CHAPTER I

.

LORD DERBY’S SECOND ADMINISTRATION.

A Commercial Crisis--Suspension of the Bank Act--The Fall of Lucknow--Sir Hugh Rose in Central India--Last Days of the Rebellion--The Operations in China--The Queen’s Personal Direction of Affairs--Palmerston’s waning Popularity--Attacks on Lord Canning--The Orsini Plot--French Menaces to England--The Conspiracy Bill--Defeat of the Ministry--The Second Derby-Disraeli Government--Abandonment of the Conspiracy Bill--The Queen’s Opposition to the India Bill--The Oudh Proclamation and Ellenborough’s “Secret Despatch”--A Tropical Summer and an Exhausted Legislature--Confirmation of the Prince of Wales--The Queen at Birmingham and Leeds--The Dispute between France and England about the Principalities--The Queen’s Visit to Cherbourg--The Royal Visit to Prussia--The Meeting with the Princess Frederick William--A Royal “Middie”--The Indian Proclamation--The Queen at Balmoral--Donati’s Comet--The Controversy over the Indian Army--Abdication of the King of Prussia--The Queen’s Letter to the Prince of Wales--France and Portugal--Failing Health of the Prince Consort.

Towards the end of 1857 the commercial credit of the country was severely shaken. The great railway companies in America sank under the burden of debenture debts: when they failed to pay their creditors, the banks were unable to give gold in exchange for their convertible issue of notes, and then private firms of the highest standing rapidly tumbled into insolvency. The effect of these disasters on English commercial credit was most serious. Houses engaged in American commerce that had been rashly over-trading on the capital of their creditors, fell in rapid succession, dragging down others in their fall. The Western Bank of Scotland stopped payment, and spread ruin far and wide through the districts of which Glasgow is the business centre. The failure of this establishment revealed the fact that gigantic frauds had been perpetrated by the auditors, who had certified the existence of a fictitious surplus of £2,000,000. A panic in Ireland, together with these disasters in Scotland, brought the crisis to a head in England. The sudden demand for gold at the Bank of England alarmed the Government, which, on the 12th of November, suspended the Bank Act, limiting the issue of notes.

It has been already mentioned that in 1847, when a similar course was adopted, the mere notification of it restored confidence, and the Bank did not take advantage of the licence granted to it. The crisis of 1857, however, was more serious, for fresh notes in excess of the legal issue were promptly put in circulation.[1] But the suspension of the Bank Charter Act by the Executive necessitated an application to Parliament for a Bill of Indemnity. Hence Parliament was summoned to meet on the 3rd of December. The Queen was under the impression that fresh light would be thrown on the crisis by the debates in both Houses; but there was really nothing new that could be said on the subject. As the Prince Consort observed in one of his letters, “Long prosperity had made all bankers, speculators, and capitalists careless, and now they are being unpleasantly reminded of natural laws which have been violated, and are asserting themselves.” Other matters besides the Indemnity Bill were mentioned in the Royal Speech; but, after passing that measure, Parliament separated on the 12th of January, 1858, to meet again on the 4th of February.

The business of suppressing the Mutiny was carried on vigorously in 1858. After Campbell’s victory over the Gwalior army at the end of 1857, he remained for two months at Cawnpore, whilst his reinforcements were coming to him, and the surrounding districts were being swept by flying columns. Then with an overwhelming force of artillery he moved forward swiftly to effect the final capture of Lucknow.[2] On the 4th of March the last of the siege train reached that city, and operations began in real earnest, ending with the capture of the third line of defence on the 14th of March. The place was virtually taken on the 15th; but most of the rebels had escaped. The Queen of Oudh, with 7,000 men, still clung to the Palace of the Moosee Bágh, and the fanatical Moulvee of Fyzabad yet held the heart of the city. Outram captured the Queen’s position, but not the Queen herself, whilst Sir Edward Lugard drove the Moulvee from his stronghold. Campbell’s loss was 177 killed and 505 wounded, and of the enemy 3,000 were buried, though no exact account of their wounded could be ascertained. On the 23rd of March General Grant overtook and routed a large body of fugitives on the road to Seetápoor, which brought operations to an end in this region.

The mutineers had now contrived to concentrate at Bareilly, with Khan Bahádoor Khan, Prince Féroze, of Delhi, the Queen of Oudh, the fanatical Moulvee, and the Nana Sahib of Bithoor, as leaders. Bareilly, however, suffered the fate of Lucknow, the leaders again escaping. The rebel Köer Singh was hunted out of Báhar and the jungle round Oudh, by Brigadier Douglas, after much harassing irregular fighting. During May and June the rebels contrived, greatly to the surprise of the Government, to concentrate in force at different places in the most unexpected manner. Driven out of the Upper Provinces, they tried to find refuge in the eastern Gangetic districts, but at every turn they were met and dispersed by flying columns told off to watch them.

It was, however, in Central India that the sword of vengeance was plied most ruthlessly. Sir Hugh Rose, with the army of Bombay and the Hyderabad Contingent, had, early in 1858, begun his march from Indore, hoping to reach Lucknow in time to take part in its capture. He had, however, to devote his attention to the insurgents of Central India, and conduct a campaign over the most rugged and difficult ground. He relieved Saugor on the 3rd of February. He invested the formidable fortress of Jhansi, the Ranee, or Queen, of which was, as Sir Hugh himself said, “the best man of the war.” On the 1st of April he defeated, in spite of great odds against him, a rebel army that attempted to raise the siege. On the 3rd he stormed a small breach in the walls, the Ranee effecting her escape into the jungle. On the 4th he carried the citadel, and took possession of the town. The investment was so complete that escape was impossible, and, as at the Secunderbund, the mutineers, to the number of 5,000, were all massacred.[3]

