Читать книгу The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Vol. 1-4) - Robert Thomas Wilson - Страница 16

Table of Contents

Borneo and Sir James Brooke—Cession of Labuan to Great Britain—“Constitutionalism” in the Sandwich Islands—State of the Colonies—Unsuccessful Attack on Madagascar—Commencement of the Overland Route to India—Decline in the Popularity of Sir Robert Peel—Rise of Mr. Disraeli and the Young England Party—Generous Support of Peel by the Queen and Prince Albert—Offer of the Garter to Sir Robert, which he declines—Position of the Premier towards the Aristocracy—Increasing Weakness of the Government—Dangerous State of Ireland—Prince Albert on the Political Situation—Visit of the Queen to Belgium and Prussia—Splendid Reception in the latter Country—Speech of the King of Prussia at Bonn—The Illuminations at Cologne—Prince Albert and Baron von Humboldt—Reception of the Royal Visitors in Bavaria, at Coburg, and at Gotha—The Queen at the Native Place of her Husband—Excursion to the Thuringian Forest—Other Incidents of the German Visit—Second Visit of the Queen and Prince Albert to Louis Philippe at the Château d’Eu—Duplicity of the King—Return of the Royal Party to England—Spread of Railway Enterprise in Great Britain—The Railway Mania and Panic of 1845-6—Increasing Strength of the Free Trade Movement—The Potato Disease in Ireland—Threatenings of Famine—Sir Robert Peel and Free Trade—Letter of Lord John Russell to the Electors of the City of London—Ministerial Crisis—Return of Sir Robert Peel to Power.

A great Empire, so long as the vigour of its people survives, is continually spreading in new directions—sometimes by indefensible means, at other times by methods which may be justified in accordance with the ordinary nature of human affairs. In the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign considerable activity was shown in the eastern parts of Asia, and some important additions were made to the British possessions. Borneo—the largest island in the world, next to Australia—was brought under the notice of Englishmen, about 1841, by the proceedings of an adventurous explorer. Until then it had been very little known in Great Britain, although discovered by the Portuguese as far back as 1518. The Dutch traded there during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but the distant situation of the island, in the middle of the China Seas, restricted the intercourse of Europeans with its people. The adjacent waters swarmed with pirates, who not only robbed, but committed the most extreme atrocities; and the evil was not firmly taken in hand until a retired Anglo-Indian officer, named James Brooke, resolved to put down buccaneering in the Eastern Archipelago. Providing himself with a large yacht (which, being attached to the Royal Yacht Squadron, possessed in foreign seas the privileges of a ship of war), he practised his crew for about three years in the Mediterranean and other European seas, and departed for the East near the end of October, 1838. Arriving at Sarawak, he and his men lent their aid to the Sultan of Borneo in suppressing an insurrection among the Dyaks, a savage race, distinct from the ruling tribe, who are Malays. In acknowledgment of his services Brooke was made Rajah and Governor of Sarawak in September, 1841, and used his power in efforts to improve the laws and civilise the people. He also obtained the assistance of various British ships of war in the extirpation of piracy, and many persons were slaughtered on the allegation that they were freebooters. At a somewhat later date the English Rajah quarrelled with the Sultan, attacked his capital city, took it by storm, and put the whole army to flight. The Sultan was afterwards reinstated; but Sir James Brooke (as he afterwards became) still held his position as Rajah of Sarawak. The upshot of all these adventures, so far as this period of Queen Victoria’s reign is concerned, was that, in the course of 1846, a treaty was concluded with the Sultan, through the instrumentality of Brooke, by which the island of Labuan, to the north-west of Borneo, was, together with its dependencies, ceded to the British Empire, as a naval station between India and China. A money payment was made to the Sultan, and Sir James Brooke acted for a time as Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Labuan. His conduct, however, was much impugned in Parliament by Messrs. Hume and Cobden, who maintained that many innocent persons had been slain, under pretence of their being pirates, and that the inducement to these acts was the “head-money” paid by the British Government to the sailors. These charges, though seemingly not improbable, were never distinctly proved; but the money payment was wisely abolished.

