There is little more to add. It had been part of Elphinstone’s shameful bargain with Akbar Khan that Jellalabad and Candahar should be evacuated before the army of Cabul should reach the former place, and orders had been sent to General Sale in Jellalabad and General Nott in Candahar to abandon these towns. Luckily, these officers were of the right British stamp, and they refused to obey. Akbar Khan besieged Sale in Jellalabad; Sale not only held that place but gave battle to the Afghans outside the fort, routed them, and made ready to co-operate with General Nott at Candahar for a forward movement on Cabul. But the faculties of Lord Auckland, the Governor-General, seemed paralysed. Regardless of British prestige, the very keystone of our rule in India, he ordered the precipitate recall of all the troops in Afghanistan. Luckily, again, his term of office was just drawing to a close, and Lord Ellenborough came out to take the reins of government. At first he issued a proclamation endorsing the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but more spirited counsel prevailed in the end. The re-conquest of Cabul was accomplished by the entry of General Pollock into the capital on September 15, 1842, when it was found that the unfortunate Shah Soojah had paid the penalty of the greatness thrust on him by English diplomacy, and had been assassinated by the people he had been set to rule. Of the English ladies and children who had been taken under the protection of Akbar Khan the story has been written in a once famous book, Lady Sale’s Journal. The husband of that lady, General Sir Robert Sale, was sent to recover the captives, who had suffered innumerable hardships. General Elphinstone had died—the best thing that could happen for his fame; the rest were found in a hill fort in the Indian Caucasus, in charge of a chief, who, having heard of Akbar Khan’s defeat, was easily bribed to surrender his trust. The retreat from Cabul had begun on January 6, but the news did not reach England till March 7.

The Tories—or, as they must in future be called, the Conservatives—had been carried to power by a strong wave of reaction in 1841, but it was the destiny of their leader, Sir Robert Peel, to shake the fabric of the Party to its base. There was a story current, of dubious authenticity, about this statesman, how that in his early days his father, also Sir Robert, warned Lord Liverpool that if the young man did not get office immediately he would go over to the Whigs and be lost to his party, whereupon Liverpool immediately appointed him Irish Secretary. No doubt Peel was far more disposed for progress and reform than the average Whig, and there was something paradoxical in the fate that made him leader of the Tories. At first all went smoothly; the leader of the House of Commons was chief of the Ministerial forces and master of the Opposition also. But the first note of approaching storm was sounded on the eve of the meeting of Parliament in February, 1842. The Duke of Buckingham, Lord Privy Seal, resigned his office and seat in the Cabinet on January 31. The reason for this, as the Duke afterwards announced in Parliament, lay in the following expression in the Queen’s Speech:—“I recommend to your consideration the state of the laws which affect the importation of corn, and of other articles, the produce of foreign countries.” |The Corn Duties.| This little sentence, wedged in among the usual ceremonial or occasional paragraphs, contained the kernel of the Ministerial programme, and at once excited extraordinary interest in the country. On February 9, when Peel was to propound his scheme, the delegates of the Anti-Corn Law League marched down in procession to Westminster, and it required all the force of the police on duty to keep them from taking possession of the lobby of the House of Commons.

