THE DAYS OF PALMERSTON.
1852-65.
[Sidenote: =Expectations of peace.--The Exhibition of 1851.=]
The time which followed the quieting down of England and Europe after
the turbulent years 1848 and 1849, was perhaps the most peaceful which
the century had known. The English people, overjoyed to find that
Chartism was but a bugbear and Irish rebellion a farce, had settled
down to enjoy what they trusted would prove a long spell of tranquil
prosperity. There was no great political question pending at home,
since the Corn Laws were gone, and the Whigs had refused to take up
any Radical programme. The continent was quiet, though its stillness
only resulted from the dying down for a space of the flames of
rebellion in Italy, Germany, and Hungary, where embers still smouldered
beneath the apparent deadness of the surface, and only needed a fresh
stirring to make them break out again into a blaze. This fact was not
appreciated in England, and the year 1851 saw the high-water mark of
a vague and optimistic belief that the troubles of the world were
over, and a reign of good-fellowship and brotherly affection among
nations about to begin. When the Prince Consort opened the first great
International Exhibition in Hyde Park in the May of that year, much
wild and visionary talk was heard about the end of war, and the advent
of an era when all disputes should be settled by arbitration. No
expectation was ever more ill-founded. After forty years of comparative
peace, since the fall of Napoleon, the continent was just about to see
the commencement of a series of four great wars, and England--whose
soldiers had not fired a shot in Europe since Waterloo--was not to be
without her share in them.
[Sidenote: =Steam navigation.=]
The English people were far from guessing this. Nearly all their
attention had been given to matters of domestic policy for the last
forty years, and no one thought that other topics were now to engross
them. But before passing on to the Crimean war and the struggles that
followed it, a few words are needed to show how the England of 1852
differed from the England of the days before the Reform Bill. The
first and most striking change visible was the enormous development
of the means of internal communication in the land. In 1832 the
application of steam to locomotive engines alike on water and on land
was just beginning to grow common. The first steam-tug had been seen
on the Clyde as far back as 1802, but no serious attempt to utilize
the discovery on a large scale, and for long voyages, was made for
many years. It was only after 1830 that the steamer began steadily to
supersede the sailing-ship for ordinary commercial purposes. But within
a few years after that date all passenger traffic was carried on the
new paddle-steamer, and a large share of the goods traffic also. It
was a sign of the indifference of the nation to things military during
the years of the great peace, that ships of war remained unaltered
long after the advantages of steam had been discovered. A few small
vessels were fitted with paddle-wheels about 1840, and took part in the
bombardment of Acre. But even in 1854 most of the line-of-battle ships
of Great Britain were still of the old type that Nelson had loved, and
depended on their sail power alone.
[Sidenote: =Growth of railways.=]
The utilization of steam for locomotion by land had started in the
humble shape of the employment of small engines to drag trucks of coal
and stone on local tramways at the slowest of paces. After lingering
for some thirty years in this embryo stage, it was suddenly and rapidly
developed by George Stephenson, a clever north-country engineer. The
first railway on which passengers were conveyed, and merchandise of all
kinds carried, was a short line between the two towns of Stockton and
Darlington, built by Stephenson's advice in 1825. It was not till five
years later that the success of the Stockton and Darlington railway
led to the construction of a second and greater venture of the same
kind, the Liverpool and Manchester railway, opened in 1830. This line
achieved an unhappy notoriety owing to the fact that Huskisson, the
Tory Free-Trade minister, was killed by the first train that ran upon
it. Though the early railways were slow and inconvenient--their average
pace was eight miles an hour, and their carriages were converted
stage-coaches, strapped on to trucks--they soon conquered the public
confidence, though old-fashioned persons refused for many years to
trust themselves to the new-fangled and dangerous mode of locomotion.
Between 1830 and 1840 the companies began to multiply rapidly, and
in 1844-45 there was a perfect mania for railway construction, and
schemes were formed to run lines through every corner of England,
whether they were likely to pay or not. Many of these plans were never
carried out, others were executed and ruined those who invested in
them. But the temporary depression which followed this over-speculation
had no long continuance, and the competition of the companies with
each other was always increasing the rapidity and comfort of railway
travelling. By 1852 it had taken its place among the commonplaces of
life, and had profoundly modified the condition of England in several
ways. The habit of travelling for pleasure which it begot and fostered,
the safe, cheap, and quick transportation of goods which it rendered
possible, and the easy transfer of labour from market to market which
it favoured, have all had their share in the making of modern England.
[Sidenote: =The Penny Post and the Telegraph.=]
A part only second to that of the railway in modifying the character
and habits of the English people was played by two other inventions
of the forties. The Penny Post, introduced by the efforts of Rowland
Hill in 1840 into every corner of the kingdom, and superseding the
old rates which ranged up to many shillings, had a marvellous effect
in facilitating communication. To supplement it by a yet more rapid
process, the first public Telegraph offices were opened in 1843; but,
for many years after, this invention was in the hands of private
companies, and was too dear to suit the pocket of the ordinary citizen,
who preferred to trust to his letter sent by the Penny Post.
[Sidenote: =The Factory Acts.=]
Meanwhile many other characteristic features of modern English social
life were rapidly developing themselves. We have mentioned the misery
of the operative classes in the great towns in an earlier chapter. The
first efforts to amend their condition date from the years 1832-52.
Philanthropists, of whom Lord Shaftesbury was the best known, strove
unceasingly to put an end to the worst horrors of the new industrial
system. In 1833 acts were passed to prevent mill-owners from working
children in their factories for more than half-time. In 1844 Sir
Robert Peel put women under the same protection, prohibited lads under
eighteen from being given more than twelve hours' labour, and appointed
inspectors to go round the factories and see that the law was carried
out. The Mines Act of 1842 prohibited women and children from working
underground, and a second Mines Act of 1850 put all subterranean labour
under government inspection. This benevolent legislation was mainly
due to the Tories, for the Liberals, wedded to the principles of
strict political economy, were loth to interfere between employer and
workman, and generally urged that matters ought to be allowed to right
themselves by the laws of supply and demand.
