A visit paid by the Queen to Carton appears to have made a strong impression on her. Carton is the seat of the Duke of Leinster, and his delicate attentions to her and her family, and his skill in planning a pleasant excursion for them, elicits from her pen the remark in her “Diary” that his Grace was “one of the kindest and best of men.” The Royal leave-taking at Kingstown was quite an affecting ceremony. The crowd at the pier was denser than it had ever been within living memory, and its shouts rent the air. When the Queen heard how her kind hosts were bidding her Godspeed, she immediately climbed up on the paddle-box and stood waving her handkerchief in token of her appreciation of their loyalty. She directed the ship’s engines to be slowed, so that the vessel might glide slowly past the pier. By a felicitous inspiration she ordered the Royal Standard to be dipped three times, in honour of the people on the shore, and as a mark of her grateful appreciation of their affection.

Loyal Ulster was next visited, and, as might have been expected, the reception of the Queen in this busy hive of industry was exceptionally effusive, even for Ireland. Belfast was en fête when the Royal visitors landed, and old folk still speak of the scene on the quay as marking a red letter day in their lives. Bunting was streaming everywhere in the air. Dense crowds cheering and shouting, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, occupied every coign of vantage, and though the Queen had only four hours to spend in the city, she contrived, under competent guidance, to see many of the more interesting places and institutions which illustrate the strong character of the mixed race whose energy, ability, pertinacity, and industry have made Ulster, with her unkindly soil and climate, the richest province in Ireland. Ulster commands the bulk of the linen trade of the world, and, naturally, the institutions and factories connected with that industry arrested the Queen’s attention during her flying visit to the commercial capital of Ireland. An alarming gale detained her the next day in Belfast Lough, but after it blew over the Royal party steamed away to the Scottish shore.

The Royal visit to Ireland had two good results. It brought home to the minds of the Irish people the fact that their country, and their interests, were of great personal concern to the Queen and her husband. It demonstrated to the rest of the United Kingdom the fact that the personal attachment of the Irish people to the Monarchy was as strong as could be desired, and that if they were rebels at heart it was not the Queen, but the Viceregal Bureaucracy in Dublin Castle, who had soured their blood. Everybody who had observed the effect of the Queen’s progress through Ireland was charmed with the success of the expedition. “I saw Lord Lansdowne last night,” writes Mr. Greville in his Journal (14th August), “just returned from Ireland, having had an escape on the railroad, for the train ran off the rails. He said nothing could surpass the success of the Queen’s visit in every respect; every circumstance favourable, no drawbacks or mistakes, all persons and parties pleased, much owing to the tact of Lord Clarendon, and the care he had bestowed on all the arrangements and details, which made it all go off so admirably. The Queen herself was delighted, and appears to have played her part uncommonly well. Clarendon, of course, was overjoyed at the complete success of what was his own plan,[5] and satisfied with the graciousness and attention of the Court to him. In the beginning, and while the details were in preparation, he was considerably disgusted at the petty difficulties that were made, but he is satisfied now. Lord Lansdowne says the departure was quite affecting, and he could not see it without being moved; and he thinks beyond doubt that this visit will produce permanent good effects in Ireland.”[6] Clarendon himself was evidently more than delighted with the effect of the Royal visit. He informed Sir George Grey that he believed “there was not an Irishman in Dublin who did not consider that the Queen had paid him a personal compliment by mounting the paddle-box of her steamer as she was leaving, and ordering the Royal Standard to be dipped in acknowledgment of the affectionate adieus which came from the crowds on the shore.”[7] But the odd thing was that the members of the seditious clubs who had threatened to create disturbances when the Queen’s visit was first mooted, caught the prevailing contagion of loyalty, and professed to be among the most affectionate of her subjects. Still, Clarendon was far too astute a statesman to imagine that a Royal visit would smooth away all the difficulties of his position and administration as Viceroy. It could not, as he acknowledges in another letter to Sir George Grey, “remove evils which are the growth of ages.” At the same time, it indirectly helped the country by bringing some money into it. Royalty can always beneficially direct the expenditure of Fashion, and after the Queen had by her example shown that there was no danger to be dreaded in visiting Ireland, rich English tourists began to go over there holiday-making, greatly to the advantage of the people. But when all this was apparent to the Queen’s advisers, it seems strange that they did not then deem it their duty to devise a plan for strengthening the golden link of the Crown between England and Ireland. If one brief Royal visit produced such an excellent effect, why did they not propose another? If it were impossible to provide for the residence for the Queen regularly during a portion of the year in Ireland, it might have been possible for the Royal Family to arrange that in their annual visit to Balmoral they should cruise northwards along the Irish coast, and gladden some of the Irish towns and provinces with their presence.

