The Life and Times of Queen Victoria; vol. 4 of 4

On the 29th of March, in the presence of a brilliant and fashionable crowd of upwards of 10,000 persons, the Queen opened the Royal Albert Hall at Kensington. The Members of the Provisional Committee met the Prince of Wales, their President, and, on the arrival of the Queen at half-past twelve o’clock, the Heir Apparent read the address to her Majesty, which could hardly be heard, because a provoking echo mimicked the tones of his voice whilst he described the completion of the Hall. The Queen having handed to the Prince a written answer, said, “I wish to express my great admiration of this beautiful Hall, and my earnest wishes for its complete success.” After a prayer from the Bishop of London, the Prince exclaimed, “The Queen declares this Hall to be now opened!” an announcement which was followed by a burst of cheering, the National Anthem, and the discharge of the Park guns. Then a concert was given, which included the performance of a cantata written expressly for the occasion by Sir Michael Costa.

On the 21st of June the Queen again appeared in London to open the new buildings of St. Thomas’s Hospital on the Albert Embankment, and her neatly-worded reply to the address which was presented to her on that occasion attracted considerable attention, because it was rumoured that it had been carefully written out by herself. It ran as follows:—

Early in summer it was bruited about that an application would be made to the House of Commons for a settlement on Prince Arthur. At first it was whispered that he was to be created Duke of Ulster, and that he was to live in Ireland, an eccentric tribute to the loyalty of the Orangemen, who when the Irish Church was disestablished threatened to “kick the Queen’s Crown into the Boyne.” The idea, however, was abandoned, and the agitation against the Princess Louise’s dowry now broke out anew, especially in Birmingham, in the form of a protest against the usual portion being voted to the Prince on the attainment of his majority. But Mr. Gladstone was not to be intimidated by the Republicans. On the 27th of July he brought down to the House of Commons a Royal Message requesting the customary allowance for a Prince of the Blood to be voted.[32] A few days afterwards the Royal Message was debated, Mr. Peter Taylor moving the rejection of the resolution voting £15,000 a year to the Prince, and Mr. Dixon moving its reduction from £15,000 to £10,000. Eleven members voted for Mr. Taylor, and Mr. Dixon found fifty-one supporters. The grant was easily carried, Mr. Gladstone basing his case on the implied contract made by Parliament to support the Royal Family when the Crown Lands were taken over by the State, and Mr. Disraeli arguing that the English workmen could easily afford to pay for their Monarchy because they were the richest class in the world. But Mr. Gladstone seemed a little nervous when Mr. Dixon indicated that he was forced to demand a reduction of the vote by his constituents, among whom Republicanism, he said, was spreading, because they considered it cheap. The Prime Minister accordingly took occasion to hint that it might be well to establish an arrangement which would render similar applications to Parliament unnecessary, and Mr. Disraeli, not to be outdone, made his bid for popularity by suggesting that the Crown should be allowed to charge Crown Lands for the Queen’s children, just as English nobles charged their estates with portions for their younger sons. Perhaps some of the acerbity of the Radical or Republican members was due to the meddlesomeness of the Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce, who prohibited a public meeting in Trafalgar Square which was fixed for the same evening on which the Royal Message was debated, in order to protest against the grant.[33] The Prince took the title of Duke of Connaught, and settled down to follow a useful career in the Army.

In September the country was greatly grieved to learn that the Queen had fallen seriously ill. Those who had been reproaching her for retiring from active life now began to suspect what was the truth, namely, that the Queen’s labours were not materially lessened by her withdrawal from the exciting functions of each London season. Her illness took the form of a sore throat, accompanied by glandular swellings under the arm, and the sympathetic sentiment of London was expressed by the Times, which mournfully regretted that the Sovereign had ever been pressed to overwork herself.

