeping to
the north, and Prince Frederick Charles to the south, of the railway
connecting Metz with Saarbrück. Bazaine on his part was doing his utmost
to re-form and augment the French army round Metz. He was now possessed
of uncontrolled authority; for Count Palikao, though he would not consent
to Jules Favre's motion for the recall of the Emperor to Paris, lest the
excited populace should rise and put a sudden end to the dynasty, wisely
yielded on the main point, and prevailed upon the Emperor to resign the
chief command.

[Illustration: FRANCO-GERMAN WAR: SKETCH-MAP OF THE CAMPAIGN IN THE RHINE
COUNTRY.]

Accordingly by an Imperial order of the 12th of August Bazaine was
appointed generalissimo of the Army of the Rhine, with Colonel Jarras as
his chief of the staff. Nevertheless, Napoleon, afraid to return to Paris,
unwilling even to trust himself at the camp of Châlons, remained with the
army and was the cause of much embarrassment and delay. Bazaine had now
under his command the Imperial Guard, the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and part of the
6th Corps, making a total of about 140,000 men. Finding that with his
utmost efforts he could not bring together a force capable of coping with
the First and Second German Armies in the field, Bazaine resolved to leave
Metz for a time to the protection of its encircling forts and powerful
garrison, and fall back towards Verdun and Châlons. The movements within
the French lines, caused by the preparations for complying with this
order, attracted the attention of General Steinmetz and brought on the
battle of Borny. Prince Frederic Charles had moved with the Second Army to
the southward, intending to cross the Moselle at Pont-à-Mousson and other
places above Metz, and then seize the roads leading to Verdun and Paris.
Steinmetz seems to have intended only a reconnaissance in force, but the
eagerness of the German troops brought on an engagement along the whole
line, some miles to the east of Metz, in which (August 14th) neither side
gained a decided advantage, but a part of the French army was detained at
Metz on the following day; which was the very thing that Steinmetz had
desired. The German armies had but to cross the Moselle and Bazaine was
caught in a trap.

On the morning of the 16th, no movement having been made that day by the
French troops massed in front of Gravelotte on account of the non-arrival
of the 3rd and 4th Corps, the heads of the German columns, appearing
from the southward about 10 A.M., pushed back Forton's cavalry
division, which had bivouacked to the south of the lower Verdun road,
and occupied Mars-la-Tour. At first the Germans were in no great force,
but their numbers kept increasing and their artillery fire became more
and more deadly. At noon Bazaine was compelled to bring up the Guard and
place them in line. It was not till two o'clock that the 3rd and 4th Corps
came into action on the right of the French line, which then extended
in a north-westerly and south-easterly direction across both the Verdun
roads, facing the Prussians who were coming up from the south and west.
The battle raged all day with great violence; at nightfall the French held
their positions and had taken a Prussian flag. But their loss, apparently
owing to the superiority of the German artillery, was fearfully heavy; and
the Germans were masters of the road to Vionville.

The French bivouacked on the battle-field. On the next day Bazaine found
that it was impossible to continue his retreat on Verdun for several
reasons. The enemy held the lower road in great force, so that an attempt
to break through them would only have brought on another battle against
augmented numbers; and almost the same might be said of the upper road,
which for a long distance is only separated from the lower by a narrow
tract of level or undulating country. Provisions also had fallen short
and ammunition still more; and these could only be replenished from the
Government establishments in Metz. On the 17th, therefore, the French
were engaged all day in falling back to, and strengthening themselves
upon a commanding position extending from Amanvillers on the north to
Rozerieulles on the south.

In advance of the right front of this position is the village of
Verneville, round which Bazaine stationed the 6th Corps under Canrobert.
But observing that there was a strong position at the village of St.
Privat, commanding the road to Briey, the occupation of which would extend
northwards the line already taken up, and make a turning movement on the
part of the enemy more difficult, Marshal Canrobert asked permission to
move his corps to St. Privat. Bazaine gave his consent; the 6th Corps
occupied St. Privat; and the symmetry and defensive strength of the French
line were doubtless improved by the change. As in previous engagements the
rashness of divisional commanders, particularly Steinmetz, caused the loss
of whole brigades before the battle was won by the Germans. Thus a great
combined attack of cavalry and artillery was ordered by Steinmetz between
four and five. The batteries of the 8th Corps, and three reserve batteries
of the 7th Corps, supported by a large body of horse, were pushed across
the defile. But they fared no better than their predecessors. The 4th
Light Battery, trotting up the hill to the right of St. Hubert, "suffered
so severely that, after firing ten rounds, it was put _hors de combat_,
and obliged to retire down the hill." The attack failed and both cavalry
and artillery fell back by degrees on their original positions. But
gradually the superiority of the Prussian artillery fire told, and
Bazaine persisted in keeping his reserves, amounting to a third of his
forces, out of the field of action. Finally the Saxon Corps, after a
long _détour_, delivered their attack on the north flank. After several
unsuccessful attempts, in which a great many men fell, a combined assault
by the Prussian Guards and the Saxon Corps, simultaneously directed on St.
Privat from three sides, the north, the west, and the south, forced the
brave defenders, soon after seven, to relinquish their hold. The right of
Canrobert's corps was then thrown back, but still faced the enemy, and
darkness soon terminated the contest. The result was that the French had
held their ground everywhere except on the extreme right, but that all the
roads leading to Verdun had been taken from them. On the following day
Bazaine withdrew his whole army from the plateau and brought them down
to within the shelter of the guns of Metz. Only the half-trained levies
at Châlons remained to bar the march of the invader upon the brilliant
capital of France.

The intelligence of the great battles fought near Metz reached England in
various conflicting forms. But it was clear that a French army was cooped
up in Metz; that thousands of men were lying, disabled by sickness or
wounds, in hospitals, many of which were of a provisional and inadequate
character; and that great distress must infallibly fall upon the poor
inhabitants of the north-east region of France, which formed the theatre
of war. The reckless way in which the French Government began the war had
aroused feelings of deep and indignant disapproval among all classes and
parties in Great Britain; but now that it was a question of suffering to
be alleviated, human needs to be supplied, the warm hearts of British men
and women forgot all but the urgency and the duty of charity. Associations
for the relief of the sick and wounded were formed in every direction,
and received overflowing support; and numbers both of men and women
volunteered to tend the wounded of both armies under the protection of
the red cross of the Geneva Convention. The German authorities, whose
arrangements in view of these and other accidents of war admitted of
little improvement, declined to avail themselves of the zeal of foreign
volunteers; but by the French, whom overwhelming misfortune had surprised
in a state of unreadiness that only brings out the rashness of their
Government into stronger relief, all such services were thankfully
accepted. Later a very useful organisation was set on foot by the _Daily
News_ newspaper for the special purpose of relieving the wants of the
peasantry and others in the country round Sedan, whom the devastating fury
of the war had left houseless and penniless.

As soon as a clear notion of what had occurred near Metz was obtained by
the French Government, it became a matter of very anxious deliberation
what course should be adopted. For some days Marshal MacMahon had been
actively engaged in forming a new army at the camp of Châlons out of the
heterogeneous materials that he had at his disposal. Altogether a force
had been collected of 135,000 men. What was to be done with it? Made
wise by the event, critics and historians without number have condemned
MacMahon's flank march through the Argonne for the purpose of relieving
Bazaine, and have written as if it was absurd and incapable of achievement
from the first. Then, as it must have been undertaken from some motive,
they have seen in the enterprise the reckless and desperate resolve of
the Government of the Emperor to sacrifice the interests of France,
which would have dictated MacMahon's retirement towards Paris, to the
interests of the dynasty, and stake everything on the success of a most
hazardous combination, the failure of which, while it was fatal to the
Empire, involved France also in its ruin. The Empress and Palikao, so
it is commonly said, forced MacMahon to march towards Sedan against his
better judgment, they being influenced by purely dynastic considerations.
Count Palikao replied to these critics in a book published after the war
was over, and it is impossible to deny that his assertions seem to be of
great weight. Was the scheme practicable? Count Palikao maintains that
it was; and Colonel Rüstow, an independent witness, appears to be of the
same opinion. The gist of their argument is that had MacMahon started at
once and pursued a direct march, he would have eluded the Crown Prince
and relieved Bazaine after a battle with the small force commanded by the
Prince of Saxony.

MacMahon, however, when, after long resistance, he acceded to the policy
of endeavouring to relieve Bazaine, considered that he would be exposing
his right flank too much if he were to lead his army on the line indicated
by Palikao: he preferred a more circuitous course which would take his
army close to the Belgian frontier and bring it by way of Montmédy and
Briey upon Metz. On the 23rd he marched northwards from Rheims, where he
had delayed for two days. Even by this route he had sufficient start, in
the opinion of Palikao, to have outmarched the Crown Prince, had he given
way to no indecision, and made long marches every day without troubling
himself about the number of stragglers whom he might leave behind him.
He might, it is said, have reached Montmédy on the 25th of August, on
the evening of which day the Crown Prince of Prussia first heard of his
northward march. "On the 29th, or, at the latest, on the 30th, he could
have united with Bazaine before Metz--that is, if the latter broke through
the investing lines--and have fought a battle with Prince Frederick
Charles, who would then have been no longer able to oppose him with equal
forces." But instead of this, the head of MacMahon's army only reached
Mouzon on the 28th of August, and he was therefore unable to bring his
whole army across the Meuse before it was struck by the Crown Prince.

[Illustration: SEDAN. (_From a Photograph by D. Stévenin, Sedan._)]

That commander, immediately he heard of MacMahon's movements, hastened
in hot pursuit together with the Prince of Saxony. On the 27th MacMahon
became aware that his plan was discovered and wished to retreat but
was overruled by the Empress from Paris. On the 30th of August the 5th
Corps (De Failly) was at Beaumont near the Meuse. They had arrived there
only that morning after a fatiguing march, and a defeat on the previous
day; the soldiers were engaged in cooking; and the scouting and outpost
duties appear to have been shamefully neglected. While engaged in the
multifarious avocations of a camp, and dreaming of no danger, the doomed
men were startled by the bursting of shells among them, fired by a battery
belonging to the 1st Bavarian Corps (Von der Tann) which had advanced
unperceived through the woods. Von der Tann was presently supported by
the 4th Corps (Alvensleben II.) and the 12th Corps (Saxons). Surprised
and outnumbered, the French made a feeble resistance, and were driven
in confusion from the field. Of the beaten troops, some succeeded in
crossing the Meuse, others fled northward in the direction of Sedan.
MacMahon was deeply distressed on hearing of the ill conduct of the 5th
Corps--of the negligence that had allowed it to be surprised, and the
ease with which it had suffered itself to be dispersed and demoralised. A
portion of the beaten troops had been, as we have seen, cut off from the
Meuse, and thrown back in the direction of Sedan: it was this probably,
as well as the knowledge that the head of Vinoy's column was at Mézières,
which induced MacMahon--although the 1st and 12th Corps had already
crossed the Meuse and were marching upon Montmédy, and the 7th Corps
crossed it at Villers below Mouzon in the course of the 30th--to give
orders on the evening of that day for the abandonment of his former line
of march, and the concentration of all the forces under his command upon
the heights surrounding the fortress of Sedan and on the right bank of
the Meuse above the town. In the course of the 31st this movement was
effected. By gross negligence the 11th German Corps was allowed by the
French to throw two pontoon bridges, apparently without opposition, across
the Meuse at Donchery, over which the whole 11th Corps was transported to
the right bank by the morning of the 1st of September, and was shortly
afterwards followed by the 5th Corps. By this operation the doom of the
French army was sealed, the only fear of the Germans being lest it should
cut its way into Belgium. On the evening of the 30th, orders had been sent
from the royal headquarters that the Army of the Meuse, occupying the
right wing, should prevent the French left from escaping to the eastward,
between the Meuse and the Belgian frontier; while the Third Army should
continue its march northwards, and attack the enemy wherever he was fallen
in with. These orders had been complied with, and the 11th Corps had been
pushed across the Meuse at Donchery during the night of the 31st, so that
on the morning of the 1st of September seven German Corps and a half,
together with cavalry and artillery, forming a force of upwards of 200,000
men, with from 600 to 700 guns, were already posted in such positions as
to leave no way of escape for the French. Two independent armies being on
the field, the commander of neither of which could properly take orders
from the other, the King of Prussia came upon the scene, as he had done
before the day of Königgrätz, and assumed supreme command. The battle
began very early on the morning of the 1st of September, while the summer
haze still covered the low grounds, with the attack of the Bavarians on
Bazeilles, which they carried after a desperate resistance. MacMahon, who
had been severely wounded, handed over the command to General Wimpffen.
Meanwhile the left wing of the Germans had been making alarming progress.
The 11th Corps, having reached Vrigne aux Bois at 7 A.M., was
ordered by the Crown Prince of Prussia to wheel round to its right and
attack St. Menges. This village lies a little to the east of the extremity
of the great horse-shoe bend of the Meuse, nearly due north of Sedan.
Following the 11th, the 5th Corps also passed round the head of the bend,
and took ground to the eastward of Bose. Then turning southwards and
deploying into line, both corps advanced against the 7th French Corps,
which occupied the hilly ground between Floing and Illy. Before one
o'clock the ring of encircling fire had been so closed in that an interval
of not more than 4,000 paces separated the left of the 5th Corps from the
right of the Guards. Balan, the village between Bazeilles and Sedan, was
taken and held by the Bavarians and the 4th Corps about two o'clock. About
4 P.M. the French troops about Balan were ordered to fall back
upon Sedan.

[Illustration: MARSHAL MACMAHON. (_From a Photograph by E. Appert,
Paris._)]

At 5 P.M. the heads of all the German columns pushed forwards,
and commenced to bombard Sedan with field pieces. It is a small town
of 15,000 inhabitants, without detached forts, and powerless to resist
artillery. The whole French army being now pent up within its walls, a
scene of indescribable confusion arose. Shells fell and exploded upon
houses and in the streets; and the shrieks and groans of the wounded,
the execrations of the infuriated soldiers, the cries of the miserable
inhabitants, the helpless clamour and hubbub that reigned everywhere,
combined to form a picture such as only a Virgil or a Dante could paint.

Wimpffen desired to resign his command into the Emperor's hands; but to
this Napoleon naturally would not consent. However, the Emperor himself
caused a flag of truce to be hoisted over the gates of Sedan. To this it
had come; and the sun of France, as the first military Power in Europe,
set on that fatal day.

The Emperor desired to surrender his own person into the hands of the King
of Prussia, and sent to the latter, by General Reille, who accompanied the
German envoy on his return, a letter thus expressed:--

"Sire, my Brother,--Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops,
nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of your Majesty."

The King sent a courteous reply, in which he prayed the Emperor to
nominate an officer of rank to negotiate with the officer whom he had
named on his side, General Moltke, for the capitulation of the French
army. Wimpffen undertook the sad and humiliating duty, and met Moltke
at the Prussian headquarters, in the village of Donchery. The Frenchman
tried hard to obtain terms that fell short of unconditional surrender.
But the logic of facts was against him and Moltke, calm as fate and cold
as the grave, unfolded to him with pitiless accuracy the full horror of
his situation. The terms of surrender were settled at six o'clock on the
morning of the 2nd of September and, being ratified by the King, soon
afterwards, came into force. The French army became prisoners of war; and
all arms and material of war, whether belonging to the army or to the
fortress, were to be handed over by a French to a German commission; the
officers were to retain their freedom, their arms, and their personal
property on giving their word of honour not to serve against Germany
during the continuance of the war. There were many officers, however,
who preferred the nobler part of sharing captivity with the men rather
than renounce the right of bearing arms against Germany so long as the
war lasted. The wild excitement, rage, and grief that seized upon the
soldiers, when they knew that they were to surrender their arms and go
into captivity, surpass the power of description. By batches of about
10,000 at a time, they were transported, during several days, by rail, to
Saarbrück and thence to various parts of Germany.

Seeing the struggle it had cost Wimpffen to agree to the terms proposed,
Napoleon thought that could he see Bismarck, he might perhaps obtain from
him some alleviation of their rigour. About six in the morning, therefore,
of the 2nd of September, he set out in a carriage towards Donchery, having
sent forward a messenger to inform Count Bismarck of his desire for an
interview. Bismarck was still in bed, but immediately rose and rode out
to meet the Emperor. He met the carriage a little distance on the Sedan
side of the Donchery bridge and, dismounting, respectfully approached it
and asked his Majesty's commands. Napoleon said that he wished to speak
with the King, whom he imagined to be at Donchery; but Bismarck replied
that the King of Prussia was then at Vendresse, some fourteen miles away.
Indeed the Count, knowing his master's kindly nature, had removed him
to a distance until the terms were signed. Later in the day a meeting
was arranged between the Emperor and the King at a country house near
Donchery, called the Château de Bellevue. The interview was brief, but
Napoleon's eyes filled with tears when he learned that Prince Frederick
Charles was still before Metz, and consequently that there was no hope
for Bazaine. The Emperor quitted the Château on the morning of the 3rd
of September, and proceeded in a close carriage (it was raining heavily)
to the Belgian town of Bouillon. Thence escorted by rail to Liége, and
entering Prussian territory at Verviers, the illustrious prisoner reached
Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel, on the evening of the 5th of September, where
suitable preparations had been made for his reception.

M. Jules Favre says that late in the evening of the 2nd of September a
trustworthy person came to him, and informed him that Marshal MacMahon had
been wounded, that the army had been defeated, and that it, along with the
Emperor, was shut up in Sedan. All the next day a feverish anxiety reigned
in every part of Paris. What was known was terrible, but a just foreboding
whispered that there was still worse behind. A meeting of the Chamber was
summoned by the Government for three o'clock on the afternoon of the 3rd
of September. Count Palikao announced the failure of Bazaine's sorties out
of Metz on the 31st of August and 1st of September, and admitted that,
after a partial success, the French army, overwhelmed by numbers, had
been driven back, partly upon Mézières, partly upon Sedan, and a small
portion across the Belgian frontier. In presence of these grave events the
Minister declared that the Government appealed to the strength, vigour,
and patriotism of the nation; he added that 200,000 Gardes Mobiles were
about to enter Paris, who, united to the forces already there, would
ensure the safety of the capital. Jules Favre then rose. Availing himself
of an admission made by Palikao that the Emperor was not in communication
with his Ministers and gave them no orders, he came to the conclusion that
"the Government had ceased to exist," and enlarged upon the means that
were at hand for supplying its place. Before separating the Chamber voted
urgency for a proposition of M. Argence, calling to arms all men between
twenty and thirty-five years, whether married or single. Filled with gloom
and anxious apprehension, the members separated till the following day
(Sunday, September 4th) at five o'clock.

But soon after the meeting certain intelligence of the capitulation
reached Palikao and the Ministers and the news, coming by various
channels, soon flew over Paris. Immense crowds filled the boulevards;
cries were frequently heard demanding the fall of the Government. M.
Favre and some of his friends went to M. Schneider, the President of the
Corps Législatif, and prevailed upon him to convene it for a midnight
sitting that same night. Jules Favre did not conceal from M. Schneider
that he meant to propose the deposition of the Emperor; but to this the
latter would by no means give his consent. He and many other honourable
members of the Chamber believed themselves, even were there no other
argument against a revolution, to be restrained by their oath of fidelity
to the Emperor from joining in any project that contemplated either his
dethronement or the repudiation of the dynasty.

The plan of Jules Favre and his friends of the Extreme Left was this: that
the deposition of the Emperor and his dynasty should be proclaimed, and
that the Chambers should assume all the powers of government, exercising
them through an executive commission consisting of a few members, in
which not only Palikao but also M. Schneider would be retained. The plan
was embodied in three articles, which ran as follows:--

Article 1. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and his dynasty are declared to be
deposed from the power given them by the constitution.

Article 2. A parliamentary committee, consisting of ----, is entrusted
with the powers of government and with the mission to expel the enemy from
France.

Article 3. General Trochu remains in his post as Governor of Paris.

The articles prepared by Jules Favre were signed by twenty-seven members
of the Corps Législatif, but the name of M. Thiers was not among them.
That experienced and wary politician had much confidence in the military
knowledge and skill of Count Palikao, and on this account, as well as
on account of the general considerations that may be urged against a
revolutionary procedure, he would bear no part in a plan for overthrowing
the Government. At the midnight sitting of the Chamber, no disguise
being any longer possible, Count Palikao announced that the army, having
been thrown back after heroic efforts on Sedan, and finding resistance
no longer possible, had capitulated, and that the Emperor had been
made prisoner. He then demanded an adjournment till noon of the same
day (September 4th), that the Government might have time to mature its
proposals in this alarming crisis. The adjournment was not opposed; but
M. Jules Favre gave notice that he should, at the mid-day sitting, bring
forward the motion the terms of which have been already stated. The
motion, if the Count Palikao is to be believed, was ill received by the
majority of the members.

Between 8 and 9 A.M. a council of Ministers was held at the
Tuileries, presided over by the Empress, who displayed exemplary firmness
and courage. It was resolved at this council to propose to the Chambers
the nomination of a Council of Regency of five members (each member to
be nominated by the absolute majority of the Legislative Body), with
Count Palikao as its Lieutenant-General. But when he arrived at the Corps
Législatif, shortly before noon, and communicated to a number of deputies
the plan of the Government, he found that the use of the term "Regency"
was generally disapproved. Thiers and his friends desired that the new
council should be simply described as a "Council of Government." To this
Palikao was unwilling to accede because the words seemed to betoken a
breach of continuity between the new Government and the old--to be
equivalent therefore to sanctioning revolution. An ingenious expedient
occurred to him: it was to alter the words "Council of Regency" into "a
Council of the Government and of National Defence;" thus avoiding the
unpopular word, and yet implying that the Government had not come to
an end, but was prolonged in and transformed into the new Council. The
majority of the deputies appeared to approve of the clause so worded; and
the Empress, whose consent Palikao was careful to obtain, sent him word
that she relied entirely on him and approved of whatever he might do.

The hour for the meeting was now come. The approaches to the hall of the
Legislative Body were occupied by troops of the line, and 600 mounted
gendarmes were stationed in reserve in the Palais de l'Exposition in the
Champs Elysées.

Three propositions were brought before the Chamber: first, that of the
Government; secondly, that of Jules Favre; and thirdly, that of M. Thiers.
The last was signed by forty-six deputies, and was expressed in the
following terms:--

"In view of the existing state of affairs the Chamber names a Commission
of Government and of National Defence.

"A constituent Assembly will be convoked as soon as circumstances will
permit."

The three propositions were referred to the bureaux in the usual way that
a committee might be appointed to report upon them. But while deliberation
was going on in the bureaux (which met in committee-rooms distinct from
the Legislative Chamber itself) events occurred that soon brought their
labours to an untimely end. The Chambers were invaded by an unruly mob and
the President was compelled to suspend the sitting. Gambetta with most of
the Paris deputies proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville and there proclaimed
the Republic. The Government of National Defence was constituted with
General Trochu as its President. Already the Empress had fled and the
Senate quietly dispersed without the slightest attempt to assert its
authority. The other Ministerial posts were thus distributed:--Foreign
Affairs, Jules Favre; Interior, Gambetta; War, General Le Flô; Marine,
Admiral Fourichon; Justice, Crémieux; Finance, Picard; Public Instruction
and Religion, Jules Simon; Prefect of Police, Count Kératry. M. Etienne
Arago was appointed Mayor of Paris.

The Corps Législatif did not resign itself without an effort to the
violent suppression that had been effected. A deputation of its members,
headed by M. Grévy, presently waited on the Provisional Government.
M. Grévy stated that a considerable number of members of the Corps
Législatif, holding the same principles as those that animated the
Provisional Government, and prepared to accept the fall of the Napoleonic
system as an accomplished fact, were desirous of continuing the sessions
of that body in a spirit of co-operation with the Government at the Hôtel
de Ville. It was arranged that a meeting should be held at the Presidency
at eight o'clock the same evening, when Jules Favre and Jules Simon,
as a deputation from the Provisional Government, would inform their
former colleagues of the decision arrived at in reference to M. Grévy's
proposal. The subject was then anxiously debated. M. Glais Bizoin informed
the Ministers that he had taken upon himself to close the doors of the
hall of the Corps Législatif and seal them. This energetic proceeding
it was deemed upon the whole advisable to sustain. The continuance of
the Corps Législatif would lead, it was feared, to political intrigues
and complications of various kinds that would be unfavourable to that
concentration of every one's faculties on the task of national defence
which it was so desirable to promote. At the meeting in the evening, M.
Thiers being in the chair, Jules Favre explained to the members present
the reasons that actuated the Provisional Government in declining the
co-operation of the Corps Législatif. Thiers replied with exquisite
_finesse_, spoke of Jules Favre as his "_cher ci-devant collégue;_" said
that he could not approve of what had happened, but that he desired none
the less earnestly that the courage of those of his colleagues who had not
withdrawn before a formidable task might be profitable to the country and
gain for it that success which was the ardent desire of every good citizen.

