the pretext was flimsy. His subtle justification will be found in
his masterly despatch of the 12th of October, reviewing the affairs
of Italy, in which he dwelt on the advantage of substituting for
the discredited dynasties, an Italian Kingdom that would “rob
revolutionary passions of a theatre where previously most insane
enterprises had chances, if not of success, at least of exciting the
sympathies of all generously-minded men.” In a word, his case was
that Sardinian intervention could alone prevent the national movement
from degenerating into sheer anarchy. Fear, lest Garibaldi might be
induced by Mazzini’s partisans, who had surrounded him, to set up a
Republic, led the European Courts to condone by passive acquiescence
a despatch which postulated the inherent right of a people to depose
an hereditary monarch. France withdrew her Minister from Turin by
way of formally discountenancing the invasion, which, however, had
been secretly arranged at an interview between Napoleon and Cavour
at Chambéry. England alone avowed her approval of Cavour’s policy,
in a despatch which Lord John Russell sent to Sir J. Hudson on the
27th of October, but of which he kept the Queen and his colleagues in
ignorance. The feeling of the country being with Lord John, the Queen
and Lord Palmerston did not find it expedient to resent the affront.
The truth is, that Lord John had previously written a despatch (31st
August) menacing Sardinia if she attacked Austria in Venetia, and
admitting the right of Austria to hold Venetia, which had enraged the
Radicals. So by way of conciliating them he wrote the despatch of the
17th of October, recanting the absolutist doctrines he had promulgated
in August. But personally, Lord John was notoriously a partisan of the
national movement in Italy. “Sir J. Hudson,” writes Lord Malmesbury,
“told me that Lord John virtually encouraged the King (Victor Emmanuel)
to invade Naples, by asking his _aide-de-camp_ at Richmond whether the
King was not _afraid_. This was quite enough to send Victor Emmanuel
_anywhere_.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 237.
[68] See the Queen’s letter to Lord Palmerston (3rd June) quoted in
Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CII.
[69] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 263.
[70] Another part of Napoleon’s scheme at Baden was to suggest the
partition of Turkey by way of compensating Austria for the loss of
Venetia, an old idea of Talleyrand’s. Russia, however, objected to the
Danubian provinces of Turkey being given to Austria, so the proposal
was not made. The whole scheme would have thus been--the annexation of
Rhenish territory to France, of the northern German States to Prussia,
of the Danubian provinces to Austria, and of Venetia to Italy.
[71] This letter (which was published) was written without the
knowledge of the French Ministry. It was prompted by certain suspicions
which had been expressed as to the Emperor’s good faith in interfering
again in the Eastern Question. In June Europe was shocked to learn that
the Druses, who were Moslems, had massacred thousands of the Christian
Maronites in the Lebanon. The Turks had abetted these atrocities,
their defence being that the Maronites were meditating a rebellion.
On the 9th of July Moslem fanatics, aided by Turkish troops, also
butchered the people in the Christian quarter of Damascus--3,500 males
being slaughtered. The Consulates of France, Austria, Russia, Holland,
Belgium, and Greece were sacked, their inmates finding a refuge in the
house of Abd-el-Kader. Fuad Pasha, the Imperial Ottoman Commissioner,
punished the guilty parties, but the French Emperor also insisted
on sending out troops to keep order in the country. This proposal
was jealously regarded by England, but it was agreed to after much
negotiation--France furnishing 6,000 men, and the other Powers as many
more up to 6,000 as might be necessary, six months being fixed as the
term of the occupation. The Emperor resented our suspicions as to his
motives in occupying Syria, and in his celebrated letter to Persigny
defends their disinterestedness.
[72] “It is high time,” wrote the Prince Consort to the Prince Regent
of Prussia. “It seems to me one of his chief difficulties consists in
the fundamental difference between his and the people’s way of looking
at things. He proposes to make concessions as acts of grace; they, on
the other hand, ask to have a legal _status_, and institutions not
dependent on the good-or ill-will of the Sovereign. They had most of
them Documentary Rights, as they were called, in the Middle Ages,
and as the Revolution of 1848 had overthrown everything, the Emperor
was wrong, when it had been put down, not to return to a state of
things based on law and right, instead of, as it were, legitimising
the Revolution by proclaiming himself as its heir.”--Martin’s Life of
the Prince Consort, Chap. CIV. Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p.
264, contains a curious letter of Prince Bismarck’s on this interview,
showing how utterly misinformed he was as to its purport.
[73] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVI.
[74] _The English Historical Review_, No. 6, April, 1887, pp. 296-298.
[75] _The English Historical Review_, No. 6, April 1887, p. 297.
[76] Mr. John Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXIX.
[77] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 230-231.
[78] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 230.
[79] This great inventor and armourer had been offered £10,000 a year
for life by Napoleon III. if he would go to France and manufacture
his new cannon exclusively for the French. The offer was refused
from patriotic motives, which was perhaps the reason why the British
Government never could be got to behave as fairly to Mr. (afterwards
Sir Joseph) Whitworth’s guns as to those produced by the engineers in
the employment of Mr. (afterwards Sir W.) Armstrong at Elswick.
[80] The growth of the Volunteer Force was striking. The army sneered
at it, and in December, 1859, it was in a sickly condition. In March,
1860, to the surprise and delight of the Queen it had grown to be
70,000 strong, and at a levee she held for volunteer officers, 2,500
were presented to her. Before the end of the summer the force had
increased to 180,000 men, and at the close of the year it had grown to
be 200,000, and this, too, in spite of the fact that the recruits had
to make their first acquaintance with military duties in a spring and
summer notable for stormy and inclement weather.
[81] Canada had fitted out a regiment of infantry for the war.
[82] William IV. was pressed hard by his illegitimate son, the Earl
of Munster, to make him Governor-General of Australasia. He always
refused, for dynastic reasons--alleging that it was not prudent to
create princely viceroys.
[83] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVIII.
[84] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, _ibid._
[85] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CI.
[86] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CVI.
[87] The war arose out of an attempt on the part of China to evade
the ratification of the Treaty. The Taku forts were captured by the
French and English allied forces, on the 21st of August, 1860. On the
21st of September, Consul Parkes, Captains Anderson and Brabazon,
Messrs. De Norman, _attaché_ of the Hon. F. Bruce, Mr. Loch, Lord
Elgin’s secretary, and Mr. Bowlby, _Times_ correspondent, were sent to
the Chinese camp, on the invitation of the Chinese, under a flag of
truce, to arrange for Lord Elgin’s journey to Pekin, where peace was
to be made. Anderson, Brabazon, De Norman, Bowlby, and ten troopers
were treacherously murdered. Parkes and Loch were cast into prison,
and treated with odious brutality. That very day General Sir Hope
Grant crushed the forces of the Chinese General, Sang-Ko-lin-sin. On
the 6th of October the French looted the Summer Palace at Pekin, and
on the 18th the English burnt it. The city itself surrendered on the
12th. Heavy indemnities, besides the ratification of the Treaty, were
extorted from the Chinese.
[88] It is a curious fact that Dr. A. B. Granville had diagnosed the
symptoms of the Czar’s hereditary malady--congestion of the brain--in
1853, and he warned Lord Palmerston that his Majesty would die in two
years--a prophecy which came true. Had Nicholas therefore been handled
gently, but firmly, by an accomplished diplomatist loyally carrying out
Aberdeen’s temporising and cautious policy, and had steps been taken to
prevent the Turks and Napoleon from irritating the autocrat at every
turn in events, peace could have been maintained. See on this subject
Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. I., pp. 30, 40.
[89] The phrase, which was a catchword in club-land, and which gave
great offence to our American kinsfolk, was attributed, it is to be
hoped erroneously, to the Marquis of Hartington.
