Seeing that it has been necessary to relate some of the many atrocities perpetrated by the rebel leaders, it would be unfair to keep regarding one that was enacted here by an English officer. A brave young fellow called Hodson, commanding an irregular force well-known as Hodson’s Horse, asked General Wilson’s permission to capture the King of Delhi and his family. Wilson consented, provided the old King’s life should be preserved. The King and his sons had taken refuge in an immense enclosure, the tomb of the Emperor Hoomayoon, adjoining the city, where he was guarded by a strong armed force. Hodson quietly rode up with a small escort and called on the troops to lay down their arms. Believing, no doubt, that the English officer had ample force at hand to enforce his command, they instantly obeyed. The King’s life was spared, according to orders, but, shameful to say, Hodson summoned the three Princes—the King’s sons—before him, and shot them with his own hand. It was a horrible act, but in the spirit of vengeance then prevalent, many were found to justify it, and Hodson was never brought to trial. He was killed in action at Lucknow not long after.

While these events were passing, General Anson, Commander-in-Chief of the forces in India, died on June 27. It was decided to send out Sir Colin Campbell to replace him. On being asked when he would be ready to start Sir Colin answered with characteristic promptitude: “To-morrow”; and he sailed the following day without waiting to prepare his outfit.

Sir Henry Lawrence,G Chief Commissioner of Oude, had fortified and provisioned the Residency of Lucknow where, on July 2, he was besieged, having with him a single battalion of Europeans and all the European inhabitants of the station. |The Relief of Lucknow.| Lawrence was killed at the opening of the siege, but the little garrison held out with magnificent resolution till, on September 25, they were relieved by Havelock and Outram. But these generals were in turn hemmed in by immense masses of rebel troops, and it was not until Sir Colin Campbell fought his way to Lucknow, on November 17, that the garrison with the women and children could be considered to be relieved. One of those who endured this long and painful siege was that Dr. Brydon, who had ridden alone into Jellalabad after the awful retreat from Cabul in 1842.

The Residency was evacuated on the 22nd, and Havelock, outworn with the heroic exertions of the past six months, died on the 24th. |Death of Havelock.| If Lord Canning’s calm resolution and Mr. Montgomery’s bold promptitude were the chief agents in checking the proportions of the rebellion, it was Havelock’s masterly generalship and cool courage in face of overwhelming numbers that first broke the military spirit of the insurgents. Soon after Havelock’s death, Sir Colin was obliged to suspend operations at Lucknow in order to repair a disaster which had overtaken General Wyndham, who had been defeated by the Gwalior rebel army at Cawnpore. Having done so, and captured that place of dreadful memory, he rejoined Sir Hope Grant at Lucknow, which was taken by assault on March 19, 1858.

It throws some light on the magnitude of what is usually called the Indian Mutiny, that upwards of 2,000 of the enemy were killed in the final attack, and 100 of their guns taken. Those who had begun by putting down a mutiny had to end by re-conquering the greater part of India.

Sir Colin Campbell (now Lord Clyde) continued the campaign in Oude after the Fall of Lucknow, ably assisted by Jang Bahádur of Nepál, until that province was entirely subdued by the end of 1858. Sir Hugh Rose (afterwards Lord Strathnairn) was opposed to the last in Central India by the Ranee of Jhansi, a Princess of extraordinary character, who rode in battle like a modern Joan of Arc, and fell, sabre in hand, at the head of her troops. Tantia Topee, the former lieutenant of Nana, was the last to hold out, but at length he, too, was taken in April 1859, and hanged for his share in the horrors of Cawnpore.

It was not possible that such a convulsion should pass through the peninsula of Hindostan without shaking down everything that could be shaken in its institutions. |End of the East India Company’s Rule.| The English public—the average English Parliament man—knew of the existence of British rule in India, and could lay finger on Calcutta in the map. But that was about the utmost precise knowledge of Indian affairs possessed by most people, until attention was violently forced to them by the Great Mutiny. Then it dawned upon them that this mighty dominion was governed by the directors of a trading company, who exercised all the powers of empire, civil and military, deriving their authority from a charter signed by Queen Elizabeth. Various limitations and reforms, indeed, had been imposed by Parliament on “John Company”; still, the whole system had become an archaism, as uncertain in practice as it was indefensible in theory. The time for sweeping changes had come, not because the directors of the East India Company had abused their authority; but the safety of the Empire required that the Crown should enter now upon the heritage won by the commercial enterprise of its subjects. The Act for the better government of India was framed on a series of Resolutions laid before a Committee of the whole House, and became law in the autumn of 1858. It provided that the Administration of India should pass wholly out of the hands of the Company into those of the Queen, governing through a Secretary of State and a Council of fifteen, seven of whom were to be nominated by the Court of Directors and eight by the Crown. The Governor-General was made a Viceroy, the Indian Navy was discontinued, and the twenty-four European Regiments in the Company’s Service were amalgamated with the Royal army.

