ENGLAND IN 1845.
Borneo and Sir James Brooke--Cession of Labuan to Great
Britain--“Constitutionalism” in the Sandwich Islands--State of the
Colonies--Unsuccessful Attack on Madagascar--Commencement of the
Overland Route to India--Decline in the Popularity of Sir Robert
Peel--Rise of Mr. Disraeli and the Young England Party--Generous
Support of Peel by the Queen and Prince Albert--Offer of the Garter
to Sir Robert, which he declines--Position of the Premier towards
the Aristocracy--Increasing Weakness of the Government--Dangerous
State of Ireland--Prince Albert on the Political Situation--Visit
of the Queen to Belgium and Prussia--Splendid Reception in the
latter Country--Speech of the King of Prussia at Bonn--The
Illuminations at Cologne--Prince Albert and Baron von
Humboldt--Reception of the Royal Visitors in Bavaria, at Coburg,
and at Gotha--The Queen at the Native Place of her
Husband--Excursion to the Thuringian Forest--Other Incidents of the
German Visit--Second Visit of the Queen and Prince Albert to Louis
Philippe at the Château d’Eu--Duplicity of the King--Return of the
Royal Party to England--Spread of Railway Enterprise in Great
Britain--The Railway Mania and Panic of 1845-6--Increasing Strength
of the Free Trade Movement--The Potato Disease in
Ireland--Threatenings of Famine--Sir Robert Peel and Free
Trade--Letter of Lord John Russell to the Electors of the City of
London--Ministerial Crisis--Return of Sir Robert Peel to Power.
A great Empire, so long as the vigour of its people survives, is
continually spreading in new directions--sometimes by indefensible
means, at other times by methods which may be justified in accordance
with the ordinary nature of human affairs. In the early years of Queen
Victoria’s reign considerable activity was shown in the eastern parts of
Asia, and some important additions were made to the British possessions.
Borneo--the largest island in the world, next to Australia--was brought
under the notice of Englishmen, about 1841, by the proceedings of an
adventurous explorer. Until then it had been very little known in Great
Britain, although discovered by the Portuguese as far back as 1518. The
Dutch traded there during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but
the distant situation of the island, in the middle of the China Seas,
restricted the intercourse of Europeans with its people. The adjacent
waters swarmed with pirates, who not only robbed, but committed the most
extreme atrocities; and the evil was not firmly taken in hand until a
retired Anglo-Indian officer, named James Brooke, resolved to put down
buccaneering in the Eastern Archipelago. Providing himself with a large
yacht (which, being attached to the Royal Yacht Squadron, possessed in
foreign seas the privileges of a ship of war), he practised his crew for
about three years in the Mediterranean and other European seas, and
departed for the East near the end of October, 1838. Arriving at
Sarawak, he and his men lent their aid to the Sultan of Borneo in
suppressing an insurrection among the Dyaks, a savage race, distinct
from the ruling tribe, who are Malays. In acknowledgment of his services
Brooke was made Rajah and Governor of Sarawak in September, 1841, and
used his power in efforts to improve the laws and civilise the people.
He also obtained the assistance of various British ships of war in the
extirpation of piracy, and many persons were slaughtered on the
allegation that they were freebooters. At a somewhat later date the
English Rajah quarrelled with the Sultan, attacked his capital city,
took it by storm, and put the whole army to flight. The Sultan was
afterwards reinstated; but Sir James Brooke (as he afterwards became)
still held his position as Rajah of Sarawak. The upshot of all these
adventures, so far as this period of Queen Victoria’s reign is
concerned, was that, in the course of 1846, a treaty was concluded with
the Sultan, through the instrumentality of Brooke, by which the island
of Labuan, to the north-west of Borneo, was, together with its
dependencies, ceded to the British Empire, as a naval station between
India and China. A money payment was made to the Sultan, and Sir James
Brooke acted for a time as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Labuan.
His conduct, however, was much impugned in Parliament by Messrs. Hume
and Cobden, who maintained that many innocent persons had been slain,
under pretence of their being pirates, and that the inducement to these
acts was the “head-money” paid by the British Government to the sailors.
These charges, though seemingly not improbable, were never distinctly
proved; but the money payment was wisely abolished.
