THE FREE TRADE PARLIAMENT.
Opening of Parliament in 1846--The Queen’s Speech--The Debate on
the Address--Sir Robert Peel’s Statement--Mr. Disraeli’s
Philippics--Bishop Wilberforce on Peel’s Reception by the House of
Commons--Peel’s Mistake--Lord George Bentinck’s Attack on the
Prince Consort--The Queen’s Explanations--The Court and the
Peelites--The Corn Bill in the House of Lords--Lord Stanley’s
Political Dinner-Party--The Duke of Wellington and the
Peers--Triumph in the Lords and Defeat in the Commons--Peel’s
Coercion Bill for Ireland--A Factious Opposition--Fall of the
Government--Lord Aberdeen’s adroit Diplomacy--The Oregon
Controversy and its Settlement--The Government’s Policy in
India--War in the Punjab--Victories over the Sikhs--Resignation of
the Ministry--The Queen’s Farewell to Peel--Her Suggestion of a
Coalition--Wellington and Cobden advise Peel to dissolve--Reasons
for his Refusal--The Queen and the Duke of Wellington--The Duke’s
Letter to Lord John Russell--Lyndhurst and
Reconstruction--Disintegration of the Tory Party--The Peelites in
Opposition--A Hint from Aristophanes--Tory Persecution of Peel.
It was on the 19th of January, 1846,[36] that the Queen opened in person
the Parliament which revolutionised the commercial policy of England,
and transferred the political centre of gravity from the territorial to
the commercial aristocracy of the country. The Royal procession was
formed at Buckingham Palace in the usual order. Her Majesty and Prince
Albert descended the grand staircase shortly before two o’clock, the
Queen wearing a lustrous diamond circlet on her fair white brow. The
Prince was habited in a Field-Marshal’s uniform, and the orders of the
Garter and Golden Fleece shone on his breast. The State coach with its
eight cream-coloured horses then drove with the Royal party to the
Palace of the Legislature, and as her Majesty passed through the densely
crowded Royal Gallery it was seen that she was labouring under deep but
suppressed emotion.
From the Throne she read, in clear but thrilling tones, the following
speech:--
“_My Lords and Gentlemen_,--
“It gives me great satisfaction again to meet you in Parliament,
and to have the opportunity of recurring to your assistance and
advice.
“I continue to receive from my allies, and from other foreign
Powers, the strongest assurances of the desire to cultivate the
most friendly relations with this country.
“I rejoice that, in concert with the Emperor of Russia, and through
the success of our joint mediation, I have been enabled to adjust
the differences which have long prevailed between the Ottoman Porte
and the King of Persia, and had seriously endangered the
tranquillity of the East.
“For several years a desolating and sanguinary warfare has
afflicted the States of the Rio de la Plata. The commerce of all
nations has been interrupted, and acts of barbarity have been
committed unknown to the practice of a civilised people. In
conjunction with the King of the French I am endeavouring to effect
the pacification of these States.
“The Convention concluded with France in the course of last year,
for the more effectual suppression of the Slave Trade, is about to
be carried into immediate execution by the active co-operation of
the two Powers on the coast of Africa. It is my desire that our
present union, and the good understanding which so happily exists
between us, may always be employed to promote the interests of
humanity, and to secure the peace of the world.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN OPENING PARLIAMENT IN 1846.]
[Illustration: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT IN 1846: ARRIVAL OF THE ROYAL
PROCESSION AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS. (_See p. 220._)]
“I regret that the conflicting claims of Great Britain and the
United States, in respect of the territory on the north-western
coast of America, although they have been made the subject of
repeated negotiation, still remain unsettled. You may be assured
that no effort, consistent with national honour, shall be wanting
on my part to bring this question to an early and peaceful
termination.
* * * * *
“_Gentlemen of the House of Commons_,--
“The estimates for the year will be laid before you at an early
period. Although I am deeply sensible of the importance of
enforcing economy in all branches of the expenditure, yet I have
been compelled, by a due regard to the exigencies of the Public
Service, and to the state of our Naval and Military establishments,
to propose some increase in the estimates which provide for their
efficiency.
* * * * *
“_My Lords and Gentlemen_,--
“I have observed with great regret the frequent instances in which
the crime of deliberate assassination has been of late committed in
Ireland. It will be for you only to consider whether any measures
can be devised calculated to give increased protection to life, and
to bring to justice the perpetrators of so dreadful a crime.
“I have to lament that in consequence of a failure of the potato
crop in many parts of the United Kingdom there will be a deficient
supply of an article of food which forms the chief subsistence of
great numbers of my people. The disease by which the plant has been
affected has prevailed to the utmost extent in Ireland. I have
adopted all such precautions as it was in my power for the purpose
of alleviating the sufferings which may be caused by this calamity;
and I shall confidently rely on your co-operation in devising such
other means for effecting the same benevolent purpose as may
require the sanction of the Legislature.
“I have had great satisfaction in giving my assent to the measures
which you have presented to me from time to time, calculated to
extend commerce, and to stimulate domestic skill and industry, by
the repeal of prohibitory and the relaxation of protective duties.
The prosperous state of the revenue, the increased demand for
labour, and the general improvement which has taken place in the
internal conditions of the country are strong testimonies in favour
of the course you have pursued.
“I recommend you to take into your early consideration, whether the
principles on which you have acted may not with advantage be more
extensively applied, and whether it may not be in your power, after
a careful review of the existing duties on many articles, the
produce of manufacture of other countries, to make such further
reductions and remissions as may tend to ensure the continuance of
the great benefits to which I have adverted, and, by enlarging our
commercial intercourse, to strengthen the bonds of amity with
Foreign Powers.