Travelling still farther from home, we find the Sandwich Islands offered to Great Britain by their king, Kamehameha III., in 1843. Some British subjects had claims against this chieftain, which he knew not how else to meet. The offer was not accepted; but the islands were taken under British protection, and formed into a kind of semi-independent State, with a ridiculous travesty of so-called “Constitutional” government. Two Houses of Parliament were appointed, and met for the first time on the 20th of May, 1845. The dusky-coloured sovereign delivered a speech from the throne, and told his people that it was their possession of the Word of God which had introduced them into the family of nations. All these assumptions of European modes sound extremely ludicrous; yet, since those days, the Sandwich islanders have got on fairly well, so that Kamehameha was not altogether without justification in his hopeful anticipations. To the minds of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the enlargement of the area of civilisation, under the ægis of the British Empire, must have been profoundly interesting. But there were parts of our actual dominions, peopled by men of English race, where the right of self-government was not enjoyed at all. In 1845, we had forty-two colonies, of which only twenty-five had representative institutions, and those of a very incomplete character. The consequence was seen in continual complaints of misgovernment, corruption, and tyranny; and successive Colonial Secretaries seem to have been equally indifferent to the just demands of their countrymen beyond the seas.

In May, 1845, a new convention was concluded between England and France for the better suppression of the slave trade. A little later in the same year, a French and English squadron made a somewhat futile demonstration off Madagascar, an island on the south-eastern coast of Africa. Madagascar,

THE OVERLAND ROUTE—SCENE AT BOULAK. (See p. 190.)

like the Sandwich Islands, had been to a great extent Christianised for some years past; but in 1835 a reactionary policy set in, under the vigorous incitements of Queen Ranavalona, and the English missionaries were compelled to leave. Ten years later, the native laws were applied to such European settlers as had been suffered to remain—an unfortunate result of the combined French and English attack on the sea-coasts. During these operations, some forts and part of a town were destroyed; but, on the whole, the expedition was unsuccessful, and the native Christians suffered from the exasperation of feeling thus engendered.

Much more satisfactory, as regarded our intercourse with the Oriental world, was the inauguration of the Overland Route to and from India, due to the enterprise of Lieutenant Waghorn, who, on the 31st of October, 1845, arrived in London with the Bombay Mail of the 1st of that month. His despatches had reached Suez on the 19th, and Alexandria on the 20th of October; and from the latter of those cities he proceeded by steamboat to the European continent, when, hurrying post through Austria, Baden, Bavaria, Prussia, and Belgium, he reached London at half-past four on the morning of October 31st. The speed of the Overland Route was afterwards increased; but it had the disadvantage of greater expense. The difference between the old and the new system consisted in the fact that by the former it was necessary to pursue the long sea-route by the Cape of Good Hope, and so round the western coasts of Africa and Europe; whereas, by Lieutenant Waghorn’s system, the passengers and luggage were carried by land across the Isthmus of Suez and transferred to another vessel on the northern shore. Hence the extensive operations of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with which modern visitors to the East are so well acquainted.

While these important things were being done in distant parts of the world, the state of political affairs in England was becoming somewhat complicated. The popularity of Sir Robert Peel had, by 1845, greatly declined from the mark at which it stood in 1841. Thousands of persons complained of the Income Tax—of the unfairness of its incidence, the heaviness of its burden, and the inquisitorial character inseparable from its operation. The objectors did not sufficiently consider that the imposition of this tax had enabled the Premier to abolish many millions of duties upon articles of ordinary consumption. The boon was accepted with silent gratitude; but the price by which it had been purchased was assailed in terms of unmeasured vituperation. Such was the view taken by a large majority of the public, and at the same time Sir Robert Peel had to encounter the assaults of many prominent members of the party to which he himself belonged, whose animosity was excited by his manifest leaning towards a Free Trade policy, and by other tendencies which had far more of a Liberal than a Conservative character. It was now that Mr. Disraeli began to acquire that commanding force in Parliament which he never ceased to exercise until his death in 1881. The days had long gone by when he was unable to obtain a hearing in the House of Commons; when his voice was drowned by hoots, and his awkward flights of rhetoric were met with peals of laughter. He had developed a style of remarkable pungency and vigour; and perhaps no one in the Lower House, at that time, possessed so remarkable a power of launching those barbed arrows of sarcasm which never fail to strike, and which usually leave a scar behind.

