NOTE 1, p. 10.--The allusion is to the preliminary proceedings of the
trial--in which some days were devoted to legal fencing about witnesses
and challenged jurors.
NOTE 2, p. 12.--The gentleman thus elegantly arraigned was William
Saurin (1757?-1839). Saurin was sprung from a French Huguenot family
settled in Ireland. He was a lawyer of considerable ability, but one
who had not risen rapidly. He seems to have been a fairly honest,
bigoted Protestant; moreover, the duties he was called to perform
during his long term (1807–1822) as Attorney-General were such as to
bring him almost officially into sharp friction with the Catholic
population. Consequently he was cordially hated by them. He was openly
charged with using his position to repress Catholic agitation; and,
later than this trial, it was publicly known that he had written to
Lord Norbury, urging that as a Judge on circuit he should attempt to
influence grand juries in favor of the Government. These are grounds
palpable enough for a basis to O’Connell’s accusations; but these
were the ethics of the time. After a perusal of this speech, it will
not surprise the reader to learn that before the Magee trial was over
O’Connell had gone so far as to threaten the Attorney-General with
personal violence.
NOTE 3, p. 21.--The Catholic Committee of Dublin was an organization
for the purpose, so to speak, of agitation by resolution. These
resolutions were framed and passed at meetings. The influences thus
set in motion O’Connell had tried to enlarge and make more national
in their scope by adding to the Committee members from other parts
of the country than Dublin. Now the Convention Act of 1793 had made
representation by delegation, such as was here contemplated, illegal;
and the Government was quick to avail itself of the statute. There was
much trouble, and of course the question was had to the courts, where,
in the test-case of Dr. Sheridan, O’Connell and the Committee lost.
Chief-Justice Downes declared (1811) that the proposed reorganization
of the Committee fell under the provisions of the Act. Thenceforward
all agitation permissible was to be conducted by a non-delegated
Catholic Board. In view of these facts O’Connell’s statement in
the text cannot be accepted literally. Perhaps it may be called
_rhetorically_ true.
NOTE 4, p. 29.--His Grace the Duke of Richmond and Lennox--fourth of
that title, and descendant of Charles II. by the French mistress, La
Kerouaille--was a personage more picturesque than the majority of the
great in name who fill the pages of “Burke’s Peerage.” Throughout,
his life (1764–1819) was romantically different from that of the
average nobleman. As a youth he was a notable duelist, and in 1789
had an encounter with the Duke of York wherein half-royal blood came
near to shedding royal. So impetuous a temperament obviously led the
Duke to the profession of arms, in which he attained some prominence.
The Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland was his during the period 1807–1813;
and in these years he had for chief secretary the then plain Colonel
Wellesley. He left Ireland for the wars; and thus it was that on the
eve of Waterloo the Duke and Duchess of Richmond gave at Brussels
the historic ball before the battle--an event which has permanently
linked the name of Richmond with history. For chance, doubly gracious,
commemorated the occasion in the famous verses of Byron, and the
enduring prose of “Vanity Fair.” The next day the Duke was glad to
serve on the battlefield under his former secretary. The end of this
nobleman was no less striking than his life. Removed to Canada, he died
a pitiful death of hydrophobia, induced by a fox-bite.
NOTE 5, p. 65.--Here the speaker is at some pains to press first the
charge of inconsistency against the Attorney-General: he then goes on
to consider the cases of Walter Cox, a Protestant and publisher of the
_Irish Magazine_, and of the author of a book called “The Statement of
the Penal Laws,” both imprisoned for libel.
NOTE 6, p. 100.--A short excursus on the manner of selecting juries.
The ingenious rhetorical device which follows in this selection,
after the break, should be noted. The parallelism between Ireland
and Portugal is carried as far as it could well go: and argument by
persuasion has seldom been more effectively attempted.
NOTE 7, p. 106.--A Portuguese coin, of gold, and valued at eight
dollars. So called from the medallion on it of King John.
NOTE 8, p. 116.--The note of O’Connell’s son and editor, so
characteristic, is worth preserving: “_And slaves, hypocrites, and
bigots they proved themselves, by finding a verdict for the Crown_.”
NOTE 9, p. 133.--In the short passage here omitted Lord Palmerston
deprecates certain aspersions laid by a member of the Opposition upon
the Queen’s Advocate, the legal adviser of the Foreign Office.
NOTE 10, p. 144.--References respectively to the grievances of Mr.
Finlay--not born in Scotland, as the speaker asserts, but of Scotch
descent--and of Don Pacifico, a Jew from Gibraltar, whose cases are
soon to be discussed at length.