The Ranee of Jhansi and Tantia Topee had now concentrated an army of 20,000 men at Kalpi, and held an entrenched position at Kunch. Here, on the 7th of May, Rose defeated them, and his pursuit was so fierce and unresting that hardly a single fugitive escaped. Another rally was made at Kalpi, which was seized on the 23rd of May, the flying Sepoys being cut and shot down by hundreds, no quarter being given or taken. “Soldiers,” said Sir Hugh Rose, in his proclamation to the Central India Field Force, “you have marched more than a thousand miles, and taken more than a hundred guns; you have forced your way through mountain passes and intricate jungles, and over rivers; you have captured the strongest forts, and beat the enemy, no matter what the odds, wherever you met him; you have restored extensive districts to the Government, and peace and order now reign where before for twelve months were tyranny and rebellion; you have done all this, and you have never had a check.” Led by a dandy, who might almost be termed the Alcibiades of the Indian army, the Central India Field Force had carried fire and sword from the shores of Western India to the waters of the Jumna, and literally quenched the spirit of the insurrection in blood. But fresh work awaited Rose and his followers. Tantia Topee had organised a conspiracy against Scindia at Gwalior, whose contingent had, early in the Mutiny, revolted from his standard. Instead of waiting for British help, Scindia insisted on striking at the conspirators with such troops as he had still attached to his household. When he attacked the enemy at Barragaom, his followers deserted him, and he had to fly, with a small escort, to Dhólpoor, leaving the great fortress of Gwalior, with its vast stores of arms and munitions of war, to be occupied by the rebels. This gave fresh life to the Mutiny: the Nana Sahib promptly proclaimed himself Peishwa, and took the field with a new army of 18,000 men, strengthened by the superb artillery of Gwalior. But the news of this terrible misfortune did not daunt Sir Hugh Rose. He immediately resumed the command of the Central Field Force, which he had laid down, and made a dash for Gwalior. On the 16th of June he surprised the rebels at Morar, where he waited for one of his brigades, which came up on the 17th. He drove the enemy before him, like chaff before the wind, tearing them to pieces by fierce onsets of cavalry, in one of which a trooper of the 8th Hussars slew the dreaded Ranee of Jhansi, who fell fighting in male disguise. On the 18th the rebel army was in full retreat, and on the 20th Scindia took possession of his capital, the sack of which by the rebels cost him the loss of £500,000 of treasure, jewels, and other property. Nana Sahib’s broken army alone kept up a faint semblance of rebellion in Oudh towards the end of 1858.

Nor were British arms less fortunate elsewhere than in India. The operations at Canton, which had been suspended by the Mutiny, were successfully ended at the beginning of the year, a small French contingent acting as our allies against the Chinese. Commissioner Yeh was captured along with the city of Canton, in which Admiral Sir Michael Seymour established a provisional government. But the Imperial authorities affecting to consider the dispute a purely local one between the British Consul and the Imperial Commissioner, refused to come to terms. Lord Elgin accordingly crossed the bar of the Peiho river with a strong naval force, proclaiming his intention of attacking Pekin itself. The Imperial Government, therefore, made haste to conclude the Treaty of Tien-tsin on the 26th of June, which formed a new basis for British commercial intercourse with Eastern Asia.[4] The interest of the Queen in this achievement was heightened by the fact that the treaty was brought to her at Balmoral (20th of August), by Mr. Frederick Bruce, Lord Elgin’s younger brother and secretary, also brother to Colonel Bruce, governor to the Prince of Wales, and a confidential friend of the Royal Family. A Commercial Treaty with Japan followed, which completed the triumph of Lord Elgin’s energetic and adroit diplomacy.

[Illustration: THE FORTRESS OF GWALIOR.]

Home and Foreign Affairs, however, brought more trouble and annoyance to the Queen than the operations of war in the East. In fact, at this period of her career, her Majesty found it more necessary than ever it had been to devote her best energies to the public service. In a conversation with Mr. Greville during the autumnal recess of 1857, Lord Clarendon said that “the manner in which the Queen in her own name, but with the assistance of the Prince, exercised her functions, was exceedingly good, and well became her position, and was eminently useful. She held each minister to the discharge of his duty and his responsibility to her, and constantly desired to be furnished with accurate and detailed information about all important matters, keeping a record of all the reports that were made to her, and constantly recurring to them; _e.g._, she would desire to know what the state of the navy was, and what ships were in readiness for active service, and generally the state of each, ordering returns to be submitted to her from all the arsenals and dockyards, and again weeks and months afterwards referring to these returns, and desiring to have everything relating to them explained and accounted for, and so throughout every department. In this practice Clarendon told me he had encouraged her strenuously. This is what none of her predecessors ever did, and it is in fact the act of Prince Albert, who is to all intents and purposes King, only acting entirely in her name. All his views and notions are those of a Constitutional Sovereign, and he fulfils the duties of one, and at the same time makes the Crown an entity, and discharges the functions which properly belong to the Sovereign. I told Clarendon that I had been told the Prince had upon many occasions rendered the most important services to the Government, and had repeatedly prevented them getting into scrapes of various sorts. He said it was perfectly true, and that he had written some of the ablest papers he had ever read.”[5]

The Queen, however, like the Prince Consort, was uneasy as to the stability of the Government. But she had erroneously formed an opinion, which was indeed shared by many others, that the danger to be apprehended was from the decay of Lord Palmerston’s health. “Clarendon,” writes Mr. Greville in November, 1857, “told me of a conversation he had recently with the Queen _à propos_ of Palmerston’s health, concerning which her Majesty was very uneasy, and what could be done in the not impossible contingency of his breaking down. It is a curious change from what we saw a few years ago, that she has become almost affectionately anxious about the health of Palmerston, whose death might then have been an event to have been hailed with satisfaction. Clarendon said she might well be solicitous about it, for if anything happened to Palmerston, she would be placed in the greatest difficulty. She said that in such a case she should look to _him_, and expect him to replace Palmerston, on which Clarendon said he was glad she had broached the subject, as it gave him an opportunity of saying what he was very anxious to impress upon her mind, and that was, the absolute impossibility of his undertaking such an office, against which he enumerated various objections. He told her that Derby could not form a Government, and if she had the misfortune to lose Palmerston, nothing remained for her to do but to send for John Russell, and put him at the head of the Government. She expressed her great repugnance to this, and especially to make him Prime Minister. Clarendon then entreated her to conquer her repugnance, and to be persuaded that it would never do to offer him anything else, which he neither would nor could accept; that she necessarily was to have a man who could lead the House of Commons, and that there was no other but him; that Lord John had consented to take a subordinate office under Lord Aberdeen, who was his senior in age, and occupied a high position, but he would never consent to take office under him (Clarendon), and the proposal he would consider as an insult. For every reason, therefore, he urged her, if driven to apply to him at all, to do it handsomely, to place the whole thing in his hands, and to give him her full confidence and support. He appears to have convinced her that this is the proper course, and he gave me to understand that if Lord John acts with prudence and moderation all the present Government would accept him for their head.”[6]