[Sidenote: =Trades Unions.=]
A not less effective means of protection for the operative classes
was devised by the workmen themselves. Trades Unions became possible
after the laws prohibiting combination of labourers had been repealed
in 1824, though governments, both Whig and Tory, still looked upon
them with much suspicion and disapproval, and occasionally suppressed
them under the plea that they were secret societies for coercing free
labour. Strikes, then as now, were often accompanied with violence and
rioting, and it had not yet been realized that they might often be
justified. But in spite of the frowns of those in authority, the Unions
were continually growing in number and in power all through the middle
of the century, though they had not yet assumed the inquisitorial and
dictatorial tone which they have adopted in our own day, and were still
defensive rather than offensive in their character.
[Sidenote: =The state of the Church.=]
While social England was thus assuming its modern shape, the chief
factors of the spiritual and intellectual life of the present day
were also coming into being. To the period 1832-52 belongs the rise
of both of the movements which have stirred the minds of men during
the last fifty years. In the early years of the century the condition
of the Church of England was very unsatisfactory. The only body
within its pale who displayed any zeal or true spiritual life were
the Evangelicals, the heirs of the men who had been stirred by the
preaching of the contemporaries of Wesley.[63] But they were not a very
numerous body, for their general acceptance of the harshest doctrines
of Calvinism repelled the majority; moreover, they were destitute of
organization, for they worked to increase the religious fervour of
the individual soul, not to reform the Church. Yet the Church needed
reforming; its higher ranks were still filled by "Greek-play bishops"
and promoted royal chaplains; the bulk of the parish clergy, though
genial honest men, were neither learned, zealous, nor spiritual-minded,
differing often only by the colour of their coats from the squires with
whom they associated. The worst part of the situation was that the
new masses of the population in the great towns were slipping out of
religious habits altogether, owing to the want of missionary zeal among
their pastors, and the deplorable dearth of religious endowment in the
new centres of life.
[Sidenote: =The "Broad-Church" movement.=]
The reaction against the deadness of the national Church took shape in
two new forms. The first was the "Broad-Church" movement, started by
men who wished to broaden and popularize the Church by bringing its
teaching into accordance with the latest discoveries in science and in
history, and by giving it a basis on philosophy rather than on dogma.
The first great name in this school was Archbishop Whately (1787-1863);
he and his contemporaries laid more stress on logic and philosophy than
did the younger generation of Broad Churchmen, who devoted themselves
more to reconciling science and religion, and to bringing to bear on
the history of Christianity new historical and scientific lights. They
only agreed in setting dogma aside, advocating the widest freedom of
opinion, and preaching the application of the spirit of Christianity to
the everyday acts and duties of life.
[Sidenote: =The Tractarian movement.=]
Very different were the views and aims of the other party in the Church
which arose in the years between 1830 and 1840. The new High-Church
school thought that the deadness of spiritual life in their day came
from a neglect of dogma and a want of appreciation of the unity and
historical continuity of the Church of England. Most men then held
that the national Church only dated from the Reformation, and that the
Bible was the only basis of its doctrines. Against these views the
leaders of the new school--the Oxford movement, as it was called,
because its three leaders, John Henry Newman, John Keble, and Edward
Pusey, were all resident Fellows of Oxford colleges--entered an
emphatic protest. They said that the Church of 1835 was the Church
of Anselm and Augustine, and that those who wished to make it the
Church of Henry VIII. and to cut it off from its place in the unity
of Christendom, were guilty of national apostacy. They taught that
it was still bound to hold all the dogmas and usages which could be
traced back to the days of the early Fathers. Most especially they laid
stress on two doctrines of which little had been heard since the days
of the Stuarts--the Real Presence in the Sacrament, and the sacrificial
priesthood of the clergy. Newman started a series of "Tracts for the
Times," to which his friends and followers contributed; they urged
that submission to authority in matters doctrinal, and a return to
the ritual and practice of the early Church could alone revivify
English spiritual life. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find any
universally received authority to which to appeal, since Low Churchmen
and Broad Churchmen alike denied the first postulates of the Tractarian
creed, and fell back on the Thirty-nine Articles and the practice of
the last two centuries as the only standard of faith and ceremony that
they would recognize. They added that those who yearned after mediaeval
doctrine and ritual were mere disguised Romanists, and would find what
they wanted in Popery alone.
[Sidenote: =Newman's secession.=]
A storm of wrath was directed against the new High-Churchmen, who were
denounced as Jesuits and false brethren. Most of all was the outcry
loud when Newman in 1841 wrote a pamphlet to prove that by certain
ingenious interpretations of loosely worded portions of the Thirty-nine
Articles, a man might hold all the leading doctrines of Rome and yet
stay inside the English Church. This curious production was a _tour
de force_ which, as he afterwards confessed, did not satisfy his own
conscience. He retired from teaching for awhile, and then seceded to
the Romanist communion, where alone he felt that he could realize his
desire to belong to a Church undoubtedly orthodox and enjoying a right
to speak with authority [1845]. Many of his more zealous adherents
followed him, at intervals, in the next ten years.
[Sidenote: =The High-Church party.=]
But the bulk of the Tractarians felt sure that the Church of England
was a true branch of the Catholic Church and remained within it,
gradually conquering the tolerance of their contemporaries by their
undoubted zeal and purity of motive. Ere long they acquired a strong
position, as their doctrines were very acceptable to the clergy, while
the admirable life and work of men like Keble gradually won over many
of the laity to their views. To the new High-Church party we owe
much good work in neglected parishes, and a restoration of decency
and order in public worship, which was a great improvement on the
careless and slovenly practice of the eighteenth century. Their efforts
led to a revival of interest in Church history and ecclesiastical
antiquities. Their influence made the clergy as a body more spiritual
and more hard-working. But for a time the Tractarian controversy
split England into two hostile camps, and the eccentric mediaevalism
of the "Ritualists"--those of the party who strove to restore the
forgotten minutiae of pre-Reformation ceremonies--drove Low and Broad
Churchmen into extreme wrath. Even yet the breach is not healed, and
the Church is divided, though the old bitterness has been forgotten
to a great extent in the last ten years. But the net result of the
movement has been to substitute zeal--if sometimes the zeal was without
discretion--for deadness, and the Church of to-day is far stronger and
more powerful than the Church of 1830.
[Sidenote: =The Nonconformists.=]
The most unhappy result of the movement has been to drive the
Nonconformists, to whom High-Church doctrine was particularly
repulsive, into a deeper antagonism to the Church than they ever
felt before. Hence Dissent has become political, putting the
disestablishment of the Church of England before it as one of the ends
of its work, side by side with its spiritual aims.
