THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued).
Peace and Prosperity in 1864--Birth of an Heir to the Prince of
Wales--Lord Derby's happy Speech-Fruitlessness of the Parliamentary
Debates--Mr. Gladstone's Budget--Mr. Stansfeld and Mazzini--The
Government and the London Conference on the Danish Question--Votes
of Censure in both Houses--Mr. Gladstone on Parliamentary
Reform--The Premier's Forecast--Resignation of Mr. Lowe--Lord
Westbury on Convocation--Garibaldi's Visit to England--His
Reception in London--The Duke of Newcastle and Nassau Senior--The
Shakespeare Tercentenary--"Essays and Reviews" again--The
Colenso Controversy--Mr. Disraeli and the Angels--The Fenians in
Dublin--Origin of the Belfast Riots--Their Progress--Excesses of
Orangemen and Roman Catholics--The Military Called Out--Trials of
the Rioters--The Ashantee War--The Maori War--Waitara Block and its
consequences--Suppression of the Rebellion--Final Defeat of the
Taepings--Bombardment of Simonasaki--The Cyclone at Calcutta--Its
Ravages.
The year 1864 was for Britain as uneventful as the years which immediately
preceded and followed it. The course of peaceful industry and the
accumulation of wealth went on undisturbed, and the gradual abatement
of the distress in Lancashire diffused a general feeling of relief and
satisfaction. The revenue was found to display a wonderful elasticity. The
Session of Parliament was opened by commission on the 4th of February.
In the Royal Speech her Majesty expressed her confidence that Parliament
would sympathise with her in her gratitude to the Almighty on account of
the Princess of Wales having given birth (January 8) to a son, "an event
which has called forth from her faithful people renewed demonstrations of
devoted loyalty and attachment to her person and family."
In the debate on the Address Lord Derby adverted, with that felicity
of phrase for which he was notorious, to the birth of an heir to the
Prince of Wales, afterwards known as Prince Albert Victor and the Duke of
Clarence and Avondale. "At this time last year," he said, "we offered our
humble congratulations to her Majesty on the auspicious marriage of the
heir to the Throne with a Princess every way qualified to share the high
destiny reserved for him, and whose personal beauty and attractions, and
the natural and unaffected charm of whose manner, secured for her, from
the first moment of her entrance into this kingdom, the admiration and, I
may say, the affection of her adopted country. On this occasion we have
to congratulate her Majesty and the nation on the happy issue of that
marriage, in the birth of an heir to the Throne in the second generation;
and although, my lords, happily for this country monarchical institutions
are so firmly established in the hearts and affections of the people, and
their attachment to them has been so strengthened by the private virtues
and personal qualities of the illustrious lady who occupies the throne
that it is not with us, as it might be with other countries, a subject of
additional congratulation that we thereby obtain greater stability for the
Throne, or greater security for the dynasty, yet we may be permitted to
rejoice at the prospect we have before us of a direct line of succession
from the present illustrious wearer of the crown and her immediate
descendants--from a Sovereign who has done so much to cast a lustre on
that crown, and also to strengthen the hold which monarchical institutions
have upon this nation.... I am sure there is not one of your lordships
who does not offer up a fervent prayer to the Throne of Grace that that
bright prospect may remain unclouded, and that, long after the youngest of
your lordships has passed away from this scene, the throne of these realms
may be occupied by the descendants of the illustrious Prince and of his
new-born heir--
Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis."
In the course of this Session many measures of political or social
reform--the Ballot, the Reduction of the County Franchise, the Abolition
of Church Rates and of Tests, the Permissive Bill--were introduced
into Parliament and discussed, but in no single instance were they
carried. Sterility attended all the legislative throes of our political
assemblies. Nor are the debates on foreign affairs either pleasant or
profitable reading; for in the midst of much acrimonious criticism of the
proceedings of the Ministry, the general result comes out clearly, that
the critics, had they been in the place of the Government, would have
pursued substantially the same policy. Thus, although Mr. Cobden, in his
speech on the resolution brought in by Mr. Disraeli censuring the foreign
policy of the Government, severely blamed the proceedings of Lord Russell
with reference to Schleswig-Holstein, the grounds of his censure were,
not that we had disregarded treaties, or broken faith with Denmark, but
that we had laboured so much as we had done to maintain the former and
preserve the latter. Similarly, the cautious and pacific temper of the
man of business, so strikingly contrasted with the temper of the senators
and statesmen which in former times inspired our policy, appeared in the
review which he took of the British army and navy, dispersed about the
world, and engaged in the protection of our colonies; thence inferring
that to engage in a war with any of the great Continental Powers would be
for Britain attended with extreme difficulty and expense. And the same
prudential spirit appeared, in various degrees, to animate the majority of
our public men.