[90] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 205.
[91] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, _ibid._
[92] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 227.
[93] St. Petersburg and London: Reminiscences of Count Vitzthum,
late Saxon Minister at the Court of St. James’s, Vol. II., p. 113
(Longmans), 1887.
[94] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CIX.
[95] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol II., p. 249.
[96] Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 113.
[97] A passage in Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences explains the Prince
Consort’s allusion. “Among the elder ladies who in those days exercised
some influence over Government circles,” writes Count Vitzthum, “was
the widow of the former British Ambassador in Berlin, Lady William
Russell. She was a clever, experienced lady, an admirable mother to
her sons, the present Duke of Bedford, and Lord Ampthill, who died
lately as Ambassador at Berlin. Her house was the constant resort of
visitors, who liked to chat with her, even if they did not come, like
her brother-in-law, Lord John Russell, to consult her on politics. As
a Roman Catholic she was no admirer of Cavour or Garibaldi, and used
to laugh at the Italian sympathies of her brother-in-law and Lord
Palmerston, whom she called the ‘old Italian masters.’”--St. Petersburg
and London: 1852-1864: Reminiscences of Count Vitzthum, Vol. II., p.
214.
[98] Others, like the Prince Napoleon, promulgated the theory that in
pursuance of the Imperial policy of tearing up the treaties of 1815
it would be desirable to conciliate Italy. She would be a second-rate
naval power, and the second-rate naval powers would naturally
consolidate round France, who could thus overmaster even England on the
seas. Such views, though officially disavowed by the Emperor, increased
the distrust between England and France.
[99] Mr. Gladstone disapproved of this threat. It is, indeed, very
hard to say how much truth there was in the rumours then afloat as to
the cession of Sardinia. Vitzthum writes, “hitherto he (Napoleon) had
only talked of giving that island to the Pope as an equivalent for the
States of the Church. It was with this view that Pietri, the well known
_entrepreneur du suffrage universel_ in Savoy, had been busy in that
island, and had sent private reports to Napoleon during his visit to
the baths at Vichy.”--Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 157.
[100] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 140.
[101] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 145.
[102] Sir George Cornewall Lewis succeeded Lord Herbert at the War
Department. Sir George Grey went to the Home Office, and was succeeded
by Mr. Cardwell as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Sir R. Peel
succeeded Mr. Cardwell as Irish Secretary. Lord Campbell’s death
elevated Sir R. Bethell to the Lord Chancellorship.
[103] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 211.
[104] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIII.
[105] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIV.
[106] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXIV.
[107] The rule originated with Queen Elizabeth, who said she objected
to her dogs wearing anybody else’s collars. Lord Clarendon himself, as
Foreign Minister, had prohibited English servants of the Crown from
accepting Foreign Orders. Lord Clarendon at the Coronation of the Czar
Alexander, the Duke of Northumberland at the Coronation of Charles
X., and Lord Beauvale at that of the Emperor Ferdinand, had to refuse
Foreign Orders. The Duke of Devonshire was allowed to accept one from
the Czar Nicholas at his Coronation, on the ground that, like many
distinguished Englishmen, he was a personal friend of his Imperial
Majesty.
[108] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXVI.
[109] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. CXVI.
[110] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 182.
[111] A Selection from the Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C.,
Vol. II., p. 65.
[112] This, says Lord Clarendon in a letter to Mr. Hayward, was
“charmingly characteristic;” but he adds, thinking of the effect on
the mind of the Queen, “they” (the green gloves and blue studs) “will
not have been unobserved, _or_ set down to the credit side of his
account.”--Mr. Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 72.
[113] Malmesbury Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 266.
[114] The Hayward Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 67.
[115] Malmesbury Memoirs, Vol. II., p. 267.
[116] The faithful Coburger, Löhlein, was the only member of the Royal
household who seems to have given advice that would have saved the
Prince’s life had it been acted on.
[117] It is only fair to say that Lord Palmerston was the first to
make these representations. For his views on the Prince’s illness
and the Queen’s doctors, see his letter to Lord Shaftesbury, of 11th
December.--Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, by Edwin
Hodder. Vol. III., p. 130.
[118] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 178-185.
[119] Edmund Burke, by Augustine Birrell. _Contemporary Review_, July,
1866, p. 41.
[120] The Life and Labours of Albany Fonblanque, by Edward Barrington
Fonblanque, p. 247.
[121] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters. London: John Murray, 1884, p.
360.
[122] See Memorandum by the Grand Duchess of Baden quoted in Alice
Grand Duchess of Hesse. Biographical Sketch and Letters, pp. 18-19.
[123] The allusion here to the “revival” of Wilberforce’s old affection
may seem curious. The Bishop of Oxford enjoyed more influence and
favour at Court than ever fell to the lot of any ecclesiastic in our
time. He was one of the extremely small group of prominent public
men--Sir Robert Peel, Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord
Clarendon, and Sir George Cornewall Lewis--who enjoyed the Prince’s
close personal friendship. But suddenly, for no apparent reason, the
Prince Consort dropped him, and in one of his letters to Miss Noel the
Bishop gives utterance to his sorrow over his fall at Court. Knowing
Lord Aberdeen’s intimacy with the Prince, he begged his son, the Hon.
Arthur Gordon, to induce his father to intercede for him. The incident
curiously illustrates the Prince Consort’s character. When Lord
Aberdeen opened the subject with his customary tact and delicacy, the
Prince detected his object at once, and stopped him by observing, “He
(the Bishop) does everything for some object. He has a motive for all
his conduct.” Lord Aberdeen replied, “Yes, sir, but when a bad motive?”
which, however, did not lead the Prince to continue the discussion.
Again Lord Aberdeen seized an opportunity of serving the Bishop, and
this time the Prince Consort frankly said he had occasion to doubt the
Bishop’s sincerity--a suspicion that invariably forfeited the Prince’s
confidence. Being pressed by Aberdeen still further, the Prince
said that in early life he detected Wilberforce intriguing for the
preceptorship of the Prince of Wales. Nor was that all. In a discussion
with the Prince on a certain miracle about which he had preached, the
Bishop had unduly modified his views to suit those of the Prince. It is
only fair to Wilberforce to say that, in a letter to the Hon. Arthur
Gordon, he denies the assertion about the preceptorship, but admits
there was some colour in the other part of the Prince’s case. “The
swine sermon,” writes Wilberforce, “was preached in days when he (the
Prince Consort) was most friendly, long before I was Dean or Bishop;
the conversation followed, and a long one it was. He did not say how
entirely he disbelieved in spirits of evil, but raised all possible
objections, which I combated; and the only thing like ‘convenient’
averment I said was that it was far best to believe in a devil who
suggested evil to us; for that otherwise we were driven to make every
man his own devil; and I thought that this view rather touched him.” It
did touch him, but not in the way intended. See Life of Wilberforce, by
his son, Reginald G. Wilberforce, Vol. II., p. 226. For reference to
the Prince’s funeral, see Vol. III., pp. 41-45.
[124] It gave Federal Commissioners power, without judge or jury,
to return fugitive slaves to justice; prohibited State Courts from
testing, on writ of _habeas corpus_, the rights of the person who
claimed the slave in a Free State.
[125] The minority of the Judges seem to have taken a less pedantic
view, and one more in accordance with the policy of the Republic,
which had always been one of compromise with regard to slavery. They
held that it was not by Federal but State law that a negro was made
property. They contended that neither the laws of nature nor of
nations, nor the Constitution of the United States, recognised him as
property, so that the rights of owners over this species of property
must logically be limited to the Territory where, by municipal law,
it was recognised as property.--See The Constitutional History of the
United States, by Simon Stern, of the New York Bar (Cassell and Co.),
p. 190.