[Sidenote: =The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.=]
The fear that the Tractarian movement would lead to widespread
conversions to Romanism turned out to be unjustified. Though a
considerable number followed Newman in the forties, the stream soon
slackened. Yet for some years the nation was nervously anxious
about "Papal aggression," and in 1850, when the Pope issued a Bull
which appointed a hierarchy of bishops and archbishops to preside
over English sees, the government of Lord John Russell passed
an "Ecclesiastical Titles Bill," imposing penalties on all who
acknowledged the validity of the Bull. But the excitement died down,
and nothing was done to enforce the act.
[Sidenote: =State of the political parties.=]
Meanwhile, if the social and intellectual history of England was
interesting, its purely political history was for some years both dull
and perplexing. On the fall of the Russell cabinet in the spring of
1852, owing to the quarrel between the prime minister and his masterful
Foreign Secretary, Palmerston, English politics were left in a confused
and unsatisfactory condition, for there was no party strong enough to
command a majority in the country. The Tories were still split into two
sections. Sir Robert Peel was dead, killed by a fall from his horse
in St. James's Park on July 2, 1850, but his followers still clung
together under Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Gladstone, and refused to hold any
communication with that larger half of the Conservative party which
since Lord George Bentinck's death was led by Disraeli and Lord Derby.
The question of Protection still lay between them; but a far more real
bar to union was their personal dislike for each other, dating back to
the hard words used in 1846 over the Corn Laws. Now that the Liberal
party had been for a moment broken up by the quarrel of Russell and
Palmerston, there were four factions in the House, each of which was
largely outnumbered by the junction of the other three.
[Sidenote: =Lord Derby's ministry.=]
It was difficult to see who should be Lord John Russell's successor,
but after some doubting the Queen sent for Lord Derby, one of the
chiefs of the Protectionist Tories, and asked him to form a cabinet.
He complied, knowing that he could not hold office for long, unless a
general election should change the balance of parties in Parliament.
Hence followed the short Conservative ministry of March-December,
1852, whose tenure of office was marked by only two events of
importance,--the death of the Duke of Wellington on September 14,
which removed the last great figure that reminded men of the days of
the old wars of George III., and the proclamation of Louis Napoleon as
Emperor of the French on December 1. The policy of the Derby-Disraeli
ministry was only notable as showing that even the Tory section of
the Conservative party had learned something from the events of the
last six years. They did not make any open attempt to reintroduce
Protection, and Disraeli's budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer
was only remarkable for an effort to substitute direct for indirect
taxation, in opposition to the strict rules of Political Economy.
The general election, which presented the only chance of salvation
for this weak Tory cabinet, disappointed them deeply. They gained a
few seats, but not nearly enough to enable them to secure a majority
in the new House of Commons, and had to resign shortly after meeting
Parliament.
[Sidenote: =The Peelites and the Whigs.=]
To secure any permanent cabinet a coalition was obviously necessary,
and on Lord Derby's resignation the natural result followed. The
Peelite Conservatives consented to join the Whigs, and thereby a party
with a clear majority was formed. There was nothing strange or at all
unworthy in this coalition; the more advanced Conservatives were not
separated by any great gulf from men like Palmerston, and those other
Whigs who thought that reform and change had now gone far enough, and
that the constitution needed no further alteration. Both alike believed
in Free Trade; both were zealous for the safe-guarding of English
interests abroad; both were opposed to the radical reforms which the
more advanced wing of the Liberal party were advocating. The Peelites
and the moderate Whigs were indeed more at home with each other
than with the more extreme men of their own parties. Ere long they
coalesced, and--as is always the case--the larger body absorbed the
smaller, so that Aberdeen, Gladstone, and their followers became ranked
as Liberals.
[Sidenote: =Lord Aberdeen's ministry.=]
In the new ministry Lord Aberdeen was chosen as prime minister;
Gladstone, the great financier of the Peelite party, was made
Chancellor of the Exchequer; Russell and Palmerston patched up
their old quarrel for a space, and took office as Home and Foreign
Secretaries; the other posts were equally divided between the two
sections of the coalition. This cabinet, created by a compromise, and
not viewed with any great enthusiasm by the nation, was destined to
chance upon the gravest foreign complication that England had known for
forty years.
[Sidenote: =Louis Napoleon.--Designs of the Czar Nicholas.=]
The disturbing elements in Europe at this moment were two in number.
The first was the new Emperor of the French, who felt his throne
unsteady, and thought that it could be best made firm by a war; for,
as a Bonaparte, he felt that great deeds of arms were expected from
him. He was at first undecided in his choice of a foe, but events in
the East of Europe soon settled his resolve. Czar Nicholas of Russia
had long been eyeing the decrepit Turkish empire with greed. He was
not satisfied with his gains in the war of 1828, and thought that his
vast army could overrun Turkey with ease, if he could be sure that no
other European power would interfere. He knew that an attack on Turkey
might be resented by England, France, and Austria; but he was prepared
to buy them off with a share in the spoil. His point of view was well
expressed in the phrases which he used to an English ambassador in
1853: "We have on our hands a sick man--a very sick man; it would be
a great misfortune if, one of these days, he should slip away from us
before the necessary arrangements have been made." Adding that Turkey
must break up ere long, he offered England, as her share in the spoil,
Crete and Egypt. Of course the offer was refused, and the indications
of the Czar's state of mind on the subject were viewed with some dismay.
[Sidenote: =The Greek and Latin Churches.--Russia prepares for war.=]
The nominal _casus belli_ in the East was a trivial quarrel between
Greek and Latin monks in Palestine. There were some disputed rights
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, and the Church
of the Nativity at Bethlehem, to which both Roman Catholics and
Greek Churchmen have access. "All the bloodshed came from a key and
a star," as was said at the time, the former being the key of the
Holy Sepulchre, of which the Greek and Latin patriarchs both claimed
the custody, the latter a large emblem that hung over the altar at
Bethlehem. When Russia used her power in favour of the Greeks, Louis
Napoleon, eager to assert the influence of France in the East, replied
by supporting the Latins. Both threatened the unfortunate Sultan with
their displeasure, and when he decided in favour of the Romanists, the
Czar proceeded to strong measures of coercion. He demanded that the
Sultan should recognize him as the legal protector and guardian of all
the Greek Christians within the Turkish empire, a preposterous request,
for to grant it would have been equivalent to giving Russia control
over the whole of European Turkey. Prince Mentchikoff, a stern and
blustering old general, was sent to Constantinople to bring pressure to
bear on the Sultan, and soon after, Czar Nicholas sent his armies over
the Pruth and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia, two vassal states of
Turkey (July, 1853).