The real danger, as will soon be seen, which menaced the Ministry was not Palmerston’s decaying health, but his waning popularity. The Party of Reform early in 1858 had become convinced that nothing was to be hoped for from him beyond empty and evasive promises. They were therefore, when Parliament reassembled on the 4th of February, simply waiting for a pretext to turn him out of office.[7] While the Radicals were mutinous, Mr. Disraeli, through the medium of Mr. C. Greville, was intriguing with the younger Whigs[8] to form a Coalition.[9] Palmerston had also incurred much unpopularity by appointing Lord Clanricarde to the office of Lord Privy Seal; in fact, it was known that this appointment would have been laid hold of as a pretext for moving a resolution which might destroy the Ministry. Of course, when Parliament met no division of opinion existed as to the propriety of passing addresses congratulating the Queen on her daughter’s marriage. But when, on the 8th of February, resolutions were moved thanking the civil and military officers in India for the ability with which they had dealt with the Mutiny, some of the Tories,[10] let us hope reluctantly, led by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, made themselves the mouth-pieces of the “White Terror” at Calcutta, and opposed a vote of thanks to Lord Canning. His policy had been objected to because it was not sufficiently bloodthirsty; therefore, argued his critics, it was rash to pass a vote of thanks to him. The vote was carried, but it was clear that the Indian policy of the Government would bring trouble on their heads. The Indian government must be transferred to the Crown, and as Mr. Vernon Smith, a man of limited capacity, was the Minister responsible for India, the prospect was not thought by experienced Anglo-Indians to be an alluring one. We ought to wait till we had stamped out the last traces of the Mutiny, it was contended by Lord Ellenborough, before we brought India directly under the Government of the Queen. Still, Ministers defeated a resolution to postpone their India Bill, and nothing seemed fairer than their prospects, though they were even then (18th of February), on the brink of destruction. The blow came when Palmerston, desirous of conciliating the French Emperor, introduced a Bill to alter the Law of Conspiracy.

[Illustration: LORD CANNING.]

The history of this fateful measure is as follows:--Ten days before the marriage of the Princess Royal, a small group of conspirators in England carried out a plan for assassinating the Emperor of the French in the Rue

[Illustration: ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.]

Lepelletier, Paris, by exploding hand-grenades under his carriage. The Emperor and Empress escaped, but ten persons were killed, and 156 were wounded. The plot had been concocted by Felix Orsini in England. Therefore, the followers of the Emperor, whose fortunes depended on his life, denounced the English nation as Orsini’s accomplices. The Emperor himself was so unmanned by the incident, that after he drove home to the Tuileries, he and the Empress, on retiring to their room, wept bitterly over the wretched prospect before them. His terror probably prevented him from appreciating the fact, that if his own police could not protect him from Orsini, it was not likely that the police of a foreign country would be much more efficient. It may be, too, that the ease with which he had forced Palmerston to accept a humiliating settlement of the Question of the Principalities deluded him into the idea that it would be equally easy to compel him to restrict the freedom of Englishmen, in the interests of the Bonapartist dynasty.[11] He may also have imagined that England’s difficulties in the East would render Palmerston’s Government more complaisant than the Tory Ministry showed itself on this matter in 1853. His calculations, however arrived at, proved to be correct. The French Government addressed menaces on the subject of harbouring refugees to Sardinia, Switzerland, and Belgium. On the 20th of January Walewski wrote a despatch to Persigny, which he had to communicate to Lord Clarendon, and which not only accused England of deliberately sheltering the assassins of the French Emperor, but also asserted that the English Government ought to assist that of France, in averting “a repetition of such guilty enterprises.” Instead of answering this despatch in the high-spirited tone which Lord Malmesbury had taken in his conversation with the Emperor in 1853, a reply of a timid and indefinite character was privately sent through what was called the “usual official channels of personal communication.” The substance of it was that the Government needed no inducement to amend the English law of conspiracy, and that the Attorney-General had the matter in hand already. The assumption that the English Government was deliberately aiding and abetting a gang of assassins was an insult which Lord Palmerston, as the exponent of a spirited foreign policy, was expected to resent. His failure to resent it gave his enemies an opportunity of recalling his _Civis Romanes Sum_ doctrine, and holding him up to contempt. But at first it was not known that he had shown the white feather in his dealings with the French Emperor. Addresses from the Army, burning with rancorous insults to England, had been presented to the Emperor, and published in the _Moniteur_. The Emperor finding that these insults, which were only intended for home consumption, had been republished in England, where he feared they might inflame popular feeling, instructed an expression of regret to be sent to the British Government. In introducing the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, Lord Palmerston (18th of February), carried the first reading by leading the House of Commons to believe that this Imperial apology was adequate. He did not think it worth while to explain that it had not been inserted in the _Moniteur_, where the insults and menaces of the French Colonels had appeared, and that the French people were thus fully under the delusion that their vaporous threats had coerced England into restricting the liberty of her subjects at their bidding. Later on, this deception was discovered. Walewski’s despatch, by an inconceivable blunder, was laid before the House, which also found out that it had never been answered with spirit and dignity. The anger of the Representatives of the people then rose to white heat; and when Mr. Milner Gibson moved a resolution of censure, which had been drafted by Sir J. Graham and Lord John Russell on the 19th of February, it was carried by a majority of 19, in a House of 459. Lord Palmerston and the Cabinet immediately resigned.