This League was a remarkable organisation under a no less remarkable leader. Richard Cobden, the son of a yeoman farmer, was employed in his youth in a London warehouse, and then became partner in a Manchester cotton factory. He first attracted notice as a pamphleteer, attacking some of the most cherished traditions of British statesmanship. He travelled far and wide on the business of his firm, and in every country he visited his thoughtful mind gathered material for the doctrines inseparably associated with his name. |The Pioneers of Free Trade.| He first entered Parliament in 1841, being recognised at that time as the leader of the movement in the country against the corn duties. Mr. Charles Villiers had won for himself the position of parliamentary head of the Free Trade party; to him Cobden came not as a rival but as a wise, resourceful ally. A third figure was soon to be added to this famous group in the person of John Bright, a Quaker manufacturer in Rochdale. A notable trio, each supplying the complement of the other’s qualities; Villiers, of aristocratic birth and connections, well acquainted with the rules and peculiar temperament of the House of Commons, ardent, industrious, and well informed; Cobden, a man of the people, temperate, just, “the apostle of common-sense,” and singularly persuasive; Bright, intensely—sternly in earnest, possessing gifts of oratory denied to his colleagues, but exercising them with a discretion rare among fluent speakers. Lastly, one attribute shared equally by each of the three men—absolute integrity and complete disinterestedness. They were Radicals, but they dissociated themselves from all ties of political party, looking for no reward from either side, but ready to support any Minister who would carry out their views. Their appeal was addressed to the understanding, not to the passions, of men: their aim was to secure cheap food for the masses, but they never stooped to inflammatory tirades against the classes. Hence the steady, rapid growth of the League, and its irresistible influence on the Queen’s Ministers. Mr. Villiers had advocated for many years the total abolition of the corn duties, and nothing less would now satisfy the League. Russell, who scouted the very idea of absolutely free imports, had yielded so far as to propose, in 1841, a fixed duty on foreign corn, greatly less than the existing rate, which varied between 27s. and 1s. per quarter, according to the market price. Peel came forward in 1842 with a more liberal remission of duty, but although his Bill was passed by a very large majority, all it did was to make the country party behind him uneasy without conciliating the Anti-Corn Law people. No one but men of the Manchester school—“Cobdenites,” as they afterwards came to be called—no one, either Whig or Tory, dreamt of denying that protection was desirable, even necessary, for agriculture. Peel’s first measure was framed to protect wheat growers against a fall in the average price below 56s. a quarter, and also to protect the consumer against a higher price. But the corn duties had been fixed in 1815: a whole generation had grown up under them: their outworks could not be tampered with without risking the stability of the whole structure. It required a momentum of extraordinary force to carry the movement against them to success. That impetus came, in the autumn of 1845, from two sources equally unforeseen. |Failure of Potato Crop in Ireland.| First arrived news of a destructive disease, wasting the potato crop in Ireland. Potatoes had grown to be to the Irish peasant what wheat is to English, what oats still were to Scottish labourers. The Government were informed that one-third of the food of the people was already destroyed, that the disease was still spreading, and no estimate could be formed of how much of the crop could be saved. Deadly disaster was imminent, and the Cabinet was summoned to many anxious deliberations. The Prime Minister advocated that in order to avert famine all ports should be thrown open to corn ships. He coupled this advice with the warning that, once the duties were suspended, he did not think it would be possible to re-establish them. The warning weighed more with the Cabinet than the advice. Three Ministers only—Lord Aberdeen, Sir James Graham, and Sidney Herbert—supported Peel’s proposal. It was set aside, and a Commission was appointed instead to take measures to mitigate the immediate necessity in Ireland.

The other source of impetus referred to was Lord John Russell’s declaration at this juncture of his total conversion to the principle of free trade in corn. His proposed modification in 1841 of the duties had been less liberal than that of Peel in 1842. It had been a fixed duty instead of a sliding scale. |Lord John Russell’s conversion to Free Trade.| But there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his conversion or to suspect him of merely desiring to gain a party advantage. The circumstances of the Anti-Corn Law party at the moment were not such as to tempt the leader of the Opposition to embrace their programme out of a mere desire to steal a march on his opponents.