In England the news of the fall of the Empire and the Revolution of the
4th of September was received with mixed feelings. A very general opinion
prevailed that the Emperor had been overtaken by a just retribution,
though this feeling was qualified by the recollection of the real
friendliness that Napoleon had generally manifested towards the country,
and in which his sincerity cannot be doubted. With regard to any change
the revolution just consummated might make in the position of France, and
in the duties of the neutral Powers in her regard, the Government of Mr.
Gladstone gave no indication of a belief that, either now or hereafter,
interference (unless Belgium were attacked) could become the duty or
the interest of England. But, as far as words went, the Provisional
Government could not complain of any lack of cordiality. The British
ambassador, Lord Lyons, was the first of all the foreign representatives
to call on M. Jules Favre at the Foreign Office on the morning of the 5th
of September. Lord Lyons was full of good will. He reminded the Minister
that his Government had offered its mediation to France, which had refused
it. He could not conceal that public opinion in England was still hostile
to France and that the mind of the Queen was strongly acted upon by the
influence of relationship in favour of Germany. Yet it was possible that,
in the course of events, the feeling in England might change; and that
a sense of common interest might, if Germany pushed her successes too
far and too unscrupulously, make the majority of Englishmen think that
of two evils intervention was the less. In reply, M. Jules Favre, after
laving great stress on the circumstance that the Imperial Government
which rashly began the war had been overthrown, and that the party now
in power had from the first been opposed to war, enlarged on those
considerations which seemed to him to prove that England had a manifest
interest in interfering to prevent France from being seriously weakened.
England, he thought, would sink in reputation, and lose the respect that
her magnanimous conduct at the beginning of the century had won for her
among the nations of Europe, if she tamely suffered a people to which she
was bound by so many ties to be destroyed piecemeal. England was now in a
position, relatively to France, which might be likened to that in which
France stood, relatively to Austria, after the battle of Sadowa. France
then extended a generous and protecting hand and saved Austria from ruin;
so let England now act towards France. Lord Lyons promised to bring M.
Jules Favre's observations under the notice of his Government and, after
expressing the strong feeling of sympathy with France in her misfortunes
by which he was personally animated, took his departure.

[Illustration: CAMDEN PLACE, CHISLEHURST (NAPOLEON III.'S HOME IN
ENGLAND).]

At the time of the formation of the new Government Jules Favre was
honestly of opinion that the change in her representation would
powerfully recommend the cause of France to the neutral Powers. The
Emperor, he argued, made war upon personal or dynastic grounds; the
Emperor is overthrown; the true France now makes her voice heard; declares
that she would not have gone to war if she could have helped it; that her
ideas all lie in the sphere of peace and solidarity of peoples; and that
the other Powers of Europe may safely make a collective representation
to Prussia in order to bring about peace, because the Republic in France
is a guarantee that no wanton aggression will ever be practised towards
Germany hereafter. That this view should commend itself to an ardent
Republican was natural, but that it should be shared in by other nations,
and above all by Germany, was most improbable. Count Bismarck, though
Jules Favre did not as yet know it, had already caused it to be understood
that Germany held France, not the French Government for the time being,
responsible for the declaration of war; and would not now grant peace till
she had obtained the most solid guarantees for the future.

Still, though England held back, might not France hope to be aided in
her hour of need by one of the other Powers, or by a combination of
them? M. Favre was firmly persuaded that both gratitude and interest
ought to bring about a collective intervention on the part of the
neutral Powers, which should force Prussia to negotiate for peace.
Yet the grounds that he himself alleges for this persuasion are vague
and inconclusive. The greatest among the neutral Powers "could not,"
he says, "open its annals without finding glorious instances of the
devotedness of our chivalrous nation. All had enjoyed her hospitality,
had found her generous, kindly, ready for any sacrifice, and seeking no
recompense." Every word of this might be admitted, though not without
qualifications; but what then? Admiration for the geniality and fertility
of the French mind, recollection of cheering and stimulating hours passed
within her borders, ought not to have blinded the neighbours of France
to considerations of justice, nor to have induced them to shelter her
altogether from the effects of the just resentment of Germany. That
intervention was not resorted to later may be a legitimate subject of
regret; but no neutral will be convinced by M. Favre's reasoning that
it was the duty of his country to intervene immediately after the fall
of the Empire. Unless, indeed, there were some special pre-existing
obligation, by which a particular nation might be bound, in gratitude
and honour, to come to the assistance of France. Jules Favre thought
there were two nations thus situated--Austria and Italy. With regard to
Austria, the blunt explanations of Prince Metternich, who called at the
Foreign Office soon after Lord Lyons, dispelled all expectation of aid
in that quarter. Austria had been saved by French intervention after the
battle of Königgrätz; Prince Metternich did not think of denying this,
nor of extenuating the claim to which such a service rendered his country
amenable. He attempted to explain away the belief of the Duc de Gramont
respecting words that had fallen from Count Beust. "It is not impossible,"
he said, "that M. Beust may have spoken of preparing 300,000 men if we
were free to do so; but it is just this freedom that has always been
denied us. The Emperor and his Ministers will never brave the will of the
Czar. Now the latter has threatened that if we were to declare ourselves
for France, he would join Prussia. Our hands are therefore bound; but we
will do nothing against you; we will even aid you in everything that is
reconcilable with our neutrality." These words clearly define the position
of Austria at that time. She would willingly have aided France, but the
Court of St. Petersburg, impelled by strong family and dynastic ties
to sympathy with Prussia, had intimated that if Austria interfered for
France, the sword of Russia would be thrown into the opposite scale.

Italy remained: could the nation that owed its very existence to France
refuse to lend its aid to its benefactor in this time of peril? To the
Italian Ambassador, who called after Prince Metternich, M. Favre used
decided, almost peremptory, language. M. Nigra was embarrassed and sad;
perhaps he was thinking of the return that the Italian Government were at
that moment preparing to make for the generous aid of France in the shape
of the annexation of the Papal territory. He did not contradict one of
Jules Favre's assertions, but only took his stand on the impossibility of
isolated action on the part of Italy. She was ready to unite with other
Powers, and even to lead them if they would follow. But nothing was to be
done without the support of England or Russia.

These interviews opened the eyes of Jules Favre, and convinced him that
France could hope for no armed intervention. She must trust to herself,
and put forth her utmost energies to defend her capital, to kindle the
flame of patriotism in the population, and to raise new armies in the
place of those that had been lost.




CHAPTER XXXV.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    The Vatican Council--Unusualness of the Occasion--Dr.
    Newman's Letter--Jesuit Influence--Dr. Cumming--Symptoms
    of Opposition--Opening of the Council--Inequalities of
    Representation--Order of Business--Production of the _Schemata_--The
    Doctrine of Papal Infallibility--Opposition of France and
    Austria--Withdrawal of the French Troops--The Ecclesiastical
    Opposition--Withdrawal of the Anti-Protestant Preamble--Adoption
    of the Constitution _De Fide_--Discussion on the Constitution _De
    Ecclesiâ_--Application of the Closure--The Dogma defined--Secession
    of the Minority--Confirmation of the Constitution--Victor Emmanuel
    determines on the Occupation of Rome--The Popular Vote--The Papal
    Guarantees--The Spanish Throne--The Savoy Candidature--Death of
    Prim--Paris after the Revolution of September--Jules Favre's
    Circular--Bismarck's Reply--The Negotiations at Ferrières--The
    Fortifications of Paris--The Investment completed--Thiers and
    Gambetta--Fall of Strasburg--Bazaine in Metz--An abortive
    Sortie--Emperor or Country?--Regnier's Intrigue--The Empress
    declines to be a Party--A Council of War--Boyer's Mission--Its
    Failure--The Army of Metz capitulates--A Riot in Paris--Thiers
    negotiates in vain--Abortive Sorties--The Army of the
    Loire--D'Aurelle de Paladines reoccupies Orleans--Reasons for
    his Inaction--He is ordered to advance--Chanzy's Defeat and
    Recapture of Orleans--The Second Army of the Loire--Garibaldi
    in the East--The New Year in Paris--Dispositions of the German
    Armies--Battle of Amiens--Faídherbe's Campaign--Bapaume--St.
    Quentin--An Unpleasant Incident--Le Mans--The Bombardment of
    Paris--The Armistice--Termination of the Siege--Bourbaki's
    Attempt--Action at Villersexel--The Eastern Army crosses the
    Swiss Frontier--The National Assembly at Bordeaux--Prolongation
    of the Armistice--Resignation of Gambetta--Preliminaries of
    Peace--Occupation of Paris--Acceptance of the Preliminaries--The
    Definitive Treaty--German Unity.


The earlier portion of the year, of which the later months ushered in so
much bloodshed and such dire calamities, was rendered memorable by the
sessions of the Vatican Council at Rome, the first General Council of
the Latin Church that Europe had witnessed since the Council of Trent.
To England, indeed, as a Protestant country, the proceedings of a purely
Roman Catholic council could not be of immediate and vital interest. Yet,
besides the necessity and duty of watching keenly transactions tending
to affect the faith and conduct of a large portion of that Christendom
to which England also belonged, the closeness of her connection with
Ireland, whose people zealously participated in the preparatory movements,
brought the subject home to her in various ways; the questions themselves
which it was understood were likely to come before the Council were of
a remarkable nature; and a well-founded apprehension existed that the
settlement of these questions in a particular way was likely to have large
and wide-spreading political results. It will not therefore be out of
place in this History, while keeping clear of anything like theological
discussion, to insert a brief notice of the Vatican Council, showing in
what circumstances and with what intentions it was called together, and
describing how, after great and weighty opposition, a dogma issued from
its deliberations that afterwards acted like a firebrand cast into the
society of all Roman Catholic countries.

The (according to the Roman computation) twenty-second General Council was
convened, by the Bull _Æterni Patris_ dated the 29th of June, 1868, to
meet at the Vatican on the 8th of December, 1869. The principal subjects
for its deliberations were stated to be--the _magisterium_ or supremacy
of the Roman Pontiff, the relations between the State and the Church,
and the deep-seated evils and corruptions of modern society, owing to
the prevalence of revolutionary principles in religion, morals, and
philosophy. Why the Council was summoned at this particular time, it was
not easy to understand. Dissensions on questions of faith, threatening to
terminate in schism, or which already had terminated in schism, appear to
have been, in former ages of the Church, the invariable antecedents of the
convocation of an Œcumenical Council. But in the present case there never
had been a time in which greater unanimity in faith, or a more ardent
spirit of loyal obedience to the Pope, had pervaded the Roman Catholic
world. It had been indeed alleged that the rash speculations of some
German professors at the universities of Munich and Vienna, the drift of
which was to extend the authority of National Churches, and to set limits
to the Papal sovereignty, supplied a natural occasion and a sufficient
justification for the fuller and more exact definition of the Pontifical
and Petrine privileges which the promoters of the Council desired to see
recorded. Yet, at the time, little was heard of these speculations: they
did not aim at popularity; they were not taken up as the watchwords of any
important party in the Church. The non-necessity for, the inopportunity
of, the Council--at any rate with reference to questions of dogma--was an
opinion strongly entertained by many earnest and able Roman Catholics.
"What have we done?" wrote Dr. Newman to Bishop Ullathorne, "to be treated
as the faithful never were treated before? When has a definition _de
fide_ been a luxury of devotion, and not a stern, painful necessity? Why
should an aggressive and insolent faction be allowed to 'make the heart
of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful'? Why cannot we
be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil?... If it is
God's will that the Pope's infallibility is defined, then is it God's
will to throw back 'the times and the moments' of that triumph which
He has destined for His kingdom, and I shall feel I have but to bow my
head to His adorable, inscrutable Providence." Many were of opinion that
the Society of Jesus--the members of which were numerous at Rome, were
supposed to have great influence over the Pope, and were certainly very
active in paving the way for the Council--saw in the extension and more
precise definition of the Papal prerogatives, which the adoption of the
dogma of infallibility would involve, an opportunity for strengthening
that system of centralised and unquestioned power which they have done
so much to establish in the Roman Church. "The dogma," it was said, "is
intended to make the Pope the ruler of the world; but the Jesuits rule the
Pope, therefore the master-influence for the future in that large section
of mankind which is included in the Latin Church will be wielded by the
Jesuits." Nor was this opinion as to the preponderating share assigned to
the Order in the arrangements for the Council confined to Protestants.
Soon after the commencement of the sessions, Bishop Strossmayer, a
Croatian prelate, denounced the Jesuits before the assembled fathers as
manipulating and directing the business of the Council in a manner liable
to be disastrous to the interests of the Church.

Soon after the publication of the Bull convening the Council a Papal
Brief appeared, addressed to all Protestants and non-Roman Catholics,
informing them that a General Council was about to be held, entreating
them not to rest contented with a position in which they could not be sure
of their salvation, and urging them to reconciliation and submission.
Dr. Cumming, of the Scottish Church, London, understood this appeal as
tantamount to an invitation to the Council, and manifested an intention
of attending at the Council at the time appointed and taking part in the
discussion. The Pope, however, writing to Archbishop Manning, desired
that "Dr. Cumming, of Scotland," should be informed that no opinions and
practices that had been condemned by any previous Council could be again
brought under discussion, and that the object of reminding Protestants of
the Council was to induce them to reflect upon the instability of their
religious position. In order that confusion might not characterise the
proceedings of so numerous an assembly, composed of men of every nation,
a large proportion of whom had never set eyes upon each other before,
six commissions were appointed by the Pope, with orders to prepare and
rough-hew the materials for deliberation in council on the several topics
of Religious Dogma, Ecclesiastical Politics, Church Discipline, Monastic
Orders, the East, and Rites and Ceremonies.

In Roman Catholic countries it was believed that the object for which
the Council was convened was to declare the infallibility of the Pope;
and for months before the Council opened great agitation prevailed. In
France, Bishop Maret and Père Gratry, the Oratorian, published pamphlets
impugning, not the opportuneness only, but the truth, of the doctrine
in question. In Germany the celebrated Dr. Döllinger contributed to the
_Allgemeine Zeitung_ a short but weighty essay, "Against the Infallibility
of the Pope." But of all writings of this class none attracted so much
attention as an able work named "The Pope and the Council" that appeared
under the pseudonym of "Janus." The object of the writer was to establish
by reference to history the untenable nature of the claims now made on
behalf of the Roman Pontiffs. The Governments of the Roman Catholic Powers
became uneasy and sought information from Cardinal Antonelli as to the
probable course that the deliberations would take; some of them also spoke
of asserting a claim to send ambassadors to the Council, as in former
times, for the protection of lay interests. But Cardinal Antonelli replied
in smooth and conciliatory terms; he would not admit that the definition
of the dogma of infallibility was probable; and with regard to the
non-admission into the Council of ambassadors from Roman Catholic Powers,
he justified it by the changed circumstances of modern times.

The Council assembled for the first time on the appointed day, the 8th
of December, 1869. Out of 1,044 bishops, mitred abbots, or generals of
orders, who were qualified to sit in the Council, 767 actually attended.
The bishops of Poland alone, among European countries, were absent,
having been forbidden to attend by the Czar. England and Scotland were
represented by twelve or thirteen bishops, the most prominent of whom
were Archbishop Manning and Dr. Ullathorne. Ireland sent twenty-three
representatives, including Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop MacHale, and
the learned and enlightened Bishop of Kerry, Dr. Moriarty. The French
bishops were about eighty in number; those of North Germany only
fourteen. The total number of bishops from all European countries--except
Italy--amounted to 265. The Italian bishops, together with the hundred
and nineteen bishops whose sees were _in partibus infidelium_, formed a
total of 276. The missionary bishops--congregating to Rome from all parts
of the known world, the expenses of their journey and residence in Rome
being borne by the Papal treasury--formed nearly three hundred. It was
objected that the representative character of the Council was impaired
by the inequality of the relations existing between the bishops and the
faithful who composed their flocks. The North German bishops, it was said,
were only as one to 810,000 lay Catholics in North Germany; while the
bishops from the Pontifical State numbered one for every 12,000 of the
laity. Again, it was urged that, whereas in the primitive times one of
the most distinctive characteristics of a bishop sitting in a council was
that he bore testimony concerning the faith of his flock, this could not
be the case with the numerous bishops _in partibus_ now assembled at the
Vatican, whose few and ignorant converts, for the most part just reclaimed
from barbarism, had no traditional Christianity to put in plea. To all
such objections it was replied, on the other side, that a bishop sat in
council in virtue of his consecration only and that the doctrine of equal
numerical representation had never been received in the Church.

[Illustration: THE VATICAN, ROME.]

For the regulation of the order of business the Bull _Multiplices inter_
was prepared, and communicated to the Council at the commencement of its
proceedings. It was said that under this Bull the liberty of the Council
was abridged to an extent never known in former councils. It lodged in the
hands of the Pope the nomination of the presidents of all congregations
and commissions and enjoined that any proposition that a bishop desired to
bring before the Council should first be laid before a special commission,
which should decide on its admissibility and report accordingly to the
Pope; without whose permission in the last resort it could not be brought
forward. It need hardly be said that Latin was prescribed as the only
language to be used in the public declarations.

The first public session (December 8th, 1869) was devoted to the
formalities of opening. The proceedings of the Council being suddenly
suspended in October, there were but four public sessions altogether. The
second was held on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, 1870; when, no
decree being at that time ready for discussion, every bishop attending the
Council, with the Pope at their head, made the formal profession of his
faith by publicly declaring his adhesion to the creed of Pope Pius IV.,
in which were summed up the principal dogmatic definitions and decrees
of the Council of Trent. In the course of January several _Schemata_, or
rough drafts of decrees, were introduced into the Council and referred to
the several examining commissions. The first was the Schema _De Fide:_ it
was headed, in its original form, by a preamble containing language of
a very disparaging nature respecting Protestantism, to the influence of
which it ascribed Rationalism, Pantheism, Atheism, Socialism, etc., which
it proceeded to condemn and anathematise. The second Schema related to
Church discipline, and was brought in on the 14th of January; it dealt
chiefly with the duties of bishops. The third Schema, _De Ecclesiâ_, on
the Church and the Papal primacy, was brought in on the 21st of January;
it originally contained three chapters, but a fourth was added in the
circumstances presently to be related.

The repugnance to the doctrine of Papal Infallibility--or, at any rate,
to the opportuneness of its definition at the present juncture--had been
now so loudly expressed by a number of bishops (chiefly French and German,
but with a sprinkling of English and Americans) that the majority in the
Council began to fear that the advisers of the Pope would recommend the
postponement of the subject to a future occasion. Wherefore a petition,
or _postulatum_, was prepared, soon after the session of the 6th January,
praying the Pope that the doctrine of the infallibility of the Chair
of Peter might be defined; this was signed by five hundred bishops.
The Governments of France and Austria, alarmed at this intelligence,
thought that the time was come for exercising a pressure in a contrary
direction on the Papal Court. Count Daru, then Minister for Foreign
Affairs, instructed the Marquis de Banneville, the French Ambassador at
Rome, to inform Cardinal Antonelli of the desire of the French Cabinet
to be informed beforehand of all proceedings of a political nature that
were taken by the Council, and of the decidedly adverse opinion of the
said Cabinet against any definition of Papal infallibility. The Austrian
Minister held similar language. Cardinal Antonelli replied to Count Daru
in a long despatch written in March, when the prospect of the adoption
of the dogma was increasingly favourable, denying that the Concordat
existing between France and Rome gave the French Government any right to
demand the special information required and claiming it as the privilege
and the duty of the Council to proceed to the doctrinal definition
deprecated by the French Cabinet, which he hoped would be greeted by the
faithful everywhere as "the rainbow of peace and the dawn of a brighter
future." It has been stated that the French Government replied to this
letter from Cardinal Antonelli, stating that, as he determined to pursue
a course that could only end in its ruin, France would for the future
abstain from interference; but that on the day of the declaration of Papal
Infallibility the Concordat would cease to be valid, the State would
separate itself from the Church, and the French troops would be withdrawn
from the Papal territory. It is certain that the resolution to withdraw
the French troops, which was officially communicated by the Marquis de
Banneville to the Holy See on the 27th July, was arrived at before France
had sustained any military reverses, and may therefore have been prompted,
or at least accelerated, by the proclamation of the dogma; but it does not
appear that the menace of treating the Concordat as invalid was ever acted
upon in the smallest degree; it seems probable therefore that the terms of
the despatch were not in reality quite so stringent.

In reply to the petition of the five hundred bishops, a counter-petition
was prepared by the opposition, and received a hundred and thirty-seven
signatures, chiefly those of French, German, and Hungarian bishops.
But the signers of this document--which was drawn up by Cardinal
Rauscher--were careful not to commit themselves to an unconditional
hostility to the dogma. They were content with pointing out the
stumbling-blocks and dangers by which the question was surrounded--the
thorny controversies, supposed to be long since buried, which it would
disinter and quicken into a disastrous activity--and the as yet unresolved
difficulties that passages in the history of the Papacy opposed to the
belief in its infallibility.

The controversy, both in and out of the Council, waxed hotter and
hotter, especially when the Infallibilists, emboldened it would seem by
the hesitating and qualified character of the opposition, as expressed
in the counter-petition--brought in in March, and annexed to the three
chapters of the Schema _De Ecclesiâ_ already submitted, the celebrated
fourth chapter, containing the dogma itself fully formulated. But for
the moment discussion ran upon the Constitution _De Fide_, which was
rapidly approaching maturity. The opposition required, and finally with
success, material alterations in that portion of the preamble which said
so many hard things of Protestantism. In the end, the offensive preamble
was withdrawn and a new one drawn up which the minority could agree to.
The Constitution _De Fide_ was adopted unanimously in the public session
of the 24th of April, all the bishops present voting _placet_, but
eighty-three adding the words "_juxta modum_," by which was meant that
the signer adhered to the constitution in a particular sense attached
by himself to its terms and not in any other sense. Strossmayer alone
absented himself from the voting.

The Constitution _De Fide_ being now out of the way, that of _De
Ecclesiâ_, with its new fourth chapter, was pushed forward with the
greatest ardour. The opposition resorted to the press and several
remarkable pamphlets by men of note appeared. One of these was by
the learned Hefele, lately appointed Bishop of Rottenburg. It was a
discussion of the well-known case of Pope Honorius, condemned for heresy
by Pope Agatho and a council in the year 680. Other _brochures_ on the
same side were written by Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, the Cardinals
Rauscher and Schwarzenberg and Archbishop Kenrick of St. Louis. The first
meeting for the discussion of the Constitution _De Ecclesiâ_ was held
on the 14th of May and the debate was continued during three weeks. The
principal speakers in support of the dogma were Cardinal Patrizi, Cardinal
Cullen, the Archbishop of Malines, and Moreno, the Cardinal Archbishop
of Valladolid. One of the most able and effective speeches was that of
Dr. Cullen, who endeavoured to convict Hefele of self-contradiction, by
contrasting the conclusions of his late pamphlet with the account given of
Pope Honorius in his Church History. Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris, made
an earnest and powerful speech against the decree; and Simor, the Primate
of Hungary, Jussuf, the Patriarch of Antioch, and Dr. MacHale, of Tuam,
spoke on the same side. The discussion dragged on wearily. June arrived,
and with it the burning heat and unwholesome air of a Roman summer; and
still the names of forty-nine bishops were inscribed as desiring to take
part in the discussion. At this point the majority exercised their right
of closing the debate and the general discussion was brought abruptly
to an end on the 3rd of June. Several weeks were then consumed in the
consideration of the chapters, paragraph by paragraph. The voting on the
fourth chapter, that enunciating the dogma, came on on the 13th of July.
As finally settled, the definition was expressed in the following terms:--

"We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman
Pontiff, when he speaks _ex cathedrâ_, that is, when in discharge of the
office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme
apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be
held by the universal Church, through the divine assistance promised to
him in St. Peter, is strong [_pollere_] with that infallibility with which
the divine Redeemer willed His Church to be furnished in defining doctrine
concerning faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the
Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of
the Church."

On this definition the Council voted in the general congregation of the
13th July, and with the following result: 400 _placet_, 88 _non placet_,
and 61 _placet juxta modum_. About seventy others, though in Rome,
abstained from voting. It was now a question with the minority what course
they should take. Cardinal Rauscher proposed that they should all wait for
the public session, which had been fixed for the 25th of July, and then
vote _non placet_ in the presence of the Pope. But more pacific counsels
prevailed. A letter was prepared on the 17th inst., and signed by 110
bishops, in which, after adverting to the particulars of the voting on the
13th, they declared to the Pope that their hostility to the definition
of the dogma remained unchanged, and that by the present writing they
confirmed their previous suffrages, but that nevertheless, out of respect
and affection for his Holiness, they had determined not to stay and vote
openly, "_in facie patris_," on a question so nearly concerning the person
of the Pope. The bishops of the minority accordingly took their departure
from Rome.

The turmoil caused by the approach of war led to the anticipation of the
date that had been fixed for the public session. On the 18th of July, the
Pope himself presiding, the Constitution _De Ecclesiâ_, which included
the definition of infallibility, was put to the vote and received 533
_placets_, and 2 _non placets_. The negative votes were given by Riccio,
Bishop of Cajazzo, and Fitzgerald, Bishop of Little Rock, in the State of
Arkansas in the United States. The Pope then read out the constitution
to the assembled fathers, and confirmed it. During the reading a violent
storm of thunder and lightning burst over St. Peter's, and the darkness
became so great that the Pope was obliged to send for a candle. Little
or no excitement was visible among the Romans; the Ambassadors of
France, Prussia, and Austria pointedly stayed away. An analysis of the
eighty-eight negative votes in the general congregation of the 13th of
July, showed that thirty-two were given by German, Austrian, or Hungarian
prelates, twenty-four by French, and seven by Oriental bishops. Two were
Irish (Drs. MacHale and Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry); two English (Vaughan,
Bishop of Plymouth, and Clifford, Bishop of Clifton); one Colonial
(Conolly, Archbishop of Halifax), and five North Americans. Six Italian
bishops, six bishops in _partibus_, and three whose names could not be
ascertained, complete the list.

[Illustration: DR. DÖLLINGER. (_From a Photograph by F. Müller, Munich._)]

The importance of the definition of infallibility was considered by
politicians and lay society in general to consist, not so much in the
assertion and claim that the mere words of the decree contain, as in the
retrospective force that it might be used to impart to Papal decisions
dating from the Middle Ages, at a time when the power and pretensions
of the Holy See were almost unbounded. If such a dogmatic utterance,
for instance, as the Bull _Unam sanctam_ of Boniface VIII., by which
it was declared that, "if the temporal power errs, it is judged by
the spiritual," and that "there are two swords--the spiritual and the
temporal; ... both are in the power of the Church; ... the former that
of priests, the latter that of kings and soldiers, to be wielded at the
good pleasure and by the allowance of the priest,"--if such a Papal
declaration, and others of a similar kind to be found in the Roman
_Bullarium_, were held to be _ex cathedrâ_, and therefore infallibly true,
what a prospect was opened for the non-Roman Catholic Sovereigns of Roman
Catholic subjects, should the new definition come to be generally accepted
by the human conscience throughout the Roman Catholic world. These
fears proved, however, of an alarmist character, and the Roman Catholic
populations were on the whole no less law-abiding than the Protestant.