[Sidenote: =Palmerston and Sir Stratford Canning.=]
Now, England had no interest in the foolish quarrel about the key and
the star, but she was deeply concerned at the occupation of Turkish
territory by Russian troops, which foreboded a dash at Constantinople,
and an attempt to make an end of the Sultan's rule in Europe. The
Aberdeen cabinet had no intention to go to war with Russia, but they
could not suffer the Czar's aggression to pass unnoticed, and sent
off Sir Stratford Canning, an able diplomatist, who knew the East
better than any other living Englishman, to counteract the doings of
Prince Mentchikoff on the Bosphorus. Stratford Canning was an old
enemy of Russia, and much trusted by the Sultan, who put himself under
his advice, and rejected all the demands of Russia. France at the
same time bade the Sultan stand his ground, for the Emperor was set
on gaining prestige by checking Russia, and quite ready to make war
if the Czar would not yield. Palmerston strongly advised Stratford
Canning to act vigorously on the same lines as the French ambassador
at Constantinople, and thus England was gradually drawn into a hostile
attitude towards Russia, before Lord Aberdeen and the rest of the
ministry had realized the drift of the action of their energetic
colleague at the Foreign Office.
[Sidenote: =Russia declares war on Turkey.=]
The Czar was obstinate, and determined not to yield an inch to the
threats of Palmerston or Louis Napoleon; he thought England would not
fight, and he despised the brand-new Emperor at Paris. On November
1, 1853, he declared war on Turkey, and a few days later his troops
crossed the Danube, while his fleet destroyed a Turkish squadron at
Sinope, and got complete control of the Black Sea.
[Sidenote: =England and France join the Turks.=]
This violent action put the Aberdeen cabinet in great perturbation of
spirit; they did not want to declare war on Russia; yet they had gone
so far in opposing the Czar, that they could not retire from their
position without deep humiliation. Even yet they might have drawn back,
if Lord Palmerston had not threatened to resign unless strong measures
were taken. Yielding to him, the ministers consented to join the
French Emperor in sending an ultimatum to St. Petersburg, menacing war
unless the Russian troops were withdrawn from Turkish soil. Nicholas I.
proved recalcitrant, and only ordered his armies to press the sieges of
the fortresses of Bulgaria which they were beleaguering. Accordingly
England and France declared war on him on March 27, 1854.
[Sidenote: =Want of military preparations in England.=]
Thus England had been drawn into a dangerous struggle with the most
powerful monarch in Europe, before her ministers well realized what
they were doing. She was utterly unprepared for war. The army was weak
in numbers, and had been woefully neglected for the last forty years.
It had seen no fighting with a European foe since Waterloo, and had
quite lost the habit of taking the field. Accustomed to barrack life
in England, the men found themselves entirely at a loss when landed
on the shores of the Black Sea, and showed little power to shift for
themselves. A great proportion of the officers were ignorant of all
their duties, save that of facing the enemy with the old English
courage. The commissariat service and the other branches of supply
proved hopelessly incompetent to keep the army well fed or well
clothed. To add to the other misfortunes of England, the leaders of
the army were unwisely chosen. The command was given to Lord Raglan,
an amiable but worn-out veteran of sixty-six, who had served as
Wellington's aide-de-camp in Spain; many of the divisional commanders
owed their place to influence or interest, rather than to proved
competence in war. Sir Colin Campbell, who had won a great reputation
in India, was one of the few among them who thoroughly deserved his
place.
[Sidenote: =Sebastopol to be attacked.=]
With some difficulty, an expeditionary force of 28,000 men was
collected and sent to the East; they landed at Varna, on the Black Sea,
and joined a French army of about the same strength. But it was found
that they were not needed on the Danube. The Turks had already thrust
the Russians out of Bulgaria, and the Czar's forces were in retreat
towards the Pruth. It thus became necessary to settle on some plan
of offensive operations against Russia, which the English and French
governments had not hitherto contemplated. Russia is only open to
attack from the water on two points, the Baltic and the Black Sea, and
the allies were almost committed to making their main attack on the
latter field, as they had already sent their armies in that direction.
It was resolved, therefore, to despatch a powerful fleet to the Baltic
to threaten St. Petersburg, but to confine serious operations to the
Black Sea. There the easiest point of attack was the great naval
fortress of Sebastopol, in the Crimea, the stronghold and arsenal of
the Russian fleet. Its destruction would inflict a great blow on the
Czar, and its capture seemed easy owing to its remoteness from the
centres of Russian strength.
Accordingly the allied armies, somewhat more than 50,000 strong, sailed
from Varna on September 7, 1854, and landed on the western shore
of the Crimea, thirty miles north of Sebastopol, a few days later.
The expedition was very late in starting; it should have sailed in
July, and would then have found the Russians unprepared. As it was,
Prince Mentchikoff, now commanding in the Crimea, had got wind of the
intention of the allies, and hastily taken measures to strengthen his
position.
[Sidenote: =Battle of the Alma.=]
Advancing very slowly towards Sebastopol, the English and French armies
found Mentchikoff with 40,000 men drawn up behind the river Alma, in
a lofty position strengthened with entrenchments. The allied generals
won the battle that ensued, but their victory was not the reward of
their own good generalship. Raglan and the French general St. Arnaud
did not get on well together, and the latter showed from the first a
tendency to throw the heavier work of the campaign on the English. Half
of the French army executed a long flank march by the sea-shore, and
never fired a shot in the action. The remaining half allowed themselves
to be checked for some time by the Russian left wing, a force of very
inferior strength. Meanwhile the English advanced against the hostile
centre and right; their front line outran its supports, crossed the
river with a rush, and captured the chief redoubt on the opposite
bank. But, assailed by the main body of the enemy, it was compelled to
fall back, and the heights had to be stormed for a second time by the
belated English reserves, which came up at last and swept all before
them. Thus the fight was won, without any co-operation from the two
commanders-in-chief: for St. Arnaud was too ill to follow the fortunes
of the day; while Lord Raglan had blindly ridden forward, lost touch
with his men, and blundered by mistake into the rear of the Russian
position, where he might easily have been taken prisoner (September 20,
1854).