The immediate effect of Russell’s conversion, coming on the top of alarming news from Ireland, was to send Peel forward on a course he had been contemplating for years. |Peel and Repeal.| He read a memorandum to the Cabinet on December 2 recommending that Parliament should be summoned early in January, and that he should submit a Bill for the practical and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws. Lord Stanley and the Duke of Buccleuch refused their support to this policy. The Duke of Wellington said he was still in favour of maintaining the Corn Laws, but that if Peel considered that their repeal was necessary for the maintenance of his position “in Parliament and in the public view,” he would support the measure. The Cabinet adjourned till next day. By some accident—it was said that a lady was the means of it—the Times became possessed of the secret, and on December 4 the startling announcement appeared in its columns that the Cabinet had resolved on the Repeal of the Corn Laws. The only modern parallel to the consternation ensuing in the clubs and the country may be found in that which took place when, in 1886, it was made known that Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet had decided to give Home Rule to Ireland. Many refused to believe the statement in the Times, alleging that it was impossible that a Cabinet secret could have leaked out in this way. The Standard published an emphatic, though not authoritative, contradiction of the story. Excitement and dismay, delight and disgust, contended for mastery wheresoever a few men gathered together: in a few days all was known. Lord Stanley—the “Rupert of debate,” as Disraeli afterwards called him—and the Duke of Buccleuch resigned their seats in the Cabinet. Peel would not consent to proceed without the unanimous consent of his colleagues; on December 5 he went to Osborne and tendered his resignation to the Queen. |Rupture of the Tory Party.| Lord John Russell was at once sent for to form a Ministry: he attempted to do so, but failed: Lord Grey’s distrust of Lord Palmerston’s foreign policy proving a fatal obstacle to it. Peel, on being required to do so by the Queen, withdrew his resignation and resumed the duties of office. The Duke of Buccleuch returned as Privy Seal, but Lord Stanley was not to be reconciled, and Mr. Gladstone entered the Cabinet for the first time as Colonial Secretary.

Parliament met on January 22, 1846. Expectation was at the boiling point; it was one of those rare occasions, happening not more than once or twice in an ordinary reign, when the ears of the whole country await an announcement of interest to every class in it. Adopting an unusual, almost unprecedented, course, the Prime Minister rose immediately after the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Address: he entered into no details of the measure foreshadowed in the Queen’s Speech, but he removed all shadow of doubt that the Ministry had resolved on the total repeal of the corn duties. |The Corn Duties repealed.| Those who know the ways of the House of Commons will best understand the significance of a comment made by one who was present. “He did not get a solitary cheer from the people behind him except when he said that Stanley had always been against him ... and then the whole of those benches rung with cheers.” Perhaps nothing in his speech gave deeper offence to his Party than the concluding sentence, in which he declared that he found it “no easy task to ensure the harmonious and united action of an ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed House of Commons.”

The spokesman of the angry Tories was one of whom much was to be heard in coming years. Benjamin Disraeli had done nothing as yet to redeem the apparently hopeless failure of his maiden speech in 1837. Outwardly, a remarkable figure enough, in a Parliamentary sense he was no more than obscure when he rose from his seat on the Government benches to lead the first attack on the new policy. He was bitter, he was personal, but he was adroitly opportune; and his fame as a statesman dates from that day.

The immediate result was a split—a secession. The House of Commons ratified Peel’s policy by a majority of ninety-seven, but Disraeli himself has put on record the feelings which animated Peel’s ancient supporters. |Defeat and Resignation of the Government.| “Vengeance had succeeded in most breasts to the more sanguine sentiment: the field was lost, but at any rate there should be retribution for those who had betrayed it.”

The opportunity for vengeance was not long delayed. The Corn Bill left the House of Commons on May 15. On June 25 it passed the third reading in the House of Lords, and the most momentous measure of Queen Victoria’s reign awaited only the Royal Assent to complete it. On that very night the House of Commons were to divide on one of those Bills conferring extraordinary powers on the Executive in Ireland which it has been the fate of successive Governments to introduce—Coercion Bills, as they are called for short. The Protectionists perceived what lay in their power: if they threw their weight in with the regular Opposition and O’Connell’s Irish Catholics, they could defeat their lost leader. About eighty of them did so: the rest stayed away and Ministers were left in a minority of seventy-three.

Peel resigned: “he had lost a party but won a nation.” He never returned to office, but, though he did not live to see it, the principles for which he fought and fell became those of the Conservative party.