[Illustration: PALACE OF THE QUIRINAL, ROME.

(_From a Photograph by Alinari, Rome._)]

So far as it was connected with temporal power, the supremacy asserted for
the Pope by the Constitution _De Ecclesiâ_ was about to receive a notable
check and diminution. The declaration of war between France and Prussia
had been speedily followed by an announcement (July 27th), on the part
of the Ollivier Government, that France would withdraw all her troops
from Rome, and this was soon afterwards effected. The Opposition in the
Italian Parliament immediately began to attack the September Convention,
and to urge the occupation of Rome; but Signor Lanzi replied that the
Convention was still binding, and must be adhered to. But in September,
after the fall of the Empire and the Regency, the Italian Government
could not afford to overlook the opportunity which the prostration of
France afforded of extending a kingdom which was itself in so large a
measure the child of revolution. Already, on the 6th of September, the
Chevalier Nigra sounded Jules Favre on the possibility of obtaining the
approval and sanction of the new French Government to the King of Italy
taking possession of Rome. M. Favre, though not personally opposed to the
measure, was too well acquainted with the feeling that prevailed in France
on the subject to give official countenance to the act. On the 8th of
September the King addressed a letter to Pius IX., in which, grounding his
determination on the critical condition of Italy, and also on the presence
of foreigners among the troops composing the Papal army, he announced his
intention to send Italian troops into the Roman territory, who should
occupy those positions which should be "indispensable for the security of
your Holiness," and for the maintenance of order. The Pope flatly declined
to treat, and on the 20th of September the national army, after overcoming
a brief show of resistance on the part of the Papal Zouaves, entered Rome.
The Italian Government, desirous of covering the seizure of Rome under a
show of legality, ordered an appeal to be made to the people of the Papal
territory, who were invited to vote on the question whether or not they
approved of the annexation of Rome to the kingdom of Italy, the spiritual
rights of the Pope being preserved. The voting took place on the 2nd of
October with the following result: Ayes, 133,681; Noes, 1,507. The Italian
Parliament met in December and sanctioned the transfer of the capital from
Florence to Rome. Victor Emmanuel made his public entry into Rome on the
31st of December.

The Pope having refused the terms offered through the Count Ponza di San
Martino, the following arrangements were made by the Italian Government,
with the sanction of the Parliament, without consulting him. He was
confirmed in the possession of his sovereign rights, allowed to retain his
guards, and provided with an income of 3,255,000 francs (which, however,
Pius IX. never consented to accept). He was to keep the Vatican Palace
(the Quirinal Palace being appropriated for the use of the King of Italy),
the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, his residence at Castel Gandolfo,
and their dependencies. Various provisions were added for the purpose of
securing the freedom and inviolability of the Papal correspondence. The
seminaries and other Roman Catholic institutions were to derive their
authority from the Holy See alone, without any interference from the
Italian educational authorities, and the Pope was left an entire fulness
of authority in the appointment of bishops and the general government of
the Church. In fact, the Guarantees, had Pius IX. chosen to accept them,
would have given him a power such as he possessed in no other European
country.

Spain, the unlucky cause of the deadly war that had broken out between
France and Germany, though striving after repose and a settled government,
failed to obtain it. In May the names of Espartero and Montpensier were
formally before the Cortes as candidates for the Throne. But Espartero
soon afterwards retired on the ground of his advanced age; and Prim,
whose influence was predominant in the Government, would not hear of the
election of the Duke of Montpensier. In June Queen Isabella abdicated
in favour of her son Alfonso, the Prince of Asturias. The next month
witnessed Prim's unsuccessful attempt to secure the elevation to the
Throne of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. Not daunted by so many failures,
Prim now turned his eyes again to the House of Savoy, and prevailed on
the King of Italy to consent to the acceptance of the Spanish Crown
by his second son, the Duke of Aosta. In October this arrangement was
given out as completed, subject to the approval of the Cortes. On the
16th of November a formal vote was taken in the Cortes, and there
appeared--for the Duke of Aosta, 191 votes; for the Federal Republic,
60; for Montpensier, 27; for a Unitarian Republic, 3. Supported by this
decisive majority, Prim proceeded to make the necessary preparations for
the fitting reception of the new Sovereign. The Duke and Duchess of Aosta
embarked at Leghorn and landed at Cartagena on the 30th of December. They
were received by Admiral Topete, and informed by him of a terrible crime
that had just occurred in Madrid. On the 28th of December, Marshal Prim,
while going in his carriage from the Cortes to the Ministry of War, was
fired at by some assassins (supposed to be Republican fanatics, to whom
Prim was odious as the supporter of monarchy) and severely wounded in the
arm and hand. The assassins made their escape. The wounds were at first
not believed to be dangerous, but inflammation set in and Prim expired on
the night of the 30th of December. If he had erred through ambition, the
brave Prim was yet a true lover of his country and a wise, courageous, and
sagacious ruler; at this critical juncture of her affairs, his death was
to Spain an unspeakable and irreparable loss.

It will be remembered that the narrative of the Franco-German War has been
brought down to the capitulation of Sedan and the Revolution of the 4th of
September. Of the gallant struggle made by the French nation after the
fall of the Empire, when the men who had installed themselves in the seats
of power vainly tried to bring back to the standards of the raw Mobiles
that victory which had deserted the eagles of the veterans of the Crimea,
it does not fall within the scope of this work to speak at length.

M. Jules Favre, Gambetta, Crémieux, and the rest (always excepting
Trochu), believing in democracy with an implicit and absolute faith,
seem to have been honestly convinced that what the French, or rather the
Parisian, populace were determined should be or should not be, would in
some way or other be arranged to suit their wishes. How else could the
foolish and presumptuous language--falsified so miserably by the event--of
M. Favre's circular of the 6th of September have escaped from the pen of
any man of common sense or common prudence? The Empire, he said, sought to
divide the nation from the army, but misfortune and duty have brought them
together again; "this alliance renders us invincible." He then proceeded
to misrepresent what the King of Prussia had said in his proclamation
upon entering French territory, as if he had declared that he made war,
"not against France, but against the Imperial dynasty;" whereas the King
merely announced that he was making war against the armies of France, not
against the civil population--a very different thing. But if Prussia was
so ill advised as to continue the war, the new Government would accept the
challenge. "We will not cede either an inch of our territory or a stone of
our fortresses."

Bismarck, upon receiving a copy of Jules Favre's circular, despatched a
counter-manifesto to the Prussian diplomatic agents. "The demand," he
remarked, "that we should conclude an armistice without any guarantee
for our conditions of peace, could be founded only on the erroneous
supposition that we lack military and political judgment, or are
indifferent to the interests of Germany." Germany cared nothing about the
dynasty; but whatever permanent Government might be established in France
must be prepared to give to Germany solid guarantees for the maintenance
of peace. "We are far from any inclination to mix in the internal affairs
of France. It is immaterial to us what kind of government the French
people shall formally establish for themselves. The Government of the
Emperor Napoleon has hitherto been the only one recognised by us; but our
conditions of peace with whatever Government, legitimate for the purpose,
we may have to negotiate are wholly independent of the question how or
by whom France is governed. They are prescribed to us by the nature of
things, and by the law of self-defence against a violent and hostile
neighbour. The unanimous voice of the German Governments and German people
demands that Germany shall be protected by better boundaries than we have
had hitherto against the dangers and violence that we have experienced
from all French Governments for centuries. As long as France remains in
possession of Strasburg and Metz, so long is its offensive strategically
stronger than our defensive power, so far as all South Germany, and North
Germany on the left bank of the Rhine, are concerned. Strasburg, in the
possession of France, is a gate always wide open for attack on South
Germany. In the hands of Germany, Strasburg and Metz obtain a defensive
character." It is now known that Bismarck would have been content with the
acquisition of Strasburg, but the military authorities insisted upon Metz
as well.

With views so divergent, the inutility of a conference between the French
Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prussian Chancellor would seem to be
obvious. Nevertheless, the pressure of circumstances brought about such a
conference, and for this reason--the Government of the 4th of September,
though it probably continued to regard itself as a "heaven-born Ministry,"
had become alive to the fact that its earthly title to legitimacy was
but slender; it therefore desired to bring about the convocation of a
National Constituent Assembly, which might, as it saw fit, either confirm
them in their offices or choose another Government. On the other hand,
it was to the Germans also a matter of prime importance that a regular
Government should be established in France, in order that negotiations
might be opened with it for peace. But in order that the elections from
which such an Assembly was to result might be held, there must be a
temporary cessation of hostilities; and this was a matter that could
only be arranged by means of an interview. Through the exertions of Lord
Lyons, the consent of the King of Prussia to a meeting between Bismarck
and Jules Favre, to settle the terms of an armistice, was obtained.
Several interviews between the two took place at Ferrières, near Meaux
(September 19th and 20th), but no accommodation could be arrived at. As
a military equivalent for the consent to a cessation of hostilities,
Bismarck demanded the surrender of Toul, Phalsburg, and Strasburg; but
to this Jules Favre would not listen, and became violently agitated at
the suggestion that the garrison of Strasburg should give themselves up
as prisoners of war. Again, the subject of an armistice was discussed
in connection with the re-provisioning of Paris. During the three weeks
that would be required for the election and first meeting of a National
Assembly, if an armistice were to prevail, Paris would naturally seek
to augment the stock of provisions within the walls; but, in that case,
Bismarck said, Germany must have a military equivalent to compensate her
for the long delay, and, as such an equivalent, he demanded the surrender
of the fortress of Mont Valérien. Favre was again much excited; he said,
and certainly with reason, that Bismarck might as well ask for Paris at
once. The conferences were broken off without result and Jules Favre
returned to Paris.

[Illustration: SIEGE OF PARIS: MAP OF THE FORTIFICATIONS.]

The remainder of the events of the war to the end of 1870 we propose to
sketch briefly in the following order:--(1) The siege of Paris (noticing
in connection therewith the sieges of Strasburg and Metz); (2) Other
sieges and stormings of fortresses; (3) The operations on the Loire; (4)
The operations in the east of France. Our object will be to keep the chief
current of action before the reader in avoidance of details.

The main defence of Paris consisted in the outer ring of forts, heavily
armed, by which the lines of investment of a besieging army were kept at
such a distance that the bombardment and destruction of the city were
rendered impossible until the forts themselves had been reduced. On the
south side the forts were not sufficiently distant from the city to make
it unattainable by shells, with the modern range of artillery, to an enemy
who had seized the heights of Meudon and Clamart, and the plateau of
Villejuif; secondly, the interval left between the fort of Issy and Mont
Valérien was far too great; and, again, the interval between Mont Valérien
and the forts of St. Denis was dangerously large. To remedy these defects
a system of earthworks was planned and partly executed, after Trochu had
charge of the defence. The disastrous issue of the sortie of the 19th of
September, made by General Ducrot in the direction of Chatîllon, when
the redoubt at that place fell into the hands of the Prussians, and the
14th Corps, yielding to a disgraceful panic, fled in disorder to the city
gates, not only, in General Vinoy's opinion, exercised a baneful influence
over all the subsequent defence, but led to the evacuation by the French
of the whole of the redoubts above described. Two of them, however, one
to the west, the other to the east of Villejuif, were re-taken by General
Vinoy, with little loss, on the 23rd of September; and being immediately
repaired and put in the best condition of defence, were held by the French
during the remainder of the siege, throwing back the Prussian line of
investment at this point considerably and making the bombardment of the
city, on all the eastern half of the southern face, impossible. Had equal
energy been shown in holding, or recovering, the redoubts of Meudon and
Chatîllon, Paris could not have been bombarded to any purpose on this
side. Of this there can be no question.

[Illustration: L. A. THIERS. (_From a Photograph by E. Appert, Paris._)]

After the repulse of Ducrot on the 19th of September, the investment of
Paris, which could not be considered final till the quality of the troops
composing the active army had been ascertained, was regularly completed.
Its salient points were Stains on the north, Chelles on the east, Sceaux
on the south, and Garches on the west. On the 30th of September General
Vinoy headed a grand sortie against the 6th Corps (Tümpling), which
guarded that portion of the Prussian lines which lay south of Villejuif,
with the intention of driving the Germans out of Choisy-le-Roi, and
destroying the bridge over the Seine at that point, so as to make a break
in the German communications. It was hoped that the enemy would have been
surprised; but a delay of twenty-four hours required by Trochu, in order
that a larger force might be got ready to share in the operation, and the
vigilance of the German Intelligence Department, caused that expectation
to fail; and the German troops at Choisy, being reinforced and prepared
for the attack, could not be dislodged. The French loss was considerable,
amounting to nearly 2,000 men; but the troops fought well and the retreat
was effected in good order.

About this time, M. Thiers, at the request of the Government of the
National Defence, visited all the principal Courts of Europe, everywhere
eloquently pleading the cause of his country. Nowhere, not even in Russia,
did his words fail to awaken interest and sympathy; but when M. Thiers
hinted at active intervention, he was met by a general indisposition to
interfere at the present stage of the struggle.

On the 7th of October Gambetta made his escape from Paris in a balloon,
and landed safely in the neighbourhood of Rouen. He at once repaired
to Tours, where a delegation from the Government of Paris had been for
some time established, though it was entirely unequal to its task. He
lost no time in issuing a proclamation, to be circulated through France,
describing in highly coloured language the patriotic exertions which
the Parisians were making, and urging the inhabitants of the unoccupied
provinces to rise and hasten to their succour. He then superseded Crémieux
in the Ministry of War, and appointed himself to the office, in addition
to that of Minister of the Interior. Gambetta evidently thought himself
another Carnot, about to "organise victory." The real nature and scope of
his abilities, which were undoubtedly great, appear to have been seized by
a keen-eyed newspaper correspondent, who said that Gambetta reminded him
of an "energetic traffic-manager" on an English railway. But his activity
and hopefulness were inexhaustible, and he certainly did contrive to
conjure up, as it were out of the earth, armies of some sort or other, and
to find arms and accoutrements for them; though the first were not uniform
and the second miserably insufficient. Nevertheless he did the best he
could with the materials at his hand. Of his military arrangements it is
enough to say that he put an end to the disorders in the great cities that
attempted to rival the central power.

Meanwhile the days crept on and the time came when famine forced the
defenders of Metz to drop their arms. Already Strasburg had fallen
(September 28th) after a gallant defence by General Uhrich, and the
Germans had established a civil government in Alsace. When last we
spoke of Bazaine, it was to mention that after the battle of Gravelotte
he withdrew the Army of the Rhine under cover of the fortifications of
Metz. Nothing of moment occurred for some days; Prince Frederick Charles
was engaged in hutting the German army round Metz and entrenching his
position; while Bazaine was busily preparing for another attempt. A
messenger from MacMahon, passing safely through the German lines, brought
word to Bazaine that the Army of Châlons had commenced its march to his
relief on the 21st of August. In order to co-operate with it, Bazaine
planned a great sortie for the 31st, about which day he calculated that
MacMahon would have arrived in the neighbourhood of the fortress. But
he delayed the attack till the afternoon, for reasons which, even upon
his own showing, appear insufficient; and through the indecision of
subordinate commanders, another delay supervened, so that the advance
was not made till four o'clock. The Germans had time to concentrate a
sufficient mass of troops in the rear of Noisseville and Servigny to repel
the French attack, which was made with no great vigour. Bivouacking on the
ground, the French resumed the action on the next day; but their efforts
were ill planned and ill united; the Germans brought up an overpowering
artillery to crush the French right; and between two and three o'clock,
Bazaine, who had heard nothing of the approach of MacMahon's army, gave
the order for retreat. For the next weeks he confined himself to foraging
for provisions, and even in a sortie on the 7th of October only 40,000 of
his troops were employed.

The Revolution of the 4th of September occurred and the news was received
by Bazaine with unmitigated disgust. The master whom he had served long,
and who had rewarded him well, was the Emperor; if the Emperor was a
prisoner and could give him no orders, then his obedience was due to
the Empress as Regent. He determined not to recognise and to hold no
communications with the men who had supplanted a regular Government under
favour of a street riot and the Republican cry. So far, if Bazaine's
antecedents are considered, it is impossible to blame him; he did not
become culpable till he made the interest of France--which had a more
sacred claim on his allegiance than any form of government--subordinate to
political aims and personal ambition. Count von Moltke, however, in his
"History of the Franco-German War," maintained that he was not a traitor.

In the course of September a strange incident occurred. There was an
individual of the name of Regnier, much attached to the Empire, who was
said to have held some appointment in the household of the Empress. M.
Regnier appears to have been a fanciful and vain personage; and the
notion came into his head that he might become the humble but serviceable
instrument of liberating the Emperor, re-establishing the Imperial
system, and terminating the misfortunes of France. For this, it seemed
to him, three things were necessary: the consent of the Imperial family;
the negotiation of a treaty of peace between them and the Germans; and
the liberation of Bazaine and his army in consequence of that treaty,
who should act as an "Army of Order," put down the Republic and the men
of the 4th of September, and replace the Emperor on the throne. Regnier
first went to Chislehurst and propounded his views to the Empress,
begging that she would furnish him with some kind of credentials. The
Empress, it is plain, put little faith either in the man or in his
project; however, after much importunity, she gave him the credentials
he desired. Having obtained these, Regnier repaired to Ferrières, where
the King and Bismarck were then quartered. He obtained an interview with
the Chancellor and unfolded his plan. Bismarck was at first inclined to
treat him as a dreamer and a meddler, but eventually thought the scheme
of Regnier might be worth a trial. He accordingly gave him a general
pass, which would allow of his passing through the lines of any German
army that he might meet with, in order that he might go to Metz and sound
Bazaine with reference to the project. Passing in this way through the
lines of Prince Frederick Charles, Regnier entered Metz and sought an
interview with Bazaine (September 23rd). The marshal, though he expressed
himself cautiously, did not disguise the feelings of aversion and contempt
with which he regarded the Government of the National Defence; and in
consequence of Regnier's visit he sent Bourbaki, the commander of the
Imperial Guard, that same evening out of Metz on a mission to Chislehurst.
The emissary--Prince Frederick Charles being doubtless cognisant of the
whole intrigue--found no difficulty in passing through the investing
lines. Up to this point Regnier's little plan had apparently prospered,
but now the bubble burst. The Empress was not a woman of that strength and
sternness of character which, in the pursuit of an object of ambition,
would lead her to brave obloquy and play high for a mighty stake. If she
signed a treaty of peace as Regent, providing for the cession of Strasburg
and Metz to Germany, the name of the Napoleonic dynasty, she thought,
would be eternally execrated in France; and, after all, it was not certain
that Bazaine could restore the Empire, or that his army, as a body, would
support him in the attempt. She therefore absolutely declined to be a
party to the scheme and it fell through. Bourbaki returned to France;
but, instead of re-entering Metz, placed his sword at the disposal of the
Government of Tours.

In October, the only description of food that remained abundant in Metz
was horse-flesh and this was obtained at the cost of the efficiency of
the cavalry and artillery. On the day after the sortie of the 7th Bazaine
caused a meeting of divisional generals to be held, to consider the
situation. However distasteful the thought of a capitulation might be,
yet the fast diminishing supplies of food compelled the officers to face
it; they were of opinion that a capitulation should be arranged on terms
that would allow of the army retiring, without laying down its arms, to
the south of France, under a pledge not to serve against Germany during
the continuance of war. If, however, these conditions were not acceded to
by the German leaders, it was the understanding of most of the divisional
generals and of the mass of the officers under them, that a desperate
effort must and would be made to cut a way, sword in hand, through the
investing forces.

At a meeting of the corps commanders, called by Bazaine on the 10th of
October, it was resolved that no new sorties should be attempted, but that
efforts should be made to obtain a military convention by negotiation with
the enemy. The use of the term "military convention" shows that something
different from an ordinary capitulation--something political--was in view.
At all events, General Boyer arrived at Versailles on the 13th of October
to talk over the situation. The course of the negotiation that ensued
was curiously similar to that which the Regnier incident had occasioned.
"You ask," said Bismarck, "that the army in Metz may be allowed to retire
to the south of France, pledged not to bear arms against Germany during
the continuance of the war. But who is to guarantee the convention under
which such an arrangement would be executed? Whom does Bazaine obey?
What is the Government that he serves? If the Government of the National
Defence,--that is an authority that we Germans do not recognise, at any
rate until a Constituent Assembly shall have met and validated their
powers. If the Emperor,--he is a helpless prisoner in Germany. If the
Empress and the Regency,--that may perhaps be satisfactory, but her
sanction must be obtained; she must sign a treaty that will give us what
we want; and the Army of the Rhine, besides the pledge not to bear arms
against Germany, must proclaim the Regency as the legitimate Government
of France, and Bazaine must undertake to play the part of Monk in an
Imperial restoration." Boyer returned to Metz with this answer on the
18th of October, and thence was sent to Chislehurst. The result was the
same as before; the Empress, after much wavering, refused to sign any
treaty of peace by which French territory would be ceded to the invader.
General Boyer communicated to the King on the 23rd the ill-success of his
mission, and Prince Frederick Charles was immediately instructed to inform
Bazaine that all hope of arriving at any result by political negotiation
was abandoned at the royal headquarters. On the 27th the capitulation was
signed and the fortress with an army of 170,000 men passed into the hands
of the Germans.

The confirmation of the news of the capitulation of Bazaine, and the
rumour that an armistice was under consideration, caused a great ferment
in the anarchical or communist element of the Parisian population. Bands
of armed men marched (October 31st) from Belleville to the Hôtel de Ville,
placed Trochu and other members of the Government under arrest, declared
the independence of the Commune of Paris and undertook its government.
The leaders were Flourens, Félix Pyat, Blanqui, etc. Fortunately, Ernest
Picard, the Minister of Finance, contrived to escape, and before the
day closed he brought a Breton battalion of the Gardes Mobiles to the
Hôtel de Ville, who soon rescued their countryman Trochu and dispersed
the revolutionists. The utmost forbearance was shown to the rioters by
the partisans of order. Trochu and his colleagues, after this _émeute_,
thought it desirable to submit the question of their remaining in power to
the suffrages of the people of Paris. The votes were taken accordingly;
nearly 558,000 were favourable to the Government, while 62,638 were
dissentient.

M. Thiers, on his return from his unsuccessful journey to the foreign
Courts, was requested by the Government to re-open negotiations with Count
Bismarck, with a view to a cessation of hostilities and the election of a
Constituent Assembly. But the project again foundered on the question of
re-victualling Paris, to which the military authorities at the Prussian
headquarters would not allow Bismarck to consent, unless on condition of
the surrender of one, if not two, of the forts round Paris--a concession
that Thiers could not make.

Sad and dull was life in Paris during the month of November, cheered
only by one gleam of better fortune, when news came that the Army of the
Loire had gained a victory at Coulmiers. At the end of the month a grand
sortie was resolved upon, in order to facilitate the flanking operations
of General d'Aurelle de Paladines' army, which Gambetta hoped to impel
upon Paris at the same time. Great preparations were made and several
demonstrations against various points of the German lines concerted, in
order to deceive the enemy as to the object of the main attack, which
was the peninsula of Champigny, beyond Charenton. Breaking through the
Prussian lines at this point, Trochu hoped to push forward into the
district of Brie, and march onwards till he fell in with the advancing
army of De Paladines. Ducrot was appointed to the command of the troops
destined for the operation, which numbered about 60,000 men. Bridges were
thrown across the Marne, and on the morning of the 30th the Saxons and
Würtembergers who guarded this part of the line were vigorously attacked
and the villages of Brie and Champigny wrested from them. Still no great
progress was made, and on the night of the 30th it became suddenly cold,
and the French soldiers unused to the hardships of campaigning suffered
terribly from exposure. The 1st of December was employed by Trochu and
Ducrot in strengthening the line, Brie-Champigny, which they had seized.
On the 2nd the Germans brought up fresh forces, and severe fighting took
place, at the end of which the French retained all their positions, except
the eastern end of the village of Champigny. On the 3rd Trochu resolved
to retreat, moved to do so by the absence of any news of De Paladines and
the increasing severity of the weather. The retreat was covered by the
guns of the forts and was effected with little loss. Another great sortie
was made on the 21st of December, with some vague hope of co-operating
with a northern army, supposed to be at that time advancing towards
Paris. The attack was directed against the Prussian Guard at Stains and
the Saxons more to the east. It was repelled with little difficulty, the
French losing considerably and showing in this sortie a lack of spirit and
endurance, naturally to be accounted for by want of food, severe cold, and
the depressing circumstances of the siege.

Besides Metz and Strasburg, eight other fortified places were compelled to
surrender before the close of the year. In the case of Laon, the surrender
on the 9th of September of a citadel and a position remarkably strong by
nature, was rendered necessary by the weakness of the garrison. Toul,
after a savage bombardment for several days, by which the town was set on
fire in several places, surrendered to the Duke of Mecklenburg on the 23rd
of September. Soissons, Verdun, La Fère, and Thionville were reduced in
the course of October and November. Phalsburg (the fortress at which is
laid the scene of Erckmann-Chatrian's famous novel, "Le Blocus"), after
its brave commandant, General Talhouet, and its no less brave inhabitants,
had endured a bombardment and blockade--the first intermittent, the second
continuous--during four months, was compelled to surrender, by failure of
provisions, on the 12th of December.

[Illustration: EVACUATION OF METZ. (_See p._ 584.)]