NOTE 11, p. 151.--George Finlay has titles to fame other than his
connection with the rather sordid _cause célèbre_ of Don Pacifico.
As remarked above, he was not born in Scotland, but at Faversham,
Kent, Dec. 21, 1799; and passed the greater part of his long life far
from the north. While pursuing the study of Roman Jurisprudence at
Göttingen, about 1821, he met a Greek student from whose conversation
he was led to set out for Greece, like many another young Englishman
of the epoch, prepared to take part in the war for independence then
bursting forth. Arrived in Greece, also like many other English
Phil-Hellenes he had the usual encounter with Lord Byron (in his case
at Cephalonia), who communicated to him the well-known failure of his
illusions concerning the Greek character. More than the ordinary run
of Phil-Hellenes Finlay seems to have impressed himself upon the poet;
and they spent much time together at Athens and Mesolonghi. Finlay was
soon in the thick of the insurrection, and accompanied the chieftain
Odysseus on an expedition into the Morea, during which he saw much to
confirm Lord Byron’s pessimistic views. Nevertheless, at the close of
the war, his practical sympathy with Greece manifested itself in the
purchase of an estate in Attica, from which he hoped to be of use to
the country by the extension of economic and civil improvements. This
hope he soon considered to be useless: but his money was locked up in
his land purchases, and, as he himself said, there was nothing else to
do but to study. With the exception of a few absences, the remainder of
his life was spent in Greece, where he accomplished no small service
to the country of his residence, and one of great importance to the
world. The former lay in his severe, but justifiable, criticisms, in
the form of pamphlets or newspaper correspondence, of palpable errors
in Greek politics and administration. These censures, often translated
into the Greek papers, after a time really bore fruit, and, strangely
enough, did not arouse the touchy Greek character to resentment
against the critic. His service to the world was the composition of a
monumental history of Late, Byzantine, and Modern Greece, definitively
published, in 1877, by the Clarendon Press. The work covers the least
known and most confusing period of Greek history, known previously in
English almost solely by the picturesque, but rather un-oriented pages
of Gibbon. Of it Dr. Richard Garnett, in the “National Dictionary of
Biography,” says: “Finlay is a great historian of the type of Polybius,
Procopius, and Machiavelli, a man of affairs, who has qualified himself
for treating of public transactions by sharing in them, a soldier, a
statesman, and an economist.” In a word, the book is much more minute
than Gibbon; and, due doubtless to Finlay’s thorough understanding of
the Greek race, it is luminous on matters of social description, where
Gibbon preserves a large silence. Compared with the other Phil-Hellenes
Finlay was less the military adventurer, like Trelawney and Sir Richard
Church, than the practical friend of Greece, like the American Dr.
Howe. The camps of Europe could and did supply to the Greek cause an
abundance, not always disinterested, of the former class; but it is
probable that the wrecked and distracted country, when it began the
task of civilizing itself, owed far more to men of Finlay’s stamp. He
died at Athens, Jan. 26, 1875.
NOTE 12, p. 160.--“Against the hundred.” The reference is to a
peculiarity of the English common law, by which a district, originally
containing a literal hundred of families, was entitled a “Hundred.”
For offences committed within these precincts the inhabitants, or
“Hundredors,” as they were called, were held civilly responsible. The
division was probably of Germanic origin, having been established among
the Franks by Clotaire, among the English by King Alfred.
NOTE 13, p. 165.--_Lazzaroni_, originally the name of the beggars and
idlers who sought refuge at the Hospital of S. Lazarus in Naples,
came to be the generic term applied to that class of irresponsible
and half-criminal riffraff in Italy who in France are called the
_canaille_.
NOTE 14, p. 184.--The little Ionian republic, seven-isled, or
_Heptanēsos_, was formally taken under the protection of England
in 1815. This protectorate endured until the accession (1863) of
George, the present King of the Hellenes, when, at the request of
the islanders, the republic was incorporated with Hellas proper, to
which ethnically and geographically it belonged. During the period
of the protectorate England was represented by a series of Lord High
Commissioners, of whom the first, Sir Thomas Maitland, familiarly
known in the Levant as “King Tom,” was in many respects a character.
His palace, still a prominent feature of the town of Corfu, is of
almost baronial splendor; to the south of the Esplanade the grateful
Ionians erected in 1816 a small circular temple in his honor. Corfu,
the island, is probably the most famous of the group, having been, as
the ancient Kérkura, a Corinthian colony, one of the inciting causes of
the Peloponnesian War. Antiquity also somewhat fancifully identified
it with the Homeric _Scheria_, the abode of Alkinoos and the matchless
Nausikaa, naming its neighbor Ithaka--that other Odyssean isle. It is
to be said that the latter identification is less fanciful than the
former.