Ugly weather followed the Royal squadron from Belfast Lough to the Clyde, but a singularly brilliant reception at Glasgow compensated the Queen for any discomforts she may have endured on the voyage. The visit to “the second city of the Empire,” as its inhabitants love to call it, was all too brief, for the Festival of St. Grouse had been celebrated two days before, and Prince Albert was eagerly desirous of pressing on to the moors. On the evening of the 14th of August—the day of the reception at Glasgow—he wrote to Stockmar a hurried note, deploring the “vile passage” on the 12th from Belfast to Loch Ryan, and saying how much he had been impressed by their procession, through five to six hundred thousand human beings all cheering wildly in the streets of Glasgow.

On the 15th of August they were at Balmoral, the Queen recording in her “Diary” that it seemed like a dream to her after all the excitement of their tour to be in “our dear Highland home again.” For a brief time her Majesty was able to enjoy a real holiday. She was not much worried by politics—which have been, after all, the chief business of her life. The seclusion, and the dry, bracing air of Balmoral, acted like tonics on her mind and spirits. In a letter which he wrote to Stockmar on his thirtieth birthday, which was gaily celebrated in the family circle at Balmoral, Prince Albert said, “Victoria is happy and cheerful, and enjoys a love and homage in this country, of which in the summer’s tour we have received the most striking proofs. The children are well and grow apace. The Highlands are glorious, and the game abundant.” One of the pleasantest of surprises was prepared for the Queen a fortnight after her arrival. It was an excursion to a small mountain cabin, or “bothie” as the Highlanders call it, to which she had taken a fancy at Alt-na-Giuthasach. In “Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands,” the Queen gives the following description of her expedition:—“We arrived at our little ‘bothie’ at two o’clock, and were amazed at the transformation. There are two huts, and to the one in which we live a wooden addition has been made. We have a charming little dining-room, sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, all en suite; and there is a little room where Caroline Dawson (the Maid of Honour) sleeps, one for her maid, and a little pantry. In the other house, which is only a few yards

distant, is the kitchen, where the people generally sit, a small room where the servants dine, and another, which is a sort of store-room, and a loft above in which the men sleep. Margaret French (my maid), Caroline’s maid, Löhlein[8] (Albert’s valet), a cook, Shackle[9] (a footman), and Macdonald are the only people with us in the house, old John Gordon and his wife excepted. Our rooms are delightfully papered, the ceilings as well as walls, and very nicely furnished. We lunched as soon as we arrived, and at three walked down (about twenty minutes’ walk) to the loch called ‘Muich’; which some say means ‘darkness’ or ‘sorrow.’ Here we found a large boat, into which we all got, and Macdonald, Duncan, Grant, and Coutts rowed; old John Gordon and two others going in another boat with the net.”

But neither the Queen nor Prince Albert was of a mind that their Irish visit should be a fruitless one, and soon their busy brains were brooding over schemes for Ireland which marked their interest in her affairs. The “Godless” Colleges, which had been founded by Sir Robert Peel, were to be opened in October. They were three in number—one in Belfast, one in Cork, and one in Galway, and their education was to be secular and untheological. But each College gave facilities for conducting the spiritual training of the students under “Deans” appointed by the various sects and churches. The Queen and her husband had many conversations with men of light and leading of all parties in Ireland, as to the organisation of these Colleges, and the Prince, as a practical educationist, soon hit the blot in it. Who was to confer the degrees? Were the Colleges to do so? Or were they to be united by the common federating bond of a University, whose officials should guide the examinations, and form the policy that would best advance, not the interests of one College, but the interests of all? Her Majesty and the Prince, when they were in Ireland, came to the conclusion that unless the Colleges were affiliated under a University, they would soon degenerate into sectarian seminaries. But, before taking active steps in the matter, they laid their opinions before Sir Robert Peel. He at once concurred in the Prince’s views; and Lord Clarendon, who had at first felt doubtful about their soundness, ultimately accepted them also. Thus it came to pass that the Queen’s Colleges were federated under the Queen’s University of Ireland, and that a general desire was manifested that Prince Albert should be the first Chancellor. This office he declined to accept, mainly in the interest of the Queen. The Colleges and the University, he feared, might one day become the battle-grounds of faction, and it would then be very distressing for her Majesty to find her husband entangled in the political blood-feuds of Ireland. Subsequent events proved that these anticipations were correct. Lord Clarendon ultimately accepted the Chancellorship of the Queen’s University of Ireland.