“Any measures which you may adopt for effecting these great objects
will, I am convinced, be accompanied by such precautions as shall
prevent permanent loss to the revenue, or injurious results to any
of the great interests of the country.
“I have full reliance on your just and dispassionate consideration
of matters so deeply affecting the public welfare.
“It is my earnest prayer that, with the blessing of Divine
Providence on your councils, you may be enabled to promote friendly
feelings between different classes of my subjects, to provide
additional security for the continuance of peace, and to maintain
contentment and happiness at home, by increasing the comfort and
bettering the condition of the great body of my people.”
When the Queen retired, then the difficulty of some of our
Constitutional forms became apparent. It was remarked at the time that,
had her Majesty suddenly come down in the middle of the Session, and,
usurping the functions of Ministers, laid a startling project of
legislation before Parliament, she could not have found herself more
thoroughly the mover of a controversial Bill than, in spite of herself,
she had become that afternoon. Every caution had been exercised, it will
be observed, in keeping all mention of the Corn duties out of the Royal
Speech. Yet, within a few hours after it was read, the two Houses were
engaged in an acrimonious debate, not on the guarded generalities of the
Address from the Throne, but on the proposal for the total and immediate
Repeal of the Corn Laws. The Queen’s Speech, looked at apart from the
events of the day, might seem to recommend something less than that. But
it was that, and nothing less, which was in men’s minds and hearts, and
for once in our Parliamentary history the Debate on the Address was not
a barren criticism of the general policy of the Government, but really a
sharp discussion on a special measure foreshadowed dimly in the Royal
Speech.
The story of the Parliamentary Session of 1846, in its bearing on the
fate of the Corn Law Bill, has been so ably told both by Dr. Cooke
Taylor, in his “Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel,” and by Mr. John
Morley, in his “Life of Cobden,” that it is hardly necessary here to do
more than glance at its salient points. In the House of Lords the debate
on the Address was brief and bitter--at least as bitter as the Duke of
Richmond, who assailed Sir Robert Peel, could make it. But in the House
of Commons the proceedings were more exciting. Lord Francis Egerton
(afterwards Earl of Ellesmere) moved, and Mr. Beckett Denison, who had
driven Lord Morpeth out of his seat for the West Riding, because his
Lordship had joined the Anti-Corn-Law League, seconded the Address. Sir
Robert Peel followed, and vindicated his change of policy, resting the
chief strength of his case on his own observations, first, of the effect
of the gradual relaxation of Protective duties which he had tried, and
secondly, on the failure of the potato crop--a report on which had been
drawn up for him by Professor Lindley and Dr. Lyon Playfair. It was in
this speech that he intimated he was at first prepared to suspend the
Corn Law by an Order in Council, but that his colleagues objected to
that course on the ground that, if once opened to foreign corn, the
ports could never again be closed. Lord John Russell followed, and
explained how he had failed to form a Ministry; and then Lord George
Bentinck, waiving his right as leader of the Protectionists to reply,
put up Mr. Disraeli to deliver one of the first of those violent
philippics against Peel which gave him a unique reputation as a
Parliamentary _sabreur_. What could the House think of a statesman, he
asked, who having, as he had boasted, served four sovereigns, was
finally compelled, by the observations of the last three years, to
change his opinion on a subject which had been discussed in his hearing
from every conceivable point of view during a quarter of a century? He
likened him to the Capitan Pasha of the Sultan, who, on the plea that he
hated a war, ended it by going over to the enemy, and betraying his
Imperial master. Peel’s speech, said Mr. Disraeli, was “a glorious
example of egotistical rhetoric.” He was “no more a great statesman than
a man who got up behind a carriage was a great whip. Both were anxious
for progress, and both wanted a good place.” It was a brilliant,
dazzling, witty harangue, and it caught the humour, not of the betrayed
Protectionists merely, but to some extent of the House also. Looking
back on Peel’s speech now, one can detect a false note in it. Dr. Samuel
Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, who went to hear the debate, in a letter
to Miss Noel, says that the Prime Minister’s statement was received with
“a kind of thundering sullenness.”[37] He unconsciously irritated the
House by his assumption that the case for the Corn Laws must needs fall
after he had personally put the matter to the test of a three years’
[Illustration: ST. STEPHEN’S CLOISTERS, WESTMINSTER HALL.]
experiment. It lessened the grace of his submission to events and facts,
when he argued as if the observations and experiments and researches of
all the greatest economists in the world during a score of years were
not in any sense conclusive till verified by Sir Robert Peel. And all
through the debates, it is quite clear that he contrived to embitter his
opponents by seeming to talk down to them. His tone was that of one who
thought they were rather to be pitied than blamed, because they could
not understand that if three years had sufficed to change the opinion of
their leader, three minutes ought to suffice for the conversion of his
followers. One crisis and one set of circumstances hardly convinced
men, whose class interests were at stake, that Protection was wrong,
especially after Sir Robert
[Illustration: LORD STANLEY (AFTERWARDS FOURTEENTH EARL OF DERBY).]
Peel himself had taught them to disregard the experience of a quarter of
a century. Peel, when he showed how keenly he felt Mr. Disraeli’s
sarcasms, failed to remember that the arrows which stung him came from
his own quiver.