During the five years of his last Administration he had restored equilibrium to the national finances. He turned the deficit of two millions to which he succeeded to a surplus of five millions in 1845. He carried the grant to the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth against the votes of half his own party, though it cost him the loss of his colleague, Mr. W. E. Gladstone. |Review of Peel’s Administration.| Mr. Gladstone himself lived to abolish the grant, for it was he who ruled the whirlwind that swept away the Irish State Church in 1866, and the Maynooth grants disappeared with it. Peel’s Administration must also be credited with a marked advance in legislation for the working classes. Lord Ashley (better known in later years as Earl of Shaftesbury) had obtained the appointment of a Commission to inquire into the employment of women in collieries: the horrible evils thereby brought to light, the infamous degradation of women and girls, harnessed like beasts of draught with a girdle round their waist—unclothed, unwashed, and sometimes hopelessly crippled—deeply moved the public mind, and the Act of 1842, prohibiting the employment of females in mines, passed almost without opposition. More prolonged was the resistance to the Factory Act of 1844, regulating the hours of labour of youthful persons. This beneficent legislation should not be overlooked in the glare of conflict over the Corn Laws.

CHAPTER IV.
1833–1849.

The Churches of England and Scotland—“Tracts for the Times”—Newman, Keble, and Pusey—“Ten Years’ Conflict” in Scotland—Disruption of the Church—Dr. Chalmers—Rise of the Free Church—Affairs of British India—First Sikh War—Battles of Meeanee, Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon—Second Sikh War—Murder of Vans Agnew and Anderson—Battle of Ramnuggur—Siege and Fall of Mooltan—Battles of Chilianwalla and Goojerat—Annexation of the Punjab.

THE upheavals which took place simultaneously in the Established Churches of England and Scotland, during the early years of Victoria’s reign, and so profoundly stirred religious sentiment in both countries, can scarcely have arisen from independent centres of disturbance, though the connection between them is not easy to trace. |The Churches of England and Scotland.| They were the outcome of an awaking from the condition of inactivity and routine into which both these Protestant Churches had passed after the agitating events of the seventeenth century, and an attempt on the part of the more active intellects, both in clergy and people, to restore ecclesiastical authority and discipline.

The movement in England has been reckoned by the late Cardinal Newman, himself one of the leading spirits in it before his secession to Rome, as beginning with a sermon preached by John Keble in the University pulpit, Oxford, on July 14, 1833, afterwards published under the title “National Apostasy.” |“Tracts for the Times.” Newman, Keble, and Pusey.| About the same time began the publica­tion of “Tracts for the Times,” conducted by a group of earnest, active men, including Newman, Keble, Pusey, and others, advocating a revival of High Church observances as a means of quickening spiritual life and a restoration of the patristic doctrines and practice in Church government and services. From these tracts the movement became known as “Tractarian,” till in 1841 their publication came to a sudden end by reason of the famous Tract No. 90, written by Newman, and deeply offensive to Protestant feeling in England. Newman joined the Church of Rome in 1845, and thereafter the term “Puseyite” was popularly used to designate this party.

The corresponding movement in the Established Presbyterian Church of Scotland, commonly referred to as the Ten Years’ Conflict, arose out of a question of Church government rather than one of theology. |The “Ten Years’ Conflict” in Scotland.| Lay patronage had been imposed on the Church of Scotland by the Act of 1712. The revival of spiritual activity, which in England took the shape of the Tractarian movement, was equally perceptible in Scotland, and resulted in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland passing the Veto Act in 1834, by which it was declared to be a fundamental law of the Church that no pastor could be appointed to a parish against the will of the majority of the congregation. It was not long before this led to appeals from the Ecclesiastical to the Civil Courts. |Disruption of the Church.| In 1842 the General Assembly presented to the Queen a “claim, declaration, and protest,” accompanied by an address praying for the abolition of patronage, to which the Home Secretary made reply that the Government could not interfere. In March 1843, the House of Commons decided by 211 votes to 76 against attempting to redress the grievance, and on May 18 following, the non-intrusion party withdrew from the General Assembly and constituted the first Assembly of the Free Church, under the leadership of Dr. Thomas Chalmers. |Dr. Chalmers.| The action was all the more significant because Chalmers, the most powerful and popular preacher in the Scottish Church of that day, and a distinguished leader of ecclesiastical thought, had hitherto been a powerful champion of the connection of Church and State. But he had thrown himself with great earnestness into the work of reclaiming the masses and bringing them into direct relations with the Church, and he felt convinced that this great work could not be carried to success unless the Church were free to choose her own instruments. |Rise of the Free Church.| Four hundred and seventy parish ministers resigned their livings and joined the Free Church. A sustentation fund was set up, based on a calculation made by Chalmers that a penny a week from each member of a congregation would produce a stipend of £150 a year for 500 ministers. It amounted to no less than £367,000 in the first year of disruption.