In the opinion of Mr. Disraeli and his followers, Sir Robert Peel was a traitor, who had obtained office on the understanding that he was to support some form of Protection, and all the other principles of the Conservative party, but who was now unquestionably moving in the opposite direction. The truth is that the Tory party was splitting up into two camps, both of which differed a good deal from the old connection. Peel and his adherents were becoming to a great extent Liberals in their political ideas, though with some differences from the Whig party; the rest of the Tories, consisting of ardent and enthusiastic young men, were endeavouring to form a body which they called “Young England.” This association of Conservative Reformers had arisen some few years before; but it was only now beginning to attract general attention. The leader of this party was Mr. Disraeli, who expounded its principles in several novels, but particularly in “Coningsby,” first published in 1844, Other prominent members were Lord John Manners, Mr. George Smythe (afterwards the seventh Lord Strangford), Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Henry Hope, son of the author of “Anastasius,” Mr. Monckton Milnes (better known in later times as Lord Houghton), and some others less generally recognised. The essential principles of these gentlemen were Aristocracy and Churchism. Their ideal was found in the Middle Ages, or at any rate in a period not much later; but, together with some genuine sympathy with the poor, and some views which may have been needed as a counteraction to the excessive utilitarianism of the past forty years, it cannot be denied that a large amount of weak sentimentality was mixed up with the opinions and methods of the reformers. With all their earnestness and all their wit, the Young Englanders could not keep their system going for more than a handful of years.

Under all the difficulties of the time, it was an immense consolation to Sir Robert Peel to know that he had the hearty support of her Majesty and Prince Albert. This was the more valuable as the first association of the Conservative chief with the head of the State had been, as the reader is aware, of a delicate and unpleasant character. While still under the influence of Lord Melbourne, it is evident that the Queen had no great liking for Sir Robert Peel. His opposition to the sovereign in the Bedchamber question left a feeling of soreness, which lasted some time after the incident had ceased to agitate the public mind; and the cold manners of Peel might have proved an obstacle to cordial relations between that politician and his Royal mistress. But all such difficulties were overcome when a more intimate acquaintance with the former had shown the latter how sterling and admirable were his qualities. By 1845 her Majesty had acquired as great a regard for Sir Robert as she had formerly entertained for Lord Melbourne. She felt a warm sympathy with her Conservative Minister in the difficulties he had to encounter from a somewhat factious Opposition, and, acting under this feeling, she sent to him, in March, 1845, a letter she had received from King Leopold, speaking very highly of his measures. In replying to this communication, Peel observed:—“His Majesty has an intimate knowledge of this country, and is just so far removed from the scene of political contention here as to be able to take a clear and dispassionate view of the motives and acts of public men.” The writer added that he looked to no other reward, apart from her Majesty’s favourable opinion, than that posterity should confirm the judgment of King Leopold—namely, that Sir Robert Peel had used the power committed to him for the maintenance of the honour and just prerogatives of the Crown, and the advancement of the public welfare. In concluding his reply, the Premier acknowledged the “generous confidence and support” which he had invariably received from her Majesty.

The rancour exhibited by a large portion of his own party, in opposing the increased grant to Maynooth, was so excessive that the Queen felt a great desire to bestow some special favour on Sir Robert Peel, as a mark of her confidence and esteem. She wished to confer on him the Order of the Garter, but, feeling doubtful how far this would meet the wishes of the Premier himself, requested Lord Aberdeen to sound him on the topic. Peel questioned, and wisely so, whether this honour would be of any service to him as a public man. Indeed, he considered that it would probably have the contrary effect; and he therefore declined the perilous distinction. In thanking her Majesty for the offer, he observed that he sprang from the people, was essentially a man of the people, and felt that in his case such an honour would be misapplied. His heart, he said, was not set upon titles of honour, or social distinctions; and the only reward he desired on quitting the service of her Majesty was that she should say to him, “You have been a faithful servant, and have done your duty to your country and to myself.” Sir Robert Peel was the son of a Lancashire manufacturer who, being also a member of the House of Commons, and a politician not wholly undistinguished in his day, had been created a Baronet in 1800. The mother of the future Premier was the daughter of another manufacturer; so that the second Sir Robert Peel had every reason to describe himself as essentially a plebeian. There would have been no harm in his accepting the Garter, but it was certainly more in accordance with the simplicity and genuineness of his nature to decline it. It is not improbable that something of the merely external coldness of Peel’s nature (for in the recesses of that nature he was not cold) may have been due to what Dr. Johnson admirably called “defensive pride.” The slightest compromise of his own dignity might possibly have drawn down upon him the supercilious taunts of the aristocratic party which he led.

VIEW IN MALINES.