The financial statement of Mr. Gladstone was again, among all the
domestic transactions of the Session, the chief point of attraction. His
expectations of buoyancy and expansion in the revenue, as a consequence of
that very reduction in fiscal burdens which ostensibly tended to diminish
it, were again remarkably verified. On a comparison of the revenue with
the expenditure of the past year, it appeared that there was a surplus
of £2,037,000. On the general prosperity of the trade of the country,
Mr. Gladstone entered into some striking details. The aggregate amount
of that trade, it appeared (including imports and exports), had been,
in 1861, £377,000,000; but in 1863 it had risen to the unprecedented
sum of £444,000,000. The disposal of the surplus was the next point of
importance. A great fight was made by the farmers' friends to prevail
upon the Government to apply at least a portion of it to the reduction of
the malt tax. But the Government wisely resisted all these overtures, and
in so doing were supported by a decided majority of the House. That tax,
producing so many millions to the revenue, was felt to be too important
to be made the subject of experiments; if it was to be touched at all, it
must be thoroughly and systematically revised. But although the Government
thus resisted the attempts to take off or diminish the duties on malt used
in the manufacture of beer, they made a concession to the agriculturists
in the shape of a remission of so much of the duty as had been hitherto
levied upon malt used for the consumption of cattle. The House finally
agreed to apply the surplus in the manner proposed by Mr. Gladstone--that
is to say, partly in effecting a substantial reduction in the duties on
sugar, partly by taking off a penny in the pound from the income tax.
In course of the discussions on the Navy Estimates a singular incident
occurred, which cost the Government the services of one of the Junior
Lords of the Admiralty. A trial had recently been held in Paris, in which
two conspirators, Greco and Trabucco, were charged with a plot against
the Emperor's life. In the course of the trial the Procureur-Général
stated that a paper had been found on the person of Greco, directing him,
if in want of money, to apply to a Mr. Flowers, at 35, Thurloe Square,
Brompton. This, the Procureur added, is the residence of an English
member of Parliament, who, in 1855, was appointed banker to the Tibaldi
conspirators against the Emperor's life. A reference to the Post Office
Directory showed that the member in question was Mr. Stansfeld, the
member for Halifax, and one of the Junior Lords of the Admiralty; nor was
it difficult to discover that Mr. Flowers, alias M. Fiori, was no other
than Mazzini, the ex-triumvir. Mr. Cox, one of the members for Finsbury,
first drew the attention of the House, and of the member for Halifax,
to the passage in the Procureur-Général's speech, when Mr. Stansfeld,
in reply, expressed great indignation that the Crown prosecutor of a
friendly Power should have ventured to connect him, a member of the
British Parliament and a Minister of the Crown, with the atrocious crime
with which the prisoners were charged. He knew nothing either of Greco or
of Mr. Flowers, whose letters were addressed to his house. As to Mazzini,
he gloried in the friendship of such a man, the greatness and nobility
of whose character were little appreciated; and he was persuaded that to
say that Mazzini had ever incited to assassination was as base a libel as
could be uttered. Mr. Stansfeld's first explanation left the matter still
involved in considerable mystery. The subject was revived by Sir Laurence
Palk a few nights afterwards and warmly discussed, Mr. Pope Hennessy
reading extracts from letters written by Mazzini, with reference to other
transactions, in which he appeared to justify assassination in certain
cases. Again, on the motion for going into Committee of Supply, Sir H.
Strachey moved as an amendment, "That the speech of the Procureur-Général
on the trial of Greco, implicating a member of this House, and of her
Majesty's Government, in the plot for the assassination of our ally the
Emperor of the French, deserves the serious consideration of this House."
Mr. Stansfeld admitted that he had at one time allowed his name to be
inscribed on bank-notes (issued probably by the society of Carbonari, or
revolutionary conspirators to procure the liberation of Italy), which he
believed would have been used, not in the interest of assassins, but
to aid in the establishment of a free and united Italy; but, acting on
the advice of friends, he had withdrawn the permission. Lord Palmerston
and other members of the Government warmly defended their colleague,
and the amendment of Sir H. Strachey was rejected by a majority of ten.
Nevertheless, Mr. Stansfeld resigned his post as Junior Lord.
[Illustration: MR. PHELPS PLANTING THE SHAKESPEARE OAK ON PRIMROSE HILL,
LONDON. (_See p._ 348.)]
