The incidents of the year affecting royalty were few. On the 27th of

August her majesty, consort, and several of the royal children, left

the marine residence at Osborne, Isle of Wight, for Balmoral, in

the Scottish Highlands. The royal progress was marked by the usual

manifestations of loyalty. On the 7th of October the court left

Balmoral. Two accidents occurred on the railway to the train in which

her majesty travelled; the first on the journey to Edinburgh, when,

after leaving Forfar, the axle of a carriage-truck became heated by

friction, and some delay occurred, which caused alarm at Edinburgh. It

gratified the inhabitants of the Scottish capital that her majesty and

suite took up their brief abode at Holyrood Palace. Between Glasgow and

Edinburgh, while the train was driven at the rate of thirty miles an

hour, one of the feeding pipes from the tender to the engine burst with

a loud explosion; the train was obscured in steam, and came to a stand

at Kirkliston, where it was obliged to remain until assistance arrived

from Edinburgh. During these accidents the composure and courage of the

queen struck all observers with astonishment. It had been arranged that

Liverpool should be visited by the royal travellers; and a magnificent

reception was prepared for them. Her majesty was not, however, favoured

upon the occasion with that beautiful weather which generally smiles

upon her voyages, journeys and public appearances in her great cities.

One of the most gloomy and rainy days ever known at Liverpool frowned

upon the loyal efforts of its inhabitants. This did not repress their

enthusiasm. A vast concourse filled the streets, and made the most

hearty demonstrations of welcome to their queen. From Liverpool the

court proceeded to Worsley Hall, the mansion of the Earl of Ellesmere.

This was probably, the most remarkable of all her majesty’s previous

journeys. The queen and suite embarked at Liverpool, in barges, and

proceeded by the Bridgewater Canal to Worsley. While at Worsley, only a

few miles from Manchester, her majesty paid a visit to that great city.

On no occasion, even in the metropolis, was so vast a multitude of

persons collected to see the queen; and, probably, on no occasion was

she ever welcomed in a provincial city with so prodigal an expenditure

and splendid a display of loyalty. Manchester and Salford were

both traversed in their great principal thoroughfares by the royal

procession, attended with military pomp, and many persons of very great

eminence in the nation were in her suite. The profuse expenditure,

displayed in flags and decorations, attracted the notice of the royal

lady so much, that she expressed her regret that the citizens of

Manchester should have gone to so great an expense on her account.

A large public pleasure-ground in Salford, set apart by public

subscriptions for the recreation of the people, and designated Peel

Park, in honour of the free-trade champion, lay in the route taken by

the royal _cortège_. In that park one of the most extraordinary fights

was presented to her majesty ever witnessed by a monarch—eighty

thousand Sunday-school children, of all religious denominations, were

assembled to see their queen. The bringing together of such a mass

of young persons, and the arrangements for placing them in a proper

position to see and to be seen, was a work of anxiety and toil of which

those only can form a conception who took part in it. Much of the credit

of the occasion was due to the late Robert Needham, Esq., solicitor, of

Manchester, who, with extraordinary toil, from the effects of which he

never recovered, arranged and carried out the vast work. The writer

of this history was present on the occasion, and can never forget the

spectacle, which partook of the sublime and the affecting. Together with

the vast host of children, dressed in holiday array, and with the fair

and open countenances for which the children of Saxon Lancashire are

remarkable, there were their teachers and ministers, and in the rear a

vast multitude consisting of the parents and friends of these children,

and of the religious congregations whose zeal and liberality provided

instruction for their juvenile charge. There were fourteen tiers of

galleries around the chief carriage-way of the park. These tiers were so

arranged that the _cortège_, passing along the road, could see at once

the whole array, and the children from every tier see the queen and her

attendants. As her majesty entered the park, the whole host raised their

voices and began the national anthem. For a few moments the effect was

sublime; it was, however, only during the first verse. The boys of the

Irish Roman Catholic schools burst the limitations of their orders, and

of their positions, and raised a tumultuous shout, which was caught

up in an instant by the other children, and almost as soon by the vast

multitudes who filled the park. The author of these pages has witnessed

many public entries of royal persons into great cities, and many,

especially, in the great metropolis of these islands, but never were

sounds or scenes presented to his senses so imposing and inspiring as on

that occasion. The queen was evidently much affected, and the great

Duke of Wellington, who was in her suite, and was an object of nearly as

hearty demonstrations as even her majesty, showed emotion, and was heard

to say that he had never witnessed so interesting a scene. The young

members of the royal household were naturally objects of intense

interest to the multitude of children, and they, by their greetings

and eager expression of countenance, showed how much they felt the

excitement which such a multitude of young persons was calculated to

inspire in princes and princesses of their own age. Probably, when many

more years have run their course, and some of these royal children shall

sit on thrones, they will remember a lesson profitable to royalty—the

loyal spirit of the juvenile population of Manchester, and of all that

population, in the year 1851. Doubtless the same virtues which, on

the part of their royal parents, commanded respect and affection, will

characterise those scions of the royal house of England, who already

tread with early, but no uncertain step, the path of honour and goodness

in which their queenly exemplar and teacher has conducted them. The

great Manchester demonstration was followed by illuminations so general

and so costly that her majesty and her suite were represented as taking

an interest in them, such as pyrotechnical displays did not usually

excite. From Worsley the queen and a portion of her suite proceeded to

Windsor.

On the 18th of November the court received, by electric telegraph,

intelligence of the death of the King of Hanover, her majesty’s uncle,

in the 81st year of his age. He had never been regarded as kind to her

majesty when Princess Victoria; and had been by far the most unpopular

prince in the family of George III. A considerable party among the

Tories, both in England and Ireland, gave rather open expression to

their desire that the Duke of Cumberland (King of Hanover), rather than

the rightful claimant, the Princess Victoria, should come to the throne

on the decease of William IV. Great indignation was excited at the time

by the supposed existence of a conspiracy to effect this object, for

the success of which there could have been no hope, so thorough was the

detestation of the people to the Duke of Cumberland, and so generous

their recollections of the Duke of Kent, and their feeling to his only

child—their rightful sovereign. Whatever might have been the feeling

of her majesty on these matters, she commanded the court to go into

mourning upon her uncle’s decease.

COLONIAL AFFAIRS.

_The Cape of Good Hope_.—The earliest important events of the year

connected with our colonial empire occurred in the Cape settlements.

During the autumn and winter of the previous year the governor, Sir

Harry Smith, suppressed all indications of rebellion, deposed the

chief, Sandilia, and proclaimed his mother sutee in his stead. Sandilia,

however, prowled about the English borders making incursions for

plunder. Sir Harry directed a column, six hundred strong, under the

command of Colonel Mackinnon, to disperse the marauders. That officer

committed the error so common on the part of British commanders—he

marched without flanking parties, or an advanced guard, except a party

of Caffre police, who of course led him into an ambuscade, at the

expense of a number of officers and men killed and wounded. This success

on the part of the savages led to a general rising of the tribes,

especially the brave and cruel Gaikas; the English colonists lost much

property and many lives. No adequate means had been adopted either by

the government or colonists to guard against the deceit common among

uncivilized races. Sir Harry Smith, and the troops which he commanded,

were in imminent peril at Fort Cox. By the beginning of the year 1851

the Caffres had penetrated to the very heart of the colony. Sir Harry

Smith escaped from Fort Cox, at the head of a flying escort, to King

William’s Town, where he established his head-quarters throughout the

war. On the 21st of January the first general action was fought at Fort

Hare and the Fingo village of Abee. The Caffres were the assailants,

and numbered about six thousand men. There were two 24–pounders in

Fort Hare, and their fire drove back the aggressors, who had suffered

severely during their repeated assaults. The garrison made a sortie at

a moment of confusion in the Caffre ranks, caused by the havoc of the

guns; the sortie was successful, but not until after a fierce conflict

at close quarters. The force at Sir Harry Smith’s command was totally

inadequate to suppress such an insurrection, unless, indeed, by singular

good fortune, and with most severe loss. The Hottentots, encouraged by

the success of the Caffres, burst into sudden rebellion, and committed

numerous murders upon the settlers, as well as inflicting loss upon the

armed bands of loyalists, and troops, with whom constant skirmishes

were maintained. The natives in the English pay, even the Cape Mounted

Rifles, deserted in great numbers, and strove earnestly to organize

Caffres and Hottentots for more effective war. Colonel Somerset, now

promoted to the rank of major-general, succeeded in coming upon the main

force of the Hottentots with two columns of British, one six hundred and

the other three hundred strong. The general committed precisely the same

errors, and in the same manner, as Lord Clyde and his lieutenants

in India, in the mutiny of 1857, afterwards made the English nation

accustomed to expect from British officers—the stronghold of the

Hottentots was so carelessly invested that they escaped, and the war,

which, so far as they were concerned, might have been terminated, was

consequently prolonged. In various actions which took place the Caffres

and Hottentots fought well; the Fingoes, the allies of the British,

fought indifferently. The English suffered from successful ambushes on

the part of the enemy, and from being badly supplied with ammunition.

Colonel Fordyce, who was very active, but not always successful, in

command of separate columns under the orders of General Somerset, was

killed, and many brave officers and men fell.

On the 31st of October a draft of a constitution for the colony,

dispatched by Earl Grey, arrived at Cape Town. It was transmitted to the

Cape for the approval of the legislative council, in order eventually,

by the queen’s sanction, to become law. According to that document the

parliament of the colony was to consist of the governor, the legislative

council, and a house of assembly. The legislative council was to be

elective, the members retiring by rotation at intervals of five years,

until ten years had expired, when the members should hold their places

in the council for ten years. The house of assembly to consist of

members elected for five years. The franchise to be possessed by

occupiers of tenements of the value of £25. The sessions were to be

annual. The colonists received this constitution with unbounded joy, and

petitioned the queen to grant this as the charter of the colony, without

any reference to the legislative council then existing, in which the

petition declared that the people had no confidence. The granting of a

constitution to the Cape was the result of the energetic requests of the

colonists, their dissatisfaction with the administration of Earl Grey in

the colonial office in London, and the demands of the English House of

Commons: the matter was also expedited by the enormous charges for the

Caffre war upon the imperial exchequer, which the English government

and parliament were anxious to escape; the readiest and safest mode of

accomplishing which the House of Commons declared was by granting to the

colonists self-government. Lord Derby, regretting the liberty conceded

to the colonists, threw obstacles in the way of the measure, but, by a

very small majority, he was defeated in the House of Lords.

The rebellion at the Cape of Good Hope was prolonged during the opening

months of 1851, and finally died out from the exhaustion of the enemy,

in the presence of reinforcements of British troops. As tidings of its

progress arrived in England, they occasioned grave discussions in the

press, and party debates in parliament.

The Cape of Good Hope alone, of all the British colonies, was a source

of public anxiety during the year 1851. India, so often the field of

conflict, triumph, and disaster, afforded comparatively few incidents of

great public interest suited to the records of a general history. Peace,

loyalty, material development, and prosperity characterised the colonial

chronicle of the year.

_Discovery of Gold in Australia_.—In September news reached England of

the discovery of gold fields at Bathurst, in New South Wales. Before

the close of the year intelligence was received in England of fresh

discoveries; these were in Victoria. The immediate consequence of the

gold discoveries was disadvantageous to the colonies, as men of

all trades and professions forsook their callings to repair to the

“diggings,” and the shepherds abandoned their flocks, so that hundreds

of thousands of stock were lost, or perished. The ultimate effect upon

British Australia was, however, most prosperous—several of the colonies

of that vast region becoming enriched with mineral wealth. Although the

public announcement of the treasures contained in the mineral resources

of certain of the Australian settlements was made at the period above

referred to, it was known to the authorities many years previously that

gold might be obtained, but, under the influence of a false policy, the

fact was concealed.

_Hostility of the Arabs at Aden_.—The British settlement at Aden,

important because of the command of the Arabian Sea, which it enabled

the English to maintain, suffered this year in various ways. The station

was most sickly, and the Europeans, and Bombay sepoys, in garrison, were

alike exposed to heavy mortality. The Arabs resorted to violence and

assassination; British officers were murdered if they strayed beyond the

limits of the garrison. The crews of British merchantmen on the coast

were attacked, and some wrecked mariners were massacred.