Travelling still farther from home, we find the Sandwich Islands offered
to Great Britain by their king, Kamehameha III., in 1843. Some British
subjects had claims against this chieftain, which he knew not how else
to meet. The offer was not accepted; but the islands were taken under
British protection, and formed into a kind of semi-independent State,
with a ridiculous travesty of so-called “Constitutional” government. Two
Houses of Parliament were appointed, and met for the first time on the
20th of May, 1845. The dusky-coloured sovereign delivered a speech from
the throne, and told his people that it was their possession of the Word
of God which had introduced them into the family of nations. All these
assumptions of European modes sound extremely ludicrous; yet, since
those days, the Sandwich islanders have got on fairly well, so that
Kamehameha was not altogether without justification in his hopeful
anticipations. To the minds of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the
enlargement of the area of civilisation, under the ægis of the British
Empire, must have been profoundly interesting. But there were parts of
our actual dominions, peopled by men of English race, where the right of
self-government was not enjoyed at all. In 1845, we had forty-two
colonies, of which only twenty-five had representative institutions, and
those of a very incomplete character. The consequence was seen in
continual complaints of misgovernment, corruption, and tyranny; and
successive Colonial Secretaries seem to have been equally indifferent to
the just demands of their countrymen beyond the seas.
In May, 1845, a new convention was concluded between England and France
for the better suppression of the slave trade. A little later in the
same year, a French and English squadron made a somewhat futile
demonstration off Madagascar, an island on the south-eastern coast of
Africa. Madagascar,
[Illustration: THE OVERLAND ROUTE--SCENE AT BOULAK. (_See p. 190._)]
like the Sandwich Islands, had been to a great extent Christianised for
some years past; but in 1835 a reactionary policy set in, under the
vigorous incitements of Queen Ranavalona, and the English missionaries
were compelled to leave. Ten years later, the native laws were applied
to such European settlers as had been suffered to remain--an unfortunate
result of the combined French and English attack on the sea-coasts.
During these operations, some forts and part of a town were destroyed;
but, on the whole, the expedition was unsuccessful, and the native
Christians suffered from the exasperation of feeling thus engendered.
Much more satisfactory, as regarded our intercourse with the Oriental
world, was the inauguration of the Overland Route to and from India, due
to the enterprise of Lieutenant Waghorn, who, on the 31st of October,
1845, arrived in London with the Bombay Mail of the 1st of that month.
His despatches had reached Suez on the 19th, and Alexandria on the 20th
of October; and from the latter of those cities he proceeded by
steamboat to the European continent, when, hurrying post through
Austria, Baden, Bavaria, Prussia, and Belgium, he reached London at
half-past four on the morning of October 31st. The speed of the Overland
Route was afterwards increased; but it had the disadvantage of greater
expense. The difference between the old and the new system consisted in
the fact that by the former it was necessary to pursue the long
sea-route by the Cape of Good Hope, and so round the western coasts of
Africa and Europe; whereas, by Lieutenant Waghorn’s system, the
passengers and luggage were carried by land across the Isthmus of Suez
and transferred to another vessel on the northern shore. Hence the
extensive operations of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation
Company, with which modern visitors to the East are so well acquainted.
While these important things were being done in distant parts of the
world, the state of political affairs in England was becoming somewhat
complicated. The popularity of Sir Robert Peel had, by 1845, greatly
declined from the mark at which it stood in 1841. Thousands of persons
complained of the Income Tax--of the unfairness of its incidence, the
heaviness of its burden, and the inquisitorial character inseparable
from its operation. The objectors did not sufficiently consider that the
imposition of this tax had enabled the Premier to abolish many millions
of duties upon articles of ordinary consumption. The boon was accepted
with silent gratitude; but the price by which it had been purchased was
assailed in terms of unmeasured vituperation. Such was the view taken by
a large majority of the public, and at the same time Sir Robert Peel had
to encounter the assaults of many prominent members of the party to
which he himself belonged, whose animosity was excited by his manifest
leaning towards a Free Trade policy, and by other tendencies which had
far more of a Liberal than a Conservative character. It was now that Mr.
Disraeli began to acquire that commanding force in Parliament which he
never ceased to exercise until his death in 1881. The days had long
gone by when he was unable to obtain a hearing in the House of Commons;
when his voice was drowned by hoots, and his awkward flights of rhetoric
were met with peals of laughter. He had developed a style of remarkable
pungency and vigour; and perhaps no one in the Lower House, at that
time, possessed so remarkable a power of launching those barbed arrows
of sarcasm which never fail to strike, and which usually leave a scar
behind.