A few days after the Session opened, Sir Robert Peel, in explaining his
plan for getting rid of the Corn duties, made it clear that Repeal was
to be total, but not immediate. Writing to Mrs. Cobden on the 28th of
January, Cobden says:--“Peel is at last delivered, but I hardly know
whether to call it a boy or a girl. Something between the two, I
believe. His Corn measure makes an end of all Corn laws in 1849, and in
the meantime it is virtually a fixed duty of 4s. He has done more than
was expected of him, and all but the right thing.” As a matter of fact,
there was to be a sliding scale till 1849, the maximum duty being 10s.
when wheat was under 48s. a quarter, and the minimum duty being 4s. when
wheat was 54s. a quarter. On the 2nd of March, when the House went into
Committee on the resolution, Mr. Villiers’ amendment, insisting on
immediate, as well as total, Repeal, was lost by a large majority, and
on the 11th of May the Corn Bill reached the third reading. The debate
lasted three nights, and at 4 a.m. on the 16th it was passed by a
majority of 98 in a House of 516.
Before tracing the subsequent stages of this controversy, it may not be
amiss to allude to one of the most curious incidents that marked its
progress. On the 27th of January, when Sir Robert Peel’s resolutions
embodying his financial policy came before the House of Commons, the
presence of Prince Albert in the gallery, as a spectator of the scene,
roused the jealousy and wrath of the Tories. Lord George Bentinck, in
the course of the debate, waved his hand excitedly towards his Royal
Highness, and accused him of being “seduced by the First Minister of the
Crown to come down to this House to usher in, to give _éclat_, and, as
it were, by reflection from the Queen, to give the semblance of a
personal sanction of her Majesty to a measure which, be it for good or
evil, a great majority at least of the landed, aristocracy of England,
of Scotland, and of Ireland, imagine fraught with deep injury, if not
ruin, to them.” This was an insinuation at once ridiculous and unjust.
The truth is that the Queen, from her girlhood, has had a somewhat
exaggerated idea of the instructive value of Parliamentary debates. She
is to this day an ardent student of all Parliamentary reports. She has
the true Parliamentary instinct peculiar to England and English-speaking
communities which leads them to take a strange but genuine delight in
Parliamentary discussion. Indeed, she has been known to tell her
Ministers not only what she thought of a particular debate, but how she
herself would have handled the subject-matter of it had she been a
member of the House of Commons; in fact, it was in replying to a
communication of this kind that Lord Palmerston once observed, in the
felicitous vein of a courtier, that it was a lucky thing for Ministers
who had the misfortune to differ from her Majesty, that they had not to
answer her arguments in Parliament. Under the influence of these ideas,
the Queen naturally induced Prince Albert to attend the great historic
debate of the 14th of January--“to hear a fine debate,” as she herself
has said, “being so useful to all princes.”[38] Party feeling, however,
ran so high in 1846, that Lord George Bentinck and the Tory
Protectionists put the worst construction on a perfectly innocent act.
The Prince Consort simply went to listen to the discussion, just as the
Prince of Wales and his son went to hear Mr. Gladstone introduce his
Government of Ireland Bill in the House of Commons on the 8th of April,
1886; and it is a mark of the sweetened temper of political life in
these latter days that not only did no Tory complain of the Prince’s
presence on that occasion, but nobody even resented the kid-glove
plaudits with which the young Prince Albert Victor, with the generous
but irrepressible enthusiasm of youth, greeted Mr. Gladstone’s stately
and impressive peroration.[39] Lord George Bentinck’s attack on the
Prince Consort was deficient alike in tact and taste; but it is only
fair to say that there was the shadow of an excuse for it. It had been
whispered that the Court had become Peelite--and the rumour was not
without foundation in fact. The Prince Consort reflected its sympathies
quite accurately when he wrote to Baron Stockmar, on the 16th of
February, that Peel was “abused like the most disgraceful criminal,”
adding not only that factions would combine to crush him--as they
did--but that this “would be a great misfortune.”
In the House of Lords the course of the Corn Bill was comparatively
smooth. Lord Stanley took the leadership of the Protectionists, but the
disintegration of parties was complete. Nothing illustrates this better
than a caustic remark which Lord Stanley threw out at a great political
dinner-party at his house, two days after the Bill had been passed by
the Commons. On that occasion he said, scoffingly, that it was most
diverting to see a Liberal like Lord Bessborough whipping up the Bishops
to support the Duke of Wellington on a Free Trade question.[40] In the
Upper House the opposition to the Bill virtually collapsed. Lord
Stanley, when argumentative, was tame, and, when personal, vituperative.
The ablest of the Bishops, in the name of the Church, repudiated the
idea that the Protectionist policy had benefited the rural poor; and
Wilberforce distinguished himself, especially, by his graphic picture of
the sufferings which the agricultural labourers were enduring. The Duke
of Wellington, however, decided the matter by telling the Peers that
they would be wise to bow to public opinion with a good grace, and not
commit themselves to a struggle between the Crown and the people. But he
was hardly candid in pretending that the Crown in this matter was
opposed to the people. This idea can be disproved by an extract from
that remarkable letter in which the Queen, in speaking of Peel’s
resumption of office, eulogises his chivalrous behaviour towards
herself, and adds, with unaffected sincerity, “I have never seen him so
excited and determined, and such a good cause _must_ succeed.”[41] The
Lords, however, acting on the Duke’s advice, only engaged in a sham
fight, and the final stage of the Bill passed without debate or
division. The night on which Peel’s triumph in the Lords was announced
was the night on which, however, his Ministry fell in the Commons. It
was the night on which a combination of factions, as the Prince Consort
had predicted, rejected what was called the Coercion Bill for Ireland,
and wrecked the most popular Cabinet that ever governed England.