[126] According to it, slavery was prohibited north of parallel 36°
30´, but south of this it was to be recognised and never interfered
with by Congress, and the Federal Government would pay for all slaves
rescued from officers after arrest.
[127] There had always been a more or less tacit understanding
that whilst the Northern States were to be allowed to have their
manufactures protected, the Southern States, as a set-off, were to have
slavery tolerated and safeguarded.
[128] Life of Lord Shaftesbury, by Edwin Hodder. Vol. III., p. 136.
[129] At the time, credit was given to M. Thouvenel, the Foreign
Minister of France, for bringing the American Government to reason.
Count Vitzthum, however, states that “the French Ambassador at
Washington knew that at the eleventh hour the American Cabinet would
yield, and had advised his Government to this affect. When Thouvenel,
therefore, in his despatch of December 3rd, represented strongly
the justice of the English demands, he risked little, and only gave
a fresh proof that the Tuileries prefer siding with the gods to
Cato.”--Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 177.
[130] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 146.
[131] It was decided by the House of Commons that the liability to a
rate-in-aid of the other parishes of a Union should arise when the rate
came to 3s. in the £, and that Guardians, subject to the sanction of
the Local Government Board, might raise loans on the security of the
rates, when the aggregate expenditure of the whole Union reached 3s. in
the £ of its rateable property.
[132] Prior to 1860 there were four duties--1s., 1s. 9d., 2s. 5d., and
2s. 11d.--on wines, with varying degrees of alcohol, from 18 up to 42
degrees. In 1862 Mr. Gladstone substituted for these two duties--1s.
a gallon on wines below 26 degrees and 2s. 6d. on wines above 26 and
below 42 degrees.
[133] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 172.
[134] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 278 (Cassell and Co.).
[135] It is well known that Count Ferrol, in “Endymion,” was drawn from
Prince Bismarck. The novel was written in Lord Beaconsfield’s old age,
and there is a passage in it which curiously confirms Count Vitzthum’s
report of Count von Bismarck’s conversation with Mr. Disraeli. It is as
follows:--“The Count of Ferrol about this time made a visit to England.
He was always a welcome guest there, and had received the greatest
distinction which England could bestow upon a foreigner--he had been
elected an honorary member of White’s. ‘You may have troubles here,’ he
said to Lady Mountfort, ‘but they will pass.... We shall not get off
so cheaply. Everything is quite rotten throughout the Continent. This
year is tranquillity to what the next will be. There is not a throne
in Europe worth a year’s purchase. My worthy master wants me to return
home and be Minister; I am to fashion for him a new Constitution. I
will never have anything to do with new Constitutions; their inventors
are always their first victims. Instead of making a Constitution, he
should make a country, and convert his heterogeneous domains into a
patriotic dominion.’ ‘But how is that to be done?’ ‘There is but one
way--by blood and iron.’ ‘My dear Count, you shock me:’ ‘I shall have
to shock you a great deal more before the inevitable is brought about.’”
[136] Pope at first pretended that he had discovered the line of
Beauregard’s retreat, and had captured his rearguard. This turned out
to be an impudent fabrication, put about to divert attention from the
almost inconceivable incapacity of Halleck, who let his enemy slip
through his fingers after wasting the season in looking at him.
[137] This was difficult to arrange. Even the Sultan did not dare to do
more than recommend Suraya Pasha to admit the Prince to the Sanctuary
of the Patriarchs. For a long time the Pasha refused, but the Prince’s
anger at being balked was so great that Suraya at last consented,
accompanying the party himself with a strong armed escort to protect
his Royal guest from assassination.
[138] General Bruce was the second son of Thomas, Seventh Earl of
Elgin, and brother of the celebrated Governor-General of Canada and
India.
[139] The medical evidence showed that the miners in the pit had died
painlessly from poisoning by carbonic oxide gas. The Coroner’s jury
recommended that all mines should have two shafts instead of one only,
and that engine-beams should be made of wrought, and not of cast iron.
[140] Dr. Macleod’s ministrations at this time extended to other
members of the Royal Family, and appear to have been conducted with the
supple tact characteristic of the true-born Celt. “Your Royal Highness
knows,” he said to one of them, “that I am here as a pastor, and that
it is only as a pastor I am permitted to address you. But as I wish
you to thank me when we meet before God, so would I address you now.”
Again, in his letter to Mrs. Macleod, dated 12th of May, 1862, he
writes:--“Prince Alfred sent for me last night to see him before going
away. Thank God I spoke fully and frankly to him--we were alone--of his
difficulties, temptations, and of his father’s example; what the nation
expected of him; how, if he did God’s will, good and able men would
rally round him; how, if he became selfish, a selfish set of flatterers
would truckle to him and ruin him, while caring only for themselves.
He thanked me for all I said, and wished me to travel with him to-day
to Aberdeen, but the Queen wishes to see me again.”--Life of Norman
Macleod, D.D., by his brother, Rev. Donald Macleod, B.A., 2 vols.
London: Daldy, Isbister, and Co., 1876. Vol. II., p. 123.
[141] The Queen’s parish kirk.
[142] Life of Norman Macleod, Vol. II., pp. 123, 124.
[143] Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse: Biographical Sketch and Letters,
pp. 27 and 29.
[144] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt. Biographical Sketch and
Letters, p. 37.
[145] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 207.
[146] _Ibid._
[147] The history of the Protectorate is as follows:--After the
downfall of Napoleon I. in 1815, England held six of the Ionian
Islands. Austria offered to undertake their government, because she
said that their position enabled their population to disturb her
Adriatic coast. Count Capo d’Istrias, on behalf of Russia, objected,
and at the time the voice of the Czar Alexander was all-powerful. He
was a strong partisan of Greece, and avowedly so because he believed
that the spirit of Greek nationality would be repressed under Austria,
whereas it would be fostered under England. He insisted on the Ionians
being placed under a British protectorate, so that they might have the
benefit of free institutions.
[148] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 228.
[149] In 1795 the Prince of Wales was voted £138,000 a year. In the
reigns of the Queen’s predecessors the revenues of the Duchy of
Cornwall were absorbed by the Crown. But when the Prince of Wales was
born, the Prince Consort, finding these revenues sadly encumbered,
set them apart for the use of the Heir-Apparent. During his minority
they had been so ably administered by Prince Albert that in 1862 they
yielded a free income of £60,000 a year. This enabled the Government to
cut down the Parliamentary vote to £40,000.
[150] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294.
[151] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 294
[152] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 86.
[153] This letter did not satisfy all the clergy. Several of them
challenged sharply Wilberforce’s doctrine of the Archepiscopal
dispensing power, and indeed entangled him in controversial
correspondence on the subject. Those interested in the matter will find
Wilberforce’s argument more fully elaborated in a letter quoted in his
“Life,” Vol. III., p. 87. He says he had discovered in his muniment box
at Lavington such a dispensation to one of his own predecessors granted
by Archbishop Laud.
[154] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., p. 132.
[155] Miss Tucker, of Branscombe, near Sidmouth, was the designer.
[156] Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold, who, as usual on such
occasions, wore the picturesque Highland dress.
[157] Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 88. In this letter Wilberforce
says he was quite charmed with the manner in which the Crown Prince of
Prussia spoke of his wife. “Bishop,” said he, “with me it has been one
long honeymoon.”
[158] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 215.
[159] For a curious account of Mr. Oliphant’s Secret Mission, see Count
Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 240, 241.
[160] English writers often draw an analogy between Ireland and
Poland. There is the greatest difference between the position of the
two nationalities. In Poland the Imperial Government has crushed the
nobility, by taking sides with the peasantry. In Ireland the Imperial
Government has striven to hold the country by allying itself with the
territorial aristocracy. Had the peasants joined the nobles in Poland,
Russia could not have resisted the demand for autonomy.