In the opinion of Mr. Disraeli and his followers, Sir Robert Peel was a
traitor, who had obtained office on the understanding that he was to
support some form of Protection, and all the other principles of the
Conservative party, but who was now unquestionably moving in the
opposite direction. The truth is that the Tory party was splitting up
into two camps, both of which differed a good deal from the old
connection. Peel and his adherents were becoming to a great extent
Liberals in their political ideas, though with some differences from the
Whig party; the rest of the Tories, consisting of ardent and
enthusiastic young men, were endeavouring to form a body which they
called “Young England.” This association of Conservative Reformers had
arisen some few years before; but it was only now beginning to attract
general attention. The leader of this party was Mr. Disraeli, who
expounded its principles in several novels, but particularly in
“Coningsby,” first published in 1844, Other prominent members were Lord
John Manners, Mr. George Smythe (afterwards the seventh Lord
Strangford), Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Henry Hope, son of the author of
“Anastasius,” Mr. Monckton Milnes (better known in later times as Lord
Houghton), and some others less generally recognised. The essential
principles of these gentlemen were Aristocracy and Churchism. Their
ideal was found in the Middle Ages, or at any rate in a period not much
later; but, together with some genuine sympathy with the poor, and some
views which may have been needed as a counteraction to the excessive
utilitarianism of the past forty years, it cannot be denied that a large
amount of weak sentimentality was mixed up with the opinions and methods
of the reformers. With all their earnestness and all their wit, the
Young Englanders could not keep their system going for more than a
handful of years.
Under all the difficulties of the time, it was an immense consolation to
Sir Robert Peel to know that he had the hearty support of her Majesty
and Prince Albert. This was the more valuable as the first association
of the Conservative chief with the head of the State had been, as the
reader is aware, of a delicate and unpleasant character. While still
under the influence of Lord Melbourne, it is evident that the Queen had
no great liking for Sir Robert Peel. His opposition to the sovereign in
the Bedchamber question left a feeling of soreness, which lasted some
time after the incident had ceased to agitate the public mind; and the
cold manners of Peel might have proved an obstacle to cordial relations
between that politician and his Royal mistress. But all such
difficulties were overcome when a more intimate acquaintance with the
former had shown the latter how sterling and admirable were his
qualities. By 1845 her Majesty had acquired as great a regard for Sir
Robert as she had formerly entertained for Lord Melbourne. She felt a
warm sympathy with her Conservative Minister in the difficulties he had
to encounter from a somewhat factious Opposition, and, acting under this
feeling, she sent to him, in March, 1845, a letter she had received from
King Leopold, speaking very highly of his measures. In replying to this
communication, Peel observed:--“His Majesty has an intimate knowledge of
this country, and is just so far removed from the scene of political
contention here as to be able to take a clear and dispassionate view of
the motives and acts of public men.” The writer added that he looked to
no other reward, apart from her Majesty’s favourable opinion, than that
posterity should confirm the judgment of King Leopold--namely, that Sir
Robert Peel had used the power committed to him for the maintenance of
the honour and just prerogatives of the Crown, and the advancement of
the public welfare. In concluding his reply, the Premier acknowledged
the “generous confidence and support” which he had invariably received
from her Majesty.
The rancour exhibited by a large portion of his own party, in opposing
the increased grant to Maynooth, was so excessive that the Queen felt a
great desire to bestow some special favour on Sir Robert Peel, as a mark
of her confidence and esteem. She wished to confer on him the Order of
the Garter, but, feeling doubtful how far this would meet the wishes of
the Premier himself, requested Lord Aberdeen to sound him on the topic.
Peel questioned, and wisely so, whether this honour would be of any
service to him as a public man. Indeed, he considered that it would
probably have the contrary effect; and he therefore declined the
perilous distinction. In thanking her Majesty for the offer, he observed
that he sprang from the people, was essentially a man of the people, and
felt that in his case such an honour would be misapplied. His heart, he
said, was not set upon titles of honour, or social distinctions; and the
only reward he desired on quitting the service of her Majesty was that
she should say to him, “You have been a faithful servant, and have done
your duty to your country and to myself.” Sir Robert Peel was the son of
a Lancashire manufacturer who, being also a member of the House of
Commons, and a politician not wholly undistinguished in his day, had
been created a Baronet in 1800. The mother of the future Premier was the
daughter of another manufacturer; so that the second Sir Robert Peel had
every reason to describe himself as essentially a plebeian. There would
have been no harm in his accepting the Garter, but it was certainly more
in accordance with the simplicity and genuineness of his nature to
decline it. It is not improbable that something of the merely external
coldness of Peel’s nature (for in the recesses of that nature he was not
cold) may have been due to what Dr. Johnson admirably called “defensive
pride.” The slightest compromise of his own dignity might possibly have
drawn down upon him the supercilious taunts of the aristocratic party
which he led.
[Illustration: VIEW IN MALINES.]