At first the Queen, knowing the difficulty of forming a new Government, was reluctant to accept their resignation. She contended--very properly--that it was a bad precedent for a Government to go out on the strength of a vote which was hardly constitutional. The treatment of a despatch was, in her Majesty’s opinion, purely a question for the Executive to decide. The House of Commons had but a very dubious right to touch it at all; at any rate, no Ministry was bound by the Constitution to resign because of a Vote of Censure from either House of Parliament on such a question.

There can be no doubt that the Queen’s view was the correct one, and it is now known that Lord Eversley, the ablest Speaker who has in her Majesty’s reign presided over the House of Commons, actually advised Mr. Speaker Denison to rule Mr. Gibson’s motion out of order, on the very grounds which seemed to the Queen to justify Lord Palmerston in ignoring the censure.[12] On the other hand, her Majesty had to admit the fact that Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon had been maladroit in their handling of the whole affair. They should have answered Walewski’s despatch more formally than in a private letter from Clarendon to Cowley. They ought at the outset to have pleaded the constitutional privilege of the Executive, and refusing to produce the despatch in Parliament, have challenged the Opposition to a vote of censure. Moreover, the Queen knew only too well by this time that if Palmerston refused to resign on Mr. Gibson’s motion, he would be turned out on one to abolish the office of Lord Privy Seal, Lord Clanricarde’s appointment to which had given great offence.[13] Thus, though it was in some respects objectionable to sanction a Ministerial resignation because the House of Commons censured, not the policy of the Government, but an administrative act of the Executive,[14] the Queen bent to circumstances, and sent for Lord Derby to form a Cabinet. Lord Derby, though he took office, did not desire it, because he could only reign on sufferance. His party, strictly speaking, was in a minority of about two to one in the House of Commons, and his Government would be at the mercy of casual combinations among the factions of the Opposition. He had to fall back on his old Administration (minus Sir E. B. Lytton).[15]

A painful quarrel between Sir E. B. Lytton and his wife had enlisted considerable public sympathy on the side of the lady, so that his re-election for Hertford was a little doubtful. When offered the Colonial Secretaryship, Sir E. B. Lytton gave Lord Derby a hint on the subject, and Lord Derby, under the impression that Sir E. B. Lytton considered his re-election impossible, induced Lord Stanley to accept the Colonial Office.[16] Lord Grey would have joined Lord Derby had it not been for his distrust of Mr. Disraeli; and he told Lady Tankerville that Mr. Gladstone would have also joined the new Ministry, “had he been offered the leadership of the Commons.”[17] If Lord Palmerston reckoned on the reluctance of the Queen to trust a Derby-Disraeli Ministry with the conduct of affairs, he fell into a grave error. Mr. Greville, who, like many politicians, held the Derby-Disraeli combination in contempt, admits that during this crisis the Queen’s conduct “was certainly curious, and justifies them in saying that it was by her express desire that Derby undertook the formation of the Government. If Palmerston and his Cabinet were actuated by the motives and expectations which I ascribe to them, her Majesty certainly did not play into their hands in that game. When Derby set before her all the difficulties of his situation, and entreated her again to reflect upon it, a word from her would have induced him (without having anything to complain of) to throw it back into Palmerston’s hands. But the word she did speak was decisive as to his going on, and there is no reason to believe that she was playing a deep game, and calculating on his favour. Nor do I believe that she would herself have liked to see Palmerston all-powerful. She can hardly have forgotten how inclined he has always been to abuse his power, and how much she has suffered from his exercise of it. Even when he was to a certain degree under control, and although she seemed to be quite reconciled to him, and to be anxious for the stability of his Government, it is difficult to know what her real feelings (or rather those of the Prince) were, and it is more than probable that her anxiety for the success of Palmerston’s Government was more on account of the members of it, whom she personally liked, and whom she was very reluctant to lose, than out of any partiality for the Premier himself. To Clarendon she is really attached, and Granville she likes very much; most of the rest she regards with indifference.”[18]

When the new Ministry took office they soon announced that they would drop the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, and answer the Walewski despatch. The

[Illustration: VIEW IN WINDSOR CASTLE: THE INNER CLOISTERS, LOOKING WEST.]

temper of the English people was such as to render it impossible, after what had been said on both sides, to proceed with Lord Palmerston’s Bill. Moreover, Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone had put themselves at the head of 140 Members pledged to use all the forms of the House of Commons for the purpose of obstructing any measure of the sort, and the case was one where obstruction by keeping open a sore between two nations would soon render it an unhealable wound.[19] As for Walewski’s despatch, Mr. Milner Gibson’s motion had censured Lord Palmerston’s Government for not answering it, so Lord Palmerston’s successors, who had supported that motion, were bound to reply to it. Their difficulties were complicated by the foolish behaviour of De Persigny, the French Ambassador. He was a strong partisan of Palmerston’s, and he went about London drawing-rooms denouncing the Tory Government in the most violent terms. Nay, he made a practice of communicating to Lord Palmerston everything which passed between himself and Lord Malmesbury in their official conversations, and Lord Palmerston did not scruple to use information obtained by this dishonourable violation of diplomatic rules; nor did he shrink from making himself De Persigny’s accomplice in these questionable transactions. Lord Malmesbury felt himself so completely embarrassed by such proceedings that he caused Lord Cowley to privately inform the French Emperor that he must in future decline to transact business through De Persigny. Lord Malmesbury said plainly, that he must communicate directly through Lord Cowley or Count Walewski in Paris, for De Persigny at this time not only carried his confidential conversation to Palmerston, but Palmerston actually instructed him how to embarrass the English Government in attempting to resist dictatorial pressure from France. Lord Malmesbury’s spirited protest was well-timed and highly effective.[20] Acting through Lord Cowley, Lord Malmesbury arranged with Count Walewski a form of reply to the despatch which would adequately meet the demands of the English people, and yet give the French Government an opportunity of honourably repudiating any intention of wounding British susceptibilities. On hearing of this, Persigny, who had pledged himself to restore Palmerston to power by forcing the Tory Government to pass the Conspiracy Bill in a week, resigned. To his surprise and disgust his resignation was accepted, and Marshal Pélissier, Duke of Malakoff, was sent to England in his place. This was another triumph for the Tory Ministry, because Palmerston had reckoned on Walewski appointing Moustier, French Ambassador at Berlin, to the Court of St. James’s when Persigny resigned, and as Moustier was, like Walewski, virtually a Russian agent, fresh troubles would soon have been manufactured for Lord Malmesbury. Napoleon III., however, insisted on sending a personal representative, who from his Crimean services would not be unacceptable to the Queen and the English people. He, therefore, selected Pélissier,[21] who, though ignorant of diplomacy, was not likely to fall into Persigny’s indiscretions, and whose appointment was received by the Queen as a token of renewed goodwill on the part of France. This attempt of Palmerston’s to drive a Ministry from office by getting a Foreign Government to menace it with hostility,[22] having ended in ignominious defeat, he and his party soon showed how bitterly they resented the failure of their conspiracy with the French Emperor and his Ambassador against English liberty. When Mr. Disraeli announced the settlement of the quarrel with France in the House of Commons, on the 13th of March, the Opposition received it sullenly, and immediately raised a bitter attack on Lord Malmesbury for not procuring the release of the English engineers who were imprisoned in the _Cagliari_.[23] Their arrest was illegal, and Lord Malmesbury, as soon as he obtained the opinion of the law officers of the Crown, not only procured their release, but liberal compensation for the annoyance to which they had been put.