[161] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 308.
[162] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 261.
[163] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 221.
[164] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 322.
[165] The position of the chief claimants in the Succession may be
illustrated in this way.
Christian I.
|
Frederick I.
|
+-------------------+-------------------+
| |
Christian III. Adolph, 1st Duke of
| Gottorp (1544).
+--------------+--------------+ |
| | +------+-------+
Frederick II. Hans, 1st Duke | |
| of Sonderburg. Emperor of Grand Duke of
Frederick III. | Russia. Oldenburg.
| +---------+--------+
Royal Family of | |
Denmark becomes Ducal Family of Ducal Family of
extinct in Augustenburg. Glücksburg.
Frederick VII. |
Christian IX.
[166] This is calculated on the basis of the oats, wheat, and potato
crop, with one-third the actual value of the total: the live stock
added to represent the value of stock for the given current year.
[167] Customs and Income Tax showed an increase, but there was a
decrease on Excise.
[168] This cost the revenue a loss of £216,000.
[169] Quoted by Sir T. Martin in his Life of the Prince Consort, Ch.
CVIII.
[170] When the British ship _Prince of Wales_ was wrecked in June,
1861, on the coast of Rio Grande, it was reported that the crew had
been murdered. A demand was made by the English Foreign Office on
Brazil for compensation. Mr. Christy, the British Minister, happened
to be an imitator of Palmerston’s hectoring manner of negotiating
with weak Powers. His demands were rejected by Brazil because the
compensation claimed was monstrous, and because he sought to impose
conditions which were not compatible with the dignity and honour of
an independent State. Reprisals were then ordered to be made. In the
first instance it seems the Brazilian Government had been guilty of
negligence. But Mr. Christy’s high-handed action soon put England in
the wrong.
[171] Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, Chap. LXI.
[172] Sir Stafford was denounced as one of the Exhibition clique. He
moved the reduction of the vote by £25,000--the amount estimates for
altering the building--as a compromise.
[173] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 299-300.
[174] The strength of the City Police was 1,000 men.
[175] Sir Francis Hastings Doyle tells a curious story which he
obtained from an American officer, whose authority he vouches for
as good, which throws some light on Lee’s failure, which was one of
the turning-points of the war. One of his subordinate generals--“a
hot-tempered, impetuous man”--received a document from Lee containing
the plan of invasion, and giving him orders to carry it out. Something
in these irritated him. He tore up the letter in a rage, and flung the
pieces on the ground. The moment his troops moved on, the pieces were
all picked up by a Northern partisan, pasted together, and conveyed to
the enemy.--Reminiscences and Opinions of Sir F. H. Doyle, p. 340.
[176] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse, Biographical Sketch and Letters,
p. 58.
[177] The Registrar-General, in his Quarterly Report of 30th April,
1863, says: “On comparing the returns of the deaths in the eleven
divisions with one exception the deaths were more numerous last quarter
than in the March quarter of 1862; and the single exception is found
in that division where the staple industry, on which half-a-million of
persons are dependent, is overthrown, and for a twelvemonth four-fifths
of that number have subsisted, unless the pittance has been aided by
previous earnings, or sale of household stock, on less than 4d. a day.”
[178] Morley’s Life of Cobden, Chap. XXXI.
[179] Lord Malmesbury, who, like most of the Tories, did his best to
urge the Government to go to war, at this time makes an observation in
his “Diary,” which is refreshing in its frigidity. “It is,” he remarks,
“perhaps as well that we did not enter into this contest, as our army
was not armed at that time like the Prussians, with the breechloader,
and we should probably have suffered in consequence the same disaster
as the Austrians did two years later.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol.
II., pp. 3-5.
[180] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 285.
[181] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 248.
[182] In criticising Palmerston’s policy of intervention, it is but
just to remember that he was fatally encumbered by his imprudent
declaration in the House of Commons on the 23rd of July, 1862, that if
the Germans attacked the Danes “it would not be with Denmark alone they
would have to contend.”
[183] Cobden’s Speeches, Vol. II., p. 341.
[184] Sir A. Malet’s Overthrow of the Germanic Confederation, p. 96.
[185] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 315.
[186] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 296.
[187] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 297.
[188] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 286.
[189] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 286.
[190] Speech of the 21st of January, 1864.
[191] Lowe’s Life of Prince Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 335.
[192] At Southampton on the 3rd of April.
[193] As a matter of fact, there was no comparison possible between
the crowds in either case. The receptions of the French Emperor and
the Danish Princess were poor and cold compared with that extended
to Garibaldi. It will enable readers of the rising generation to
understand what his welcome was when it is stated that as regards
street crowds and popular enthusiasm, it far surpassed that given to
the Queen on the 21st of June, 1887, when she celebrated her Jubilee in
London.
[194] Lord Malmesbury, in his Diary, has the following entry:--“We
dined at Stafford House to meet Garibaldi. The party consisted of the
Palmerstons, Russells, Gladstones, Argylls, Shaftesburys, Dufferins,
&c., and other Whigs, the Derbys and ourselves being the only
Conservatives, so I greatly fear we have made a mistake, and that our
party will be disgusted at our going. Lady Shaftesbury told me after
dinner, in a _méchante_ manner, that we had fallen into a trap, to
which I answered I was very much obliged to those who laid it, as I
should be very sorry not to have seen Garibaldi.” And on the 15th of
April Lord Malmesbury adds:--“Our party are furious with us and Lord
Derby for dining with the Sutherlands last Wednesday, and Lord Bath has
written to Lord Colville to resign his office of Whip, and says he will
not spend a farthing upon elections. Lord Derby has written him a very
temperate letter.”--Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 320, 321.
[195] With Palmerston in favour of Denmark.
[196] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 289.
[197] Lord Shaftesbury, says his biographer, became Garibaldi’s most
constant companion in London, “never leaving him, in fact, except when
Garibaldi _would_ go to the Opera.”--Hodder’s Life of the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Vol. II., p. 172.
[198] It is curious to note that five days after Lord Shaftesbury
assured the Duc de Persigny that there was no “notion of politics” in
Garibaldi’s visit, and that “had Garibaldi’s appearance here anything
to do with touching that alliance [the alliance between France and
England], I am sure that the people of England would refuse to give
him a welcome,” Garibaldi was entertained at a magnificent popular
demonstration at the Crystal Palace. A sword of honour was presented
to him, of which he said, “I will never unsheathe it in the cause of
tyrants, and will draw it only in support of oppressed nationalities.
_I hope yet to carry it with me to Rome and Venice._” Lord Shaftesbury
was one of the brilliant company of Palmerstonian partisans under whose
auspices this unique non-political ceremony was conducted.
[199] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 322.
[200] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 289-290.
[201] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., pp. 289-290.
[202] Perhaps this consideration had something to do with the curious
reluctance of France to co-operate with England in the Conference--a
reluctance hitherto attributed to Lord Russell’s curt refusal to take
part in the Napoleonic Conference of 1863.
[203] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 291.
[204] Of the Conference.
[205] Cobden’s Speeches, Vol. II., p. 341.
[206] Father of the present Lord Salisbury.
[207] It is interesting to note how the Tory leaders in the House of
Lords at that time dictated to the whole Party its strategy and policy
at critical moments.
[208] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., pp. 327, 328.
[209] Count Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 292.
[210] Evelyn Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., pp. 254, 255.
[211] Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p 370.