By dint of his powerful intellect and unresting industry, Sir Robert
Peel managed to keep the Government on its feet during the Session of
1845. But he knew well that the days of the Cabinet were numbered, and,
through the medium of Lord Aberdeen, he prepared her Majesty and Prince
Albert for the Ministerial crisis which he felt sure would not be long
in coming. The malcontent members of his own party might at any moment
coalesce with the Whigs, and upset the Administration. Moreover, he had
taken too much upon himself, and was beginning to feel the strain. The
time had been when he was of opinion that the Prime Minister of England
should always be in the House of Commons; but he now perceived that his
position in that chamber entailed an amount of work which no human being
could long sustain. Sometimes he thought of trying to effect a
combination between the more liberal Conservatives and the Whigs; but
the task would not have been easy, and would probably have failed in its
operation. He went on, therefore, with heroic resolve, but with an
ever-increasing conviction that a crisis must arrive before many months
were over. The efforts to conciliate the Irish by the increase of the
Maynooth grant, the establishment of the Queen’s Colleges, and other
measures, had failed as utterly as all such efforts invariably do.
Ireland was again becoming disaffected, and the Queen was once more
obliged to postpone indefinitely her contemplated visit to that island.
The Corporation of Dublin had in May presented an address to her
Majesty, requesting that she would visit their country, and promising
her a welcome of the utmost warmth and the most perfect unanimity. But
the Queen replied evasively that “whenever she might be enabled to
receive in Ireland the promised welcome, she should rely with confidence
upon the loyalty and affection of her faithful subjects.” No date was
mentioned for the promised visit, and undoubtedly the state of Ireland
was such that it would have been imprudent on the part of the Sovereign
to venture within the range of so many possible dangers. The agitation
for Repeal had again sprung up; agrarian crimes were frequent; and the
potato-disease was beginning to show itself, to an extent which made
thoughtful men apprehensive of the future. The Queen therefore resolved
to take her holiday on the Continent, and proceed up the Rhine to
Saxony. She could not depart, however, until the prorogation of
Parliament, and in the meanwhile there were many causes of anxiety. “In
politics,” said Prince Albert, writing to Baron Stockmar on the 18th of
July, 1845, “we are drawing near the close of one of the most remarkable
sittings of Parliament. Peel has carried through everything with immense
majorities; but it is certain he has no longer any stable Parliamentary
support. His party is quite broken up, and the Opposition has as many
different opinions and principles as heads.” The Session came to an end
on the 9th of August, and the same evening her Majesty and Prince Albert
sailed from Woolwich for Antwerp in the Royal yacht. The fine old city
was reached at six o’clock on the evening of the 10th, amidst a downpour
of rain. Nevertheless, the place was illuminated after the primitive
fashion so often seen on the Continent. The same cheerless weather
continued next day, when the Royal party landed. Proceeding by rail to
Malines, the visitors were there met by the King and Queen of the
Belgians, who accompanied them as far as Verviers. Guards of honour
saluted at every station, and the frequent tunnels were illuminated with
lamps and torches.
At length they gained the Prussian frontier, where the train was met by
Lord Westmoreland (the English Ambassador at Berlin), the Chevalier
Bunsen, and certain gentlemen of the Prussian Court who had been
appointed to wait upon the Queen and Prince. At Aix-la-Chapelle they
found the King of Prussia, together with several members of the Royal
Family. “In the room of the station,” writes the Queen, in her Journal,
“were assembled all the authorities, the clergy, Catholic and Lutheran,
and a number of young ladies dressed in white, one of whom, a daughter
of the Burgomaster, recited some complimentary verses.” Her Majesty and
the Prince, together with their party, afterwards visited the Cathedral
and other memorial edifices, and the journey was resumed in the evening.
The reception at Cologne was especially cordial and impressive, and from
that city the Royal party soon reached the station at Brühl. Here the
English visitors went into one of the saloons of the Palace to listen to
the splendid tattoo performed by fire hundred military musicians. The
room was illuminated with torches, and with lamps of coloured glass, and
the whole effect was most splendid. At Bonn they attended the
inauguration of the Beethoven statue, and were serenaded by an enormous
orchestra, consisting of sixty military bands. At four o’clock on the
same day, a grand banquet was given at the Palace, on which occasion the
Prussian King made a speech, in which he said:--“Gentlemen, fill your
glasses! There is a word of inexpressible sweetness to British as well
as to German hearts. Thirty years ago it echoed on the heights of
Waterloo from British and German tongues, after days of hot and
desperate fighting, to mark the glorious triumph of our brotherhood in
arms. Now it resounds on the banks of our fair Rhine, amid the blessings
of that peace which was the hallowed fruit of the great conflict. That
word is _Victoria_!” His Majesty then drank to the health of the Queen
and Prince Albert; and the former, who was much affected, rose, bent
towards the King, and kissed his cheek.