As the French, who had done hardly any fighting, refused to pursue,
while the English were worn out, the Russian army got away without
being completely destroyed, though the deadly musketry of the English
infantry had fearfully thinned its ranks. The allies followed at a very
slow pace; if they had hurried on they might have captured Sebastopol
at once. But St. Arnaud was dying, and Lord Raglan could not goad
the French into action. Even when they approached the fortress, an
extraordinary caution and lack of enterprise was displayed. Mentchikoff
had retired into the interior with his army, and left the town to an
improvised garrison of sailors and militia, so that it could probably
have been stormed offhand.
[Illustration: SEBASTOPOL.
1854.]
[Sidenote: =The siege of Sebastopol.=]
But the allies sat down before the place to besiege it in full form,
and allowed the great engineer Todleben to cover its weak defences with
a screen of improvised earthworks which daily grew more formidable.
Mentchikoff came back with his army when he saw that Sebastopol could
resist, and as Russian reinforcements kept pouring in, the defenders
soon outnumbered the beleaguering force.
The position of the English and French grew daily more unsatisfactory.
They were only blockading the southern half of the town, for they were
not numerous enough to encircle the two sides of Sebastopol harbour.
They had chosen to occupy the bleak peninsula of the Chersonese, where
neither food nor fodder could be got, and had no power to make raids
into the interior for supplies. The English had to bring their stores
up from the small harbour of Balaclava, six miles from the trenches,
and much exposed to the danger of an attack from the east.
[Sidenote: =Balaclava.--The Charge of the Six Hundred.=]
Finding that the bombardment by land and sea was doing no harm,
and seeing that they were gradually beginning to outnumber the
besiegers, the Russians resolved to make an attack against the English
communications. The battle of Balaclava resulted from an attempt made
by a large hostile force to seize Balaclava, which was only protected
by two weak brigades of English cavalry, 1500 sabres in all, a single
regiment of Highland infantry, and 3000 Turks. General Liprandi,
with 20,000 men, came down towards the harbour, drove the Turkish
auxiliaries from some weak redoubts, and pushed onward. His advance
was stopped by the gallant charge of General Scarlett's brigade of
dragoons, led by the Scots Greys and Inniskillens, who rode down a
force of three times their own numbers, and gave the English commander
time to hurry up reinforcements from his siege-lines. The Russians,
staggered by the desperate attack of the "Heavy Brigade," halted, and
began to draw back. Then occurred a dismal blunder: Lord Raglan sent
orders for the remainder of the English cavalry, the "Light Brigade,"
to "advance and prevent the enemy from carrying off the guns," meaning
the guns in the redoubts which the Turks had lost in the morning.
Lord Lucan, the chief of the English cavalry, stupidly or wilfully
misunderstood the order, and sent the Light Brigade to charge a battery
in position which formed the centre of the Russian host. Accordingly
the five weak regiments of light cavalry--only 670 sabres in all--which
formed Lord Cardigan's brigade, deliberately and without supports
attacked a whole army. They rode for a mile and a half through a
tempest of shells and bullets, captured the Russian battery, routed the
troops in support of it, and then--for want of help from the rear--were
forced to retreat by the same way they had come, through a second hail
of fire. Out of the famous "Six Hundred," 113 had been killed, and 134
wounded. The charge was absolutely useless, for Lord Raglan did not
proceed to follow it up by an infantry attack, though the Russians had
been greatly cowed by the frantic courage of the Light Brigade, and
would certainly have made off if they had been threatened with more
fighting. So the battle ended unsatisfactorily for both parties; for
though Balaclava was saved, yet the Russians remained in a position
which constantly threatened it with a new attack (October 25).
[Sidenote: =Battle of Inkerman.=]
Prince Mentchikoff was far from being discouraged by the result of
the fight, and, when fresh reinforcements joined him, resolved to try
another assault on the right flank of the English. This time it was
their siege-lines which were to be attacked under cover of the night.
Two great columns, mustering more than 40,000 men, secretly assembled
opposite the extreme right of the English lines, one coming from
Sebastopol, the other from the open country. A thick fog completely hid
them from the English, and they were attacking the camp of the second
division almost before their arrival was suspected. There followed the
fight of Inkerman, "the soldiers' battle," as it was called, for the
men, surprised in their tents, turned out without orders and almost
without guidance, and flung themselves recklessly on the advancing
enemy. Arriving in scattered companies and wings, each regiment
attacked the first foe it met, and for six hours a desperate fight went
on all over Mount Inkerman. In the fog no one knew where or with what
numbers he was fighting, but the general result of the battle was all
that could have been desired. Every time that the dark masses of the
enemy surged up against the crest of the English position, they were
dashed down the hillside by the desperate valour of the thin line of
defenders. When towards midday some French reinforcements came up, the
Russians withdrew, leaving the ground covered with their dead. It
was only when the fight was over that the victors realized that 8000
English, aided late in the day by 6000 French, had defeated an army of
more than 40,000 men, and slain or wounded more than 10,000 of them.
The heavy English loss of 2300 men was not too great a price to pay for
the self-confidence and feeling of superiority over their enemies which
the victory of Inkerman gave to the conquerors (November 5, 1854).
[Sidenote: =Sufferings of the troops.=]
Sebastopol might perhaps have fallen if vigorously attacked the day
after Inkerman, but the English and French commanders did not call
on their wearied troops for another effort, and the siege dragged on
into the winter with the most disastrous results. The army had only
been equipped for a short campaign, and no account had been made of
the bitter cold of the Crimea. All the commissariat horses and mules
died, and the supplies had to be brought up from Balaclava for six
miles on the backs of the wearied soldiery. Food ran short, the flimsy
tents gave no shelter against the storms and snow, and the men were
stricken down in hundreds by cold and disease. An unlucky storm sank
the ships which were bringing warm clothing, and in January, 1855,
Lord Raglan had to report to London that the army comprised 11,000 men
under arms and 13,000 in hospital. The French suffered hardly less,
but the Emperor continued sending out reinforcements, which kept up
their numbers, while the English army had no reserves, and could not be
quickly recruited.
[Sidenote: =Resignation of Lord Aberdeen.=]
When the miserable state of the army in the Crimea became known in
England, owing mainly to the reports of newspaper correspondents, a
howl of wrath was raised against the men who were responsible for the
want and starvation which our troops were enduring. Part of the misery,
it is true, was due merely to the inexperience of the English in war;
but much more was owing to the inconsiderate slackness and folly of the
home authorities, who were responsible for feeding and clothing the
army. Almost incredible tales are told of the combination of parsimony
and extravagance, red-tape and ignorance, which ruined our army. The
nation called for scapegoats, and, in deference to its clamour, the
prime minister, Lord Aberdeen, and the war minister, the Duke of
Newcastle, resigned their offices. They were only guilty of being
unable to control their inefficient and ignorant subordinates.