The Mohammedan populations of the British empire showed indications

of intense irritability against the English, and, indeed, everywhere

amongst Mohammedans, animosity to Europeans appeared to increase.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS—EUROPEAN RELATIONS.

_France_.—The relations of the United Kingdom with France, are not only

more important in themselves than those which the former sustains with

any other nation, but they influence the whole foreign policy of

the British government. France is ascendant upon the continent

notwithstanding the rivalry of Russia, and the policy of France often

complicates the relations of England with other powers. This has arisen

frequently from national jealousy, and as frequently from the sudden and

extreme changes to which the government of France is liable in its form

and principles. The revolution of 1848 brought France morally nearer to

England. Louis Philippe had much difficulty in holding in rein the war

spirit, which for, his own selfish and crooked policy, he had himself

evoked. After that corrupt prince was driven from the throne by the

people he had betrayed, a friendly feeling sprung up towards England.

The moderate republican party regarded Great Britain as a land of

freedom, and the natural ally of France. That party, however, maintained

its ascendancy but for a short time. The Napoleonists, red republicans,

priests, and peasants, united in the support of Charles Louis Napoleon

Buonaparte. He was elected president of the republic, and 1851

witnessed, through his instrumentality, events of great magnitude, and

which exercised potent influence upon the public mind and policy of

England.

There can be no doubt that from the hour Louis Napoleon took his place

in the National Assembly he had resolved, by the aid of the partizans

of his name, the priests, and their agents connected with the press, to

undermine the assembly, and hold it up to the ridicule and resentment of

the country. The hostility of that body to universal suffrage, and the

advocacy of that political theory by the Buonapartists, gave to the

president of the French republic a popularity with the “reds,” which

otherwise he never could have obtained.

In the latter part of 1850, a great review of troops took place at

Sartory, during which cries, from many of the soldiers, of “Vive

l’Empereur” were heard, and were encouraged by the generals in the

Buonapartist interest. Some officers who repressed those exclamations,

and others who refused to join in them, were dismissed by Louis

Napoleon’s executive. These circumstances raised formidable debates in

the assembly, and afterwards led to votes and demonstrations hostile to

Louis Napoleon. On the other hand a large number of the representatives,

who were indebted for their return chiefly to the priesthood, and what

remained of a landed aristocracy, used every instrumentality they could

bring into requisition to damage the executive, to lower the authority

of the president, and to create a monarchical reaction. While they

brought forth as a crime the fact that the soldiers had cried “Vive

l’Empereur” they took every opportunity themselves to utter the party

shouts of “Vivent les Bourbons!” or “Vivent les Orleans!” A singular

circumstance exhibited the efforts of a large proportion of the

assembly to bring about a monarchical reaction. During the prorogation a

permanent committee was formed, in which a small minority of republicans

was placed by the votes of the assembly. There were twelve reactionists;

these men were found to be in constant communication with the two

branches of the exiled Bourbons. Six of them spent most of the time

of the prorogation at Wiesbaden, with the _pseudo_. court of the elder

Bourbon branch; the other six went to England, and were constantly at

Claremont with the Orleanist branch of the exregal house. As M. Flaudin

taunted these sections of the assembly with desiring, they really

purposed that Louis Napoleon should be a _president fainéant_, while yet

permitted to retain the nominal functions of government. Louis Napoleon

strengthened himself by a new ministry, in which the assembly, by a

large majority, declared its want of confidence. M. Montalembert and

some others, who were expected to vote on the side of the opposition,

voted with the Buonapartists. This made it evident that a strong

party among the priesthood deemed it the best policy to support Louis

Napoleon, as the friend of the pope’s temporal power at Rome, and of the

Roman Catholic religion in France. A very large number of the priests,

and of the lay devotees, refused to trust Louis Napoleon as a friend of

the church. They did not forget that his first public act, on arriving

at the estate of manhood, was to create, or at all events aid in

council, and in the field, an insurrection against the pope. Neither did

they forget that, although a French army garrisoned Rome, to support the

pope under the auspices of the president of the French republic, that

the president in his less fortunate days had animadverted in severe

terms upon the education and patriotism of the Roman Catholic clergy of

France. He had in one of his works drawn invidious comparisons between

them and the German clergy, much to the disadvantage of the former. The

following was especially quoted by that section of the French clergy

and laity who were unwilling to give the president a warm support:—“The

clergy will cease to be ultramontane when they shall be obliged, as

formerly, to distinguish themselves by learning, and to obtain their

education from the same sources as the generality of’ citizens. Southern

Germany, without contradiction, is the country in which the Roman

Catholic clergy are the best instructed, the most tolerant, and the

most liberal; and why are they so? Because the young men who in Germany

destine themselves to the priesthood, learn theology in common with

students destined for other professions. Instead of being from infancy

sequestered from the world, and obtaining in ecclesiastical seminaries

a spirit hostile to the society in the midst of which they have to live,

they learn at an early age to be citizens, before being priests. The

consequence is that the German Catholic clergy are distinguished by

great enlightenment and ardent patriotism. There are no sacrifices

which they are not ready to make for the triumph of liberty, and for

the independence of Germany. In their eyes to be a priest is to teach

morality and charity; is to make common cause with all the oppressed; to

preach justice and toleration; to predict the reign of equality; and to

teach men that political redemption must follow religious liberty. Let

the education of the clergy be the same in France as it is in Germany,

and it will produce the same results. By the union of priests and laymen

there will be a double action which will be favourable to society;

priests will become citizens, and citizens will become more religious.

Then—but then only—we shall be happy to see, as in Germany, the

ministers of religion at the head of education, teaching youth the

morality of Christ, which destroyed slavery, taught men, that they are

equal, and impressed on them that God has placed in their hearts

faith and love, in order to believe in what is right, and to love one

another.”*

* “Complete Works of the Emperor Napoleon III.,” vol. ii.

Chapter on “The Clergy and the State.”

The espousal of the president’s cause by M. Montalembert, then

recognised as the lay leader of the ultramontane party, decided many

waverers, notwithstanding their affection for the elder Bourbons, and

their horror of such liberal enunciations by Louis Napoleon.

When the president’s ministry of favourites was turned out by the vote

of the assembly, he resorted to the extraordinary measure of forming a

ministry of men who had no votes in that body. This he alleged was only

a provisional ministry, but the assembly did not place faith in these

assurances, and offered it every opposition. The new ministry

were allowed to sit in the assembly as ministers, to answer any

interpellations, or make any statements connected with their offices.

This ministry remained in office until the 11th of April, when it gave

place to that which it had provisionally succeeded, and which in its

turn encountered the opposition of the assembly.

During the months of April and May petitions were got up in Paris, and

the provinces, in favour of a revision in the constitution Of 1848. On

the 28th of May the assembly was entitled, by its original constitution,

to entertain the question of a general revision of the constitution

of the state, but no alteration could take place unless approved by

three-fourths of the entire votes. Motions for an alteration in the

constitution were made by the Buonapartists, and supported in various

details by the monarchists of both branches of the Bourbons. The great

aim of these parties was the prolongation of the president’s official

term, and the enacting of laws to prohibit and punish public banquets

and public meetings of a political nature. For this purpose, and for

any purpose of repression (as he had said in a speech at Djion), the

assembly was always ready to respond to the demands of the president

of the republic. Although so ready to uphold the ministry in their

repressive measures there was a determination in the assembly to

frustrate their power as the ministry of Louis Napoleon. This they soon

effected by a formal vote of censure, for using improper influence in

order to obtain from the provinces, through the medium of the public

functionaries, petitions for a revision of the constitution.

The new ministry was still in the interest of the president of the

republic. The assembly, which had been prorogued on the 10th of August,

recommenced its duties on the 4th of November. Business began by a long

“message” presented in the name of the president of the republic, the

main feature of which, and that which excited most attention in the

assembly, and in France, was a proposal to abolish the electoral law of

the 31st of May, 1850, and to re-establish the electoral law of the 15th

of March, 1849. The last named provided that all citizens of age, who

have resided six months in the commune were electors. The law of May,

1850, abolished universal suffrage. That act of the legislature was

a revolution; the assembly by passing it virtually abolished the

constitution, which could be only legitimate as the act of a constituent

assembly. The assembly was to a large extent elected under the influence

of the priests, who struggled incessantly to accomplish a reactionary

policy. From the moment that universal suffrage was abolished, the

great mass of the people abetted the pretensions of the president of the

republic, whose writings had always advocated universal suffrage. Thus

the assembly secured the ascendancy of Louis Napoleon by the very

means which they believed most efficacious in thwarting his power and

restoring that of the Bourbons. When the reading of the message of the

president of the republic terminated, the assembly presented a scene

of strange agitation, which was rendered still more intense when the

minister by whom the message was read, M. Thurigny, demanded “urgency.”

A violent discussion ensued upon this demand. The discussion took its

tone from the known ambition of Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, and his open

attempts to tamper with the army. To prevent a _coup d’état_, of which

many became apprehensive, the assembly began a struggle to obtain more

direct power over the troops. A _projet de loi_ was brought forward by

the questors to that effect. The ministry and the Buonapartists demanded

that the sole power over the army should be vested in the chief of the

state—the president of the republic, and not in the president of the

legislative assembly. General St. Arnaud, afterwards commander-inchief

of the French army in the Crimea, was foremost in the interest of Louis

Napoleon. It would be difficult to say which of the two parties, that

consisting of the Buonapartists and the executive on the one hand,

or the majority of the assembly on the other, was the more

unconstitutional, faithless, and ambitious. The allegation of M.

Cremieux was true, “the majority of the assembly had no great attachment

to the republic. It incessantly invoked the constitution, which it every

day trampled under foot. The assembly was afraid because it did not feel

behind it that force which supported assemblies.” The assembly voted

against the government by a large majority. The conflict between

that body and the executive increased from day to day. Both parties

contemplated a _coup d’etat_, and each proceeded to its execution

characteristically. The assembly prepared a bill, the real object

of which was to facilitate the impeachment of the president of the

republic. Numerous causes for impeachment were provided, such as the

president taking command of the armed force in person, inciting his

own re-election to the presidency, or attempting to change the form of

government. The most serious provision of this _projet de loi_, was

that whenever the president of the republic was accused, “_the accused

immediately ceases his functions_.” By the introduction of this project

things were brought to a pass, between the assembly and the president of

the republic, in which the power of one or other must perish. If Louis

Napoleon permitted the project to become law his personal destruction

would be effected by the legitimist majority. If he were not re-elected

president of the republic, and descended into private life, he would

be politically ruined, for he was heavily in debt, and no pecuniary

resources were at his disposal sufficient for his maintenance as a

public man. Then or never must he make some bold and comprehensive

movement to countervail the majority of the assembly. The issue of this

conflict has been presented by the author, in another of his works, with

such brevity, that he cannot hope to offer a more complete condensation.

It was as follows:—“On the 1st of December a proclamation was put

forth dissolving the assembly, and calling upon the people by universal

suffrage to accept a government identical with the scheme of Napoleon

I. when first consul. The proclamation made known the desire of the

president to surrender his position into the hands of the people, or

to accept the headship of a new government on the plan he proposed, and

resting on universal suffrage. These proclamations were posted on all

the walls of Paris by dawn of the 2nd of December; all the leading

men of the assembly were arrested; Paris was filled with troops. After

struggles on the part of the assembly, and many casualties in the

streets, the eventful day of the 2nd of December wore away. On the 3rd

the people awoke from the stupefaction with which the suddenness of the

_coup_ struck them, and preparations were made by the republicans and

red republicans for resistance. On the 4th that resistance was offered;

barricades were erected, and every token of a fierce contest quickened

into life. Whenever an opportunity occurred, the soldiery were

assassinated, and the military retaliated with savage vengeance.

Men, women, and children were swept from the streets by discharges of

musketry and grape. By the night of the 4th, the conflict was over.