Notice must be paid here to a happy event, which brought to a close the unpleasant feelings subsisting between the Courts of Great Britain and Prussia, owing to the unfriendly and insincere conduct of the King |Marriage of the Princess Royal.| of Prussia during the Crimean Campaign. On January 25, 1858, the Princess Royal was married in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, to the Crown Prince of Prussia, who, in later years, bore such a distinguished part as the Emperor Frederick William of Germany.

CHAPTER XI.
1858–1860.

Commercial Panic in London—Suspension of the Bank Charter Act—The Orsini Plot—The Conspiracy to Murder Bill—Defeat and Resignation of the Government—Lord Derby’s Second Administration—Disraeli’s Reform Bill—Vote of No Confidence—Defeat and Resignation of the Government—Lord Palmerston’s Second Administration—Threatened French Invasion—The Volunteers—The Paper Duty Repealed by the Commons and Restored by the Lords—A Constitutional Problem—Its Solution—War with China—British and French Defeat at Pei-ho—Return of Lord Elgin to China—Wreck of the Malabar—Capture of the Tangku and Taku Forts—Occupation of Tien-tsin—Murder of British Officers and others—Capitulation of Pekin—Destruction of the Summer Palace—Treaty with China.

PALMERSTON’S Government, apparently one of the most popular that had ever been formed, had to bow under the adverse influence of events beyond its control. |Commercial Panic.| In addition to the commotion radiating from the centre of disturbance in India, there had been widespread commercial disaster at home, following on a period of excited speculation. On November 12 the Bank Charter Act had been suspended, and the Bank of England received authority to exceed the statutory limits in meeting demands for discount and advances, because of the numerous failures and prevailing money-panic.

|The Orsini Plot.|

But the squall that was to overturn the Ministry came from a quarter which nobody could have foreseen. On January 14 a murderous attack was made on the Emperor and Empress of the French in Paris. An Italian refugee, Felice Orsini, well known in England, waited, with a number of fellow-ruffians, at the door of the Opera House in the Rue Lepelletier, and threw three bombs, charged with a powerful explosive, at the Imperial carriage as it drew up. The effect was appalling: the intended victims escaped unhurt, but ten persons were blown to death among the bystanders, and no less than 156 were wounded, of whom Orsini himself was one. All this was dreadful enough, and yet the connection thereof with the stability of Palmerston’s Administration might seem exceedingly remote. It was established in the following way. Orsini, a man of good birth and attractive exterior, had been very well received in English society, and his appeals on behalf of the Italian provinces of Austria had received polite attention, and, among enthusiastic advocates of freedom, a great deal of sympathy. London was then, as it remains to this day, a sanctuary for political refugees from all the ends of the earth. Palmerston, however, had enough common-sense and honesty to recognise that it was one thing to allow fugitives to shelter in England, and quite another to take no precautions as to their good behaviour, and he prepared and introduced a Bill to strengthen the law dealing with conspiracy to murder. This was vehemently opposed on the first reading by Lord John Russell, but Disraeli and the Conservatives helped to carry that stage by a large majority. In the interval, however, before the second reading, public opinion had undergone a marked change. The tone of the French Press had become intensely insulting towards Great Britain; people in London had got it in their heads that the Conspiracy to Murder Bill had been prepared at the dictation of the French Ambassador, and Palmerston was suspected of being at his old game of truckling to Louis Napoleon. |Government Defeat and Resignation.| The suspicion was fatal to him. An amendment to the second reading, moved by Mr. Milner Gibson, was supported by Disraeli and 146 Conservatives, and carried against the Government by a majority of nineteen. Palmerston resigned at once, and Lord Derby began his second administration with his eldest son, Lord Stanley, at the Colonial Office, Lord Malmesbury at the Foreign Office, and Disraeli leading the House of Commons as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Disraeli had once taunted Palmerston with having no domestic policy. “His external system,” he said, “was turbulent and aggressive, that his rule at home may be tranquil and unassailed.” That was, in truth, the greater part of the secret of Palmerston’s popularity; he refrained from exciting apprehension and stirring combustible questions. He made no enemies at home, though he might be careless in giving offence abroad. But that was a rôle not at all suited to Disraeli’s ambition. He knew that at any moment something might happen to drive his party out of office, and he resolved to prepare a soft place to fall on. It would be a fine stroke to take Lord John Russell’s favourite project out of his hands, to “dish the Whigs” by lowering the franchise. John Bright had returned to active politics and was stirring up the people in the north to agitate for Reform. |Disraeli’s Reform Bill.| He would take the wind out of Bright’s sails too; and he persuaded Lord Derby to let him bring in a Reform Bill of his own.