By dint of his powerful intellect and unresting industry, Sir Robert Peel managed to keep the Government on its feet during the Session of 1845. But he knew well that the days of the Cabinet were numbered, and, through the medium of Lord Aberdeen, he prepared her Majesty and Prince Albert for the Ministerial crisis which he felt sure would not be long in coming. The malcontent members of his own party might at any moment coalesce with the Whigs, and upset the Administration. Moreover, he had taken too much upon himself, and was beginning to feel the strain. The time had been when he was of opinion that the Prime Minister of England should always be in the House of Commons; but he now perceived that his position in that chamber entailed an amount of work which no human being could long sustain. Sometimes he thought of trying to effect a combination between the more liberal Conservatives and the Whigs; but the task would not have been easy, and would probably have failed in its operation. He went on, therefore, with heroic resolve, but with an ever-increasing conviction that a crisis must arrive before many months were over. The efforts to conciliate the Irish by the increase of the Maynooth grant, the establishment of the Queen’s Colleges, and other measures, had failed as utterly as all such efforts invariably do. Ireland was again becoming disaffected, and the Queen was once more obliged to postpone indefinitely her contemplated visit to that island. The Corporation of Dublin had in May presented an address to her Majesty, requesting that she would visit their country, and promising her a welcome of the utmost warmth and the most perfect unanimity. But the Queen replied evasively that “whenever she might be enabled to receive in Ireland the promised welcome, she should rely with confidence upon the loyalty and affection of her faithful subjects.” No date was mentioned for the promised visit, and undoubtedly the state of Ireland was such that it would have been imprudent on the part of the Sovereign to venture within the range of so many possible dangers. The agitation for Repeal had again sprung up; agrarian crimes were frequent; and the potato-disease was beginning to show itself, to an extent which made thoughtful men apprehensive of the future. The Queen therefore resolved to take her holiday on the Continent, and proceed up the Rhine to Saxony. She could not depart, however, until the prorogation of Parliament, and in the meanwhile there were many causes of anxiety. “In politics,” said Prince Albert, writing to Baron Stockmar on the 18th of July, 1845, “we are drawing near the close of one of the most remarkable sittings of Parliament. Peel has carried through everything with immense majorities; but it is certain he has no longer any stable Parliamentary support. His party is quite broken up, and the Opposition has as many different opinions and principles as heads.” The Session came to an end on the 9th of August, and the same evening her Majesty and Prince Albert sailed from Woolwich for Antwerp in the Royal yacht. The fine old city was reached at six o’clock on the evening of the 10th, amidst a downpour of rain. Nevertheless, the place was illuminated after the primitive fashion so often seen on the Continent. The same cheerless weather continued next day, when the Royal party landed. Proceeding by rail to Malines, the visitors were there met by the King and Queen of the Belgians, who accompanied them as far as Verviers. Guards of honour saluted at every station, and the frequent tunnels were illuminated with lamps and torches.

At length they gained the Prussian frontier, where the train was met by Lord Westmoreland (the English Ambassador at Berlin), the Chevalier Bunsen, and certain gentlemen of the Prussian Court who had been appointed to wait upon the Queen and Prince. At Aix-la-Chapelle they found the King of Prussia, together with several members of the Royal Family. “In the room of the station,” writes the Queen, in her Journal, “were assembled all the authorities, the clergy, Catholic and Lutheran, and a number of young ladies dressed in white, one of whom, a daughter of the Burgomaster, recited some complimentary verses.” Her Majesty and the Prince, together with their party, afterwards visited the Cathedral and other memorial edifices, and the journey was resumed in the evening. The reception at Cologne was especially cordial and impressive, and from that city the Royal party soon reached the station at Brühl. Here the English visitors went into one of the saloons of the Palace to listen to the splendid tattoo performed by fire hundred military musicians. The room was illuminated with torches, and with lamps of coloured glass, and the whole effect was most splendid. At Bonn they attended the inauguration of the Beethoven statue, and were serenaded by an enormous orchestra, consisting of sixty military bands. At four o’clock on the same day, a grand banquet was given at the Palace, on which occasion the Prussian King made a speech, in which he said:—“Gentlemen, fill your glasses! There is a word of inexpressible sweetness to British as well as to German hearts. Thirty years ago it echoed on the heights of Waterloo from British and German tongues, after days of hot and desperate fighting, to mark the glorious triumph of our brotherhood in arms. Now it resounds on the banks of our fair Rhine, amid the blessings of that peace which was the hallowed fruit of the great conflict. That word is Victoria!” His Majesty then drank to the health of the Queen and Prince Albert; and the former, who was much affected, rose, bent towards the King, and kissed his cheek.