At this time, as has been stated, the present Castle at Balmoral was not built. Balmoral, in fact, was simply the modest family residence of a Highland laird, and by no means well fitted for the establishment of the Court. However, the business of the Court and the State could not be neglected on that account, and Ministers and officials showed great zeal and consideration in assisting her Majesty to the utmost of their power in transacting it in such a remote corner of her Empire. In Mr. Greville’s Journal we have a curious entry (15th September) bearing on this point, and illustrating the holiday life of the Queen in the Highlands at that time. “On Monday, the 3rd,” writes Mr. Greville, “on returning from Hillingdon, I found a summons from John Russell to be at Balmoral on Wednesday, the 5th, at half-past two, for a Council, to order a prayer for relief against the cholera.... I started on Wednesday morning at half-past six, and arrived at Balmoral exactly at half-past two. It is a beautiful road from Perth to Balmoral, particularly from Blairgowrie to the Spittal of Glenshee, and thence to Braemar. Much as I dislike Courts and all that appertains to them, I am glad to have made this expedition, and to have seen the Queen and Prince in their Highland retreat, where they certainly appear to great advantage. The place is very pretty; the house very small. They live there without any state whatever; they live not merely like private gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks—small house, small rooms, small establishment. There are no soldiers, and the whole guard of the Sovereign and Royal Family is a single policeman, who walks about the grounds to keep off impertinent intruders or improper characters. Their attendants consisted of Lady Douro and Miss Dawson, Lady and Maid of Honour; George Anson and Gordon; Birch, the Prince of Wales’s tutor; and Miss Hildyard, the governess of the children. They live with the greatest simplicity and ease. The Prince shoots every morning, returns to luncheon, and then they walk and drive. The Queen is running in and out of the house all day long, and often goes about alone, walks into cottages, and sits and chats with the old women. I never before was in society with the Prince or had any conversation with him. On Thursday morning John Russell and I were sitting together after breakfast, when he came in and sat down with us, and we conversed for about three-quarters of an hour. I was greatly struck with him. I saw at once (what I had always heard) that he is very intelligent and highly cultivated; and, moreover, that he has a thoughtful mind, and thinks of subjects worth thinking about. He seemed very much at his ease, very gay, pleasant, and without the least stiffness or air of dignity. After luncheon we went to the Highland gathering at Braemar—the Queen, the Prince, four children, and two ladies in one pony-carriage, John Russell, Mr. Birch, Miss Hildyard, and I in another; Anson and Gordon on the box; one groom, no more. The gathering was at the old castle at Braemar, and a pretty sight enough. We returned as we came, and then everybody strolled about till dinner. We were only nine people, and it was all very easy and really agreeable—the Queen in very good humour, and talkative; the Prince still more so, and talking very well; no form, and everybody seemed at their ease. In the evening we withdrew to the only room there is besides the dining-room, which serves for billiards, library (hardly any books in it), and drawing-room. The Queen and Prince and her ladies, and Gordon, soon went back to the dining-room, where they had a Highland dancing-master, who gave them lessons in reels. We (John Russell and I) were not admitted to this exercise, so we played at billiards. In process of time they came back, when there was a little talk, and soon after they went to bed.”[10]

Shortly before the holiday at Balmoral ended, the Queen and Prince Albert were a little mortified to find that one of their projects, or rather one of the Prince’s projects, was going awry. This was the preliminary movement which was intended to lead up to the organisation of a great International Industrial Exhibition. The idea of holding such an exhibition had occurred to the Prince in July, 1849. It seems to have been suggested to him by the great Frankfort Fairs of the sixteenth century. His Royal Highness had also noticed that one or two small pioneer exhibitions held by the Society of Arts, had produced good effects in improving the quality of English products. He argued that an exhibition on an international scale would produce still greater effects, not only on our manufactures, but on those of the world. It would be a tournament of Peace, in which the Captains of Industry would be the competitors in the lists.