The existence of the Government was seriously imperilled in July, when
Lord Malmesbury, in the Lords, and Mr. Disraeli, in the Commons, moved
the following resolution: "That this House has heard with deep concern
that the sittings of the conference recently held in London have been
brought to a close without accomplishing the important purpose for which
it was convened. That it is the opinion of this House, that while the
course pursued by her Majesty's Government has failed to maintain their
avowed policy of upholding the integrity and independence of Denmark,
it has lowered the just influence of this country in the councils of
Europe, and thereby diminished the securities for peace." The event
concerned is related in the following chapter; at present we notice it
merely as an incident in the political history of the Session. In the
Lords the Government was defeated by a majority of nine; but this was not
unexpected. In the Commons there were some brilliant passages of arms
between the party leaders; but Mr. Horsman, it was generally felt, was not
far from the truth when he said that "the Government had made mistakes,
but their opponents had endorsed them; so the parties were pretty much
upon an equality." On a division, the amendment to Mr. Disraeli's
resolution, moved by Mr. Kinglake, was carried by a majority of eighteen
in a very full House, and Government was saved.
On the question of Parliamentary Reform little interest was at this time
felt in the country, and the apathy of the constituencies extended itself
to their representatives in the House of Commons. Yet the question may
be justly held to have advanced a stage, in consequence of a remarkable
declaration made by Mr. Gladstone during the debate on Mr. Baines'
Bill for substituting a £6 rental qualification for the existing £10
householder franchise in boroughs. The previous question had been moved by
Mr. Cave; but Mr. Gladstone declared that although there was a concurrence
of opinion that the present was not a suitable time for the introduction
by the Government of a comprehensive measure of Reform, yet he could
not vote for the amendment, because it went to deny that the question
of the reduction of the franchise was one which ought to be discussed
and, if possible, settled. Mr. Baines' Bill was lost by the adoption of
the previous question, but it was evident to all that the £10 limit was
condemned in general opinion, and could not much longer be maintained. On
account of these and similar utterances of his Chancellor, Lord Palmerston
said to Lord Shaftesbury, "Gladstone will soon have it all his own way,
and whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange doings."
Another Minister was compelled by circumstances to execute upon himself
the "happy despatch" before the end of the Session. This was Mr. Lowe,
the Vice-President of the Council, whom Lord Robert Cecil (afterwards
Lord Salisbury) charged with mutilating the annual reports of Inspectors
of Schools, and cutting out passages that did not chime in with his own
views, before submitting them to the House. An adverse resolution grounded
on this allegation was carried in a thin House, and Mr. Lowe had no choice
but to resign. But the explanation which he afterwards offered made it
so abundantly clear that the charge was founded on a misunderstanding,
and that he had done nothing but what the practice of his and other
departments justified, that Lord R. Cecil frankly admitted that, had this
explanation been made at first, he should have abandoned his charges;
and the House was induced with little difficulty, on the motion of Lord
Palmerston, to rescind the inculpatory resolution which it had just passed.
The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury--which, instead of being
prorogued immediately after its opening, as had been the case since
the reign of Anne, has gradually obtained the royal licence, since
the friendly intervention of Lord Derby in 1852, of proceeding to the
despatch of business--after discussions of extraordinary prolixity,
passed what was called a "Synodical Judgment" (June 21, 1864), condemning
the well-known work entitled "Essays and Reviews." Some time afterwards
the matter was brought before the Peers, Lord Houghton desiring to know
what was the legal effect of the judgment, and whether, in passing it,
the Convocation had not exceeded its powers. On this occasion the Lord
Chancellor (Lord Westbury) made a speech, the like of which for scathing
wit and contemptuous banter, has been seldom heard. "There are," he said,
"three modes of dealing with Convocation, when it is permitted to come
into action and transact real business. The first is, while they are
harmlessly busy, to take no notice of their proceedings. The second is,
when they seem likely to get into mischief, to prorogue them, and put
an end to their proceedings; the third, when they have done something
clearly beyond their powers, is to bring them before a court of justice
and punish them." He went on to state that should any attempt be made to
give validity to any act of Convocation, without the consent of the Crown,
the persons so offending would incur the penalties of _præmunire_. "I am
afraid my noble friend has not considered what the pains and penalties of
a præmunire are, or his gentle heart would have melted at the prospect....