The narrative of the formation of the Army of the Loire, of its successes
and its reverses, is one of the most striking and instructive chapters
in the history of the war. All that will be here attempted is to give an
outline of the course of events, as it may be clearly traced in the works
of the two French generals who had most share in them, General d'Aurelle
de Paladines and General Chanzy. Soon after the Revolution of the 4th of
September, it being apparent that France must either raise fresh armies or
submit to whatever terms the victors of Sedan might impose, the formation
of a new army corps, the 15th, was commenced at Bourges, under the command
of General Motterouge. By the beginning of October its organisation was
nearly complete. Then came the advance of Von der Tann towards Orleans,
the defeat of Motterouge at Artenay and the first German occupation of
Orleans; the 15th Corps being driven over the Loire, and falling back
as far as Ferte St. Aubin. On the 11th of October General d'Aurelle de
Paladines, an officer on the retired list, who had offered his services
and his experience to the new Government, was appointed to supersede
General Motterouge. By the end of October came the disastrous news of the
fall of Metz. Prince Frederick Charles was now free to march southward
with 100,000 victorious troops and break up the nascent organisation of
the Army of the Loire. Several weeks, however, must elapse before he could
reach the Loire, and in that time the force which d'Aurelle's energy had
rendered formidable might still be able to strike a blow. On the 25th of
October the general concerted with the Minister of War, Gambetta, and his
delegate, M. de Freycinet, the plan of an advance of the 15th and 16th
Corps on Orleans. Crossing the Loire at Blois and other places, the 15th
and 16th Corps, preceded by numerous bodies of Franc-tireurs, forming
altogether an army of between 60,000 and 70,000 men, were ranged, at the
end of October, on a line facing the north-east, and extending from the
forest of Marchenoir to the Loire, near Beaugency. Von der Tann, who
commanded in Orleans and whose force was considerably weaker in point of
numbers, was alarmed at the movement and prepared to march out and attack
the enemy, intending, should he be unsuccessful, to evacuate Orleans.
D'Aurelle continued to press forward, handling his troops warily and
deliberately, as well knowing how disastrous, with such inexperienced
soldiers, the consequences of any mistake might easily be. The two armies
met on the 9th of November, on the plain around the village of Coulmiers,
ten miles west of Orleans, and for the first time in the war the Germans
were defeated.

On the following day (November 10th) General d'Aurelle entered Orleans
and was welcomed enthusiastically by the inhabitants. He fixed his
headquarters at Villeneuve d'Ingre, about three miles outside the city.
He has been repeatedly censured for not leading his army, after the
victory of Coulmiers, directly upon Paris, so as to raise the siege.
Had Prince Frederick Charles been still detained at Metz, this is what
d'Aurelle undoubtedly ought to have done. But the Prince, in his southward
march, was already almost as near Paris as the Army of the Loire; his
headquarters on the 10th of November were at Troyes. D'Aurelle with good
reason shrank from the enterprise of attacking the Duke of Mecklenburg
(whose army, swelled by the remains of Von der Tann's corps, amounted to
about 50,000 men and was posted near Chartres), with the certainty that
Prince Frederick Charles, a man not likely to miss an opportunity, was,
with 100,000 victorious Prussians, within striking distance of his right
flank. D'Aurelle's plan, therefore, was this--to form a large entrenched
camp in front of Orleans and fortify it with great care, mounting on
the works a number of heavy marine guns of long range; behind these
entrenchments to continue the organisation of the army and the instruction
of the soldiers, in both of which respects much improvement was still to
be desired; and to receive here, with his forces united and well in hand,
the attack which Prince Frederick Charles was marching to deliver. Had
that attack been successfully resisted, had the Prussian legions been
beaten back from before the walls of Orleans, then, General D'Aurelle
thought, there might be a chance of marching effectually to the relief of
Paris. But Gambetta interfered with his plans, and the result was that a
French advance was defeated on the 28th of November at Beaune la Rolande.

A council of war was held on the 30th of November, at St. Jean de la
Ruelle, near Orleans, at which d'Aurelle, Chanzy, and Freycinet were
present. Against the wishes and ideas of d'Aurelle, Freycinet communicated
the formal order of Gambetta to advance with the whole army on Pithiviers,
with a view to the relief of Paris. There was no choice but to obey. Next
day, Chanzy, with the 16th and 17th Corps, forming the left of the army,
advanced by Patay against the army of the Duke of Mecklenburg, and drove
it back a considerable distance. But Prince Frederick Charles, observing
the fatal error into which the French had fallen, through the interference
of Gambetta and Freycinet, of dispersing their troops too widely, executed
on the 2nd of December a masterly manœuvre, which in its results changed
the whole aspect of the campaign. Concentrating the heavy masses of the
German infantry on a narrow front, on each side of the great road which
joins Artenay and Chevilly, he advanced, engaging Chanzy with his right,
but directing the heaviest attack against the 15th Corps, which lay
between him and Orleans. The strongest division of that corps (Paillères)
had been sent away some days before, towards Pithiviers, by Gambetta's
orders, and had not yet rejoined the main body. Pressing steadily forward,
the Germans overpowered the resistance of the two remaining divisions
of the 15th Corps, and drove them back beyond Chevilly. Chanzy's troops
in this day's battle held their ground on most points, but the division
Barry, of the 16th Corps, gave way, and Chanzy lost his hold of the road
to Châteaudun. On the 3rd the fighting continued, the Germans slowly
pressing onward, step by step. D'Aurelle, fearful of a block at Orleans,
if the retreat of the whole French army should be directed thither,
sent orders to Chanzy to retire on Beaugency. He was not prepared for
the immense force which the enemy had developed in his front, and he
seems to have abandoned the hope that his beaten troops, even behind the
entrenchments he had prepared, could make an effectual stand. On the
4th, the arrival of Paillères with his division at headquarters inspired
d'Aurelle with a momentary hope that the entrenchments might yet be held,
and he telegraphed to Chanzy, directing him to march on Orleans. But it
was now too late; the enemy held the Châteaudun road, and was interposed
between Chanzy's army and Orleans. Moreover, the troops of Paillères'
division, and of the 15th Corps generally, weary and dispirited, exhausted
by want of sleep and food, could not be induced to man the entrenchments.
They pressed on into Orleans, many even of the officers forgetting their
duty, and repairing, without permission, to inns and private houses in
the town. D'Aurelle entreated, expostulated, and threatened, but all in
vain. Then he saw that Orleans must be evacuated and made arrangements
accordingly. The immense supplies that had been accumulated there were
removed, and on the night of the 4th of December the 15th Corps defiled
over the Loire bridge, leaving about a thousand prisoners in the hands of
the enemy. Thus was Orleans re-occupied by the Germans, and d'Aurelle de
Paladines was promptly superseded by Chanzy.

The new Second Army of the Loire, under Chanzy, had an eventful history,
which must here be summed up in a few words. Chanzy struggled gallantly;
but so far from advancing nearer to Paris, he was ever driven farther away
from it; he was continually fighting and falling back. He fought a battle
at Villorceau, on the 8th of December, against the Duke of Mecklenburg,
and maintained all his positions, except on the right, at Beaugency, which
the Prussians obtained possession of in the night. This disaster was owing
to another interference by Gambetta with the movements of the troops.
Admiral Jauréguiberry had given positive orders to General Camo, who
commanded the movable column of Tours, to hold firmly a strong position
which he assigned to him in front of Beaugency. But during the day a
direct order was received by Camo, from the Minister of War, to retire
behind Beaugency; this order he obeyed and the result was tantamount to a
defeat. After two more days' fighting, Chanzy fell back to the line of the
Loire, hoping to protect Vendôme. Prince Frederick Charles followed, and
a general engagement took place near Vendôme on the 15th of December, in
which, as before, the French fought well; but at its conclusion, his line
being forced back at one point, Chanzy resolved to evacuate Vendôme and
fall back on Le Mans. He arrived at Le Mans on the 21st of December, and
here for the present we will leave him.

In the east the military operations were not at first of such importance
as to have much effect on the issue of the war. Since France had declared
herself a Republic, the sympathies of Garibaldi were enlisted on her
behalf; he came to Tours on the 9th of October. Garibaldi was warmly
received by Gambetta and appointed to a special command in the east of
France; a brigade of Franc-tireurs, of miscellaneous composition, being
placed under his orders. Garibaldi's health was too infirm to allow of his
exhibiting any great activity in the field. His headquarters were fixed
at Autun, where he turned the fine old cathedral into a barrack for his
Franc-tireurs. General Werder, who commanded the German troops employed
in this part of France, was little hampered in his movements, either
by the efforts of Garibaldi, or by those of his more regular opponent
General Cambriels. On the 29th of October the important town of Dijon,
the ancient capital of Burgundy, had fallen into the hands of Werder. The
strong fortress of Besançon defied the German arms. It was of the highest
importance for them to take Belfort, a fortress of the first class,
situated in the southern corner of Alsace, in the gap between the Vosges
mountains and the Jura. General Treskow appeared before the place on the
3rd of November, and commenced to invest it; but the investment was for
a long time very incomplete, and communication with the country outside
was scarcely interrupted. Garibaldi marched towards Dijon, on the 27th
of November, at the head of a column of Mobiles and Franc-tireurs 10,000
strong. At a place called Pasques he fell in with Werder's outposts, who
held his force in check till the arrival of a brigade from Dijon, by which
the Garibaldians were easily routed, with the loss of many prisoners. On
the whole, the employment of Garibaldi did more harm by causing disunion
among the French, than it did good by any loss that it inflicted on the
Germans.

The opening of 1871 found the besieged population of Paris enduring with
exemplary patience the manifold hardships and gathering perils by which
they were beset. An additional source of danger and distress was about to
be disclosed, in the bombardment of the forts and city; but this also they
sustained with the greatest fortitude and resignation. From the beginning
of the year the bread distributed by the Government consisted of a
detestable compound of flour mixed with all kinds of foreign ingredients.
On the 3rd of January some Franc-tireurs brought some newspapers through
the investing lines, which gave no cheering account of the state of
affairs in the provinces. On that very day a battle was fought at Bapaume,
the issue of which ought to have contributed to amend the state of things,
but through some strange mismanagement it produced no good effect.

We will take this opportunity to give a brief sketch of the military
operations in the northern district since the fall of Metz. When that
event happened, the First and the Second German Armies, which had been
united before Metz while the siege lasted, were again separated. The bulk
of the Second Army marched with Prince Frederick Charles upon the Loire;
the First Army, placed now under the command of General Manteuffel, was
detached towards Amiens and Rouen, in order to disperse or press back any
new French armies which might threaten to attain to such a consistence
as to interfere with the secure prosecution of the siege of Paris.
Manteuffel had the whole of the 8th Corps, one brigade of the 1st Corps,
and a division of cavalry, under his immediate command, when he received
intelligence that a considerable French force under General Farre had been
concentrated in front of Amiens. The Prussians attacked on the morning of
the 27th of November. On their left they were in overpowering strength,
and quickly pushed back the French right for a considerable distance;
on the right, however, they could make no progress, and even, on the
appearance of a column advancing towards their right flank from Corbie,
gave ground decidedly. But in the evening the cavalry division came into
action on this wing and enabled the infantry again to advance. As the
final result of the engagement, the French were defeated at all points
and fell back to and behind Amiens. That important manufacturing city
was immediately occupied by General Manteuffel. A far richer prize fell
into his hands a few days later. The army defeated before Amiens retired
towards Arras and Lille, and Rouen thus found itself open to attack while
the military preparations for its defence were still very incomplete.
General von Göben, at the head of the 8th Corps, encountering only
trifling opposition, occupied Rouen on the 6th December, and immediately
made a heavy requisition on the city for stores and clothing.

General Faidherbe, formerly the governor of the French colony of the
Senegal, an officer of great talents and experience, reached Lille on the
4th of December, and took over the command of the Army of the North. After
reorganising the troops as well as he could, he advanced in the direction
of Amiens, and took up a strong position on the left bank of the little
river Hallue, somewhat to the north-east of the site of the late battle
on the south side of the city. Manteuffel resolved to attack Faidherbe,
and falling upon him on the morning of the 23rd of December, he drove
in the French outposts, and, in the course of the day, carried all the
villages along the Hallue, as far as the foot of the hills rising from
its left bank. This was the main French position, and it was held firmly
against all attacks. It was clearly a drawn battle. On the next day the
armies remained facing each other; it was a question which would browbeat
the other into retiring first. Unfortunately for France, Faidherbe, on
account of defects in his commissariat, found himself compelled to retreat
on the night of the 24th of December, and fell back, first to Albert and
ultimately beyond Bapaume.

On the 27th of December Manteuffel sent Von Göben to lay siege to Péronne.
This little fortress on the Somme, the name of which is familiar to the
readers of "Quentin Durward," it was a main object of German strategy to
reduce, because the whole line of the Somme would then be in their power,
and the passage of the river by a hostile force, especially considering
the season of the year, would be attended with great difficulty. Of
course, for the same reasons, it was important for the French to raise
the siege. General von Göben posted a covering force of ten or twelve
thousand men at Bapaume, while the siege, or rather bombardment, was being
carried on with the greatest vigour. The covering force was attacked by
Faidherbe on the 3rd of January, 1871, and driven, with heavy loss, into
the town of Bapaume. The battle was over; already Von Göben had given
orders for a retreat during the night, and his baggage trains had begun
to move off, when the welcome news reached him that the French had fallen
back. With a little more firmness General Faidherbe would have forced
the Germans to retire, and Péronne would have been saved. Defective
commissariat arrangements were again alleged by him, in a letter written
shortly afterwards, and also a reluctance to destroy the town of Bapaume.
Unrelieved, Péronne was obliged to surrender on the 10th of January, after
many of its inhabitants had been killed by the bombardment, its ancient
and beautiful church irreparably damaged, and great part of the town laid
in ruins.

[Illustration: LÉON GAMBETTA. (_From a Photograph by Carjat, Paris._)]

On the 19th of January, hearing that a strong French force was
approaching, the Prussians occupying St. Quentin evacuated the town.
Faidherbe then took possession of it, and concentrated its army outside
the walls, on the west and south sides. Von Göben, who was now in command
of the First Army, Manteuffel having been sent to assist Werder to defeat
Bourbaki, at the head of what was called the Army of the South, resolved
to strike a decisive blow. Calling in his detachments from all parts and
skilfully combining their movements so as to result in a concentric attack
on the French position, having also obtained the promise of Moltke to send
him a reinforcement by rail from Paris, so as to arrive at what was likely
to be the critical part of the battle, he advanced against Faidherbe at
St. Quentin on the 19th of January. The result could not be doubtful;
after a resistance bravely kept up by the 22nd, less tenaciously by the
23rd Corps, the French army was broken, and driven into and beyond St.
Quentin. This was the last regular battle of the war. Von Göben advanced
northwards and summoned Cambray to surrender, but the Governor refused.
Nothing else of moment happened in this part of the country till the
surrender of Paris brought about the cessation of hostilities.

An incident occurred on the Seine, towards the end of 1870, between
Rouen and Havre, which caused some irritation in Britain until proper
explanation and satisfaction had been made. The Prussians at Rouen,
fearing that steam gunboats would be sent up the river to attack them,
seized without ceremony six British colliers that were lying in the
Seine off Duclair, and scuttled them in order that they might form an
obstruction in the stream. Much stress was laid on this affair at the
time, the tension of men's spirits on account of the continued misery
of France being considerable, and the high-handed ways of Prussian
officials not having been pleasant to put up with on the part of neutrals
peaceably plying their vocations. But when Lord Granville wrote to
Count Bismarck, nothing could be more frank, explicit, or satisfactory
than the Chancellor's reply. He authorised Count Bernstorff to say to
Lord Granville that the Prussian Government sincerely regretted that
its troops, in order to avert immediate danger, had been obliged to
seize ships that belonged to British subjects; that their claim to
indemnification was admitted, and that the owners should receive the
value of their ships, according to equitable estimation, without being
kept waiting for the decision of the legal question, who was finally to
indemnify them.

No gleam of hope came from the west after the beginning of the year.
Chanzy, as we have seen, reached Le Mans with the Second Army of the
Loire on the 21st of December, and being left in peace there for two or
three weeks was able to do much towards the better organisation of his
forces. A succession of small combats, between the line of the Sarthe and
that of the Loire, took place between the 27th of December and the 10th
of January, in some of which the French obtained the advantage; while
others, particularly the later ones, marked a continual pressing back of
the French outposts and small detachments by the army of Prince Frederick
Charles, who had now made the necessary preparations to attack Chanzy,
and drive him, if possible, still farther west. The decisive battle took
place on the 11th of January. In numbers the French were probably much
superior to the army that was about to attack them. But their _moral_ was
fearfully shaken by the continued ill success that had attended their
arms. The battle raged all day along the whole line and at six o'clock in
the evening the French still held their ground. But an hour or two after
dark, a strange incident occurred. Shrewdly counting, it would seem,
on the nervousness and unsteadiness of young troops at night, Prince
Frederick Charles ordered a strong force of all arms to attack, about 8
P.M., the division of mobilised Bretons who were holding the
strong position of La Tuilerie. The Bretons, hearing rather than seeing
the enemy coming upon them, when the first shots fell in their ranks,
broke and fled. Quickly the contagion ran through the rest of the army;
by the morning it seemed hardly to have more cohesion than a rope of sand;
thousands of prisoners fell into the hands of the Germans; and a retreat
beyond the Sarthe became indispensable. Chanzy fell back to Laval on the
Mayenne, fifty miles west of Le Mans, and began again his Sisyphean task.

Thus Chanzy, with a beaten and demoralised army, was driven back to a
greater distance from Paris than ever; nor could any reasonable man now
entertain the hope that whatever exertions he, or Gambetta on his behalf,
might make, his army could again become formidable before the lapse of
many weeks. But with the Parisians starvation was become an affair of a
few days.

The bombardment began on the morning of the 5th of January. There were
three attacks--that directed against St. Denis and its forts; that against
Fort Rosny and other eastern forts; and, lastly, that against the three
southern forts, Issy, Vanves, and Montrouge. Two hundred guns concentrated
their fire against these southern forts. The unimportant attack on the
east was maintained by sixty guns, while a hundred and fifty thundered
on St. Denis from the north. Issy, on account of the too great distance
between it and Mont Valérien, was the fort against which, more than any
other, the Germans could bring to bear a concentric fire, and it was
accordingly more knocked about than any of the rest. The most formidable
of the German batteries, containing twenty-four pieces, was on the terrace
of Meudon. From the whole of them an average shower of ten thousand
projectiles per diem was rained during the continuance of the bombardment
on the forts and on Paris. In the daytime the fire was chiefly directed
at the forts, in the night it was turned against the city. The promise of
Count Bismarck, expressed with brutal cynicism, that the Parisians should
"stew in their own juice," was now fulfilled. Thanks to the distance, and
to the number and extent of the open spaces within the _enceinte_, the
mortality caused by the bombardment was far less than might have been
expected; absolutely, however, its victims were not few. Ninety-seven
persons (including thirty-one children and twenty-three women) not
employed in the defence were killed by the bombardment and two hundred
and seventy-eight (including thirty-six children and ninety women) were
wounded. Among the public buildings and institutions injured by it were,
the Jardin des Plantes, the Panthéon, the Val de Grâce, the Observatory,
the Church of St. Sulpice, and the Hôtel des Invalides. Nothing, says
General Vinoy, could be more admirable than the behaviour of the people
while the bombardment was going on. The effect of it was to harden rather
than to weaken the spirit of resistance; and Trochu, forced as it were by
the enthusiasm of those by whom he was surrounded, declared (January 6th)
that he would never capitulate. The effect of the fire upon the forts was
far less than the Germans had expected. Even of Fort Issy the defences
were far from being ruined; it could still have held out a long time after
the capitulation was settled. On the other hand the last sortie from Paris
on the 19th of January was a disastrous failure and it was followed by
grave signs of disaffection among the National Guard.

Paris was at the end of her resources. She could not wait to know the
result of the great combination--Gambetta's masterpiece--by which
Bourbaki, at the head of 130,000 unhappy conscripts, had been impelled
against Werder and the German communications. Of that expedition we
shall speak presently; but whether it succeeded or not, not a day was
to be lost in coming to any terms whereby a fresh supply of food might
be obtained for the 1,800,000 persons cooped up in Paris. Jules Favre
visited the German headquarters on the 24th of January, and on several
days afterwards, to arrange for a capitulation and an armistice. At seven
o'clock in the evening of the 26th General Vinoy received the order to
cause all the forts and field works to cease firing by midnight on the
same day. The order was obeyed, and the siege of Paris was at an end.
The convention establishing both a capitulation and an armistice for the
masses of the belligerent armies was signed by Bismarck and Favre, at
Versailles, on the 28th of January. The armistice was to last twenty-one
days, and was to be established wherever military operations were being
actually carried on, except in the departments of Doubs, Jura, and Côte
d'Or; the siege of Belfort also was to continue. Bismarck would have
readily consented to extend the armistice to these departments also; but
unfortunately Jules Favre fancied that Bourbaki had achieved, or was about
to achieve, great things, of which the relief of Belfort was the least;
he would not therefore include his army in the armistice. The object of
the cessation of hostilities was declared to be the convocation by the
Government of a freely elected National Assembly, which was to meet at
Bordeaux to decide whether the war should be continued or not. The forts
of Paris, with all guns and war material contained in them, were at once
to be surrendered to the German army, which during the continuance of
the armistice was not to enter the city. The guns forming the armament
of the _enceinte_ were also to be surrendered. The entire garrison of
Paris were to become prisoners of war and to lay down their arms, except
a division of 12,000 men, which the military authorities would retain for
the maintenance of internal order. After the surrender of the forts, the
reprovisioning of Paris would proceed without let or hindrance by all the
ordinary channels of traffic, except that no supplies were to be drawn
from the territory occupied by the German troops. A war contribution
amounting to £8,000,000 sterling was imposed on the city. The terms of
the armistice were punctually carried out, and on the 29th of January the
German troops were put in possession of the forts.

All along the line, except in the three departments and before Belfort,
the combatants dropped their arms. In that region a crowning disaster had
already overtaken the last convulsive efforts of France. The three corps
that had been placed under the command of Bourbaki, together with the
24th Corps (Bressolle), which was to be moved up from Lyons to co-operate
in the movement, formed an army of about 130,000 men. With this force
Bourbaki was expected to fall upon Werder and overpower him, raise the
siege of Belfort, and, crossing the Rhine, carry the war into Germany;
while Garibaldi and Cremer, after the defeat of Werder, were to fall
on the German line of communications by the Strasburg-Paris railway.
Entering Dijon on the 2nd of January, 1871, Bourbaki directed the main
body of his army to concentrate round the fortress of Besançon, whence
in two or three days he led it to the relief of Belfort. Werder, who had
fallen back from Dijon on Vesoul, attacked Bourbaki's left flank on the
9th of January, at Villersexel, on the Oignon, his object being to gain
time for the main body of his troops to fall back on the line of the
Lisaine, in front of Belfort, and fortify a position there. The action at
Villersexel was indecisive, but the march of the French was delayed by
it, and Werder gained the time he so greatly needed. On the 15th, 16th,
and 17th of January Bourbaki made successive attempts to force Werder's
position behind the Lisaine, but always without success. With his immense
preponderance in numbers, the boldest flank movements would have been
permissible, and could hardly have failed to dislodge the Germans; but
Bourbaki simply attacked them in front, and as they were strongly posted,
and had a solidity which his own troops had not, his efforts failed. On
the 18th Bourbaki resolved to retreat; and by the 22nd instant he had
again concentrated his army in the neighbourhood of Besançon.

By the failure of the French to force Werder's position the fall of
Belfort was made a certainty; but a greater disaster was behind. An
Army of the South had been formed by Moltke, and placed under the
command of Manteuffel, who took charge of it, on the 13th of January,
at Châtillon-sur-Seine. Marching southwards to the assistance of
Werder, Manteuffel seized Dôle, to the south-west of Besançon, and sent
detachments to occupy various points near the Swiss frontier, so as to
intercept the retreat of Bourbaki's army in that direction. After reaching
Besançon, Bourbaki remained for some days irresolute what to do; the
desperate situation of his army and the consciousness, perhaps, of his own
incapacity to command, overset his reason; and on the 24th he attempted to
commit suicide by shooting himself through the head. The want of supplies
sufficient both for the fortress and for the support of so large an army
was probably the cause why Clinchamp, upon whom the command devolved,
instead of keeping the army under the shelter of the mountain forts and
lofty citadel of Besançon, resolved on continuing the march southward,
in order either to elude the Germans by escaping along roads close to
the Swiss frontier, or, if the worst came to the worst, to cross the
border and surrender to the Swiss authorities. Eventually the 24th Corps,
under General Bressolle, succeeded in making its escape and reaching
Lyons. The rest of the army, overtaken and attacked by Manteuffel in and
around Pontarlier, after losing thousands of prisoners, was driven into
Switzerland and there interned.

In pursuance of the terms of the armistice elections were held throughout
France in order to the convocation of a National Assembly. By the 12th of
February about three hundred members only, out of the seven hundred and
fifty who were to compose the new Legislature, had arrived at Bordeaux;
but so urgent was the case that the Assembly proceeded to constitute
itself on that day. On the 16th of February M. Grévy was chosen President
of the Assembly, and on the following day M. Thiers was appointed, by a
large majority, Chief of the Executive Power. Some days before this, it
being evident that the armistice which was only to last till the 19th of
February, would expire before the Assembly could come to a decision upon
the momentous question before it, Jules Favre hurried up to Versailles
in order to obtain a prolongation of the time. It was granted, but at
the same time the fate of Belfort, the governor of which had hitherto
repelled all attacks, was sealed; the fortress was to be surrendered
to the Germans, but the garrison, with their arms and stores, and the
military archives, was to march out with the honours of war and be allowed
to retire to the south of France. Accordingly the garrison, still 12,000
strong, marched out and proceeded to Grenoble; and the fortress was
occupied by the Germans on the 18th of February. This may be regarded as
the closing scene of the Franco-German War.