It has already been said that the unruly state of Ireland had been
[Illustration: SIR JAMES GRAHAM.]
aggravated by famine, and that evictions, following refusal of rent, had
been avenged by outrages. In the Queen’s Speech it had been indicated
that measures to restore order in Ireland would be framed; but it was
not till the end of June that a Coercion Bill was brought forward in the
House of Commons for second reading. This was the Bill which was fatal
to the Ministry. According to an old legend of the Moslems, a good angel
and a bad angel walk on either side of a man all through life, and Lord
Balling has very justly observed that, whilst Free Trade was the good
angel of Peel’s Administration, its bad angel was Coercion for Ireland.
The introduction of a Coercion Bill for Ireland, after the safety of the
Corn Law Bill was assured, was taken as a plausible pretext for
dissolving the alliance between the Whigs and the Government. It was
regarded by the Protectionists as an excellent opportunity for punishing
the Ministers for deserting them. Perhaps, if the truth were known, it
was regarded by Sir Robert Peel himself as a good field in which to meet
a defeat that was
[Illustration: VIEW IN OREGON: THE COLUMBIA RIVER AND MOUNT HOOD.]
inevitable, and which would send him into the retirement for which
latterly he had begun to crave. A great deal has been said and written
as to the reasons which induced the various parties to form combinations
against the Administration that had done the State such noble service.
The motives of its enemies, however, were simple enough. The
Protectionists had what they called their “betrayal” to avenge; the
Whigs considered that Peel had behaved most ungenerously to the
Melbourne Ministry, whose conciliatory Irish policy, as worked out by
Lord Normanby and Mr. Drummond, had promised well for that country. They
firmly believed that if they were in power they could control Ireland
by kindness, but that in applying such a policy, they did not dare to
trust as a colleague the Minister who had so unscrupulously overthrown
Lord Melbourne. A union between Peel and Lord John Russell, such as the
Queen desired to bring about, was also impossible for another
reason--Peel would not part company with Sir James Graham. Lord John
Russell, on the other hand, would not consent to act with Sir James,
whom the Whigs detested as an unforgivable renegade. The Coercion Bill
for Ireland was therefore doomed from the outset, not on its merits, but
by party passion. This was so strong, that the Whigs in the House of
Lords, as if to give Peel warning of his fate, actually combined with
the Protectionists to defeat Lord Lyndhurst’s Charitable Trusts Bill,
although it was directed against abuses which every Whig was pledged to
attack. “We, alas,” Lord Campbell confesses, “with shame,” had “not
enough virtue to withstand the temptation of snatching a vote against
the Government”[42]--a vote, by the way, which kept alive heinous abuses
for eight years longer.
The Upper House, however, was not quite so factious over the Irish
Coercion Bill. It was introduced by the Earl of St. Germains, who
explained that it enabled the Government not only to proclaim any
district in Ireland in which crime prevailed, but to quarter extra
police on it at the expense of the ratepayers. Stringent clauses
prohibiting the possession of arms, and preventing people from quitting
their houses between sunset and sunrise, were added. These were, in
fact, the clauses which whetted the wit of the younger Radicals against
what they derisively termed, not an Irish Coercion, but an “Irish Curfew
Bill.” The Lords were also told that outrages in Ireland had risen from
1,496 in 1844, to 3,642 in 1845, and the Bill passed through the Upper
House with very trifling opposition. It was in the Commons that it was
destined to be made the battle-ground of factions. The Protectionists
pretended that Peel was not in earnest in introducing it; for, though
the Bill was announced in January, it was not till the 30th of March
that Sir James Graham moved the first reading, and not till late in June
that the second reading was taken. The Whigs and Radicals objected to
the Bill because they held that conciliation, and not repression, was
wanted in Ireland. The Irish members taunted Peel with having created
the disturbances in Ireland by changing the tolerant policy of
Melbourne, Normanby, and Drummond, and by giving Irish judicial
appointments to the most violent Orange partisans. Others, like Mr.