After the banquet, the Royal party returned by rail to Cologne, and
there embarked on a steamer to witness the illuminations from the river.
The spectacle was of the most splendid description, and, as reflected
from the waters of the Rhine, appeared doubly glorious. “As darkness
closed in,” says a writer, who seems to have caught the spirit of the
scene, “the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light. Lines
of twinkling brightness darted like liquid gold and silver from pile to
pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the
masts of the shipping, and all abroad upon the opposite bank. Rockets
now shot from all parts of the horizon, As the Royal party glided down
the river, the banks blazed with fireworks and musketry. The Cathedral
burst forth a building of light, every detail of the architecture being
made out in delicately-coloured lamps--pinkish with an underglow of
orange.” Some of the houses appeared absolutely red-hot, and the beauty
of the scene was so extraordinary that the spectators forgot the drizzle
of rain which was gradually wetting them through. A day or two
[Illustration: THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT AT THE CHILDREN’S FÊTE IN
COBURG ON ST. GREGORY’S DAY.]
later, the Queen and her companions steamed up the Rhine--an illustrious
party, consisting of three Queens, two Kings, a Prince Consort, an
Archduke, and the Prince and Princess, who, in 1871, became Emperor and
Empress of Germany. Amongst persons distinguished for intellect was the
Baron von Humboldt, for whom Prince Albert entertained a profound
admiration, but who appears not to have reciprocated this feeling. The
Prince was unaware of the fact at that time; but after the death of
Humboldt, in 1859, some letters of that famous man were published in
Germany, and in one of these, written on the 27th of February, 1847,
Humboldt says:--“I am severe only with the great ones, and this man
[Prince Albert] made an uncomfortable impression upon me at Stolzenfels.
‘I know,’ he said to me, ‘that you sympathise greatly with the
misfortunes of the Russian Poles. Unfortunately, the Poles are as little
deserving of our sympathy as the Irish.’” The Prince was much annoyed at
the publication of remarks which he had made in private; moreover, he
denied that his words had been correctly reported. It would seem that he
had made some observations on the faults of character common to both
races; but it is not likely that he expressed himself in the sweeping
manner described by Humboldt.
In Bavaria, at Coburg and Gotha, and in other parts of Germany, the
reception given to the Queen was equally enthusiastic. Coming near to
Coburg, on the 18th of August, the English Sovereign felt deeply moved
and agitated at approaching the native place of her husband. On their
arrival, the Royal visitors were welcomed by Ernest, Duke of Coburg, who
was dressed in full uniform. “At the entrance to the town,” writes her
Majesty, “we came to a triumphal arch, where Herr Bergner, the
Burgomaster, addressed us, and was quite overcome. On the other side
stood a number of young girls dressed in white, with green wreaths and
scarfs, who presented us with bouquets and verses. I cannot say how much
I felt moved on entering this dear old place, and with difficulty I
restrained my emotion. The beautifully ornamented town, all bright with
wreaths and flowers, the numbers of good, affectionate people, the many
recollections connected with the place--all was so affecting. In the
Platz, where the Rathhaus and Regierungshaus are (which are fine and
curious old houses), the clergy were assembled, and Ober-Superintendent
Genzler addressed us very kindly--a very young-looking man of his age,
for he married mamma to my father, and christened and confirmed Albert
and Ernest.” Arriving at the Palace, they were received by such a crowd
of relatives that, as the Queen records, “the staircase was full of
cousins.” The occasion was interesting and pleasant; but it was
overmastered by a feeling of sadness, consequent on the recent death of
Prince Albert’s father, and this mournful sentiment was intensified when
the Royal visitors drove to the Rosenau, the favourite country seat of
the late Duke, where Prince Albert himself had been born. This residence
was now fitted up for the use of the Queen and her husband during their
stay at Coburg; but, “every sound, every view, every step we take,”
writes the former, “makes us think of him [the late Duke], and feel an
indescribable, hopeless longing for him.” The visitors were shown over
the fortress which guards the town of Coburg, and were much interested
in beholding the room once occupied by Luther, in which his chair and a
portion of his bed are still preserved. On the 20th of August--the
festival of St. Gregorius--the Royal party were present at the
children’s fête invariably given in honour of that day. The behaviour of
the little boys and girls appears to have been most exemplary, and the
occasion was a very joyous one.
Many other festivities marked the stay of the Queen and Prince Albert at
the Rosenau. The 26th of August, the anniversary of the Prince’s birth,
was spent in the house where he had first seen the light, and many of
the peasants, in gala dress, came to the house with wreaths, nosegays,
and hearty congratulations. On the following day, the Royal visitors
left the Rosenau with heavy hearts, and proceeded to Reinhardtsbrunn,
the scenery surrounding which gave her Majesty the keenest pleasure.