Where the Government broke down was in attempting to deal with the future administration of India; and it is a fact that had they but listened to the Queen’s advice, who strongly opposed their policy, they would have avoided a defeat which served to convince the people that the evil reputation of the Derby-Disraeli group for legislative incapacity was only too well founded. The Tories had opposed Palmerston’s India Bill, transferring the government of India to the Crown, so they were forced to bring in one of their own. Palmerston’s Indian Council consisted of nominated officials of high rank and ripe experience. The Tory Bill, which was devised by Lord Ellenborough, introduced into the Council a fantastic elective element. Four out of the Council of eighteen were to be chosen by holders of Indian Stock, and by Indian military and civil servants of ten years’ standing, and five were to be elected by the commercial constituencies of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, and Belfast. The Queen warned the Cabinet that these provisions were fatal to their Bill. The selection of the constituencies was arbitrary, and other cities would in time agitate for representation on the Council. The turmoil of democratic elections was not likely to influence for good Imperial policy in a country about which the electors could at best know little. But the Cabinet held that the electoral clauses would secure the Radical support necessary to carry the Bill, and the Queen, reluctant to bring about another Ministerial crisis, left the matter in the hands of her Ministers. But when Mr. Disraeli, on the 26th of March, introduced the Bill, to his surprise, the Radicals objected as strongly as the Queen to the electoral clauses. Mr. Roebuck complained that they gave a sham colour of democracy to what was really a despotic Government. Mr. Bright said they “savoured of what was generally called claptrap.” Anxious, however, to keep the Tories in power, lest Lord Palmerston and his followers might return to office, the Radicals refused to embarrass Mr. Disraeli[24] on this point, and urged the Government to reconsider it during the Easter recess. Most assiduously did Lady Palmerston endeavour to induce Lord John Russell to coalesce with Lord Palmerston during the recess for the purpose of defeating the Ministry on the India Bill; but her intrigues were in vain. On the contrary, Lord John determined to bring in a series of Resolutions on which the Ministry might base a Bill, and when Parliament re-assembled on the 12th of April he confidentially communicated them through Mr. Edward Horsman to Mr. Disraeli, who had himself resolved to adopt the same course. Mr. Disraeli was only too willing to be thus extricated from a difficulty by one of the leaders of the Opposition. But the House of Commons considered that as the India Bill was now removed from the arena of party strife, it would be wisest to let the Government prepare the Resolutions. This was done, and the debate on them began on the 30th of April, and went on favourably.

The Budget, though it showed a deficit of £4,000,000, which was met by a tax on bankers’ cheques, and by equalising the Irish spirit duty, gave the Ministry no trouble. The acquittal of Dr. Bernard in April, who had been arrested by Lord Palmerston’s Government on a charge of conspiring with Orsini to murder the French Emperor, embarrassed Lord Malmesbury, for the jury who tried Bernard refused to convict in the teeth of clear evidence of guilt. But Napoleon III., recognising that the action of the jury was simply the “retort courteous” to Walewski’s maladroit demand that an English Government should alter English laws at the bidding of a foreign autocrat, wisely ignored the incident, and accepted Pélissier’s view of it, which was that “one must be callous to this sort of thing, and let the water run under the bridge.”[25] Then the tide of Ministerial success suddenly turned, and the Cabinet was nearly wrecked by the indiscretion of its most brilliant but erratic member, Lord Ellenborough, who had succeeded Mr. Vernon Smith at the Indian Board of Control.

In 1857 Lord Canning had incurred the odium of panic-stricken Englishmen at Calcutta, because in his repressive measures he mingled justice with severity. In June, 1857, when he gagged the Native press, he gagged the English press as well. In August, when disarming Calcutta, he compelled

[Illustration: THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO BIRMINGHAM: THE PROCESSION PASSING ALONG NEW STREET.]