NOTE 15, p. 188.--This Baronet was Sir James Robert George Graham
(1792–1861), long, although with some fluctuation, a prominent member
of the Whig party. Although he held some high offices during the first
half of the century, his fame was but evanescent. He was never a Whig
at heart, it would seem. Haughty in manner and aristocrat to the bone,
his high talents were neutralized by his personal unpopularity. Like
Robert Lowe, but in a greater degree, he failed of the success which he
might reasonably have expected. A prevalent artificiality of mind was
also a bar to his ambitions.
NOTE 16, p. 194.--Ten years after Pitt’s death the Congress of Vienna
had united the Belgian provinces, formerly under the rule of Austria,
with Holland, in order that this new-made kingdom of the Netherlands
might be a “buffer-state” against the encroachment of France on
the north. To Belgium, prevailingly Catholic, and to Holland, as
prevailingly Protestant, the alliance was alike distinctly distasteful.
In particular, the Catholic bishops of the Belgians had objected at the
outset to religious toleration under a Protestant king. In language and
customs much of Belgium was essentially French: the Flemish element
was in those days much subordinated. In Holland the Protestant House
of Orange, and, in Belgium, the Church, were the figureheads that
symbolized the real political incongruity between the Netherlands,
North and South. The events of July, 1830, at Paris were followed by
a sympathetic outbreak at Brussels, August 25th, which commenced a
real insurrection that ended in the dissolution of the short-lived
Kingdom. In the confusion of European politics that arose from this
disturbance, England and France by close combination brought a kind
of order out of chaos, averted a European war, and by a Conference at
London in January, 1831, defined the frontiers of the now disjunct
states of Belgium and Holland. But there had to be a King of Belgium.
In his selection much difficulty arose. The Duc de Nemours, second
son of Louis Philippe, was elected by the Gallicizing Belgians. This
election was vetoed by the London Conference. The matter was finally
settled by the choice of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, with the
provision that he should make a daughter of Louis Philippe his Queen.
Over the disposition of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg there was further
trouble, and even the threat of war. Nominally, it belonged to Holland;
sentimentally, it was Belgian--and French. While the Conference was
debating the question the King of Holland led an army of fifty thousand
men into Belgium. France responded to Leopold’s appeal with another
army. Then both armies were recalled. Finally the Conference and
Leopold agreed that the duchy should be divided between the countries.
But the King of Holland still held out in the citadel of Antwerp,
apparently caring little for either Prince or Conference. In doing so,
he soon found himself arrayed against a French army corps on land, and
in the river Scheldt a British fleet. Even then a bombardment of the
citadel was necessary to dislodge him. This was in 1832. It was not
until 1839 that the ensuing war of words resulted in the signing of a
formal treaty of peace between Holland and Belgium.
NOTE 17, p. 194.--In the passage omitted Lord Palmerston defends the
policy of England towards Portugal. The transactions here commented
on are to be regarded as the second act of co-operation which sprung
from the _entente cordiale_ established between England and France
at the time of the Belgian arrangement above referred to. A summary
of the Portuguese matters follows. In 1826, by the influence of
Canning, the dispute about the succession to the Crown of Portugal
came to a temporary settlement by the acceptance by Don Miguel of
the Constitution. This Don Miguel, a younger son of John, the former
King, had been opposed to the liberal tendencies of the times. At the
death of his father, Pedro, the Crown Prince, was already installed as
Emperor of Brazil. So it was arranged that Miguel should marry, when
she came of age, his niece, Maria, then with her father in Brazil; and
meanwhile should act as Regent. He soon threw off the mask. In June,
1828, he dissolved the Cortes, summoned instead the medieval “Estates,”
and deliberately proclaimed himself King. Then came a brutal campaign
of proscription against the Constitutional party. Such as escaped these
terrors took refuge in England, and in the Azores, which still held
out for the Constitutionalists. But in England, now under the Duke of
Wellington’s dominance, it was no longer on the cards to encourage
the growth of liberalism on the continent. Indeed, an attitude of
absolute neutrality was maintained, and the former intervention of