Gambetta fell from power as suddenly as he had risen to it. He appealed
to the nation to use the interval for the collection of new forces,
and caused the Delegation of the Government at Bordeaux to publish an
electoral decree on the 31st of January, excluding from the possibility of
being elected to the Assembly all persons who had stood in any official
relation to the Second Empire. Against this outrageous decree Count
Bismarck could not refrain from protesting, and fortunately he could
appeal to the phrase in the article of the capitulation bearing on the
question, which spoke of a "freely elected" National Assembly. It was
a critical moment, for had M. Gambetta found a large body of Frenchmen
unwise enough to back him in this course, great delays must inevitably
have arisen, the legality and plenary authority of the Assembly might
have been disputed, and perhaps the Germans might have been called in, or
might themselves have stepped in, to arbitrate in a question of French
internal politics. This consummation was happily avoided. The Government
at Paris undertook to cancel the decree of the Delegation, and sent one
of their number, Jules Simon, to Bordeaux, with instructions to publish
and enforce their decision. Gambetta, finding his proceedings disavowed,
resigned office on the 6th of February. In his stead Thiers was chosen to
be Chief of the Executive. He appointed a Ministry, persuaded the Assembly
to postpone all discussion as to the future Government of France, and
proceeded to Versailles to agree with Count Bismarck upon the terms of
peace.

[Illustration: GERMAN TROOPS PASSING UNDER THE ARC DE TRIOMPHE, PARIS.
(_See p._ 594.)]

On the 19th of February the National Assembly elected a diplomatic
commission of fifteen members, who were to accompany MM. Thiers and
Jules Favre to Paris, and assist them in negotiating a peace. No serious
intention of continuing the war was entertained by any considerable
party or faction in the Assembly. On the 21st of February the French
negotiators met Count Bismarck at Versailles. Thiers knew that the Germans
meant to have, substantially, the terms which they demanded, and he did
not waste time by idle reclamations or counter-proposals. On two points,
however, his efforts achieved a certain success. Count Bismarck desired
to retain Belfort, a fortress which in German hands would make France as
vulnerable to attack on the upper Rhine, as the loss of Metz left her
weak and vulnerable on the lower. Thiers, however, succeeded in retaining
Belfort for France, purchasing the concession by consenting to the march
of the German army through Paris. Again, whereas Bismarck had originally
demanded six milliards (£240,000,000) as the war indemnity, Thiers with
infinite exertion succeeded in reducing it to five milliards. On this
second point the assistance of British diplomacy was specially invoked
by the French Government. Lord Granville, at the urgent request of the
Duc de Broglie, the new French Ambassador, wrote to Berlin (February
24th) the mildest, faintest, weakest representation--remonstrance it was
not--that could have been made, if any was made at all, on the subject of
the excessive indemnity. Before, however, the duplicate of this despatch
reached Mr. Odo Russell at Versailles, Count Bismarck had already given
way. The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 26th of February. By
them France agreed to cede Alsace and German Lorraine, including Metz, to
Germany, and to pay a war indemnity of five milliards within three years,
the German army to evacuate France as the instalments were paid.

In the preliminaries of peace a convention was inserted, authorising the
occupation of a definite portion of Paris by a body of German troops not
exceeding 30,000 men. Accordingly, on the morning of the 1st of March,
portions of the 11th, 2nd Bavarian, and 6th Army Corps, crossing the
Seine by the bridge of Neuilly, defiled along the avenue of the same
name, passed under the Arc de Triomphe, and marched through the Champs
Elysées into the Rue de Rivoli and other parts of the district assigned
to them. But this occupation, deeply painful and humiliating as it must
have been to the Parisians, was not of long duration. News came on the 2nd
of March that the preliminaries of peace had been ratified at Bordeaux,
and then Paris, in accordance with an express stipulation to that effect,
was immediately evacuated. The preliminaries were submitted by M. Thiers
to the National Assembly on the 28th of February. The terms of peace
were oppressive and exorbitant; they were terms which Germany, having
found France ill prepared for war, had been enabled by her admirable
preparation, her profound study of the art and thorough elaboration of the
means of war, to impose on the vanquished; nor is it to be supposed for an
instant that the Assembly assented to them except under compulsion, and
from the conviction that their refusal would bring still more terrible
misfortunes upon France. In the course of the discussion that ensued,
the Assembly solemnly voted the deposition of Louis Napoleon and his
dynasty, by a resolution that declared him responsible for the invasion,
dismemberment, and ruin of France. On the 1st of March the preliminaries
of peace were accepted by a majority of 546 votes against 107, and after
bitter controversies, chiefly connected with the payment of the indemnity,
the definitive treaty was signed at Frankfort on the 10th of May.

Thus while France emerged from the war with a reduction of territory, the
struggle brought to Germany a unification of the Empire. Various minds
had been occupied with this project since the earliest German victories,
among others that of the Crown Prince. He received, however, but cold
encouragement from Count Bismarck, who was jealous of the Prince's
interference in matters of State, chiefly on account of his English
connections. Nevertheless, Bismarck was also occupied in shaping a plan
and it gradually assumed the form of a German Empire with its chief at
Berlin. After the battle of Sedan, negotiations were opened with each
of the Southern States for its entry into the Northern Confederation,
when it appeared that particularism was strong in Bavaria, which kingdom
was not disposed to come into the agreement without favourable terms.
Count Bismarck accordingly invited the various Governments to send
representatives to Versailles for the arrangement of a settlement. At
first the King of Würtemberg showed a disposition to act with Bavaria,
but his Ministers resigned rather than refuse to sign the treaty, and the
accession of Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt to the unionist side showed the
two kings the peril of their situation. Accordingly, when Bavaria had
been granted larger separate rights than any other State--for instance,
an independent postal system, and an independent army--King Louis gave
way and the treaties were signed. It was some time before Bavaria would
consent to the assumption of the Imperial title by the King of Prussia.
Under pressure from Bismarck, however, the king wrote a letter to his
fellow-Sovereigns, proposing that William I. as President of the newly
formed Federation should assume the title of German Emperor, and this
request he renewed to William himself in a letter composed by Bismarck.
A deputation from the North German Reichstag expressed the concurrence
of the nation, but so strong was local patriotism in Bavaria that the
ceremony was delayed from the end of one year to the beginning of the next
and even then the approval of Munich had not been secured. Nevertheless
on the 18th of January, surrounded by German princes and German warriors,
King William assumed at Versailles the title of German Emperor. Thereby a
fresh chapter in the history of Europe was begun, though it was some time
before the effects of the new order were manifest.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (_continued_).

    Army Reform--Mr. Trevelyan's Agitation--The Abolition of
    Purchase--Mr. Cardwell's Bill--History of Purchase--Military
    Opposition in the Commons--Rejection of the Bill by the House
    of Lords--Abolition of Purchase by Royal Warrant--Indignation
    in Parliament--The cost of Compensation--Mr. Lowe's Budget--The
    Match-Tax--Its withdrawal--Mr. Goschen succeeds Mr. Childers--The
    Ballot Bill--The Epping Forest Bill--Rejected Measures--The
    Religious Tests Bill--Marriage of the Princess Louise--Sir Charles
    Dilke's Lecture--The real State of the Civil List--Illness
    of the Prince of Wales--Crises of the Disease--The Prayers
    of the Nation--The Thanksgiving Service--Unpopularity of the
    Government--The 25th Clause--Landing of the ex-Emperor of the
    French--Resignation of Speaker Denison--Riot in Dublin--The
    Home Rule Movement--Mr. Gladstone at Aberdeen--Assassination of
    Mr. Justice Norman--Australian Federation--Russia repudiates
    the Black Sea Clauses--Lord Granville's Despatch--Prince
    Gortschakoff's Reply--A Conference Suggested--Meeting of the
    Plenipotentiaries--Their Deliberations--Settlement of the
    Difficulty--Obituary of the Year--Sir John Burgoyne, Lord
    Ellenborough, Grote, Sir William Denison, and others.


At the opening of the year 1871 the German armies were still surrounding
Paris, and the raw levies and beaten veterans of France were attempting
a hopeless resistance in the Departments of the North, the East, and
the West. In England every one saw that the end of the struggle was
approaching; and the public mind began uneasily to ask the question, what
next? It has often been said that the feeling of England with regard
to her own condition alternates between irrational self-confidence and
irrational fear. It was now the turn of the latter feeling. The deadly
certainty of the German successes and the exhaustion of France drove the
minds of Englishmen to consider what would be their state of preparation
in the face of Moltke's tactics, supposing they had to face them on
English soil. By some the supposition of war with Germany was not held to
be unlikely; for, during the later months of 1870 there had been growing
in certain quarters a sense of sympathy with France so intense as to give
rise to a cry for war in her behalf. But this feeling, although those
who entertained it were people who could make themselves heard, never
spread widely enough to make the question of an armed alliance a serious
one. Still, it was natural and inevitable that a demand for army reform
should be loudly made on all sides, and it became apparent that army
reform was to be the question of the Session. Moreover, the direction
which the reform would take was unmistakable. The speeches that were made
throughout the country before the meeting of Parliament and in the early
months of the year--notably the speeches of Mr. George Otto Trevelyan,
a young Cambridge man who had lately entered public life as member for
the Border Boroughs--all struck one note, the note of the abolition of
purchase. Up till the year 1871, as is well known, the British Army was
officered by men who, with few exceptions, paid for their commissions. The
effect of this was that the officers were mostly sons of rich men--for the
pay of an officer was never remunerative enough to make poor men pay the
price of the commission as an investment--and that the style of living
was artificially raised so as to make it eminently undesirable for a poor
man to enter the army as an officer, even if he were able to raise money
enough to buy his commission. A second effect of the purchase system was
that men were admitted to be officers without any special evidence of
fitness for the service; if they could pay the price and pass an almost
nominal examination, they were admitted without further question. This,
then, was the state of things which many Liberals, such as Mr. Trevelyan,
wished to alter. They wished to throw open all commissions in the army
to competition; let the best-trained man, they said, be made an officer,
without any consideration of the length of his purse. As will be seen,
this demand prevailed in the end, but not without great difficulty. It
was not the only point on which the army reformers touched; for it was
not only the officering of the British Army, but its organisation, that
began to be severely criticised. Many speakers and writers thought that in
face of the enormous armies of the Continent, the principle of voluntary
enlistment must be at length given up in favour of that of compulsory
service. Many--less thorough-going than these--began to cry out for a more
capable militia, and for more Government encouragement to the volunteers.
And all agreed that the want of union between the different branches of
the service was a fatal hindrance to the efficiency of any of them.

The promised Bill was introduced by Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary at War,
very early in the Session; and it was seen that the increased outlay to
which the Queen's Speech had referred was to be a reality. The total
amount asked for in the estimates was £15,851,700, an increase of
£2,886,700 over the vote of 1870; although Mr. Cardwell explained that a
million of this would not be wanted in ordinary times. The gross addition
to the numerical strength of the regular army was to be 19,980 men, of
whom 5,000 were artillery, with a proportionate increase in the number of
guns. Mr. Disraeli had on the opening night of the Session made mockery
of the "attenuated armaments" to which, he said, the Liberal Government
had reduced the forces of the country. But Mr. Cardwell pointed to
his proposed figures, which showed a total of 497,000 men under arms:
135,000 regular troops, 139,000 Militia, 14,000 Yeomanry, 9,000 First
Army Reserve, 30,000 Second Army Reserve, and 170,000 Volunteers; and
guns appropriate to a force of 150,000 men. These forces, Mr. Cardwell
said, it was his object to combine into one whole; and the question was,
how to achieve that object. As far as men went, were they to be raised
by compulsion or voluntarily? As far as officers went, were they to
remain under a system of purchase or not? As far as the reserve forces
went, were they to be still under the control of the Lords-Lieutenant
of counties or not? To the first question, Mr. Cardwell answered that
he was not prepared, as yet, to resort to "anything so distasteful as
compulsory service." To the second and third he said that the Government
had made up its mind that purchase must be abolished, and that the
control of the militia and other auxiliary forces must be taken away from
the Lords-Lieutenant and given to the Queen. In fact, the abolition of
purchase and the increase of the efficiency of the reserve--together with
certain provisions for giving a "local connection" to every regiment--were
at once seen to be the principal features of the Bill. It is to the way in
which these subjects were dealt with by Parliament and the Prime Minister
that we may now turn.

The history of purchase in the army is the history of a practice of
various degrees of illegality, and of innumerable Royal Commissions
designed to solve the contradiction between practice and law. The
beginning of it dates from the reign of James II., who in 1683 issued
a warrant "ordering the payment of one shilling in the pound on the
surrender of a commission to the person surrendering, and by him to whom
the surrender is made." William III. made strenuous efforts to stop any
traffic in commissions, and his successor forbade it, except with the
royal approbation. But as early as 1702 the law courts had begun to
declare the lawfulness of purchase, and the Court of Chancery enforced
the payment of £600 from a lieutenant to his predecessor in a company.
Twenty years later we find the distinction, so familiar in the nineteenth
century, between "regulation prices" and "over-regulation prices"
clearly marked; and in the middle of the eighteenth century we come to a
commission definitely fixing the rate of payment to which officers should
be subject--deciding that an ensigncy should cost £400, and a colonelcy
£3,500. Royal Commissions continued to be issued at intervals, right up to
1856, and one and all seem to have reported in favour of purchase: partly
and ostensibly on the ground that the system helped to quicken promotion
and retirement, and partly, of course, that it secured that officers of
the army should be persons of "social position." It is hardly too much to
say that from the time of the Peace to the time of his death, the purchase
system in the British Army was kept up by the influence of the Duke of
Wellington, and notably by his celebrated memorandum of the year 1833. In
1856, at the end of the Russian War, when the Duke had been four years
dead, and the overpowering weight of his name had a little decreased,
the first note of a new policy was heard in the report of that year's
commission, which had examined as a witness Sir Charles Trevelyan, the
father of the young army reformer of the present year. This report advised
that no commissions should be sold above the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
About six more Royal Commissions were issued between 1856 and 1871 on army
subjects; until finally the war in France brought matters to a point, and
taught statesmen that the reform of the army was no longer to be trifled
with.

[Illustration: MR. (AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT) CARDWELL. (_From a Photograph by
Elliott & Fry, London, W._)]

When a Government once seriously took up the purchase system and
pronounced for its abolition, it was felt that purchase must go. Yet
no Government measure within the memory of man received such treatment
as this did from the hands of a varied and irritated opposition. Every
argument that self-interest could suggest or class feeling prompt was
urged with incredible pertinacity by the military members of the House
of Commons. It was insisted in vain that these military members did not
fairly represent the army, but that by the very fact of their being in
the House they showed themselves to be rich men, able to afford to resign
active service and to contest elections; "the colonels" still carried on
their opposition to every point of the Bill during four weary months. So
temperate a Liberal as Sir Roundell Palmer said of the conduct of the
military members, that a "course had been taken the like of which he
never remembered. Other great measures affecting great interests had been
opposed without the minority attempting to baffle the majority by mere
consumption of time. The minority who resisted the Irish Church Bill and
the Irish Land Bill had recognised the duty of respecting the principle
of Parliamentary government, that the decision of the majority shall be
binding. Conduct like that was neither in the interest of the country, of
the army, nor of Conservative principle." Yet the colonels did their work.
They drove Mr. Cardwell to cut down the Bill to the two divisions of the
abolition of purchase and the transfer of the powers of Lords-Lieutenant
over the militia and volunteer forces to the Crown. In this form the Bill
passed the third reading, and went up to the Lords.

In the Lords it met with opposition at once more dignified and more
effective. Nearly every eminent Conservative peer who had ever had
anything to do with the army said something in favour of purchase: one
supported it because it provided a cheap way of retirement, one because
the officers liked it, one because abolition would cost so much by way
of compensation, one because the old system had prevented the British
officer from becoming a "professional man with professional politics."
Lord Salisbury, whose tongue on this occasion was as rasping as usual,
suggested a new name for the new method: "If purchase had been described
as a system of seniority tempered by selection, the more correct formula
for the new system was stagnation tempered by jobbery." Lord Derby,
alone of the Tory peers, joined with the advocates of the Government in
supporting the Bill. As to expense, he said, "the expense of abolishing
purchase would be as oppressive years hence as now, and might be
even increased. As to delay, is it dignified to delay an inevitable
reform--inevitable because no institution is tenable in England unless
it admits of defence by arguments intelligible to the partially-educated
constituencies?" In the end the Duke of Richmond's motion, "that the House
of Lords declined to read the Bill a second time, until it had before it
a comprehensive plan," was carried by 150 to 125--a result not quite the
same as the rejection of the Bill, but still a grave blow to the Ministry.
The way in which Mr. Gladstone met it was original, and caused a throb
of excitement unusual in the calm realm of English politics. With that
suddenness for which his proceedings were at times famous, he abolished
purchase by a _coup d'état_. It was known beforehand that purchase was
only legal so far as the Queen's Regulations allowed it; and clearly
therefore all that was technically required for its abolition was that
the regulations should be altered so as to forbid it. But no one supposed
that, after months of debate and after a hostile vote in the House of
Lords, any Minister would have ventured to advise such a stretch of
Prerogative. Mr. Gladstone, however, was equal to the situation. Two days
after the division in the Lords, he announced to the astonished House
of Commons that purchase was already abolished; her Majesty having been
advised to cancel the old warrant that allowed it, and to issue a new
warrant that forbade it. "Therefore," he said, "after the first of next
November, purchase will cease to exist." His defence of this step was that
it was necessary to put an end to a state of uncertainty which endangered
the discipline of the army; and that, having secured the expression of
the opinion of the Commons against purchase, he held himself justified in
advising the Queen to exert her statutory right.

The anger of the Opposition at such a high-handed measure as this may be
easily conceived. Mr. Disraeli talked of "a shameful conspiracy against
the privileges of the other House": the Duke of Richmond moved and carried
a vote of censure in the House of Lords, for, as Lord Salisbury said,
if the Government Bill was a proper Bill, the abolition of purchase was
a question for Parliament to decide and Parliament only; and if the
act of the Queen's Ministers was constitutional, then their bringing
forward the Bill at all was disrespectful to the House. Therefore Mr.
Gladstone was in the dilemma of having either acted unconstitutionally or
disrespectfully to the House of Lords. Lord Cairns charged the Government
with having "strained and discredited the constitution of the country."
And a majority of eighty assented to the Duke of Richmond's proposition,
"that the interposition of the executive ... is calculated to depreciate
and neutralise the independent action of the Legislature." And in the
House of Commons, though no vote of censure was attempted, many Liberals,
such as Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens and Mr. Fawcett, sided with Mr. Disraeli
in protesting against this resort to prerogative; an act which, said
Mr. Fawcett, "if it had been done by a Tory Minister, would have been
denounced by Mr. Gladstone with the applause of the whole Liberal party."
The cost of the reform was very considerable indeed. Government proposed
to compensate the officers fully and liberally, paying them not just the
legal "regulation prices" for their commissions, but the "over-regulation
prices," which custom had legalised in the teeth of law. This compensation
it was estimated would amount to, at the very least, six millions
sterling--some said ten millions,--to be spread of course over a number
of years: a large sum to take from the shoulders of the benefited class,
and lay upon those of the general taxpayer.

The increased estimates for the year which the reform of the army made
necessary were a sore perplexity to Mr. Lowe, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. It is true he did not lament the high expenditure of the
fighting departments; for, he said, he regarded an efficient army and navy
as the best commercial investment in the world; but he had to face a large
estimated deficit--no less than £2,713,000. This he proposed to cover,
first, by charging the duties on wills and successions so as to make them
three times as productive as before; a slightly increased income tax; and,
above all, by a tax on matches. It was this last tax which attracted the
most attention; and its ultimate fate is a good illustration of the danger
of over-cleverness in matters of finance. Mr. Lowe had been afflicted
by the thought of the waste going on in the use of matches, and of the
perils attending such waste; and he thought that he might by one brilliant
stroke lead people to economical habits and add a million to the revenue.
For the number of matches annually made is almost inconceivably great; he
announced that it was five hundred and sixty millions of boxes, without
counting the forty or fifty millions of boxes of wax matches and fusees.
He proposed therefore to put a halfpenny tax on every box of matches--a
tax which, even if it had the effect of bringing down the manufacture
by a third, would contribute nearly a million to the receipts of the
year. But Mr. Lowe was either too much preoccupied to remember or too
cynical to care that the match-making trade is in the hands of the very
poorest of the London poor, and to tamper with it would be to turn many
thousands of human beings, most of them children, either into paupers or
into criminals. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had invented a motto for
the labels that he proposed to affix to every match-box; and to withdraw
the tax would be to nullify a good joke--an unanswerable argument against
withdrawal. "_Ex luce lucellum_"--"Out of light a tiny gain"--such was the
inscription that every box was to bear; a motto which was a keen delight
to the _quondam_ Oxford tutor who proposed the tax, but a sore puzzle to
the respectable House of Commons who listened to him, and which would
have probably been neither illuminating nor profitable to the housemaids
that were to use the matches. As it was, neither tax nor motto ever
came to anything. When the amusement at Mr. Lowe's pun had died away,
people began to see the serious nature of the proposal and the strong
objections to it. A procession of match-makers, squalid and miserable,
and some thousands strong, marched from Bethnal Green to Westminster to
protest against the tax, and it was withdrawn. The same fate befell Mr.
Lowe's proposal to increase the succession duties--a proposal that struck
a blow at one of the most cherished interests of the propertied class;
nor was there any better destiny awaiting the plan of altering the mode
of calculating the income-tax by a percentage, instead of so much in the
pound.

Nor were many of the other events of the Session such as to raise the
spirits of the Ministry. Mr. Childers, who, after a distinguished career
in Australia, had been returned as member for Pontefract and been made
First Lord of the Admiralty by Mr. Gladstone, was forced by ill-health to
resign. About his work, which at all events had been very thoroughgoing in
its way, the most different and extreme opinions prevailed; his friends
maintaining that his reforms had been the making of the navy, his enemies
that they had almost been its destruction. Mr. Goschen succeeded him; an
appointment that was severely criticised by those who thought it--the
Admiralty--the wrong place for a member for the City of London, but amply
justified by the speed with which the new First Lord mastered the details
of his new office, by the vigour of his administration, and by the breadth
of his views of public duty.

Only a very few of the remaining measures of this Session of Parliament
require notice. The Ballot Bill did not become law until the next year;
for Purchase kept it back until towards the end of June; the Opposition
carried on a furious warfare against it for five or six weeks; and when at
last it was sent up to the Lords, it was rejected by them, by ninety-seven
to forty-eight. The conduct of the Opposition was vexatious and could not
fail to be damaging to the Government; for no man's endurance can face
the loss of so many precious weeks without blaming his own side a little,
as well as his opponents. As the Bill was sent to the House of Lords, it
was a very different Bill from that which Mr. Forster had introduced;
and some considerable alteration was due to the Liberal side. Mr. Henry
James, for instance, helped by Mr. William Vernon-Harcourt--two gentlemen
who afterwards were, strangely enough, colleagues in Mr. Gladstone's
Government as Attorney- and Solicitor-General--threw out the very useful
provision, that election expenses should be charged on the rates.

A second, but a fortunate, Ministerial failure was the Epping Forest
Bill, in which Government proposed to appoint a commission for settling
the respective rights of the Crown, the commoners, and the lords of the
manor in Epping Forest. "The Forest" was the favourite holiday-ground
of the dwellers in the eastern half of London. For many years a
stealthy process of encroachment had been carried on by a few persons
who possessed manorial rights over the great common land. Such was the
state of the English law, that this kind of appropriation was quite
possible and very frequent. The lord of the manor, regarding a common as
so much waste land and grieved that so much land should be allowed to
go to waste, set to work to "improve" it; and to improve it, he had to
enclose it, until by the help of a few posts and rails, and a few years
of undisturbed possession, he established a prescriptive right to the
land and converted his shadowy manorial rights into absolute ownership.
This is exactly what was happening in Epping Forest, where the beauty
of the positions and their nearness to London promised immense rents to
enterprising lords of the manor who should venture to cut the land up
into building lots. Fortunately, however, the Crown has rights over the
"Royal Forest of Waltham," as Epping Forest is properly called, and the
encroaching lords of the manor had to deal with another body as well as
the commoners--namely, the Commissioners of Works. These commissioners,
however, had begun the bad practice of selling the rights of the Crown to
the lords of the manor. It was against this unpatriotic tampering with
encroachment that Mr. Fawcett protested; in the end, the _personnel_ of
the Government commission was strengthened by the addition of Mr. Locke,
and, on the motion of Mr. Cowper-Temple, the House decided that the Forest
ought to be preserved untouched as a recreation ground for the people. The
land recovered from the river by means of the Thames Embankment was also
preserved for the Londoners against the will of the Government.

The Bill for legalising marriage with a deceased wife's sister made no
progress this year; carried by the House of Commons, it was thrown out
as usual in the Lords. The Bill for extending the franchise to single
women rated to the relief of the poor, though rejected, was rejected by
a narrower majority than before; 151 voted for it, and 220 against it.
The motion of Mr. Miall for disestablishing the Church of England was
thought important enough to call out a strong debate. The Irish Church
Act had made the motion not only a possible one, but a motion to be
expected; and no fitter man could be found to bring it forward than the
editor of the _Nonconformist_. But the Dissenters were not strong enough
in the House to make their success at all probable; not even though, as
Mr. Disraeli charged them with being, they were "allied for the moment
with revolutionary philosophers." The debate was interesting, as bringing
not only a declaration of strong confidence in the Establishment from
the leader of the Conservative party, but also as calling out a similar
declaration from Mr. Gladstone, whose churchmanship had been thought
by friends and foes to be rapidly shifting from the point of view of
State-churchmanship he had held so vigorously in his youth. That opinion
had been rather encouraged this year by the success of the Government Bill
for the Abolition of Religious Tests in the Universities. This subject
had been agitated for many years, and it had become a recognised aim
of the Liberal party to carry the Bill. The universities--that is, the
resident teachers in Oxford and Cambridge--were singularly unanimous in
favour of it; and many a meeting had declared how unwilling they were any
longer to restrain the freedom of competition and study by retaining any
tests whatever. Before the abolition, although any one might be admitted
to a Bachelor's degree in Arts without subscribing to any declaration of
belief, he could not hold a fellowship, nor qualify himself, by taking
a Master's degree, for becoming a member of the governing body of the
university, unless he subscribed his assent to the Thirty-nine Articles.
It followed that a Dissenter could neither gain the great pecuniary prizes
of a student's career, nor could he vote in the Parliamentary elections
for the university, nor take any part in the government of the place. At
last, mainly perhaps through the efforts of the Solicitor-General, Sir
John Duke Coleridge (afterwards Lord Coleridge), the Bill became law,
although some restrictions were still kept up. The test at the M.A. degree
was abolished entirely, and no test was allowed to be applied in elections
to fellowships. But the distinction between lay and clerical fellowships
was still retained, in spite of Mr. Fawcett's proposal to merge them.
Heads of houses, except in one or two cases, were still to be clergymen
of the Establishment; and the test was to be kept up in Divinity degrees.
The other Bill of importance that became law this Session was a Trades'
Union Bill, designed as a compromise between the extreme views of masters
and men. It may also be mentioned that this year saw also the final repeal
of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, passed at the initiative of Lord John
Russell at the time of the "Papal Aggressions."

