Various motions were made by individual members to give a new form to

the pressure of taxation, and to adjust in a different way the public

burdens. The chancellor of the exchequer, in his financial statement,

which is given at the close of this section, anticipated some of these

motions, and secured their defeat by his success in inducing the house

to acquiesce in his own budget. Others came on before the budget was

introduced, but all shared a like fate, as the financial policy of

the government received the decided support of the house. Some of the

financial motions of the session made by independent members attracted

much attention, and produced some impression in the house, being

supported by considerable minorities. Thus Lord Duncan moved for the

repeal of the window duty. There followed a debate of the most animated

character in a thin house, various leading men opposing the government.

On a division, the motion was rejected by only a majority of three,

there having been eighty to seventy-seven. This was the narrowest escape

in the commons which the government experienced in the session.

Mr. Cayley was recognised as the champion of the favourite financial

measure with the protectionists, the repeal of the malt duty. He

accordingly introduced that subject by motion, which was seconded by

Mr. Christopher, another champion “of the agricultural interest.” It was

warmly supported by several of the leading Conservatives; but Lord

John Russell, Mr. James Wilson, and the chancellor of the exchequer,

delivered powerful speeches against it. Mr. Milner Gibson, always

intelligent on economical questions, made a very able speech against the

repeal of the tax. The motion was lost, a large majority being against

it.

On the 15th of March, the chancellor of the exchequer made his financial

statement, which was eagerly looked forward to by both sides of the

house, and by the country, as it was supposed that a vigorous effort

to defeat the ministry on that point would be made. The minister was

determined, if possible, to meet the ideas of all parties, and he hit

upon the expedient of relieving the agricultural interest by reducing

the duty on bricks. Neither the ministers nor their supporters were very

sanguine that this would give satisfaction, but it met with very general

approval, the trading, tenant, and agricultural interests all felt

concerned in the cheapness of this useful material, then heavily taxed;

and the result was unanimity in the favourable reception given to the

chancellor’s proposal. The following correctly describes the ministerial

scheme.

THE BUDGET.

The house having resolved itself into a committee of ways and

means,—The chancellor of the exchequer proceeded to lay before it the

financial statement for the ensuing year. He had to lay before the house

two estimates—one, that up to the 5th of April next, and the other up

to the 5th of April, 1851. He had estimated the income for this year at

£52,262,000; but he was happy to say that it would probably amount to

£52,874,000. He could not, however, take the estimate for next year so

high, as, during the last quarter, the returns bad not been so good.

He would, however, take them at £52,785,500. He had estimated the

expenditure of last year at £50,853,622, but it amounted only to

£50,553,651; and he calculated that next year there would be a surplus

of two millions and a quarter. He had calculated last year on a surplus

of only £104,000, whereas the increase amounted to £523,500. He did not,

however, anticipate such favourable results from the customs this year

as last, for there would be a probable loss on sugar of between four

and five hundred thousand pounds; on brandy, and likewise on corn,

there would also be probably a loss. The right honourable gentleman

then enumerated the various sources of revenue from which he anticipated

revenue, as follows:—

Excise 14,045,000

Stamps 6,860,000

Assessed Taxes 4,320,000

Income Tax 5,410,000

Customs 20,000,000

Post-Office 820,000

Crown Lands 160,000

Miscellaneous 260,000

Old Stores 410,000

Making a total of £52,285,000.

With respect to the expenditure,

The interest on the Funded Debt was 28,105,000

Other charges on the Consolidated Fund 2,620,000

Navy Estimates 6,613,000

Army Estimates 6,120,006

Ordnance 2,434,417

The Militia 110,000

Commissariat 500,000

Miscellaneous 211,159

Excess of expenditure in former years 4,000,000

Making altogether an expenditure of £50,613,582.

To this should be added the expenses of the new houses of parliament,

and for a building to hold the records of the house. Upon the whole, he

calculated, after meeting their expenses, upon an available surplus of

fifteen hundred thousand, in round numbers. The right hon. gentleman

then adverted to the propositions which had been made to reduce

the duties on windows, tea, timber, malt, soap, bricks, paper,

advertisements, and attorneys’ certificates; and also the proposition

of the hon. member for Buckingham, to place on the consolidated fund

certain charges otherwise provided for hitherto, and said he would not

assent to those propositions, for which no special case had been made

out. When he remembered that, within the last few years, no less a

sum than £148,000,000 had been laid out in railways, he could not help

thinking that there was a strong symptom of a return to more prosperous

times. He would now state his own views on the subject. He had thought

that they should first direct their attention to a reduction of the

debt, and he should state to the house the fact, that since 1831, we had

borrowed no less than £35,000,000, while in the same twenty years we

had only applied £8,000,000 towards its repayment, leaving a balance of

debt of no less than £27,000,000. If they were always to borrow when

the revenue was deficient, and never to pay when they had an excess, he

could not see how they were to get out of debt at all. Neither could he

see how they would get rid of the income-tax if they were to apply every

surplus to the reduction of taxation instead of to the reduction of the

debt. He felt it desirable, however, that some relief should lie given

in the way of taxation; and the first class to which lie should apply

the principle would be the small holders of land, by reducing the stamp

duty on the sales of land up to £1000, and rendering it more equitable

on transfers above that amount. Also a reduction of the duty on

mortgages and bonds, and to reduce the stamp duty on leases from one to

half per cent. He also thought it desirable that the habitations of the

labouring classes should be improved, and he should therefore propose

the total repeal of the duty on bricks. He estimated the loss to the

revenue at £300,000 on stamps, and at £455,000 on bricks; making a

total of £755,000, which was about one-half of the surplus available.

He thought, therefore, that he was making a fair distribution of the

surplus, one half to the reduction of taxation, and one half to the

reduction of the debt. He proposed to make advances for the purpose

of drainage and land improvement as an inducement to an expenditure of

capital, which could not fail to be considered a national as well as

an individual benefit. The last sum granted in this was for England and

Scotland, £2,000,000; and of this, owing to priority of application,

the gentlemen north of the Tweed had got no less than £1,600,000. He

proposed to advance another £2,000,000, and to take care to reserve a

fair share of it for England. He also proposed to advance for similar

purposes £1,000,000 to Ireland, £800,000 of which should be for arterial

drainage. He hoped to be able to make these advances without any

addition whatever to the public debt. These were the proposals he had to

submit to the house. He also proposed to apply £25,000 in order to

got rid of the perpetual annuities. He hoped to be able to make these

advances without making any addition whatever to the funded debt, if the

house would leave him a surplus to do so. He proposed, by the payment

of a sum of £250,000 out of the surplus in hand, to extinguish the

equivalent fund, which was a charge on the public funds of £10,000 a

year, since the junction of the debt of Scotland with that of England

at the time of the Union. That would leave him £500,000; and that he

thought the house should leave him as a reserve fund. The right lion,

gentleman concluded by moving a vote of £9,200,000, to be raised by

exchequer bills, for the service of the year.

After some discussion, in which Mr. Hume, Mr. Newdegate, Lord John

Manners, and several other members took part, the motion was agreed to.

DEATH OF SIR ROBERT PEEL.

A record of this event properly belongs to parliamentary history.

Disraeli justly described the baronet when he called him “a very great

member of parliament.” It was as a member of parliament, rather than as

a man or a minister, that Sir Robert Peel was great. Possessing superior

culture and extraordinary talents, he was not a man of genius. His

administrative abilities were of a very high order, perhaps we might

say, of the highest order that this country had ever known in a

minister; but he was indebted for his conceptions sometimes to his

friends, often to his opponents. The great aim of his policy was

conservative—conservative of class privilege and old institutions. He

resisted every measure of civil and religious liberty introduced in his

time, until the overwhelming pressure of public opinion rendered further

resistance hopeless. Thus, he opposed Catholic emancipation, the repeal

of the corporation and test acts, the reform bill, and free trade, until

all these measures were forced by public opinion. It was his gift to

discern more keenly than other men when the moment arrived beyond

which public opinion could be no longer safely opposed, and he was then

generally ready to adopt the very measures which he had before so warmly

denounced, and blamed others so strongly for promoting. He had, by his

timely apostasy on all great questions conciliated the masses, and by

preventing the conflict of parties and classes on these occasions,

he did much to promote the public welfare at the expense of his own

consistency. Measures seemed to be regarded by him, not in the light

of principle, but in that of political expediency. He passed bills,

not because truth, freedom, and justice demanded them, but because they

promoted the interests of party, or, it might be, because he thought it

was expedient for the national interests at the time that they should

be passed. Even the great measure of the repeal of the corn laws he

retarded longer than any other man could have retarded it. He was the

minister who passed it, and who hindered it from passing sooner.

His whole political history was a confession of political error, and

repentance. Yet he did not leave the honour of carrying out their own

measures to men who had formed a public opinion concerning them, and who

could with conscience and honour have conducted them through parliament;

he refused them all aid in each efforts, and when his time arrived,

seized the schemes and carried them, demanding the homage of the

Conservatives for conceding so little to the people, and the homage

of the people for conceding to them so much more than they could have

obtained from anybody else.

The personal history of this eminent man contained little that was

striking; a cold prudence preserved him from engaging in and personal

matters that could make his life eventful. He was born in the year 1788,

in a cottage near Bury, in Lancashire, where his father then lived in

humble circumstances. Mr. Peel founded in that neighbourhood works for

calico-printing, and laid by that means the foundation of a very great

fortune. He was afterwards knighted, and having written a pamphlet

entitled, “The National Debt a Source of National Prosperity,” he was

frequently consulted by Mr. Pitt, and it is alleged, conceived the idea

that his son might become Mr. Pitt’s successor. He sent young Robert

to Harrow at an early age, where he was on the same form with Byron the

poet, who thus recorded his impressions of him: “There were great hopes

of Peel among us all, masters and scholars. As a scholar he was greatly

my superior; as a schoolboy out of school I was always in scrapes, he

never; and in school he always knew the lesson, and I rarely.” “The

boy was father to the man” in both these cases, for Peel through life

maintained the same cautious, industrious, and circumspect habits, which

certainly never characterised his far greater schoolfellow. He left

Harrow for Oxford, where he especially distinguished himself as a

classic. In 1809 he became of age, and entered parliament for a rotten

borough openly bought for him by his father. His first speech was a

success, and although he never gave promise of becoming a brilliant

orator, he grew in favour with the house by the practicability of his

views, and his faculty of perceiving the tone of feeling prevailing in

the assembly at the time. In March, 1811, he made a very able speech

in favour of the Duke of Wellington, then fighting the battles of the

Peninsula, and against whom a public outcry had been raised. Percival,

then in power, was so pleased with the speech that he invited Mr. Peel

to take office, and he commenced his career, before he was twenty-three

years of age, as under-secretary of the colonies. Upon the death

of Percival he was appointed chief secretary for Ireland, under the

administration of Lord Liverpool. During his Irish secretaryship he

opposed Catholic emancipation with great zeal and some bitterness.