Canning was deplored. So matters wagged until the events of 1830
brought a change over the Anglo-Portuguese relations. Don Miguel, in
the exercise of his despotic powers, grew insolent enough to worry
even English and French subjects at Lisbon. Their governments enforced
satisfaction by naval squadrons despatched to the Tagus. For England,
Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary of Earl Grey’s Ministry, obtained
an indemnity and a public apology. For France, her admiral went so far
as to appropriate the best vessels of Miguel’s navy. Shortly after,
Pedro crossed from Brazil to contest the rights of his daughter to
the throne. The attitude of England had so completely swerved that,
on Pedro’s arrival in London (July, 1831), he was permitted to raise
troops and to employ in his service various officers of the English
navy. From the rendezvous of his forces at Terceira, in the Azores,
he proceeded against Oporto, which at once yielded to him. On his
part, Don Miguel marched against that city. After the destruction
of Don Miguel’s navy by his fleet under the English Captain Napier,
Pedro made decisive gains, and entered Lisbon, July 28, 1833. Don
Miguel, however, was not yet beaten, for the continental governments
favorable to absolutism were in the way of sending him assistance both
in troops and money. At this moment the whole business was at first
sight complicated, but in reality, so far as Portugal was concerned,
brought to a speedy issue by the Carlist troubles of the neighboring
kingdom of Spain. Don Carlos, the brother of King Ferdinand, based his
claim to the throne on the theory that the Salic Law, recently repealed
in favor of Isabella, child of the King’s old age, by the so-called
Pragmatic Sanction, was illegally repealed, the Spanish Succession
since 1713 having been faithful to that ordinance. Temporarily Don
Carlos had gone into Portugal. Most naturally he had attached himself
to Miguel, as a personage whose position was so comparable to his
own. Meanwhile in Spain the Queen Regent, Maria Cristina, had allied
herself with the Liberals; had called into office a Liberal Minister,
Martinez de la Rosa; and had caused a constitution to be granted to the
country (April 10, 1834). Her Government also opened negotiations not
only with Portugal, but with England and France, as the next parties
interested, with the view of an alliance which should rid, once and
for all, the Peninsula of insurrections and leaders of insurrections.
Thus on April 22, 1834, the above Powers signed, at London, a Quadruple
Treaty, according to which Spain was to send an army into Portugal
against Don Miguel; Portugal, if she could, to drive Don Carlos from
her territory; England to aid with a fleet; and France to co-operate,
if further co-operation were necessary, by any means agreeable to all
concerned. And, with regard to Portugal, this programme was executed
with precision. No later than May 22, 1834, Don Miguel threw up the
game, accepted, instead of the Crown, a large pension, and promised
to relieve the Peninsula forever of his presence. Not so with Don
Carlos. He refused the conditions. At the time, however, he could do
nothing but take a proffered passage to London, whither he conveyed
his plottings and still undiscouraged dreams of the Spanish Crown. Of
which, more hereafter. As for Portugal, there was another outbreak in
1847, concerning which Lord Palmerston found it necessary this time
neither to support the Liberal faction nor to acquiesce in the Ministry
of the Opposition leader, Señor Cabral, but to keep a balance between
both. This apparent inconsistency the speaker explains by the statement
that it was only by such conduct that England could preserve at all a
Portuguese Liberal party.
NOTE 18, p. 197.--The question of the Spanish Succession and the
quelling of the Carlist revolt here entered on demands further
elucidation. It will be remembered that Don Carlos, after the Quadruple
Treaty of 1834, had gone to England. Arrived there, he was really in
an anomalous position. It has been said that he carried his dreams
with him into exile. Now he had made no promises further to observe
the stipulations of the treaty, and--rather curiously--he was not even
held by the English authorities as a prisoner of war. What, then, was
more natural than that after a short time he should quit England, run
through France in disguise, and bob up at the Carlist headquarters in
the Basque Province of Navarre? It was at once evident to the world
that, so far as the suppression of the Spanish Pretender went, the
Quadruple Treaty was _nil_. For various reasons, the Basque provinces
had been from the outset the hotbed of Carlism; and from this centre
a vigorous and, for a time, successful war was waged for Don Carlos.