After the banquet, the Royal party returned by rail to Cologne, and there embarked on a steamer to witness the illuminations from the river. The spectacle was of the most splendid description, and, as reflected from the waters of the Rhine, appeared doubly glorious. “As darkness closed in,” says a writer, who seems to have caught the spirit of the scene, “the dim and fetid city began to put forth buds of light. Lines of twinkling brightness darted like liquid gold and silver from pile to pile, then along the famous bridge of boats, across the river, up the masts of the shipping, and all abroad upon the opposite bank. Rockets now shot from all parts of the horizon, As the Royal party glided down the river, the banks blazed with fireworks and musketry. The Cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the architecture being made out in delicately-coloured lamps—pinkish with an underglow of orange.” Some of the houses appeared absolutely red-hot, and the beauty of the scene was so extraordinary that the spectators forgot the drizzle of rain which was gradually wetting them through. A day or two

THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT AT THE CHILDREN’S FÊTE IN COBURG ON ST. GREGORY’S DAY.

later, the Queen and her companions steamed up the Rhine—an illustrious party, consisting of three Queens, two Kings, a Prince Consort, an Archduke, and the Prince and Princess, who, in 1871, became Emperor and Empress of Germany. Amongst persons distinguished for intellect was the Baron von Humboldt, for whom Prince Albert entertained a profound admiration, but who appears not to have reciprocated this feeling. The Prince was unaware of the fact at that time; but after the death of Humboldt, in 1859, some letters of that famous man were published in Germany, and in one of these, written on the 27th of February, 1847, Humboldt says:—“I am severe only with the great ones, and this man [Prince Albert] made an uncomfortable impression upon me at Stolzenfels. ‘I know,’ he said to me, ‘that you sympathise greatly with the misfortunes of the Russian Poles. Unfortunately, the Poles are as little deserving of our sympathy as the Irish.’” The Prince was much annoyed at the publication of remarks which he had made in private; moreover, he denied that his words had been correctly reported. It would seem that he had made some observations on the faults of character common to both races; but it is not likely that he expressed himself in the sweeping manner described by Humboldt.

In Bavaria, at Coburg and Gotha, and in other parts of Germany, the reception given to the Queen was equally enthusiastic. Coming near to Coburg, on the 18th of August, the English Sovereign felt deeply moved and agitated at approaching the native place of her husband. On their arrival, the Royal visitors were welcomed by Ernest, Duke of Coburg, who was dressed in full uniform. “At the entrance to the town,” writes her Majesty, “we came to a triumphal arch, where Herr Bergner, the Burgomaster, addressed us, and was quite overcome. On the other side stood a number of young girls dressed in white, with green wreaths and scarfs, who presented us with bouquets and verses. I cannot say how much I felt moved on entering this dear old place, and with difficulty I restrained my emotion. The beautifully ornamented town, all bright with wreaths and flowers, the numbers of good, affectionate people, the many recollections connected with the place—all was so affecting. In the Platz, where the Rathhaus and Regierungshaus are (which are fine and curious old houses), the clergy were assembled, and Ober-Superintendent Genzler addressed us very kindly—a very young-looking man of his age, for he married mamma to my father, and christened and confirmed Albert and Ernest.” Arriving at the Palace, they were received by such a crowd of relatives that, as the Queen records, “the staircase was full of cousins.” The occasion was interesting and pleasant; but it was overmastered by a feeling of sadness, consequent on the recent death of Prince Albert’s father, and this mournful sentiment was intensified when the Royal visitors drove to the Rosenau, the favourite country seat of the late Duke, where Prince Albert himself had been born. This residence was now fitted up for the use of the Queen and her husband during their stay at Coburg; but, “every sound, every view, every step we take,” writes the former, “makes us think of him [the late Duke], and feel an indescribable, hopeless longing for him.” The visitors were shown over the fortress which guards the town of Coburg, and were much interested in beholding the room once occupied by Luther, in which his chair and a portion of his bed are still preserved. On the 20th of August—the festival of St. Gregorius—the Royal party were present at the children’s fête invariably given in honour of that day. The behaviour of the little boys and girls appears to have been most exemplary, and the occasion was a very joyous one.