Europeans, as well as Natives, to take out licences to carry arms, and in July he issued orders to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of mutineers, distinguishing between the cases of those whose guilt was of varying degrees of intensity. A storm of abuse accordingly broke over his head, and the English in Calcutta petitioned for the recall of “Clemency Canning.” The British army in India, with its reinforcements, was but a handful of men among millions. Indiscriminate proscription of the Natives, such as was clamoured for, would have driven the whole of India into mutiny; in other words, it would have cost England her Indian Empire. The Queen and the Cabinet, however, supported Canning, and matters went well with him for a time. But in the spring of 1858, when Lucknow fell, another attack was made on him from a different point of view. He had drawn up a proclamation confiscating the lands of all landowners in Oudh save those who had been loyal to England, and those who would immediately return to their allegiance, and help to put down the rebellion. Lord Ellenborough, ignoring the saving clauses in the proclamation, sent Canning a “Secret Despatch,” bitterly condemning the apostle of “clemency” as a heartless tyrant, and even casting doubts upon the title by which Oudh was held by England. He permitted the Secret Despatch to be made public; and, what was still worse, Mr. Disraeli, with singular lack of patriotism, proclaimed in the House of Commons that the Government disapproved of Canning’s policy. Such a declaration, made at such a moment, was almost as mischievous as if the Government had telegraphed out to India, that they desired the Natives to organise another revolt.

The Queen’s indignation at the conduct of both Ministers was not diminished by the fact that neither of them had waited to receive Canning’s despatch, explaining at length the reasons for his policy. Notices of resolution, censuring the Ministry, were given in both Houses, and one member of the Cabinet (Lord Malmesbury) wrote personally to Lord Canning, begging him, on behalf of his colleagues, not to quit his post. The defeat of the Government, in fact, was only averted by the sacrifice of Ellenborough, who, to “save his colleagues, volunteered to play the part of Jonah.”[26] Mr. Gladstone was offered his place by Lord Derby, but on his refusing to join the Government, Lord Stanley became Ellenborough’s successor, Sir E. B. Lytton going to the Colonial Office. Yet in view of Mr. Disraeli’s denunciation of Canning’s policy, even Ellenborough’s resignation would not have saved the Ministry, had it not been that the Radicals and Peelites, along with Lord John Russell, refused to carry the matter farther, because, as they frankly said, they did not desire to let Palmerston and his faction return to power.[27]

On the 17th of June the India Bill, based on the resolutions of the Government, and vesting the sole dominion of India in the Crown, was introduced by Lord Stanley, and it passed into law on the 2nd of August.

Another measure was passed in July, though opposed rather venomously by the Tories in the House of Lords--namely, the Bill providing that either House might resolve that henceforth Jewish members of Parliament might omit from the Parliamentary Oath the words, “and I make this declaration on the true faith of a Christian.” This ended a long and bitter controversy. On the 26th of July Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild came to the table of the House of Commons, and was sworn on the Old Testament, the House having agreed to resolutions in terms of the new Act.[28]

The exceptional heat of the summer soon exhausted the energies of legislators. Mephitic odours from the Thames even caused some to demand that the Houses of Parliament should be shifted to another site. “We have,” writes Lord Malmesbury, on the 27th of June, “ordered large quantities of lime to be thrown into the Thames; for no works can be begun till the hot weather is over. The stench is perfectly intolerable, although Madame Ristori, coming back one night from a dinner at Greenwich, given by Lord Hardwicke, sniffed the air with delight, saying it reminded her of her ‘dear Venice.’” Perhaps this nuisance induced the House of Commons to pass with unlooked for rapidity a Main Drainage Bill, which was to prevent sewage from being turned into the Thames as it passed through London. All intrigues set on foot to reconcile Lord Palmerston to Lord John Russell,[29] and the Radicals to both, failed, so the Tory Ministry successfully weathered the storms of faction, and closed the Session, on the whole, with credit, on the 30th of July.

The family life of the Court had been brightened early in the year by the cordial welcome which the Queen’s eldest daughter had received in her new home in Prussia. Projects for a visit to her and her husband were formed by the Queen and the Prince Consort, which public duty compelled them to abandon month after month. On Maundy Thursday the Prince of Wales was confirmed at Windsor, having acquitted himself well during his examination by the Archbishop. After a fortnight’s tour in Ireland, it was arranged that he should live in the White Lodge, Richmond Park, and prepare for his military examination, his companions being Lord Valletort, eldest son of Lord Mount-Edgecumbe, Major Teesdale, R.E., one of the heroes of Kars, Major R. Loyd-Lindsay (afterwards Lord Wantage), V.C., and Mr. Gibbs, the Prince’s tutor. In May a visit from the beautiful Queen of Portugal charmed all hearts, and during the Whitsuntide holiday, when the Prince Consort went to pay a flying visit to Coburg, the Queen solaced her loneliness by visiting Prince Alfred at Alverbank, a cottage opposite the Isle of Wight, where he was pursuing his naval studies. Delightful letters came to the Queen from Babelsberg, describing the married happiness of her daughter, who received the Prince Consort there, and from whence he returned to London on the 8th of June.

On the 14th, her Majesty paid her promised visit to Birmingham, and to Lord Leigh at Stoneleigh Abbey. It was smiling summer weather when she drove from Coventry through Shakespeare’s country to her host’s house, where

[Illustration: VISIT OF THE QUEEN TO THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH AT CHERBOURG.]

she was delighted with her reception. Next day she went by train to Birmingham, when, wonderful to relate, the sun shone through a smokeless though sultry atmosphere. As for the arrangements for her reception, she writes, “all was admirably done--handsomer even than Manchester. The cheering was tremendous.” Loyal addresses were presented at the Town Hall, where, seated on an extemporised throne, her Majesty knighted the Mayor. The Royal Party next proceeded to Aston Hall and Park, “now to be converted,” writes the Queen, “into a People’s Museum and Park, and to obtain which the working people had worked very hard, and subscribed very largely.” Here six of the working men associated with the managers of the proceedings were presented to the Queen, who conversed with them affably, and then proclaimed the Park open. “Quite a pattern lady!” “What a darling!”--such were among the exclamations, writes the Queen, with which she was greeted by the crowd. After visiting many places of interest in the district, the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace on the 16th, greatly impressed with the welcome she had received from the most democratic and republican community in England. This visit had a marked political influence. It gave a great though unseen impetus to the movement for Reform, and many thoughtful Conservatives now began to suspect that there was less danger in giving votes to the loyal artizans of Birmingham, than to the lower middle class whom the Whigs desired to enfranchise.