Thence they went on to Gotha, and on the following day (August 30th)
made an excursion to the Thuringian Forest, the beauties of which are
not easily to be matched. In the heart of the forest, a beautiful
pavilion, ornamented with branches of fir and interwoven wreaths of
flowers and laurels, was found awaiting the distinguished visitors.
Here, to the music of a fine band, a great _battue_ of game took place,
with the result that fifty-five animals, of which thirty-one were stags,
were stretched dead or wounded on the turf. It was a shocking
exhibition, and the Queen records in her Journal that none of the
gentlemen liked it. Nevertheless, they took part in it, and opinion in
England was rather strongly expressed against such a method of
emphasising a holiday. The visit to Germany, however, had, on the whole,
been most delightful, and when the time came for departure, the Queen
could hardly bear to think that she must leave. Gotha was quitted on the
3rd of September, and, on their return journey, the Queen and Prince
Albert halted at Eisenach, where the Grand Duke of Weimar took them to
the historic castle of Wartburg, where Luther spent many months of
seclusion at a period of great danger to himself, and where they were
shown, together with the table at which he wrote, and the wedding-ring
which he wore, the dark mark upon the wall where he threw his inkstand
at a visionary devil. The rest of the journey was rapidly performed;
but, before returning to England, the Queen had to pay a second visit to
Louis Philippe at the Château d’Eu.
At Tréport, which they reached on the morning of September 8th, her
Majesty and the Prince were received by the French Sovereign. On
reaching the Château, they found that one of the rooms had been fitted
up, in honour of her Majesty’s former visit, with pictures illustrating
what had then happened, with others having reference to the King’s own
visit to Windsor, and with portraits by Winterhalter of the Queen and
Prince Albert. The whole company of the Opéra Comique had been brought
down from Paris, and, in a temporary theatre constructed in the grounds,
two lively French operas were performed in the evening. This second
visit to Louis Philippe was extremely short, for, on the evening of the
next day (September 9th), it came to a close. The King rowed in his
barge to the Queen’s yacht, and, while Prince Albert went to show the
Prince de Joinville a smaller yacht, called the _Fairy_, the French
monarch entered into conversation with her Majesty and Lord Aberdeen on
the subject of the Spanish marriages. “The King,” records Queen Victoria
in her Journal, “told Lord Aberdeen, as well as me, he never would hear
of Montpensier’s marriage with the Infanta of Spain (which they are in a
great fright about in England) until it was no longer a political
question, which would be when the Queen is married, and has children.
This is very satisfactory.... When Albert came back with Joinville,
which was about seven o’clock, the King said he must go; and they all
took leave, the King embracing me again and again. We saw and heard the
King land. The sun had set, and in a very short while there was the most
beautiful moonlight, exquisitely reflected on the water. We walked up
and down, and Lord Aberdeen was full of the extreme success of our whole
tour, which had gone off charmingly, including this little visit, which
had been most successful.” Lord Aberdeen was a Minister very easily
satisfied with the promises of foreign Powers; but it must be admitted
that, after so specific a statement as that of Louis Philippe with
reference to his son, the Duc de Montpensier, it was not easy to suppose
that in about a year he would act in direct contradiction of his pledged
word. The visit, however, had been paid; the words had been uttered; and
on the 10th of September the Queen again reached England, reinvigorated
by her tour, and fully satisfied that nothing unpleasant was likely to
occur with respect to Spain and France.
Towards the close of 1845, the whole of England was much disturbed by an
unwholesome extension of railway enterprise, which ended in a panic and
an alarming crash. Only fifteen years had elapsed since the opening of
the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which, though not absolutely the
first of iron roads, was the earliest to attract general attention. But
in that brief period railways had been pushed forward in many
directions, and had become the most important means of communication in
the country. They appealed to all classes and to all interests, and on
Easter Monday, 1844, the system of cheap excursion trips, with return
tickets, was added to the other attractions of this method of
conveyance. The great landowners did not like the innovation; for in
many instances their ancestral parks were cut through by the relentless
engineer, and, although the persons so injured received money
compensation, there are certain troubles which the guinea will not cure.