The president ruled all things. The ‘ticket’ put to the electors was

as follows:—‘The French people wills the maintenance of Louis Napoleon

Buonaparte’s authority, and delegates to him the powers necessary to

frame a constitution on the basis of his proclamation of the 2nd of

December.’ This was to be carried by a simple affirmative or negative

by all Frenchmen twenty-one years of age, in possession of their civil

rights. On the 20th and 21st of December the ballot took place, and

the result was that more than eight millions of men voted in the

affirmative. The votes of the army were taken separately. The army

in France voted almost unanimously for Buonaparte; in Algiers a

large majority was against him. Before twelve months the empire was

proclaimed.”*

* Nolan’s “History of the War against Russia,” vol. ii.,

chap, lxxvii. J. S, Virtue, City Road.

Events of domestic interest to France have been treated at this length

under the head of our own foreign relations, because upon the event just

related turned the European policy of England during many years. The

closing events of 1851, in France, influence materially the foreign

relations, and even the domestic policy, of England, while these sheets

are passing through the press, at the close of 1859. Eight years have

rolled away, and yet the power of Louis Napoleon in France, achieved by

the revolution which he effected by the _coup d’état_ of 1851, was the

hinge upon which turned the foreign policy of the United Kingdom, even

in 1860, not only in Europe, but in Asia, not only in the eastern but in

the western hemisphere.

When the tidings arrived in England of the strange, sudden, and daring

occurrences at Paris, men’s minds were greatly agitated. A conflict of

opinion arose in parliament and throughout the nation. Some regarded

the _coup d’état_ as Montalembert regarded it in 1859, as a violation of

conscience, a treason, a perjury, a sanguinary violation of the rights

of the French people; others deemed it an advantage gained by order, and

even freedom, over anarchy and the despotism of red republicanism;

they spoke of it as Montalembert did in 1851, when he addressed his

countrymen, and told them that “to vote against Louis Napoleon would be

to declare in favour of the socialist revolution, the only thing which

can at present succeed the existing government.” It will, however,

belong to other chapters of this history to depict the effect upon

English affairs, and English public opinion, of the policy and power of

him who seized the reins of government, in France, with a hand as daring

as that of his renowned uncle.

DISCUSSIONS IN THE ENGLISH PARLIAMENT CONCERNING THE STATE OF AFFAIRS AT

NAPLES.

Throughout the year 1851 the state of the kingdom of Naples attracted

the attention of the civilized world, but made most impression in

England. The King of Naples was a bigot and a tyrant, a man of obstinate

will, and he exhibited a fierce hatred to both civil and religious

liberty. During the European struggle for freedom, in 1848, he swore to

give a constitution to his subjects, and to observe it for ever.

Utterly faithless in his own character, he violated his oath when the

opportunity of power permitted. The description Milton gives as

the probable result of restoring Satan and his fallen host to their

primitive glory, on professions of repentance, depicts the actual

conduct of the Neapolitan Bourbon when he attained to power, after being

spared by his subjects the humiliation so generally the lot of European

princes in the great year of revolutions—

“Height would recall high thought, and ease recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void.”

A pamphlet, written by Mr. Gladstone, roused intelligent persons in

England, and in Europe generally, to the atrocities perpetrated upon

virtuous, loyal, and even illustrious subjects, in sheer wantonness

of power, by the Neapolitan king. Lord Palmerston, then at the head of

foreign affairs, sent a copy of the pamphlet to the English minister at

every court of Europe, with the design of calling the attention of all

civilized nations to the oppression with which the people of the kingdom

of Naples were overwhelmed by their perjurious prince. This announcement

was received by enthusiastic cheers in the House of Commons. Lord

Palmerston, however, was disappointed in his expectation that the

moral influence of Europe would be brought to bear upon the Neapolitan

government, in favour of humanity. Some of the European states upheld

the conduct of the King of Naples, and the pope especially lent him his

moral support, although twenty thousand citizens of the kingdom of

the Two Sicilies were incarcerated for expressing liberal opinions, or

demanding the institutions which the king had sworn to respect. Thus

supported by the despotic states, and the sovereign pontiff, he bid

defiance to the constitutional states of Europe, and even increased the

cruelties of his stern absolutism.

DIPLOMATIC DISPUTE WITH AUSTRIA AND TUSCANY, ARISING FROM AN OUTRAGE

UPON A YOUNG ENGLISH GENTLEMAN AT FLORENCE.

It was early in January, 1852, that the tidings arrived in England of

one of the most unprovoked and barbarous outrages ever perpetrated upon

one of her sons, but the event itself occurred in 1851. The events of

this chapter relate to that year, but as the transactions at Florence,

in which England suffered so much humiliation, extended into 1852, it is

proper the narrative should also extend into that year, so far as they

are concerned.

It appears that a young English gentleman, Mr. Erskine Mather, about

nineteen years of age, and his younger brother, Mr. Thomas M. Mather,

about sixteen, had been for some time in Paris, where their parents

had placed them to promote their education. The elder brother being

delicate, had been ordered south as the winter approached. In this

search after health they had a desire, at the same time, to acquire in

the country a knowledge of the language of Italy, and of the art for

which that land is celebrated. They had already spent two or three

months at Nice, and in November had moved down to Genoa, and then on to

Florence, where they meant to reside for the winter; at which place

the injury and insult were inflicted. On the 29th of December Earl

Granville, the foreign minister of England, in writing to the Honourable

P. C. Scarlett, the _charge d’affaires_ at Florence, thus speaks of

these young Englishmen, and the outrage:*—

* From No. 3 Despatch, in Official Documents.

“The story of the young men is so candidly told, and they appear, from

the tenor of another letter which has been shown to me, to be such

well-conditioned and inoffensive persons, that I cannot question the

truth of their statement, or entertain any doubt that a cowardly and

cruel injury has been inflicted on the elder of them.” The following are

the facts of the case as detailed by the young gentleman himself to M.

Salvagnoli, the distinguished Tuscan lawyer, and which were afterwards

confirmed, in every point, by the evidence of Italian and French

witnesses who saw the deed committed.

STATEMENT OF MR. ERSKINE MATHER TO M. SALVAGNOLI.*

* From 2 in No. 13, Official Papers

On the 29th of December, 1851, my brother and I set out to go and

breakfast at a _café_ in the Piazza del Duomo.

Passing by the Piazza San Marco we stopped to look at the band of the

regiment, and other soldiers standing about; after waiting three or four

minutes we passed on, leaving them still there. When we arrived about

the middle of the Via Langa we again heard the music, and, as they were

marching the same way, we walked on their right hand nearly to the end

of the Via Martelli. That street being very narrow, as you are aware,

and at this time rendered more so by a carriage passing along, as our

_café_ was on the other side we were obliged to cross between the band

and the guard, where they had left a space of about forty or fifty feet,

and many other persons were crossing at the same time. While walking arm

in arm with my brother I suddenly received a violent blow on my back,

making me turn short round. I then perceived that it was given by the

officer in advance of the guard, who held in his hand his naked sword,

with the flat edge of which he had struck me.

I asked him somewhat angrily, but without threat or gesticulation, in

the best Italian I knew, why he had struck me, using nearly these words,

“_Perche m’aveti dato questo?_’” While I was speaking to the officer

I was suddenly interrupted by another person, dressed in the Austrian

uniform, who placed himself between the officer and me, at the same time

giving me a blow in the face which drew blood. The blow made me start

and fall back; before I could recover myself I received another cut, on

the head, from the first officer, which stunned me; it passed through my

hat, making a wound nearly three inches and a half in length, and down

to the bone, causing the blood to flow violently.

A short time after I begged my brother to follow the officer, that he

might recognise him; and I was taken to the hospital of Santa Maria

Nuova, where I was obliged to remain three weeks before I could return

home. As it has been said that I used threatening language to the

officer after the first blow, I solemnly assure you that it is utterly

false and without foundation, which the following reasons will prove:—

1st. It is impossible to believe that I could for a single instant

have contemplated an act so full of folly and madness, as alone, and,

unarmed, to threaten a man with his sword in hand, at the head of a

large body of men by whom he was supported.

2nd. If I had contemplated the folly of opposing an officer under such

circumstances, I should have done so by a sudden and instantaneous

blow, and not by taking a position, and thus inviting the irresistible

assailment of so many armed men.

3rd. Another proof that I was not in a menacing attitude, and was not

prepared for any personal attack, is the fact of the second assailant

giving me, without opposition or hindrance, a violent blow on the face.

4th. If I had been in a menacing attitude, or prepared for defence, with

my arm raised, instead of receiving the blow on my head he would have

struck my raised arm.

5th. The wound, which I to this moment bear, was not given, holding

the sword short, near the point, as all the military officers who have

examined it can testify; which proves that I was at a considerable space

from him, only reached by a sword or other weapon: thus he was beyond

any threatening attitude of mine, as I was without sword or arms.

Thus I have proved the absurdity of the assertion that I made any

threatening resistance; equally untrue is the assertion that the blow

was given because wearing a white hat they thought I was a Tuscan. If

the first reason had been sufficient, the other, miserable as it is,

had not been necessary. But all the defence is palpably false,

contradictory, and nothing worth. An untruth defended cannot become

truth. All these facts, without troubling you further, prove the truth

of my statement, which it has been my duty to give you.

I am, &c,

James Ekskine O. Mather.

The British residents and travellers then at Florence were strongly

indignant at so cowardly and unjustifiable an attack on their young

countryman. The British residents were the pride and ornament of the

Tuscan court on days of high ceremony and festival, but on the grand

reception day, the first day of the year, they unanimously intimated

officially that they would mark their dissatisfaction of the disgraceful

assault by abstaining from presenting themselves, without the fullest

investigation and redress were granted. This feeling of indignation

rose so high that it was with difficulty the many young Englishmen at

Florence could be restrained from making an attack upon the officers of

the Croat regiment, Kinsky, amongst whom was Lieutenant Forshalier, the

brutal assailant.

After much negotiation at Florence and Vienna, the British _charge

d’affaires_ was at length informed, on the 15th of January, by Prince

Lichtenstein, that he had been authorized by Marshal Radetzky to state

that the marshal approved that an inquiry should be instituted into the

affair. This inquiry was gone into in secret, without any professional

man being permitted to be present in the interests of justice, or in

defence or support of the wounded Englishman. The city of Florence in

command of Austrian troops,—its duke replaced on his throne and there

supported by them,—all the official men and courts existing, as it

were, by the tolerance of those troops, an inquiry to investigate fairly

a charge, by those thus humbly protected, against one of the officers

of their proud protectors would seem hopeless. Yet such were the manly

independence, veracity, and courage of the Italian and French witnesses

that the whole truth came out, and, as the British _chargé d’affaires_

afterwards writes to the Duc de Casigliano, the foreign minister of

Tuscany, “the evidence which has thus been obtained, conclusively

establishes that a most unprovoked outrage was committed on an unarmed

and unoffending British subject;” and the British government were

satisfied, he said, that “the government of Tuscany must be anxious

to mark their abhorrence of this outrage inflicted upon an innocent

individual.”*

* Official Papers, No. 18.

Of that evidence Mr. Scarlett, the _chargé d’affaires_, writes to Earl

Granville** that, “All the witnesses concur, more or less, in bearing

out Mather’s statement.

** Official Papers, No. 18.

None are in contradiction with it. Perhaps the most important evidence

is that of Pini, which exactly corroborates Mather’s statement, and

certainly there is not a single syllable, from first to last, at

variance with it.” Thus speaks Giovanni Pini, the important witness of

the scene of blood and outrage:—“On the day in question, about twelve

o’clock, more or less, I was in the Via Martelli, about half way down,

when I heard coming towards me the Austrian military band, which was

accompanying, as usual, the detachment intended to relieve the guard of

the city. As soon as the band had passed, I stationed myself on the path

where the people were, that is between the band and the soldiers who

were behind. The street being rather narrow the people who were close

by the band, I may say in a crowd, were pressing upon each other. A few

steps further on I observed an Austrian officer, who had a cap on, and

was therefore at the time off duty, strike, with his left hand, a young

man who was on that side of him, with a blow which hit him on the

face, and I suppose it was given with some force, for the young man who

received it staggered backwards; and I observed that, as soon as he had

recovered himself, another Austrian officer, who was the one at the head

of the soldiers, and marching with them with his drawn sword, strike

with it the same young man on the head, inflicting a wound on his

forehead, from which blood began to flow in such quantities, as wine

from a broken bottle. I immediately ran to the assistance of the poor

youth, who had been so unreasonably ill-treated, since I could not find

that he had offended the soldiers in any manner. Besides myself he was

assisted by a gentleman who showed that he was his brother, although he

could not speak Italian, and a Frenchman whom I do not know. There was

also a priest, who was moreover unknown to me. There were other persons,

also, who witnessed the transaction like myself, but I could not

discover among them any of my acquaintance. The wounded person, whom I

understood to be an Englishman, signified to me his gratitude for the

assistance I had afforded him, but said little, as he spoke only in

his own language to his brother, who started off from us immediately in

order to look at the officer, who had inflicted the wound, so as to

be able to recognise him, and then came back directly. He overtook

the officer at the Piazza del Duomo, because the detachment was going

towards the Piazza del Gran Duca. I and the brother of the wounded man

then conveyed him to the first doctor’s shop, which is on the Piazza

del Duomo, at the corner of the Via Martelli; but, finding that the

apothecary could not treat him, we went off forthwith to the hospital

of Santa Maria Nuova, where the wounded man, having lost much blood,

fainted away, and after having been brought to, was put into bed....