We say deliberately, “waged for” him: because, like another famous
Pretender, Don Carlos was a figure singularly incapacitated for
leadership or hero-worship. His political abilities were meagre; and
of his personal courage there was more than a doubt. And yet, with the
perverse good luck that also waited upon another Pretender, he was
fortunate in his supporters. Chief among these was Zumalacarregui, a
general of marked strategic talent, who made a pretty fight for his
worthless master. Except for the advantages of a mountainous country
for base and a devoted population about him, the Carlist leader had
little to work with; but he made the throne of Cristina tremble. The
struggle endured--a civil war that became notable for its peculiarly
Spanish atrocities--until the Government was forced to appeal to France
for aid. It should be stated that after the flight of Carlos from
England an article had been added to the Quadruple Treaty to the effect
that France should prevent troops and contraband of war from crossing
the Pyrenees, and that England should cut off aid to the Carlists by
sea. This was not enough to stifle the uprising. The appeal to France
met with a certain hesitation on the part of that Government. Louis
Philippe now feared to irritate those Powers who were more or less
openly sympathetic with Carlism. England was sounded to see if she
would stand for a joint responsibility with France in the matter of
intervention. Lord Palmerston replied negatively. The hesitation of
France then ceased. The answer was returned to Spain that no military
assistance could be given. By this time the Queen Regent had become
unpopular; and moderate men, as a relief from practical anarchy, were
beginning to turn toward Don Carlos. His prospects looked decidedly
bright. But the inspired fatuity that was seemingly the birthright
of the Pretender did not allow him to profit by his golden moment.
He would hear of nothing short of absolutism; instead of listening
to compromise, he made a feint of marching on Madrid; and, after
being soundly beaten by the Government General, Espartero, escaped
into Portugal, Sept. 14, 1839, having racked Spain with a civil war
of six years’ duration, with no gain even to himself. So the revolt
collapsed. Cristina had been ousted from the Regency by the popular
hero Espartero. Next Espartero was driven into exile by his own party.
Cristina then came back to Madrid, where her daughter Isabella, made of
age by a legal fiction, although only a girl of fourteen, was crowned
(November, 1843) Queen of Spain, with a Ministry of the Moderado party,
under General Narvaez.
NOTE 19, p. 208.--“While the Carlist War was still continuing, Lord
Palmerston had convinced himself that Louis Philippe intended to marry
the young Queen Isabella, if possible, to one of his sons. Some years
later this project was officially mentioned by Guizot to the English
statesman, who at once caused it to be understood that England would
not permit the union.... Louis Philippe now suggested that his youngest
son, the Duke of Montpensier, should wed the Infanta Fernanda,
sister of the Queen of Spain. On the express understanding that this
marriage should not take place until the Queen should herself have been
married and have had children, the English Cabinet assented to the
proposal. That the marriages should not be simultaneous was treated by
both governments as the very heart and substance of the arrangement,
inasmuch as the failure of children by the Queen’s marriage would make
her sister, or her sister’s heir, inheritor of the throne. This was
repeatedly acknowledged by Louis Philippe and his Minister, Guizot,
in the course of communications which extended over some years.
Nevertheless, in 1846, the French Ambassador at Madrid, in conjunction
with the Queen’s mother, Maria Cristina, succeeded in carrying out
a plan by which the conditions laid down at London, and accepted at
Paris, were utterly frustrated. Of the Queen’s Spanish cousins, there
was one, Don Francisco, who was known to be physically unfit for
marriage. To this person it was determined by Maria Cristina and the
French Ambassador that the young Isabella should be united, her sister
being simultaneously married to the Duke of Montpensier.”--Fyffe,
“Modern Europe,” vol. ii., pp. 504, 505, New York, 1877.
When the news of this astounding piece of bad faith was communicated
to Louis Philippe, at the first blush he was inclined to repudiate it;
but Guizot persuaded him to delay a while. And now Lord Palmerston had
returned to office and suggested a Prince of Saxe-Coburg as a consort
for the Spanish Queen--in which suggestion Guizot immediately detected
a chance to indict England for disloyalty to the House of Bourbon. It
may be said that this objection was puerile. But what happened was that
on October 10, 1846, the poor Queen and her sister were simultaneously
married at Madrid, as per programme of Maria Cristina and the French
Ambassador.
Of this performance Fyffe says (p. 506): “Few intrigues have been
more disgraceful than that of the Spanish marriages; none more futile.
The course of history mocked its ulterior purposes; its immediate
results were wholly to the injury of the House of Orleans. The cordial
understanding between France and Great Britain, which had been revived
after the differences of 1840, was now finally shattered. Louis
Philippe stood convicted before his people of sacrificing a valuable
alliance to dynastic ends; his Minister, the austere and sanctimonious
Guizot, had to defend himself against charges which would have covered
with shame the most hardened man of the world.”
All of which goes to affirm the familiar lesson taught by history that,
in the long run, intrigue does not pay. As to the charge met in this
speech that Great Britain led to the downfall of Louis Philippe, Lord
Palmerston’s answer is easily adequate.