Roche, asked “Why don’t you feed the Irish peasantry, if, as is clear,
hunger is making them discontented?” The position of men like Mr. Cobden
was most embarrassing. As Liberals, they were bound to vote against the
Bill. But then they did not wish to expel Peel from office--and Peel had
said that by the Bill he would stand or fall. They decided at last to
vote against the measure, and rightly, for it was impossible to carry
on the Queen’s Government with three parties in the House--Peelites,
Protectionists, and Whig Tree Traders. A single vote, moreover, could
not save the Ministry, for Peel’s enemies would soon have organised
another combination against him on another question. The Bill was
accordingly defeated by a vote of 219 to 292, and the great Ministry
which effected a peaceful revolution, and created a new era of
government in England, fell before a majority of 73. Though 106
Protectionists returned to their old allegiance, and voted with Peel, 70
voted against him, and they, combined with all the Whigs and Radicals,
rendered the defeat of the Government so complete that even Peel’s
antagonists forbore to cheer. Writing on the 4th of July to Lord
Hardwicke in India, the fallen Minister said he had every reason to
forgive his enemies for “having conferred upon him the blessing of the
loss of power.”[43]
Just before the fatal verdict was given, the Queen had the consolation
of knowing that, thanks to the adroit diplomacy of Lord Aberdeen, who
was justly a _persona grata_ at Court, a dispute with the United States
as to the settlement of the Oregon territory had ended. This was some
slight solace to her Majesty for the vexation of losing a Ministry which
she felt convinced was in full touch with national sympathies at a most
perilous time, and which she trusted, she says in one of her letters,
because she never once knew them recommend anything “that was not for
the country’s good, and never for the Party’s advantage only.”[44] This
controversy with the United States had in 1822 brought us to the verge
of war, for, by a Convention in 1818, American and English settlers were
to have the privilege of colonising the no-man’s land in Oregon
indiscriminately for ten years, a term again renewed in 1827. Quarrels
from clashing jurisdictions and conflicting allegiances naturally arose
out of this confused state of things, and it was clear that the
territory ought to be divided fairly and finally between the two
Governments. In March, President Polk had sent a Message to Congress,
pointing out that though England was at peace with all the world, she
was making unusual warlike preparations “both at home and in her North
American possessions.” This, the President broadly hinted, was due to
the continuance of the Oregon dispute, and, alluding in an alarmist
fashion to the contingency of war between the two nations, he suggested
the propriety of also increasing the military and naval forces of the
Republic. On the 13th of April, Mr. Reverdy Johnson proposed to the
Senate a Resolution, which was carried, giving notice to England that
the existing loose arrangement with regard to Oregon should, so far as
America was concerned, determine at the end of twelve months, and urging
on the Governments of both countries the necessity for taking steps to
arrive at an amicable settlement. It was on the 9th of June that Lord
Brougham asked Lord Aberdeen if it were true that the Oregon question
had really been settled, and Lord Aberdeen answered in the affirmative.
He seems to have managed the whole affair very skilfully. Finding that
President Polk would not submit the dispute to arbitration, and that he
sent a Message to the Senate recommending it to give notice of ending
the joint occupation of Oregon, Lord Aberdeen waited to see what the
Senate would do. When it passed Mr. Reverdy Johnson’s friendly and
suggestive
[Illustration: THE BRITISH ARMY CROSSING THE SUTLEJ.]
Resolution, Lord Aberdeen, discarding diplomatic forms, immediately
acted on it, and submitted a draft of a new Oregon Convention,
formulating his idea of an amicable settlement for the consideration of
the United States. Mr. Pakenham, the American Secretary of State,
promptly accepted it as the basis of the Treaty, which was ratified on
17th of June, 1846--a Treaty which made the 49th parallel of North
latitude the boundary line between the two countries. All land to the
north of that line went to Canada; and all land to the south of it, to
the United States.
Another cause of anxiety had virtually disappeared before Peel resigned;
office. The war cloud that loomed over our Indian frontier had
vanished,
[Illustration: THE BATTLE OF FEROZESHAH.]
though not till a brilliant and decisive campaign had been fought
against the Sikhs in the Punjab.
The power of the Sikh nation was consolidated by Ranjit Sing--an
adventurer who, in 1799, obtained a grant of Lahore from Zaman Shah. He
gradually conquered the Punjab, and, in 1809, attacked the small Sikh
States east of the Sutlej. Those Cis-Sutlej principalities accordingly
sought and obtained British protection. In 1818, Ranjit stormed Multan,
and carried the Khalsa banner from the extreme south of the Punjab, far
away into the valley of Kashmir. In 1839, his son, Kharak Sing,
succeeded to his throne, but was supposed to have been poisoned in 1840.
After that, the Sikh dominion fell into anarchy, and frequent violations
of British territory led to the first Sikh war of 1845.
On the 17th of November, 1845, the Sikhs declared war on the English,
and on the 11th of December the first Sikh soldier crossed the Sutlej.
On the 18th, the battle of Moodkee was fought by Sir Hugh Gough,
afterwards Lord Gough, who was in command of an army of 11,000 men.
Moodkee is a village in the Ferozepore district, lying in a plain
twenty-six miles south of the Sutlej. Two days before the battle the
Sikhs crossed the river at Ferozepore with 4,000 infantry, 10,000
cavalry, and 22 guns. At Moodkee they were driven from their position
after a hard struggle, in which Gough had 215 killed and 657 wounded.
The battle may be said to have gone on till the 22nd, when our troops
stormed and took the entrenched camp of the enemy at Ferozeshah, twelve
miles from the left bank of the Sutlej. The Sikhs attributed their
defeat at that place not so much to the skill of our generals, as to the
treachery of their own leader. They lost 2,000 men, and the British 694
killed and 1,721 wounded ere the earthworks were carried. Sir Robert
Sale and General McCaskell were killed. Many of our losses were due to
the blowing-up of the enemy’s camp after we had entered it; many of our
men were killed whilst burying the dead, a misfortune attributed to our
lack of a strong enough force of cavalry to clear the ground. Sir Henry
Hardinge, the Governor-General, was present at both engagements. He had
generously offered to serve in a military capacity under Gough, who put
him in command of a Division. It was for this reason that Sir Henry
wrote to Gough a despatch describing the battle, which had afterwards to
be sent by Gough to Sir Henry himself in his capacity as Viceroy. It is
interesting to note that our troops, for six days previous to the battle
of Moodkee, had marched a distance of 150 miles, and that on the very
day on which they fought that battle, they had made a forced march of
thirty miles. Yet, though faint with fatigue, hunger, and thirst, when
ordered to attack fresh troops, they went into action without a murmur
and with the desperate valour that repulsed the enemy. During the night
they bivouacked on the stricken field, and next day entrenched
themselves, waiting for the onset of the Sikhs. But unexpectedly they
were reinforced by two regiments, and then they pressed on to help Sir
J. Littler, who was manœuvring at Ferozeshah. It was after joining him
that they made the night attack on the enemy’s camp, which crowned their
standards with victory. On the 26th of March, London was greatly excited
by the tidings of another great victory, which had been won on the 28th
of January. This is known as the victory of Aliwal, the battle having
been fought at a village of that name about nine miles west of Loodiana,
on the left bank of the Sutlej. It had been held by Ranjur Sing, who had
crossed the river in force and menaced Loodiana. On the 28th, Sir Harry
Smith--determined to clear the left bank of the stream, _i.e._, the
British bank--attacked the Sikhs in great force, and, after a desperate
effort, put them to flight. It was, however, a troopers’ battle, being
gained by the stubborn valour of the British cavalry, which was hurled
in masses, three times, against the Sikhs, each time piercing their
lines. The last charge decided the day. The enemy were pushed into the
river, where large numbers were drowned, and 67 guns were ultimately
taken by the victors. The effect of this battle was immediate. The
Khalsa banner vanished, as if by magic, from all the forts on our side
of the Sutlej, and the territory east of the river submitted to the
Indian Government.