On the 30th of July, 1849, the Prince held a conference at Buckingham Palace with four confidential persons—Mr. Henry Cole, Mr. Francis Fuller, Mr. Scott Russell, and Mr. Thomas Cubitt, and they resolved to hold the exhibition if possible, not in the quadrangle of Somerset House, as the Government had suggested, but in Hyde Park itself. They also arranged to take steps to test the feeling of the industrial districts on the subject before going further. But in all this preliminary work of “sounding” influential persons, the Prince had given peremptory orders that his name should not be publicly mentioned. Unfortunately, Mr. Cole, with Hibernian effusiveness, had been tempted to disobey these orders at a meeting in Dublin, much to the annoyance of the Queen and her husband. “Praising me at meetings,” wrote his Royal Highness to Colonel Phipps, “looks as if I were to be advertised and used as a means of drawing a full house, &c.”—and if there was anything which was unspeakably offensive to the Queen, it was the use of her or her husband’s name for purposes of puffery.

A few days after this disagreeable little episode (27th September) the Queen and her family left Balmoral for Osborne. They broke their journey at Howick, where they spent a night with Lord Grey, and in a few days after that they received tidings which filled their hearts with the utmost sorrow. The ever-faithful Anson, the Prince’s first Secretary, died, and the Queen’s household was filled with the deepest regret. The Queen herself wrote a touching letter to King Leopold, which shows how her heart bled for the widow of her most zealous servant; and Lady Lyttelton, writing on the 9th of November, says: “Every face shows how much has been felt; the Prince and Queen in floods of tears, and quite shut up.” All through the record of the Queen’s life, indeed, we find evidence of the cordial relations which bound her to those who served her. Their zeal indeed has been great, but it has been more than equalled by her sympathetic appreciation of it.

Colonel Phipps succeeded Mr. Anson as Privy Purse, and Colonel (afterwards General) Grey as the Prince’s Secretary.

When the gloom of winter began to spread over London, the loyal citizens were sadly distressed to learn that a projected Royal visit to the city would be robbed of more than half its éclat. The Queen had promised to come and open the New Coal Exchange on the 30th of October. But alas, her Majesty had sickened with the chicken-pox, and the ceremony was performed by Prince Albert alone. Yet the Londoners were not without compensation. This visit to the City was memorable because of the first public appearance in a pageant of State, of the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal. The spectacle revived picturesque memories of “the spacious times of Great Elizabeth,” for the Royal party proceeded to London by the silent highway of the river. Twenty-seven brawny watermen rowed the Queen’s Barge from Westminster Stairs to the City, and, strange to say, for once the fog and murky atmosphere of London in early winter cleared away, and the ceremony took place in the sunshine, under a sky of Italian brilliancy. The crowds covered every possible corner where human beings could cluster. The long lines of shipping on each bank of the Pool were bright with bunting, and black with swarming sightseers. The cheering was overpowering when the fair-haired young Prince was seen in the barge, and both the Royal children, though they went through the ordeal quietly and prettily, were obviously a little frightened and nervous. “The Prince,” wrote Lady Lyttelton to Mrs. Gladstone, “was perfect in taste and manner, putting the Prince of Wales forward without affectation, and very dignified and kind himself.” The procession on the water was gorgeous in the extreme. State liveries were blazing everywhere. Civic costumes of feudal times kindled many ancient memories; and the Lord Mayor’s barge, which led the way, was a miracle of garish splendour. Lady Lyttelton says that what struck her most was not only the cheering, but the affectionate expression on the faces of the people when they craned forward to get a glimpse of the little Prince and Princess. But of one civic speaker and his speech in the Rotunda her ladyship says it “was most pompous; and he is ridiculous in voice and manner. And his immense size, and cloak, and wig, and great voice addressing the Prince of Wales about his being the ‘pledge and promise of a long race of kings,’ looked quite absurd. Poor Princey did not seem at all to guess what he meant.” The Queen was rather sad-hearted at missing this first public reception of her children, which was the occasion of such an outburst of popular enthusiasm, loyal huzzas, and joy-bells ringing all over London town, not to mention thunderous salutations from the Tower guns—“enough,” says Lady Lyttelton, “to drive one mad.”

On the 2nd of December the Royal home was turned into a house of mourning. On that day the good Dowager-Queen Adelaide passed away from among the small but appreciative circle of friends and relatives who admired and loved her. The Queen’s grief was deep and sincere. “Though we daily expected this sad event,” writes her Majesty to King Leopold, “yet it came so suddenly when it did come, as if she had never been ill, and I can hardly realise the truth now.... She was truly motherly in her kindness to us and our children, and it always made her happy to be with us and to see us!”[11]

Queen Adelaide, it may be here noted, was one of the earliest of funeral reformers. Struck by the wastefulness and the bad taste of funereal pageants, she left what the Queen calls “the most affecting directions” for her burial, ordering that it should be conducted with the utmost simplicity and privacy—the only exceptional arrangement being that she desired her coffin to be borne by seamen, in homage to the memory of her husband, William IV., the Sailor-King. A simple-hearted, kindly, Christian lady, whose hands were ever swift in doing good—such is a brief abstract of the life and character of the Dowager-Queen Adelaide.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CLOUDS IN THE EAST AND ELSEWHERE.