Gradually the prostration which this illness had caused passed away; but, unhappily, no sooner had her own health ceased to give the Queen cause for anxiety, than that of her eldest son broke down. Nothing could exceed the alarm of the country when it was announced on the 20th of November that the Heir to the Throne was smitten at Sandringham with typhoid fever—the very malady which had cut off his father in his prime. The disease, it was said, had probably been contracted when the Prince was visiting Lord Londesborough at Scarborough, and it was a significant coincidence, not only that Lord Chesterfield, who was staying there at the same time, had been attacked by and had quickly succumbed to the fever, but that six other guests of Lord Londesborough’s had complained of being unwell. On the other hand, it was pointed out that a groom at Sandringham, who had not quitted the place, was smitten at the same time as the Prince, and that it was therefore to bad sanitation at Sandringham that the mishap must be traced. Day by day the nation read the reassuring bulletins with growing anxiety,

relieved only by the knowledge, not only that the Queen herself had taken her place at the sufferer’s sick bed, and that the ever self-sacrificing Princess Louis of Hesse—a nurse of high technical skill—had installed herself in charge of the sick room. The Princess of Wales was herself suffering, doubtless from the same poison which had attacked her husband. Day by day the bulletins were eagerly scanned, not only in the newspapers, but by excited crowds at public places like the Mansion House and Marlborough House, where they were exhibited. After twenty-five days of suffering the Prince, who had shown signs of recovery, had a relapse, and then the worst was feared. The Prince it was thought must die, and the shock of the bereavement might be fatal to the Queen, whose health was already sadly impaired. Englishmen remembered for the first time that only two precarious lives—one of which was flickering between life and death—stood between the country and a Regency. But what might a Regency portend? It had been fatal to the Monarchy in France; within the memory of living men it had nearly proved fatal to the Monarchy in England. When it was announced on the 9th of December that all the members of the Royal Family had suddenly been summoned to Sandringham, securities in the Money Market, with the exception of Consols, fell from one to

two per cent. Twice the physicians warned the Queen that the end was at hand, but at last, on the 14th of December—strangely enough the tenth anniversary of his father’s death—the Prince made a rally, and the bulletins again became more hopeful. Prayers had been offered up for his recovery in every church in the empire, and even the Republican societies had sent addresses of sympathy to the Sovereign. The heart of the people had gone forth to her and to the Princess of Wales in sincere and unrestrained sympathy, and as the year closed an official announcement was made which dispelled the gloom that had settled on all classes. It stated that, though Sir James Paget had not left Sandringham, the Prince was then (29th December) progressing favourably. This was followed by a letter from the Queen to the Home Secretary, in which she said:—“The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son the Prince of Wales. The universal feeling shown by her people during these painful, terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them with herself and her beloved daughter the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement in the Prince of Wales’s state, have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced. It was, indeed, nothing new to her, for the Queen had met with the same sympathy when, just ten years ago, a similar illness removed from her side the mainstay of her life—the best, wisest, and kindest of husbands. The Queen wishes to express at the same time, on the part of the Princess of Wales, her feelings of heartfelt gratitude, for she has been as deeply touched as the Queen by the great and universal manifestation of loyalty and sympathy. The Queen cannot conclude without expressing her hope that her faithful subjects will continue their prayers to God for the complete recovery of her dear son to health and strength.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE “ALABAMA” CLAIMS.

During the first weeks of 1872 the convalescence of the Heir Apparent seemed to obscure all other topics of political interest. The anti-monarchical agitation, which Sir Charles Dilke had fomented, not only by his votes in Parliament, but by his speeches in the country, suddenly subsided, showing that the sentiment of affectionate regard which had linked the Crown and the nation together in the past, was not to be destroyed by political factions who were trading on the temporary and local estrangement of the Queen from her subjects in the capital. Faction, indeed, was for the time silenced throughout the land, and the Queen soon saw that it was the universal desire of the nation that the recovery of the Prince, which had saved the country from much anxiety as to its future under a Regency, should be celebrated by a solemn public function. It was therefore announced in the middle of January that the Queen would proceed in State to St. Paul’s Cathedral on as early a day as could be fixed after the 20th of February, to return thanks for the recovery of her son. Ultimately Tuesday, the 27th of February, was fixed for the ceremony.