It was an unlucky device. The Bill was not a very formidable one, but it disturbed a great question. Two members of the Cabinet, Mr. Walpole and Mr. Henley, threw up their offices rather than join in work which they, in common with most Conservatives in the country, considered alien from Conservative principles. The Whigs and Radicals would have no hand in such a measure, which they exposed as a sham, and Russell persuaded the House to reject it by a majority of thirty-nine. Neither did the Bill serve its author’s purpose in the country. When Lord Derby appealed to the constituencies, the response came, at the end of May 1859, in the form of a feeble accession to Conservative numbers, not strong enough to avert defeat by thirteen votes on a vote of want of confidence, moved by a young member put up by the combined Whigs, Radicals, and Peelites—the Marquis of Hartington (now Duke of Devonshire). The only effects of Disraeli’s stratagem had been to disgust and disunite his own party, and to cause his opponents to sink their differences in united action.

On Lord Derby’s resignation, Lord Palmerston formed a strong Cabinet, including Lord Granville, Mr. Gladstone, Sir George Cornewall-Lewis, Mr. Sidney Herbert, and Mr. Cardwell. |Lord Palmerston’s Second Administration.| Lord John Russell refused any post except that of Foreign Secretary, which shut out Lord Clarendon, who declined any other appointment. At the moment, as it happened, England was keeping scrupulously clear of the conflict between France and Austria. The Queen’s speech to the new Parliament had announced that “a strict and impartial neutrality” should be maintained, and this was done in spite of persistent attempts on the part of Louis Napoleon to secure the assistance of Great Britain in the deliverance of Italy, in spite, too, of the strong sympathy entertained by Mr. Gladstone and others in the Cabinet for the cause of Italian nationality. There was, however, a shrewd distrust of the French Emperor growing in the minds of the British public at this time, which made it easier than it had otherwise been for the Government to steer clear of foreign complications. |Threatened French Invasion.| In fact, the development of the arsenal at Cherbourg and the assembly there of a powerful fleet were interpreted, perhaps not without justice, as indicating a contemplated invasion of England. The Volunteer movement first assumed important proportions in the year 1859 under this feeling of apprehension.

sang the Laureate, and the storm was expected to come from the French quarter. However, whatever aggressive intentions may have passed through the mind of Napoleon III. were dissipated by the formidable front assumed by the people of Great Britain. |The Volunteers.| The immense improvement which had been recently effected in arms of precision caused irregular troops to assume far greater importance in the calculations of an intending invader than they ever had before; and the same cause, by encouraging fine marksmanship and developing competitive skill at the targets, has imparted to the Volunteers of 1859 a permanence quite without precedent in the history of similar martial movements.

Mr. Gladstone’s Budget of 1860 contained a proposal which brought about his final rupture with the Conservative party. He proposed to repeal the paper duty.|Question of the Paper Duty.| Now the burdens upon journalism, originally imposed with the deliberate intention of limiting the number and regulating the political character of newspapers, had already been greatly reduced since the beginning of the reign. The stamp duty had stood at a penny on each copy of a newspaper till 1855, when it was abolished; but there remained still a pretty heavy tax on paper. Mr. Gladstone’s proposal to abolish it was met with strong opposition from all sections of politicians, and, strangely enough, from paper manufacturers themselves, as well as from the proprietors of high-priced journals. There was, besides, a vague, but very general, dread of the effect on the public mind of the multiplication of cheap literature. Nevertheless, the Budget Resolutions removing the paper tax passed through Committee, though the last of them was only carried by a majority of nine votes. At the present day, the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s proposals, having passed through that ordeal, would be regarded as impregnable. It was otherwise in 1860. Lord Lyndhurst, then in his eighty-ninth year, and so frail in body that a rail had to be fixed opposite his seat to support him in speaking, joined the opposition raised in the House of Lords to the repeal of the paper tax, and made a marvellously vigorous and effective attack on the proposal. The Lords vetoed the repeal by a majority of eighty-nine.