In France, after Louis Philippe fell, the country was left a prey to four factions or parties. One demanded an absolute monarchy; another demanded a parliamentary monarchy; a third demanded a military empire, based on universal suffrage; a fourth demanded a republic. The partisans of the republic triumphed in the first instance. But it fell, a victim to the voracity of its own children. The Government of Lamartine was poetic and Utopian,

and its experiment of creating national workshops in which the workers were to be paid by the State, was not only fantastic but fatal. The State found it had no work to give. It found it had no money to spend in wages; and the artisans of the national establishments were accordingly advised to join the army. This disastrous adventure in Socialism was followed by another insurrection in Paris—in which, by the way, the Archbishop of Paris and thousands of less eminent persons were slain. What Prince Bismarck would call the “psychological moment” for the interposition of a clever adventurer with a suggestion of compromise had manifestly arrived. Accordingly, the advent of Prince Charles Louis Bonaparte was hailed with a sense of relief by all parties—wearied to despair by the futile conflicts of factions. Although M. Grévy vainly endeavoured by a motion in the Chamber to procure the proscription of the Prince, his Highness was elected President of the Republic on the 10th of December, 1848, by five and a half million out of seven and a half million votes. He took the oath to preserve the Republic, without compunction. But when the year 1850 opened, he was busily plotting for its destruction, and manufacturing failure for its institutions.

The plight of Italy was a sad one. Austria had successfully met the attempt to seize her Italian provinces. She had crushed Piedmont so completely that, in 1849, there was danger lest she might be tempted to invade that State, and thus provoke the interference of Republican France. Lord Palmerston accordingly endeavoured to mediate between Austria and Piedmont. The idea of mediation was chimerical, for Austria, having made heavy sacrifices to hold her Cisalpine territories, and having succeeded in doing so by force, could hardly be expected to accept with equanimity Lord Palmerston’s favourite dogma, that the Italian provinces of Austria were to her not a source of strength, but of weakness. Austria repudiated all proposals for a conference of mediation, unless they were limited to discuss what Piedmont owed her as an indemnity, and the guarantees which could be given against Piedmontese turbulence. Diplomacy had well-nigh exhausted its resources in endeavouring to bring Austria to submit the points at issue to a Congress at Brussels, when the whole situation was suddenly changed. Joseph Mazzini and his school, convinced that Austria was checked by France and England, overthrew the Governments of Florence and Rome, which were under Austrian tutelage. Revolution headed by a monarch had failed. Its victory, argued Mazzini, under Republican leadership, would be a signal triumph for the Republican idea. The success of Mazzini and his followers led to the formation of a violent anti-Austrian Ministry in Piedmont.

But again Austria triumphed. Piedmont was crushed at Novara on the 23rd of March, 1849. Venice was on the eve of surrender, and when the Pope, who had fled to Gaeta, appealed to the Catholic Powers for aid, Austria was thus quite free to help him. The prospect of Austria bringing Central as well as North Italy under her sway alarmed France, and accordingly the Republican Government in Paris sent an army under Oudinot, which suppressed the Republican Government at Rome. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was restored, the revolution in the Sicilies quenched in blood, and the dream of Italian independence dissipated. Nor was this the only triumph of Absolutism under Austria. The revolution in Hungary was suppressed, but not till Russia came to the assistance of Austria.

In Prussia, too, the monarchy, after a Cromwellian struggle with a factious Parliament, had completely restored its authority, and to Prussia the smaller German States now began to turn for leadership in consolidating themselves into a German Empire. Unhappily the King of Prussia failed to respond to this feeling when Austria was struggling with the revolution in Italy. At the beginning of 1850 he accordingly found the feeling in favour of unifying Germany opposed by three great Powers—France, Russia, and Austria, the last, indeed, claiming, on behalf of the Archduke John, to be the executive head and heir of the defunct German Confederation of 1815. By the Constitution of Kremsir, Austria had consolidated her possessions—German, Magyar, Sclavonic, and Italian—into one federal State, and, in a sense, she had thereby withdrawn from the German Confederation. Her policy of obstructing consolidation in disintegrated Germany was therefore alike ungenerous and unjust.