The day was clear and bright, though cold, and a wintry sun shone on the splendid pageant, for which elaborate preparations had been made many days before. The demand for tickets to view the spectacle was unprecedented. Carriages were hired at fabulous prices, and writing on the morning of the ceremony to his daughter-in-law, Lord Shaftesbury tells her that when he had ordered a brougham on the previous day at his job-master’s he was told “that every vehicle had been pre-engaged for weeks. Thoroughfares like St. James’s Street were impassable, because for two days before the event they were blocked by crowds who had come to see the preparations.”[34] In fact, as Bishop Wilberforce says in a passage in his Diary, London was “quite wild on Thanksgiving Day.”[35] By general desire the day was celebrated as a national holiday. As for the crowds in the streets along the line of route, they were said to number from a million to a million and a quarter of spectators, and the decorations far surpassed any similar display ever seen in London. The procession started from Buckingham Palace at five minutes past twelve o’clock, led by the carriages of the Speaker, the Lord Chancellor, and the Duke of Cambridge, and was composed of nine royal carriages, in the last of which the Queen was seen accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Her Majesty seemed to be in good health, and she looked supremely happy. The Prince was pale and rather haggard, but his bright and happy nature shone through a countenance radiant with gratitude, and he kept bowing all along the way to the multitudes who cheered him. The hearty reciprocal feeling between the Queen, the Prince, and the populace, which the shouts of such a vast crowd expressed, rendered the scene a magnificent demonstration of national loyalty to a popular Sovereign. At Temple Bar the Queen was met by the Lord Mayor and municipal dignitaries of the City of London, arrayed in their robes, and mounted on white horses. Having alighted, the Lord Mayor delivered to and received back from the Queen the City sword, according to the usual custom. But, contrary to precedent and to general expectation, the gates of Temple Bar were not closed against the Queen, so that it was unnecessary to present her with the

keys. The Lord Mayor and his colleagues having re-mounted their steeds, preceded the Royal procession to St. Paul’s. Precisely at one o’clock the Queen entered the Cathedral through the pavilion erected upon the steps. Its approach was covered with crimson cloth, and it was ornamented with the royal arms and with the escutcheon of the Prince of Wales. On it there was the inscription “I was glad when they said unto me, We will go into the house of the Lord.” Within the Cathedral the scene was imposing and impressive, for all that was exalted in station, high in official position, or eminent by reason of genius, talent, and public services was represented in the congregation of 13,000 persons. Representatives of the Court, the Princes of India, the Colonies, the Houses of Parliament, the Episcopate, the Judges, the Lords-Lieutenant, and the municipal authorities of the provincial towns, were especially prominent. The Queen was received at the Cathedral by the Bishop of

London and the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and by the officers of her household, who were already waiting for her. With the Prince of Wales on her right hand and the Princess of Wales on her left, the Queen, leaning on the Prince’s arm, walked up the nave in a procession which was marshalled by the Lancaster and Somerset Heralds. The special service began at one o’clock with the Te Deum, which was arranged by Mr. Goss for the occasion, and sung by a choir of two hundred and fifty voices. The voice of the Archbishop of Canterbury was inaudible, but the choral part of the ritual was listened to reverently. The words of special thanksgiving were:—“O Father of Mercies and God of all Comfort, we thank Thee that Thou hast heard the prayers of this nation in the day of our trial. We praise and magnify Thy glorious name for that Thou hast raised Thy servant, Albert Edward Prince of Wales, from the bed of sickness. Thou castest down and Thou liftest up, and health and strength are Thy gifts; we pray Thee to perfect the recovery of Thy servant, and to crown him day by day with more abundant blessings, both for body and soul, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Here there was a long pause, during which the dead silence of that vast hushed congregation was described by those present as being almost painful to the ear. Archbishop Tait having pronounced the benediction delivered a sermon which was striking for its brevity and its simple unadorned eloquence. He took for his text the words “Every one members one of another,” and illustrated in a few apt sentences the Divine origin of family life and of the State and of the Church, which, he said, was but the family and the State in relation to God. The illness of the Prince had given a fresh meaning to this conception. Hence “such a day,” observed the Archbishop in his concluding sentence, “makes us feel truly that we are all members one of another.” The religious ceremony ended at two o’clock, and the Royal procession returned to Buckingham Palace amid thunders of artillery from the guns of the Tower and the Park.