All doubt as to the fortune of war ended on the 10th of February, 1846,
when Gough fought the terrible battle of Sobraon. The Sikhs had chosen a
strong position on the east side of the Sutlej, protecting the Hariki
ford, and their rear rested on the village of Sobraon. It was on the
Ferozepore side that the fight took place, the Sikhs holding their
earthworks defiantly, till cut down almost to the last man. They lost
5,000 men, and but few lived to recross the Sutlej. This crowning
victory, in which our losses were 320 killed and 2,083 wounded, cleared
the left bank of the river. After news of the victory of Sobraon came to
Lahore, the Ranee and her Durbar sent a chief--the Rajah Golab Sing, who
had always been on good terms with the British Government--as an envoy,
to sue for peace. The Rajah agreed to concede our demands, which were
the surrender in full sovereignty of the territory between the Sutlej
and Beas rivers; an indemnity of one and a half crore of rupees; the
disbandment of the Sikh army, and its reorganisation on the system
adopted by the celebrated Maharajah Ranjit Sing, the limitations on its
employment to be determined in communication with the Indian Government;
the surrender of all guns which had been pointed against us; and the
control of both banks of the Sutlej. It was further agreed that Golab
Sing and the young Maharajah Duleep Sing should repair to the camp of
the Governor-General of India, which they did on the 18th of February,
when his Highness the Maharajah formally made his submission. After
this, it was arranged he should return to Lahore with the
Governor-General and the conquering army, who occupied the city on the
22nd. In the actual Treaty it was further stipulated that no European or
American was to be employed by the Maharajah Duleep Sing without the
consent of the British Government, and that Golab Sing was to be made
Maharajah of the territory lying between the Ravee and the Indus,
including the valley of Kashmir, paying every year to our Government, in
acknowledgment of British supremacy, a horse, twelve shawl goats, and
three pairs of shawls. Subsequently, the conquering army marched in
triumph to Delhi, escorting
[Illustration: SIR HENRY HARDINGE.]
the trophies and spoils of the sixty days’ war, and displaying them
proudly in every city and military station _en route_, as symbols of
British prowess and prestige.
Sir H. Hardinge and Sir H. Gough were thanked in Parliament for their
services, and raised to the peerage with munificent pensions. There were
some who thought that the State was too lavish in its rewards on this
occasion, and the country was reminded that it had done no more for
Rodney than it was doing for Gough. Nor was this view altogether
indefensible. Good luck rather than good guidance rescued us from a
perilous situation in the Punjab, for it is certain that the Indian
Government sent our troops to the field in a condition that would have
rendered failure certain, had we been contending with European armies.
The Sikhs, it is true, were a small nation, but they were a nation of
warriors, and therefore formidable. They put into the field a splendidly
[Illustration: THE RIVAL PAGES. (_Reduced Fac-simile after Punch._)
“I’m afraid you’re not strong enough for the place, John.”]
equipped and disciplined army of 100,000 men, who, as soldiers, were
“bravest of the brave.” This was surely a powerful instrument of
warfare, strong enough, in able hands, to change the destinies of an
empire, and yet we were quite unprepared to meet such a dangerous enemy.
Nothing, in fact, but the personal pluck of our troops at this great
crisis saved our Indian dominion on our frontier. The Sikhs, however, it
must be also stated, failed where they should have succeeded, because
they had no general who was a master of strategy. They divided their
army into two large corps. Each moved against our chief forts,
Ferozepore and Loodiana, without intending to attack them, and it
happened that the distance between these two forts was greater round by
the Sikh side of the Sutlej than by ours. The Sikhs, therefore, had to
manœuvre in the circumference of a circle, whilst we at the centre could
move along its arc. The two Sikh armies were not mutually supporting.
Had they both crossed the Sutlej in such fashion that they could have
supported each other, we could hardly have attacked them at Ferozeshah,
or fought for twenty-four hours against an army 70,000 strong, in an
entrenched position, when another Sikh force, 40,000 strong, was within
sound of our guns.