I have not ventured--I say it seriously--I have not ventured to present
the question to her Majesty's Government; for, my lords, only imagine what
an opportunity it would be for my right honourable friend the Chancellor
of the Exchequer to spread his net, and in one haul take in £30,000 from
the highest dignitary, not to speak of the bishops, deans, archdeacons,
canons, vicars, all included in one common crime, all subject to one
common penalty.... Assuming that the report of the judgment which I have
read is a correct one, I am happy to tell your lordships, that what is
called a synodical judgment is simply a series of well lubricated terms--a
sentence so oily and so saponaceous that no one could grasp it. Like
an eel, it slips through your fingers--it is simply nothing; and I am
glad to tell my noble friend that it is literally no sentence." Bishop
Wilberforce, to whose nickname, "Soapy Sam," the last passage was an
obvious allusion, made a vigorous and dignified reply to this masterpiece
of irony.
Parliament was prorogued on the 29th of July; and the records of the
remaining five months of the year contain little or nothing of public
interest. Earlier in the year, the visit of a distinguished foreigner
had been attended with so much of popular excitement and enthusiasm that
it deserves a passing notice. There was sufficient real feeling and real
knowledge about the Italian question among the masses of the metropolis
to secure the champion of a free Italy a warm reception, but before his
arrival the infectious enthusiasm of the well-informed few had spread
to the ignorant many, to those who scarcely knew that such a country as
Italy existed, and only thought vaguely of Garibaldi as a friend of the
poor and oppressed. All along the line from Southampton to the capital
crowds filled the stations, while at Nine Elms, where the General was
to alight, a multitude of working men, arranged in procession according
to their trades, awaited him on that April afternoon. Side by side with
them stood peers and members of Parliament, and when Garibaldi arrived he
was received like a prince, though there was a touch of passion in the
reception which is granted to few princes. At Wandsworth Road a halt was
made while a monster procession of trades unions filed past. Upwards of
30,000 men took part in it, and as they passed the General one and all
broke out in cheers and cries. To the dense multitude gathered at Vauxhall
and Kennington, 30,000 men would have been as nothing. Trafalgar Square
was one vast sea of faces as the procession entered it, while along Pall
Mall the clubs were lit up, and the windows and balconies filled with
spectators. At last Stafford House was reached, and the long, fatiguing,
exciting journey came to an end. Garibaldi was hoarse and wearied; the
excitement had been almost too much for him, and after his introduction
to the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, his friends saw his retirement in
the care of his host with relief. So far his visit had been an unexampled
success; London had given him a noble welcome, as the most cynical
confessed. He was fêted, the best houses in London were open to him,
while the leaders of society vied with one another in efforts to please
and amuse him. Throughout it all he remained his simple unconscious self,
unfeignedly pleased by the admiration and attention shown him, but always
glad when he could escape the throng around him for a minute or two, and
chat in a corner with a friend. On the 20th, when he went to receive the
freedom of the City of London, the same unmixed enthusiasm greeted him. It
began to be said, at the end of the General's visit, that the red shirt
was an emblem of revolution, and that if he stayed longer in England, a
dangerous temper might be developed among the workmen who cheered him so
lustily. That his visit was shortened by a hint from the Government is
well known, but the actuating motive was not fear of a rising at home, but
the representations of the Austrian and Italian Ministers. On the 27th of
April he quitted Plymouth in the _Undine_.
Few of those who departed in the course of this year from their wonted
places among men awakened in the hearts of the mourning survivors more
sad and sympathetic regrets than Henry Pelham Clinton, fifth Duke of
Newcastle. But fifty-three years old, and endowed by nature with an eager
and buoyant temperament, he was just the man who might have been expected
to pass a long life in doing good and faithful service for his country,
and then to die in harness. But the gloom of a ghastly private sorrow had
long hung over him; the incurable wound of an intolerable injury rankled
in his soul. Nassau William Senior, the eminent political economist, died
this year at the age of 74. He was an eminent and representative member
of the English school of economists, in whose hands the science of wealth
tended to be mathematical and precise and aimed at excluding those moral
and sentimental considerations from which most Continental economists
thought that it could not be disjoined. His mind, remarkable for the clear
dry light that it brought to the analysis and classification of facts, was
deficient in imagination and sensibility, though it made advances in this
direction in the course of his later years, as his journals and letters
testify.