With one exception the decorations were successful. That exception—which was noted as curious at the time by the Queen—was at Ludgate Circus, where the triumphal arch, which ought to have been one of the grandest in the metropolis was, by reason of backward preparation, almost a failure. It was not till the procession was nearly within sight that the scaffoldings were taken down, and the scene of confusion as the distracted workmen removed the poles, delighted the mob amazingly.[36] Unfortunately in the hurry, so much damage was done to the gorgeous gold mouldings of the arch, that it presented the appearance of an ancient but freshly gilded ruin. As for the illuminations at night, they were not general—probably because many people did not regard a religious thanksgiving day as a fit occasion for illuminating. The centres of attraction were the dome and west front of St. Paul’s, the dome being picked out by a treble row of coloured ship’s lanterns. The cathedral itself stood out in lurid splendour when transient shafts of lime-light, and the fitful glow of the red light on the gilded ball fell on the building. Two days after the ceremony the following letter was published in the London Gazette:—

On the very day on which this letter was dated a strange attack was made on the Queen. When she returned from her afternoon drive in the Park, she passed along by Buckingham Palace wall, and drove to the gate at which she usually alighted. The carriage had hardly halted when a lad rushed to its left side, and bending forward presented a pistol at the Queen, while he flourished a petition in his hand. He then rushed round the carriage and threw himself into a similar attitude on the other side. The Queen remained calm and unmoved, and the boy’s pistol was taken from him, when it was discovered that it was unloaded. The petition was a poor scrawl, demanding the release of the Fenian prisoners, and the lad gave the name of Arthur O’Connor, and stated his age to be seventeen.[37]

When Parliament assembled in 1872 Mr. Gladstone found himself confronted by an Opposition which had been rendered almost insolently aggressive by their triumphs at the bye-elections. He found himself supported by a majority, each section of which had its special grievance against him. And if he looked beyond Parliament for support he might have seen that a subtle popular suspicion was growing up round his name which was fast neutralising the magic of his personality. It was said, alike by friends and foes, that an overweening love for personal power, and a passion for exercising personal authority over others, had become the guiding motives of his life, and the inspiring ideas of his policy. Had this been true, it is hardly likely that the Prime Minister would have identified himself with legislation which had set the vested interests, and the fanatical sectaries up in arms against him. But the important point was that, whether true or false, the calumny was believed, and the Queen, like many other careful observers, saw the Ministry growing weaker and weaker every day, whilst Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues were themselves under the delusion that every day increased their popularity. And yet, as if to justify the maxim that in politics it is the unexpected that happens, the year was not fruitful in crises or in sensational scenes. Mr. Disraeli held his followers in check, and the Session was a business-like one, which, when it ended, left the Government stronger than could have been anticipated.

The Parliamentary year was opened on the 6th of February, the Queen’s Speech being read by Commission. It promised a Ballot Bill, and Bills for organising Education in Scotland, for regulating Mines, and for improving the Licensing System. The passage in the Speech to which, however, all eyes turned was the one dealing with the Alabama Claims. On this subject the country had suddenly become profoundly agitated, and from an observation in Bishop Wilberforce’s Diary we gather that the Queen, shared the popular feeling of the hour.[38] After the nation had congratulated itself on discovering a diplomatic solution of its difficulties with the American Republic, it was amazed to find that the Americans were endeavouring to seize by chicane what they had failed to gain by diplomacy. When they forwarded the case which they meant to submit to Arbitration, it was discovered that they had included in it not only a claim for the actual damage done to American commerce by the Confederate cruisers, but also the claims for the indirect or “consequential damages” which Mr. Sumner had put forward, and which the British Commissioners understood were abandoned. The sum asked under this head would have covered half the cost of the whole Civil War. It was therefore the clear opinion of the Queen that England could not consent to go into Arbitration till this preposterous demand was withdrawn. Lord Granville, on the other hand, though he inclined to this opinion, was slow to reply to a demand which he was in honour bound to promptly repel. He was chiefly concerned about saving the Washington Treaty, and he therefore sent to the American Government a mild letter requesting the withdrawal of the “indirect claims” in terms so deferentially conciliatory, that had he been dealing with a less pacific Power his despatch would probably have been answered with the cynical

brusquerie that marked Von Bismarck’s dealings with him. But the country was not as meek as the Minister. There was an outburst of popular anger against the Americans for the “sharp practice” which sullied their statement of claim, and Mr. Gladstone soon saw that to go into Arbitration before the demand for “consequential damages” was withdrawn would lead to his expulsion from office. His declarations in Parliament on the subject thenceforth showed that he meant to repudiate the American interpretation of the Treaty under which the “indirect claims” had been dragged into the American case, and he spoke with the high spirit of a statesman rejecting a humiliating demand for tribute greater than conquest itself could extort. The Opposition in both Houses, on the whole, gave the Government generous support in this emergency, though Mr. Disraeli—referring to the torrent of Ministerial oratory which had deluged the recess—could not refrain in his comment on the Queen’s Speech from deriding the Cabinet for having lately lived “in a blaze of apology.”