NOTE 20, p. 211.--Lord Palmerston here deals, categorically and at
some length, with England’s actions with respect to Switzerland. There
had arisen in that country a serious dispute about the expulsion of
the Jesuits. The minority, composing the seven Catholic cantons, in
order to oppose this expulsion had organized itself into a Sonderbund,
or Separate League, an association that the majority contended was
in itself contrary to the Acts of Confederation. The friction was
so intense between the factions that there seemed no exit but civil
war. At this juncture Lord Palmerston wrote to the British Chargé
d’Affaires in Switzerland a despatch, the substance of which he was to
communicate to the Swiss authorities. In this despatch Lord Palmerston
entreats the majority to use moderation against the Catholic cantons,
pointing out that a forcible suppression of the Sonderbund will mean
civil war, with the strong probability of foreign interference. And
that, he says, would end in “essentially impairing the political
independence of the country.” The Swiss Minister replied that civil
war was deemed inevitable. Then came a proposal from Paris that the
five Powers--England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia--should
issue a joint declaration to put an end to civil war in Switzerland.
The speaker shows, point by point, why England could not assent to this
proposal. The main reason was that if the Swiss Government refused the
conditions, it was to be compelled by force of arms. Coercion England
would not agree to. Instead, she proposed that “the Jesuits should
be withdrawn, either by an act of the Sonderbund cantons themselves
or by a consent to be obtained from the Pope; that the Diet should
then declare formally that it had no aggressive intention against the
Sonderbund; and the Sonderbund, upon receiving this assurance, should
dissolve their Separate League, which was at variance with the Federal
Compact; that both parties should then disarm, and that peace should
thus be permanently restored.”
This fair proposal came to naught, largely through the delays necessary
for coming to an understanding with France, and the reluctance of
Switzerland to take advice, however good. She was left to settle her
own troubles.
NOTE 21, p. 213.--Here is omitted a minute elucidation of the British
Government’s share in the tumultuous and confused Italian politics of
Lord Palmerston’s time. The speaker mentions and defends the following
cases of British influence: 1. After vainly trying to dissuade the King
of Sardinia from taking up arms against Austria in the troubles of
1846–48, England did not feel obliged forcibly to prevent such action.
She considered that, ethically wrong, his action was nevertheless
practically forced upon him by the appeal of Lombardy and the
overpowering sentiment of his own subjects. She also refused to propose
to the people of Lombardy (acting for Austria) a compromise which she
felt was less than Lombardy would accept. 2. The Earl of Minto was
really summoned to Rome by the Pope. Although the English law did not
then permit the sending of a regular Minister to the Papal Court, the
Pope wished to have by him an adviser and _quasi_ moral representative
of England. In Palmerston’s words, he wished that this person “should
be entirely in the confidence of Her Majesty’s Government; that he
should be conversant with the conditions of this country; that he
should be a man of rank; and, if possible, a person who could combine
with these qualifications diplomatic experience.” Palmerston adds: “If
a form of words had been devised which should exactly describe the
Earl of Minto, it could not have been done more correctly.” He was
accordingly requested by his Government to include Rome in a trip taken
ostensibly for recreation. The Earl found plenty to busy himself with
in distracted Italy. While he was at Rome, a civil war began between
Sicily and the King of Naples; and the informal representative of
England was asked by both parties to effect an arrangement of their
differences. While the Earl was in Sicily, however, the news of the
fall of Louis Philippe arrived, and after that the hotheaded Sicilians
would listen to nothing short of independence. 3. The third case of
English interference was the announcement made to the King of Sardinia
that if the Duke of Genoa were chosen and actually enthroned as King
of Sicily, the English Government would acknowledge him. This promise
was based on the theory, then generally accepted, that the King of
Naples would be unable to recover Sicily. The contrary happened; and
the English proposal, actually made by the Sicilians to the Sardinian
Government, was rejected by the latter.
These things being so, the speaker concludes: “I am justified in
denying that the policy which we pursued in Italy was that of exciting
revolutions, and then abandoning the victims we had deluded. On
the contrary, I maintain that we gave advice calculated to prevent
revolutions, by reconciling opposite parties and conflicting views.
Ours was a policy of improvement and peace; and therefore the
Government deserves not condemnation, but praise.”
NOTE 22, p. 214.--The Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, so called from the
palace in which it was signed (July, 1833), by Russia and Turkey, was
in many respects an epoch-making document. Its influence was long felt
in the world-forces that thrill with every new agitation of the Eastern
Question. The causes that led to its signing were the revolt and
highly successful campaigns waged against the Sultan by Mehemet Ali,
Viceroy of Egypt, and his son Ibrahim. After the fall of Acre, Ibrahim
overcame the Turkish army sent against him in Syria, advanced to the
north, overcame another army, and had the way clear for a march to the
Bosphorus, when the terrified Sultan called in the aid of Russia. At
his request a Russian squadron came to Constantinople. It is needless
to say that this event was highly unwelcome both to England and France.