On the 23rd of April, 1864, exactly three hundred years would have
elapsed since the birth of Shakespeare; and before the anniversary
arrived there was a general stir in literary and dramatic circles,
out of a persuasion that a date so marked should be signalised by a
national festival of a splendid character, which would show the world
how England honoured her greatest poet. Something, eventually, was done,
and, to some limited extent, well done. A pavilion was erected by public
subscription at Stratford-upon-Avon, which was to serve the threefold
purpose of dining-room, theatre, and hall of discussion. On the morning
of the 23rd of April the Mayor of Stratford received, in the Town Hall,
an address from the "Free German Institute of Arts and Sciences at
Frankfort-on-the-Main." Professor Max Müller, in presenting this address,
delivered a remarkable and somewhat inconclusive speech. He urged that
hero-worship should henceforward replace for England that veneration of
the saints which was so dear to our forefathers. In London the memory
of Shakespeare was honoured in various ways, but the only truly public
demonstration was that arranged by the Working Men's Committee. It was
resolved to plant an oak in honour of Shakespeare at the foot of Primrose
Hill. A young oak sapling was, by the Queen's permission, obtained from
Windsor Park; a procession of trades was organised from Russell Square;
and after an oration had been delivered by Mr. George Moore, the chairman
of the committee, Mr. Phelps, the celebrated actor at Sadler's Wells
Theatre, planted the tree, and a Mrs Banks, sprinkling it with water
brought from the Avon at Stratford, christened it "Shakespeare's Oak."
The progress of Rationalism on all sides, and even among the clergy of the
Establishment, made itself felt this year in various ways. The same Lord
Chancellor, who made so merry in Parliament with the "synodical judgment"
of Convocation upon "Essays and Reviews," had previously, in the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council, given to two of the contributors to that
volume the full benefit of the extremely latitudinarian character of
his own theological sentiments. Dr. Rowland Williams and Mr. Wilson had
been condemned in the Court of Arches on two of the reformed articles of
charge exhibited against them, and sentenced to a year's suspension. One
article exhibited against Dr. Williams which the Court below held to be
proved, charged him with maintaining that the Bible, or Holy Scripture,
was "an expression of devout reason," and the written voice of the
congregation--not the Word of God, nor containing any special revelation
of His Truth, or of His dealings with mankind, nor of the rule of our
faith. Another charged him with alleging that "the doctrine of merit
by transfer is a fiction," and argued that this was at variance with
the express language of the eleventh of the Thirty-nine Articles, which
teaches that "we are accounted righteous before God only for the merits
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not of our own works
and deservings." With regard to the first article, the judgment of the
Judicial Committee, as delivered by the Lord Chancellor, was to the effect
that the language used by Dr. Williams had been harshly interpreted; as
to the second, the Court accepted Dr. Williams's explanation, that by the
term "fiction" he did not intend "false or fictitious statement," but
merely "the phantasm in the mind of an individual that he has received or
enjoyed merit by transfer." Upon the whole, the committee were of opinion
that Dr. Williams had not outstepped the limits imposed by the formularies
of the Church of England on the freedom of thought and discussion, and
therefore decided that the sentence of a year's suspension must be
reversed. In the case of Mr. Wilson, charged with encouraging the hope
that the last judgment of God upon the wicked might not be really one
consigning them to eternal punishment, the committee similarly held that
this opinion was fairly tenable by clergymen of the Church of England, and
therefore reversed the penal sentence of the Court of Arches.
An incident in the great Colenso anomaly, which occurred partly in
this and partly in the following year, when stripped of the legal
technicalities in which it was enveloped, resulted no less favourably
for the advocates of free thought than the trial of Dr. Williams and
Mr. Wilson. In virtue of letters patent issued from the Crown, erecting
Capetown into a metropolitan see, with Dr. Gray for its first bishop, and
Natal as one of the suffragan sees--giving also to the metropolitan bishop
jurisdiction over his suffragans, with a right of appeal only to the
Archbishop of Canterbury--Bishop Gray had cited Bishop Colenso to appear
in his diocesan court of Capetown and answer to the charges of heresy,
founded on the novel doctrines broached in his Essay on the Pentateuch,
which had been brought against him. Dr. Colenso denied the jurisdiction of
the Bishop of Capetown _in hac re_, and declined to appear; nevertheless,
Bishop Gray proceeded to hear the charges and, having decided them to be
proved, pronounced a sentence of deposition against Bishop Colenso, and
prohibited his clergy from paying him canonical obedience. Dr. Colenso,
however, in due course lodged an appeal with the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council, as the depositary of the royal supremacy in
ecclesiastical causes, and prayed, not only that the sentence against him
might be declared null and void, but that the letters patent conferring
jurisdiction on the Bishop of Capetown might be declared to have been
illegal and of no effect _ab initio_. The case was argued on the 14th of
December and following days, but the judgment of the Judicial Committee
was not delivered till March in the following year, when the court decided
that the proceedings of Bishop Gray were null and void as law. The fact
was that the zeal of the Bishop had outrun his discretion and entirely
disregarded the remonstrances of Dr. Tait, the judicious Bishop of London.