The story of the controversy on the “indirect claims” may here be told. The United States, in extremely conciliatory despatches, insisted on including these claims in their case. They argued that it was for the arbitrators at Geneva to say whether they were or were not admissible under the Treaty. They rested their contention on an ambiguous phrase which Lord Ripon and Sir Stafford Northcote had unfortunately permitted to pass unconnected into the Treaty. The first Article of that instrument described its object to be that of removing and adjusting “all complaints and claims,” &c., “growing out of acts committed by the said vessels, and generically known as the ‘Alabama’ Claims.” This certainly gave the Americans a plausible excuse for demanding “consequential” as well as direct damages. On the other side, the English Government argued that all the concessions made by the British Commissioners at Washington were made on the understanding that the “indirect claims” were not included in the Treaty; that in all their correspondence with the Washington Department of State no claims save direct claims were ever “generically” known as the Alabama Claims; and, lastly, that their interpretation was publicly expressed and well known to the United States Government, people, and Minister at the Court of St. James’s, and was never objected to by either of them. It would, however, have been easy to put the point beyond dispute when the Treaty was drawn up by specifically barring all indirect claims. When Lord Ripon and Sir Stafford. Northcote failed to do that they were guilty of negligence which, if brought home to the diplomatists of either Russia or Germany, would have procured for them, not rewards and honours, but punishment and degradation. Fortunately the dispute ended happily. Lord Granville for once acted with the firmness becoming the representative of a great nation. When the arbitrators met at Geneva, the representatives of England persistently refused to take part in the proceedings till the “indirect claims” were withdrawn. The arbitrators then adroitly extricated the agents of the Washington Government from a false position. They met and declared that, without reference to the scope of the Treaty or to the merits of the dispute as to its interpretation, which England refused to discuss before them, they were agreed that “indirect claims” could never, on general principles of international law, be a tenable ground for an award of damages in international disputes.

The Americans then withdrew the obnoxious part of their “case,” and the arbitrators awarded to the United States £3,229,000 damages against England for the depredations committed by three out of the ten Confederate cruisers which, it was alleged, the British Government had negligently permitted to escape from British ports. The American claim for naval expenses incurred in chasing these cruisers was, however, rejected, because the arbitrators held that it could not be practically distinguished from the general cost of the war. The Lord Chief Justice of England—one of the members of the Tribunal—concurred in the judgment as regards the Alabama. He differed from all his colleagues in regard to the Florida, and he and the Brazilian arbitrator differed from the majority as to the case of the Shenandoah.[39] The failure of the English Government to seize the Florida and Alabama, when they put into British ports after they had made their escape, was evidently the fact which bore most strongly against England in the opinion of the Geneva Tribunal. The American claims for damages in respect of the Georgia, Chickamauga, Nashville, Retribution, Sumter, and Tallahassee, were rejected. On the whole, public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, though not quite satisfied with the verdict, allowed that there had been a fair fight and a fair trial. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn’s dissenting judgment, however, expressed the feeling of the English people, which was this. “Let us admit,” they said, “the ex post facto rule making neutrals liable for damages if they do not exercise ‘due diligence’—the ‘dueness of diligence’ to be always proportionate to the mischief the vessels might do—in preventing the escape of cruisers, and in re-capturing them when they get the chance. English officials were, however, not aware that, when these cruisers escaped and when on re-entering British ports they were not detained, international law demanded from them more ‘dueness’ of diligence than they had exercised or been taught to exercise. Hence it surely was wrong to give damages for their unconscious negligence, just as if their negligence had been conscious.” This argument, indeed, Sir Alexander Cockburn pressed to the point of cutting down to zero the claim for damages in respect of the Shenandoah and Florida.