[212] As a matter of fact, while the Conference was going on and
the war party was rampant in London drawing-rooms, the Germans were
greatly alarmed lest England should interfere. Count Vitzthum, writing
on the 5th of May, says: “A peer who is very favourably disposed to
Germany, said to me yesterday, ‘Take care, for God’s sake, to secure an
armistice as soon as possible. If the question of war or peace were put
to-day in the House of Commons to vote, three-fourths of the members
would vote for war.’ Similar hints have been given to the Prussian
Ambassador from a less unprejudiced quarter. We must not forget
that England, by a blockade of the German and Austrian coasts, at a
comparatively small expense, could exert a serious pressure on Vienna
and Berlin, particularly if the revolution were let loose at the same
time in Italy and Hungary.” Vitzthum’s Reminiscences, Vol. II., p. 357.
See on this point Palmerston’s own account in his letter of 1st of May
to Lord Russell of the interview, in which he menaced Count Apponyi
with naval intervention. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, Vol. II., p.
249. It is only just to say, that if Palmerston was eager to strike at
the German Powers, he knew perfectly well where to plant a telling blow
on a vulnerable point. Cobden’s argument was that a blockade of the
German coast would be futile because railways had rendered blockades
innocuous, unless, as in America, the blockading Power could command
the internal communications of the enemy.
[213] Ashley’s Life of Palmerston, Vol. II., p. 258.
[214] The Confederate cruisers that had escaped from British ports--the
_Florida_, _Alabama_, _Virginia_, and _Rappahannock_--had taken 187
ships and destroyed property exceeding in value £3,000,000. There was
only one thing distinguishing them from English privateers--namely,
that their chief officers carried Confederate commissions. Some of them
got away because the Courts, from the ambiguous state of our law, could
not condemn them. Others escaped through the delay and negligence of
the authorities.
[215] In England the Queen’s taxes are collected by sending petty local
officials round from door to door. In Scotland the Collector of Taxes
is a high Imperial official, and the people on a specified date go to
his office and pay their taxes. The result is, that though defalcations
are too common in England, they are unknown in Scotland. Whilst in
England a vast fabric of arrears accumulates from year to year and the
revenue comes in driblets, the whole Imperial taxation of Scotland,
including that of the poor Islanders, is paid promptly to the Treasury
within the first fortnight of every January. There are no arrears
except from poverty, and these are trivial.
[216] As the law stood, Government could only grant life insurances to
the amount of £100 to persons who purchased deferred annuities. Mr.
Gladstone abolished that restriction. It is curious that, though the
Bill met with much opposition in the House of Commons, in the Lords it
was welcomed as a boon to the working-classes, who urgently desired the
measure to pass.
[217] One was Dr. Rowland Williams, whose essay on Bunsen’s Biblical
Researches--affirming that the Bible was “an expression of devout
reason, and therefore to be read with reason in freedom”--was supposed
to deny that it was the actual word of God. It also affirmed that “the
doctrine of merit by transfer is a fiction.” The other defendant was
the Rev. H. B. Wilson, whose essay on “Séances Historiques de Genève”
was said to deny that the Holy Scriptures were written under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and to challenge the doctrine of final
judgment and eternal punishment.
[218] Wilberforce’s popular nickname was notoriously “Soapy Sam”--hence
the malignity of Westbury’s attack.
[219] Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 143.
[220] It was said that at the outset he might have embarked his army
from Washington and transported them without the loss of a single man
to the point he had now reached, after prowling like a wolf for many
weeks round the Confederate lines to the south of Richmond.
[221] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 309.
[222] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 318.
[223] He was executed on the 14th of November, 1864.
[224] Alice: Grand Duchess of Hesse. Biographical Sketch and Letters,
pp. 74, 75.
[225] Life of Dr. Norman McLeod, Vol. II., pp. 176, 177.
[226] Crown Princess of Germany.
[227] Prince Alfred.
[228] The anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death.
[229] Writing to Mr. T. B. Potter on the 23rd of February, Mr. Cobden
says, “Shall I confess the thought that troubles me in connection with
this subject? I have seen with disgust the altered tone with which
America has been treated since she was believed to have committed
suicide, or something like it. In our diplomacy, our Press, and with
our public speakers, all hasten to kick the dead lion. Now in a few
months everybody will know that the North will triumph, and what
troubles me is lest I should live to see our ruling class--which can
understand and respect _power_ better than any other class--grovel once
more, and more basely than before, to the giant of democracy. This
would not only inspire me with disgust and indignation, but with shame
and humiliation. I think I see signs that it is coming. The _Times_ is
less insolent, and Lord Palmerston is more civil.”--Morley’s Life of
Cobden, Chap. XXXIV.
[230] Sterne’s Constitutional History of the United States, p. 199.
[231] A note may be here added with some details of one of the
most startling and tragic events that marked the history of the
English-speaking race during the Queen’s reign. President Lincoln was
assassinated while the play called “Our American Cousin,” memorable
for the late Mr. Sothern’s impersonation of Lord Dundreary, was going
on. The assassin was John Wilkes Booth, a native of Maryland. He was
an actor, and a relative of the celebrated American tragedian, Junius
Brutus Booth. He was a half-crazy partisan of the Southern States,
and had often threatened to kill the President. He fled to St. Mary’s
County, and was ultimately discovered hiding in a barn about three
miles from Port Royal. He and his companions refused to surrender,
and the barn was set on fire. Sergeant Corbet, of the 16th New York
Cavalry, fired his carbine through one of the windows and shot Booth in
the head. He died two hours and a half after he was wounded. His three
companions were tried by court-martial and executed.
[232] “The Civil Rights Bill,” says Mr. Sterne, “declared freedmen
citizens of the United States. The reasons against this declaration
were sound in themselves, because it admitted to the rights of
citizenship a large number of persons whose prior conditions of
servitude and enforced labour made them dangerous citizens. As the
right to vote implies not only the right of the voter to protect
himself against the aggression of others, but also involves the
power, through the instrumentality of taxation, which is placed in
the official hands created by the voters, to confiscate the property
of others, it was apprehended by many that demagogues and adventurers
would win the freemen by illusory promises of personal benefits to give
them their votes, and that by the creation of public debts and the
exercise of the power of taxation, they would mercilessly confiscate
the property of citizens subjected to their sway.”--Constitutional
History and Political Development of the United States, by Simon
Sterne, of the New York Bar. Cassell and Co., pp. 202, 203.
[233] “Bismarck in the Franco-German War,” quoted in Lowe’s Life of
Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 347.
[234] For the conflicting accounts of this interview, see Lowe’s Life
of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 352.
[235] This scandal, which was one of the sensational events of the
Session of 1865, was made the most of by the Churchmen, to whom
Westbury had been studiously insolent. Some little time after his fall
Westbury met his old antagonist, the Bishop of Oxford, in the lobby
of the House of Lords. He held out his hand, saying, “My Lord Bishop,
as a Christian and a Bishop, you will not refuse to shake hands.”
Wilberforce generously shook hands with him, but that did not put an
end to the war of wit between them. Westbury said, “Do you remember
where we last met?’ “No,” replied Wilberforce. “It was in the hour of
my humiliation, when I was leaving the Queen’s Closet, having given
up the Great Seal. I met you on the stairs as I was coming out, and I
felt inclined to say, ‘Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?’” Wilberforce
retorted, “Does your lordship remember the end of the quotation?” to
which Westbury answered, “We lawyers, my Lord Bishop, are not in the
habit of quoting part of a passage without knowing the whole.” But, as
Wilberforce used to say in telling the story, Westbury no doubt looked
it out in his family Bible when he went home, and found that the end
of the quotation was, “Yea, I have found thee, because thou hast sold
thyself to iniquity.”--See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 144.
[236] Life of Lord Palmerston, by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, Vol. II., p.
273.
[237] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 335.
[238] Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Biographical Sketch and Letters,
p. 111.
[239] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 345.
[240] Forty Years’ Recollections, Literary and Political, by Thomas
Frost, p. 291.
[241] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 347.