The marriage of her Majesty's fourth daughter, the Princess Louise, to the
Marquis of Lorne, the eldest son of the Duke of Argyll, was celebrated
with great state at Windsor Castle on the 21st of March, 1871. For
the first time since the passing of the Royal Marriage Act in 1772, a
descendant of George II. married a commoner with the full consent and
approval of the reigning Sovereign. The Queen stood by her daughter's side
during the ceremony, which was performed by the Bishop of London, assisted
by the Bishop of Winchester, and gave the Princess away.

[Illustration: PROCESSION OF MATCH-MAKERS TO WESTMINSTER. (_See p._ 599.)]

A lecture given at Newcastle in August by Sir Charles Dilke, one of the
members for Chelsea, on the subject of "Representation and Royalty,"
excited much comment. Desiring to recommend to his hearers republican
simplicity and cheapness, and forgetting that there are institutions, as
there are public characters, which are dear at any price, Sir Charles
Dilke enlarged on the terrible expensiveness of royalty to the nation.
The positive and direct cost of the institution he estimated at about a
million a year; he complained of the large sums spent on royal yachts, and
of the "scandalous exemption" by which, as he said, her Majesty's income
was not subject to the payment of income-tax. On all these points full
and satisfactory answers were made to the allegations of the honourable
baronet. The bulk of the expenditure incurred in the support of British
royalty--namely, the Civil List--was really not one bit more an expense
to the country than the rental of Woburn Abbey or Trentham Park, or the
dividends received by Sir Charles Dilke himself on any India or railway
stock he might have inherited from his father. The Queen received nearly
£400,000 a year in respect of the Civil List from the general revenue;
but she gave up to the general revenue rents that amounted pretty nearly
to the same annual total. These were the rents of the Crown lands, which
belonged to her Majesty by exactly the same title that Trentham belonged
to the Duke of Sutherland; but which, by a fair and equitable bargain,
she abandoned to the nation in exchange for the Civil List. With regard
to the exemption from income-tax, it appeared on inquiry that there was
nothing "scandalous" in the matter, except the assertion of Sir Charles
Dilke, which turned out to be absolutely unfounded, the Queen having paid
income-tax from the day of its first imposition. Strange to say, the
lecture excited in the lower classes rather a disgust of Republicanism
than the opposite feeling, as the riotous conduct of the mob at several
subsequent gatherings of Sir Charles Dilke's disciples and adherents
plainly evinced.

Before the close of the year testimony of the most direct and
unimpeachable character was furnished to the popularity of the Queen and
the royal family. Early in November the Prince of Wales paid a visit
for a few days to Lord Londesborough's seat near Scarborough. It was
supposed that there was some defect in the drainage of the house, which
stands close to the sea, and that the seeds of typhoid fever were thus
implanted in the Prince's frame. After his return to Sandringham he was
taken ill, the fever being of a low and lingering type, and he continued
in much the same condition for several weeks, during which her Majesty,
accompanied by Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, visited Sandringham.
On the 1st of December, the Prince appearing to be no worse, the Queen
returned to Windsor. That some dangerous miasma lurked in the precincts of
Londesborough Lodge seemed to be proved by the death, on this same day,
of the Earl of Chesterfield, who had been one of the party invited to the
house to meet the Prince, and was attacked by a fever of the same kind
in so severe a form that he sank from collapse. A groom who had been in
attendance on the Prince during the same visit was also attacked.

During November, and till the end of the first week of the following
month, no serious symptoms appeared, and the attack was supposed to be
passing away; but, on the 8th of December, a decided relapse declared
itself, and for several days the life of the Prince of Wales was in the
most imminent danger. The Queen, accompanied by some and followed by
others of her children, hurried again to Sandringham.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, by the desire of the Queen, composed
appropriate forms of prayer, which were used on and after the 10th of
December, for several days, in every church and chapel of the Church of
England throughout the realm. Archbishop Manning ordered prayers with the
like intention to be offered up in all Roman Catholic places of worship;
nor was the strain of supplication less fervent in the chapels of the
Dissenters or the synagogues of the Jews. With wonderful "petitionary
vehemence" was the safety of that life implored from heaven; and that life
was spared. On the night of Wednesday, the 14th of December, a slight turn
for the better took place in the worse symptoms, and the invalid enjoyed
the long-desired boon of refreshing sleep. From that time he gradually,
though slowly, rose to convalescence and ultimately to perfect health. The
groom who had been attacked by the fever, after progressing favourably for
some time, had a relapse, and died on the 18th of December.

After the health of the Prince was completely re-established, on the
27th of February in the following year a solemn service of Thanksgiving,
attended both by the Queen and by the Prince himself, was held in St.
Paul's Cathedral. The weather was all that could be desired; and although
the line of the procession from Buckingham Palace to the Cathedral was
thronged by immense multitudes of people, no accident and no mistake
occurred. Her Majesty was received by the Lord Mayor at Temple Bar, and by
the Bishop of London and the Dean and Chapter at the western gate of the
Cathedral. The arrangements for the service were made with great precision
of etiquette and pomp of ceremonial. A "Te Deum," composed for the
occasion by Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Goss, was first sung by a choir of
250 voices, selected from the best cathedral and chapel choirs in England.
Then the special form of Thanksgiving was read, and after a sermon from
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the congregation was dismissed, care having
been taken to reduce the whole service within such reasonable limits that
the Prince's strength might be equal to it. In the evening, St Paul's and
the principal streets were magnificently illuminated.

[Illustration: THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE, 27th OF FEBRUARY, 1872: THE
PROCESSION AT LUDGATE HILL.

FROM THE PAINTING IN THE ROYAL COLLECTION BY N. CHEVALIER.]

All through the year a growing dissatisfaction with the conduct of the
Government exhibited itself in various ways. A portion of the electors of
Greenwich, irritated, it would seem, at the continued slackness of the
shipbuilding trade at Deptford (though it is difficult to see how the
Premier could be made answerable for that), sent a requisition to Mr.
Gladstone, their member, couched in most uncomplimentary terms, demanding
of him the resignation of his seat. Several public meetings were held and
largely attended, while the fate of Paris still hung in the balance, to
protest against the Government's apathy and inaction, which had the effect
of effacing Great Britain from European politics. In March and April
several demonstrations of "Red Republicans" in London aimed at awakening
sympathy for their friends who were fighting for the Commune in Paris. But
neither their numbers nor the ability of their speakers were in the least
formidable. On the other hand, the impartial lover of his country could
not but acknowledge that much was due to a Government which had framed and
carried a measure that now, for the first time since England was a nation,
carried the healthful influences of primary instruction into every corner
of the land. During the last half of 1870, and the first months of 1871,
the Education Department was actively employed in gaining, through its
inspectors and agents, the necessary statistical information required for
the effectual working of the Act. Great progress had been made in this
respect by the summer of 1871, and nearly three hundred school boards,
elected under the provisions of the Education Act, were established in the
course of the year. Unfortunately, a little rift of dissidence made its
appearance about this time. This divergence of opinion related to the 25th
Clause. By this clause it was provided that in districts where there was
a school board, if there were any children whose parents pleaded poverty
as an excuse for not sending them to school, and the board admitted the
plea as a good one, such children should be placed at any Government
school within the school-board district which the parent or guardian might
prefer, their fees at such schools being paid by the board. On the face
of it, there seemed nothing unequal or unfair in such a provision, since
it applied equally to all sects and denominations. But the Dissenters
considered that the clause would act to the exclusive benefit of the
Church of England, to which destitute parents who have no connection with
any other religious body naturally gravitate. The children of educational
paupers, or nine out of ten of them, would thus be indubitably sent,
they thought, to Church schools, where they would be taught the Church
Catechism and whatever else is distinctive of Anglicanism at the expense
of the rates, which would thus be indirectly drawn upon on behalf of a
Church that was too rich and too independent of the laity already. As a
matter of fact, the number of these educational paupers, the whole land
over, was very small. Circumstances, however, might easily be imagined
in which their numbers would greatly increase, and then the grievance
resented by the Dissenters would immediately arise.

About the time that the newly-chosen German Emperor was making his
triumphal entry into Berlin, another Emperor, exchanging his palace-prison
for the land where he was to live as an exile, set foot, not for the
first time, on the hospitable shores of England. The war being at an end,
and the treaty of peace signed, the Emperor Napoleon was free to leave
Wilhelmshöhe. He arrived at Dover by steamer from Ostend on the afternoon
of the 20th of March. The day was fine and the Empress and her son, the
Prince Imperial had come down from Chislehurst to welcome the exile. The
Prince, following the kindly Continental custom, kissed his father on both
cheeks. The crowd, though animated by the best and most generous feelings,
was a trifle boisterous in its overflowing cordiality; the imperial party
were sometimes nearly carried off their feet, so great was the pressure in
the street, as they walked up to the Lord Warden Hotel, and the services
of the police were called into active exercise. Napoleon was said to be
much altered in appearance, his hair and moustache having become quite
grey, but to look in good health. The ex-Emperor fixed his permanent
residence with the Empress at Chislehurst.

Towards the end of the year, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr.
Evelyn Denison, feeling the advance of age and the pressure of the arduous
and trying duties inseparable from his office, resigned the Speakership,
and was soon afterwards elevated to the peerage, taking the title of Lord
Ossington. He was succeeded by Mr. Brand, the member for Cambridgeshire,
long known as one of the most efficient of Liberal "Whips."

A visit paid this year by Prince Arthur to Ireland, though it elicited
much friendly and loyal feeling, was not unattended by painful incidents.
The Prince was accompanied by his sister, the Princess Louise, and the
Marquis of Lorne. The royal party were received in all public places with
the same respect and loyalty as usual, and the visit was nearly coming
quietly to an end; but, on the day before the Prince departed, a riot of
a serious character took place in the Phœnix Park. The "Irreconcilable"
party in Ireland announced their intention of holding a public meeting in
the Phœnix Park on the 6th of August, in order to adopt a petition for the
liberation of the Irish military prisoners confined for Fenianism. The
authorities forbade the meeting to be held; the promoters persisted in
holding it; and when the police, in pursuance of their orders, endeavoured
to disperse the crowd, and prohibit anything like concerted action or
public speaking, a serious affray was the consequence. The police appear
to have acted with great and hardly excusable violence; and when it is
considered that at this very time the Government did not interfere with
the meetings of Red Republicans in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square, that
is, in the heart of London, while the Phœnix Park, a piece of open ground
of immense extent, lies at a distance from the busy part of Dublin, the
indignation expressed by the Nationalists at the forcible suppression of
the meeting cannot be wondered at.

[Illustration: THE PRINCE OF WALES (AFTERWARDS EDWARD VII.) IN HIS ROBES
AS A BENCHER OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.

(_From a Photograph by W. & D. Downey._)]

Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal party in general having entered upon the
policy of conciliation to Ireland, both in regard to the Irish Church
and to the tenure of the land, from a conviction that these important
measures were demanded by justice, did not repent of what they did; yet it
must be confessed that the sanguine anticipations of seeing peace, union,
contentment, and gratitude diffused over the sister island in consequence
of this legislation were wofully disappointed. The marked warmth and
heartiness with which a French deputation, headed by Count Flavigny, that
came over to Ireland in the summer of 1871 to make a public acknowledgment
of the services rendered during the war by the Irish ambulance, was
received by the masses of the Irish population was understood to cover
and indicate at least as much dislike of England as affection for
France. Nor was this feeling now confined to the Celtic portion of the
population. A section of Protestants, among whom the most prominent figure
was a distinguished Fellow of Trinity College, resented so keenly the
conduct of England in having sacrificed their Church to, as they deemed,
a miserable political expediency, and the clap-trap plea of numbers,
that they eagerly joined that large disaffected mass of the native and
Roman Catholic population which, about this time (direct agitation for a
repeal of the Union being discouraged by the experience of 1844), began
to seek the same end under the newly invented name of "Home Rule." The
leader of this movement, Mr. Isaac Butt, the member for Limerick, was one,
and not the least gifted, of the brilliant band of counsel who rallied
round O'Connell on the occasion of his trial for exciting to sedition
in January, 1844. The movement for Home Rule which he now took up had
this advantage, that while the very name implied a certain degree of
separation from England, and therefore insured for it popularity, its
vagueness made it more difficult for opponents to grapple with it. All
that those who gave in their adhesion to the agitation need necessarily
contemplate was the transfer to some legislative body established in
Ireland of the management of the purely local concerns of the kingdom.
It meant the practical self-government of Ireland, and the exclusion of
English influence from the conduct of its affairs, with the exception of a
few specified departments, such as the Army and Navy, foreign relations,
and the Post Office. While Mr. Butt was leader, however, Home Rule never
emerged from a purely academic stage.

[Illustration: THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. (_See p._
602.)]

Mr. Gladstone delivered an important speech on this question at Aberdeen
towards the close of the year, in which he based his opposition to Home
Rule, not on prospective or hypothetical dangers, but on consideration
of the argument that the Irish, if they would combine together, and
become as keenly alive to their own interests as the Scots or the Welsh
are, could obtain whatever they might reasonably demand. "You would
expect," he said, "when it is said that the Imperial Parliament is to
be broken up, that at the very least a case should be made out showing
there were great objects of policy, and great demands necessary for the
welfare of Ireland, which representatives of Ireland had united to ask,
and which the representatives of England, Scotland, and Wales had united
to refuse. There is no such grievance. There is nothing which Ireland
has asked, and which this country and this Parliament have refused." He
proceeded to admit that Ireland had something like a grievance in regard
to university education, but urged that a united demand from Ireland
would lead immediately to its rectification; and continued: "What are
the inequalities of England and Ireland? I declare that I know none,
except that there are certain taxes still remaining which are levied over
Englishmen and are not levied over Irishmen, and likewise that there are
certain purposes for which public money is freely and largely given in
Ireland, and for which it is not given in England or Scotland.... But if
the doctrines of Home Rule are to be established in Ireland, I protest
on your behalf that you will be just as well entitled to it in Scotland;
and, moreover, I protest on behalf of Wales, in which I have lived a good
deal, and where there are 800,000 people who this day, such is their
sentiment of nationality, speak hardly anything but their own Celtic
tongue--a larger number than speak the Celtic tongue, I apprehend, in
Scotland, and a larger number than speak it, I apprehend, in Ireland--I
protest on behalf of Wales that they are entitled to Home Rule there. Can
any sensible man, can any rational man, suppose that at this time of day,
in this condition of the world, we are going to disintegrate the great
capital institutions of this country for the purpose of making ourselves
ridiculous in the sight of all mankind, and crippling any power we possess
for bestowing benefits through legislation on the country to which we
belong?"

A tragic event, the prelude, as it proved, to one still more tragic, was
announced in the autumn from Calcutta. Mr. Justice Norman, acting Lord
Chief Justice, was assassinated by a fanatical Mussulman while ascending
the steps leading to his own court. He had reached the summit of the
flight of steps, when a man, who had been concealed in a doorway, sprang
out and stabbed him in the back. Mr. Norman turned quickly round, and
was stabbed again in front: either wound, being inflicted by one who was
an adept in the art of murder, would have been fatal. The assassin was
immediately seized. The evidence given on the trial left it doubtful
whether pure fanatical hate towards a judge who had lately been enforcing
the law against some Mohammedan conspirators at Patna was the cause of the
murder, or whether some private grudge supplied a subsidiary motive.

What looked like an important step towards the co-ordination in one
confederacy of the Australian colonies was taken in the autumn of this
year. A new treaty between Great Britain and the Zollverein was being
negotiated; and it would appear that Lord Kimberley, the Colonial
Secretary, in a circular despatch to the Australian Governments, used
certain expressions in relation thereto which seemed to the colonists
to imply the recognition of a right on the part of the mother country
to concede, and on the part of a foreign country to claim, certain
tariff arrangements as between the different colonies which would be
favourable to the interests of the treaty-making Power. Delegates from the
Governments of New South Wales, Tasmania, South Australia, and Victoria
met at Melbourne, in September, 1871, to consider the question; and having
carefully examined Lord Kimberley's despatch, agreed unanimously to the
following resolutions:--

1. "That the Australian colonies claim to enter into arrangements with
each other, through their respective Legislatures, so as to provide for
the reciprocal admission of their respective products and manufactures,
either duty free or on such terms as may be mutually agreed upon.

2. "That no treaty entered into by the Imperial Government with any
foreign Power should in any way limit or impede the exercise of such right.

3. "That Imperial interference with inter-colonial fiscal legislation
should finally and absolutely cease.

4. "That so much of an Act or Acts of the Imperial Parliament as may be
considered to prohibit the full exercise of such right should be repealed.

5. "That these resolutions, together with a memorandum from each
Government, or a joint memorandum from such Governments as prefer to adopt
that method, shall be transmitted to the Secretary of State through the
Governors of our colonies respectively." The movement, however, proved
premature, so far at least as it concerned inter-colonial (that is,
Australian) Federation. Nor had the larger project of Imperial Federation
come within the view of the statesmen of the day.

In September, 1870, a circumstance had occurred that gave us the
disagreeable certainty that, although secured from the direct risks of
war by what Mr. Gladstone called "the silver streak," we too might be
injuriously affected by the disturbance of the European equilibrium
caused by the prostration of France. A circular note, addressed by Prince
Gortschakoff to the representatives of Russia at foreign Courts, and
made public at the end of October, declared that it was the intention of
his Majesty the Czar no longer to be bound by that clause of the Treaty
of 1856, concluded after the Crimean War, which prohibited Russia from
keeping up a naval force above a certain strength in the Black Sea. Lord
Granville, in a despatch to Sir A. Buchanan dated the 10th of November,
1870, stated that the British Government could give no sanction to the
course announced by Prince Gortschakoff.

The concilatory tone adopted by Prince Gortschakoff in his reply to Lord
Granville went some way to neutralise the disagreeable impression which
the circular had produced. He would not admit that Russia encouraged a
laxity of principle in regard to the obligation of treaties; and in the
case of this particular treaty he declared that in its main stipulations
Russia considered it as binding as ever, although she declined to be bound
any longer by the special convention with Turkey which it contained,
regulating the number and size of the men-of-war which the two Powers
might maintain in the Black Sea. With regard to the objection that Russia
had not sought for a modification of the treaty through the medium of a
conference, Prince Gortschakoff remarked that Lord Granville well knew
that "all the efforts repeatedly made to unite the Powers in a common
deliberation, in order to do away with the causes of complication which
trouble the general peace, have constantly failed."

There was something deceptive in this way of stating the matter, because
it did not follow, if difficulties had arisen in the way of the meeting
of congresses to settle all the perplexing questions of Europe, that
therefore a proposal by Russia for a conference of the signatory Powers
to discuss the comparatively unimportant matter now on the _tapis_ would
have encountered any serious opposition. Lord Granville pointed out this
distinction, admitting at the same time with satisfaction the moderation
and courtesy of tone by which the Russian despatches were distinguished.
Here, as between England and Russia, the matter rested. But a doubt
remained whether the conduct of Russia had not been previously sanctioned,
possibly even instigated, by the Court of Berlin. Mr. Odo Russell was
sent to clear up this delicate point, and brought back the tranquillising
assurance from Count Bismarck that the German Government had given no
sanction to the step. At the same time a proposal was made by Prussia that
a conference of the Powers should be summoned, and meet in London, in
order to settle the question.

This conference accordingly met in London on the 17th of January. The
presence of a French Plenipotentiary at the Conference had been earnestly
desired, and M. Jules Favre had been requested to attend it by the Paris
Government. But difficulties arose in connection with his obtaining
permission to pass out of Paris through the Prussian lines; and when the
permission was obtained--or, rather, when through the close of the siege
the difficulty no longer existed--M. Favre had his hands so full of the
work of negotiating the armistice with Bismarck that it was impossible for
him to leave Paris. The plenipotentiaries of the other Powers--Britain,
Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, and Turkey--proceeded, though with
reluctance, to the deliberation of the question.

At the first sitting the Conference adopted, unanimously, on the
invitation of Lord Granville, the principle that no one of the two or
more Powers that may be parties to a treaty can nullify the same, or any
part of it, without the consent of the co-signatory Powers. At subsequent
meetings, the reasons alleged by Russia for her desire to be liberated
from the prohibitory stipulation respecting war-ships contained in the
Black Sea Treaty were listened to and considered, as well as the reply of
the Turkish Ambassador, who, while repudiating on behalf of Turkey all
intention of separating her action from that approved by the majority of
the friendly Powers, regretted that the question had ever been raised,
and declared that the restrictive clause which Russia now felt to be
unendurable still appeared to the Sublime Porte in the light of a prudent
and desirable precaution. Upon minute inquiry, it was found that ten cases
of infraction of the Convention of 1856, forbidding the navigation of
the Black Sea by ships-of-war, had occurred in the intervening period.
Most of these were unimportant; but there was one on which Russia laid
much stress, having, indeed, protested against it at the time when it
occurred. This was the admission into the Black Sea of H.M.S. _Gannet_,
in which Sir Henry Bulwer was conveyed (1864) on a mission to Kustendji.
General Ignatieff, the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople, told the
British representative there, about the year 1870, that Russia considered
the clauses neutralising the Black Sea to have been annulled in practice
from the time when H.M.S. _Gannet_ passed through the Bosphorus into the
prohibited waters six years before.

The sense of the Conference was, on the whole, in favour of remitting
the restriction which Russia complained of; and a new treaty was drawn
up, and signed by all the Powers, by virtue of which the articles of the
Treaty of 1856 limiting the number and size of the ships-of-war which
Russia and Turkey might keep up in the Black Sea were abrogated, and a
new provision was introduced, authorising the Sultan to open the straits
of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus in time of peace to the fleets of
the friendly and allied Powers, in the event of the execution of the
stipulations of the Treaty of 1856 requiring it. The meaning of this
stipulation, of course, was, that if Russia took advantage of the liberty
which she now had of preparing a large fleet for the ultimate purpose of
attacking Turkey, the latter would be entitled, without the breach of any
treaty stipulation, to summon the Mediterranean fleet of France or England
to her aid.

After the draft of the treaty had been settled, at the sitting of the 13th
of March, Earl Granville introduced the Duc de Broglie to the Conference
as the representative of France. In a few dignified sentences, the duke,
after touching lightly but feelingly on the unhappy condition of France,
which had prevented her from being represented at the earlier sittings,
stated that, with regard to the principal object of the Conference,
the French Government, sharing the feelings expressed by the Turkish
Plenipotentiary, would have preferred that the original convention for
neutralising the Black Sea should be maintained; but that at the stage at
which the affair had now arrived, the new arrangement having been assented
to by the Porte, France willingly entered into the feeling of conciliation
that had dictated it, and gave its assent to all the decisions of the
Conference.

The obituary of the year contains the names of many persons of eminence.
Although the death of no statesman of the first rank has to be recorded,
the army lost its patriarch, Sir John Burgoyne; the Church of England
lost Dean Alford of Canterbury, Dean Mansel of St. Paul's, the once
famous preacher, Canon Melvill, and the much-loved missionary bishop,
John Coleridge Patteson; science lost Sir John Herschel, Sir Roderick
Murchison, Mr. Charles Babbage, and Mr. De Morgan; literature and
politics lost the veteran George Grote; and about the same time as the
"Philosophical Radical" and historian of Greece there died the famous
old Devonshire Tory, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland. Lord Ellenborough, once
the much-admired and much-criticised Governor-General of India, Sir W.
Denison, once Governor of Tasmania and Madras, Mr. Charles Buxton, an
influential Member of Parliament and philanthropist, died in the same
year. The death of George Hudson, the "Railway King," gave people an
opportunity for moralising on the vicissitudes of life.




INDEX.


    Aberdeen, Lord, Prime Minister, 11, 15;
      influence on Crimean war, 76;
      on position of Russia in Asia, 135.

    Abyssinian war: the unanswered letter, 463, 479;
      crescent and cross, 476;
      Consul Plowden, 476, 477;
      Theodore, 477;
      Consul Cameron, 478, 479;
      German missionaries imprisoned, 479;
      Mr. Rassam, 480-483;
      war determined on, 483, 484;
      march to Magdala, 486-488;
      Theodore's army destroyed, 488;
      negotiations, 490;
      storming of Magdala, suicide of Theodore, 491;
      end of the war, 492.

    Adullamites, The, 392.

    Agra and Masterman's Bank fails, 410.

    Agra, Surprise and fight at, 241.

    Agricultural labourers' strike, 459.

    _Alabama_, Building and escape of, 331-333;
      fight with _Kearsarge_, 361.

    Albert, Prince, and the Great Exhibition of 1851, 4;
      illness and death, 328.

    Alexander becomes Czar of Russia, 86;
      visits the Crimea, 145, 146.

    Alexandra, Princess of Wales, 338.

    Alford, Dean, Death of, 608.

    Alfred, Prince, Attempt to assassinate, 474.

    Allahabad, Outbreak of mutiny at, 211.