But the Rationalising and anti-dogmatic party were not allowed to carry
all before them; their flank was vigorously assailed by Mr. Disraeli, in
November, who, in a speech delivered at a meeting of the Oxford Diocesan
Society, attacked the new scepticism with all the resources of his bitter
wit and unsparing rhetoric. He spoke of the clerical underminers of the
doctrines which at their ordination they had vowed to maintain, whose
works, he said--insufferably dull and interminably prolix--would, if we
were compelled to peruse them, go far to realise for us that perpetuity
of punishment which their authors denied. The highest science, he went on
to say, was that which interpreted the highest nature, namely, the nature
of man; but when he compared the new interpretations with the old, he was
not prepared to say that the lecture-room was more scientific than the
Church. "What is the question which is now placed before society with the
glib assurance which to me is most astounding? That question is this--Is
a man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels. I
repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new-fangled theories.
I believe they are foreign to the conscience of humanity; and I say
more--that even in the strictest intellectual point of view I believe the
severest metaphysical analysis is opposed to such conclusions."
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE BELFAST RIOTS. (_See p._ 350.)]
In Ireland, the unhappy consequences which result from the secular
oppression of one race or religion by another were painfully illustrated
this year by the riots at Belfast. Earlier in the year a significant
event had occurred in Dublin, which first disclosed the strength and wide
extension of the Fenian conspiracy. A Fenian convention had met the year
before in America, but that the society numbered thousands and tens of
thousands of enthusiastic supporters in Ireland itself was not generally
known before the Rotunda meeting, on the 23rd of February, 1864. This
meeting--having been called by The O'Donoghue, Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and
other leaders of the National party, to testify their indignation at
the proposal to erect a monument in Dublin to the memory of the Prince
Consort--was mobbed, soon after the proceedings began, by a preconcerted
attack of Fenians, and after a good deal of fighting vanquished and
dispersed.
But the desperate riots which took place at Belfast, in the autumn, threw
all minor scuffles into the shade. There had been a great demonstration
at Dublin, on the 8th of August, in honour of Daniel O'Connell, and a
monument had been inaugurated to his memory. The demonstration itself
went off quietly. But the Protestants of Belfast felt, when the accounts
of the Dublin proceedings reached them through the newspapers, extremely
annoyed. Accordingly they eagerly prepared a counter-demonstration. An
insulting effigy of O'Connell was made and carried through the streets,
attended by thousands of mill-workers; and in the evening it was publicly
burnt. Nor was this all. Next day the Protestants announced that having
burnt O'Connell, they must now proceed to bury him. A coffin was prepared
and borne solemnly to the gate of the Friar's Bush Cemetery, where it was,
of course, refused admittance; after which it suffered the same fate as
the effigy, and the ashes were thrown into the river running through the
town. The bonfire, however, was still blazing, and the crowds around it
were still engaged in hooting the "Liberator," when it became known that
the Catholics were out in the Protestant quarters of the town, smashing
windows and breaking furniture.
Night put an end to the disturbance for the time, but on the following
day matters became serious. Between five and six o'clock in the morning,
affrays occurred between various bodies of mill-workers going to work.
The day passed off quietly, but in the evening an encounter took place
between the Catholics and the inhabitants of Brown Square. The Catholics
were for the time beaten off; but returning, armed with brickbats and
other missiles, they fell upon the constabulary, who had by this time
arrived upon the scene, leaving five or six severely wounded. All through
the night the fray continued. The police made some captures, but nothing
damped the spirit of the Catholic mob, and the rioting continued unabated
during the whole of the following day, and throughout Friday and Saturday.