Those, also, who lived in remote and picturesque districts, disliked to
see their solitudes invaded by a smoky engine, a rattling train of
carriages, and perhaps a somewhat vulgar and tumultuous crowd. The poet
Wordsworth was desperately offended at this desecration of his beloved
Lake district; and doubtless many other persons had the same feeling,
without being able to express it in the form of an eloquent sonnet. A
great deal of allowance must be made for this very natural sentiment;
yet the interests of a whole people could not be set aside for any such
considerations. The work of constructing railways went on, and for a
time the speculations were of a healthy and legitimate character. But in
1844-45 a number of bubble companies arose, which originated in
dishonest greed, and had nothing but a swindler’s success for their
object. The country seemed to go mad about railways. Every newspaper
overflowed with advertisements of new projects;
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF THE WARTBURG.]
every beggar thought he was going to be a millionaire. Parliament had
but recently taken the control of railways under its supervision;
defining the limit of fares, arranging other matters of detail in the
interest of the public, and requiring that, before any company could
come into operation, it should deposit at the Board of Trade a specific
account, accompanied by sketches, plans, and sections of the lines, of
the objects which it proposed to effect, and the means by which those
objects were to be carried out. The last day on which these accounts
could be rendered was November 30th, 1845. It happened to be Sunday--a
circumstance overlooked when the arrangement was made; but all day long
the proposed schemes came pouring in, and when at length the doors were
closed at midnight, those who had arrived too late rang the bell, and,
the moment they found an opportunity, flung their plans into the hall,
only to see them thrown out again. The total number of railway schemes
thus lodged at the Board of Trade, before the end of the closing day,
was 788. Many of these were bubble companies, floated by swindling and
often poverty-stricken speculators, who found a number of persons simple
enough to take shares, and pay money for them. When the crash was
imminent, the vagabonds made off with their gains, and the credulous
shareholders had to put up with their loss. One of the great leaders of
railway
[Illustration: GEORGE WILSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.]
enterprise in those days was Mr. George Hudson, a draper of York, with a
genius for this kind of speculation, in which he made an enormous
fortune. There can be no doubt that the railway enterprise of England
was largely advanced by the labours and abilities of this person, who
was the chairman of numerous companies; but in a subsequent year it was
considered that he had misappropriated a large sum of money, and he was
compelled to refund no less a sum than £190,000.
Since the resumption of office by Sir Robert Peel in 1841, the Free
Trade agitation had made immense advances, and one of the most gifted
champions of the cause, Mr. John Bright, had first appeared in
Parliament during the summer of 1843. It is probable that Mr. Bright
understood the whole case for Free Trade as well as Mr. Cobden himself;
and, even if his powers of exposition were not so irresistibly logical
and lucid as those of his friend, he had a power of passionate, and even
poetic, eloquence to which the other made no pretence, and which was
equally effective whether on a platform or in the House of Commons. We
have already seen that Sir Robert Peel was rapidly abandoning
Protection, and the Free Trade party naturally gained confidence and
vigour from so illustrious a convert. Their ideas had evidently taken
hold of the popular mind, excepting, strange to say, that section of the
people which had adopted the views of Chartism. Money to any amount
seemed at the command of the reformers, and in a commercial country like
England the possession of money is one of the best of arguments. On the
8th of May, 1845, an exhibition of agricultural products, implements,
&c., and also of manufactured articles, was opened in Covent Garden
Theatre, under the title of the Free Trade Bazaar. The whole of the pit
and stage was boarded over; at the close of the vista thus created was
an imitation painted window of the cathedral type; and the space thus
utilised, as distinguished from the public part of the house, was fitted
out as a Gothic Hall. The exhibition was open seventeen days, during
which time about 100,000 people visited the Bazaar, and the monetary
result was that £25,046 were added to the funds of the League. It is
thought that this Bazaar suggested the first idea of the Great
Exhibition which attracted the attention of the whole civilised world
six years later. Of course the Protectionists laughed at the whole thing
as theatrical; but it helped to familiarise Londoners with the idea of
Free Trade--an important fact, as London was at that time behind the
towns of the North in devotion to the new commercial policy. After May,
1845, the cause of Free Trade made rapid advances in the capital, and it
seemed almost like a race between the two great political parties as to
which should take it up.
Another circumstance which worked in favour of the reformers was the
rapid approach of the potato-disease in Ireland, which in the next two
years resulted in one of the most terrible famines known to modern
history. The condition of the potato crops began to attract serious
attention in the month of August, when indications of its existence were
visible, not only in Ireland, but in England. The evil, however, proved
far worse in the former than in the latter country. On the 13th of
October, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Sir James Graham:--“The accounts of
the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming. I
foresee the necessity that may be impressed upon us, at an early period,
of considering whether there is not that well-grounded apprehension of
actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means
of relief which the exercise of the prerogative or legislation might
afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of
exports, or the stoppage of distilleries. The removal of impediments to
import is the only effectual remedy.” This was a clear advance towards
the adoption of Free Trade in corn, which Sir Robert had previously
resisted, and which he still postponed for several months. On the 31st
of October we find a meeting at Dublin representing to the Lord
Lieutenant that it had ascertained beyond a doubt that famine, and
consequent pestilence, were imminent, unless the Government should take
the most prompt measures to provide for the people by the distribution
of food. It was therefore requested that the ports of Ireland should be
opened for the importation of Indian corn, rice, and other articles of
consumption. Sir Robert Peel was already convinced that it was
impossible, under existing circumstances, to maintain restrictions on
the free import of grain; but he still hung back from taking a different
course, deterred, probably, by a doubt as to how far he could obtain a
majority in Parliament.