[Illustration: OSBORNE HOUSE.

(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons, Dundee._)]

In May the Emperor of the French had sent the Queen an invitation to come and inspect the fortifications at Cherbourg. At this time the friction between France and England had been somewhat increased by a divergence of view between the two countries as to the settlement of the Danubian Principalities. England, by opposing their union, had irritated France. France, by refusing to admit that the engagements entered into by Napoleon III. at Osborne in 1857 bound her to support the English view, had annoyed England.[30] It was, however, thought that the Queen’s personal popularity in France, and her influence with the Emperor, might bring about friendlier relations between the Governments, and the Ministry pressed her to accept the Imperial invitation. Writing on the 5th of August, the day after the Queen’s arrival at Cherbourg, Lord Malmesbury, who was one of her party, says, “It blew hard in the night, but subsided towards morning. The Queen not ill. The approach to Cherbourg very fine. Arrived there at 7 p.m. At 8 the Emperor and Empress came on board the Royal yacht without any suite. Nobody was admitted. Marshal Pélissier, who went in without any invitation, was immediately turned out by the Emperor.” What passed at this interview, however, was an embarrassing inquiry about the feeling against France in England. “We smiled,” writes the Queen of herself and her husband, “and said the feeling was much better, but that this very place caused alarm, and that those unhappy addresses of the Colonels had done incalculable mischief.” The grand effect of the saluting cannon seems to have impressed the Queen, and, says Lord Malmesbury, “when the Emperor left the Queen’s yacht, the electric light was thrown on the Emperor’s barge, following it the whole way into the harbour; the light shining only on the barge, whilst all around remained in darkness.” The Emperor, adds Lord Malmesbury, “was very friendly in his manner; but both he and the Empress could not digest some of the articles in the _Times_ which had been offensive, especially against her, and I tried to make them understand what freedom the Press had in England, and how independent it was of all private and most public men.” As for the Queen, she says in her Diary that, after this grave visit she “went below,” and “read and nearly finished that most interesting book ‘Jane Eyre.’” On the morrow thunderous salutes smote her ears as she was dressing, and when she went on deck the harbour was literally swarming with craft brave with gala array. “Next morning,” writes Lord Malmesbury of this day’s proceedings, “the Queen, Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, Sir John Pakington, and myself breakfasted at the Préfecture. After which the Royal Personages drove over the town.... Returned to the Royal yacht, and accompanied the Queen to dinner on board the _Bretagne_. Among the officers at dinner was General Macmahon.” Here the Queen was rendered very nervous because Prince Albert had to make a complimentary speech in reply to the toast of her health, for at that moment every eye in Europe was on Cherbourg, and every ear straining for echoes of Royal and Imperial conversations on which might hang the dread issues of war. “I shook so,” writes the Queen, “that I could not drink my cup of coffee.”[31] All went off well, however, and the kindliest words on both sides were spoken. The display of 25,000 francs’ worth of fireworks ended a brilliant but fatiguing day. August 6th was devoted to leave-taking, amidst a complimentary cannonade, and the Queen got home in time to greet Prince Alfred on his birthday at Osborne. “The evening,” she writes, “was very warm and calm. Dear Affie was on the pier, and we found all the other children, including Baby (Princess Beatrice), standing at the door.” A visit of inspection to Prince Alfred’s birthday presents, a little birthday fête and dance on the terrace, adds the Queen, formed “a delightful finale to our expedition.”[32] But the visit was a mistake, though, as the Ministry insisted on it, the blame was theirs alone. It produced an abundant crop of alarms and attacks in the press on the menacing preparations for war which had been seen at Cherbourg. It caused the Queen to have a controversy with Lord Derby, who would pay no heed to her appeal to provide a counterpoise to the threatening stronghold which she had inspected.

A visit--long promised and long looked for--to the Prince and Princess Frederick William of Prussia followed. Her Majesty’s suite arrived at Potsdam on the 14th of August, and on the same evening the Queen and Prince Albert arrived at Babelsberg, where they were received with a warmth of welcome by their Prussian relatives that made the Queen, as she herself says, feel as if she were at home. The meeting between her and her daughter brought a moment of supreme delight to both. Each day spent in the happy circle of the Prince and Princess of Prussia seems to have knit the heart of the Queen closer to the family of which her eldest daughter was so obviously a cherished member. Every day some fresh mark of attention was paid to the Queen and her husband by their hosts, who seemed to exhaust their ingenuity in devising expedients for making her visit pleasant to her. Though this visit was purely a private one, the people gave her as cordial a reception as the Court, until at last her Majesty began to feel sad at the approaching termination of such a charming holiday. But on the 28th of August the last day came, and, writes the Prince Consort, “the parting was very painful.” The Queen and the Princess Royal wept in each other’s arms, though her Majesty says, with a pathetic reference to the conflicting duties of sovereignty and womanhood, “all would be comparatively easy were it not for the one thought that I cannot be with her at that very critical moment when every mother goes to her child.”[33] Dover was reached on the 31st, from whence the Queen went on to Portsmouth, and thence to Osborne, where they found Prince Alfred, who had passed his examination--especially the mathematical part of it--with great distinction, eager to tell them he had been appointed to the _Euryalus_. He was waiting for his mother, writes the Queen, “in his middie’s jacket, cap, and dirk, half-blushing, and looking very happy. He is a little pulled down from these three days’ hard examination, which only terminated to-day.... We felt very proud, for it is a particularly hard examination.”[34]

[Illustration: POTSDAM.]