Sunday was quiet, but Monday brought with it fresh scenes of disorder. A
body of Roman Catholic navvies attacked the Protestant houses in Brown
Street and the national school, wrecking both the buildings and their
contents. While thus engaged, they were set upon by a party of exasperated
Orangemen, and a regular fight ensued. The authorities saw that it was
high time extreme measures were taken. The military were called out, under
Mr. Lyons, J.P., and posted in the Protestant districts. But the Irish
blood was up, and the sight of the soldiers produced none of the hoped-for
effect upon the reckless mob. Next day, both soldiers and police fired
upon the people. Two were shot dead in the _mêlée_, and between fifty
and sixty seriously injured. There was a fearful rumour in the course of
the day that the ship-carpenters, mostly Orangemen, had seized upon the
gunpowder stores. The gunpowder, however, was saved by the prompt action
of the authorities. On the 17th the ship-carpenters vowed vengeance upon
the navvies, who had wrought such havoc at the outset of the riots, and
having forced their enemies into the mudbanks in the harbour, they fired
upon them from the shore, killing one and wounding nine or ten. It being
quite evident that the Belfast authorities had no adequate force at hand,
large reinforcements were sent to the number of about 4,000 men. These
troops, encamped in the city, succeeded in preventing any further violence
on a large scale. At length, on the 24th, Belfast was reported tranquil,
and the bruised and sobered rioters began to look forward uneasily to
the reckoning to come. Unfortunately, the mischief did not end with
Belfast; other parts of Ireland caught the spirit of the rioters. But the
authorities had been put on their guard, and the prompt despatch of troops
to Dundalk and Newry nipped the disturbances there in the bud. At the
spring assizes in the following year, 1865, many persons concerned in the
riots were brought up for trial. The judge dwelt on the serious nature of
the disturbances. According to the report of Dr. Murney, surgeon to the
General Hospital, 316 persons had received more or less severe injuries,
219 had recovered, 11 died; while at the time the report was presented
(November 6, 1864) there were 98 cases of gun-shot wounds still under
treatment. "This," said Baron Deasy, "reads more like the _Gazette_ after
a very serious military or naval engagement, than the return presented
to a judge of assize at the assizes in this country." In most cases a
verdict of guilty was returned, and the sentences varied from two years'
imprisonment with hard labour to three months'.
It can seldom happen in a vast Empire that a year should pass without
some hostile collision taking place, either in one of its outlying
colonies, or in one of the semi-civilised yet wealthy communities which
its merchants frequent. In 1864 little wars raged at the Cape Coast in
Africa, and in New Zealand, at that time Britain's youngest and fairest
colony; while both in China and Japan hostilities, in which we were more
or less engaged, were carried on. The Governor of Cape Coast Castle having
refused to give up to the King of Ashantee two of his slaves who had
taken refuge within British territory, the King made an incursion into
the lands of the Fantees, a friendly tribe inhabiting that portion of the
coast which adjoins our settlement. Thereupon Governor Pim ordered a force
to proceed on an expedition into the Ashantee country, which, however,
produced no coercive effect on the barbarian, and resulted in a heavy
loss in officers and men, owing to the pestiferous nature of the climate.
The matter was of no great consequence, yet, when it came to be debated in
the House of Commons, it nearly upset the Government. Sir John Hay moved
a resolution of censure, and, while acquitting the inferior authorities
of blame, endeavoured to fix it all on the Cabinet. Sir John Hay's
resolution, in a rather full House, was rejected by the narrow majority of
seven.
In New Zealand, where a native war had existed since 1860, some decided
advantages were gained this year by General Cameron, and certain native
tribes gave in their unconditional submission. The war arose out of a
quarrel respecting what was known in the colony as "the Waitara purchase."
An individual Maori, named Teira, belonging to the tribe of Wiremu Kingi
(_Anglicè_, William King), offered to the Government for sale, in 1859,
a block of land on the river Waitara, near Taranaki. The Government,
believing that no other rights over the land existed except those of the
vendor, agreed to purchase it; but this decision was vehemently protested
against by Wiremu Kingi. Troops were sent to Taranaki in 1860, by the aid
of whom the block of land was occupied; and thus commenced a harassing
and inglorious Maori war, in the course of which the town of Taranaki was
seized and plundered, and the entire settlement ravaged by the native
insurgents. To Major-General Pratt, who did little more than hold his
ground against the Maoris, succeeded Major-General Cameron, an officer
of great vigour and ability; but still the resistance of the Maoris,
favoured by the wooded nature of the country, and the sparseness of the
European population, continued. In 1861 the Duke of Newcastle summoned
Sir George Grey (formerly Governor of New Zealand for several years at
a most critical period) from the Cape Colony, and entrusted him with
the government of New Zealand. After a careful investigation into the
original cause of quarrel, Sir George Grey wrote to the Duke of Newcastle
(April, 1863) that it was his settled conviction "that the natives are,
in the main, right in their allegations regarding the Waitara purchase,
and that it ought not to be gone on with." Proclamation was accordingly
made to the natives that the purchase was abandoned. But the passions of
the Maoris had been roused by the long continuance of a state of war;
the proclamation, therefore, produced little effect. On the part of the
natives, the war chiefly consisted in the surprise and murder of scattered
settlers, or in a guerilla warfare against outposts and small detachments
of the troops; on our part, it consisted in a series of attacks on their
fortified _pahs_, or stockades, and in the securing of our flanks and rear
by the construction of good military roads. In some cases _pahs_ were
stormed with little loss; but the troops were not always so fortunate.