The existence of British territory in India, side by side with territory under British protection and States wholly under native rule, was a condition of things neither conducive to peace nor likely to be of a permanent nature. |Affairs of British India.| A single spark dropped among the warlike races inhabiting that vast peninsula was often enough to cause wide-spreading conflagration; and, however agreeable it might be to British consciences, it would be unphilosophic in the highest degree to attribute the blame for such outbreaks exclusively to the native rulers and people. Trouble broke out early in 1843 which led to the annexation by the British of Scinde, a fine territory lying between the Indian Ocean and the Cutch on the south, and southern Afghanistan and the Punjab on the north. Scinde had been divided into three provinces—Hyderabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpore—each ruled by a group of Ameers or hereditary chiefs, descended from Beloochee conquerors, who, it was said, most cruelly oppressed the people under them. Successive treaties had been effected with these rulers by the Indian Government, but the disaster which fell on the British arms in Cabul seems to have encouraged them to withhold some of the tribute due by them under the latest treaty, and they began warlike preparations. |The First Sikh War.| In 1842 Lord Ellenborough appointed Sir Charles Napier Commander-in-Chief of the British troops in Scinde, with instructions to inflict signal punishment on any chiefs detected in treachery, at the same time empowering him to make a fresh treaty, relieving the Ameers from the payment of any subsidy for the support of British troops. This treaty was at length signed, though it must be confessed that the Ameers were only induced to consent to it by the threatening display of Napier’s force. On February 15, 1843, the British Residency at Hyderabad was attacked by 8,000 troops with six guns, led by one or more of the Ameers, and the garrison of 100 men under Major Outram was driven out after a gallant resistance. |Battles of Meeanee, Moodkee, Ferozeshah, Aliwal and Sobraon.| Napier marched to Muttaree the following day with a force of 3,000, attacked the Ameers, who had an army of 22,000 Beloochees, on the morning of the 17th at Meeanee, six miles from Hyderabad, defeated them, and captured their whole artillery, ammunition, baggage, and considerable treasure. The British loss amounted to 256 killed and wounded. Hyderabad was occupied, but the Ameer of Meerpore was still under arms, holding a strong position at Dubba, about four miles from Hyderabad, with 20,000 men. Napier attacked him, and a battle lasting for three hours ended in the complete defeat of Shere Mahomed and the occupation of Meerpore by the British. Sir Charles Napier continued warlike operations at intervals against the hill tribes north of Shikarpore, and there can be but one opinion of the masterly way in which he handled the troops under his command. But the policy of the Governor-General was open to some difference of opinion. He had carried things with a high hand in dealing with the Ameers, and early in 1844 he was recalled by the unanimous vote of the Court of Directors of the East India Company, and Sir Henry Hardinge was appointed in his place.

Hardinge applied himself to the peaceful preparation of railroad schemes for the development of India, but at the close of 1845 events again forced the Government forward on the path of fresh conquest. At that time the Punjab, a kingdom consisting both of independent Sikh States and those under British protection, was under nominal rule of the boy-king, Dhuleep Singh, and his mother, the Ranee; but his government at Lahore was distracted by faction and lay at the mercy of his own powerful army. In December 1845, the Sikh forces, for some reason which has never been clearly explained, began massing on the British frontier, and crossed the Sutlej, 15,000 or 20,000 strong, on the 13th. Sir Hugh Gough advanced by forced marches to meet them, attacked them at Moodkee and defeated them, capturing seventeen guns. The Sikhs retired to a strongly-entrenched camp at Ferozeshah, whither Gough, reinforced by Sir John Littler’s division from Ferozepore, followed them on the 21st. The Sikh army was now upwards of 50,000 strong, with 108 heavy guns in fixed batteries. The British force consisted of 16,700 men and sixty-nine guns, chiefly horse artillery. There ensued one of the severest conflicts in the history of our Indian Empire. Beginning on the 21st it lasted through part of the 22nd, and ended in the gallant Sikhs being driven across the Sutlej with the loss of many killed and wounded, and no less than seventy guns. The Governor-General, Sir Henry Hardinge, acted as a volunteer, second in command to Sir Hugh Gough, in this memorable action.