[Sidenote: =Lord Palmerston premier.=]
When Lord Aberdeen retired, he was succeeded by the brisk and vigorous
Palmerston, the soul of the war-party, who managed to infuse a share
of his own energy into the struggle. Supplies and recruits were poured
into the Crimea; a railway was built from Balaclava to the front; and
the hospitals, where the sick and wounded were dying by thousands, were
reformed, and entrusted with success to Florence Nightingale and her
volunteer nurses, who came out to supplement the inadequate staff that
the government had provided.
[Sidenote: =Victor Emmanuel joins the allies.=]
Soon the English had nearly 40,000 men in the Crimea, while the French
Emperor had raised his troops to 100,000. Further aid was given to
the allies by Sardinia, whose king Victor Emmanuel, following the old
tradition of the house of Savoy, was eager to take part on the stronger
side in a great war. His object was partly to gain the gratitude of
France, partly to display the strength of his warlike little kingdom in
the councils of Europe.
[Sidenote: =Death of the Czar Nicholas.=]
The Russians were now feeling the war bear hardly upon them. Their
supplies and reinforcements had to be brought from vast distances, and
there were as yet no railways--or even good roads--over the steppes
of Southern Russia. So toilsome was the winter march to the Crimea,
that a quarter of the troops sent thither are said to have fallen by
the way. The Czar Nicholas died on March 2, heart-broken by the utter
failure of his armies; but his successor, Alexander II., was too proud
to ask for peace on such terms as the allies offered--negotiations at
Vienna for this purpose completely failed. The young Czar was induced
to persevere only by the obstinate courage with which the garrison of
Sebastopol held out, guided by the great engineer Todleben, who had so
strengthened the defences of the place that nothing but a few outlying
redoubts had yet fallen into the allies' hands.
[Sidenote: =Fall of Sebastopol.=]
On June 18, 1855, the allies tried a general assault on the fortress,
which failed with heavy loss. Soon after Lord Raglan died, worn out
by responsibility and by the knowledge that he was much criticized
at home. He was replaced by General Simpson: the French commander
Canrobert was at the same time superseded by Marshal Pélissier, a
rough soldier who did not err from over-caution like his predecessor.
On September 8, the new leaders ordered a general assault on the
eastern front of Sebastopol, the French taking as their goal the
Malakoff, and the English the Redan, two forts which formed the keys
of the line of defence. The English assault was beaten off; though
the stormers actually got inside the Redan, they were too few to hold
their ground. But Pélissier launched more than 20,000 men against the
Malakoff, and carried it by a bold rush. The loss of this all-important
fort broke the Russians' line; in the following night they set fire to
Sebastopol and retired across the harbour, abandoning the town to the
allies.
[Sidenote: =The Treaty of Paris.=]
After this disaster the Czar was forced to bow to circumstances, and
sued for peace. This the Emperor of the French was ready to grant on
easy terms, for he was satisfied with the prestige that he had acquired
by his victory, and did not wish to make Russia his enemy for ever.
England was desirous of going on with the war, to make a thorough end
of the aggressive and despotic empire of the Czars. But when her ally
refused to continue the struggle, she was forced to join in the general
pacification, though Palmerston declared that Russia was only scotched,
and would be as powerful as ever in ten years--a true prophecy. By
the treaty of Paris (March, 1856) the Czar engaged to cede to Turkey
a small strip of territory at the mouth of the Danube, to keep no
war-fleet in the Black Sea, and to leave Sebastopol dismantled. The
Sultan undertook to grant new rights and liberties to his Christian
subjects--a promise most inadequately fulfilled. The opportunity was
taken, at the same time, to settle an old and long-disputed question of
maritime law. England and the other powers agreed for the future that
privateering in time of war should be abolished, and that the neutral
flag should cover all goods from seizure, except military stores and
other munitions of war.
The peace of Paris settled nothing. The late war had disabled Russia
for ten or fifteen years, and the Eastern question did not begin to
grow dangerous again till after 1870. But Turkey was no stronger for
all the support that she had received; the Sultan's government was
hopelessly effete, and when next Russia began to move, the doom of the
Turkish power in Europe was near at hand.
[Sidenote: =Supremacy of Palmerston.=]
But few men in England understood that the Eastern question had only
been shelved for a few years. Proud of the valour which the army had
displayed, and fondly hoping that the weak points of our military
system had now been discovered and remedied, the nation gave all
its confidence to the minister who had brought the war to what was
considered a successful conclusion. Palmerston stayed in power for
the remaining ten years of his life, save for one short interval in
1858-59. He was, as we have already had occasion to remark, less fond
of constitutional changes than any other man in the Whig party. He
thought that little more remained to be done in matters of internal
reform, and used his influence to check the more progressive members
of his cabinet. As long as he held office, questions of domestic
importance were entirely subordinated to matters of foreign policy.
Palmerston was right in thinking that our external relations were
likely to be difficult and dangerous during the next few years. The
selfish and unscrupulous designs of Louis Napoleon were a disturbing
element in Europe so long as the Second Empire lasted, and a watchful
eye was always needed to look after England's interests.
[Sidenote: =War with Persia.=]
Meanwhile there were other complications further afield which required
attention. The Crimean war was hardly over before England found herself
involved in two little wars in the East. One of them was a direct
consequence of the great struggle with the Czar in 1854-55. While
it was still in progress, the Shah of Persia had behaved with scant
courtesy to the British minister at his court, thinking that England
was too much engrossed in the strife in Europe to resent his conduct.
Finally, he had invaded Afghanistan and taken Herat, though warned that
such action meant war, for, as Persia was now under Russian influence,
this advance toward India could not be tolerated. In the autumn of 1856
Lord Palmerston thought that England was at leisure to chastise the
Persians. An army from India was landed at Bushire; it beat the Shah's
troops at the battle of Kooshaub, and occupied most of the ports of
Southern Persia. Thus brought to reason, Nasr-ud-din asked for peace,
and obtained it on evacuating Herat (March, 1857). That he chose to sue
for terms at this moment chanced to be most fortunate for England, for
the army which returned from Persia was sorely needed in India, to
take part in subduing the great mutiny in that country, which we shall
have to notice in another chapter.