One of the most important Government measures of the year was the Ballot Act. But the opposition to it was marked by no novelty of argument, and it need only be said about it here that it was passed, the Lords not venturing to reject it a second time.[40] The Scottish Education Bill, which also passed, established a School Board system of public instruction all over Scotland far in advance of that which England had been able to obtain. A Licensing Bill of a mildly regulative character was carried, the publicans grudgingly accepting it as a compromise, while the Temperance Party attacked it as miserably ineffective.[41] Mr. Stansfeld’s Public Health Bill, defining the authority which must in future be responsible for local sanitation, and embodying the principle that rates should be divided between the State and the locality was so adroitly managed by Mr. Stansfeld, that at last Mr. Disraeli supported the Government in carrying it. Another useful measure regulating the working of Coal Mines was carried in spite of many protests against interfering with private contracts between masters and servants, and many attempts on the part of the vested interests who were supported by the bulk of the Tory Party, to render the Bill inoperative. Among other things it prohibited the employment of women underground, and it made mine-owners responsible for the results of preventible mining accidents.

Mr. Cardwell’s Army Bill was received with unlocked for favour. It attempted to adapt the territorial system of Prussia to the exigencies of military service in England. The nine existing military divisions were subdivided into sixty-six military districts. In each of these a small army or brigade was formed, consisting of two battalions of Regulars, to which were linked the local Militia and Volunteers. One of the regular battalions was to be told off for foreign service, and its “waste” supplied by drafts from the territorial depôt. The main objection to the scheme urged by Conservative officers was that it destroyed the family life of the old regiments—that it even destroyed their identity by substituting local titles for the numbers which their prowess in war had in many cases made historic. According to this scheme the country would have an Army of 446,000 men, of whom 146,000 were available for service abroad. The evidence given before the Commission which reported on the wreck of the Megæra, concentrated attention on Admiralty Reform. On the whole, the country gave Mr. Childers credit for having brought order into that chaotic department. Before he came to power the various branches of the Admiralty had little or no connection with each other, and when a blunder was made by conflicting authority or contradictory orders, nobody could be made responsible. Mr. Childers set responsible officers at the head of each department, and made excellent arrangements for their mutual co-operation. But the weak point of his scheme was that he as First Lord was the real nexus which bound the whole organisation together. The system accordingly broke down when his health gave way, for Mr. Lushington, who was in a sense the Grand Vizier of the First Lord, was a civilian comparatively new to the department, and unable to act as an efficient substitute for Mr. Childers.[42] Mr. Goschen met the difficulty, not by appointing a naval expert as his second in command, but by casting responsibility for all orders on three officials—a Naval Secretary who was to be responsible for orders concerning the personnel, a Controller who was to be responsible for those relating to the matériel, and a Permanent Secretary who was to be responsible for those affecting finance and civil business. To secure unity of work the Board of Admiralty was to meet daily for consultation, and in the First Lord’s absence the supreme authority was to pass to the First Naval Lord of the Admiralty.

In spite of a serious defeat on Sir Massey Lopes’ motion on the question of Local Taxation,[43] a narrow escape from defeat on the Collier scandal, and a clever mocking attack by Mr. Disraeli at Manchester in the spring on their sensational policy and their ambiguous utterances on the proposals of their extreme supporters, the Ministers were stronger in Parliament when the Session ended than when it began. Mr. Lowe’s Budget further helped the credit of the Government, for such was the elasticity of the revenue that it foreshadowed a surplus of £3,000,000, and enabled him to remit the twopenny Income Tax which he had imposed in 1871.[44] Ireland, however, was as usual a source of anxiety to the Cabinet. The Tories and Orangemen, indignant at the Disestablishment of the Church, had coalesced with the more moderate Repealers, and set on foot the Home Government Association,[45] from which the Home Rule Party under the leadership of Mr. Isaac Butt sprang. Whenever the Ballot Act was passed, Home Rule candidates began to carry the Irish bye-elections against the Ministerialists—in fact, it was apparent to shrewd observers that the destruction of the Liberal Party in Ireland was now only a matter of time. Earl Russell was probably of this opinion when, in August, he startled the town by publishing a letter in the Times virtually conceding the principle of Home Rule in order to lighten the burden of Imperial legislation with which Parliament was overweighted.[46]

As for the Opposition, their councils were divided. Lord Salisbury was averse from promising any programme. Mr. Disraeli seemed afraid to suggest one that went beyond sanitary reform. Yet the Tories had completely broken the absolute power of Mr. Gladstone in the country, and were still, as the Municipal Elections in November showed, a growing party. The causes which contributed to a reaction in their favour in 1871 were still at work. Mr. Gladstone’s opposition to Sir Massey Lopes’ motion on rating, and the sudden appearance of Trades Unionism among the agricultural labourers gave Conservatism hosts of fresh recruits, for the squires and the farmers naturally rallied to the Party whose leaders stood forth as champions of the threatened interests.