Early in January 1846, Sirdar Runjoor Singh, again advancing towards the frontier, took up a strong position on the British side of the Sutlej, threatening Gough’s line of communications with Loodiana. Major-General Sir Harry Smith attacked him at Aliwal on January 28, and, notwithstanding the great superiority in numbers of the enemy, obtained a brilliant victory over the Sikhs, capturing their camp and fifty-two guns. But more fighting had to be done before the army of the Punjab could be finally subdued. |The Second Sikh War.| The Sikhs still lay at Sobraon with 30,000 of their best troops, defended by a triple line of breastworks, flanked by redoubts, and armed with seventy guns. Here Sir Hugh Gough attacked them on the morning of February 10, the Governor-General again being present as second in command. At nine o’clock, after an hour’s cannonade, Brigadier Stacey advanced to storm the entrenchments with four battalions, which behaved with splendid gallantry under a very heavy and well-directed fire. They stormed the position, and, being well supported, forced their way into the fortress. By eleven o’clock all was over. The Sikhs were in full flight across the Sutlej, leaving behind them piles of dead and wounded, sixty-seven guns, 200 camel swivels, and all their baggage and ammunition. The British loss consisted of 320 killed, including seventeen officers (among whom were Major-General Sir Robert Dick, General McLaren, and Brigadier Taylor), and 2,063 wounded, including 139 officers. But the carnage among the Sikhs was far more terrible. It is supposed that not less than eight or ten thousand of them perished in action or were drowned in crossing the river under the fire of the British artillery. On February 22 Gough occupied the citadel of Lahore; the Governor-General issued a proclamation from that place, and a treaty was subsequently concluded establishing Dhuleep Singh as Maharajah, tributary to the British Government.

War broke out again in the Punjab in 1848. On April 17 Mr. Vans Agnew and Lieutenant Anderson, British Agents at Mooltan, were murdered. On August 18 General Whish besieged Mooltan with 28,000 men. |Murder of Vans Agnew and Anderson. Battle of Ramnuggur.| Lord Gough arrived on November 21, and took command of the entire British force. Next day he advanced to attack the enemy at Ramnuggur, where both banks of the river were held by the Sikhs. By a most unfortunate piece of strategy the cavalry division, consisting of the 3rd Dragoons and the 5th, 8th, and 14th Light Horse, supported by Horse Artillery, were ordered forward under General Cureton to dislodge the enemy from the left bank of the river. This they accomplished with admirable gallantry, but not without suffering terrible loss, owing to the difficult nature of the ground. Colonel Havelock fell at the head of the 14th Light Dragoons; General Cureton and Captain Fitzgerald were also killed. On December 2 Lord Gough crossed the Chenab, and the enemy, after exchanging a cannonade for several hours, retired towards the north-west.

Meantime, General Whish was carrying on the siege of Mooltan with an army of 32,000 men and 150 guns. It is impossible to speak too highly of the splendid defence made by the Sikhs under Moolraj. |Siege and Fall of Mooltan.| By December 29 the British siege guns were bombarding the city walls at eighty yards range. On the 30th the principal magazine in the citadel blew up with a terrific explosion, and the town was in flames. Still the brave garrison fought on. The bombardment continued without intermission for fifty hours. On January 2, 1849, the town, or the wreck of what had once been a town, was taken by assault; but the citadel still held out. From the 4th to the 18th it was incessantly bombarded, and mines were exploded at intervals under the walls, till at last, on the 21st, two wide breaches had been made, and a general assault was ordered for the following day. Moolraj anticipated this by unconditional surrender. His garrison, less than 4,000 men, marched into the British lines to lay down their arms; the last man to leave the fort, in the heroic defence of which he had won undying glory, was Moolraj, dressed in gorgeous silks, splendidly armed, riding a superb Arab with a scarlet saddle-cloth.