    Alma, Battle of, 44-50.

    Alsace and Lorraine ceded to Germany, 594.

    Alumbagh, Battle at, 247.

    America, United States of: causes that led to the Civil War, 319;
      States secede, 320, 322;
      capture of Fort Sumter, 321;
      Bull Run, 322;
      the _Alabama_, 330-333;
      progress of the war, 333, 334, 341, 361;
      fight between _Alabama_ and _Kearsarge_, 361;
      Lincoln re-elected President, 362;
      Canada and the war, 362;
      the end approaching, 380;
      the Southern armies surrender, 382;
      losses during the war, 382;
      President Lincoln assassinated, 382;
      Atlantic Cable completed, 407;
      General Grant President, 517.

    Aong, Battle of, 220.

    Aosta, Duke of, accepts Spanish Crown, 578.

    Anson, General, 187, 195;
      death, 196.

    Arbitration, International, 157.

    Armenia, Campaign in, 136.

    Army, British, State of, before Crimean war, 75, 76;
      after Inkermann, 80;
      mortality, 82, 83;
      in winter quarters, 146.

    Army, Indian native, State of, 182;
      disbanding regiments in, 187, 188, 193, 194, 197, 206, 228, 230;
      caste abolished in, 276;
      reorganised, 284-286, 314.

    Army and navy estimates, etc., 364, 544.

    Army reforms, 545;
      history of Purchase, and Bill to abolish, 595, 596;
      Purchase abolished by Royal warrant, 598.

    _Arrow_, Affair of the, 169-174.

    Arthur, Prince, visit to Ireland, 603.

    Ashanti war, 350.

    Atlantic cable, Laying the, 406-408.

    Aurelles de Paladines, 585, 586.

    Australian colonies and federation, 606, 607.

    Austria, attitude on Eastern question, 15, 26, 27, 35;
      and the Crimean war, 91, 147, 148, 150;
      occupation of Italy, 166;
      and the Italian question, 295;
      prepares for war, 296, 298;
      defeated, 299;
      peace of Villafranca, 302;
      Schleswig-Holstein dispute, 354-361;
      dispute with Prussia, 418;
      convention of Gastein, 419;
      prepares for war, 420;
      offers Venetia to Italy, 422;
      war with Prussia, 424-428;
      conditions of peace, 429;
      settles affairs with Hungary, 462, 463;
      attitude in the Franco-German war, 558, 570.

    Azoff, Sea of, Admiral Lyons in, 101.


    Badlee Serai, Battle at, 204.

    Baidar valley, French posts in, 119.

    Baines, Mr., abortive Reform Bill, 365.

    Balaclava, Battle of, 59-64;
      results of, 64;
      demonstrations and defences at, 120.

    Ballot Bill rejected, 559.

    Baltic, Departure of fleet for the, 34;
      Russian fleet in, 72;
      allied fleet in, 132-134.

    Banda and Kirwee prize money settled, 411.

    Bank failures, etc., 409-411.

    Bareilly, Mutiny at, 200;
      battle of, 268.

    Barnard, Sir Henry, 203;
      death of, 226.

    Barrackpore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 187.

    Bazaine, Marshal, 559, 561;
      sortie from Metz, 582;
      and Bismarck, 583.

    Beales, Edmund, Hyde Park riots, 402-404.

    Belfast, Riots in, 349, 350.

    Belfort, Capitulation of, 592.

    Belgium, French and Prussian designs on, 555;
      independence guaranteed, 556.

    Benares, Outbreak of mutiny at, 211.

    Benedetti and Franco-German war, 552.

    Berhampore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 186.

    Birmingham "No Popery" riots, 475.

    Bismarck, Austro-Prussian war, 418-424;
      Franco-German war, 552, 555, 566, 579.

    Bithoor, Battle of, 224.

    Black Friday, 409-411.

    Black Sea, Allied Fleet in the, 37;
      storms in, 74, 75;
      neutralisation of, 155;
      conference, 607;
      a new treaty, 608.

    Blockades, Declaration of Paris, 156.

    Bolgrad, Dispute concerning, 159.

    Bomarsund, Expedition against, 73, 74.

    Bombardment of Paris, 590, 591.

    Borny, Battle of, 561.

    Boroughs, Bill regulating boundaries of, 467.

    Bothnia, Capt. Storey in Gulf of, 132.

    Bourbaki, General, 583, 591, 592.

    Bowring, Sir John, and Chinese war, 169.

    Brazil, Outrage on British subjects in, 340.

    Brigands, Greek, murder English tourists, 540-544.

    Bright, John, agitates for Parliamentary reform, 289;
      speech on Disraeli's Bill, 291;
      on the death of Cobden, 378;
      defends the Queen, 408;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 440, 447, 448;
      on the right of meeting in the parks, 454.

    Broadhead, and Sheffield outrages, 458.

    Brooke, Sir James (Rajah), Death of, 475.

    Brougham, Lord, Death of, 475.

    Brown, Sir George, Kertch expedition, 100.

    Bruat, Admiral, Kertch expedition, 100.

    Bruce, Mr., National Education Bill, 452.

    Bull Run, Battle of, 322.

    Burgoyne, Sir John, 84;
      death of, 608.

    Burmese war, 160.

    Busserutgunge, Battle of, 223, 224.

    Butt, Mr. Isaac, and Home Rule, 606.


    Cable, the Atlantic, Laying of, 406-408.

    Cairns, Sir Hugh, on Parliamentary Reform, 291, 448, 450;
      Lord Chancellor, 466.

    Calcutta, Opinions at, respecting the mutiny, 210;
      cyclone in, 352.

    Calpee, Battle of, 274.

    Cambridge, Duke of, at Inkermann, 68, 70.

    Cameron, Consul, in Abyssinia, 479, 481.

    Campbell, Sir Colin, in the Crimea, 58, 59;
      commands Indian army, 246;
      prepares to relieve Lucknow, 251;
      at Cawnpore, 256;
      Shumshabad, 262;
      Bareilly, 268.

    Canada and the American Civil War, 362, 383;
      defences of Quebec and Montreal, 383;
      Fenian invasion, 416, 417.

    Canning, Lord, Governor-General of India, 210;
      mutiny at Dinapore, 225;
      his proclamation, 267;
      viceroy, 279;
      reorganises the Government, 284;
      rewards loyal Rajahs, 286.

    Canrobert, General, in Crimea, 52, 90, 113.

    Canton, Bombardment of, 170.

    Cardigan, Lord, at Balaclava, 62.

    Cardwell, Mr., army estimates, 545, 596.

    Cashmere gate blown up, 235.

    Caste in the Indian army, 183;
      abolished, 276.

    Cathcart, Sir George, death, 70.

    Cattle Plague outbreak, 371, 372.

    Cawnpore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 211;
      Nana Sahib's treachery, 213;
      sufferings of the garrison, 214;
      heroic defence, 215;
      massacre at the Ghaut, escape of survivors, 216;
      battle at, 220-222;
      the massacre at, 222, 223.

    Central India, State of affairs in, 216, 259;
      Rose's campaign, 270-276;
      Sir R. Napier commands in, 276.

    Chandaree, Storming of, 272.

    Chanzy, General, 585, 586, 587, 590.

    Charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava, 60;
      of the Light Brigade, 62-64.

    Charities, Proposal to tax, 369.

    Chester Castle, Fenians threaten, 454, 455.

    Childers, Mr., navy estimates, etc., 544, 599.

    Children employed in agriculture, 452.

    China, Troops for, intercepted for Indian mutiny, 251;
      expedition to enforce treaty of Tientsin, 316-319;
      war, 351.

    Chinese war, affair of the _Arrow_, 169;
      discussion in Parliament, 169-174;
      Canton bombarded, 174.

    Chinhut, British repulsed at, 218.

    Cholera in England in 1866, 406.

    Chronological order of Indian mutiny, 199.

    Chupatties, Mystery of the, 186.

    Church, Irish. (_See_ Irish Church.)

    Church Rates Abolition Bill, 466.

    Christians, Abyssinian, 476.

    Civil list of recent British monarchs, 176;
      of the Queen, 601.

    Civil war in America. (_See_ America.)

    Clarendon, Lord, despatches to Russia, 19, 20;
      on Chinese war, 170;
      death, 547.

    Clergymen Disabilities Bill, 546.

    Clerkenwell Fenian outrage, 456-458.

    Clyde, Lord, in Oude, 280-282.

    Coalition Ministry, 11.

    Cobden on Chinese war, 171;
      rejected for Huddersfield, 175;
      negotiates commercial treaty with France, 310;
      death, 376;
      Bright's eulogy, 378.

    Codrington, Sir William, in Crimea, 131.

    Coercion Act for Ireland, 523.

    Colenso case, The, 348.

    Columbia, Colony of British, 287.

    Commercial disasters (Black Friday), 409.

    Commercial treaty with France, 310.

    Company's rule abolished in India, 278.

    Compound householder, 438, 443.

    Congress of European Powers, 151-157.

    Conservatives and Education Bill, 539.

    Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 180.

    Convocation and "Essays and Reviews," 346.

    Cooper quells rising at Meean Meer, 231.

    Cost of Crimean war, 158.

    Cotton famine in Lancashire, 322, 336.

    Coup d'État, Louis Napoleon's, 6-8.

    Cranborne, Lord, on Indian finance, 402;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 447.

    Cretan insurrection, 492.

    Crimean war, the quarrel, 12-18;
      fleets ordered to Besika Bay, 19;
      Russia occupies the Principalities, 22;
      Vienna note, 22, 24, 27;
      allied fleets in the Dardanelles, 27;
      destruction of Turkish ships at Sinope, 28;
      allied fleets in the Black Sea, 30;
      ultimatum of the allies, 32;
      departure of Baltic fleet, war declared, 34;
      attitude of German Powers, 35;
      siege of Silistria, 36;
      Odessa bombarded, 38;
      the allies at Varna, 38;
      the Crimea to be invaded, 39;
      want of transport, 40;
      the allied forces, the march on Sebastopol, 41;
      the first skirmish, 42;
      battle of the Alma, 44-50;
      defences of Sebastopol, 51, 53, 55;
      march to Balaclava, 52;
      the siege of Sebastopol, 54;
      first day's bombardment, operations of the fleet, 56;
      camp at Balaclava, 58;
      battle of Balaclava, 59-64;
      of Inkermann, 66-72;
      British and Russian fleets in the Baltic, 72;
      destruction of Bomarsund, winter in the Crimea, 74;
      storms in the Black Sea, 74, 75;
      foreign legion for the Crimea, 77, 84;
      sufferings of the army, 80-83;
      Miss Nightingale, 83;
      arrival of stores, 84;
      Turkish success at Eupatoria, 86;
      death of the Czar Nicholas, 86;
      second bombardment of Sebastopol, 86, 87;
      expedition to Kertch, 88, 99-101;
      arrival of Sardinian troops, 90;
      peace proposals, 91, 92;
      Vienna conference, 92-96;
      reinforcements for the Crimea, 98;
      in the trenches, 99;
      Tchernaya occupied, 99;
      prosecution of the siege, 102;
      capture of the Mamelon, 103;
      of the Quarries, 104;
      preparing to attack the Malakoff, 105-108, 114;
      and the Redan, 106, 107, 110;
      losses of the allies, 111;
      death of Lord Raglan, 112;
      sapping towards the Malakoff and the Redan, 114, 119;
      Gortschakoff attempts to raise the siege, 114;
      allied camp in Tchernaya, 115;
      battle of Tchernaya, 116-118;
      assault and capture of the Malakoff, 121-125;
      failure of attack on the Redan, 126;
      fall of Sebastopol, 127;
      expedition to Eupatoria, 128-130;
      naval operations, 131;
      allied fleets in the Baltic, 132-134;
      Russian atrocities, 132;
      allied fleets in the Pacific, 134;
      campaign in Asia Minor, 136;
      Russian successes, 137;
      defence of Kars, 138-143;
      army in winter quarters, destruction of defences of Sebastopol, 146;
      armistice, 147;
      peace negotiations, 147-151;
      congress at Paris, 151-157;
      results of the war, 155;
      cost of the war, 158;
      the Victoria Cross distribution, 159.

    Cronstadt, The fortress of, 72.

    Crown Prince of Germany betrothed to Princess Royal, 175;
      in the Franco-German war, 558, 559, 563.

    Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, 4-6;
      at Sydenham, 162.

    Cumming, Dr., and Vatican council, 572.

    Customs duties, reductions, 12.

    Cyclone at Calcutta, 352.

    Czar Nicholas, Death of, 86.


    Dalhousie's Indian policy abandoned, 286.

    Danube, Turkish campaign on, 36;
      freedom of the, 55.

    Danubian Principalities, Re-organisation of, 155, 158.

    Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, 546, 600.

    Declaration of Paris on Maritime law, 156.

    Delhi, Outbreak of mutiny at, 190-192;
      mutineers converge on, 199;
      British march on, 203;
      the siege, 205-209;
      sorties from, 226, 227;
      the assault, 235-239;
      capture of the king, execution of the princes, 239;
      effect on the natives, 240;
      the king banished, 276.

    Democracy, Mr. Lowe's philippic, 365.

    Denison, Evelyn, elected Speaker, 175;
      becomes Lord Ossington, 603.

    Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein dispute, 353-361;
      Death of Frederick VII., 357;
      war with Prussia, 358-361.

    Derby, Lord, Prime Minister, 10;
      Chinese war, 170;
      forms a cabinet, 181;
      dissolves on Reform Question, 292-294;
      forms a cabinet on Earl Russell's defeat, 400;
      retires, 466;
      opposes Irish Church Bill, 503;
      death, 514;
      character, 515.

    Dhar, Annexation of, 266.

    Dilke, Sir Charles, on royalty, 601.

    Disraeli, Mr., 2;
      Chancellor of the Exchequer, 10, 11, 181, 400;
      eulogy on Wellington, 11;
      Roebuck's motion, 98;
      Italian affairs, 168;
      Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 181;
      Reform Bill, 290;
      debate, 291-294;
      on second reading of Gladstone's Reform Bill, 395;
      speech to his constituents, 401;
      passes a Reform Bill, 433-451;
      Prime Minister, 466;
      opposes Irish Church resolutions, 467-471;
      and Irish Church Bill, 500;
      on Irish Land Bill, 523-525;
      on Education Bill, 539;
      on abolition of Purchase, 598.

    Dinapore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 225.

    Divorce Bill debate, 176-179;
      new divorce court established, 178.

    Dixon, Mr., and Education Bill, 538.

    Doab, Seaton's campaign in, 257, 259.

    Dockyard, Woolwich, closed, 544.

    Dowry of Princess Royal, 176.

    Druses and Syrian massacre, 315, 316.

    Ducrot's sorties from Paris, 580, 584.


    Eastern Question. (_See_ Crimean war.)

    Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, 2, 3;
      repealed, 601.

    Edmunds scandal, 368.

    Education. (_See_ Elementary Education, Endowed Schools.)

    Educational grants, 328.

    Egypt, Viceroy of, visits London, 460.

    Elementary Education Bill, Mr. Forster's, 529;
      state of education, 529, 530;
      provisions of the Bill, 531-536;
      religious teaching, 535;
      hostile criticism, 536;
      Dixon's amendment, debate, 537-539;
      passed, 540;
      the 25th clause, 603.

    Elgin, Lord, embassy to China, 316-319.

    Ellenborough, Lord, 268;
      death, 608.

    Elphinstone, Lord, 210.

    Endowed schools, State of, 508, 509;
      Mr. Forster's Bill for dealing with, 509, 510.

    Epping Forest, Preservation of, 600.

    "Essays and Reviews," 346, 348.

    Eugenie, Empress of the French, 154, 163, 560;
      regent, 567;
      flight from Paris, 568;
      Regnier negotiations, 583, 584.

    Eupatoria, Expedition to, 128-130.

    Evans, Sir De Lacy, 64;
      in the Crimea, 72;
      death, 547.

    Exhibition of 1851, 4-6;
      of 1862, 334-336.

    Eyre, Governor, Jamaica riots, 387, 390, 391.


    Factory Acts, Bill to extend, 452.

    Faidherbe, General, 588, 589.

    Fancy franchises, 438, 439.

    Favre, Jules, 566, 567, 569, 570, 579, 580.

    Fawcett, Mr., 600, 601.

    Fenian conspiracy, Rise of, 372;
      constitution of, 373, 374;
      arrests in Cork and Dublin, 374;
      escape of Stephens, 375;
      trials of prisoners, 375, 376;
      outbreak in Ireland, 412-416;
      in Canada, 416;
      Chester Castle threatened, 454, 455;
      outrage at Manchester, 455;
      at Clerkenwell, 456-458;
      release of convicts, 514.

    Ferozepore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 194.

    Feroze Shah, defeat and disappearance, 283.

    Fire insurance duty, debates, 363.

    Forbach, Battle of, 560.

    Foreign legion for the Crimea, 77.

    Forster, Mr., Endowed Schools Bill, 509, 510;
      Elementary Education Bill, 529-540.
      (_See_ Elementary Education.)

    France acquires Nice and Savoy, 334;
      commercial Treaty with Britain, 310;
      joins in Chinese expedition, 316-319;
      visit of her fleet to Portsmouth, 380;
      quits Mexico, 431;
      experiment in constitutional government, 515, 516;
      France in 1870, 548-550;
      what led to war with Germany, 548-552.
      (_See_ Crimean War, Franco-German War.)

    Franchise, County, Locke-King's motion, 3.

    Franchise, Mr. Gladstone's Bill, 391-399.

    Francis Joseph crowned King of Hungary, 463.

    Franco-German war, a Hohenzollern candidate for the Spanish throne,
         549, 551-554;
      Bismarck's action, 552, 555;
      the alarmist telegram, 554;
      the secret treaty, 555;
      war declared, 556;
      attitude of the German states, 557;
      and Austria, 558;
      Napoleon's plan of campaign, Saarbrück, Weissenberg, 558;
      Wörth, 559;
      Forbach, Palikao's ministry, 560;
      Bazaine at Metz, 561, 562;
      aid for wounded from England, 562, 563;
      MacMahon at Châlons, marches to relieve Bazaine, 563;
      the disaster at Sedan, 564-566;
      Gambetta proclaims a republic, flight of the Empress, 568;
      Jules Favre and the neutral powers, 569, 570, 579;
      Jules Favre and Bismarck, 579, 580;
      defences of Paris, 580;
      beginning of the siege, 581;
      M. Thiers' mission, fall of Strasburg, 582;
      the Regnier plot, 583;
      capitulation of Metz, 584;
      the armies of the Loire, 585, 587, 590;
      Garibaldi's services, 578;
      Faidherbe defeated, 588, 589;
      bombardment of Paris, 590;
      Paris surrenders, 591;
      peace negotiations, 592;
      Alsace and Lorraine ceded to Germany, war indemnity, terms of
         peace, 594.

    Franks, General, marching to Lucknow, 263.

    Frederick Charles, Prince, 586, 587.

    Frederick VII. of Denmark, death, 357.

    Frossard, General, 558.

    Futtehpore, Battle of, 219.

    Fyzabad, Outbreak of mutiny at, 202.


    Gambetta, 568, 582, 586.

    Gamekeepers, Police as assistants to, 330.

    Gang system (children's labour), 452.

    Garibaldi, 299;
      popularity, 304;
      Sicilian expedition, 305-307;
      meets Victor Emmanuel, 309;
      visits London, 346, 347;
      in Franco-German war, 587.

    Garotte robberies, 331.

    Gastein, Convention of, 419.

    George of Denmark King of Greece, 334.

    German Powers, attitude on Eastern Question, 23, 26, 27, 35;
      Diet on peace proposals (Crimean war), 153;
      confederation, proposed reform, 422;
      States and Franco-German war, 557;
      Empire, unification of, 594, 595.

    Gladstone, Mr., 2;
      Chancellor of the Exchequer, 12, 295;
      budgets, 12, 310, 338, 344, 364;
      on Chinese war, 172;
      opposes Divorce Bill, 178;
      on Conspiracy to Murder Bill, 180;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 292;
      on American Civil War, 322;
      on Parliamentary Reform, 346;
      rejected for Oxford University, 370;
      returned for South Lancashire, 371;
      Reform Bill of 1866, 391-399;
      speech at Liverpool, 393, 394;
      introduces Redistribution of Seats Bill, 396;
      Cabinet resigns, 400;
      debate on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 438-440, 442, 443;
      Irish Church Resolutions, 467;
      elected for Greenwich, 472;
      Prime Minister, 474;
      disestablishment of Irish Church, 495-500;
      Irish Land Act, 518-528;
      Education, 539;
      Home Rule, 606.

    Gordon, Mr., Jamaica riots, 385, 388-390.

    Gortschakoff, Prince, commands Russian forces, 20, 28;
      at Inkermann, 66;
      Sebastopol, 114;
      Black Sea Treaty, 607.

    Goschen, Mr., University Tests Bill, 367;
      First Lord of Admiralty, 599.

    Gough, Lord, death and character, 515.

    Graham, Sir James, 2;
      death, 324.

    Grant, Sir Hope, at Delhi, 238;
      Oude, 278.

    Grant, General, President, 517.

    Granville, Earl, 10;
      on Chinese war, 171.

    Gravelotte, Battle of, 562.

    Greased cartridges, The, 185.

    _Great Eastern_ lays Atlantic Cable, 407.

    Great Exhibition of 1851, 4-6;
      of 1862, 334-336.

    Greathed's column, Exploits of, 240-242.

    Greece, Revolution in, 334.

    Greek brigands murder English tourists, 540-544.

    Gungaree, Battle at, 258.

    Gurrakoti, Capture of, 271.

    Gwalior Contingent, The, 246, 255, 256;
      Tantia Topee at Gwalior, 275.


    Habeas Corpus Act suspended in Ireland, 414-416, 451, 464.

    Hango, Massacre at, 132.

    Harcourt, Vernon, on Education Bill, 539.

    Hardy, Gathorne, on Irish Church Bill, 500.

    Havelock, General, 210;
      at Futtehpore, 219;
      Cawnpore, 220, 224;
      Busserutgunge, 223, 224;
      and Outram, 246;
      death, 254.

    Helena, Princess, marriage, 411.

    Herbert of Lea, Lord, death, 324.

    Hindon, Battle on the, 203, 204.

    Hodson and the Guide Corps, 205;
      captures King of Delhi, executes princes, 239;
      death, 266.

    Hohenzollern prince proposed for Spanish throne, 549, 551, 554.

    Home, Lieutenant, death, 241.

    Home Rule, Mr. Gladstone on, 606.

    Hudson, George, railway king, death, 608.

    Hudson's Bay Company, 287.

    Hungary, Francis Joseph king of, 463.

    Hyde Park riots, 402-404;
      Reform meeting, 452-454.


    Ice catastrophe in Regent's Park, 459.

    Imperial, Prince, 154;
      at Saarbrück, 551.

    India, state of native army, 182, 183;
      the mutiny, 182-284;
      Company's rule abolished, 278;
      government and finances reorganised, 284;
      changes in the army, 284-286, 314;
      Dalhousie's policy abandoned, 286;
      finances, James Wilson's scheme, 314;
      prosperity, 382, 383;
      over-speculation, 383;
      Lord Cranborne on finances of, 402;
      Russian advance towards, 492.
      (_See_ Mutiny, Indian.)

    Inkermann, 66-71;
      after the battle, 72.

    Ionian Islands ceded to Greece, 334.

    Ireland, Queen visits, 326;
      Belfast riots, 349, 350;
      Fenians, 372-376, 412;
      Habeas Corpus Act suspended, 413, 451, 464;
      arrests in Dublin, 414;
      disturbances, 451;
      Reform Bill, 467;
      Protestant Church disestablished, 493-506;
      Land Act, 518-528;
      Coercion Act, 528.

    Irish Church, motion for disestablishment, 451, 466;
      Gladstone's resolutions, 467;
      the Bill, 493;
      Gladstone's speech, 495-500;
      debate, 500;
      in the Lords, 500, 502;
      Lord Derby's opposition, 503;
      the Lords' amendments, 504;
      Archbishop Tait's mediation, 505;
      negotiations, the Bill becomes law, 506.

    Irish Land Act, 518;
      Bill introduced, 519, 520;
      in committee, 522-527;
      in the Lords, 527;
      becomes law, 528.

    Irish Reform Bill, 397, 467.

    Isabella, Queen of Spain, dethroned, 492;
       abdicates, 578.

    Italy, Affairs of, at Congress of Paris, 156;
      debate on, 166;
      affairs in, 295;
      Austria prepares for war, 296, 297;
      Garibaldi's volunteers, 299;
      Magenta and Solferino, 300;
      peace of Villafranca, 302;
      Nice and Savoy ceded to France, 304;
      Papal States occupied, battle of Volturno, 308;
      alliance with Prussia, 420;
      obtains Venetia, 427;
      unification of, 577.
      (_See_ Garibaldi, Sicily, Victor Emmanuel.)


    Jallandhar stormed, 274;
      mutiny at, 206.

    Jamaica, Negro insurrection in, 384-391;
      distress in the island, 385;
      Gordon, 385;
      the outbreak, 386;
      Governor Eyre's measures, Paul Bogle, 387;
      martial law, 388;
      Gordon's execution, 388-390;
      prosecution of Governor Eyre, 390-391.

    Japan, Outrage on British subjects in, 340;
      war in, 352.

    Jesuits suppressed in Spain, 492.

    Jhansi, Mutiny and massacre at, 200-202;
      bombardment, 272;
      stormed, 274.

    Jhelum, Battle at, 228.

    Jung Bahadoor, 224;
      at Lucknow, 265.


    Kaffir war, 160.

    Kaiserbagh, Plundering the, 266, 267.

    Kars, State of affairs in, 136;
      Williams fortifies it, 138, 139;
      proposals for relief of, 140;
      battle of, 141, 142;
      fall of, 143;
      debate in Parliament on, 153.

    Keble, John, Death of, 418.