Afterwards he held office in various other situations. During the

free-trade agitation of 1819, he was its warm opponent, and when the

great Lancashire meeting took place at Peterloo, afterwards the site of

the free-trade hall in Manchester, and the Peterloo massacre occurred,

Mr. Peel defended that act, which left for so many years a deep

discontent in the hearts of the operatives of Lancashire. When in 1821

Lord John Russell first brought forward his motion for a reform in

parliament, he met from Mr. Peel a determined opposition, such as the

honourable baronet continued to offer against all increase in the power

of the people, until Lord John had the pleasure of carrying his view

triumphantly through parliament in the shape of the reform bill. Even

after that measure passed, Sir Robert devoted his talent to advise and

lead his party in every practical attempt to defeat it. In 1822, while

preparation was making to invade Spain, at the instigation of “the

Holy Alliance,” Mr. Brougham called the attention of the house to the

circumstance, and eloquently denounced that despotic confederacy.

Mr. Peel, with his usual caution, defended “the Holy Alliance;” but

notwithstanding his guarded language, he left no doubt of his sympathy

with foreign as well as domestic tyranny. The defender of the Peterloo

massacre and the Holy Alliance gave no promise of ever being popular

with the people of England. The other leading facts and features of his

political career will be found in the pages of this history, where his

part in public affairs has been noticed.

Sir Robert married, in 1820, Julia, youngest daughter of General Sir

John Floyd, Bart., and when his death occurred, his family consisted of

Robert, his successor in the baronetcy, then secretary of legation in

Switzerland; Frederick, then M.P. for Leominster; William, a captain in

the royal navy; John Floyd, an officer in the Fusilier Guards; Arthur

Wellesley, not then quite of age; Julia, married to Viscount Villiers;

and Eliza.

The circumstances of Sir Robert’s death were as follow: On Saturday,

the 29th of June, he had been to Buckingham Palace, where he had made, a

call, and entered his name on her majesty’s visiting book. He then rode

slowly up Constitution Hill. When he arrived nearly opposite the wicket

gate leading to the Green Park, his horse suddenly became restive. The

baronet was a bad horseman, and he soon lost all control of the animal,

which at last threw him over its head. Several gentlemen rendered

assistance immediately, and among them two medical men. Mrs. Lucas, of

Bryanstone Square, was passing in her carriage, in which he was

conveyed to his residence. Dr. Foucart, of Glasgow, and Sir James

Clark accompanied him in the carriage. An examination of his person was

immediately made, when the medical gentlemen present pronounced that he

had incurred severe injury of the shoulder and fracture of the collar

bone; it was hoped that no internal consequences had been produced by

the fall. The fracture was compound. He continued to grow worse in spite

of every surgical remedy, until the Tuesday night following, when, a

little after eleven o’clock, he expired. After death it was perceived,

_for the first time_, that the fifth rib had been fractured on the left

side. It is astonishing that the faculty Were unable to discover this,

for it was the region in which he had felt most pain. This was supposed

to have been the cause of his death; but the family opposed a _post

mortem_ examination.

Mr. Becket Denison and Lord Villiers had ridden the horse to prove it,

and it had met the bands and the omnibuses without shying, so that no

apprehension was entertained that Sir Robert’s deficient horsemanship

would be of any serious consequence with so quiet an animal; he had also

ridden it regularly for a week without having any cause of alarm. The

event seemed, therefore, one of those singular providences which so

often occur, baffling human precautions, confounding calculations, and

showing that that the ways and destinies of men are in the hands of an

all-ruling Power.

Tidings of his death spread with great rapidity, and universal regret

was displayed by the people. Shops were closed, the flags of the ships

in the river and on the public buildings were lowered, and many went

immediately into mourning. The funeral took place the ensuing week; the

body was laid in the mausoleum of the family, at Drayton, near Tamworth,

the whole population of the district manifesting every token of respect

and sorrow of which the occasion allowed.

On Thursday, July the 4th, the following occurrences, in the house of

commons, marked at once the estimation in which Sir Robert was held by

public men, and his own singular and unostentatious character. Lord

John Russell introduced to the house the circumstance of the honourable

baronet’s decease, and said:—“It is impossible not to lament that

hereafter this house will be no longer guided by that long and large

experience of public affairs, by that profound knowledge, by those

rhetorical powers, by that copious yet exact memory, with which this

house was wont to be enlightened, instructed, and guided. It is not

for me, or for this house to speak of the career of Sir Robert Peel. It

never happened to me to be in political connexion with him; but so late

as that last debate to which I have referred, I took occasion to thank

him for that fair and frank support which he had given to the present

government. Sir Robert Peel, sir, in that speech which preceded the one

which I addressed to the house, and in which he opposed the policy of

the government, spoke with such temper and such forbearance towards

all those who might hold an opposite opinion to his, that it must be a

satisfaction to those remaining that his last act should have been one

of such candour and kindness towards those all around him. Sir, there

can, I think, be no doubt that, however history may deal with the wisdom

of the course he pursued, that it will be admitted that on two great

occasions when he held power, undisturbed and apparently with every sign

of security, and when he proposed measures to this house which shook,

and, after a time, subverted his party, he did so from those motives of

deep love for his country which ever distinguished him.” Having slightly

adverted to the course of the late right honourable baronet on the

corn-laws, the noble lord concluded by observing, “That if it should

appear to the family and friends of the late Sir Robert Peel to be

desirable to take such a course, though I shall not now proceed to make

any motion on the subject, I will give my willing support to a proposal

for conferring the same honours on his remains that was awarded to

Mr. Grattan and Mr. Pitt. I may, perhaps, be permitted to add, that I

thought it right to obtain the sanction of the crown before I made this

proposal, and I feel assured that anything which could do honour to the

memory of Sir Robert Peel, or which could add any further tribute

of respect to his name, would be unhesitatingly acquiesced in by her

majesty. Sir, I wish, therefore, in concluding these few words, to say

that, in disposing of this proposal, I place myself entirely in

the hands of the friends of the late Sir Robert Peel. Having had no

political connexion with him, this proposal comes from me without the

tinge of partiality; and I may say in conclusion, without any fear of

a charge of insincerity, that I do feel, that this country, as well as

posterity hereafter, in recognising the claims of individuals deceased

to the title of eminent statesmen who have adorned the annals of this

country, or contributed to its lustre, those of the late Sir Robert Peel

will be amongst the foremost.”

Mr. Goulburn, while acknowledging, on the part of the family of the late

lamented right honourable baronet, the high honour shown to his memory

in the offer made by the noble lord, begged gratefully to decline it,

as opposed to the wishes of Sir Robert Peel, as expressed in his will,

which was dated May 8, 1844, and in which he stated, “I desire that I

may be interred in the vault in the parish of Drayton-Bassett, in which

my father and mother were interred, and that my funeral may be without

ostentation or parade of any kind.” Nor did this sentiment undergo any

alteration; for, not later than six weeks since, when alterations were

made in that particular church to which that memorandum referred, Sir

Robert Peel pointed out to Lady Peel the very spot in the vault in which

he wished and trusted his body might be laid, without any of that parade

or ostentation which he so strongly deprecated, and the absence of which

gave him such great satisfaction in the case of the funeral of the late

queen-dowager. Under these circumstances, therefore, he was sure that he

(Mr. Goulburn) had but one duty to perform, and the family of the late

Sir Robert Peel but one wish, and that was the thankfulness with which

he (Mr. Goulburn), on their part, had to acknowledge the intentions,

both of her majesty and her parliament, in wishing to confer on his

late lamented friend that, the greatest honour that could be paid to

a subject—a proposition which they were compelled respectfully, but

thankfully, to decline. He (Mr. Goulburn) only entreated the house

to add to that mark of respect which they had paid to the ability and

public services of his lamented friend the further mark of respect to

his simplicity of character, and give effect to his desire as to the way

in which he wished his funeral obsequies to be conducted. The entry

of the adjournment of the house immediately after its meeting on the

previous day, out of respect to the memory of the deceased statesman,

was an honour which would live for ever in the journals of that house,

and an honour which was never before paid to a subject.

It was subsequently intended to make Lady Peel a peeress in her own

right, but she declined the honour, her late husband having enjoined

that none of his family should accept any honour or reward from his

country.

When the tidings of Sir Robert’s decease reached other countries, much

sympathy was expressed; the French assembly, and also the Congress of

the United States, having in the most marked manner paid tributes

of respect to his memory. M. Guizot, the favourite minister of Louis

Philippe of France, wrote a memoir of Sir Robert, which displays much

talent, but over praises the subject of the memoir, without doing

justice, nevertheless, to his policy. The opinions and measures of

the great statesman will long be a subject of discussion, not only in

England, but in other nations. The following estimate of his political

principles and career by Count Cavour, the eminent Sardinian statesman,

a man intellectually superior to Sir Robert, is probably the truest and

best of the many which has appeared. It was uttered in a speech during a

sitting of the Sardinian senate, in the year 1857, when sufficient

time had elapsed for foreign statesmen, at all events, to form a fair

judgment of the man, unbiassed by the interests of their respective

states. Count Cavour had been taunted with having expressed himself in

very high terms of Sir Robert’s commercial and financial policy, while

he at the same time refused, in many respects, to accept him as an

exemplar. He, consequently, addressed to the senate the following

remarkable speech:—“I entertain the highest admiration for that

statesman; I believe that few men have rendered greater services to

mankind than he has. Yet I do not believe that Sir Robert Peel was

always infallible in his political career. It is my opinion that Sir

Robert Peel would have left a much more illustrious name behind him, if,

instead of having been compelled by circumstances to introduce reforms,

he himself had originated them. I think that Sir Robert Peel would have

left behind him a fame unequalled in history, if, instead of proposing

the emancipation of the Catholics in 1829, he had proposed it in 1825. I

think that his name would have eclipsed all those of ancient and modern

statesmen if the reform of the corn-laws had been initiated in 1840—a

good harvest year—instead of being passed in consequence of the

famine which desolated Ireland, and instead of being in some measure a

consequence of the potato disease. In fact, if Sir Robert Peel had

been the originator of reforms, he would at his death have left to

his friends a political inheritance far different from that which he

bequeathed to them. If Sir Robert Peel had associated his name and

his whole career with successive reforms, there would be no need of

recording at the present time a strange fact which has taken place in

England—namely, that a party, consisting of eminent men, including the

most eloquent speaker in parliament, and the most able legislators, has

been completely routed at the late elections. And this, gentlemen, is

the fate of parties who allow themselves to be led by public opinion,

and who wait to the last moment to carry out reforms which they have

not the courage to introduce. I trust that the senate, convinced of this

truth, will give its support to the present government, which, while

following the example of Sir Robert Peel, nevertheless deviates from

the course he adopted by making itself the originator of reforms, not

waiting to grant them to any popular pressure, nor to the pressure of

unforeseen circumstances.”

PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.

The queen in person prorogued parliament on the 15th of August. The

address to her majesty, and the royal speech, were ordinary documents.

The houses were prorogued to the 15th of October, but parliament did not

meet again for the transaction of business that year.

THE COURT.