His hesitation in this respect, which was now beginning to be denounced
in Ireland in very emphatic terms, appeared to Lord John Russell to
offer a fitting opportunity for effecting the restoration of the Whigs
to office. By this time, Lord Melbourne had almost retired from public
life, and everybody knew that, if the Liberals again came into power,
the Premiership would fall to the most able, energetic, and resolute of
Melbourne’s lieutenants. Lord John Russell saw a great career before
him, and on the 22nd of November he addressed a letter from Edinburgh to
the electors of the City of London. It will be recollected that the Whig
statesman, shortly before the destruction of the Melbourne Cabinet, had
been in favour of a fixed, though a low, duty on corn, while his great
rival, Sir Robert Peel, had adopted what was known as the Sliding Scale.
The views of both leaders had altered since those days. Each had
abandoned his hobby; but Lord John Russell was the first to proclaim
unequivocally that he was a convert to the views of Mr. Cobden. In his
Edinburgh letter, he wrote:--“It is no longer worth while to contend for
a fixed duty. In 1841, the Free Trade party would have agreed to a duty
of 8s. per quarter on wheat, and after a lapse of years this duty might
have been further reduced, and ultimately abolished. But the imposition
of any duty at present, without a provision for its extinction within a
short period, would but prolong a contest already sufficiently fruitful
of animosity and discontent. Let us, then, unite to put an end to a
system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of
agriculture, the source of bitter division amongst classes, the cause of
penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.”
The hesitation of Sir Robert Peel, though unfortunate both for himself
and the country, was scarcely avoidable under the circumstances. He
would have thrown open the ports at once by an Order in Council; but
several of his colleagues in the Government were opposed to such a
proceeding, and even to the adoption of any Free Trade policy whatever.
The publication of Lord John Russell’s letter, however, brought matters
to a crisis. It is true that by this time most of the objecting members
of the Administration had come round to the Premier’s view; but Peel
felt that he could not place himself in the position of adopting a
policy which his rival had so openly espoused. Convinced of his
inability, at that time, to carry out the Free Trade ideas which he
nevertheless saw to be inevitable. Sir Robert went to Osborne on the 5th
of December, 1845, and placed his resignation in the hands of her
Majesty. “I trust,” says the Conservative Minister in his Memoirs, “that
I satisfied the Queen that I was influenced by considerations of the
public interest, and not by fear of responsibility or of reproach, in
humbly tendering my resignation of office. Her Majesty was pleased to
accept it, with marks of confidence and approbation which, however
gratifying, made it a very painful act to replace in her Majesty’s hands
the trust she had confided in me.” The Queen then requested Lord John
Russell to form a Government; but, being still in Edinburgh, it was the
11th of December before that statesman could reach the south. He at once
undertook the task assigned to him; but, as some of his political
friends were disinclined to support the general lines of policy on which
he desired to enter, or were unable to agree among themselves, the
attempt ended in failure. Another difficulty resulted from the refusal
of Sir Robert Peel to give an unconditional promise that he would
support a measure for the total and immediate abolition of the Corn
Laws, though he was willing to assure Lord John that he and his friends
would abstain from any factious opposition.
On the 20th of December, Lord John Russell announced to her Majesty that
he was unable to form an Administration, and Sir Robert Peel was
immediately recalled to the Royal presence at Windsor Castle. On
entering the room, the Queen said to him very graciously, “So far from
taking leave of you, Sir Robert, I must require you to withdraw your
resignation.” She added that her late Minister might naturally require
time for reflection, and for communication with his colleagues, before
he gave a decisive answer. “I humbly advised her Majesty,” writes Sir
Robert Peel, “to permit me to decide at once upon the resumption of
office, and to enable me to announce to my late colleagues, on my return
to London, that I had not hesitated to reaccept the appointment of First
Minister.” He goes on to state that the Queen was pleased cordially to
approve of this suggestion, and he reached London on the evening of the
20th, once more invested with the functions of Prime Minister.
[Illustration: THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.]