France threatened to recall her ambassador, Admiral Roussin; but the
Sultan only appealed to Russia for troops and more ships. Finally,
through the agency of France, a peace was patched up between the Sultan
and his Egyptian enemies. Although really relieved of his fears by
France, it was to Russia that the Sultan showed the fullest gratitude.
The outcome of this was the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, which arranged
for nothing less than a defensive Russo-Turkish alliance. As for
Russia, she had not only signed a treaty, but executed a _coup_ of the
most important nature. For, by a secret clause, which was soon made
public, Turkey agreed to close the Dardanelles to the warships of the
world when Russia was at war. And, by the very nature of the clause,
Russia, in such a predicament, could use Turkish waters as her own. The
gates of the Dardanelles were to be unlocked for her; for all others
they continued closed. The Russian advantage is obvious. From this
moment the English distrust of Russia increased daily; and England
and France were single in their aim to diminish Russian influence with
the Porte. And the feeling thus aroused had for its eventual outlet
the Crimean War. But at first French indignation found expression in a
marked display of friendly feeling towards the old rebel, Mehemet Ali.
The Sultan had died; but against his successor the Egyptian now took up
arms again. Some signal victories having been gained by him, the French
and English fleets appeared in the Dardanelles, chiefly as a menace
against Russia. The latter saw that she would have to abdicate from her
singularly advantageous standpoint as the sole protector of Turkey.
When negotiations were opened again between the new Sultan and Mehemet,
the rebel refused to conclude a peace upon reasonable terms; but France
was the only power that remained favorable to his pretensions. Thus,
in the settlement of this matter, France and England were brought
into decided opposition: the former proposing that to Mehemet and
descendants all Syria and Egypt should be given, a yearly tribute to be
paid to the Porte; the latter insisting that Mehemet should have Egypt
alone, that he should evacuate Northern Syria, and that he should hold
Palestine only as life-governor. Lord Palmerston not only held firm to
this, but persuaded the other Powers to acquiesce in it. Accordingly,
on July 15, 1840, a treaty was signed by the consenting Powers. France,
thus left out in the cold, worked herself into a jealous frenzy,
which, however, did not lead her into actual hostilities. The Allies
now proceeded calmly to crush the bone over which all the dogs of war
had been snarling. With expedition Ibrahim was expelled from Syria;
and Mehemet, at Alexandria, was compelled to compound with Sir Charles
Napier, the English Admiral, by formally submitting to the Sultan; by
accepting merely the hereditary possession of Egypt; and by restoring
to the Sultan the Turkish fleet, which, by the double-dealing of its
captain, had gone over to him. To this arrangement France at last
decided to yield. And now, about the _crux_ of the Dardanelles, a
_modus vivendi_ was arrived at. Russia could not hope to retain the
predominant privileges conferred at Unkiar Skelessi. Along with France,
she joined in the general understanding of the Powers that no warship
of any nation should be allowed to pass these mooted straits--save
and only if Turkey were at war. Thus she had to give up her hope of
sea-power in the Mediterranean; but at the same time her Euxine shores
were safe from all but Turkish attack. And so the flags of Europe
to-day float off Constantinople only from the so-called “guardships,”
the small gunboats which each Power may maintain there as the moral
emblem of its fleet.
The direct reference made to Turkish questions in this speech,
delivered as events were gathering for the Crimean War, is to the
incident of the Hungarian refugees. Following the insurrection in
Hungary headed by Kossuth and others, the leaders had fled (1849) to
Turkey. Kossuth himself was among these refugees; and his children
were taken care of at the British embassy. Austria and Russia directly
demanded of the Porte that it should give the refugees up. Strange to
say, the Sultan, in a new rôle for an Ottoman Emperor, refused. The
public opinion of Western Europe rallied to a position of the Porte so
sympathetic, and, as recounted in the text, fleets, English and French,
were ordered to the Dardanelles. With these Powers behind the Sultan,
there was only one thing for the two Emperors to do: they withdrew
their demand. Thus closed another incident in that problem of problems,
the Eastern Question.
NOTE 23, p. 233.--The “committing” of a Bill followed its second
reading. The House constituted itself as a Committee to consider the
details of a Bill: the Speaker temporarily abandoned the Chair to
another member; and the Bill was then discussed clause by clause.