Ministerialists were very indignant; the House of Lords had violated the Constitution; they had refused to sanction the repeal of a tax ordered by the House of Commons, and thereby infringed the privileges of that Chamber. |A Constitutional Problem.| The next step would be that the Lords would claim the right of imposing taxation—the cherished monopoly of the House of Commons. It was certainly an awkward question, but Palmerston was equal to the occasion. He averted a popular storm by moving for a Select Committee to examine and report on the degree, if any, in which the Lords had exceeded their powers. The Committee sat for two months, and reported that no breach of privilege was involved in the refusal of the Lords to ratify the repeal of a tax. It was not the re-imposition of a tax, for, although the Lords have no power to impose taxation, a tax can neither be repealed or imposed without the concurrence of both Houses. In the end the difficulty was got over by Palmerston, who moved certain resolutions affirming the exclusive right of the House of Commons to impose or remit taxation.

|War with China.|

Serious trouble had broken out again between Great Britain and China. Mr. Bruce, brother to the Earl of Elgin, had set out for Pekin as British Plenipotentiary, in company with the French Plenipotentiary, as provided by the Treaty of Tien-tsin. They were escorted by a squadron, chiefly consisting of gunboats, under Admiral Hope; but on arriving at the mouth of the Pei-ho they found the passage obstructed by booms and defended by recent fortifications. As the authorities at Tien-tsin returned evasive answers to the Admiral’s remonstrances, he determined to force a passage. The gunboats advanced up the Pei-ho on June 24, when suddenly a tremendous fire was opened on them from masked batteries in the forts. The Kestrel was sunk, the Lee had to be run ashore to avoid sinking, the Plover, which carried the Admiral’s flag, was disabled, so that he had to shift his flag to the Cormorant, and the Admiral himself, being severely wounded, had to hand over the command to Captain Shadwell. It was determined to make an immediate attempt to carry the forts by assault. A body of 1,000 men, including sixty French, were landed at 7 p.m., but, owing to the mud, which was knee, and even waist-deep, only about fifty men succeeded in reaching the furthest of three ditches surrounding the south fort. Their ammunition was wet, all the scaling ladders, except one, either had been broken by the tremendous fire from the fort or had stuck in the mud. Ten brave fellows rushed forward with this one, but three of them were shot dead at once, and five were desperately wounded. There was nothing for it but retreat. The loss in this disastrous affair was eighty-nine officers and men killed and 345 wounded.

Of course such a treacherous act could not go unpunished. An ultimatum was sent demanding an apology and the fulfilment of the Treaty of Tien-tsin, including the payment of the war indemnity of 4,000,000 taels. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros, the Plenipotentiaries who acted for the Allies in the Treaty of Tien-tsin, proceeded to Hongkong to enforce the demands of England and France, supported by an army under Sir Hope Grant, in which several Sikh regiments volunteered to serve, and a French contingent under General Cousin de Montauban, afterwards distinguished as Comte Palikao. The Plenipotentiaries came near to perishing on the voyage out. |Wreck of the “Malabar.”| The Malabar frigate, which conveyed them, was totally wrecked on a reef at Point de Galle, in Ceylon, those on board escaping with great difficulty, and with the loss of many valuable papers and much property. However, Lord Elgin and Baron de Gros arrived at Hongkong in another vessel on July 21. They found that the Chinese Council had returned an insolent answer to Mr. Bruce’s ultimatum, which left no alternative but immediate action. The Allied Forces advanced on July 26, the English from Chefow, and the French from Tah-lien-hwan; they captured the Tangku Forts, with forty-five guns, on August 14, and the Taku Forts, containing about 400 guns, on the 20th, the English loss on the latter occasion amounting to seventeen killed and 183 wounded. Sir Hope Grant’s despatches contain cordial references to the gallantry displayed by his French allies in the assault. Tien-tsin was next occupied on August 23, and preparations were made for an immediate advance on Pekin. |Occupation of
Tien-tsin.| The Chinese forces had disappeared, but the Government, anxious at all hazards to keep the “barbarians” from approaching the capital, opened negotiations for peace, and on September 13 Lord Elgin’s secretaries, Mr. Parkes and Mr. Loch, with Mr. Bowlby, the Times’ correspondent, and some British and French officers, rode on to Tungchow a town within twelve miles of Pekin, to arrange the preliminaries of an interview between the Plenipotentiaries of the Allies and the Chinese. A camping ground was allotted for the Allied Forces about five miles short of Tungchow, but before Grant and de Montauban could occupy it, a large Chinese army had surrounded the position. Mr. Parkes, Mr. Loch, and their party, protected by a flag of truce, went back to Tungchow to remonstrate against this dangerous violation of the agreement; they were treacherously seized and thrust into loathsome dungeons, crowded with filthy Chinese prisoners, where thirteen out of twenty-six of them died from savage ill-treatment by their captors. |Murder of British Officers and others.| Captain Brabazon, R.A., Lieutenant Anderson, and Mr. Bowlby were among these victims, their hands and feet having been so tightly bound with cords that the flesh burst and fatal mortification ensued.