The attempt of O’Connor on the Queen’s life was not the only crime of the kind that darkened the year. On the 8th of February Lord Mayo, the Viceroy of India, was stabbed to death by a Mahommedan convict at Port Blair, the port of the penal settlement on the Andaman Islands, to which Lord Mayo was paying a visit of inspection. The assassin was a sullen, brooding fanatic who had been transported for killing a relative with whom he had a “blood feud.” The Queen was as much shocked as the country by the event, for by this time it was universally recognised that Lord Mayo was one of the most competent Viceroys who had ever ruled India. His intuitive insight into difficulties, his shrewd perception of character, his frank resoluteness of action, his clearness and decision of purpose, and his dignified and stately bearing rendered Lord Mayo an ideal viceroy. His great work consisted in cementing an alliance with the Afghan Ameer, in imposing an income-tax to rehabilitate the finances of India, and suppressing a rebellious movement among the Wahabee fanatics.

Early in May telegrams were received in London announcing that Dr. Livingstone, the African explorer, as to whose safety much anxiety had been felt, had been discovered by Mr. Stanley, a special correspondent on the staff of the New York Herald, who had been despatched by Mr. J. Gordon Bennett, the proprietor of that journal, to look for the missing traveller. The Queen received these tidings with the deepest gratification, not unmingled with regret that the honour of the discovery should pass to an American expedition. Her interest in Livingstone, and in his last efforts to discover the sources of the Nile, was well known—indeed, when in England the explorer had a private interview with her Majesty, of which an account is given in Mr. Blaikie’s “Personal Life of Dr. Livingstone.” “She [the Queen] sent for Livingstone,” writes Mr. Blaikie, “who attended her Majesty at the Palace without ceremony, in his black coat and blue trousers and his cap surrounded with a stripe of gold lace. This was his usual attire, and the cap had now become the appropriate distinction of one of her Majesty’s Consuls—an official position to which the traveller attaches great importance as giving him consequence in the eyes of natives and authority over the members of the expedition. The Queen conversed with him affably for half-an-hour on the subject of his travels. Dr. Livingstone told her Majesty that he would now be able to say to the natives that he had seen his chief, his not having done so before having been a constant subject of surprise to the children of the African wilderness. He mentioned to her Majesty also that the people were in the habit of inquiring whether his chief were wealthy, and when he answered them that she was very wealthy they would ask how many cows she had got, a question at which the Queen laughed very heartily.” Mr. Stanley had found Livingstone at Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika, and on his way back to Zanzibar he met the English Expedition, which had been despatched by the Royal Geographical Society, carrying succour to the explorer. As Livingstone’s orders were to refuse this tardy aid, the chiefs of the British Expedition had to return. Some people were at first sceptical as to the story told by Mr. Stanley, but doubts were set at rest on the 27th of August, when Lord Granville sent to Mr. Stanley a gold snuff-box set with diamonds as a gift from the Queen. Accompanying the present was the following letter:—

In June the Queen had to mourn the loss of a highly trusted old family friend, Dr. Norman Macleod of Glasgow. He had been long ailing, and when at Balmoral, in May, the Queen at her last interview with him was so struck with his physical weakness that she insisted on his being seated whilst he was in her presence. Macleod’s influence as a courtier was built up partly on his ability as an eloquent pulpit orator, and his tact as a kindly, genial, shrewd, tolerant man of the world. He had genuine goodness of heart, and he had not only the supple diplomatic skill of the Celt, but the Celt’s inborn and honest love and reverence for rank and dignities. It was quite a mistake to suppose that his “flunkeyism” made him a persona grata at Court. On the contrary, he was in the unique position of being a Royal Chaplain on whom the Queen could not confer any favour or dignity. She could not give him a richer living in the Church than the one he had obtained without her patronage, and as a Presbyterian clergyman he could never be suspected of intriguing for hierarchical rank when he approached the Sovereign. His disinterestedness, too, was well known, for it was to Macleod’s credit that during his long connection with the Court, though he was frequently entrusted with missions concerning matters of delicate family business, he never even asked for a favour either for himself or any of his relatives. When the vague rumour of his death reached the Queen she addressed the following letter to Dr. Macleod’s brother:—