_Birth of a Prince_.—On the 1st of May her majesty was delivered of a

son, the third prince that had been born to her. The baptism took place

in the chapel of Buckingham Palace, on the 22nd of June. The ceremony

was unusually superb.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, her Royal Highness the Duchess

of Cambridge, his Royal Highness Prince George, her Royal Highness

Princess Mary, his Royal Highness the Prince of Prussia, his Serene

Highness Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, his Serene Highness the Prince

of Leiningen, his Grace the Duke of Wellington; the Belgian, Portuguese,

and Prussian ministers; the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Minto,

Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, Viscount Palmerston, Earl Grey,

Sir Charles Wood, Sir Francis Baring, Sir John Hobhouse, the Earl of

Carlisle, the Right Hon. Fox Maule, Sir William Somerville, and others

invited to the solemnity, assembled in the old dining-room, at the

palace, at six o’clock, the royal family being conducted to an adjoining

drawing-room, and were conducted to seats in the chapel.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of

Chester (clerk of the closet), the Bishop of Oxford (lord high almoner),

with the Rev. Henry Howarth (rector of the parish of St. George,

Hanover-square), the Hon. and Rev. Gerald Wellesley (resident chaplain

to her majesty), the Rev. Lord Worthesley Russell (deputy clerk of

the closet), and the Rev. Henry George Liddell (chaplain to his Royal

Highness Prince Albert), assembled in the room adjoining the old

dining-room, and took their places at the communion-table. The

Archbishop of Canterbury commenced the baptismal service, and on

arriving at that part for naming the child, the Countess of Gainsborough

handed the infant prince to the archbishop, when his royal highness was

named Arthur William Patrick Albert.

The queen, the prince, and the royal personages then passed up the

grand staircase to the Throne-room, where her majesty was joined shortly

before eight o’clock by her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester.

The remainder of the company continued in the Green Drawing-room. The

queen wore a dress of white, watered, and brocaded silk, with a broad

flounce of Honiton lace, trimmed with white satin ribbon. Her majesty

also wore a diadem of emeralds and diamonds, and ornaments of emeralds

and diamonds to correspond. From the ribbon of the Most Noble Order of

the Garter was suspended a most splendid George, set in brilliants; the

ribbon itself was confined on the left shoulder by a diamond clasp.

The queen also wore the garter as an armlet, the motto being formed of

diamonds. The infant prince had a robe and mantle of Honiton lace over

white satin, with a cap to correspond. The Princess Royal, the Princess

Alice, and the Princess Helena, wore dresses of white watered silk with

satin stripe, trimmed with white satin ribbon and silver fringe; the

silk woven at Spitalfields. The dress of her Royal Highness the Duchess

of Kent was of the richest white watered silk, of English manufacture,

trimmed with blonde, having diamond ornaments down the front, and the

stomacher adorned with brilliants. Her royal highness’s head-dress was

formed of feathers, blonde lappets, and pearl and diamond ornaments. The

necklace and earrings were diamonds. His Royal Highness Prince Albert

wore a field-marshal’s uniform, with the collars of the Orders of the

Garter and the Black Eagle (of Prussia), with four stars set in diamonds

of the Garter, the Thistle, St. Patrick, and the Bath, and the ensigns

of the Golden Fleece.

Her majesty was conducted by the lord steward and the lord chamberlain,

at eight o’clock, to a state banquet in the picture-gallery, accompanied

by the royal family, the foreign ministers, the cabinet ministers,

and the other ladies and gentlemen who attended the ceremonial. “The

christening cake” was placed in the middle of the dinner-table on the

plateau of the magnificent service of gold plate. The top of the cake

represented an octangular fountain, ornamented with a number of small

vases, filled with miniature bouquets. The fountain rested on a circular

plinth, containing a number of painted vignettes, set in silver frames.

After the toast of “The Queen and the Prince,” her majesty rose from

the banquet, and proceeded to the White Drawing-room, accompanied by her

Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, her Royal Highness the Duchess

of Kent, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, her Royal Highness

Princess Mary of Cambridge, and the other ladies present. Soon after

which, his Royal Highness Prince Albert, his Royal Highness the Prince

of Prussia, his Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge, his Serene

Highness Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, his Serene Highness the Prince of

Leiningen, and the other guests, proceeded to the Music-room, when the

doors of the White Drawing-room were opened, and the queen received an

evening party.

The name of Patrick was given to the infant prince in compliment to the

people of Ireland, and was a graceful sequel to her majesty’s confiding

visit to that country the previous autumn.

_Arrival of the Nepaulese Ambassador_.—This illustrious person arrived

on the 25th of May, accompanied by his two brothers, and a brilliant

suite. He brought presents to her majesty, worth a quarter of a million

sterling. On his arrival at the Custom House, the officials attempted

to search his luggage, but he intimated that by their so doing he

would lose caste, and in case of any attempt of the kind, he would not

persevere in the object of his visit, but return by the next steamer.

His religious scruples were respected, but to make himself certain,

he placed a man with a drawn sword constantly beside his baggage. The

ambassador was feted by the great, and his liberality in dispensing

presents of precious stones did not detract from his popularity. He was

received at court most graciously, and returned to his country greatly

impressed with British power, and remained a friend and an ally of

England.

_Death of his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge_.—On the 8th of

July, this popular prince died at Cambridge House. He was the seventh

son of George the Third. His remains were interred at Kew Church, with

many demonstrations of sorrow on the part of the people. Her majesty

was much attached to her royal relative, and was much afflicted by his

death.

_Visit of her Majesty to the King of the Belgians_.—On the 21st

of August, lier majesty, the prince, and four of the royal children,

embarked at Osborne for Ostend, in tempestuous weather. Her majesty

being “a good sailor,” was seldom deterred from her voyages by bad

weather. The royal visitors only remained a few days, and returned

to Osborne. The visit had no political significance, but was dictated

simply by the affection of the royal pair for their uncle, the Belgian

king.

_Her Majesty’s Visit to Scotland_.—On the 27th of August, the court

paid its autumnal visit to the north. A visit was paid, _en route_, to

Castle Howard, the seat of the Earl of Carlisle. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne

the royal party was received by Earl Grey, and the corporations of

Newcastle and Gateshead made many demonstrations of loyalty, which were

gratifying to her majesty. As on the previous year her majesty visited

Dublin, Cork, Belfast, and Glasgow, it was deemed politic and respectful

to pay a visit to Edinburgh, of such a nature as to show the inhabitants

of the Scottish metropolis her interest in it.

The citizens of “the modern Athens” vied with those of the other great

cities of her majesty’s dominions in enthusiastic loyalty. The queen

took up her residence in Holyrood House, which greatly gratified the

national feeling of the Scotch. Immediately on her arrival, she entered

the apartments which were once occupied by the beautiful and unfortunate

Mary, Queen of Scots. Her majesty regarded the historical objects there

presented to her, with melancholy interest. The following day the royal

family ascended to the top of Arthur’s Seat, where it was said her

majesty was intensely excited by the magnificence of the scenery. The

following day, Prince Albert laid the foundation-stone of the Scottish

National Gallery. The remaining portion of the day was spent in visiting

remarkable persons and places. On the day following, her majesty and

suite proceeded to Balmoral. On the 10th of October the court left their

Scottish retreat, and returned to Edinburgh, remaining at Holyrood

Palace for the night, and the next day proceeded to England. The first

tidings which met her majesty on her return to Buckingham Palace were,

of the death of the Queen of the Belgians, her august aunt, by marriage.

[Illustration: 796.jpg HOLYROOD PALACE]

_The Queen and the Papal Aggression_.—During the winter, while the

court was at Windsor, the papal aggression disturbed the country. It was

known that her majesty felt great indignation, and her people determined

to regard the act of the court of Rome as an insult to her as well as to

the nation. The corporations of London and Oxford, and the University of

Oxford, have the privilege of demanding audience of the crown; they were

all received by the queen in a manner to mark her sense of the indignity

offered to her by the Roman court.

_Assault on the Queen_.—On the 27th of June, her majesty having visited

her uncle at Cambridge House, as she re-entered her carriage, a man

rushed forward and struck her on the face with a cane; the blow drew

blood, and caused a considerable swelling. A poor man present instantly

struck the ruffian in the face in return; and other bystanders seized

him, and handled him very roughly. He was taken into regular custody by

the police, and interrogated at the Home Office. He had been an officer

in the army. He was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. His sanity

was doubted, as his manners were incoherent.

DEATHS OF REMARKABLE PERSONS.

During the year a number of persons died remarkable in every department

of fame. Some of these have come in review under other sections, as in

the case of Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Cambridge. The following

persons of note may be referred to in this section, as all that our

space allows.

January 7th, in London, Lieutenant Waghorn, R. N. This remarkable man

had devoted a very considerable portion of his life to the establishment

of steam communication between this country and India. He explored

several overland routes to India with success. In these enterprises

he expended his fortune, and the government refused all suitable

acknowledgment for the great services he had rendered to the state and

to commerce, except a paltry pension, unworthy of the donors.

This year was remarkable for loss to the naval service by the death of

distinguished officers. Only two days after the decease of the gallant

and indefatigable Waghorn, Admiral Schombergh died, an officer who

had seen extraordinary variety of service, and had carried into effect

several improvements in victualling the navy.

On the 16th, Commander Le Vesconte, more popular, however, as a consul

than distinguished as a commander.

February 14th, Rear-Admiral Sir Gordon Bremer, after long and arduous

services to his country.

It would be a task beyond our limits to notice the individual history

and exploits of the heroic men in the naval service who died during

this year. Among the most memorable of these were the Hon. Vice-Admiral

Bouverie, and Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Richardson, K. C. B.

Among many notable military officers who died, the following deserve

especial notice:—

February 23rd, Captain Maurice O’Connel, nephew of the late Baron

O’Connel, chamberlain to the Emperor of Austria. This officer had no

rank in the British service.

March 7th, the Hon. Sir Hercules Robert Pakenham, lieut.-general. This

officer, well-known as the brother-inlaw, and one of the generals of

the great Duke of Wellington, had seen long and trying services, and was

always distinguished by his great gallantry.

The month of August closed with the announcement of the death of

Major-General Sir Alexander Cameron, G.C.B. This heroic man had served

in nearly every country of Europe, where the standard of England floated

over the field of battle. At Corunna he, with Sir John Hope, carried to

a boat the last wounded Highlander, that could be descried straggling

near the scene of action. Marshal Soult and his staff observed this act

of heroism, and warmly expressed their admiration.

The list of literary and scientific men who passed to the great account,

was a longer and more remarkable one than that of England’s deceased

warriors.

In January, Mr. Charles Robert Forrester, whose writings were very

popular, under the _nomme de plume_ of “Alfred Crowquill.”

On the 26th, Francis Jeffrey, one of the judges of the Court of Session

in Scotland. He was the colleague of the Rev. Sydney Smith and Henry

Brougham in founding the _Edinburgh Review_, and celebrated in every

country for his critical contributions to that periodical.

February 2nd, Rev. Edward Bickersteth, rector of Watton, Hertfordshire.

His place amongst literary men was won by his religious writings, which

were exceedingly popular and useful. This eminent clergyman shed great

lustre on the church by his devoted religious life, and gained for

himself great renown in the department of religious literature.