From the wounded man himself, as well as from the medical men who were

attending in the room, I heard that if the Englishman had not had on his

head a rather stout hat, he might have been killed on the spot; but I do

not know how deep the wound was.”*

* Page 51 of Official Papers.

Francis Catani, a priest, also gave evidence, to a certain extent, to

the same effect, and added, “that he had heard that if the Englishman

had not had his hat on his head he would have been killed on the spot,

for it was that which alone protected him.”

And the Senator Giuseppe Vai states that “the young Englishman went

aside quickly towards the end of my house, the Casa Marchesini, or

perhaps rather under it, and at the same time I heard that a few words

were rapidly exchanged between them, which I did not understand, because

I was too high up to be able to distinguish them (he was at an upper

window of his house), and also because the band was making a noise, and

at the same moment I saw that the said officer, raising his sabre, gave

the young man a blow on the forehead with it, using the cutting edge,

by which the latter fell down upon the step by the wall of’ the Casa

Marchesini, but with almost the rapidity of lightning he got up again,

and when he was standing I saw the blood was flowing from the place

where he was struck.... Because this act produced upon me a disagreeable

impression I withdrew from the window.”

These extracts of evidence demonstrate the guilty nature of the outrage,

and the careful and truthful statement of the young Englishman, as well

as his cool and courageous conduct in a case at the time apparently so

desperate.

Mr. Mather, the father of these youths, immediately left England for

Florence, and, as he passed through London, laid the case before the

foreign minister, as far as the detail had reached him by the letters

of the younger brother, which were handed to the minister. He arrived

at Florence after his son had been three weeks in the hospital; part of

that time in a dangerous state. The kind attention and the great skill

of the medical officers of that magnificent Florentine institution were

doubtless the chief causes of his recovery. The conduct of these young

Englishmen under such trying circumstances has been praised by almost

every political writer who took an interest in the subject, and there

seemed only one opinion throughout the country, that their coolness,

courage, and endurance, under great difficulties and personal dangers,

could not have been surpassed by the bravest and most experienced men.

Lord Palmerston, after the publication of the Official Papers,

on reviewing the whole facts of the case, in a debate upon it in

parliament, declared “that he found much to criticise in almost all the

parties concerned, except Mr. Mather and his sons.”*

* House of Commons debate, June 14, 1853.

In the route to the hospital, in the occurrences there, as well as in

the account of the outrage, the graphic details by the generous-hearted

Giovanni Pini bring the reader in presence of the cruel and bloody

scene. While ill in hospital, pressed by professing friends, the British

_chargé d’affaires_ among them, to authorise proceedings in the Tuscan

law courts, Mr. E. Mather firmly refused his sanction. He at once

elevated the question to its right position by an appeal to the

representative of his country for the redress of an injury done to a

British subject, and for the future protection of British subjects, to

be redressed by the Tuscan government to the satisfaction of that of

Britain, without reference to his own private wrong. His young brother,

before the day had closed, sought out Mr. Scarlett, the British

_chargé d’affaires_, and also Prince Lichtenstein, the Austrian

commander-in-chief, taking with him two witnesses to testify to the

exactitude of his statement, and to them he poured out in clear and

emphatic language the story of the outrage committed. The conduct of

these two young Englishmen, without friends in a strange city, relying

on their sense of right, and sustained by their own firmness and

courage, was truly heroic. Their father, one of the most patriotic and

useful public men in the north of England, warmly approved of

their course of conduct, and pursued their views for redress. It is

humiliating to our country to write what historical truth compels us

to admit, that their efforts were met by the chicanery of diplomacy and

treachery on the part of British officials, which have left behind an

unpleasant impression of incapacity and want of principle, when

the purest honour, and a high sense of national justice should have

exclusively prevailed. They were well sustained, however, in their

course by the generous sympathy of the people of Florence, and at home

by the warmest feelings of their countrymen. As an eloquent public

writer earnestly expressed himself in reference to their conduct, and

that of the Earl of Malmesbury, the successor to Earl Granville:—“Both

father and sons have nobly vindicated themselves as Englishmen; it was

only when the national honour was confided to the minister, that the

national honour was degraded by the spirit of the Jew pedlar.” After

several weeks’ delay in Florence, the Mathers removed from that city to

Genoa, where the father leaving his sons in safety, and for the purpose

of the better recovery of the eldest, himself returned to England, to

press the case personally upon the foreign minister of England. His

first demand was punishment of the officer who had committed what Lord

Granville called, “a cruel and cowardly outrage,” and then, but not

without the first was granted, compensation to the injured youth by

the government under whoso jurisdiction the culprit acted. The Earl of

Malmesbury, then foreign minister (the Whigs having left office), after

several imperfect and ineffectual attempts for the better security of

his countrymen abroad, by the signal punishment of the Austrian officer,

wrote to Mr. Mather, senior, by his under-secretary, a letter, on the

24th of May, 1852, in very pitiable terms, to the effect that no national

redress had been obtained; but that one thousand francesconi had been

placed to the credit of his son, by the Tuscan government, for the

injury which he had sustained. Mr. Mather’s answer, with his indignant

refusal of the acceptance of such redress, received high eulogies from

the public writers of the day, and brought on debates in both houses of

parliament. We extract a portion of the letter:—

“Now, my lord, you will do me the favour to remember, that a British

subject, my son, was attacked in Florence by two armed Austrian

officers, receiving the most ‘unmerited and brutal treatment,’ as your

lordship has expressed it; that he was cut down by one of them, left in

his own blood, his life in danger for a length of time, and his health

perhaps for ever injured; and all this without any provocation, any

offence, as it has been proved by evidence not to be controverted, of

the most respectable witnesses,—people the subjects of the state

whose officers had so acted,—yet for all this no real redress has been

obtained; that officer is still at large, and remains unpunished....

“Whatever personal reparation you might deem proper to demand, which I

conceded with regret, to your lordship’s express commands (as I foresaw

a probable misapplication of such concession), was, as you know, to give

place to public honour.

“You now inform me that Prince Schwarzenberg, the late prime-minister

of Austria, ‘prior to his death had addressed a note to her majesty’s

government expressing his great regret at the occurrence, and at the act

of the Austrian officers.’ The extent of such regret may be estimated by

this:—the Austrian officer, who stained the honour of the Austrian army

by his bloodthirsty and cowardly act, has been allowed to go free and

unpunished, and his conduct has been approved, at least defended, by

Prince Schwarzenberg’s lieutenant, the Austrian commander-in-chief in

Tuscany, Prince Lichtenstein. This man I frequently saw, in all the

pride of military array and overbearing insolence, in the streets of

Florence, a public example to his brother officers, and the world,

of the impunity with which British subjects may be treated, and the

evidence of the low estimation of his superiors for British honour,

and British power. This all the while that British statesmen and

diplomatists were making urgent demands for redress, your lordship among

the number.... Has it been obtained?...

“The patriotic manner in which I have repeatedly expressed myself in

this unfortunate affair, as you are pleased to observe, has originated

in feelings that induce me now to express the pain which I feel that

this crime is sought to be compromised, and the indignation, as far as

I am concerned, with which I reject the offer of the Tuscan government,

and any participation in such proceedings.

“I will not pretend to be a judge of what is due to the honour of

England, but I know what is due to my own.”

The effect of this note was that Lord Malmesbury threw the

responsibility on Mr. Scarlett, his representative in Tuscany, and

annulled his proceedings. He then sent out Sir Henry Bulwer to endeavour

to arrange the affair, or to withdraw the embassy from Florence. A sort

of apology was given by the court of Florence for the outrage, and a

responsibility was assumed by it for the future, in case of injury to

British subjects—as if the law of nations had not already secured

it. No redress or punishment for the outrage ever followed Sir Henry’s

mission. He might, for all its purposes, have as well remained in

England. The Mathers refused to the last the money compensation, and to

this hour, in this infamous matter, the guilty officer has never met his

just punishment, nor public honour been satisfied. It is known that had

the course been pursued which the father and sons adopted, and justice

been satisfied, any personal compensation was to have gone chiefly to

the public hospital of Florence, and for other public institutions of

that refined capital, in which those Englishmen had received so much

kindness and sympathy when it was personally dangerous to yield it, in

the presence of their barbarous Croat invaders. Mr. Erskine Mather

is now a scientific British officer, and bears amidst the ranks of

England’s defenders the visible scar of the wound so treacherously and

wantonly inflicted upon him because he was an Englishman: a remembrance

to every Englishman of how little he may rely upon the defence of

his own honour, or the honour of his country in his person, while the

diplomacy of England is in the hands of men who sympathise with foreign

despotism, or find luxurious and lucrative appointments at foreign

courts under the ostensible duty of watching over the interests of their

country.

The remaining features of English affairs, in relation to foreign

nations, were of too little interest to require notice in these pages.

DEATHS OF EMINENT PERSONS DURING THE YEAR 1851.

No one who knows England can wonder that her annual obituary presents

such long lists of great names, when it is remembered how wide-spread is

her empire, and how varied her enterprise. It is only possible to select

a few of the remarkable persons for notice, whose departure from this

life in 1851 excited the attention and regret of large classes, or of

the whole nation.

On the 1st of February occurred the death of Mrs. Shelley, widow of

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the celebrated poet. Mrs. Shelley was a lady of

extraordinary gifts, and these were stimulated by the genius of her

husband. As an authoress she will always rank high, although only one of

her books has attained a just proportion of fame, “Frankenstein.” That

was received throughout Europe and America as one of the most remarkable

works of imagination which the 19th century had seen, and it gained for

her a reputation as lasting as extensive. “Lodore,” “Volperga,” “The

Last Man,” and others produced also a great impression, but not one of a

very permanent character, at least, in the British Isles. “The Last Man”

deserves a higher estimation than has been awarded to it. There is a

very penetrating sadness in all Mrs. Shelley’s works written after the

loss of her gifted husband, and an impression of enervated physical

strength, and effort to write in spite of depression, is conveyed to the

reader.

On the 5 th, at Guildford, Surrey, the Rev. John Pye Smith, D.D., LL.D.,

F.R.S., for many years Principal of the Independent Congregational

College, at Homerton. He was one of the greatest scholars of his age.

The author of this work knew him well, and can in truth say his virtues

were as conspicuous as his scholarship was profound. He was especially

benevolent and modest. A celebrated divine once said of him that he

“had a very _troublesome_ conscience,” referring to its extreme

tenderness, and his nervous scrupulousness lest he should wear the

remotest appearance of evil. His religious works are chiefly critical

and controversial, and are written in a style of quiet and graceful

simplicity, with great perspicacity of expression and perspicuity

of thought. His “Scripture Testimony of the Messiah” is a wonderful

monument of human learning and clear, candid, and cogent logic. It

is the greatest standard work in the language, on “the Unitarian

Controversy.” When he retired from the direction of’ the college at

Homerton, where he trained many eminent men for the Christian ministry

among congregationalists, three thousand guineas were presented to

him as a tribute of respect. At his death the interest of the same

was applied to divinity scholars in the college for candidates for the

Christian ministry among the congregationalists, established at St.

John’s Wood, London, the Principal of which was Dr. John Harris, author

of many curious and literary productions much prized in tire religious

world.