Many other festivities marked the stay of the Queen and Prince Albert at the Rosenau. The 26th of August, the anniversary of the Prince’s birth, was spent in the house where he had first seen the light, and many of the peasants, in gala dress, came to the house with wreaths, nosegays, and hearty congratulations. On the following day, the Royal visitors left the Rosenau with heavy hearts, and proceeded to Reinhardtsbrunn, the scenery surrounding which gave her Majesty the keenest pleasure. Thence they went on to Gotha, and on the following day (August 30th) made an excursion to the Thuringian Forest, the beauties of which are not easily to be matched. In the heart of the forest, a beautiful pavilion, ornamented with branches of fir and interwoven wreaths of flowers and laurels, was found awaiting the distinguished visitors. Here, to the music of a fine band, a great battue of game took place, with the result that fifty-five animals, of which thirty-one were stags, were stretched dead or wounded on the turf. It was a shocking exhibition, and the Queen records in her Journal that none of the gentlemen liked it. Nevertheless, they took part in it, and opinion in England was rather strongly expressed against such a method of emphasising a holiday. The visit to Germany, however, had, on the whole, been most delightful, and when the time came for departure, the Queen could hardly bear to think that she must leave. Gotha was quitted on the 3rd of September, and, on their return journey, the Queen and Prince Albert halted at Eisenach, where the Grand Duke of Weimar took them to the historic castle of Wartburg, where Luther spent many months of seclusion at a period of great danger to himself, and where they were shown, together with the table at which he wrote, and the wedding-ring which he wore, the dark mark upon the wall where he threw his inkstand at a visionary devil. The rest of the journey was rapidly performed; but, before returning to England, the Queen had to pay a second visit to Louis Philippe at the Château d’Eu.

At Tréport, which they reached on the morning of September 8th, her Majesty and the Prince were received by the French Sovereign. On reaching the Château, they found that one of the rooms had been fitted up, in honour of her Majesty’s former visit, with pictures illustrating what had then happened, with others having reference to the King’s own visit to Windsor, and with portraits by Winterhalter of the Queen and Prince Albert. The whole company of the Opéra Comique had been brought down from Paris, and, in a temporary theatre constructed in the grounds, two lively French operas were performed in the evening. This second visit to Louis Philippe was extremely short, for, on the evening of the next day (September 9th), it came to a close. The King rowed in his barge to the Queen’s yacht, and, while Prince Albert went to show the Prince de Joinville a smaller yacht, called the Fairy, the French monarch entered into conversation with her Majesty and Lord Aberdeen on the subject of the Spanish marriages. “The King,” records Queen Victoria in her Journal, “told Lord Aberdeen, as well as me, he never would hear of Montpensier’s marriage with the Infanta of Spain (which they are in a great fright about in England) until it was no longer a political question, which would be when the Queen is married, and has children. This is very satisfactory.... When Albert came back with Joinville, which was about seven o’clock, the King said he must go; and they all took leave, the King embracing me again and again. We saw and heard the King land. The sun had set, and in a very short while there was the most beautiful moonlight, exquisitely reflected on the water. We walked up and down, and Lord Aberdeen was full of the extreme success of our whole tour, which had gone off charmingly, including this little visit, which had been most successful.” Lord Aberdeen was a Minister very easily satisfied with the promises of foreign Powers; but it must be admitted that, after so specific a statement as that of Louis Philippe with reference to his son, the Duc de Montpensier, it was not easy to suppose that in about a year he would act in direct contradiction of his pledged word. The visit, however, had been paid; the words had been uttered; and on the 10th of September the Queen again reached England, reinvigorated by her tour, and fully satisfied that nothing unpleasant was likely to occur with respect to Spain and France.

Towards the close of 1845, the whole of England was much disturbed by an unwholesome extension of railway enterprise, which ended in a panic and an alarming crash. Only fifteen years had elapsed since the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, which, though not absolutely the first of iron roads, was the earliest to attract general attention. But in that brief period railways had been pushed forward in many directions, and had become the most important means of communication in the country. They appealed to all classes and to all interests, and on Easter Monday, 1844, the system of cheap excursion trips, with return tickets, was added to the other attractions of this method of conveyance. The great landowners did not like the innovation; for in many instances their ancestral parks were cut through by the relentless engineer, and, although the persons so injured received money compensation, there are certain troubles which the guinea will not cure. Those, also, who lived in remote and picturesque districts, disliked to see their solitudes invaded by a smoky engine, a rattling train of carriages, and perhaps a somewhat vulgar and tumultuous crowd. The poet Wordsworth was desperately offended at this desecration of his beloved Lake district; and doubtless many other persons had the same feeling, without being able to express it in the form of an eloquent sonnet. A great deal of allowance must be made for this very natural sentiment; yet the interests of a whole people could not be set aside for any such considerations. The work of constructing railways went on, and for a time the speculations were of a healthy and legitimate character. But in 1844-45 a number of bubble companies arose, which originated in dishonest greed, and had nothing but a swindler’s success for their object. The country seemed to go mad about railways. Every newspaper overflowed with advertisements of new projects;