On the 17th, the Rev. T. S. Grimshaw, A.M., vicar of Biddenham. This

renowned clergyman distinguished himself in the department of literature

in which the Rev. Mr. Bickersteth gained so much fame. Mr. Grimshaw

wrote a “Life of the Rev. Leigh Richmond” (author of “The Dairyman’s

Daughter”), the “Life and Works of William Cowper,” &c.

On the 23rd, Sir William Allan, R.A, limner to Her Majesty for Scotland,

president of the Royal Scottish Academy. This artist was original and

indefatigable, but could obtain no patronage out of his own country,

where his treatment of Scottish subjects won for him popularity.

On the 2nd of March, John Peter Deering, Esq., a celebrated architect.

He designed Exeter Hall, London, the University Club-house, and the best

portions of University College, London.

April 7th, Canon Bowles, of Salisbury, eminent as a Latin and English

poet. His early sonnets were highly intellectual and artistic in their

versification. His memoirs of the poet Pope, and of other distinguished

persons, were extremely popular, but did not obtain the lasting fame of

his poetry.

On the 17th, in New York, Thom, the self-taught and celebrated Scottish

sculptor. His “Tarn O’Shanter,” and “Old Mortality,” obtained for him a

wide-spread fame in Great Britain and the United States of America.

On the 23rd, at Rydal Mount, near Ambleside, William Wordsworth, D.C.L.,

the poet, whose works have had a universal circulation. His chief

productions are “The Evening Walk,” “The Excursion,” and “The White Doe

of Rylstone.” He also wrote many deeply touching minor poems.

May 24th, Miss Jane Porter, authoress of many works, which have been

translated into various languages. The most popular of these were

“Thaddeus of Warsaw,” and the “Scottish Chiefs.” Sir Walter Scott

is represented as having admitted to George IV. that his idea of the

“Waverley Novels” was suggested by the perusal of the “Scottish Chiefs.”

If this currently believed anecdote be correct, Miss Porter was the

founder of the school of modern historical novels, and not Sir Walter

Scott.

On the 27th, Mr. Richard J. Wyatt, known as a sculptor of great merit

throughout Europe. His death took place at Rome.

July 4th, at Barham, Suffolk, Canon Kirby, rector of that parish. He

was a distinguished naturalist, and the author of various eminent works,

especially in the department of entomology. His _Monographic, Apium

Anglio_, his description of the _Fauna Boreali Americana_, and his

“Bridgewater Treatise,” on the “history, habits, and instincts of

animals,” have made him a world-wide tame.

July 12th, Mr. Robert Stephenson, civil engineer, who had obtained an

honourable notoriety for his achievements in his profession.

August 19th, Sir Martin Shee, president of the Royal Academy. He was

not only celebrated as a painter, but was an accomplished scholar and

author.

On the 30th of October, one of the most benevolent and amiable ladies in

the world of letter’s, Mrs. Bell Martin, died at New York. This gifted

lady was born at Ballinahinch Castle, in Galway. Her father, Mr. Thomas

Barnewell Martin, M.P. for Galway, died in 1847. Miss Martin married a

Mr. Bell, who assumed the name of Martin. The estates of Mr. Martin, of

Ballinahinch, were in area the largest in the United Kingdom, and Miss

Martin was commonly styled “the Irish heiress,” from her very large

patrimony. The failure of the potato crops, and the ensuing famine,

which afflicted Ireland for several years, ruined Miss Martin’s

inheritance. The estates were encumbered, and as landed property in

Ireland during “the famine years” brought but little in the market, the

Ballinahinch properly was thrown into the Encumbered Estates Court, and

there were no assets for “the heiress,” She left the extensive region

over which she had almost reigned as a princess, without any longer

having a claim to a single acre. She was in deep distress, and, to the

dishonour of the gentry of Ireland, she found no friends in her hour of

trial. She took up her residence on the continent, and supported herself

by her pen: she was the authoress of “St. Etienne, a tale of the Vendean

war,” “Julia Howard,” and some minor works. Her contributions to the

_Encyclopédie des Gens de Monde_ were numerous, and gained her high

reputation. She eventually sought New York as the sphere of her

enterprise. During the voyage she was prematurely confined, and died

in consequence, soon after her arrival at the Union Place Hotel. It

was generally believed in that city, and in the land of her birth, that

uneasiness as to her temporal prospects aggravated, and perhaps caused

the illness, which proved fatal to this highly gifted lady.

November 15th, Joseph Hullmandle, whose inventions and improvements

connected with lithography, and tinted lithographic printing,

contributed so much to the perfection of that branch of artistic skill.

November 26th, Lord Nugent, a celebrated politician, poet, and man of

letters. The title was Irish, and became extinct with him.

December 8th, Mr. William Sturgeon, celebrated for his scientific

learning, his voluminous productions on electricity, and various

branches of natural science. He had been originally a shoemaker,

afterwards a soldier, subsequently scientific lecturer at Addiscombe

College, and in his old age suffered much from poverty. Lord John

Russell obtained him a grant of £50 per year from the Civil List, so

paltry a recognition of such great merits and services as is exceedingly

dishonouring to the country.

Several remarkable persons were removed by death from various walks of

life unnecessary to classify. The following were the most remarkable

instances:—

On the 24th of January, Sir Felix Booth, the celebrated brewer, a man of

large wealth, and a patron of science. He fitted out, at an expense of

£17,000, the expedition in search of the North-West passage, commanded

by Captain Ross, who commemorated the name of his munificent patron by

giving to the northern termination of the American continent the name of

Felix Boothia.

On the 6th of March, Sir James Gibson Craig, Bart., who had

distinguished himself as a leader of the Scottish Whigs for many years.

July the 8th, at Cambridge House, Piccadilly, H.R.H. Prince Adolphus

Frederick, of Brunswick Lunenburgh, Duke of Cambridge, youngest

surviving son of George III. He was a very benevolent prince, liberal in

politics, patriotic in feeling, and much beloved by the country.

July 20th, Sir Robert Peel, Bart., the statesman and parliamentary

leader. Such ample notice has been taken of his life and death, on

former pages, that it is not necessary more particularly to refer to it

in this place.

August the 7th, Louis Philippe, the exiled King of the French, aged 77

years. Few princes experienced so many and such great vicissitudes of

fortune. He died at Claremont, in Surrey. When in his power the most

obsequious homage was paid to him by the court and the citizens of

London; in his exile, he was allowed to sink almost unnoticed into

obscurity and death. His faithlessness to political engagements, his

avarice, and want of principle generally, had created a universal

obloquy round his name.

CHAPTER LXIII.

{VICTORIA. 1851}

General Condition of Great Britain: Agitation against “the

Papal Aggression,” and strong national feeling against the

Pope and the Church of Rome; Efforts of the

“Protectionists,” and hostility of the people to that

party..... Parliamentary Conflicts: Resignation of the

Russell Ministry, and its Resumption of Power.....

Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations..... The

Census..... General Condition of Ireland..... The

Court..... Colonial Affairs: War in South Africa; Discovery

of Gold in California; Hostility of the Arabs near

Aden..... Foreign Affairs: European Relations..... Outrage

upon an English gentleman by an Austrian officer in

Florence..... Deaths of Eminent Persons in 1851.

{A.D. 1851}

The year 1851 opened more auspiciously upon England than several

preceding years. There was neither pestilence nor famine in Great

Britain or Ireland. No commercial panic smote the prosperity of the

country. Crime was not more than usually prevalent, and was rather on

the decrease. The royal family were in health, and their happiness was a

subject of universal care, as their persons were the objects of

devoted loyalty. No sovereign in the world held so high a place in the

affections of her people, or presided over dominions on the whole so

united and prosperous.

The great home subject of interest was “the papal aggression,” referred

to in a former chapter. Nearly all classes of Englishmen were indignant

at the terms in which the pope decreed the new arrangements for

the episcopal government of his church in England. There were many,

especially among the dissenters, who considered that the true policy to

pursue on the part of the English people was to view the whole affair

with contempt, but even these were angry at the haughty contumely with

which the pope’s bulls and rescripts treated the queen, government, and

people of England not of the Roman Catholic communion. Mr. Roebuck was

especially the champion of the pope and the new hierarchy, asserting the

right of Romish hierarchs to assume territorial titles here, as they

did in the United States. Lord John Russell was the champion of the

anti-aggression movement, and his pen and tongue were animated by a

peculiar fervour in the controversy. The dissenters and many churchmen

doubted his lordship’s sincerity, believing that his zeal was simulated,

and that he cared more for the service rendered to his government

by raising a politico-religious cry at a critical period of his

parliamentary ascendancy, than he did for protecting the rights of the

crown, or the honour of Protestantism, against such invasions of either

as the papal procedure had initiated. Whatever might have been the case

in this respect, the agitation led by his lordship against the papal

aggression was the chief means of carrying him safely through the

session, in which the parliamentary tactics of his party and of his

government were without consistency or cleverness, and the financial

management of his chancellor of the exchequer as clumsy in detail,

and what might be called manipulation, as destitute of invention,

originality, and foresight.

When parliament was opened on the 4th of February, by her majesty in

person, the public anti-popery demonstrations were very decided, and an

outburst of loyalty came from all classes, such as only could arise from

a thoroughly excited state of the public mind. It was known that Lord

John Russell was to bring in a bill making it penal for the Roman

Catholic hierarchy to assume territorial ecclesiastical titles, and

this gave to the people an extraordinary interest in the progress of her

majesty in state to the House of Lords. From her palace at Pimlico to

her palace in Whitehall vast crowds collected, who rent the air with

tumultuous and excited cheers and exclamations of loyalty. On no

occasion of a royal progress were the assembled multitudes greater, and

the peculiar excitement of their voices and deportment was such as no

great festal occasion evokes. The royal speech referred to the cause

of this excitement, and when her majesty assured the assembled senators

that she was determined to preserve “the rights of her crown, and the

independence of the nation,” her elocution was at once so precise,

emphatic, and animated, as to cause an unusual sensation among

her hearers; and when the passage was read by the general public,

accompanied by the fervent panegyrics of the press, the public zeal

against the papal brief was, if possible, intensified.

The general conduct of the Roman Catholic body, hierarchy, and press,

was provocative of popular anger, and calculated to create an illiberal

feeling towards Roman Catholics. Various pretensions were asserted in

a highhanded manner by the Roman Catholic bishops in their epistolary

communications; and their literary organs spared the Protestants of

England no bitterness of invective, to which the most exasperating

polemics could give expression.

The public irritation on this controversy was kept up during the whole

year, for the pretensions of the Romish hierarchy were not moderated,

and in Ireland the chief bishops of the Roman Catholic church openly

derided and defied the power of the government and people of England

to put any law against their assumptions into practical effect. It is

probable that these magnates had good information that Lord John and

his government merely intended to carry a bill which might be held _in

terrorem_—a mode of legislating against the church of Rome, which an

experienced politician must have known was futile.