February 23rd, at Hampstead, London, Joanna Baillie, the celebrated

authoress. She was the friend of Sir Walter Scott, who admired both

her poetic and dramatic genius exceedingly. Her plays, although open

to criticism as to selection of subject, plot, and stage effectiveness,

display the poetic power of her mind to great advantage.

April 28th, in London, aged eighty-one, Admiral Sir Edward Codrington.

He saw great variety of service as a naval officer, and displayed

professional skill and personal courage. In 1826, he received the

command of the Mediterranean fleet. He commanded the following year the

combined fleets of England, France, and Russia, in the destruction of

the Egyptian fleet, at Navarino. A son of this eminent and amiable man

subsequently commanded the British army in the Crimea, during a war of

England and her allies against Russia.

May 23rd, at Florence, where he officiated as British minister to the

court of Tuscany, the Right Honourable Richard Lalor Shiel. He was the

son of an Irish merchant, and was born in Dublin. His early education

was in the English Jesuit College, at Stonyhurst, a place which made

many bad Catholics by the excess of its ultra-montanism. Mr. Shiel was

afterwards a student of the Dublin University, where he distinguished

himself. He was called to the Irish bar in 1814. He wrote several plays

which had merit, and were for a time made popular by the acting of Miss

O’Neil. Mr. Shiel was never very successful as a lawyer, his taste

lying in the direction of dramatic literature and politics. He began

his political career at an early age; his first passionate oration, to

a Dublin Roman Catholic audience, was made at eighteen years of age. He

became one of the leaders of the Roman Catholic emancipation movement,

being second to O’Connell only as a leader of party and an orator; his

eloquence, however, was more refined than that of his more potential

colleague. His speeches were dramatic, rhetorical, and effective. Their

moral tone was offensive, vituperative, and vindictive. He was very

small of stature, ungainly and unprepossessing in appearance, and had a

strange squeaking voice; but in spite of these and other defects he was,

next to O’Connell, the most powerful agent in carrying Roman Catholic

emancipation. He was, however, never heartily trusted by O’Connell,

who saw his value as an instrument and flattered his vanity by fulsome

panegyric: when, however, the great agitator suspected the drift of

any movement of Shiel, he turned against him his keen although coarse

satire, and, by his contemptuous sneers and ludicrous and striking

caricatures, turned the tide of popular feeling against his subtle and

unreliable colleague. After Roman Catholic emancipation was achieved Mr.

Shiel became a member of the imperial parliament, where he distinguished

himself by his eloquence more than he ever did as a tribune. His oratory

was, however, characterised more by histrionic passion, rhetorical

artifice, and boldness of declamation, than by logic or truth. Many

times the beauty of his parliamentary orations dazzled his opponents,

and drew forth their admiring eulogy, and often his sarcasms smote them

with a severity more terrible than any launched from his side of the

house. He became a mere whig partisan; his ambition was office, and

he excited the strong resentment of the Irish party, with which he

had acted, by his silence where “Irish or Catholic interests” were

concerned, if the whig party were opposed to their demands. No orator

had espoused with more seeming heartiness various liberal opinions,

which he abandoned when he became a pet of the Whigs. Like O’Connell he

had harangued with great fervour large democratic assemblages in favour

of the voluntary principle in religion, and like O’Connell he mocked it

and vituperated it, when it served his purpose to do so. He had been a

great anti-slavery agitator, uttering fervent sentiments concerning the

equal right of men of all creeds and colours, and the duty and policy of

applying this great principle in the West India possessions of England,

and all over the world; but when his parliamentary party adopted a

course which displeased the anti-slavery party, and a deputation of

eminent philanthropists waited upon him, believing that in Richard Lalor

Shiel the black man had a friend as true as he had been an eloquent

advocate, those gentlemen were received with a haughty insolence, and a

contemptuousness which there was not even a decent effort to suppress.

Upon the Protestant dissenters of England he poured loud and eloquent

praise when he was agitating for Roman Catholic emancipation, as the

English dissenters gave an ostentatious support to that movement.

When the end was gained which he hoped to serve by such flattery,

he manifested a profound animosity to those whose services he had

commended. His real views on subjects of civil and religious liberty

were selfish and narrow. His professed patriotism was to a certain

extent real, but it was narrow and invidious where true, and it was for

the most part simulated. He was an object of hatred to the ultramontane

party in his own church; and a report prevailed in Europe, which does

not appear to have been substantiated, that he was, by that party,

ingeniously deprived of life through skilful agency appointed for that

purpose.

August 5th, Mrs. Harriet Lee, in her ninety-eighth year. This lady was

one of the authoresses of the “Canterbury Tales.” Her works were various

and popular.

August 6th, at Hong-Kong, the distinguished missionary, Gutzlaff. He was

by birth a Pomeranian, but was associated with the English so intimately

as interpreter, and as secretary to the Hong-Kong government, that he

was always regarded as a British citizen.

August 12th, aged fifty, the Honourable Elliott Drinkwater Bethune, a

man whose efforts for legal reform in England and India won for him the

gratitude of the good, and caused him to incur the bitterest hostility

of the selfish classes affected by proposals of reform.

November 18th, aged eighty-one, at Herenhausen, the King of Hanover,

uncle to her majesty.

December 19th, at Chelsea, London. Joseph Mallord William Turner, the

great English landscape painter, whose works are too well known, and

whose fame is too widely spread, to require more particular notice.

CHAPTER LXIV.

{VICTORIA. 1852}

Home Affairs: General State of Great Britain; Religious

Agitations; Death of the Duke of Wellington; The Court;

Parliamentary Discussions; Changes of Ministry..... Ireland:

Animosities on Account of Religion; Insecurity of Life;

Terrible Assassinations..... Colonies: War at the Cape;

Gold in California; General Condition of the British

Colonies..... Foreign Affairs: Electric Telegraph Between

London and Paris; Revival of the French Empire; English

Policy in Reference to that Event; Indignant Feeling of the

English nation towards Austria and the despotic Princes of

Italy; Efforts of the British Navy to put down Piracy and

Slavery.

{A.D. 1852}

The year 1852, like its predecessor, opened in the British Isles with

fierce religious controversies. The agitation about the papal aggression

had not died away, and events occurred, from day to day, inflaming the

spirit of religious difference. Yet this was not an unmixed evil—“The

greatest blessings have been achieved by discussions, errors suffer in

the ordeal; truth never does; the dross is consumed in the fire; the

gold comes out more brilliant, more precious, more pure.”*

* Rev. Dr. Cumming’s “Apocalyptic Sketches,” p. 153

What was generally called the Achilli trial, early in the year,

aggravated the existing religious dissensions, and extended the spirit

of polemical conflict. Although the trial did not take place until June,

the public anticipated it with intense excitement. Dr. Achilli had been

a Roman Catholic priest; he left the Church of Rome, and devoted himself

to preach against its tenets, and the spirit of persecution which it

breathed. He produced a powerful impression both in Great Britain and

Ireland. It became exceedingly important to silence him, and the Romish

church resorted to its old instrument in such cases, defamation. The

Rev. Mr. Newman, a Roman Catholic priest, a convert from the Church of

England, who had, as a clergyman of that church, distinguished himself

at Oxford by his Jesuitical casuistry in upholding Puseyism, and

teaching that, by receiving the Church of England Articles in a

“_non-natural sense_,” clergymen might remain in her communion, and

receive her emoluments, while they taught the doctrines peculiar to the

Church of Rome, publicly attacked the character of Dr. Achilli, averring

that he was unworthy of credit, because he had been expelled from the

Church of Rome for dissolute habits. Achilli took an action for libel,

which was tried in the Court of Queen’s Bench, when a verdict was given

in favour of Dr. Achilli. The case assumed a peculiar aspect from the

fact that a number of women had been brought from Italy, by the Roman

Catholic priests, who swore that they had participated with Dr. Achilli

in criminal intercourse. The doctor solemnly swore that some of these

women he had never seen, and that, in respect to others whom he had

known, no accusation had ever until then been brought against him. The

mode in which these women gave their testimony, and the contradictory

character of it, left the jury no alternative but to believe the

allegations of Dr. Achilli, that the case was got up against him, by a

conspiracy of Roman Catholic priests, for the purpose of destroying his

moral reputation, and thereby preventing his effective preaching from

injuring their sectarian interests.

Another event still more aggravated the _odiumtheologicum_ which

prevailed. In the town of Stockport fierce religious riots broke out

between the Irish Roman Catholics and the Protestants of that town.

A religious procession of an offensive nature was got up by the Roman

Catholic clergy. This was resented by the Protestant population as an

insult: the Roman Catholic party persisted in the aggressive movement,

and the result was riot and bloodshed for several days. This event

produced terrible excitement elsewhere: and in Ireland some of the

newspapers in the Roman Catholic interest incited the people to commit

violence upon their Protestant neighbours. In addition to the animosity

which raged between Protestants and Romanists, the controversy

concerning the admission of Jews to parliament divided other sections of

the community. The parliamentary debates on this subject in the

previous year were remembered, and the remembrance embittered by various

incidents. Among these was the trial of Miller _versus_ Salomons. Mr.

Salomons having been elected member for Greenwich, presented himself in

the House of Commons, and voted. The action was to enforce a penalty of

£500 for having voted without taking the oath of abjuration. The case

was tried in the Court of Exchequer, before the barons, who were, with

the exception of Baron Martin, unanimous in a decision against Mr.

Salomons. This trial took place in April, and had the effect of

exasperating the wealthy Jewish community of London and exciting the

liberal politicians, who desired the emancipation of their Jewish fellow

citizens from all civil disabilities on account of their religion.

The general condition of Great Britain was prosperous. The influx

of gold from the newly-discovered gold regions, especially those of

Australia, stimulated enterprise. The recent remissions of duties

afforded relaxation to the pressure of taxation upon industry; trade was

good; the industrial classes were contented; the farmers, sharing in

the general prosperity, yielded less willingly to make themselves

instruments of agitation in the hands of Lord Derby. Benjamin Disraeli,

and other less prominent leaders of the opponents of free-trade,

especially in corn. With the exception of the Cape of Good Hope, the

tidings received from the colonies were favourable. No foreign war

threatened, although many apprehended that the “_coup d’état_” by

leading to the revival of the empire, would also lead to a revival of

the old imperial attitude of France to England,—that of menace and

ambition. The policy pursued by the British government was, however, so

conciliatory and fair, that no opportunity was left for France to make

a quarrel. It was moreover the interest of the French president to

court alliance with England, to prevent the possibility of a continental

coalition against him, which he knew would never dare the power of

France while England was her ally. The discussions connected with the

outrage committed upon Erskine Mather, Esq., at Florence, by Austrian

officers, alone agitated the country in connection with foreign

politics. The progress of that event was laid fully before the reader

in the last chapter. During the debates about it in parliament and the

press, in 1852, a strong public sentiment was evoked against the Duke

of Tuscany, and the Austrian government and army. Much sympathy was felt

towards the young Englishman who had so well maintained his country’s

honour, and to his father, by whom he was sustained in the manly and

patriotic course which he had adopted. The procedure of the diplomatic

agents of the English government, of the English government itself, and

of the foreign minister, Lord Malmesbury most especially, excited the

indignation of the people, and tended much to weaken the cabinet of

which Lord Malmesbury was so prominent a member: probably the apathy and

want of manly spirit and patriotism displayed by the British government

and its _employés_ in the Florence affair, did more to shake the

confidence of the people in the administration than all the party

attacks to which in its short existence it was exposed.

Among the home events of the year which excited general interest were a

series of earthquakes, which spread alarm over a large portion of Great

Britain. Such rare phenomena in this island naturally attracted the

attention of the philosophical, and affected the multitude with awe.

On the 4th of November the inhabitants of the north-western districts of

England felt the shocks usually characteristic of earthquake. The chief

force of the subterranean commotion seemed to be beneath Liverpool and

the districts that surround it. In Manchester the shock was felt more

severely than in most other districts. On the opposite coast of Ireland,

especially in the counties of Dublin and Wicklow, the vibrations of the

earth were nearly as remarkable as in Lancashire and Cheshire.

[Illustration: 814.jpg THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.]