    Kent, Duchess of, Death of, 326.

    Kertch, Expedition to, 88, 89, 99, 101.

    Kinburn, Fort, Attack on, 130.

    Koonch, Battle of, 274.

    Korniloff, Russian admiral, 51, 54;
      death, 56.

    Kuruk-Dereh, Battle of, 137.


    Lancashire cotton famine, 322;
      distress, 336.

    Laon, Surrender of, 585.

    Law Courts, New, Bill passed for, 366.

    Lawrence, Sir Henry, in Indian Mutiny, 188;
      at Lucknow, 192, 199, 200, 217;
      saves the Punjab, 197;
      at Chinhut, death, 218.

    Lawrence, Sir John, in Indian Mutiny, 196;
      and Lord Canning, 210;
      in the North-West, 228;
      in the Punjab, 276;
      chairman of London School Board, 540.

    Lebœuf, Marshal, 548, 557.

    Lee, General, surrenders to Grant, 382.

    Le Mans, Battle of, 590.

    Life peerages, Attempt to create, 513.

    Limited Liability companies, 411.

    Lincoln, Abraham, 320, 362;
      death, 382.

    Loans to Turkey and Sardinia, 97.

    Locke-King, Mr., 3, 287.

    Loire, Armies of the, 585, 587, 590.

    London, Loss of the, 412.

    Louis Napoleon, President of French Republic, coup d'état, 6;
      street fighting, plébiscite, 8.
      (_See_ Napoleon III.)

    Louise, Princess, marriage, 601.

    Lowe, Mr., and educational reports, 346;
      philippic against democracy, 365;
      on Gladstone's Reform Bill, 392, 393;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 439, 440;
      budgets, 507, 545, 546, 599;
      on the Irish Land Bill, 525-527;
      Education Bill, 538;
      match tax, 599.

    Lucan, Lord, at Balaclava, 59, 60, 62.

    Lucknow, outbreak of mutiny, 188;
      Henry Lawrence at, 192, 199, 200, 217;
      Residency besieged, 218;
      Havelock's first attempt to relieve, 219-224;
      defending the Residency, 242-244;
      sufferings of the garrison, 245;
      the relieving forces, 246-250;
      Campbell's force, 251;
      fighting in the city, 252-254;
      Residency evacuated, 254;
      recapture, 265-267.

    Luxembourg question, 460-462.

    Lyons, Admiral, and Kertch expedition, 100.

    Lyons, Captain, Death of, 107.

    Lytton, Bulwer, on Chinese war, 171.


    Mackonochie ritual case, 475.

    MacMahon, Marshal, 556, 559, 563-566.

    Magee, Dr., opposes Irish Church Bill, 502.

    Magenta, Battle of, 300.

    Malakoff, Preparations to attack, 105-107;
      Todleben's defences, 106;
      the attack, 108;
      description of, 124;
      capture, 125.

    Malmesbury, Lord, 514.

    Malt tax debates, 363.

    Malwa, Campaign in, 259, 260.

    Mamelon, Capture of, 103.

    Manteuffel, General, 588, 589.

    Maori war, 351, 383.

    Maritime law, Paris Declaration on, 156.

    Maronite Christians, Massacre of, 315, 316.

    Marriage of Prince of Wales, 358.

    Married Women's Property Act, 543.

    Martial law legally defined, 390.

    Mary of Cambridge, Princess, marriage, 411.

    Match tax, 599.

    Maximilian in Mexico, 342, 361, 460.

    Maynooth Grant, Regium Donum, 470, 499.

    Mazzini and his plots, 344, 345.

    Meean Meer, Mutiny quelled at, 231.

    Meerut, Outbreak of mutiny at, 189, 190.

    Menschikoff, Prince, at Constantinople, 16;
      General, 58;
      at Inkermann, 66.

    Merewether, Colonel, in Abyssinia, 483.

    Metropolitan Parks, Right of meeting in, 452-454.

    Metz, Battles at, 561, 562;
      capitulates, 584.

    Mexico, French expedition to, 341;
      Maximilian emperor, 342, 361;
      France quits, 431;
      end of empire, 460.

    Miall, Mr., and Disestablishment, 600.

    Milan, Victor Emmanuel and Napoleon III. enter, 300.

    Militia Bill, The, 10.

    Milk trade, Development of, 372.

    Mill, John Stuart, elected for Westminster, 370;
      on Gladstone's Reform Bill, 394.

    Ministers' money abolished, 176.

    Moldavia and Wallachia united to form Roumania, 158, 159.

    Moltke, Field-Marshal, 566.

    Montebello, Battle of, 299.

    Mouravieff, General, at Kars, 139-143.

    Murphy "no popery" riots, 475.

    Mutiny, Indian, the Native army, 182-184;
      greased cartridges, 185;
      chupatties, 186;
      outbreaks, 186, 187;
      General Anson, 187, 196;
      disbanding regiments, 187, 188, 193, 194, 197, 228-230;
      Sir Henry Lawrence, outbreak at Lucknow, 188;
      at Meerut, 189;
      at Delhi, 190-192;
      Sir H. Lawrence at Lucknow, 192, 199, 200;
      he saves the Punjab, 197;
      loyalty of the Sikhs, 194, 198;
      Ferozepore, 194;
      the movable column, 195;
      aid from native rajahs, 194, 195, 196, 198;
      Nicholson, 195-198;
      Sir John Lawrence, 196;
      mutiny increases, 198;
      chronological order of mutiny, 199;
      outbreak in Oude, 200;
      massacre at Jhansi, 200-202;
      rebels in Oude, 202;
      battle on the Hindon, 203, 204;
      Badlee Serai, 204;
      siege of Delhi, 205-209;
      Hodson and Guide Corps, 205;
      outbreak at Jallandhar, 206;
      plan for taking Delhi, 207;
      Subzee Mundi, 209;
      Canning Governor-general, Havelock and Outram, 210;
      Neill at Benares and Allahabad, outbreak at Cawnpore, 211;
      Nana Sahib, 212, 213;
      sufferings of the garrison, 214-216;
      affairs in Central India, 216;
      Sir H. Lawrence at Lucknow, 217;
      death, 218;
      Residency besieged, Havelock fighting his way to Lucknow, 218-224;
      massacre at Cawnpore, 222, 223;
      battle of Bithoor, 224;
      loyalty of Jung Bahadoor, 224;
      outbreak at Dinapore and other places, 225, 226;
      operations before Delhi, 226, 227;
      Sir J. Lawrence in the North-West, 228;
      battle at Jhelum, 228;
      Nicholson at Amritsir, 230;
      wholesale executions, 231;
      Nicholson at Delhi, 232;
      capture of Delhi, 233-239;
      the king captured, the princes executed, 239;
      Greathed's column, 240-242;
      fight at Agra, 241;
      defending the Residency at Lucknow, 242-245;
      the relieving forces, 246-250;
      Lucknow relieved, 250;
      force for second relief, 251-254;
      Lucknow relieved, death of Havelock, 254;
      Windham at Cawnpore, 255;
      Sir Colin Campbell captures Cawnpore, 256, 257;
      Seaton's campaign in the Doab, 257-259;
      state of Central India, 259;
      annexation of Dhar, 260;
      campaign in Malwa, 259, 260;
      battle at Shumshabad, 262;
      plans for capture of Lucknow, 262, 263;
      the attack and capture, 265-267;
      Canning's proclamation, 267;
      conquest of Rohilcund, 268;
      battle of Bareilly, 268;
      Rose's campaign in Central India, 270;
      capture of Rutghur, etc., 270, 271;
      Rajah of Shahghur's territory annexed, 271;
      defeat of Tantia Topee, 273;
      storming of Jhansi, battles of Koonch and Calpee, 274;
      Tantia Topee, 275;
      caste abolished in the army, 276;
      loyal rajahs rewarded, Oude subjugated, 278;
      East India Company's rule abolished, 278;
      Queen's proclamation, 279;
      submission of rebels, 282;
      end of mutiny, 284.

    Nana Sahib, 212, 213, 218;
      massacre at Cawnpore, 222;
      disappears, 282.

    Napier, Sir Charles, in the Baltic, 72.

    Napier, Sir Robert, in Central India, 276;
      in Abyssinia, 483, 484.

    Naples, Affairs of, debate, 167.

    Napoleon III., Emperor of the French, the Eastern Question, 12;
      letter to the Czar, 31;
      at Windsor, 90, 163, 164;
      his plan of Crimean campaign, 90;
      congress at Paris, 151-157;
      his views on the peace, 153;
      recognised by the Powers, marriage, 163;
      entertains the Queen, etc., 164-166;
      Orsini plot, 179;
      Italian Question, 296, 279;
      proposes congress on Italian affairs, 303;
      obtains Nice and Savoy, 304;
      Mexican expedition, 341;
      quits Mexico, Luxembourg Question, 460-462;
      opens Paris Exhibition, 460;
      Hohenzollern candidature, 549;
      plebicite, 550, 551;
      prisoner at Wilhelmshöhe, 566, 603;
      in England, 603.
      (_See_ Louis Napoleon, France, Franco-German War.)

    National Assembly elected, 592.

    Naval officers, retirement scheme, 544, 545.

    Naval operations, Crimean war, 131.

    Negro insurrection in Jamaica, 384-391.

    Neill, Colonel, 210, 211.

    Nesselrode, Count, 15, 19;
      despatch to Clarendon, 20, 27;
      peace proposals, 150.

    Newcastle, Duke of, 76, 78.

    Newdegate, Mr., and Pope's encyclical, 379.

    New Zealand native war, 351;
      Maoris and colonists, 383.

    Nice and Savoy ceded to France, 304.

    Nicholson, Col., 195-198, 230, 232;
      death, 266.

    Nightingale, Miss, in the Crimea, 83.

    Ninety-Third, The, at Balaclava, 59.

    Nolan, Captain, Death of, 62.

    Nonconformists and Education Bill, 538, 603.

    Norman, Mr. Justice, assassinated, 606.

    Nujuffghur, Battle at, 232.


    Oaths and Offices Bill, 452.

    Obituary, 339, 417, 547, 608.

    Odessa, Bombardment of, 37, 38.

    Olenitza, Turkish victory at, 28.

    Ollivier, M., 549, 560.

    Olmütz, Conference of emperors at, 26.

    Omar Pasha commands Turkish forces, 20;
      begins the war, 27;
      at Eupatoria, 85.

    Onao, Battle of, 223.

    _Oneida_, Sinking of the, 546.

    Orleans evacuated, 587.

    Orsini's plot against Napoleon III., 179.

    O'Sullivan Disability Bill, 512.

    Oude, mutiny, 199, 202;
      annexed, 267, 278.

    Outram, General, 210;
      advance on Lucknow, 246, 247;
      and Havelock, 246;
      at Alumbagh, 247;
      Lucknow, 248-250, 264.

    Overend, Gurney, and Co. fail, 409, 410.


    Pacific, Allied fleets in the, 134.

    Paladines. (_See_ Aurelles.)

    Palikao, Count, 560, 567.

    Palmerston, Lord, 2;
      his indiscretions, 8, 9;
      Queen's memorandum to, 9;
      forms a Ministry, 79;
      on the peace proposals, 152;
      on Italian affairs, 168;
      opposes Suez Canal, 169;
      on Chinese war, 172;
      his Government defeated, 173;
      success at the polls, 175;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 292;
      Prime Minister, 295;
      Schleswig-Holstein dispute, 360;
      death, 376.

    Papal aggression, 1-3;
      States occupied, 308;
      infallibility decreed, 574-577.

    Paper duty abolished, 311, 312, 324.

    Paris, Defences of, 580;
      siege begins, 581;
      bombardment, 590;
      fall of, 591.

    Parkes, Consul, and _Arrow_ dispute, 170.

    Parks, Right of meeting in, 452, 454.

    Parliamentary Reform. (_See_ Reform.)

    Paxton, Mr., and Great Exhibition, 4.

    Peel, Sir William, Death of, 268.

    Peelites and Crimean war, 96, 97.

    Pegu, Annexation of, 160.

    Pekin, French troops enter, 318.

    Pélissier in the Crimea, 90;
      character, 98.

    Péronne, Capture of, 588.

    Persian war, 182.

    Peshawur, Mutiny quelled at, 231.

    Peto, Betts, and Co., Failure of, 410.

    Phayre, Colonel, Abyssinian war, 488.

    Phœnix Park, Riot in, 603, 604.

    Pius IX., establishes Roman Catholic sees in Britain, 2;
      summons General Council, 571;
      refuses Victor Emmanuel's terms, 578.
      (_See_ Papal Aggression.)

    Plébiscites, Napoleon's two, 550, 551.

    Plowden, Consul, 476;
      death, 478.

    Plumridge, Admiral, in the Baltic, 72.

    Poland, Revolution in, 339;
      debate on, 378.

    Pollock, Sir Frederick, death, 547.

    Pope's encyclical, The, 379.

    Portsmouth, French fleet at, 380.

    Prague, Treaty of, 429, 430.

    Preston strike, 161, 162.

    Prim, Marshal, 492, 552;
      assassinated, 578.

    Princes of Delhi executed, 239.

    Princess Royal, betrothal, 175;
      dowry, 176.

    Probate, New Court of, 176.

    Property Qualification Bill, 287.

    Prussia summoned to Paris Congress, 154;
      Schleswig-Holstein dispute, 353-361;
      and Austria, 418;
      alliance with Italy, 419, 420;
      preparing for war, 420;
      Congress proposed, 423;
      war declared, 424;
      the campaign, 425-428;
      peace, 429;
      secret treaties, 431.
      (_See_ Franco-German War.)

    Prussia, King of, and Hohenzollern candidature, 549;
      interview with Napoleon, 566;
      becomes German Emperor, 594.

    Punjab, Suppressing mutiny in, 196, 206.

    Purchase, Army, Bill to abolish, 595, 596;
      abolished by Royal warrant, 598.

    Puttiala, Battle at, 258.


    Raglan, Lord, in the Crimean war, 34;
      Alma, 46;
      Inkermann, 68, 7.

    Rajahs, Indian, loyalty during mutiny, 194-196, 198, 224;
      rewards, 278.

    Rassam, Mr., in Abyssinia, 480, 482.

    Ratghur, Capture of, 270, 271.

    Rationalists in the Church, 346, 348, 349.

    Redan, The, 106, 107;
      bombardment, 106;
      attack on, 110, 126;
      description of, 124.

    Redistribution Bill, 396, 446, 447.

    Reform, Parliamentary, Mr. Disraeli's motion, 290;
      debate, 291-294;
      Gladstone on, 346;
      Baines' abortive bill, 365;
      Gladstone's bill, 391-399;
      Redistribution of Seats Bill, 396;
      Scottish and Irish bills, 397;
      in committee, 398, 399;
      Lord Derby forms a cabinet, 400;
      Hyde Park riots, 402-404;
      popular meetings, 408;
      Disraeli's reform resolutions, 433;
      Lowe's criticism, 435;
      Ten Minutes Bill, 435;
      the bill introduced, 437;
      debate, 438-441;
      in committee, 442-447;
      Redistribution Bill, 446;
      passes the Commons, in the Lords, 448;
      Scottish Reform Bill, 464;
      Irish Reform Bill, 467.

    Regent's Park, Ice catastrophe in, 459.

    Registration of Voters Act, 472.

    Regnier plot, The, 583.

    Religious difficulty. (_See_ Education.)

    Religious Tests abolition, 367, 452, 510-512.

    Residency at Lucknow, defence, 242-254.

    Retirement scheme for navy, 544, 545.

    Revised code (Education), 328.

    Richards, Mr., and Education Bill, 539.

    Richmond, Duke of, and Irish Land Bill, 527.

    Rifle volunteers formed, 325.

    Rinderpest, 371;
      Royal Commission on, 372.

    Roebuck, Crimean inquiry, 78, 98;
      on Princess Royal's dowry, 176.

    Rohilcund, Conquest of, 268, 269.

    Roman Catholic Oaths Bill, 367.

    Rome annexed to kingdom of Italy, 578.

    Rose, Sir Hugh, in Central India, 270-276.

    Rossa, O'Donovan, 514.

    Roumania, Formation of, 158, 159.

    Russell, Lord John, 2-4;
      fall of his administration, 8;
      resigns on Militia Bill, 10;
      Colonial secretary, 12, 92;
      at Vienna conference, 92;
      on Italian affairs, 167, 305, 307;
      on Disraeli's Reform Bill, 291;
      Foreign Secretary, 295;
      on peace of Villafranca, 302;
      his Reform Bill, 312-314;
      on Polish revolution, 339, 340;
      Schleswig-Holstein, 356-360;
      resigns on Reform Bill, 400;
      Life Peerages Bill, 514.

    Russell, Mr. W. H., _Times_ correspondent in Crimea, 77.

    Russia and the Eastern Question, 12;
      the Czar's intentions, 16;
      ultimatum to Turkey, 18;
      position of, in Asia, 135, 137;
      reasons for desiring peace, 147;
      in Central Asia, 492;
      a check on Austria,
    570;
      repudiates Black Sea Treaty, 607, 608.
      (_See_ Crimean war.)

    Russian atrocities, 132.


    Saarbrück, Battle at, 558.

    Salisbury, Lord, opposes Irish Church Bill, 504;
      on abolition of Purchase, 598.

    Samarcand captured by Russia, 492.

    Sardinian troops for Crimea, 84, 90.

    Saugor, Relief of, 271.

    Sawgrinders' union, outrages, 458.

    Scarlett, General, at Balaclava, 60.

    Schleswig-Holstein, 353-361, 418, 419.

    School Boards, 534, 603.

    Scottish Reform Bill, 397, 464-466.

    Scutari, State of hospitals at, 83.

    Sealkote, Outbreak of mutiny at, 230.

    Seaton's campaign in the Doab, 257-259.

    Sebastopol, 51, 53, 55;
      fall of, 127.

    Seetapore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 200.

    Sedan, Battle of, 564-566.

    Serpents, Isle of, Russia's claim to, 159.

    Serrano, Marshal, Spanish president 492.

    Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 16, 18, 19.

    Shahjehanpore, Outbreak of mutiny at, 200.

    Shakespeare centenary celebration, 347, 348.

    Shaw-Lefevre becomes Viscount Eversley, 174.

    Shipping disaster in China sea, 546.

    Short service in the army, 545.

    Sicily, in, 305-309.

    Sick and wounded, Aid for, 562, 563.

    Sikhs, Loyalty of, during mutiny, 194, 198.

    Simpson, General, in Crimea, 113, 131.

    Sinope, Destruction of Turkish ships at, 28.

    Solferino, Battle of, 300.

    Spain, Revolution in, 492, 516;
      search for a king, 517;
      a Hohenzollern Prince, 551;
      Isabella abdicates, Duke of Aosta accepts the crown,
         Prim assassinated, 578.

    Speke, Captain, Death of, 342.

    Spicheren, Battle of, 560.

    Stanley, Lord, 394, 396, 471.

    Stansfeld and Mazzini, 344, 345.

    St. Arnaud, Marshal, death, character, 52.

    Star of India, Order of the, 327.

    Staveley, Sir Charles, Abyssinian war, 485.

    Steinmetz, German General, 561, 562.

    Storm in Black Sea, Terrible, 74.

    Strasburg, Siege of, 560;
      fall, 582.

    Stratford de Redcliffe, 14, 16, 18, 20, 27.

    Strikes, Preston, 161, 162;
      tailors', etc., 459.

    Subzee Mundi, Capture of, 209.

    Succession duty, The, 12.

    Suez Canal, Palmerston opposes, 169.

    Sultan of Turkey visits England, 460.

    Summer palace at Pekin destroyed, 318.

    Sumner, Archbishop, death, 475.

    Sumter, Fort, Capture of, 321.

    Sveaborg, fortress, 72;
      bombarded, 133, 134.

    Syria, Massacres in, 315, 316.


    Taganrog, Destruction of stores at, 202.

    Tailors, Strike of, 459.

    Tait, Archbishop, Irish Church Bill, 505.

    Taku forts captured, 317.

    Tantia Topee, at Jhansi, 272;
      defeated, 273;
      captured, 282-284.

    Taxation, Remissions of, 507, 503.

    Tchernaya, 99, 115, 116;
      battle of, 116-118.

    Tea, Reduction of duty on, 338.

    Tea Room Cabal, 442.

    Telegraph Cable, Atlantic, 408.

    Telegraphs purchased by the State, 471.

    Ten Minutes Bill, The, 434.

    Thames Embankment, 600.

    Thanksgiving, The National, 602.

    Theodore, King of Abyssinia, 463, 477-483, 486-491;
      death, 491.

    Thiers, M., opposes Franco-German war, 554;
      his plan of government, 568;
      mission to Continental Powers, 582;
      chief of Executive, 592.

    Todleben defends Sebastopol, 51, 54.

    Tombs, Major, wins Victoria Cross, 227.

    Toul, Surrender of, 585.

    Trades Union (saw-grinders) outrages, 458.

    Treaty of Paris, Stipulations of, 154-156.

    _Trent_, Affair of the, 323-324.

    Trevelyan, Mr., army reform agitation, 595.

    Trochu, General, 556, 560, 567, 568, 584.

    Turkey and Eastern Question, 12-19;
      rejects Vienna note, 26;
      campaign in Asia Minor, 136;
      peculation of the Pashas, 138;
      Sultan's firman on the peace, 153.
      (_See_ Crimean War.)


    Ulster glebes, 497.

    Unification of Italy, 577;
      of Germany, 591.

    Union Chargeability Bill, 366.

    United States of America. (_See_ America.)

    University Tests Bill, 367, 510-512, 600.


    Vancouver's Island added to British Columbia, 287.

    Vatican Council, The, 571-578.

    Venetia ceded to Italy, 427.

    Vermont, Confederate raid into, 362.

    Viceroy of Egypt visits England, 460.

    Viceroy of India, Lord Canning first, 279.

    Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, 308, 578.

    Victoria Cross, first distribution, 159.

    Victoria, Queen, opens Great Exhibition, 6;
      memorandum to Palmerston, 9;
      receives patriotic address from Parliament on outbreak of
         Crimean war, 34;
      Napoleon III. at Windsor, 90, 163, 164;
      Victoria Cross instituted, first distribution, 159;
      opens Crystal Palace, 162;
      visits the French Emperor at Paris, 164-166;
      Palmerston's defeat and return to power, 173-175;
      betrothal of Princess Royal, 175;
      debate on her dowry, civil lists of recent monarchs, 176;
      the Indian mutiny, 182-284;
      proclaimed ruler of India, 279;
      outbreak of American Civil War, 319;
      Great Britain's neutrality proclaimed, 322;
      death of Duchess of Kent, visit to Ireland, the Queen's
         domestic life, 326;
      illness and death of the Prince Consort, 328;
      marriage of Prince of Wales, 338;
      Ashanti war, 350;
      Maori war, 357;
      Schleswig-Holstein question, 356-360;
      the Reform Bill of 1866, 391-399;
      Resignation of Earl Russell's Ministry, 400;
      message to United States President over Atlantic Cable, 407;
      John Bright defends the Queen, 408;
      visit of Viceroy of Egypt, and of the Sultan of Turkey, 460;
      Gladstone's Irish Church Resolutions, 467;
      dissolves Parliament, 472;
      disestablishment of the Irish Church, 493-506;
      civil list, 601.

    Vienna conference, 92-96;
      treaty of, 360.

    Villafranca, Peace of, 302.

    Villiers, Mr., Union Chargeability Bill, 366.

    Vinoy's sorties from Paris, 581.

    Vinzaglio, Capture of, 299.

    Volturno, Battle of, 308.

    Volunteers, Rifle, formed, 325.


    Wages movement, The, 160-162.

    Wales, Prince of, marriage, 338;
      birth of a son, 343;
      illness, 602.

    Walewski's despatch on Orsini plot, 179.

    Wallachia and Moldavia united to form Roumania, 158, 159.

    Walpole, General, in Rohilcund, 268.

    Walpole, Home Secretary, Hyde Park riots, 402-404.

    War department, Creation of a, 76.

    Wars, Some little, 350, 351.

    Weissenberg, Battle of, 558.

    Wellington, Duke of, death, funeral, 11, 12.

    Werder, General, 587, 591.

    Westbury, Lord, 346;
      Edmunds and Wilde scandals, 368, 369;
      resigns, 370.

    Wheeler, General, at Cawnpore, 211.

    Whewell, William, Death of, 418.

    Wilde scandal, The, 369.

    Wilhelmshöhe, Napoleon III. at, 516.

    Williams, Lieut.-Colonel, at Kars, 138.

    Wilson, Colonel Archdale, 203, 226.

    Wilson, Mr. James, Indian finance, 314.

    Wimpffen, General, 565, 566.

    Windham, General, at Cawnpore, 255.

    Winterbotham, Mr., on Education Bill, 538.

    Woolwich Dockyard closed, 544.

    Wörth, Battle of, 559.


    Yelverton, Captain, in the Baltic, 132.

    Yeni-Keui, Expedition to, 140.


    PRINTED BY CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, LONDON, E.C.

       *       *       *       *       *

    +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
    |                    Transcriber Notes:                              |
    |                                                                    |
    | P. 70. 'the Okhutsk" changed to 'the Okhotsk'.                     |
    | P. 80. Fixed missing letters in word 'continuously'.               |
    | P. 85. 'while yet dark, General Bosquet', placed comma instead     |
    |           of full-stop (period).                                   |
    | P. 386. 'heat o the struggle', changed 'o' to 'of'.                |
    | P. 574. 'Cardinel' changed to 'Cardinal'.                          |
    |                       INDEX:                                       |
    | P. 612. Sicily, in, 305-309, added "Sicily".                       |
    | P. 612. 'Prussia, King of, added page #594.                        |
    | P. 612. Between "Short' and 'Sicily', taken out missing information|
    |          in Index.                                                 |
    | P. 612. Ragland, Lord in the Crimean war, added page '34'.         |
    |    Fixed various punctuation.                                      |
    +--------------------------------------------------------------------+