Hardly had the Queen and the country ceased to rejoice over political,
diplomatic, and military triumphs, than another painful Ministerial
crisis had to be faced. Sovereign and subject were alike touched by the
strange and dramatic coincidence of their trusted Minister, at the
supreme moment of victory, falling, like Tarpeia, crushed, as if in
requital for a great service to the people. On the 26th of June there
was a Cabinet meeting to consider the hostile vote on the Irish Coercion
Bill, and the Prime Minister went down to Osborne to confer with the
Queen. He returned to inform Parliament, on the 29th, that Ministers had
tendered their resignations, and only held office till their successors
could relieve them of their posts. He also said that he would support
Lord John Russell in all his Free Trade measures, and paid an eloquent
tribute to Mr. Cobden, to whom he generously gave credit for organising
the victory of the Free Traders. When he left the House he was followed
home by a cheering crowd.
The resignation of Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues was a mournful
incident in the Queen’s life. She had learned to respect and trust the
Prime Minister and his colleagues, one of whom, Lord Aberdeen, had, by
his gentle manners and cultured companionship, won the hearts of the
Queen and the Prince Consort. The country, in the opinion of the Queen,
was in a critical condition. One of the great political parties was
shattered as a governing organisation, and her Majesty and her husband
both knew how safe and valuable was the pilotage of those with whom,
says Sir Theodore Martin, “they had grown familiar, not merely in the
anxious counsels of State, but in the intimacies of friendship.”
There can be no doubt that the feeling of the Queen and of the country
alike ran in favour of retaining Sir Robert Peel at the head of affairs.
After he resigned, and the Whig Administration, headed by Lord John
Russell, took his place, the sentiments of the Sovereign were, curiously
enough, reproduced unconsciously by Mr. Wakley in the House of Commons.
Referring to the change of Government, he said, “I am utterly at a loss
to understand why it was that Sir Robert Peel left his place in the
Cabinet, and gave up his situation to others who are scarcely prepared
to carry out the Liberal principles which the Right Honourable Baronet
professed in the last speech that he delivered to this House.... At this
moment Sir Robert Peel is the most popular man in the kingdom. He is
believed in, he is almost adored by the masses, who believe that no
Minister before him ever made such sacrifices as he has made in their
behalf.” _Punch_ had, however, anticipated Mr. Wakley as an exponent of
popular feeling when Sir Robert Peel tendered his resignation in
December, 1845. The great comic journal then gave its readers a picture,
showing Peel and Lord John Russell as rival candidates for the office of
page to the Queen, and her Majesty settling the claims of one by saying,
“I’m afraid you’re not strong enough for the place, John.” This was also
the feeling even of the Whig gentry, who thought Lord John needlessly
bold in forcing on such a disagreeable question as the Repeal of the
Corn Laws in his letter to the electors of London. “I hear,” wrote Lord
Clarendon, to Lord Lyndhurst, on the 17th of December, 1845, “Lord John
has gone down to Windsor to-night; and I can assure you that the most
acceptable news he can bring back _to his whole party_ would be that he
had not considered himself justified in undertaking the task proposed to
him by the Queen.”[45] That the Queen was still desirous of retaining
her Ministers in office after they again resigned in June, 1846, is
expressly taken for granted in a letter addressed by the Duke of
Wellington to Peel on the 21st of June.[46] It is put beyond all doubt
by a letter dated the 7th of July from her Majesty to the King of the
Belgians, in which she says:--“Yesterday (6th of July) was a very hard
day for me. I had to part from Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who
are irreparable losses to us and to the country. They were both _so_
much overcome that it quite upset me, and we have in them two devoted
friends. We felt _so_ safe with them.” At Court it was thought that Sir
Robert should dissolve, or coalesce with the more moderate Whigs. The
Duke of Wellington was for dissolution, and, by a curious coincidence,
for the same reason which Mr. Cobden seems to have given in a private
letter which he wrote to the fallen Minister recommending that step.
Peel’s public services, and the confidence which the industrial classes
had in his policy, would, he thought, induce the country to give him a
working majority.[47] On the other hand, Sir Robert Peel thought that to
dissolve on a Coercion Bill for Ireland “would shake the foundations of
the legislative union,” and ensure “a worse return of Irish
Members--rendered more desperate, more determined to obstruct, by every
artifice, the passing of a Coercion Bill in the new Parliament.” In
fact, he was at pains to impress on the Queen the tradition which she is
understood to have handed down to a later generation of statesmen that,
with the exception of “No Popery,” the most dangerous of all election
cries is “Coercion for Ireland.”[48] There was another cogent reason
which had weight with the Queen. Her Majesty has ever regarded the power
to dissolve Parliament as a sacred trust vested in her for the
protection of the country, and the Crown, against factious Parliaments.
But it is a power like the talisman in
[Illustration: LORD CAMPBELL.]
Balzac’s story, that loses its virtue by repeated use on trivial
occasions. “The hope of getting a stronger minority,” said Peel, in his
Memorandum to the Duke of Wellington, “is no justification for a
Dissolution.” And yet, with all his popularity, that was his highest
hope. The differences between Lord John Russell and Lord Grey were not
acute enough to cause a schism in the Whig Party. The Free Traders, on
whom the Duke of Wellington relied so much, had given all the glory of
Repeal to Cobden. They were exhausting their energies and enthusiasm in
organising a testimonial to him, and had none to spare for the
reconstruction of a new Party of Progressive Reform, under the
leadership of Peel. As for the Radicals and the Irish Nationalists, they
would have declared war to the knife against the Minister who made
Coercion for Ireland his cry. As for the Tory Party, Sir Robert was to
them in the position of the man mentioned in Scripture, who found his
worst foes in his own household. On the whole, it was perhaps wise that
he resisted the temptation to yield to such potent influences as those
of the
[Illustration: THE HORSEGUARDS, FROM THE PARADE GROUND.]