THE CASTLE OF THE WARTBURG.

every beggar thought he was going to be a millionaire. Parliament had but recently taken the control of railways under its supervision; defining the limit of fares, arranging other matters of detail in the interest of the public, and requiring that, before any company could come into operation, it should deposit at the Board of Trade a specific account, accompanied by sketches, plans, and sections of the lines, of the objects which it proposed to effect, and the means by which those objects were to be carried out. The last day on which these accounts could be rendered was November 30th, 1845. It happened to be Sunday—a circumstance overlooked when the arrangement was made; but all day long the proposed schemes came pouring in, and when at length the doors were closed at midnight, those who had arrived too late rang the bell, and, the moment they found an opportunity, flung their plans into the hall, only to see them thrown out again. The total number of railway schemes thus lodged at the Board of Trade, before the end of the closing day, was 788. Many of these were bubble companies, floated by swindling and often poverty-stricken speculators, who found a number of persons simple enough to take shares, and pay money for them. When the crash was imminent, the vagabonds made off with their gains, and the credulous shareholders had to put up with their loss. One of the great leaders of railway

GEORGE WILSON, CHAIRMAN OF THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.

enterprise in those days was Mr. George Hudson, a draper of York, with a genius for this kind of speculation, in which he made an enormous fortune. There can be no doubt that the railway enterprise of England was largely advanced by the labours and abilities of this person, who was the chairman of numerous companies; but in a subsequent year it was considered that he had misappropriated a large sum of money, and he was compelled to refund no less a sum than £190,000.

Since the resumption of office by Sir Robert Peel in 1841, the Free Trade agitation had made immense advances, and one of the most gifted champions of the cause, Mr. John Bright, had first appeared in Parliament during the summer of 1843. It is probable that Mr. Bright understood the whole case for Free Trade as well as Mr. Cobden himself; and, even if his powers of exposition were not so irresistibly logical and lucid as those of his friend, he had a power of passionate, and even poetic, eloquence to which the other made no pretence, and which was equally effective whether on a platform or in the House of Commons. We have already seen that Sir Robert Peel was rapidly abandoning Protection, and the Free Trade party naturally gained confidence and vigour from so illustrious a convert. Their ideas had evidently taken hold of the popular mind, excepting, strange to say, that section of the people which had adopted the views of Chartism. Money to any amount seemed at the command of the reformers, and in a commercial country like England the possession of money is one of the best of arguments. On the 8th of May, 1845, an exhibition of agricultural products, implements, &c., and also of manufactured articles, was opened in Covent Garden Theatre, under the title of the Free Trade Bazaar. The whole of the pit and stage was boarded over; at the close of the vista thus created was an imitation painted window of the cathedral type; and the space thus utilised, as distinguished from the public part of the house, was fitted out as a Gothic Hall. The exhibition was open seventeen days, during which time about 100,000 people visited the Bazaar, and the monetary result was that £25,046 were added to the funds of the League. It is thought that this Bazaar suggested the first idea of the Great Exhibition which attracted the attention of the whole civilised world six years later. Of course the Protectionists laughed at the whole thing as theatrical; but it helped to familiarise Londoners with the idea of Free Trade—an important fact, as London was at that time behind the towns of the North in devotion to the new commercial policy. After May, 1845, the cause of Free Trade made rapid advances in the capital, and it seemed almost like a race between the two great political parties as to which should take it up.

Another circumstance which worked in favour of the reformers was the rapid approach of the potato-disease in Ireland, which in the next two years resulted in one of the most terrible famines known to modern history. The condition of the potato crops began to attract serious attention in the month of August, when indications of its existence were visible, not only in Ireland, but in England. The evil, however, proved far worse in the former than in the latter country. On the 13th of October, Sir Robert Peel wrote to Sir James Graham:—“The accounts of the state of the potato crop in Ireland are becoming very alarming. I foresee the necessity that may be impressed upon us, at an early period, of considering whether there is not that well-grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption of every means of relief which the exercise of the prerogative or legislation might afford. I have no confidence in such remedies as the prohibition of exports, or the stoppage of distilleries. The removal of impediments to import is the only effectual remedy.” This was a clear advance towards the adoption of Free Trade in corn, which Sir Robert had previously resisted, and which he still postponed for several months. On the 31st of October we find a meeting at Dublin representing to the Lord Lieutenant that it had ascertained beyond a doubt that famine, and consequent pestilence, were imminent, unless the Government should take the most prompt measures to provide for the people by the distribution of food. It was therefore requested that the ports of Ireland should be opened for the importation of Indian corn, rice, and other articles of consumption. Sir Robert Peel was already convinced that it was impossible, under existing circumstances, to maintain restrictions on the free import of grain; but he still hung back from taking a different course, deterred, probably, by a doubt as to how far he could obtain a majority in Parliament.