[Sidenote: =War with China.=]
The second little war in which the English were engaged in 1857 was
with China. The mandarins of Canton had seized a small trading vessel,
the _Arrow_, flying the British flag, and imprisoned the crew. Lord
Palmerston never endured for a moment high-handed acts committed by
a barbarous power. He declared war, sent an army and fleet against
China, and seized first the forts which command Canton, and afterwards
the more important Taku forts, which guard the way to Pekin up the
Pei-Ho river. In the end the British troops, aided by a French force,
compelled the Emperor of China to pay an indemnity of £4,000,000, and
to open several ports to English commerce (1860). The length of the
second Chinese war resulted from the distraction of the English arms to
the great mutiny in India. If that struggle had not been raging, the
forces of the effete Eastern power would have been crushed much sooner.
[Sidenote: =Attempted murder of Napoleon by Orsini.=]
Long before the end of this weary little war, the attention of the
English government was called back to affairs in Europe. The disturbing
element was Louis Napoleon, who was once more striving to win personal
profit by fostering the old quarrels of other nations. He had half
promised to do something to deliver the Italians from the bitter
bondage to Austria which they had endured since 1848. But he was weak
and vacillating, and dallied so long that some Italian exiles, headed
by one Orsini, tried in revenge to murder him by throwing a bomb into
his carriage.
[Sidenote: =The "Conspiracy to murder Bill."--Palmerston resigns.=]
This attempted assassination led, strange as it may appear, to the
temporary displacement of Palmerston from power. Orsini had formed his
plot and made his bombs in London, and the French government hotly
pressed for the seizure and extradition of his accomplices, as would-be
murderers. The prime minister, who wished to keep on good terms with
the Emperor, replied by proposing to the English Parliament the
"Conspiracy to Murder Bill," which placed political assassination-plots
among the offences punishable by penal servitude for life, whether
the crime took place in or out of England. But, unfortunately for
Palmerston, the French press, and more especially the French army, were
using at the time very threatening language, which was deeply resented
on this side of the Channel. Special offence was given by an address to
the Emperor by certain French colonels, which asked him to permit his
army to "destroy the infamous haunt in which machinations so infernal
are hatched." The opposition charged Palmerston with cringing to the
angry clamour of France, though the Conspiracy Bill in itself was a
rational measure enough. The unfounded charge shook for a moment the
confidence which the nation and the House of Commons felt in the old
minister. His bill was thrown out, and he resigned (February, 1858).
[Sidenote: =Lord Derby in office.--Disraeli's Reform Bill.=]
No Liberal ministry could be formed without Palmerston's aid; so the
Queen sent for the Conservatives. Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli took
office, as they had done in 1852, though they had not a majority in
Parliament to back them. As on the previous occasion, their ministry
was merely a stop-gap, doomed from the first to a speedy end. They
clung to office till 1858 had passed by, and well into the following
year. Disraeli, who was, as he said, trying hard to "educate his
party," strove to win popular favour by showing that the Conservatives
could be friends of domestic reform and progress as much as the
Liberals. He brought in a Reform Bill, extending the household
franchise both in town and country, but giving extra votes to persons
of education and property. This very rational measure was greeted with
derision by the Liberals, who called the new qualifications for voters
which Disraeli wished to introduce "fancy franchises," and insisted
on keeping to the old idea, which made householding alone the test of
citizenship.
[Sidenote: =The Volunteer Movement.=]
The Reform Bill dropped, but the Conservatives, in their short term
of power, conferred one great boon on the nation by encouraging and
organizing the "Volunteer Movement." The angry language of the French
army at the time of the Orsini plot had provoked both resentment and
alarm in England. To guard against the peril of sudden invasion, it
was felt that the small regular army and the militia were not numerous
enough. Accordingly men of all classes came forward and formed
themselves into volunteer corps, like the old levies of 1803. They
undertook to arm and train themselves at their own expense, and to
take the field for the defence of the realm, whenever peril of invasion
should arise. The Derby government encouraged this patriotic scheme:
170,000 men were enrolled in the year 1859, and the Volunteer force,
though at first it was hampered by the red tape of the War Office, and
somewhat derided by the regulars, has taken a fixed and valuable place
in the national line of defence.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon and the Italians.=]
Fortunately, the French scare had soon blown over. Louis Napoleon was
scheming against Austria, not against England. The great Sardinian
statesman Cavour had induced him to pledge himself to deliver Italy
from its oppressors, and after much vacillation the Emperor declared
war on Francis Joseph II., and sent his armies over the Alps. He
beat the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino, and the Italians vainly
hoped that he would aid them to set up a kingdom of United Italy.
But he suddenly stopped short after rescuing Lombardy alone, and
made peace with the Austrian enemy. Lombardy was united to Sardinia,
but the selfish and greedy Emperor took Nice and Savoy from his own
ally in return for his aid, and refused to free Central or Southern
Italy. Abandoned by him, the Italians delivered themselves. Sudden
insurrections drove out the foreign rulers of Tuscany, Parma, and
Modena, and the hero Garibaldi expelled the Bourbons from Naples and
Sicily. Thus a kingdom of Italy was created in spite of the French
Emperor (1860-1). But he sent troops to Rome to guard the Pope, and
would not permit Cavour and Garibaldi to complete their work by adding
the ancient capital to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel.
[Sidenote: =Palmerston returns to power.=]
Long ere the Italian war was over, Lord Derby's Conservative government
had been defeated, and had retired from office. Palmerston's doings
of 1858 had quickly been forgiven and forgotten by the nation, and he
returned to office, which he held till his death six years later.
[Sidenote: =The American civil war.=]
It was well that his strong and practised hand should be at the helm,
for the years 1860-65 were full of delicate problems of foreign policy,
which more than once brought England within measurable distance of
war. A most formidable difficulty cropped up when the great civil war
across the Atlantic broke out in 1861. The Southern States seceded from
the Union, and proclaimed themselves independent under the name of
the Confederate States of America. Their avowed reason for separating
themselves from the North was that the Federal government, under
Northern control, was infringing the rights of the individual States
to self-government. But old sectional jealousies, and especially the
fear of the Southern planters that the Northerners would interfere with
their "great domestic institution," negro slavery, were really at the
bottom of the quarrel.