[242] When Lord Grosvenor divided the House on an amendment to the
Second Reading of the Bill, he gathered round him a body of nondescript
Liberals--many of whom had been disappointed in their quest of
office--whom Mr. Bright likened to those who took refuge in the cave of
Adullam.
[243] Forty Adullamites had promised to support him.
[244] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 358.
[245] The speech of Mr. Mill struck terror into the hearts of the
reactionary landlords, who had all thought that their rents would go on
rising for centuries to come. For further references, see Letters and
Journals of W. Stanley Jevons, edited by his Wife, pp. 203, 216, 218,
223, and 224, London: Macmillan (1886).
[246] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 124.
[247] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 127.
[248] _Ibid._, pp. 127, 131.
[249] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, pp. 142, 144, 147, 148. 149.
[250] Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 148.
[251] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 365.
[252] The History of Reform, by Alexander Paul, p. 199. Routledge, 1884.
[253] Correspondence of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 158.
[254] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 242.
[255] Memoirs of an ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 365.
[256] This was a year fruitful in Cabinet meetings. On the 22nd of
January Lord Malmesbury writes, “Cabinets every day to the end of the
month; some at Lord Derby’s, who was ill with the gout.”--Memoirs of an
ex-Minister, _ibid._
[257] Mr. Dudley Baxter, who prepared Mr. Disraeli’s figures for him.
[258] See on this subject a curious letter from Mr. Hayward to Mr.
Gladstone written on the 15th of August, 1866. Mr. Hayward says:--“I
entirely agree in what you say of the House of Commons and the Liberal
party, which is neutralised by the individual crotchets of its
members.”--Correspondence of Mr. Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p.
147.
[259] Mr. Alexander Paul’s History of Reform, pp. 201-203.
[260] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 371.
[261] The National Budget, by A. J. Wilson, p. 95. Macmillan and Co.
[262] The Parnellite Movement, by T. P. O’Connor, M.P., chap. vii.
[263] _Ibid._, p. 137. Popular Edition, Ward and Downey, 1887.
[264] Some of the witnesses under cross-examination broke down and
fainted when confessions of guilt were extorted from them.
[265] It is instructive to look back on the speeches delivered at
this meeting. They give one a vivid idea of the humiliating _status_
of the British workman at that time. The complaints of the speakers
may be summed up thus: (1), whereas the masters’ associations were
free to send circulars to each other urging the dismissal of “marked”
unionists, workmen were, by a recent legal decision, guilty of an
indictable offence if they “picketed” or endeavoured to dissuade each
other from serving a master whose men had struck work; (2), the law of
conspiracy had been so strained as to make an act which when done by an
individual was legal, illegal when done by two or more individuals in
combination; (3), masters who broke contracts were only fined, whereas
breach of contract by workmen was punished by imprisonment.
[266] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 166.
[267] Afterwards Sir Howard Elphinstone, K.C.B. He was the Prince’s
governor from 1859.
[268] The pet family name of the Princess of Wales--obviously a
contraction of Alexandra.
[269] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 373.
[270] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., by the Rev. Donald Macleod, B.A.,
Vol. II., p. 252.
[271] The Barony parish of Glasgow was the one of which Macleod was
minister. In one of his sermons, he had told his people that Scripture
commanded them to _sing_ the praises of God, not to _grunt_ them.
“But,” he added, “if you are so constituted physically that it is
impossible for you to sing, but only _grunt_, then it is best to be
silent.”
[272] Scots for _dandle_.
[273] Life of Norman Macleod, D.D., Vol. II., pp. 208, 209.
[274] Now Duke of Connaught.
[275] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 185.
[276] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 186, 187.
[277] Willem, who had died a few months before, was a well-known
figure at Balmoral. He was given to the Princess Louis by the Baron
Schenk-Schmittburg, who brought him from Java. Willem was the offspring
of a negro father and a Javanese mother, and was a favourite with the
Queen and her daughter.
[278] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 227.
[279] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 242.
[280] Mr. Bernal Osborne had suggested one. It was to cut down the
Irish Church establishment to five hundred ministers and four bishops.
[281] Writing to Wilberforce on the 9th of September on the subject,
Mr. Disraeli says, “In the great struggle in which I am embarked, it
is a matter of great mortification to me that I am daily crossed, and
generally opposed by the High Church Party. Only think of Dean Hook
opposing Henry Lennox at Chichester.” The Bishop’s answer was that Mr.
Disraeli must expect to lose the High Church vote, seeing that he did
not, in dispensing ecclesiastical prestige, sufficiently consider the
claims of High Churchmen.--Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. II., p. 260.
[282] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p 381.
[283] The last had been altered to make it clear that the House merely
asked the Crown for leave to discuss a Bill suspending the exercise of
its patronage till the 1st of August, 1869. A new one was added by Mr.
Whitbread affirming the necessity of discontinuing the Maynooth Grant
and the Presbyterian _Regium Donum_.
[284] This was in his 1844 speech, when he advocated Home Rule for
Ireland and the Disestablishment of “an absentee aristocracy and an
alien church.” Mr. Disraeli had been taunted with this phrase early
in the Session, during the first debate on the Irish Question. His
reply was infinitely humorous and audacious. He said of the phrase,
with an exquisite touch of mournful reminiscence, “it appeared to me
at the time I made it that nobody listened to it. It seemed to me I
was pouring water on sand--but it seems now that the water came from a
golden goblet.”
[285] In 1864-65 the Government had kept expenditure within the
estimates by £370,000. They did so the following year by £92,000. But
in 1866-67 the Derby-Disraeli Government let expenditure _exceed_
estimates by £669,000, and in 1867-68 by £537,000. This rather told
against Mr. Disraeli in the General Election.
[286] The Cabinet was composed as follows:--Mr. Gladstone, Prime
Minister; Sir C. Page Wood, Lord Chancellor, with the title of Lord
Hatherley; Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Mr. Austen Bruce,
Home Secretary; Lord Clarendon, Secretary for Foreign Affairs (with
Mr. Otway as his Under-Secretary); Lord Granville, Colonial Secretary;
the Duke of Argyll, Secretary for India (with Mr. Grant Duff as
Under-Secretary); Mr. Cardwell, Secretary for War; Mr. Chichester
Fortescue, Irish Secretary; Mr. Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty;
Mr. Goschen, President of the Poor-Law Board; Mr. Bright, President
of the Board of Trade; Lord Hartington, Postmaster-General; Lord
Kimberley, Privy Seal; Earl de Grey, President of the Council.
[287] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., p. 267.
[288] For Canterbury.
[289] It was said that Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester, was referred
to here.
[290] It is a curious fact that his appointment of Dr. Magee, Dean
of Cork, to this see brought the Government almost as much credit as
the appointment of Dr. Tait to Canterbury. Dr. Magee was erroneously
supposed to be Mr. Disraeli’s favourite candidate. But in this case
also he seems to have got credit for the Queen’s skill in selection.
[291] Life of Bishop Wilberforce, Vol. III., pp. 265-269.
[292] Letters and Journals of W. J. Stanley Jevons. Edited by his Wife,
p. 246.
[293] Yet at the time the Queen was personally opposed to Mr.
Gladstone’s Irish Church policy, so that his statement was somewhat
misleading. Perhaps he made it to minimise the evil effects that might
be produced by rumours of her Majesty’s hostility to the verdict of the
elections. These rumours were then current.
[294] It described the reductions for the first time in the records of
Queen’s Speeches as having been already made, not as reductions that
were only in contemplation.
[295] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 214.
[296] Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 200.
[297] _Ibid._, p. 191.
[298] It may be well to summarise Mr. Gladstone’s financial statement:--
ASSETS OF THE CHURCH.