The bill brought into parliament by Lord John, to vindicate the rights

of his royal mistress and the independence of England, was called “the

Ecclesiastical Titles Bill,” and may be described in a single sentence

as providing penalties, in the shape of a moderate fine of £100, against

every Romish ecclesiastic assuming a territorial title belonging to the

Protestant hierarchy. The Roman Catholic members of the commons opposed

it with a vituperative eloquence, neither creditable to their religion,

country, nor the especial cause of their advocacy. The whig ministry,

and their supporters on both sides of the house, justified the bill

on narrow and inconsistent grounds. The Protestant abettors of “the

aggression” treated the hubbub raised as unworthy the greatness of

England—the pope being a poor prince of very little power. Disraeli,

with even more than his usual ability, supported the measure of the

government, urging that the pope had, it was true, no formidable

military force, but he had an army of a million of priests, and still

greater numbers of persons belonging to various religious orders, the

members of which were wholly devoted—mind, body, and estate—to his

behests. This reasoning produced considerable effect on the house, and

destroyed the effect of Mr. Roebuck’s arguments for allowing the Roman

Catholic religion to develop itself in its own way. The bill met with

so much opposition in its later stages from Sir James Graham and the

Peelite party, that its progress was somewhat obstructed; but the

vehement demands out of doors for its enactment, lowered the tone of the

parliamentary opposition to it, and it was carried ultimately by a very

large majority. It was introduced, by Lord John Russell, as early as the

7th of February. In consequence of the opposition it encountered, the

cabinet divested it of several of the more stringent clauses, and on the

7th of March Sir George Grey reintroduced the bill, after a temporary

absence from office of the government. It was not until the close of

July that the bill received the royal assent.

Several cases were brought into courts of justice throughout the year,

which kept up the irritation thus excited. Among these was the case of

Miss Talbot, a Roman Catholic lady under the guardianship of the Earl

of Shrewsbury, a Roman Catholic peer. The lady had a fortune of £80,000.

She was advised by her guardians to enter a nunnery, and was placed

there to pass through the preliminary stages before finally taking the

veil. In that case, the whole of the vast property she possessed would

be made over to the Roman Catholic church. The Berkeley family brought

the matter into court, and such an exposure was made of the bigotry of

Lord Shrewsbury, and the schemes set on foot to deprive the young lady

of her property in favour of the church, as exasperated the already

intensely excited popular mind. The young lady married Lord Howard, son

of the Duke of Norfolk, and so settled the contest, at the same time

disproving the allegations and oaths of the ecclesiastical party, who

sought to victimize her, that she was about to take the veil in the

result of her own importunity for permission so to do.

The public indignation against the Church of Rome was much stimulated

by a remarkable law case, Métairie _versus_ Wiseman and others. The

co-defendants with the cardinal were several Roman Catholic priests, and

some laymen known as much devoted to sacerdotal influence. The plaintiff

was one Julie Métairie, next of kin to a deceased Roman Catholic

gentleman, a native of France, whom it was alleged, when in a state of

mental incapacity, was induced by a priest named Holdstock to make

a testament of his property in favour of the Church of Rome, and of

certain charities favoured by that church. It was given in evidence that

the man had been a sceptic nearly all his life, hated priests, and was

especially prejudiced against the peculiar disposition of his property,

which the priests alleged that he had actually made upon his death-bed.

A Roman Catholic physician, one Gasquet, had called in the priest. It

appeared on the trial that no will, or other document, disposing of

his property, could be produced by Cardinal Wiseman, or the priests his

co-defendants, in the handwriting of the deceased, or of his attorney.

A document, however, was drawn up by a Roman Catholic barrister, at the

confessor’s request; and, according to the affidavits, the dying man was

held up in the bed by the priest, while the latter took hold of the

hand of the expiring man, and with it signed a deed, conveying £7,000 to

certain trustees for Roman Catholic uses. Cooke, the barrister, by

whom the deed was drawn up, prepared a power of attorney, by which the

property was placed in his hands upon the decease of M. Carrée (the name

of the man thus entrapped). This paper also the dying man was made to

sign, but he intimated his desire to retain the papers which he signed,

but was not allowed. One of the allegations made at the trial which most

prejudiced the public was, that the priest who effected the trick did

not again visit the dying man, who was permitted to die unabsolved,

unanointed, without any of the “consolations” which Roman Catholics

prize so much.

The plaintiff, on behalf of himself and other relatives of the deceased,

filed a bill in chancery, demanding judgment upon the invalidity of the

deeds by which M. Carrée’s property was wrested from his relatives,

and placed in the hands of the priests. After nine days’ argument the

defendants paid the money into court. The matter was not again argued,

as the defendants consented to pay £4,000 out of the £7,000 over to the

relatives not to proceed. This was accepted to avert any uncertainty in

the issue dependant upon doubtful points of law, and to avoid exhausting

the property by litigation. The public expected that the priests, in

order to the vindication of their own proceedings in the case, would

have promoted the investigation, and have, in case of a decision in

their favour, acted generously towards the relatives of the alleged

legatee.

Various cases in which priestly pretension and intolerance were

rumoured, kept alive the feeling created by the trials referred to; so

that during the whole year manifestations of popular resentment towards

the Roman Catholic Church, and especially its ecclesiastics, were put

forth in almost every part of Great Britain. When the 5th of November

arrived, the day upon which the detection of Guy Faux’s attempt to blow

up the parliament usually receives a popular celebration, there was

an outburst of patriotic hostility to the Church of Rome, which the

magistrates in London and the great cities of the provinces in vain

endeavoured to prevent or moderate. Cardinal Wiseman and the Pope were

carried about the streets in effigy, and the figures by which they were

ludicrously caricatured, were burnt amidst the acclamations of vast

crowds, not always confined to the lower orders.

Various events in Ireland, of violence offered to clergymen and

scripture readers, and assassinations of gentlemen whose protestant zeal

was prominent, aided the circumstances which in England kept the public

exasperation against popery at so high a pitch.

Incidents of persecution abroad, not materially differing from common

occurrences, and such as happen without particular notice by the English

people at other periods, were related and commented upon by the English

press in terms of the bitterest reproach to the Roman Catholic religion,

and its abettors. On the whole, no subject occupied the minds of the

inhabitants of the United Kingdom so constantly throughout the year

1851, as that of the aggressive acts and spirit of the papal court and

its ultramontane supporters.

The public mind was also much agitated by the question of “Protection

of Industry.” A powerful party, consisting chiefly of the landlords,

clergy, shipping interest, farmers, and certain sections of persons who

had profited by “protection duties,” were determined, if possible, to

revoke the decision of the legislature in favour of a free trade in

corn, and to reverse the policy of Sir Robert Peel, of relaxing and

finally removing all differential duties and taxes, imposed otherwise

than for revenue, upon foreign commodities. The leaders of this

reactionary party were very eloquent men—the Earl of Derby, and

Benjamin Disraeli. Both these gifted persons have since been repeatedly

in power, and, while evidently as hostile to a free-trade policy

in office as well as when out of office, yet they affected in their

parliamentary orations to be on the side of the popular theory of free

trade, and often made speeches so glaringly inconsistent with those

previously made by them as to damage the reputation of public men in the

national esteem. Presuming upon the ignorance, or forgetfulness, of the

population at large, the peer and the commoner have frequently spoken

as though they had been the invariable champions of freedom of commerce,

and of civil and religious liberty. In 1851 they were the persistent and

acrimonious opponents of freedom, religious, political, and commercial,

and by their eloquence stimulated those who sympathised with them, and

incensed those who believed that a great economical victory had been

accomplished by the free-trade legislation of Sir Robert Peel, which was

irreversible. Those who considered that the “Derby-Disraeli party”

only used their anti-free-trade agitations to accomplish a mere party

purpose, to regain office, and check the general progress of free

institutions and reform, were exasperated at the political charlatanism

which they considered to be thus displayed, so that the public lost

temper with the party, and was disposed even to violent manifestations

of its hostility. A remarkable instance of this occurred at Tarnworth,

previously the seat of the lately deceased parliamentary champion of

the repeal of the corn-laws, Sir Robert Peel. The landowners of North

Warwickshire, and their party adherents, convened a public meeting to

discuss their alleged grievances, and selected Tamworth as the place

of meeting. The populace and the free-traders declared that the place

chosen was not one which would naturally be appointed for such a

gathering, and believed that Tamworth was named for the meeting in order

to insult the memory of Sir Robert Peel, and by a display of strength

affront the liberal party, in matters of commerce, on the spot where the

ashes of their chief reposed. The Protectionists would not yield to

any suggestions concerning the bad taste displayed as to the moral

battle-ground they had chosen. They were warned that it would become

a material battle-field as well, but the warnings were rejected. The

ringleaders in the great agricultural demonstration, Lord Lewisham, and

Messrs. Newdegate and Spoon er, members of parliament, marshalled their

hosts, and it was intended to make such a demonstration of strength on

behalf of the agricultural interest as would awe the government, and

impress the country with an idea of the growing power of the party. The

populace, however, attacked the meeting—a severe conflict ensued;

the Protectionists were driven from the town. The vehicles of the

agricultural party were broken or thrown over Tamworth Bridge; many

persons were dangerously wounded, especially among the Protectionists;

and the issue was a fresh demonstration of the unpopularity of

protectionist doctrines, and of their chief advocates. The moral effect

of the incident throughout the country was adverse to the party who

promoted the assemblage. The riot occurred on the 28th of May, and the

strong popular hostility evinced, had its influence in parliament in

emboldening the hostile eloquence of the free-traders, and damped the

ardour of the protectionist gatherings in the coming autumn.

Throughout the parliamentary session the agricultural interest made

its complaints incessantly heard. The leaders declared that the landed

gentry and farmers were rapidly proceeding to ruin in consequence of

free-trade, and their vaticinations of frightful calamities to the

nation were singular displays of extraordinary hypocrisy, or delusions.

Amongst the most doleful prophets and lugubrious friends of agriculture

was Benjamin Disraeli. He was also the most acrimonious of advocates,

while defending claims ignored by the nation as unjust, denounced by

political economists as injurious; and, obviously in the exclusive

and selfish interests of a class, he denounced the advocates of

free commerce as without honour, honesty, or patriotism, sparing his

opponents neither as individuals nor as members of a party. The moral

effect of this unprincipled vituperation upon the country was injurious

to the party it was intended to serve, and lessened the confidence which

the people had been accustomed to repose in the integrity of public

men. Early in the session Mr. Disraeli introduced a resolution on

agricultural distress. An opening, almost an invitation, for him to

do so was given by Lord John Russell, who, with his usual mal-adroit

attempts to conciliate his opponents, inserted in the queen’s speech

an expression of regret for the distress borne by the agricultural

interest. Disraeli accordingly proposed, “That the severe distress which

continues to exist among the owners and occupiers of land, lamented

in her majesty’s speech, renders it the duty of the government to

introduce, without delay, measures for their effectual relief.” In his

speech he advocated the remission of taxes from the landed interest, as

the alternative to protection, attributing the distress complained of

to the repeal of the corn laws. The chancellor of the exchequer, in a

matter of fact speech, refuted Mr. Disraeli’s allegations that land was

taxed disproportionately to other property, or that the repeal of the

corn laws had failed of its object. Sir James Graham, in a clever _ad

captandum_ speech, called upon the house and the country to beware that

the real object of Mr. Disraeli and his party was to re-impose the corn

laws. Mr. Labouchere argued upon the same view of the policy of Mr.