[Sidenote: =Attitude of England.--Seizure of the "Trent."=]
English opinion was much divided on the subject of the American civil
war. It was urged, on the one hand, that the North were fighting for
the cause of liberty against slavery; and this idea affected many
earnest-minded men to the exclusion of any other consideration. On
the other side, it was urged that the Southern States were exercising
an undoubted constitutional right in severing themselves from the
Union, and this was true enough in itself. It was certain that the
Southerners, who wished for Free Trade, were likely to be better
friends of England than the protectionist North, which had always
shown a bitter jealousy of English commerce. Many men were moved by
the rather unworthy consideration that America was growing so strong
and populous that she might one day become "the bully of the world,"
and welcomed a convulsion that threatened to split the Union into two
hostile halves. Others illogically sympathized with the South merely
because it was the weaker side, or because they thought the Southern
planters better men than the hard and astute traders of the North.
The Palmerston cabinet, with great wisdom, tried to steer a middle
course and to avoid all interference. But when eleven powerful States
joined in seceding, they thought themselves bound to recognize them as
a belligerent power, and to treat them as a nation. This gave bitter
offence to the North, and war nearly followed, for a United States
cruiser in 1862 stopped the British steamer _Trent_, and took from
her by force two envoys whom the Confederates were sending to Europe.
This flagrant violation of the law of nations roused Lord Palmerston
to vigorous action: he began sending troops to Canada, and demanded
the restoration of the envoys Mason and Slidell under pain of war.
President Lincoln and his advisers hesitated for a moment, but gave
up their prisoners with a bad grace just as war seemed inevitable.
Naturally this incident did not make the English people love the North
any better.
[Sidenote: =The Alabama.=]
Another cause of friction was destined to give trouble long after
the civil war had ended. The United States ambassador in London
summoned the English government to prevent the sailing from Liverpool
of a vessel called the _Alabama_, which, as he declared, had been
bought by the Confederates, and was destined to be used by them as a
war-ship. The cabinet were somewhat slow in ordering the detention of
the _Alabama_, which hurriedly put to sea, and justified the fears of
the American minister by seizing and burning many scores of Northern
vessels. This damage to commerce was charged to the account of England
by the government of President Lincoln, and probably they had some
ground for accusing the English officials of slackness. The grudge was
carefully nursed in America, and put to good use when the war was over.
[Sidenote: =The cotton famine.=]
But the most painful form in which the American quarrel affected
England was the dreadful cotton famine in Lancashire, which set in as
the year 1862 wore on. The English mills had always subsisted on the
cotton of the Southern States, and when the strict blockade instituted
by the Northerners sealed up New Orleans, Charleston, and the other
cotton ports, England suffered terribly for the want of raw material to
keep her mills going. The mill-hands bore the stoppage of their work
and wages with great courage and resignation, but they lived for months
on the verge of starvation. A disaster as great as the Irish potato
famine of 1846 was only prevented by lavish private charity, which sent
£2,000,000 to the distressed districts of Lancashire, supplemented by
the wise measures of the Government, who worked so well that hardly a
life was lost in spite of the pinching poverty of the times. Cotton was
at last brought from Egypt and India in quantities sufficient to set
the mills going again, and by 1863 the worst of the trouble was over.
In 1865 the Southern States were conquered, and the American cotton
once more came in.
[Sidenote: =Palmerston and the Danish duchies.=]
Wars nearer home were meanwhile beginning to distract the attention of
the English from America. A quarrel between the King of Denmark and
his German subjects in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein led to the
interference of Austria and Prussia. The inhabitants of the two duchies
wished to cut themselves loose, and to join Germany. Bismarck, the
iron-handed prime minister of Prussia, saw his way to make profit for
his country out of the war, and induced the unwise Austrian government
to join him in bringing force to bear against the Danes. The English
looked upon the struggle as a mere case of bullying by the two German
powers, and Palmerston used somewhat threatening language against them;
but when he found that his usual ally, the Emperor of the French, was
not prepared to help him, he drew back, and allowed the Austrians and
Prussians to overrun the duchies. Beaten in the field, the Danish king
had to consent to their cession.
[Sidenote: =Palmerston and the Polish insurrection.=]
To protest, and then to make no attempt to back up words with deeds,
is somewhat humiliating. But this course was forced on Palmerston not
only in the case of the Schleswig-Holstein war, but also in the case
of Poland in the same year (1863). Treating the unfortunate Poles with
even more than its usual rigour, the Russian government forced them to
a fierce but hopeless insurrection. Palmerston sent a note to the Czar
in favour of better treatment of Poland, but met with a rebuff, and was
practically told to mind his own business. Not being ready to engage in
a second Crimean war without Louis Napoleon's aid, he had to endure the
affront. He was much censured for his useless interference, but it is
hard to blame him either for his protest, or for his refusal to follow
it up by plunging England into a dangerous war.
[Sidenote: =Prosperity at home.--Rise of Gladstone.=]
While these foreign affairs were engrossing most of the nation's
attention, domestic matters caused little stir. After the cotton famine
ended, the country entered into a cycle of very considerable growth and
prosperity. Gladstone, once a Peelite, but now one of the most advanced
of the progressive wing of the Liberal party, was now Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Year after year he was able to announce a surplus, and
to grant the remission of old taxes. His measures were judicious, but
the constant growth of the revenue from increased prosperity, and the
conclusion of a fortunate commercial treaty with France, were the real
causes of his being able to produce his favourable budgets, and won him
a financial reputation at a comparatively cheap expense of labour. But
his name was rapidly growing greater, and it was beginning to be clear
that he would be Palmerston's successor as leader of the Liberal party.
The old premier did not view this prospect with much satisfaction.
"Whenever he gets my place," he observed, "we shall have strange
doings."
[Sidenote: =Death of Palmerston.=]
The succession was not long delayed. Lord Palmerston died on October
18, 1865, and, on the removal of his restraining hand, the Liberal
party began to show new and rapid signs of change. For the first
time it was about, under the guidance of its new leader, to frankly
accept the principles of democracy, and to throw up its old alliance
with the middle classes. Palmerston had been for so many years the
leading figure in English politics, that his death, at the ripe age of
eighty-one, seemed to end an epoch in domestic history. He was by far
the most striking personage in the middle years of the century. Faults
he had: somewhat over-hasty in action, somewhat flippant in language on
occasion, too self-confident and too prone to self-laudation, he was
yet so resourceful and so full of courage and patriotism that he won
and merited the confidence of the nation more than any minister since
the younger Pitt.
FOOTNOTE:
[63] See p. 516.