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

The decease of the most remarkable man in Europe, perhaps in the world,

the great Duke of Wellington, filled the country with grief, commanded

the sympathy of all nations friendly to Great Britain, and the attention

of civilized men in every portion of the world. In England, it was the

most important event of the year’s history. No man exercised the same

influence over her fortunes. His name was a tower of strength before her

enemies, and his wisdom the chief and _dernier ressort_ in her councils.

He was the most confidential private counsellor of the queen, who

regarded him with the veneration and affection due to the friend of her

childhood, when she was neglected by the corrupt court of one uncle, and

the apathetic court of another, the sovereigns of the empire over which

she also was destined to reign. The removal of the great Duke was an

irreparable loss to her majesty and to the country she so wisely ruled;

and in no branch of the public service was this loss felt more than in

the army, which he had raised to an unprecedented pitch of efficiency

and glory. A brief notice of the life of this extraordinary man is

desirable, that the reader may more clearly see the important influence

his death necessarily had upon the position and policy of the United

Kingdom. Concerning the origin and career of this glorious man, J. H.

Stocqueler has made the following striking remarks:—

“Nobly born, carefully educated, and connected with people enjoying

considerable political influence, he was subjected to no early

wrestlings with fate. He was launched upon the stream of life under the

most favourable auspices, tasting neither the bitterness of poverty nor

the humiliation of obscurity. His public life, from first to last, was

one uninterrupted chain of glory, each link more brilliant than its

predecessor, and, unlike other great adventurers, whose course from

insignificance to splendour was broken, through a series of mischances

or their own unsteadiness of character, his progress knew no culminating

point—his fame no tarnish, his fortunes no reverse.

“But the even tenor of his career is no disparagement of the vast merit

of the Duke of Wellington. If his antecedents were less humble than the

public beginnings of other men, let it be remembered that he reached a

higher eminence than any personage of whom the annals of England possess

a record—always excepting John, Duke of Marlborough, his prototype in

all things but political virtue. Nor has his upward path been free from

a thousand obstructions, which none but a gigantic mind and a firm heart

could surmount. His difficulties began with his direct responsibility.

His triumphs followed as the results of his indomitable perseverance,

his unflinching courage, and his amazing constancy.”

The most accurate and, at the same time, brief account of the birth,

education, and early professional progress of the future hero, is one

written by the author just quoted.*

* Stocqueler’s “Life of Wellington,” p. 23.

“It was in March, 1769, that Arthur Wellesley first saw the light.

Biographers differ as to the date and the locality; but it appears by

the evidence taken before a parliamentary committee in 1791, to inquire

into a petition against his return for the borough of Trim, on the

ground of his being a minor, that he was really born at Dangan Castle,

in the county of Meath, Ireland, at the time alleged above. His father

was the second Earl of Mornington, who enjoyed much celebrity for his

nice musical taste; his mother, Anne, the eldest daughter of Viscount

Dungannon. Early in life Arthur Wellesley was sent to Eton College for

his education, in conjunction with his afterwards distinguished brother,

Richard.

“Being desirous for the military profession he was sent to the college

of Angiers, directed by Pegnard, a celebrated French engineer.

“At the age of eighteen, after he had gone through a course of French

military instruction, Arthur Wellesley was gazetted to an ensigncy in

the 73rd regiment. This was in March, 1787. Nine months later he was

promoted to a lieutenancy in the 76th. Subsequent exchanges carried him

into the 41st foot, and the 12th Light Dragoons.

“In 1791 (30th of June), being then twenty-two years of age, he procured

a company in the 58th Foot, whence, four months later, he exchanged to

a troop in the 18th Light Dragoons. Under the system in force in the

British army, officers, avid of rapid promotion, must seek it in other

regiments than their own, if their immediate seniors are prepared to

purchase advancement. As Arthur Wellesley had had no opportunities of

displaying zeal and gallantry in the field during these four years

of service, his quick progress may be fairly set down to the combined

action of ministerial favour, and a sufficiency of pecuniary means.

Neither at school, nor college, nor in the performance of the easy

regimental duty peculiar to a time of peace, and incidental to five

exchanges, did he display any of those qualities which developed

themselves in so remarkable a manner a few years later.

“Previous to obtaining his company, Lieutenant Wellesley was returned a

member of the Irish parliament. He sat for three years, during a portion

of which time he was an aide-de-camp to the Earl of Westmoreland, then

Lord-lieutenant of Ireland.

“The young member occasionally spoke, always in opposition to liberal

measures; and his oratory was characterised more by a curt and decided

form of expression than by the efflorescence then popular among the

Grattans, Cuffs, Parnells, and other members of the legislature. His

opinions were of the tory cast; and, even at that early period he

opposed himself to any consideration of the Catholic claims, and to

schemes of parliamentary reform. As an aide-de-camp, and a member of

a Protestant family, his sentiments were, of course, coloured by the

opinions of the noblemen and statesmen with whom he associated.”

The early military services of Arthur Wellesley, both in Europe and in

India, were brilliant. Some of his first exploits in action were marked

by promptitude and genius rivalling in lustre the feats of his proudest

days. In India, his conquests of the refractory chiefs, Dhoondiah and

the Peishwah, and his successes in the Mysorean war, under Baird, were

full of daring and of glory.*

* For an extended account of General Wellesley’s Indian

campaigns see “Nolan’s History of the British Empire in

India and the East.” Virtue; City Road and Ivy Lane, London.

As a general officer, he showed every quality which commanded respect

from his seniors, reverence from his juniors, confidence alike in those

whom he commanded, and those who devolved responsibility upon him,

and the astonishment and admiration of his enemies. The treatment he

received in India was not just nor considerate, and to the latest period

of his life he felt that neither by his brother the Marquis Wellesley,

the East India Company, nor the government at home, was he requited as

his merits deserved, nor did he deem that their conduct to him while on

actual service was what it should have been. The self-mastery and loyalty

with which he endured slights and injustice while rendering great

services, have probably never been exhibited equally by any soldier

of ancient or modern times. On the occasion of his being superseded at

Bombay by General Baird, he wrote:—“My former letters will have shown

you how much this will annoy me; but I have never had much value for the

public spirit of any man who does not sacrifice his private views and

convenience when it is necessary.”**

** “The Duke of Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches

relating to India.” Edited by his Son.

The time has arrived when foreign writers, even in France, are beginning

to do justice to the hero’s fame, and to the genius displayed in his

Indian campaigns, which have been so much overlooked both at home and

abroad, although so well appreciated in India. An able writer, a French

officer—Captain Brialmont—has, in a recent work,*** especially drawn

the attention of military men in France to the Indian campaigns of

General Wellesley.

*** “History of the Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington,”

from the French of M. Brialmont, Captain of the Staff of the

Belgian Army. With emendations and additions by the Kev. G.

K. Gleig, M.A., Chaplain-General to the Forces.

In describing the conduct of the general at Assaye, Brialmont

remarks:—“It was an inspiration of the greatest hardihood which induced

the English general to engage a force ten times as great as his own, and

covered in its front by an important river. The battle of Assaye will

always be regarded as one of the boldest enterprises of that general,

whom certain authors represent as endowed only with the qualities which

are necessary for defensive warfare.”

Some time after his arrival in Europe, he was entrusted with a command

in Portugal, against the French then occupying that country. He was much

embarrassed by his own government, and the wilfulness of the people

to rescue whom was his mission. The convention of Cintra arrested

his successes. The stupidity of his superiors defeated his schemes of

conquest. “Yet, even as things stood, the success achieved was of no

ordinary character. The British soldiers had measured their swords

against some of the best troops of the empire, and with signal success.

The ‘Sepoy General’ had indisputably shown that his capacity was not

limited to oriental campaigns. He had effected the disembarkation of

his troops—always a most hazardous feat—without loss, had gained two

well-contested battles, and in less than a single month had actually

cleared the kingdom of Portugal of its invaders. The army, with its

intuitive judgment, had formed a correct appreciation of his services,

and the field-officers engaged at Vimiera testified their opinions

of their commander by a valuable gift: but it was clear that no

place remained for General Wellesley under his new superiors, and

he accordingly returned to England, bringing with him conceptions of

Spanish affairs which the event but too speedily verified.”*

* Traveller’s Library: “Memoir of the Duke of Wellington.”

Previous to the expedition to Portugal, and after his return, he sat

in parliament, and held the office of Secretary for Ireland. In 1809 he

received the thanks of parliament for his military services at Vimiera

and Rolica. In the meanwhile, disaster frowned upon the arms of Spain.

“Her armies were dispersed, her government bewildered, and her people

dismayed; the cry of resistance had ceased, and, in its stead, the stern

voice of Napoleon, answered by the tread of 300,000 veterans, was heard

throughout the land.”**

** “History of the Peninsular War,” by Sir William Napier.

Portugal was menaced. Sir John Cradock, who commanded, was unequal

to the occasion, and the British government was about to withdraw the

English army of occupation, when it occurred to Lord Castlereagh that

Sir Arthur Wellesley ought to be consulted. That officer counselled the

augmentation of the British forces, and drew up a plan of defence. The

government offered him the command of the Portuguese, which he declined.

Finally, Cradock was recalled, and Sir Arthur accepted the command of

the allied English and Portuguese. He again landed in Portugal, amidst

the acclamations of troops and people, and, with his characteristic

activity, commenced operations. Then followed the passage of the Douro,

one of the most daring exploits recorded in the history of war.***

*** Captain Brialmont says that French generals admit that

the passage of the Douro was bold even to rashness.

The passage of the Douro foiled the French commander, and compelled

him to retire. After various complicated movements, the rival armies

confronted one another at Talavera, where a dreadful conflict issued

in victory to the British. The British, unsustained by proper support,

through the negligence of the English government, and the irrational

conduct of the Portuguese, were compelled to fall back. Before doing so,

Wellesley accomplished another grand feat—the execution of the lines

of Torres Vedras. This defensive position was skilfully selected, and as

skilfully fortified. Such was the secrecy and celerity observed in the

construction of the works, that the French had learned nothing of their

existence, numerous as were their spies, and the English army generally

knew as little of it as the French. When the moment arrived for the

execution of his project, the English general retired behind these

lines, in the face of an overwhelmingly numerous enemy, who gazed with

wonder upon the impregnable defences which were presented to their view.

Before, however, the British accomplished their retreat, one more

victory testified their greatness in battle, and the superiority of

their chief. The English took post on the heights of Busaco. The French

attacked the position, and were repulsed. Having entered the lines of

Torres Vedras, the British awaited the advance of the grand army which

was to drive them into the sea. Massena advanced in his pride and

his power, but recoiled from the task of storming such well-prepared

positions. Having waited long enough, without being able to make

any impression upon the English lines of defence, to bring disease,

discouragement, and scarcity of provisions upon his own army, he

retired, harassed in his retreat by the exulting English. While

Wellesley was thus engaged in personally superintending the defence of

Lisbon, by maintaining the fortified lines thrown up between the Douro

and the sea, he was also occupied with general plans for ultimately

driving the French out of the Peninsula, directing operations in places

at a distance from his head-quarters, and carrying on a laborious

correspondence with the Portuguese and British civil authorities, and

even with the Spanish patriots. When Massena was driven into Spain,

Wellesley’s first care was the reconquest of the frontier fortresses.

Almeida, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Badajoz, fell into the hands of the British

general, then Lord Wellington. His successes were, however, obtained

with great difficulty and loss of his soldiers, through the inadequate

supply of material to his army by the home authorities. Every fortress

which was not strategically abandoned by the French, was won by the

skill of the general-in-chief, and the recklessness of life shown by his

soldiers, in spite of the want of almost every appliance proper for

an army. The sieges which Wellington prosecuted to a successful result

“will always reflect immortal honour on the troops engaged, and will

always attract the strongest interests of an English reader; but which

must, nevertheless, be appealed to as illustrations of the straits

to which an army may be led by want of military experience in the

government at home. By this time the repeated victories of Wellington

and his colleagues had raised the renown of British soldiers to at

least an equality with that of Napoleon’s veterans, and the incomparable

efficiency, in particular, of the Light Division was acknowledged to be

without a parallel in any European service. But in those departments of

the army where excellence is less the result of intuitive ability, the

forces under Wellington were still greatly surpassed by the trained

legions of the emperor. While Napoleon had devoted his whole genius to

the organization of the parks and trains which attend the march of

an army in the field, the British troops had only the most imperfect

resources on which to rely. The engineer corps, though admirable in

quality, was so deficient in numbers, that commissions were placed at

the free disposal of Cambridge mathematicians. The siege trains were

weak and worthless against the solid ramparts of Peninsular strongholds.