Disraeli’s party, which Sir James Graham had exposed. Mr. Cardwell and

Mr. Cobden in very eloquent terms adopted the same strain. The latter

gentleman said that there could be no doubt of the meaning of Mr.

Disraeli’s motion, for whether a duty on corn, or compensation for the

loss of it, were the object immediately aimed at, the result would be

the same—the advantage of a class at the expense of the country. He

threatened the renewal of a national agitation against the exclusive

selfish policy of the landlord class. Lord John Russell declared that

he considered Mr. Disraeli’s motion as fraught with more dangerous

consequences than any motion which in the course of his public life he

ever recollected. Mr. Disraeli’s resolution was negatived by a majority

of only fourteen.

At this juncture in the agricultural agitation political affairs in

parliament assumed peculiar and various complications. On the 20th of

February Mr. Locke King, the member for East Surrey, asked for leave to

bring in a bill to make the franchise in counties, in England and Wales,

the same as in boroughs—the occupation of a tenement of the value of

£10 a year. Lord John Russell refused the assent of his government,

pledging himself to bring in a bill to improve the representation, a

promise which through many succeeding years his lordship was in no hurry

to fulfil. The motion of Mr. King was carried against the government by

a majority in the proportion of nearly two to one. It was generally

felt that this vote virtually sealed the fate of the government. The

agricultural party were therefore emboldened to renew their previous

tactics on the discussion of the budget, and to press for the especial

exemption of their class from a large proportion of the general

taxation. The budget had been previously introduced (on the 17th), in a

committee of ways and means. The income had exceeded the expenditure by

more than two and a half millions sterling. This fact left an opening

for the reduction of taxation, which the agriculturists had already

claimed in their own peculiar interest. They were prepared upon the 21st

of February, upon the order for going into committee on ways and means,

to make propositions, which, if carried, would appropriate to themselves

the two millions and a half of surplus as effectually as if the money

were taken and divided among them. Lord John Russell requested the

postponement of the order of the day to the 24th, intimating that he

was moved to desire this postponement for especial reasons. It was

well known that his lordship felt himself incapable of carrying on the

government against the attacks of the Protectionists, on one hand, and

the parliamentary reformers on the other. On the 24th Lord John informed

the house of this fact, and declared that he spoke “as the organ of a

government which no longer existed.” Lord Stanley had been invited by

her majesty to form a government, but did not succeed, and she again

called upon Lord John to construct a new cabinet. His lordship informed

the house that he had undertaken the task, and requested an adjournment.

On the 28th the house resumed its sitting. It then appeared that Lord

Aberdeen had been summoned by her majesty to form a ministry, but his

lordship, Sir James Graham, and the Peel party generally, refused to

co-operate with Lord John in the ecclesiastical titles bill, the Peelite

section of both houses, especially its leader, Lord Aberdeen, being

committed to the new ecclesiastical party called Puseyites, who

sympathised with the efforts of the Roman Catholics to restore the

grandeur of their hierarchy. Lord Aberdeen dared not face the popular

feeling on that question. Finally, the Duke of Wellington’s advice

having been sought by his royal mistress, he advised her, as the

best solution of the difficulty, to confide to Lord John Russell the

reconstruction of his ministry. The protectionist party determined to

oppose the government on every measure which afforded a chance, by small

defeat, of weakening its influence over the house and the country.

When the ecclesiastical titles bill again came before the house, Sir F.

Thesiger moved three amendments, the object of which was to make it more

effective. This the party of Sir Frederic knew well neither Lord John,

his ministry, nor the Whigs generally, really desired. By this means the

true whig view of the question was forced out. Lord John resisted the

amendments. The house was indignant. His lordship confided in the votes

of the Roman Catholic members, but they, anxious to humiliate him,

walked out of the house in a body. The amendments were carried amidst

the derisive cheers of the Protectionists. Large majorities in every

case defeated the half measures of Lord John. So little did he appear

to comprehend the spirit of the house and the country, that instead of

bowing to their decision, or resigning his office, he attempted on

the third reading of the bill to reverse the votes carried by such

overwhelming majorities: he failed still more signally than before.

He stood in a false position to the house, the country, and the Roman

Catholic party. He had brought in, with vast pretensions to a zealous

Protestantism on his lips, a measure which was never intended by him, or

his party, to answer the purpose proclaimed. His opponents took it

out of his hands with skill and moderation, and made it much more

practicable for its ostensible purpose, although still short of a

sound and efficient bill to restrain the hierarchy of Rome from the

assumptions it desired.

The Protectionists found another occasion to damage the government

during the discussion of the budget. On the 5th of April the chancellor

of the exchequer made his second financial statement for the year, which

was much more favourably received than the former one. He, however,

retracted some of the boons conceded in the first budget to the

agricultural interest. This gave satisfaction to the majority, but

exasperated the protectionist party, which attempted to defeat the

government on the question of the income tax, by direct resolutions

moved by Mr. Herries; a considerable majority defeated the movement.

On the bill going into committee Mr. Hume, then in the zenith of his

influence, moved an amendment to the effect that the tax should be

maintained for one year only. The honourable member was an extreme

Liberal in politics, but his support of the free-trade party was neither

very warm nor very intelligent. His amendment was energetically opposed

by the government, and by the free-trade leaders, especially Mr. Cobden

and Mr. Sidney Herbert. The Protectionists rallied round Mr. Hume, and

the little circle of radical members who, like Mr. Hume, were suspected

of being heterodox to the free-trade doctrines. The temporary coalition

was led by Mr. Disraeli, always in the van when a political or

parliamentary trick was the hope of his party. The government was

defeated, and acquiesced in the motion. This success greatly encouraged

the Protectionists, who made a direct assault upon the government, on

the 8th of May, when Mr. Cayley proposed the abolition of the malt tax,

but was beaten by a large majority.

On the 17th of June Mr. Bass moved that half the malt tax should be

repealed in October, 1852. On a division the motion was rejected.

Various other attempts were made on isolated subjects to support the

landlord interest by the remission of taxes bearing on it. Lord Naas

repeatedly defeated the government on the mode of assessing the spirit

duties, but ultimately the ministry got rid of the resolutions of his

lordship. In June Mr. Disraeli moved a series of resolutions on the

position and prospects of the country and the policy of the government,

in which he was supported by the entire strength of the tory party. The

object of the resolutions was to oppose the application of the surplus

revenue to the reduction of taxes, such as the window, coffee, and

timber duties, until the result of a select committee on the income tax,

proposed by Mr. Hume, should be known. The object of the resolutions was

to preserve the surplus revenue for the reduction of taxes borne by a

single class, that of the landlords, and for their exclusive benefit.

It was the question of the right of peculiar advantage by the landed

interest brought out in another form. Mr. Disraeli appeared to great

disadvantage as a financier, political economist, and even as a party

leader. His speech was factious in spirit, resting upon no sound

principles of policy or economy, and altogether unworthy of the

leader of a great party, and of one who aspired to a reputation for

statesmanship. The chancellor of the exchequer made an unusually happy

speech in reply. It was not usual for that honourable member to indulge

in the witty and satirical vein which so cleverly and appropriately

pervaded that particular oration. The disingenuousness and factiousness

of Disraeli roused the spirit of Sir Charles, and inspired him with a

sarcasm unlike his own serious and even dull tone of address. He

accused Mr. Disraeli with delivering a two hours’ speech on fiscal

and economical subjects, from which a single proposition could not be

extracted, and concluding by trite reflections upon the necessity of

maintaining public credit, couched in highflown language about the

empire of the Cæsars, with its triple crown, the mines of Golconda,

pillared palanquins, and other things having as little to do with the

question. These poetic fancies were very pleasing, but the house would

have better liked to hear arguments in support of a motion against

repealing taxes. The following passage from the speech of the chancellor

of the exchequer excited much mirth among the members, at the expense

of the protectionist leader:—“Mr. Disraeli would not jeopardize public

credit (by repealing taxes); but only six days after Mr. Hume’s motion

(for continuing the income tax only one year) was carried, Mr. Cayley

moved the house to remit £5,000,000 by the repeal of the malt tax. If it

be wrong to jeopardize public credit, surely it was as much endangered

on the 8th of May (when Mr. Cayley proposed the remission of the malt

tax), as it was on the 30th of June (when the ministers proposed to

repeal duties which affected the whole community), yet on the division

list in favour of Mr. Cayley’s motion I find the name of Benjamin

Disraeli! Can it be that there are two Benjamins in the field? One

Benjamin voting for the reduction of five millions of taxes, and another

Benjamin who is afraid to meddle with a surplus of £1,600,000.”

The effect of this cutting and just satire upon the dishonest pretences

of Mr. Disraeli in refusing the repeal of taxes to the amount of

the surplus revenue, on the ground of maintaining public credit, was

exceedingly striking. The house was at first convulsed with laughter,

after which serious murmurs rolled along the benches to the right of

the speaker’s chair, and the Conservatives, in sullen and moody silence,

showed their consciousness of the moral effect of this _exposé_,

especially as the resolutions were lost by a very large majority.

The speech of Sir Charles Wood was much quoted out of doors, and Mr.

Disraeli became, for a considerable time, most unpopular throughout the

country. It was much mooted among the opposition whether he should not

be deposed from a leadership which his eloquence did not always serve,

and which his reckless inconsistency so often damaged.

The Protectionists were unable to make any impression upon the house or

the country favourable to a reversal of free trade, or the removal from

the landed gentry of the taxes which they professed bore most heavily

upon them.

In connection with the protectionist agitation, the navigation laws,

and their repeal, held an angry prominence. The shipowners agitated

the peculiar burdens on shipping almost as loudly as the landlords

complained of the peculiar burdens on land. The cause of the shipowners

was espoused by the landlords, and among them the Earl of Derby was

the most prominent. The act of 1849, for the removal of maritime

restrictions, was discussed in both houses, and the shipowners and

landed interests demanded that the legislature should retrace its steps

on that subject. The house, however, maintained the policy of 1849.

GENERAL PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF 1851.

In the foregoing notices of proceedings in parliament, reference was

made to them in connection with the great subjects which agitated the

country at large. Those notices necessarily abridge the relation of this

section of the chapter.

Although the session was not fruitful in legislation, a considerable

range of important subjects was embraced by the discussions which took

place. The ministry was desirous to improve the laws, and carry some

useful measures. Private members in vain sought opportunity to direct

the attention of parliament to practical and useful legislation: the

great agitations of the day, and mere party disputes, consumed the time

of the house. The Protectionists caught at so many opportunities

for prolonged debates, for the purposes of gaining some pecuniary

advantage, and of worrying the ministry, that the public business was

greatly impeded. The Peelites, especially in the commons, were hostile

to the ecclesiastical titles bill. That small section of the house which

prided itself in following the policy of Sir Robert Peel in everything,

belonged, in almost every individual case, to the Puseyite party in

the established church, and viewed with apparently bitter animosity

the attempt of Lord John Russell to curb the pretensions of the Romish

hierarchy. Mr. Gladstone and Sir James Graham, always hostile to the

religious liberties of Protestant dissenters, led the opposition to the

government measure. It was obvious enough that the house and the country

were resolved upon the passing of the bill, but the Peelite and Puseyite

orators resisted it at every stage, with a zeal and activity which

surpassed that of the Roman Catholic members. In vain the government

pressed upon the house the urgency of the public business, and the

number of the measures which ought to occupy attention: Puseyites and

Protectionists maintained debates on every possible occasion, rendering

legislative measures on a great variety of subjects impracticable.