(1) Commuted Tithe Rent Charge £9,000,000
(2) Land and Perpetuity Rents 6,200,000
(3) Money 750,000
-----------
£15,950,000
-----------
================================================
CHARGE ON THE CHURCH FUND.
Commuted Life Interests of Bishops, Beneficed
Clergy, &c. £4,900,000
Curates 800,000
Lay Compensations 900,000
Private Endowments to be Repaid 500,000
Presbyterians and Maynooth 1,100,000
Building Charges 250,000
College Expenses of Presbyterians and
Catholics 35,000
Expenses of Commission 200,000
----------
£8,685,000
----------
Thus there was a surplus fund for distribution of, say, £7,500,000,
the interest on which, £311,000, Mr. Gladstone distributed as
follows:--(1), Lunatic Asylums, £185,000; (2), Deaf and Dumb
Institutions, £30,000; (3), Idiot Asylums, £20,000; (4), Nurses for the
Poor, £15,000; (5), Reformatories and Industrial Schools, £10,000; (6),
County Infirmaries, £51,000.
[299] It would seem that Dean Swift anticipated Mr. Gladstone’s notion.
When Vicar of Laracor Swift presented the vicarage with nineteen acres
of land. He had endowed it with certain tithes, which he left in trust
for the established episcopal religion. But he stipulated that in case
of Disestablishment the tithes should be administered “for the benefit
of the poor.” Stella (Esther Johnson), in her will, dated 30th October,
1727, also anticipated Disestablishment. In leaving £1,000 to endow
a chaplaincy in Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin, she provided that if the
Church were disestablished the bequest should be null and void.
[300] Sir Roundell Palmer’s argument was the only one that disturbed
the conscience of the majority. Indeed, the only conceivable answer to
it was that local church endowments, which were really useful in doing
good parochial work, were instituted not for local but for national
reasons. For national reasons such as Mr. Gladstone adduced, they might
be justly resumed by the State to be applied to national purposes.
[301] Mr. Disraeli’s argument was, that a church, to be established,
must have a temporal Sovereign as its head. The Church of Rome was
“established” in Ireland, because the Pope was a temporal Sovereign.
On grounds of religious equality, said Mr. Disraeli, it was necessary
to retain the Queen’s supremacy over the Irish Church, so that it
might enjoy the same status as its Roman rival. His theory of Royal
supremacy over Church discipline and doctrine horrified his High Church
supporters.
[302] There was a majority of all orders for the Bill, except among
Bishops and Viscounts. The vote of the new families was much more
Conservative than that of the old ones.
[303] It is worth noting that the Roman Catholic Peers voted against
all plans for concurrent endowment of Catholicism in any shape or form.
[304] Wilberforce was subsequently promoted to the See of Winchester.
But Chelmsford’s sneer was unjust. Wilberforce thought honestly that
the nation having decided the question of immediate Disestablishment
and Disendowment, delay would simply damage the interests of the Irish
Church, and provoke a futile conflict with the people. Hence he voted
against this amendment.--See Life of Wilberforce, Vol. III., pp.
287-289, and Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 408.
[305] It is not generally known that the repeal of the shilling duty on
corn, as indeed many of the ideas on which Mr. Lowe based his Budget
were suggested to him by the late Mr. Stanley Jevons. “Having been
consulted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” writes Mrs. Jevons, “as
to the pressure of taxation upon different classes of the people, Mr.
Jevons sent to him on the 13th of March a report which he had prepared
with much care. The result of his inquiries was, that the artisan,
with only a moderate use of beer and tobacco, was less heavily taxed
than the classes above or below him, but that the labourer, if he
only moderately indulged in stimulants, was rather the most heavily
taxed of any class in proportion to his income. Mr. Jevons, therefore,
recommended the repeal of the remaining duty of a shilling a quarter
on corn, which he believed formed an appreciable burden of about one
per cent. of income upon the very poorest class on the borders of
pauperism.” Another proposal of Mr. Lowe’s for re-coining the gold
currency, owing to the defective weight of the coins in circulation,
was also suggested by Mr. Jevons.--See Letters and Journals of W.
Stanley Jevons, edited by his Wife (Macmillan, 1886), pp. 245-248.
[306] According to Lord Hartington’s measure the purchase-money came to
£6,750,000.
[307] They even retreated from the position of Lord Russell, who very
properly refused to admit to arbitration any question as to the right
of England to recognise the South as a belligerent Power--a concession
which was not only an abject surrender of Sovereign rights, but _ultra
vires_ on the part of any Minister.
[308] It was to some extent ignored at the time that for much of the
damage done to American commerce the Federal Navy was to blame. It
afforded the most meagre protection to the American mercantile marine.
Though it was known a few days after its escape that the _Sumter_ was
roaming in West Indian waters, yet off _none_ of the ports it visited
during the next two months was there a Federal war-ship waiting to
sink it. The _Alabama_ did most damage at the points which one would
have thought would be swarming with prowling Federal cruisers, namely,
the Azores, the crossing of the Gulf Stream, the Brazilian Coast,
the “calm belts,” where ships from the South cross the tropics at
the Cape, and in the China seas. Yet in none of these quarters was
Captain Semmes attacked or waited for. Captain Semmes admits in “My
Adventures Afloat,” that but for the gross negligence and incompetence
of the United States Naval Department he could not have done the damage
he did. The admission discounts much of the argument in favour of
supplying swift, unarmoured cruisers in war time.
[309] The Senate was to be assembled to pass Bills which the Opposition
had demanded. The Legislative Body was to control the Budget.
Independent Members were to be allowed to initiate Bills. Ministers,
though not responsible actually to the Legislature, would be allowed to
sit in it.
[310] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 211.
[311] Carlyle’s Life in London, by J. A. Froude, Vol. III., p. 380.
[312] The speeches on this occasion were all good or eccentric. Mr.
Motley, the United States Minister, for example, said of Mr. Peabody,
“That fortunate as well as most generous of men has discovered a
secret for which misers might sigh in vain--the art of keeping a great
fortune for himself through all time. For I have often thought in this
connection of that famous epitaph inscribed on the monument of an old
Earl of Devonshire commonly called the Good Earl of Devonshire--‘What I
spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave away remains with me.’”
When Mr. Story’s turn came to address the company he pointed to his
statue, and merely said “That is my speech.”
[313] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 221. For a detailed
description of the excursions, see More Leaves from a Journal of a Life
in the Highlands, pp. 116-147.
[314] It was objectionable, he said, because it was a Bill of pains
and penalties for mere words. Government had released the Fenians.
Why, then, object to Irishmen honouring them? He also complained
that the House was asked to act on the _ipse dixit_ of “an Irish
Attorney-General.” Mr. Beresford Hope promptly rebelled against his
leader, and approved of the Bill as a “manly step.” Mr. Gathorne-Hardy
also deserted his chief, and said he would stand by the Government.
[315] Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 411. The best sketch
of Lady Palmerston that has appeared was the obituary notice in the
_Times_ of the 15th of September, from the pen of Mr. Abraham Hayward,
Q.C.--See Mr. Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 201, also
Hayward’s Selected Essays, Vol. II. (Longmans, 1878.)
[316] Hayward’s Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 202.
[317] Hodder’s Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.,
Vol. III., pp. 251-252. (Cassell and Co., 1886.)
[318] It may be interesting to record that the most brilliant Queen
of Society in the Victorian period was a hard-working, thrifty
house-manager. During her reign she managed personally not only the
sumptuous hospitalities, but the accounts of Cambridge House, Brocket
Hall, and Broadlands, and kept Palmerston’s private affairs in
admirable order. Even her visiting cards were filled up by her own hand
till within a very few years of her death. There was one other trace
of old-fashionedness about her. She was the last lady of quality who
pronounced the word oblige as if it were spelt “obleege.”