The House failing to agree on any point, a Division, or poll of
the members, was taken. The majority vote decided. Mr. Sheldon Amos
(“Primer of the English Constitution and Government,” London, 1877, p.
46) conveniently summarizes the Parliamentary history of a successful
Bill:
“1. _Motion_ for leave to bring in the Bill. _Order_ to bring it in.
“2. _Motion_ to have Bill read a _first_ time. _Order_ that it be read
a first time.
“3. _Motion_ to have Bill read a _second_ time. _Order_ that it be read
a _second_ time.
“4. _Motion_ to have the Bill committed. _Order_ that it be committed.
“5. Committee on details of Bill. Report of Committee.
“6. _Motion_ that Bill be read a _third_ time. Motion that it be
_passed_. Passing of a Bill and sending of it to House of Lords.”
Passed by the House of Lords, it then receives the assent of the
Crown--the latter now a mere formality.
NOTE 24, p. 235.--How crying the need of reform had been before
the great Reform Act of 1832, a glance at the previous state of
England will show. It was only in name that England was ruled by a
representative government. A majority of the House of Commons were
actually the creatures of the peers, or of other personages high in
power. Like Church livings, the great lords had seats in the Commons
to dispense. Some seats were openly for sale. The value of the two
seats of the town of Gatton, which had only seven electors, was
commonly estimated at £100,000. At a time when such cities as Leeds,
Manchester, and Birmingham were actually without representation in
Parliament, the paper borough of Old Sarum, which had no inhabitant
at all, had two members accredited to it. Scotland was even worse
off. One example of the conditions there will suffice. The county of
Bute contained but one voter, who--irresistibly suggestive of Mr.
Gilbert’s _Pooh-Bah_--at elections was at once chairman, proposer
and seconder of his own return, recorder of the successful vote, and
unanimously elected candidate! The criminal absurdity of these matters,
so completely patent, long before 1832 had stirred the people and
even some of the statesmen of England. Among those who had written or
spoken for reform were the great Chatham, and the younger Pitt; so
too had felt John Wilkes and Sir James Mackintosh. And then came the
French Revolution, which England hailed as the harbinger of her own
reforms. When the French had won so swiftly the battle for freedom,
what could not the English do? All the world knows how, in the days
of the guillotine and the Terror, these English illusions faded.
Forthwith, and for nearly a generation of men, England’s whole energies
were turned from her domestic troubles to crush the child of that
Revolution in which she had thought to see the breaking of a new day.
Napoleon at last conquered, all the old social unrest swept back. But
against the reformers there were arrayed all the conservative elements
of a most conservative country,--the classes and professions, and a
Government confirmed in tenure by the victories of a Titanic war. It
was a long struggle. Again did the example of France, in her expulsion
of the Bourbons in 1830, give renewed heart across the Channel. As has
so often happened, the people found their successful leader in the
class which contained their natural opponents. Not even the prestige
of the Duke of Wellington, still the national hero, and head of the
anti-reformers, could avail against Earl Grey, the man of the hour, who
at last won for his country real reform.
In his “Nineteenth Century” (p. 109, London, 1880), Mr. Mackenzie tells
what the Act of 1832 had done: “The Reform Act bestowed the privilege
of the franchise in towns upon occupants who paid a rental of ten
pounds; in counties, upon those who paid a rental of forty pounds. In
England, fifty-six burghs with a population under two thousand, and
returning one hundred and eleven members, were disfranchised; thirty
burghs with a population under four thousand, and returning each two
members, were reduced to one member. Twenty new burghs received each
one member; twenty-two received each two members; the county members
were raised from ninety-four to one hundred and fifty-nine. Scotland
received an addition of eight burgh members.”
A great step had been taken. Briefly, there had been abolished the
monopoly of government which the aristocracy and landed gentry had
enjoyed; and the middle classes had been admitted to a share of
things. But the right of the working people to representation was
still ignored. It was not in reason that agitations to secure this
representation should not continue. At intervals from the reform year
until 1866, the unrest that had not yet been allayed found vent in
many measures, of which the more notable are the Bills of 1852–54,
introduced by Lord John Russell; that of 1859, a Conservative Bill,
introduced by Disraeli; and that of 1860, again proposed by Lord John
Russell. All were unsuccessful.
NOTE 25, p. 243.--The House of Commons draws its members from
counties, boroughs (or burghs), and the universities. County members
are understood to represent the country population and their
interests; borough members, the cities and towns. The members from the
universities are few. The Reform Act of 1867, passed the year after
this speech, thus allotted the representation to the House of Commons
(Amos, “Primer,” etc., p. 24):