The ministerial crisis has been already referred to, and its

termination, by the announcement (on the 3rd of March) that the

government had resumed office.

The defeat of the government on the motion of Mr. Locke King, for leave

to bring in a bill to assimilate the elective franchise in boroughs and

counties upon a ten-pound value occupation has incidentally been noticed

in connection with the ministerial crisis. Mr. Locke King brought in his

bill, and moved the second reading on the 2nd of April. The debate

which ensued was remarkable from the circumstance that Lord John Eussell

pledged himself to bring in, at the beginning of the next session,

a bill to extend the franchise. This pledge, up to the close of the

session of 1859, more than eight years, has never been redeemed.

The excuse urged has been always the same—the pressure of public

business—an excuse, the sincerity of which cannot be accepted by the

most credulous friends of his lordship’s party. Mr. Disraeli declared

that he desired to see the “great settlement of 1831” improved, in the

sense of confirming “the proper territorial influence and power,”

which he assured the house was essential to the liberties of the English

nation. Mr. Disraeli desired an improvement of the Reform Bill which

would consolidate the power of a class: Lord John promised a reform

which would increase the power of the people. Persuaded by his

lordship’s specious promises, those of Mr. Fox Maule, and other members

of the government, the Liberals supported the government, and Mr. Locke

King’s bill was lost by a vast majority. The speech of Mr. Bright much

conduced to this result, as he showed that the ten-pound occupants, in

counties, would be under the control of the landed interest, which Mr.

Bright denounced as opposed to the material interests and civil and

religious liberties of the people.

Mr. Henry Berkeley endeavoured to secure another measure of reform—the

conducting of elections by vote by ballot. The government resisted this,

and Lord John Eussell, with a tone of ridicule and acrimony, offered

the motion an ostentatious opposition. The government was beaten by a

majority of eighty-seven to fifty. The bill was read a first time, but

Mr. Berkeley did not proceed with it, the same pretence set up by the

government on Locke King’s motion soothing the reformers.

Mr. Cobden signalized himself by proposing a resolution pledging the

house to arbitration in case of national differences. Mr. Cobden’s

motion was in itself impracticable, his statistics partial, and his tone

personal and unjust to the statesman by whom our foreign relations

had been conducted. Lord Palmerston replied in one of the most happy

speeches he ever delivered, vindicating himself from the implications

made by Mr. Cobden. Mr. Roebuck supported Mr. Cobden, whom, and whose

party, he has so often opposed since, when their peculiar opinions were

advocated in a similar manner. The motion was withdrawn, in consequence

of the conviction of all parties being strongly expressed that the

course proposed by Mr. Cobden was utterly impossible.

In the House of Lords a remarkable debate arose upon a proposition of

the Earl of St. Germains, to make marriage with a deceased wife’s sister

legal. The measure was opposed by the bishops. The Bishop of Norwich

made a speech of remarkable clearness and force in opposition. Lord

Campbell, the lord-chief-justice, made an oration of an eccentric and

illogical character; its spirit and temper were even worse than its

arguments; the people of Germany and America were referred to in a

manner the most insulting and unjust. The bishops and the law lords

defeated the bill.

Lord Redesdale, one of the champions of Puseyism in the established

church, made a motion in the peers for the revival of convocation, which

was successfully opposed by the evangelical “primate of all England.”

One of the subjects introduced during the session which excited most

interest in the country, was the removal of Jewish disabilities. Lord

John Russell produced a bill in the commons which was carried, but was

thrown out in the lords. Events followed of an important nature and of

historical interest. An alderman of the city of London, named Salomons,

had been elected to sit in parliament for the borough of Greenwich. He

determined to take his seat. He presented himself at the table of the

house on the 18th of July, but refused to take the oaths “on the true

faith of a Christian,” the form prescribed by the rules of the house.

He was then ordered by the speaker to withdraw. Mr. Salomons sat down on

one of the benches of the ministerial side of the house, but the speaker

insisted upon his withdrawal, upon which he returned to the bar, but

under protest of his right to take his seat. Called upon, in the

course of the discussion which ensued, by various members to do so, he

repeatedly resumed his seat, addressed the house, and voted on divisions

concerning himself. After long protracted and violent discussions, he

was conducted forcibly by the sergeant-at-arms below the bar. The house,

at the instance of Lord John Russell, resolved that he had not a right

to sit until he took the oath of abjuration on the true faith of

a Christian. Lord John at the same time intimated his intention to

persevere in seeking the emancipation of Jewish citizens from all civil

disabilities on account of their religion. These events in the English

House of Commons attracted the attention of the Jewish community all

over the world, and the reports were perused extensively abroad as well

as at home.

On the 27th of May a party debate arose upon the conduct of Lord

Torrington, when governor of Ceylon. Debates occurred in both houses,

the object of the opponents of government being to condemn the policy

of Lord Torrington, and the friends of government to uphold him. Nothing

was proved against his lordship sufficient to justify the course

pursued against him, but it was made plain that his appointment to the

government of a colony as distracted as it was important, did not arise

from the noble lord’s fitness, but from his political interest; and that

Earl Grey, the whig colonial minister, had performed his official duties

in a way crotchety, self-sufficient, and arrogant—in the spirit of the

partizan rather than of the patriot.

Various bills were passed in reference to administrative departments

of the church, and of the state. A bill for the removal of Smithfield

market was carried on humane and sanitary considerations, after a

discreditable opposition from the corporation of London. Law reform

made some progress, especially in connection with the court of chancery.

There were several sharp discussions and important motions on colonial

and foreign affairs, which will be more appropriately noticed when

referring to those departments of the history of the year.

On the 8th of August parliament was prorogued, and the legislative

history of 1851 terminated.

[Illustration: 802.jpg GREAT EXHIBITION]

EXHIBITION OF THE INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS.

Among the home incidents of the year none excited more general interest

than “the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations,” which

was opened on the 1st of May. During 1850 public expectation had been

intensely directed to it. The patronage of the queen, and the active

assistance as well as patronage of her consort, threw a halo of

respectability and popularity around the undertaking. The design was

to erect a large temporary building, into which might be brought, in an

honourable and peaceful rivalry, specimens of the manufacture and art of

all nations. The site selected for the building was Hyde Park, near the

Prince’s Gate. Mr. Paxton (afterwards Sir Joseph Paxton), gardener to

the Duke of Devonshire, devised a plan for erecting the building of

glass—a bold and novel scheme, which resulted in a structure elegant

and useful. Mr. Fox (afterwards Sir Charles) was the principal

contractor. All concerned worked with zeal and skill, and their task was

brought to a satisfactory termination. The building was a parallelogram,

1,848 feet long by 408 feet wide. The distribution of the articles

sent for exhibition was upon the principle of giving to each country

a separate compartment in the building, with the exception that all

working machinery was placed together at the north-west end. It would

require a volume to describe the wonderful variety and beauty of the

productions of skill and labour brought together in this Crystal Palace

of industry; nothing equal to it for curious and instructive interest

had ever before been realized. On the 1st of May this fairy fabric was

opened with all the circumstances of pomp which royalty and multitudes

of persons gathered from many nations could present. There were arrivals

from almost every nation; and from Europe and America the numbers were

so great that the vast area of London seemed thronged day by day, and

almost night by night, with crowds. The various national physiognomies

and costumes gave a picturesque effect to the streets and parks, and

especially to the interior and neighbourhood of the building for

the Exhibition on the opening day. Everything connected with its

inauguration was auspicious, and public order was preserved in a

wonderful manner; all men from all nations and peoples seemed earnest to

maintain the harmony and decorum of the happy occasion. Those classes of

English society which made themselves notorious for their hostility

to human progress, and especially to the increase of manufactures in

England, had been opposed to the project of the Exhibition; and had

it not been for the ardour with which the prince, the husband of her

majesty, took up the enterprise, opposition from these classes would

have been far more vigorous and virulent. All the fears of the objectors

to the undertaking proved groundless, and all their vaticinations false;

improvement to the national industry, and social enjoyment of England,

and a happy intercourse with their brethren of many nations were

the results. It was, however, a long time after the Exhibition had

accomplished its good purposes, and the last fragment of its material

was swept away from the site it had occupied, before the murmurs and

objections of the anti-progress classes died away.

THE CENSUS.

This year was remarkable for the accurate knowledge obtained of the

amount of the population, the decennial census having been taken. The

importance of this subject can hardly be overrated. Population, as

we are taught by an inspired instructor, is a leading element in the

prosperity of a nation: “In the multitude of the people is the king’s

honour; but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.”

Only in modern times have we arrived at any enumeration of the people

on competent authority; the estimates of earlier periods are of

comparatively little value. Amidst the scenes of carnage presented in

the first thousand years of our authentic history, the natural growth of

the population was constantly checked, and there were probably periods

when the numbers were greater than just after the desolations produced

by the Roman conquest, at which time the population of Great Britain was

estimated at only 1,700,000 persons. After the desolating wars of the

Roses ended with the accession of Henry VIL, in 1485, to the English

throne, the numbers of the whole of the people in Great Britain were

estimated as only 3,000,000. In the time of Elizabeth they reached

4.000,000, according to a calculation based upon the parish registers.

Mr. Reckman, an authority on this matter, gives the following

estimates:—

Years. Population. Rate of Increase.

1600............ 4,811,700 ............ 15–66

1630............. 5,600,317 ............ 16–38

1670............ 5,773,646 ............ 3–09

1700........... 6,045,608 ............ 4–70

1750........... 6,517,035 ............ 7–51

1760........... 6,479,730 ............ 7–28

1770........... 7,227,586 ............ 11–54

1780........... 7,814,827 ............ 8–12

1790........... 8,540,738 ............ 9–29

1800........... 9,187,176 ............ 7–56

From the last of these periods we have had a census every ten years; the

following are the results:—

Years. Population. Rate of Increase.

1801 ............ 10,267,893 ............