The intrenching tools were so ill made that they snapped in the hands of

the workmen, and the art of sapping and mining was so little known

that this branch of the siege duties was carried on by drafts from

the regiments of the line, imperfectly and hastily instructed for the

purpose. Unhappily, such results can only be obviated by long foresight,

patient training, and costly provision; it was not in the power of a

single mind, however capacious, to effect an instantaneous reform, and

Wellington was compelled to supply the deficiencies by the best blood of

his troops.”*

* “Memoir of the Duke of Wellington.”

The terms in which this illustrious man complained of the incompetency

of the government at home are instructive to those who, in the present

generation, contend for reform. “I do not receive one-sixth part of the

money necessary to keep so great a machine in motion.” “The French

army is well supplied,” he wrote on one occasion, “the Spanish army has

everything in abundance, and we alone, on whom everything depends, are

dying of hunger.” “I am left entirely to my own resources,” he wrote in

1810, “and find myself obliged to provide, with the little which I

can procure, for the wants of the allies, as well as for those of the

English army. If I yield, God help me, for nobody will support me.” This

sorrowful language was too true, for so utterly corrupt was the English

administration, that in order to save themselves from public odium, they

would have ruined him. A distinguished reviewer of one of the memoirs of

his grace thus comments upon the treatment which he received:—“From the

inadequate supplies of money sent to him from his government, he had to

create a paper-money of his own, and to increase his supplies by opening

a trade in corn with America. When he complained of the attention which

the home government paid to the criticism of some of his officers, they

replied that these officers were better generals than he; they compelled

him to send back the transports on which, in the event of a defeat, the

safety of his army depended; and on one occasion Lord Liverpool gave

instructions to an officer of engineers at Lisbon of which Wellington

knew nothing, and which began with these words, which were also news to

him:—‘As it is probable that the army will embark in September, &c.’”

So much was the duke dependant on his own resources that, being unable

to prevent the departure of some of his generals, he was often obliged

to discharge himself, on the same clay, the duties of general of

cavalry, leader of the advanced guard, and commander of two or three

columns of infantry. His want of material was such that at the siege of

Badajoz he had to employ guns cast in the reign of Philip II., and, for

lack of mortars, he had to mount his howitzers upon wooden blocks;

while at Burgos he was obliged to suspend the attack till a convoy of

ammunition should come up, which had been expected for six weeks. He

was even obliged to complain of his army. “We are an excellent army on

parade,” he said, “an excellent one to fight, but take my word for it,

defeat or success would dissolve us.” The discipline was by no means

perfect. After the battle of Vittoria the soldiers obtained among them

by way of booty about a million sterling; many regiments disbanded

themselves, and some three weeks afterwards the commander-in-chief had

to announce that there were still 12,500 marauders among the mountains

absent from duty.

Notwithstanding every impediment which the lazy, conceited, and

impracticable character of the Spaniards, the want of civil organization

in Portugal, and the ignorance and incapacity of his own government

could interpose, Lord Wellington, in a series of campaigns, and of great

and sanguinary battles, drove the French from Spain, followed them into

France, defeated them at Bayonne, Orthes, and Toulouse, and only paused

in his career of victory upon the announcement of the allies entering

Paris, and the abdication of Napoleon.

The policy and conduct of the Duke of Wellington during the occupation

of France by the allies were stern, but just and wise. He was inflexible

in carrying out the objects of the allies, but temperate and equitable

in curbing the vindictive propensities of the allied chiefs and armies.

He met the great continental sovereigns and generals in Paris on a

footing highly honourable to himself and his nation; his influence

preponderated in their counsels, and he received more marks of deference

than any other man of the times and the occasion.

On his return to England, his name and person were surrounded by

honours. He received in the House of Lords at once the recognition of

all the steps of the peerage—they had been conferred upon him in his

absence. He was the idol of the court and the aristocracy, and to a

considerable extent of the people. The escape of Napoleon from Elba

led to the British and Prussian campaign in Belgium, which involved the

sanguinary battles of Quatrebras and Waterloo, in the former of which

Ney sustained a terrible repulse from Wellington, and in the latter

Napoleon was utterly defeated and put to flight, and the way to Paris

opened for the conquerors. Once more the duke occupied France with his

armies, and with still greater opportunity than at the close of

his previous campaign for displaying the eminent qualities which he

possessed in the council, as well as in the field. After the peace,

and the banishment of Napoleon to St. Helena. Wellington obtained

an extraordinary influence in the councils of successive British

sovereigns, and became one of the most active and potential politicians

in Europe. His career of war had closed—a new public race was run

by him, in which his countrymen were less disposed to regard him

with favour. How he fulfilled his new destinies is still matter of

discussion. The tory school of politicians, to which he belonged,

consider him as having in a great measure forsaken his party, and

lowered the standard of his principles. Liberal politicians regard

him as having struggled to maintain class interests contrary to the

convictions of his great mind, and in subservience to the interests and

prejudices of his “order.” His country generally has, therefore, not

given him credit for the highest order of statesmanship, but reveres

his memory as that of a man who served the country and the crown with

fidelity, and who studied the national honour in all things. Probably

the following estimate of his political capacity, position, and

services, is as accurate as any ever given to the public:—“By a destiny

unexampled in history, the hero of these countless conquests survived to

give more than one generation of his countrymen the benefit of his civil

services. Such an ordeal has never before been endured by any public

character. Military experience does not furnish the fittest schools of

statesmanship, especially when the country to be governed is that of

a free, intelligent, and progressive people. But, if the political

principles of the great man who has now departed were not always

reconcilable with the opinions and demands of modern advancement,

they were at least consistent in themselves, were never extravagantly

pressed, never tyrannically promoted, and never obstinately maintained

to the hindrance of the government or the damage of the state. In

estimating Wellington’s politics it must never be forgotten that he

was a politician of 1807, and that he descended to us the last

representative of a school that had passed. If he was less

liberally-minded than the statesmen of his later days, we may fairly

inquire how many of his own generation would have been as liberal as

he?”

In 1822, the duke appeared at the allied conference at Vienna, the

object of which was to put down the rising demand on the continent

for constitutional government. Spain was intensely agitated, and its

imbecile monarch was afraid to resist any longer the call for free

institutions, so loudly and unanimously made by his subjects. The

continental sovereigns viewed the slightest approach to political

freedom with alarm. The restored Bourbon government of France took the

lead in the policy of repression, and demanded the countenance of the

continental powers, and of England, for an invasion of Spain, to support

the king in trampling out the last spark of liberty among his subjects.

Mr. Canning was minister for foreign affairs in England. He instructed

the Duke of Wellington to resist the proposal of France, and to insist

upon non-intercession. Either his grace performed his part inadequately,

as was generally believed in England, or the continental sovereigns,

having used England for the destruction of Napoleon, were agreed to

thwart her influence, and make no concessions to her opinion, for they

unanimously supported the project of a French invasion of Spain. This

event took place, inflicting upon the Spanish people more indignity,

disdain, and injury than the invasions by Napoleon had done. The British

government talked much and did nothing. “The Holy Alliance” took no

notice of the indignant orations in the British parliament, the protests

of the ministry, and the explanations of the duke. A French invasion

overthrew liberty in Spain within little more than ten years of the date

when a British army had driven out the French in the name of liberty,

independence, and non-intervention. The Spaniards never believed that

the duke was free from some participation in this aggression, and his

popularity, such as it was at the close of the war, was never regained

in that country. The event also deprived the Spaniards of all confidence

in professions of non-intervention and respect for national independence

in England. They did not believe that her powerless protests were

sincere, but regarded her as having made the previous war in the

Peninsula for a policy exclusively her own—the suppression of the

popular and imperial elements in France. The Duke of Wellington, in his

place in the house of peers, declared that he had faithfully carried out

Mr. Canning’s instructions, but that the allied courts were unmoved by

arguments or protests.

In 1826 the duke was sent by his sovereign on an especial embassy to St.

Petersburg. He was not favourably impressed with the Emperor Nicholas

or his people. He regarded the whole policy of Russia as faithless and

aggressive, and only friendly to England as far as she might be

made, through the false representations of the Russian diplomatists,

unconsciously subservient to the territorial aggrandisement of Russia,

especially in the direction of Turkey. The Emperor Nicholas himself the

duke learned to regard with distrust, mingled with personal contempt for

his duplicity.

At home, the duke was the object of innumerable honours. A mansion was

erected for him, called Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, £200,000 was

voted to purchase for him and the inheritors of the title, the estate

of Strathfieldsaye, in Hampshire, which is entailed, on condition of the

noble owner, for the time being, annually presenting a tri-colour flag

to her majesty, on the 18th of June, the anniversary of the battle of

Waterloo. These flags have been since accumulating, and hang in the

armoury of Windsor Castle, with similar trophies commemorative of

the battle of Blenheim, rendered by the heirs of the great Duke of

Marlborough.

In 1818 the duke was made master-general of the ordnance; in 1819,

governor of Plymouth; and in 1820, colonel of the Rifle Brigade.

The great continental courts in 1818 gave him the rank of field-marshal

in their respective armies, together with military and civil

distinctions, such as were only customarily conferred on crowned heads,

or the very noblest of their subjects.

Meanwhile the British Isles were intensely agitated; a cry for

parliamentary reform resounded from the gates of Buckingham Palace to

the Land’s-end, to John O’Groat’s house, and to the cliffs of Connemara.

Roman Catholic emancipation was another demand, which was ceaselessly

heard, and the Protestant dissenters of England were active and

importunate in demanding redress for the grievances of which they

complained. The duke was adverse to all these concessions, and

determined to resist them as long as they could be resisted, with safety

to the crown and peerage. The people hated the prince-regent, and when

he reached the throne as the fourth George, he was one of the most

unpopular monarchs in Europe. The measures adopted by this prince to

preserve illiberal institutions were bloody and remorseless; executions

for political offences were numerous all over the land, men of virtue

and honour were incarcerated for liberal opinions uttered or printed,

public meetings were put down by charges of cavalry, or by cannon loaded

with grape and canister, drawn up against an unarmed and really

loyal people, exasperated by unendurable oppressions. Against these

wickednesses the duke exerted no influence, raised his voice in no

protest, but was in the minds of the people regarded as one of the

haughtiest of their oppressors. On the death of Lord Liverpool, and the

appointment of Mr. Canning to the premiership, he received from the

duke an uncompromising, bitter, and ungenerous opposition. Canning was

professedly a Conservative, but his opinions were moderately liberal,

and everything liberal was resisted by Wellington and his _alter ego_ in

politics, Mr. Peel, afterwards Sir Robert. There was a bigoted and angry

party spirit in all the duke’s proceedings. He would not command the

army nor direct the ordnance, but resigned all his military offices,

because the king made Canning the chief of a ministry in which the duke

himself served. Canning and Huskisson introduced a corn-bill, which

was the first relaxation proposed by members of a government to the

corn-law. This measure had been prepared in the Liverpool cabinet, and

received the assent of the duke himself; yet such was his animosity to

the moderately liberal policy of Canning, that he proposed the rejection

of the bill in the lords, and threw it out. There was a want of honour

and good faith in this conduct, wholly at variance with the manly,

frank, straightforward character of the duke, and there is no way of

accounting for it but by supposing that he was instigated to the course

he adopted by Peel, whose tortuous and uncertain principles and policy

began to assume prominence. It was Peel’s character throughout his

career to betray all who trusted in him as a leader, and to cany by

trick and treachery all the measures against which, in his public life,

he most vehemently and acrimoniously inveighed. The duke was taunted in

the house with intriguing for the premiership. He declared, in reply,

that he was “unqualified for such a situation.” Nevertheless, when

offered, he accepted it. He declared that he “should be mad even to

think of it;” but he did think of it, at all events afterwards, and took

it, and also filled it better than his tory predecessors. Perhaps the

truth of the case was, that Peel originated all the intrigues against

Canning, in which the duke was unconsciously an abettor of the designs

of that artful man. Peel saw that his best hope of attaining to the

chief post in the councils of the country was by using skilfully and

patiently the influence he had acquired over the duke. He foresaw, as it

was easy to foresee, that events would soon make the duke tired of the

post, and that he would in such case certainly devolve it upon him, as

“his man of all work.” One of the most harassing oppositions to which an

English premier was ever exposed was directed and led by Wellington

and Peel against Canning, chiefly on the ground of his willingness to

concede Catholic emancipation, and some relaxation of the duties upon

corn, and the restrictions upon trade. In this opposition the duke was

sincere, but there is good ground for believing that Peel, filled with

envy against Canning, was already laying his own schemes for carrying

concession even farther than Canning or Huskisson ever dreamed of doing.