Only one anxiety had intruded itself during the Prussian tour--the issue of the Queen’s Proclamation to the Indian people on assuming the government of India. She objected strongly to the draft of it which was submitted to her, and begged Lord Derby to write one out for her in “his own excellent language,” keeping in view “that it is a female Sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people on assuming the direct government over them after a bloody civil war, giving them pledges which her future reign is to redeem.” Such a Proclamation should, says her Majesty, emphasise the ideas of generosity, benevolence, religious toleration, liberty, and equality before the law. What offended her deeply in the draft was a menace reminding the Indian people that she had “the power of undermining” native religions and customs. Her Majesty, writes Lord Malmesbury by her directions, “would prefer that the subject should be introduced by a declaration in the sense that the deep attachment which her Majesty feels to her own religion, and the comfort and happiness which she derives from its consolations, will preclude her from any attempt to interfere with native religions.” The name of the official personage who drew up this blundering and exasperating Proclamation, which the Queen had the good sense and good taste to cancel, need not be mentioned. It is but just to Lord Derby to say that when the Queen’s objections were telegraphed to him he examined the document, and so completely agreed with her Majesty that he re-wrote the Proclamation in a manner that anticipated her detailed instructions. A few additions were made to it by the Queen, and when it was issued it was hailed with delight by the Natives as the Magna Charta of India.

[Illustration: THE QUEEN LEAVING THE TOWN HALL, LEEDS.]

On the 6th of September the Queen and Prince Albert proceeded to Leeds to open the splendid Town Hall which the people of that borough had built, and where they were welcomed by the most picturesque Mayor in England, who in his robes and bearing, wrote the Queen, was “the personification of a Venetian Doge.” Needless to say then that, after the Hall was opened, Mr. Mayor Fairbairn was knighted. The Royal Family next sped northwards to Balmoral, where Prince Albert brought down his first stag on the 14th, and where the whole household gazed nightly at Donati’s comet, which blazed with peculiar brilliancy in the clear and “nimble air” of the Highlands. Among the superstitious mountaineers it was held to be a portent of war and pestilence. At Balmoral the Queen became involved in a discussion with her Ministers as to the future of the Indian Army. Who was to command it--the Queen through the British Commander-in-Chief, or the Queen through the Secretary of State in Council, as successors to the old East India Company and Board of Control? Her Majesty stoutly contended that the union between the British and Indian Armies should be completed by their being placed under the same supreme authority--namely, the Commander-in-Chief in India. The Indian Council grasping at patronage, however, held that though the Commanders-in-Chief in the Presidencies should not be subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief in India, except in respect of the Queen’s troops under their order, over the Native troops in their presidencies their authority must be supreme. Lord Clyde took the Queen’s view of the matter, and so did General Peel, War Secretary, and also the Prince Consort, and in 1860, when the controversy ended, it was her view that prevailed. Towards the end of the Balmoral holiday the Queen and her husband were greatly delighted to find that their much-loved friend, the Prince of Prussia, had finally been chosen Prince Regent in succession to his brother, the king, who had become too infirm in mind and body to hold the reins of Government. The Prince Regent (afterwards German Emperor) and Prince Albert were not only warm friends, but were in close confidential correspondence on public affairs, and the Queen and her husband alike looked to him as the only possible deliverer of Prussia from Absolutist Administrations dominated by Russian ascendency. Their counsels had a powerful influence on the Prussian Regent’s policy at the outset of his career, when he dismissed the Manteuffel Ministry, and initiated an era of moderate constitutional progress in his country. Indirectly, they conferred a marked benefit on this country at the same time. The foreign policy of Prussia, which had up till now seemed to be antipathetic to England, changed. Without abating any of their zeal for their respective interests, the Foreign Offices of the two countries found it much easier than it had been to work together in matters of general interest. This cordiality between the Courts of Berlin and St. James’s was promoted by the kindness which the Prince Regent bestowed on the Prince of Wales when, in November, he proceeded to Berlin to visit his sister. He returned, not only bearing with him a confidential letter from the Prince Regent to his father, but with it the Order of the Black Eagle, which had been, greatly to his delight, bestowed upon him. He had just completed his eighteenth year, and had been promoted to a colonelcy in the army. Colonel Bruce was now his governor--his tutor, Mr. Gibbs, having retired. The Prince had, in fact, become emancipated from pupilage, and Mr. Greville referring to this event says in his “Memoirs,” “I hear the Queen has written a letter to the Prince of Wales announcing to him his emancipation from parental authority and control, and that it is one of the most admirable letters ever penned. She tells him that he may have thought the rule they adopted for his education a severe one, but that his welfare was their only object; and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would eventually be exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind against them, that he was now to consider himself his own master, and that they should never intrude any advice upon him, although always ready to give it him whenever he thought fit to seek it. It was a very long letter all in that line, and it seems to have made a profound impression on the Prince, and to have touched his feelings to the quick. He brought it to Gerald Wellesley in floods of tears, and the effect it produced is a proof of the wisdom which dictated its composition.”[35]

A fresh cause of disagreement had, however, now arisen with France. The seizure of a French slaver, called the _Charles-et-Georges_, by the Portuguese authorities at Mozambique, tempted the French Government to demand its surrender, and an indemnity whilst her status was _sub judice_. Coercion was threatened by the appearance of a French squadron in the Tagus, and an offer on the part of Portugal to submit to arbitration was refused. Englishmen in these circumstances gave vent to much indignation against a revival of the old brutal methods of Bonapartism in dealing with a small Power, and this indignation was shared by the Queen, though it was prudently veiled, her personal relations with the Portuguese Court being of an unusually cordial character. Lord Malmesbury was also well known not only to be a partisan of the French alliance, but a personal friend of the French Emperor. This led many to suspect that the British Government had played into the hands of France; and Lord Malmesbury’s policy was, in truth, so spiritless in defence of Portugal, that the Portuguese, fearing to waste time in appealing for the good offices of England, yielded to the overbearing menaces of France. At the same time, it is quite clear, from a sentence in one of the Prince Consort’s letters to Baron Stockmar, that the Court, on the whole, approved of the Foreign Secretary’s policy, which, at all events, kept the country clear of war. The loyal reception of the Queen’s Proclamation in India on the 17th of October, and the end of the rebellion in Oudh, gladdened the closing months of 1858. Over these, however, the first symptoms of the Prince Consort’s failing health projected the slowly-advancing shadow, that was so soon to shroud the remainder of the Queen’s career in widowed sorrow.

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