The Maori position of Orakau (April, 1864) cost us a loss of sixteen
killed and fifty-two wounded to storm; and in an attack on a strong _pah_
at Tauranga, on the north coast, the troops were actually repulsed, with
a loss of ten officers and twenty-five rank and file killed, and four
officers and seventy-two rank and file wounded. The _pah_ was evacuated
by the Maories on the following night, and they were soon after routed
with heavy loss while endeavouring to entrench themselves near Tauranga.
The Maoris of this district soon afterwards (August, 1864) submitted
themselves unconditionally to the Governor, who expressed his intention
of dealing leniently with them. The war was thus at an end on the north
coast, but lingered on for some time longer in the Waikato country and
around Taranaki.
In China, the rebellion of the Taepings was this year almost entirely
suppressed, chiefly through the aid of British officers. An Order in
Council had been passed authorising British subjects to enter into the
service of the Emperor of China; and Colonel Gordon, taking advantage
of the order, assisted by other English and American officers, drilled
and disciplined a body of Chinese soldiers in the European fashion, and
employed them in driving the Taepings and other disorderly characters
beyond the thirty-five mile radius which had been stipulated for on
behalf of the treaty ports. Following up his advantage, and co-operating
with the military mandarins, Gordon, in the summer of 1864, aided them
to reduce the town of Soochow, the last stronghold of the Taepings, of
whom 30,000, including women and children, were cruelly massacred by the
mandarins after the surrender. When the news of the massacre reached the
British Government, the Order in Council authorising British subjects to
enter the Chinese service was immediately revoked. This, however, did
not avert a severe arraignment of their policy in Parliament, in which
the Opposition were joined by several non-intervention Radicals. Lord
Palmerston's reply was cogent and unanswerable. He pointed out that the
general policy of Great Britain towards China was guided by the principle
of the extension of commerce, and all the interferences of the Government
had been rendered necessary by circumstances connected with the protection
of the mercantile interests of Englishmen. As to the cruelty and perfidy
of the imperialists, however that might be, the Taepings were infinitely
the worse of the two, each of them possessing the normal characteristics
of the Chinese.
In Japan several more horrid murders of Englishmen were committed by
fanatical natives during the year; and an attempt was made, which was
only partially successful, to destroy the batteries of Simonosaki. These
batteries commanded the entrance into the inland sea of Japan, and the
ruler of the place was in the habit of trying their range on any foreign
vessel, of whatever nationality, that attempted to pass. An expedition,
consisting of British, French, and Dutch ships-of-war, was organised at
Yokohama and, sailing to Simonosaki, subjected the batteries to a heavy
cannonade (September 5th), which was, however, vigorously returned and
with considerable loss to the expedition. Parties of sailors and marines
landed, spiked the guns in some of the batteries, and brought others,
to the number of sixty, with three mortars, on board the ships. On the
10th of September a Minister from the ruler of the country, the Prince of
Nagato, came off, armed with full powers to conclude a convention, which
was ultimately arranged on the following terms:--(1) That the Strait of
Simonosaki should be opened to the vessels of all nations; (2) that the
shore batteries should neither be armed nor repaired; (3) that the Allied
Powers should receive an indemnity, the amount of which was to be fixed by
their representatives at Jeddo.
An appalling calamity befell the capital of our Indian empire in the
autumn of this year. On the morning of the 5th of October a heavy gale
set in from the north-east at Calcutta; gradually it veered round to the
eastward, increasing in fury all the time, then to the southward, and
finally to the south-west, so as to leave no doubt that it was a true
_cyclone_, or revolving storm. Nearly all the churches and chapels in
Calcutta were unroofed or otherwise seriously damaged, and scarcely a
house in the city escaped without some injury. The native huts, especially
in the suburbs, were nearly all blown down. Except the cocoa-nut and other
palms, hardly a tree was anywhere left standing after the storm had passed
away. The beautiful avenues in Fort William were entirely destroyed and
the Eden Gardens turned into a wilderness. But it was on the river that
the storm was attended with the most disastrous consequences. Of more than
two hundred ships in the Hooghly, it was said that only ten were left at
their moorings after the storm, the rest having been stranded or sunk. The
_Bengal_, one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamers, another
British steamer, and a French ship were fairly lifted up and deposited on
shore. The total loss of life was very considerable, but does not appear
to have been accurately ascertained. In the city and suburbs of Calcutta
it was reported at forty-one natives, and two Europeans, besides some
twenty seriously wounded by the fall of their houses, and some hundreds of
lives were lost on the river. Great distress ensued owing to the scarcity
of food, and a relief fund was promptly opened in England and the three
Presidencies. In one day Bombay subscribed no less than £10,000.
[Illustration: AMALIENBORG PALACE, COPENHAGEN.]