Canning was shamelessly deserted and betrayed on all hands. He displayed

wonderful ability, justifying the language of Byron: “Canning is a

genius, almost a universal one, a scholar, a wit, a statesman, an

orator, and a poet.” He struggled against the factious opposition

treacherously carried on in the name of principles by men who, like

Peel, felt no homage for them, until his proud and sensitive heart

broke. The Peel and Wellington faction killed him. In the fourth month

of his premiership he died at his post, leaving to posterity a great

name, and an eternal reproach against his unprincipled persecutors.

Lord Goderich (“prosperity Robinson”) could not carry on the government.

The duke was made premier, eight months after he had publicly

declared his own incapacity for such an office. One of his first

acts, notoriously under the influence of Peel, was to give office to

Huskisson, the champion of free trade, and the energetic colleague of

Canning! He added four more of Canning’s colleagues. Thus, after he

and Peel had declared Canning and his cabinet to be irreligious,

revolutionary, and dangerous to the country, in all the cant phrases of

the time, their very first act was to take possession, as it were, of

the Canning cabinet itself, and next of the Canning policy, on account

of which the illustrious dead had been solemnly denounced by the one,

and vituperated, in a manner far exceeding parliamentary licence, by

the other. The repeal of the corporation and test acts, demanded by the

dissenters, the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and the claims of

the commercial community, and the political economist, for a relaxation

of the protectionist policy were now to be satisfied; but the policy

chosen was to keep all these parties at bay, to resist all melioration

of things as they were as long as possible, and then to concede nothing

on the ground of justice, or of human rights, but only what popular

power could force. This policy Peel did not manage happily, and the duke

was brought down with him as by a dead weight. The parliamentary tact

of Peel, his debating power, his aptitude for public business, and

the singular influence of the duke, worked wonders for a time; but

eventually much more had to be conceded to the public power, than, if at

first and generously, the government had shown a reforming spirit, would

have been at once insisted upon.

Lord John Russell moved for a repeal of the corporation and test acts,

oppressions which goaded the dissenters, and which in themselves were

as profane as they were hypocritical. Of course the duke and Mr. Peel

resisted this, but the House of Commons carried the measure.

Instead of the duke and “his man Friday,” as the wags of the day termed

Peel, resigning, as men of honour ought to have done, they resolved to

take up the measure against which they had voted and argued, and uttered

the most earnest warnings on the sacred ground of religion! The duke

carried the measure through the House of Lords!

A month afterwards a corn-bill, the first inroad actually effected upon

the protective system, was carried in the House of Commons. The duke

declared the repeal or modification of the corn-laws to be especially

wicked, as injuring the landed interest; nevertheless, he took up the

measure and carried it through. Corn might come in, if only Whigs and

Radicals could be kept out. Thus early, measures which Canning proposed

with consistency and honour,—and for proposing which these men hunted

him to death,—they inconsistently, and with a violation of principle

which lowered the character of public men, carried through parliament to

preserve the ministerial ascendancy of Peel and the party.

As the session advanced the spirit of reform both in and out of

parliament advanced. Penryn and East Retford were rotten boroughs, with

only a handful of constituents. The reformers demanded the transfer of

the representation from two such insignificant and corrupt places

to Manchester and Birmingham. The duke would not consent to the

enfranchisement of the two great centres of manufactures; he held fast

by the rotten boroughs. Huskiseon, Grant, Lamb, and Lords Dudley and

Palmerston resigned. Thus the Canning cabinet was expunged, and a pure

tory remainder formed the nucleus of a new ministry, which was composed

of Lord Aberdeen, Sir H. Hardinge, and Sir George Murray,—men in every

way immeasurably inferior to those who, no longer able to follow the

bigoted yet inconsistent and time-serving policy of the duke and Peel,

were obliged to resign office.

The state of Ireland now became alarming. The Roman Catholic population,

led by O’Connell, menaced insurrection, and a system of agitation was

maintained very effective, and very embarrassing to government. The

Roman Catholics knew that nothing would be conceded by Wellington and

Peel on principle, but that anything might be wrung from them, if, by

the concession, they supposed that they thereby gave a longer lease of

power to the privileged classes. The army began to discuss the question

of religious disability, and a third of the force was alleged to be

Roman Catholic. The duke came to the conclusion that to avert civil war,

Roman Catholic emancipation must be effected. In his public statements

he greatly exaggerated the dangers of withholding the measure; but as

neither he nor Peel were supposed at heart to be very earnest, although

very illiberal Protestants, the public considered it a new trick to take

popular public measures out of the hands of the liberal party, to pass

them in forms less in harmony with the principles involved in them, than

would have been the case if carried by the Whigs. In February, 1829, the

measure of Roman Catholic emancipation was announced in the speech from

the throne, and was carried through parliament by all the power which

the ministry could command. The high Protestants lost confidence in

the duke, and the Earl of Winchelsea impeached his private honour in

connection with the events which had transpired. On the 31st of March

the duke and the earl met in Battersea Fields to fight a duel. The

duke fired and missed; Lord Winchelsea fired in the air, and the affair

terminated. Throughout the political transactions of his premiership

his grace showed much passion, and a tyranny to his colleagues in office

more suitable to the barrack-room than the cabinet. Peel was the abettor

of all this, and by many deemed the inventor of it. After conceding such

a large measure of religious liberty, his grace seemed to dislike more

inveterately than ever all measures of free-trade and parliamentary

reform. The French revolution of 1830 excited the whole country, and

an agitation for reform of threatening magnitude arose and spread

throughout the land. He had the hardihood to attempt prosecutions of

the press, although by such means the French king had brought about

his dethronement. He defied public feeling, and did so with an air

of peremptory authority and insolence offensive to parliament and the

people. He became one of the most unpopular men in England. Almost

all parties united in deeming him unfit to lead the government of the

country in such a crisis. He was hooted by mobs in the streets; the

windows of his mansion were broken, and had to be defended by iron

casings. A new parliament was elected; a reform was demanded. The duke

met the demand by a sturdy defiance. He declared, “that the country

already possessed a legislature which answered all the good purposes of

legislation, that the system of representation possessed the full and

entire confidence of the country, and that he was not only not prepared

to bring forward any measure of reform, but would resist such, as long

as he held any station in the government of the country.” With those

words the career and credit of the duke as a statesman may be said to

have closed. A perfect hurricane of rage arose around him through all

the land. He was hurled from power, and the Whigs came into office

pledged to a Reform Bill, which, after vain and fierce opposition,

became the law of the land. King William IV. became alarmed at the rapid

progress of reform; he suddenly dismissed the Whigs, and “sent for the

duke.” The latter failed again in his discernment of the true slate of

public feeling in England. He refused to become premier, advised the

king to send for Sir Robert Peel (what the latter had been all along

planning and expecting). Sir Robert arrived and formed a ministry, the

duke becoming minister of foreign affairs and leader of the government

party in the House of Lords. This ministry was speedily swept away by

the popular indignation, and the Whigs again returned to power. From

that time the duke seems to have made expediency his sole rule of

political action; he became heart and soul a Peelite. In 1841 he had an

opportunity of upholding Sir Robert Peel in power for some time, and

of aiding him in the great work of commercial and economical reform,

against which both had all their life protested and straggled. It can

hardly be urged in excuse for the duke’s long opposition to commercial

reform, that questions of finance and political economy were out of the

proper range of his subjects, for he was a first-rate financier, and a

successful student of political economy. He is represented to have said

of himself that his true genius was the Exchequer rather than the War

Office. “At one of the most critical conjunctures of the Peninsular

war, he drew up a most able paper on the true principles of Portuguese

banking; and at Seringapatam, after very serious evils had been

experienced from a long-standing debasement of the coinage, a memorandum

was accidentally discovered in the treasury from the pen of Colonel

Wellesley, every prediction and observation of which had been exactly

verified by events.” His desire to stand by his order, to uphold

government by that order, and to maintain its revenues by the protection

of territorial produce overpowered alike his sense of justice, and his

patriotism.

In 1843, he resumed the office of “commander-in-chief of the land

forces,” which he held until his decease. In his management of the

army, he displayed the same repugnance to reform as in civil life, and a

determination to resist all changes that lessened aristocratic influence

in its government, or the promotion of its officers. The liberal views

and measures which spontaneously emanated from the Duke of Cambridge,

in 1858–9, would have been impossible to the Duke of Wellington, except

under such a pressure of popular power as made a concession of some

things necessary to preserve others. The improvements which gradually

grew up in the condition of the common soldier seldom, almost never,

had his approbation, and were generally carried out by successive whig

governments in opposition to the commander-in-chief.

On the 10th of April, 1848, when the great Chartist meeting took place

near London, the dispositions made by the great duke to put down any

attempt at insurrection, excited the admiration of all military men.

At no period in the Duke of Wellington’s history did he so fully enjoy

the confidence and respect of his countrymen as when death approached.

The mode of his death was such as might be expected at his advanced

age. It was easy—as the lamp expires when the oil which fed it becomes

exhausted. One of the honours which he bore was that of warden of the

Cinque Ports; he was therefore staying at Walmer Castle when his brief

but fatal illness occurred. His remains were there placed in a coffin,

which the inhabitants and the troops of the surrounding garrisons were

permitted to see. On the 10th of November, the body was removed to

London, and laid in state at Chelsea Hospital, where a vast concourse

of persons were permitted to see it. Thence it was taken to the

Horse Guards, whence the funeral procession went forth to St. Paul’s

Cathedral, in the dome of which, beside the body of Nelson, it was to

be deposited. The funeral was the grandest which ever took place in

England, or perhaps in Europe. Military representatives from all the

important nations in Europe, except Austria, attended. Vast multitudes

of people crowded the thoroughfares along which the procession moved,

and of that multitude exceeding great numbers were dressed in deep

black. In parliament and throughout the country, demonstrations of

respect for the memory of the departed hero were made, and the court

went into mourning. Thus closed the life and obsequies of one of the

greatest men to whom the British Isles had ever given birth. His grace

was a widower at his death. He had married, in 1806, an Irish lady of

rank, the Honourable Catherine Pakenham, daughter of the second Baron

Longford, and sister to the gallant Generals Pakenham, who distinguished

themselves under the command of his grace in the Peninsular. The duchess

died in 1831, leaving two sons, the Marquis of Douro, heir to the title,

and Lord Charles Wellesley, both military men. Lord Charles Wellesley,

from loss of sight, has since been obliged to give up the military

profession; and the successor to the great duke, although a man of

general talent, and allowed by military men to possess remarkable

ability for the profession of arms, has not followed that career, but

maintains a high position at court and in public affairs.

THE COURT.

There were few incidents connected with the court in 1852 interesting

to the general reader. Her majesty and the royal family spent the usual

season in London, especially in connection with ministerial changes

and parliamentary proceedings. Windsor Castle and Osborne House also

received their royal proprietor at the accustomed seasons. In the

summer, however, her majesty made a cruise in her yacht, before retiring

to her autumnal Scottish retreat. A royal yacht squadron escorted the

queen and the royal household from Cowes along the southern coast of

England to Plymouth, the party landing at various points celebrated

for their picturesque situation. Having cruised about the south and

south-west coast, the squadron returned to Osborne. At the close of

August, her majesty, the prince, and the elder five children left

Osborne for Balmoral. Her residence there was shortened by tidings of

the death of the Duke of Wellington, which reached her September 16th.

Early in October she left for Windsor, visiting _en route_ the Menai

Straits, and passing through the tubular bridge.