His hesitation in this respect, which was now beginning to be denounced in Ireland in very emphatic terms, appeared to Lord John Russell to offer a fitting opportunity for effecting the restoration of the Whigs to office. By this time, Lord Melbourne had almost retired from public life, and everybody knew that, if the Liberals again came into power, the Premiership would fall to the most able, energetic, and resolute of Melbourne’s lieutenants. Lord John Russell saw a great career before him, and on the 22nd of November he addressed a letter from Edinburgh to the electors of the City of London. It will be recollected that the Whig statesman, shortly before the destruction of the Melbourne Cabinet, had been in favour of a fixed, though a low, duty on corn, while his great rival, Sir Robert Peel, had adopted what was known as the Sliding Scale. The views of both leaders had altered since those days. Each had abandoned his hobby; but Lord John Russell was the first to proclaim unequivocally that he was a convert to the views of Mr. Cobden. In his Edinburgh letter, he wrote:—“It is no longer worth while to contend for a fixed duty. In 1841, the Free Trade party would have agreed to a duty of 8s. per quarter on wheat, and after a lapse of years this duty might have been further reduced, and ultimately abolished. But the imposition of any duty at present, without a provision for its extinction within a short period, would but prolong a contest already sufficiently fruitful of animosity and discontent. Let us, then, unite to put an end to a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division amongst classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people.”

The hesitation of Sir Robert Peel, though unfortunate both for himself and the country, was scarcely avoidable under the circumstances. He would have thrown open the ports at once by an Order in Council; but several of his colleagues in the Government were opposed to such a proceeding, and even to the adoption of any Free Trade policy whatever. The publication of Lord John Russell’s letter, however, brought matters to a crisis. It is true that by this time most of the objecting members of the Administration had come round to the Premier’s view; but Peel felt that he could not place himself in the position of adopting a policy which his rival had so openly espoused. Convinced of his inability, at that time, to carry out the Free Trade ideas which he nevertheless saw to be inevitable. Sir Robert went to Osborne on the 5th of December, 1845, and placed his resignation in the hands of her Majesty. “I trust,” says the Conservative Minister in his Memoirs, “that I satisfied the Queen that I was influenced by considerations of the public interest, and not by fear of responsibility or of reproach, in humbly tendering my resignation of office. Her Majesty was pleased to accept it, with marks of confidence and approbation which, however gratifying, made it a very painful act to replace in her Majesty’s hands the trust she had confided in me.” The Queen then requested Lord John Russell to form a Government; but, being still in Edinburgh, it was the 11th of December before that statesman could reach the south. He at once undertook the task assigned to him; but, as some of his political friends were disinclined to support the general lines of policy on which he desired to enter, or were unable to agree among themselves, the attempt ended in failure. Another difficulty resulted from the refusal of Sir Robert Peel to give an unconditional promise that he would support a measure for the total and immediate abolition of the Corn Laws, though he was willing to assure Lord John that he and his friends would abstain from any factious opposition.

On the 20th of December, Lord John Russell announced to her Majesty that he was unable to form an Administration, and Sir Robert Peel was immediately recalled to the Royal presence at Windsor Castle. On entering the room, the Queen said to him very graciously, “So far from taking leave of you, Sir Robert, I must require you to withdraw your resignation.” She added that her late Minister might naturally require time for reflection, and for communication with his colleagues, before he gave a decisive answer. “I humbly advised her Majesty,” writes Sir Robert Peel, “to permit me to decide at once upon the resumption of office, and to enable me to announce to my late colleagues, on my return to London, that I had not hesitated to reaccept the appointment of First Minister.” He goes on to state that the Queen was pleased cordially to approve of this suggestion, and he reached London on the evening of the 20th, once more invested with the functions of Prime Minister.

THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.