[319] Two-thirds of the electors abstained from voting. Jeremiah
Donovan prefixed the aristocratic “O’” to his surname to give himself
social importance. To distinguish him from other O’Donovans the place
of his birth, Rossa, was now added to his name, thus: “Jeremiah
O’Donovan (Rossa).” In England it soon came to be written as if “Rossa”
were actually his surname.
[320] On the 7th of December Mr. W. Johnston, M.P., one of the Orange
leaders, told an Orange Lodge at Derry that between Fenians and Papists
he chose Fenians, and added, amidst enthusiastic cheers, that “it is
no part of the duty of an Orangeman to fire a shot or draw a sword as
between the English Government and the Fenians.”
[321] Mr. Disraeli did not object to compensation for disturbance
when it meant compensation for unexhausted improvements, or for the
“interruption of a course of good husbandry.”
[322] The Commons restored the original scale of compensation for
eviction, the original duration of the lease exempting holdings from
the Bill, and they restricted the permission to settle disputes between
landlord and tenant to cases where they acted in concert, and not to
those in which the offer came from one party alone.
[323] These were (1), in towns, the municipal boroughs; (2), in the
Metropolis, workhouse school districts, or failing these, vestry areas;
and (3), in counties, the civil parishes.
[324] Mr. Winterbotham said that the Dissenters must insist on every
rate-aided school giving no religious instruction except Bible-reading
without note or comment, and that, too, only in terms of “The
Time-table Conscience Clause,” _i.e._, at specified hours before or
after those for secular instruction, so that parents might use the
Conscience Clause without sacrificing the educational interests of
their children.
[325] This left £500,000 still to pay.
[326] Lord Granville had refused New Zealand military aid on the
general principle that the sooner colonies took care of themselves and
became independent the better. To save his dignity, he now said that
the loan was to be advanced for public works, &c. But no device could
conceal his change of front, for obviously advances to help a colony to
build public works, set free its local resources to meet its military
expenditure.
[327] The publication of the Treaty might have damped German enthusiasm
had Germany suspected she was asked to fight France in order to save
Belgium. But Napoleon dissipated that suspicion by proclaiming that the
object of the war was to “maintain Austria in her elevated position” in
Germany, and make the South German States independent.
[328] Von Bismarck, in his despatch of the 28th July, 1870, to Count
Bernstoff, said the Draft Treaty (which also stipulated for the sale
of Luxembourg to France) was communicated to him after the Luxembourg
Question was settled in 1867. But M. Benedetti, in whose handwriting
it was, said it was discussed by Bismarck in 1866, just after Sadowa.
The facts favour Benedetti’s statement of the date. See Lowe’s Life of
Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 423 _et seq._
[329] He was called “Duke of Pillage” after he looted the Summer Palace
of the Chinese Emperor.
[330] The French lost one-eighth.
[331] According to Mr. T. H. S. Escott’s brilliant sketch of the late
Mr. Hayward in the _Fortnightly Review_ for March, 1884, the first
person M. Thiers sounded in England on the subject was Mr. Hayward.
“My friend,” said Hayward, when M. Thiers began to argue about the
balance of power, “put all that stuff out of your head. We care for
none of these things.” Writing to his sister on the 17th of September,
1870, Mr. Hayward says:--“I passed yesterday evening with the Thiers
party, and breakfasted with them this morning. They are himself,
his wife, sister-in-law, and secretary. His mission seems to be to
persuade England to interfere on behalf of France, which England
won’t do. I saw Gladstone yesterday, who told me he _could_ not
mediate, as he knew neither what Prussia meant to demand nor France to
concede.”--Correspondence of Abraham Hayward, Q.C., Vol. II., p. 217.
[332] This proposal he carried against Von Moltke, who sternly demanded
the complete and unconditional surrender of the army of Metz.
[333] It was difficult to say which side won this battle, but on the
whole the balance of advantage rested with Faidherbe. The Germans
appreciated his ability very highly, and their two best generals next
to Von Moltke, were detached to crush him.
[334] Alice Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch and Letters, p. 243.
[335] Lord Granville has himself admitted that the weak point in the
policy of neutrality adopted by the Government was its starting-point.
The war was plainly and deliberately aggressive on the part of France.
If England had offered to head a league of neutral Powers in joining
Prussia to repel unprovoked French aggression, France would not have
drawn her sword. A great precedent would have been created for the
establishment of an international police of neutrals for keeping the
peace of Europe. At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on the 9th of November,
Lord Granville discussed this view very honestly and very candidly.
His reply was that the peevish jealousy with which France regarded the
growing power of Germany rendered the outbreak of war inevitable, and
that the menace of the neutral Powers would at best have postponed the
fray for a brief period. But these menaces might have failed, and then
the area of war would have been widened, the combatants multiplied,
and the struggle could not have been conducted, as it was, under the
restraining neutral criticism which did much to temper the passions
and mitigate the horrors of the strife. No doubt this was the national
conviction, and after it had been decided not to join Germany in
preventing France from perpetrating a crime, it was absurd to depart
from neutrality, in order to help France to escape the logical and just
punishment of her own turpitude. The organs of the Tory Opposition,
however, rather unpatriotically tried to make political capital out of
the policy of the Government by teaching the people that the neutrality
of the Cabinet was due to Ministerial cowardice and incapacity.
[336] Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., p. 606.
[337] King William had doubts as to whether he should be called
Emperor of Germany or German Emperor. At last he decided in favour of
the latter, which is his legal and correct title, though the wrong
one--“Emperor of Germany”--is actually used on passports issued
through the British Embassy at Berlin. To have called him “Emperor of
Germany” would have meant that the territories of the German Sovereign
Princes were in a country which belonged to him, whereas no part of
Germany belonged to him save Prussia. The title “German Emperor” was a
concession to the sentiments of autonomy and independence cherished by
the small States. Indeed, the Hohenzollerns, when they became kings,
were in a somewhat similar difficulty. They ought to have been Kings of
Brandenberg. But Brandenberg was part of the old Empire, in which there
could be only one King of the Germans and Holy Roman Emperor. Hence
they took their title from Prussia, a new German colony, but not an
integral part of the German Empire.--For a careful discussion of this
quaint point of punctilio, see Lowe’s Life of Bismarck, Vol. I., pp.
613-618.
[338] But it was so clumsy in wording that it did not bind the
Sovereign. This fact explains the anxiety of Melbourne to see the
young Queen Victoria well married. So far as the law went, after her
accession she might, if she had chosen, have married a lacquey. William
IV., for example, could not have married Mrs. Jordan, who bore a large
family to him, when he was Duke of Clarence. But he could have done so
when he became King.
[339] The restrictions are not of course absolute, for a Prince may
refuse to be bound by them. He may defy the Act and marry a subject
without the consent of the Sovereign. The marriage is then quite valid
for him as a private individual. He could not after it marry anybody
else whilst his wife lived, save at the risk of a prosecution for
bigamy. But the marriage confers no Royal _status_ on his wife, and no
Royal rights of inheritance on his children. The wife of the Duke of
Sussex was simply Lady Augusta Murray, and took merely her own rank as
an earl’s daughter. The wife of the Duke of Cambridge is not Duchess
of Cambridge, but merely Mrs. FitzGeorge, and the Duke’s family take
the name of FitzGeorge, and the rank of Commoners. Yet it would be
impossible for the Duke to marry any one else, even with the consent of
the Queen.
[340] Being for the benefit of an individual, if the Queen had
consented to “bespeak” them she would have been compelled to assent to
an endless number of similar applications, or give a great many people
bitter offence by refusal.
[341] Thackeray’s attacks on the Queen’s family and ancestors
apparently had not rendered him a _persona grata_, like Dickens.
[342] See Forster’s Life of Dickens.