Queen, the Duke of Wellington, and Mr. Cobden, and firmly refused to
dissolve Parliament.
The next question that disturbed the Court was what would the Duke of
Wellington do? The Queen was personally most anxious that he should
remain at the head of the army as Commander-in-Chief, in spite of any
change of Ministry. She had, on the occasion of Sir Robert Peel’s
interview with her in December, when he first resigned, expressed this
wish. But she knew that if the Duke consented he would unwittingly give
great strength to Lord John Russell’s Government, and with
characteristic shrewdness she judged that Sir Robert Peel might possibly
regard with little favour a proposal which was rather like asking him to
lend his rival one of his strongest colleagues. But her Majesty mooted
the matter with such grace and tact, that Sir Robert Peel was not only
eager to give his assent, but assured her that he would do everything in
his power to remove any difficulty that might arise on the part of the
Duke.[49] At the same time, he also undertook to convey to Lord
Liverpool, for whom the Queen had a very high regard, the letter in
which she earnestly urged him to retain the appointment of Lord Steward.
The Duke of Wellington was well aware of Sir Robert’s views, and
concurred with him fully in sacrificing all considerations of party
tactics to the wishes expressed by the Sovereign, whose popular
sympathies interpreted national feeling with so much accuracy and
precision. Thus it came to pass that when Lord John Russell’s Ministry
took office in July, his Grace was quite prepared to receive from the
Prime Minister a personal request from her Majesty, inviting him to
retain his post as Commander-in-Chief of the army. But the grim warrior
felt it his duty to explain definitely, in writing, to Lord John the
exact significance that was to be attached to his consent. In a letter
to Lord Lyndhurst,[50] dated the 23rd of July, his Grace says:--“I told
you that in consequence of her Majesty having conveyed to me her
commands that I should continue to fill the office of Commander-in-Chief
of her Majesty’s Land Forces, through her Minister, Lord John Russell, I
had given my consent; but that I had explained myself to Lord John
nearly in the very words of, and had referred to, a letter which I had
written to her Majesty in December last, when her Majesty had herself in
writing intimated the same command to me, on the occasion of the
retirement of Sir Robert Peel from her Majesty’s service, and Lord John
Russell having received her commands to form a Government. Here follow
the very terms used:--‘It is impossible for F.M. the Duke of Wellington
to form a political connection with Lord John Russell, or to have any
relations with the political course of the Government over which he will
preside. Such arrangement would not conciliate public confidence, be
creditable to either party, or be useful to the service of her Majesty;
nor, indeed, would the performance of the duties of the
Commander-in-Chief require that it should exist. On the other hand, the
performance of these duties would require that the person filling the
office should avoid to belong to or act in concert with any political
party opposed to the Government.’ Her Majesty was thus made aware of the
position in which I was about to place myself in case her Majesty should
communicate to me her official command that I should resume the command
of her army.”
These matters are of some little interest to the new generation, which
has been taught that in England the personality of the Sovereign counts
for very little in public affairs, and who are only too ready to run
away with the idea that, under a discreet and taciturn Queen, the Crown,
as Mr. Disraeli once said, has become a cipher, and the Sovereign a
serf. Even in her inexperienced youth we see the greatest Minister and
the greatest Captain of the age paying chivalrous deference to her
Majesty’s personal wishes. It may be said that the incident cited is a
trivial one. In our delicate and complex system of party Government no
incident affecting the personal relations of a Minister of State, either
to the Crown or to a Cabinet, is ever trivial. In this particular case
let us ask what followed almost directly from the diplomatic success
which the Queen won in persuading Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of
Wellington to yield to her desire, that even under a Whig Government his
Grace should still serve as Commander-in-Chief? Why, this. When Lord
Lyndhurst--who, according to the ill-natured insinuations of Lord
Campbell, was hankering once more after the Lord Chancellorship--began
to intrigue for the purpose of reuniting the broken ranks of the old
Conservative Party, he naturally turned to the Duke of Wellington after
Peel received his suggestions with marked coldness. Had he won over the
Duke to his project, he might have succeeded. But this very letter,
which has been quoted, was written by the Duke to explain that, though
most anxious to see the Party reconstructed, yet he had, at the request
of the Queen, accepted the office of Commander-in-Chief, and was
therefore no longer free to act in concert with “any political party not
connected with the existing Administration.” It cost Mr. Disraeli the
unwearying labour of a quarter of a century to do the work that might
have been done in a few sessions, if Lord Lyndhurst had secured the
cordial and active co-operation of the Duke of Wellington in his bold
enterprise.
But reconstruction at this time was not to be. Peel had no desire to
serve again as a partisan leader, or to reorganise the Party he had felt
it his duty to shatter, though his career was buried in its ruins. He
and his followers joined neither the Protectionists nor the Whigs. They
came to be known as the Peelites, and so bitter was the feeling among
their old associates that petty objections were raised against their
sitting on the Conservative benches after they had quitted office. In a
pamphlet privately printed at Edinburgh Sir Robert Peel was derisively
recommended to solve the problem of his seat in the House of Commons by
taking “another hint from Aristophanes. As we have seen him before adopt
from the ‘Knights,’ the admirable trick of the sausage seller, so now he
seems to have borrowed a suggestion from the ‘Clouds.’ We are given to
understand that in next Parliament he will soar above parties, for he
has determined to suspend himself in a basket from the roof.”[51]