1811 ............ 12,047,455 ............ 14

1821 ............ 15,180,350 ............ 18

1831 ............ 16,364,893 ............ 15

1841 ............ 18,658,372 ............ 14

1851 ............ 20,936,468 ............ 12

It will thus be seen that our people more than doubled their numbers

during the first half of the present century. The population is now

more than twelve times as great as it was immediately after the Roman

conquest. These numbers did not increase in equal proportion over the

face of the whole island. Some of the rural districts have been thinned

by emigration, which had proceeded with great rapidity for some time,

partly to the manufacturing districts, and partly to the colonies and to

the United States of America. The agricultural districts also furnished

the greater proportion of recruits for the army, an average of from

thirty to forty thousand a year. The number of emigrants from the whole

of Great Britain during 1842 amounted to 128,344. The great increase

of population has been in our manufacturing towns, such as Birmingham,

where there were only 73,670 persons in 1801, and 173,081 in 1851;

Sheffield, which in 1736 contained 14,105, had increased to 88,447 in

1851; Manchester, exclusive of Salford, had only 41,032 in 1734, whereas

in 1851 it had 316,213; Liverpool, in 1700, had no more than 5,145

inhabitants, in 1851 it had 375,955. Glasgow three hundred years ago

contained only 4,500 inhabitants, in 1851 its numbers reached 344,986.

The density of the population was found to vary in different parts of

England, and Wales, from as few as eighteen persons in a square mile,

to as many as 185,751 in a similar area. A very curious and interesting

illustration has been furnished of the increased proximity of the

inhabitants, in consequence of the increase of population, during

the present century. A messenger to deliver a thousand letters, at a

thousand houses of average proximity, in 1801, would have to travel

two hundred and six miles; but in 1851 he could perform his work by

travelling only one hundred and forty-three miles. As the people were

no longer serfs of the soil, but free to rove as their interests or

pleasure dictated, a wonderful readiness to change the locality of their

homes had displayed itself during the first half of this century, and

especially the last decade of it. In this way large additions were made

to the population of certain great centres of trade. It was found that

the disposition to settle in London was greatest in the Metropolitan,

Southern, Eastern, and South Midland Counties. The people to the north

of Nottingham, Leicester, &c., were less inclined to live in London.

Their tendency, strengthened by the opportunity of finding employment,

was to resort to the great manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and

Lancashire. The census led incidentally to considerations connected with

the general progress of Great Britain. Its material and social interests

kept pace with its population. It is a law which operates with the

increase of the people, that the increase of the means of supporting

them augments in a superior ratio. The masses realized the advantages

of progressive science and art, the variety of manufacture, division

of labour, freedom of commerce, and freedom of thought. They were in

possession of many luxuries as well as comforts not known even to

noble and royal persons in previous ages of our history. The 3,647,611

inhabited houses of Great Britain, from the palace of the monarch down

to the humble dwelling of the cottager, presented a striking contrast to

the miserable hovels of the poor, and the inconvenient magnificence

of the great, in the bygone periods of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman

history, and of the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts. Great

improvements had began in the domiciles of the lower classes; in the

sanitary condition of cities and towns: and in draining, lighting, and

paving. The progress of the arts and manufactures in Great Britain

had been then very great. Coal and iron, which lie at the base of

our manufacturing industry, were appreciated, and had reached a great

production. Until 1740 wood only had been used for the smelting of iron;

after that year coal was applied successfully. In 1788 the produce was

several thousand tons; in. 1800 it was one hundred and eighty thousand;

in 1851 it reached the enormous amount of two millions and a half. Iron

and steel were brought into use for the most excellent tools, as well

as for the works in which they have been employed. This branch of

improvement made a remarkable progress, little known beyond the circles

of men of science and artizans. It has been correctly observed that the

calculating machine of Mr. Babbage could not have been executed by

means of the imperfect tools which were formerly in the hands of our

machinists. We are indebted to the efforts made for the completion of

that apparatus for some of the most beautiful tools.

The marvellous increase of our cotton, woollen, and silk manufactures,

more especially, strikingly illustrate the general law of material

progress with the increase of population. To give the details of these

statistics would be entering upon a subject too extensive for our

limits, but the reader would find them an interesting accompaniment to

the population reports of 1851.

IRELAND.

The year 1851 was singularly free from agitation in Ireland; still the

social condition of that country was not free from its usual elements of

disturbance. The papal scheme for establishing a territorial hierarchy

in England, caused in Ireland an extraordinary degree of exultation.

Addresses from the altars, and through the columns of the press,

testified the sacerdotal enthusiasm that the event enkindled. The

opposition of Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and others—who either

openly espoused Puseyism or had an inclination towards its dogmas—to

the ecclesiastical titles bill greatly encouraged the priest party

in Ireland. Yet the Irish and English Roman Catholic laity had little

sympathy. O’Connell had often publicly declared that the aristocratic

predilections of the English Roman Catholic gentry, and their prejudice

against the Irish people, of all sects and parties, made them a dead

weight upon the Roman Catholic cause, to which his party tact and _ad

captandum_ oratory had given buoyancy. He had thoroughly indoctrinated

the Irish Roman Catholic laity, and even the older clergy, with

this view. The younger members of the priesthood were so thoroughly

ultramontane, that they, without counteracting Mr. O’Connell’s

statements and opinions on this subject, at least publicly, gave way to

the wildest hopes and aspirations of papal ascendancy in England,

and ultimately, through English instrumentality, in the colonies. The

ecclesiastical titles bill called forth the most malignant denunciations

of Lord John Russell, politically and personally; the house of Bedford

was singled out from the aristocracy of England for vehement abuse; a

wild controversy raged through the land; sermons against Protestantism,

remarkable for the absence of all argument such as the Roman Catholic

priests of the old school prided themselves on using, and pervaded by a

fierce fanaticism, were delivered throughout the country; and all reply

on the part of Protestant clergymen were treated not as theological

arguments, but as insults, which disturbed the public peace, and

constituted a peculiar “Catholic grievance.” Many Protestants in Ireland

countenanced this feeling; controversy and proselyteism, on the part of

the Church of Rome, were by such Protestants held up as a proof of

Roman Catholic zeal. Controversy and proselyteism on the part of the

Protestant clergy were denounced as proofs of clerical imprudence,

an attack on the “rights” of Roman Catholics, and a proof of some

connection, open or covert, with Orangemen. This description of feeling

amongst certain classes of Protestants in the higher ranks in England

and Ireland was fashionable, but the honest zeal of the middle and

poorer classes of Protestants restrained its manifestation. The columns

of the Roman Catholic newspapers, and the sermons of the priests,

during 1851, in Ireland, furnished extraordinary specimens of vindictive

fanaticism.

Although public disturbances and assassinations were less common in 1851

than was usual in Ireland, there were some heartless proofs of class and

religious animosity. In the month of July a singular trial took

place evincing this. A gentleman named Smyth, of landed property, and

considerable influence in his county, was, with one Helier, put upon his

trial for the murder of his own mother, for the purpose of inheriting

her property. Witnesses were called who swore to complicity, or a

knowledge of complicity on the part of others, in a conspiracy, in which

Mr. Blood Smyth was the moving person, for the murder of his mother.

The evidence of these persons revealed a state of moral feeling, in

the south of Ireland, among the peasant and low farmer class, perfectly

atrocious. The result of the trial was, that the clearest proof was

obtained that the deceased lady had died a natural death; that no

attempt to murder her had ever been made; that the alleged criminals had

really no motive for such a crime; that they were innocent, and that the

accusation was the fruit of a conspiracy among dismissed servants and

tenants of the accused, in order to be revenged upon him. The family of

the accused were considered over zealous Protestants, and this formed

an additional incitement to combine for the purpose of a legal

assassination more cruel and terrible than if he had, like so many

other Irish gentlemen, been shot down upon the public road. The latter

terrible fate befell Mr. E. White, of Abbeleix, for asserting his right

to some peat land which he had purchased. This circumstance offended

the “Ribband” men, who in open day lodged a bullet in his heart, in a

populous neighbourhood. The murderers were well known, but the populace

sympathised with them. In the north of Ireland several gentlemen and men

of humble note fell victims to the weapons of the “Ribband” assassins,

under circumstances plainly indicating the complicity of the great mass

of the peasantry of the Roman Catholic communion. Mr. Bateson, brother

of Sir Robert Bateson, was beaten to death with bludgeons on the road

near Castle Blayney. Men were arrested against whom the strongest proofs

of guilt were produced, but the jury refused to convict. The difficulty

of obtaining Roman Catholic members of juries to convict in Ribband

cases, even upon the clearest evidence, greatly impeded the course of

justice in Ireland. Mr. Eastwood, a magistrate, and deputy-lieutenant

of a county, incurred a fate similar to that of Mr. Bateson. It was

generally felt by the peaceable and loyal in Ireland, and by the people

of England generally, that justice was not scrupulously administered

by the whig party in Ireland. Anxious to preserve their majority by the

votes of the Irish Roman Catholic members, and of latitudinarian members

who represented Roman Catholic constituencies, the Whigs were unwilling

to do anything, however called for by equity or imperial policy, which

offended the popular party in Ireland, unless a _quid pro quo_ were

attainable in increased English support. The ecclesiastical titles bill,

however imperfect (designedly so), secured an amount of British support

which more than balanced any loss of Irish members; but in Ireland the

priest party were coaxed by the Whigs, and concessions made to them

unworthy the dignity of imperial administration. The whig government in

Ireland was utterly unprincipled and corrupt. At the close of the year a

great law case established that in a singular manner. The case is given

in law reports as Birch _versus_ Somerville, Bart. Birch was a Dublin

newspaper proprietor; Somerville, Bart., the Irish secretary. The action

was for £7,000 “for work and labour done.” The work and labour was the

support of the whig government in _The World_ newspaper, in a mode and

for ends utterly disreputable. The Earl of Clarendon, Lord-lieutenant of

Ireland, and Sir W. Somerville, personally prompted this Birch, whose

paper had an infamous reputation. These high officers of state disposed

of the public money, and it may be also their own, to bribe this Birch.

The Earl of Clarendon was examined, and admitted that Birch had been

in his pay for years to support law and order; and acknowledged that

independent of the money given to Birch in Ireland, he had also received

money in London for the same object. The moral effect of this trial was

so damaging to the government of Lord Clarendon, that it lost all

hold upon the support of the respectable classes in Ireland. Lord

Naas subsequently brought the subject under the notice of the House of

Commons, when its damaging effects upon the existence of the Russell

ministry was such as would probably have led to its downfall,

irrespective of all casual circumstances or internal feuds.

The census of Ireland, taken this year, revealed the following facts as

compared with 1841. In the metropolitan province of Leinster, in 1841,

the number of houses was 320,051; a diminution had taken place of

considerably more than 40,000 houses—the number being 277,552. The

reduction in the number of families was nearly the same, from 362,134

to 321,991. The population was lessened from 1,973,731 to 1,667,771.

The reduction in the other provinces was even greater in proportion;

so that, in all Ireland, the number of houses was decreased, within the

decade, from 1,384,360 to 1,115,007; and the population from 8,175,124

to 6,515,794; a decrease of more than twenty per cent.—the total

decrease being 1,659,330.

With a population of more than six millions and a half, a fertile

soil, and temperate climate, it was felt that Ireland ought to become

a powerful and prosperous country. Belgium, Holland, Portugal,

Switzerland, all the different states of Italy, Germany, and

Scandinavia, were inferior to Ireland in the number of inhabitants and

in national resources. Good government, and good conduct on the part of

the people, it was generally believed, would develop the country to a

condition of prosperity rivalling that of most other lands.

[Illustration: 805.jpg THE GRASS MARKET EDINBOROUGH]

THE COURT.