The Allied Army resumed its march on Pekin; the Emperor’s Summer Palace, a magnificent collection of buildings, treasure-houses, and gardens, was taken on October 6; on the 12th everything was ready for the bombardment of the capital, and it was made known to the Chinese Government that this would begin the following day at noon, unless the city were surrendered previously. |Capitulation of Pekin.| The Emperor had fled, but on the morning of October 13 the Governor of Pekin capitulated. The Allies entered, and before noon the English and French ensigns were flying side by side on the citadel.

Not till then did Lord Elgin learn the horrible fate of the captives. He decided at once that exemplary vengeance must be inflicted, but not according to the traditional custom of reprisals, by inflicting torture and death on the persons of individuals. No doubt the Chinese officials would have handed over to him as many vicarious victims as he chose to demand, but Lord Elgin decreed such a monumental act of indignation as should never be effaced from the memory of the people of China. The Summer Palace was the most precious possession of the Heavenly Dynasty. Therein had been stored the best of the art treasures of many generations; the ingenuity of architects, gardeners, and craftsmen of all kinds had been exhausted in erecting and decorating its courts and pagodas and laying out the fantastic grounds. Lord Elgin ordered its total destruction. |Destruction of the Summer Palace.| The French and English soldiers were allowed to plunder it first; jewellery, plate, and other costly articles were “looted” in immense quantity, and then the whole vast edifice was delivered to the flames. A monument was set up on the site, bearing an inscription that this was done as the punishment for national cruelty and treachery. A Convention between the British and Chinese Plenipotentiaries was concluded on October 24, and Pekin was evacuated by the Allied troops on November 5.

CHAPTER XII.
1861–1865.

The American Civil War—Recognition of Confederate States as Belligerents—English Opinion in Favour of the Confederates—The Trent Affair—Dispatch of Troops to Canada—Death of the Prince Consort—His Last Memorandum—The Cruiser Alabama—Claims against Great Britain—Arbitration—Award Unfavourable to Great Britain—Public Indignation—Marriage of the Prince of Wales—The Schleswig-Holstein Difficulty—Neutrality Observed by Great Britain—Popular Sympathy with Denmark—Dissolution of Parliament—Result of the Elections—Death of Lord Palmerston.

THE election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, and the consequent decree abolishing slavery, brought about the secession of the Southern States and the outbreak of civil war on a vast scale early in 1861. |The American Civil War.| It was not to be expected that such a convulsion among people of British speech and descent could run its course without taking effect on a country so intimately associated with the United States as Great Britain was in commerce, literature, and social relations. The first difficulty arose out of the question whether the Southern States—the Confederates, as they were designated—should receive recognition as belligerents, or whether they should be regarded as rebels against the Federal Government. Lord John Russell, having consulted the law officers of the Crown, announced on May 8 that the Government had decided to recognise the belligerency of the Southern Confederation, and a proclamation of neutrality was issued on May 13. This act was interpreted as unfriendly by the Federal Government, who claimed that no State in the Union had a constitutional right to secede, that it could only rebel, and that the British Government had unduly favoured the rebels by prohibiting Her Majesty’s subjects from enlisting in the service of either Federals or Confederates. On the other hand, the Northern or Federal Government had proclaimed the blockade of the Southern ports, thereby implying that Confederates were belligerents and not rebels, for no Government can blockade its own ports, it can only close them. So far, therefore, from favouring the Confederate cause by recognising its belligerency, Her Majesty’s Government adopted the only course enabling them to respect the Federal blockade and to restrain English traders from breaking it.