Through this maze of difficulty the Queen and Prince Albert steered a clear course. They were both partisans—one might say strong and zealous partisans—of Teutonic consolidation under Prussia. Austria, they held, had played for her own hand, and, by adopting Schwarzenberg’s policy of consolidating her dominions in purely Austrian interests, she had abandoned her claim to guide the destinies of the smaller German States, in purely German interests. But, however strongly the Queen felt on this point, her influence was used to moderate the extravagant anti-Austrian antipathies of Lord Palmerston, and it largely contributed to keep the country out of war. At last, however, a cloud rose in the East which threatened us with calamity.

When Austria, by summoning to her aid the armed hordes of Russia, stamped out the movement for Hungarian independence, several Hungarian and Polish patriots—Kossuth, Ban, and others—fled to Turkey. Austria and Russia demanded their extradition. The Sultan refused to surrender the refugees, and De Titoff and Stürmer, Russian and Austrian ambassadors, suspended diplomatic relations with the Porte. The Sultan appealed to Britain and France against this outrageous violation of the unity of nations. Britain remonstrated in firm but courteous language, and Austria and Russia both withdrew their demands, but not before the British fleet had moved within the forbidden limits of the Dardanelles, in anticipation of a refusal. Lord Palmerston’s apology for thus violating the treaty of 1841 was that the fleet had been driven into forbidden waters by “stress of weather.” As there was notoriously no “stress of weather,” this explanation merely irritated the Czar, and planted in his heart the germ of that fierce hatred of England, which culminated in the Crimean War.

Parliament was opened on the 31st of January, 1850, by Commission, and, as had been anticipated, the Protectionists made, not an attack, but rather a reconnoissance in force against the Government. During the recess they had gone through the country painting the darkest pictures of the condition of England. According to their speeches, one would have imagined that another famine had smitten the nation; and for all this pessimism there was but one justification. No doubt everybody who depended on the soil for a livelihood was suffering from distress. Prices had fallen, and farmers had not taken kindly to the new order of things. But the masses of the people, especially in industrial centres, were enjoying greater comfort than ever. The revenue was showing signs of buoyancy; the foreign trade of the

country had increased, and pauperism had diminished. All these cheering facts were concealed from the public by the Conservative agitators, who concentrated attention on one point—the admitted and deplorable distress of the landed interest. The real desire of the Tory party at this time was to turn out the Government and restore Protection. The Duke of Richmond’s indiscreet speech on the Address in the House of Lords proves that. But, conscious of the difficulty of suddenly upsetting the fiscal system which was based on Free Trade, they concealed their real purpose. Mr. Disraeli therefore supported a Protectionist amendment to the Address in reply to the Queen’s Speech, on the ground that the landed interests were entitled to a certain amount of relief from public burdens, in compensation for the loss of Protection. On the 19th of February, Mr. Disraeli had to show his hand. He then moved for a committee to revise the Poor Law so as to mitigate distress among the agricultural class. This debate is worth noticing, because it may be said to have definitely originated the perennial movement for local taxation reform, which is always an object of enthusiasm to what may be called the country party, when out of office. Mr. Disraeli’s idea was to transfer from local rates to the Imperial Treasury (1), Poor Law establishment charges; (2), rates which had nothing to do with the relief of the poor, and were only raised by

Poor Law machinery as a matter of convenience—such as rates for registration of births, deaths, and marriages, for getting up jury lists, and the like; and (3), the rate for supporting the casual poor. His case was not decided on its merits. Members did not look to what was in the motion, but to what was behind it, namely, the restoration of Protection, or an increase in Income Tax to provide funds for the relief of local burdens. Sir James Graham’s frank admission, as a landlord, that relief in the rate would be swallowed by an increase in the rents, and that it was the landlord and not the tenant who would profit, determined many, who did not deny the abstract justice of Mr. Disraeli’s contention, to vote against him. The sensational incident in the debate was the speech of Mr. Gladstone, who supported Mr. Disraeli against his own leaders. In fact, he replied to Sir James Graham. Despite the support of Peel, the Government, instead of having a majority of forty, as they expected, were saved from defeat only by a majority of twenty. From that day till now a clever debater, by a skilful motion in favour of relief of local taxation, has always been able to weaken the majority of the strongest of Ministries. Local taxation is the vulnerable point of Governments, and it is the one subject with which they all seem afraid to deal in a bold and comprehensive spirit. All they do is to denounce the evil in Opposition, and palliate its existence when in Power.

The agitation for Parliamentary Reform had increased. Some of the Peelites, notably Sir J. Graham, had warned Lord John Russell that they were in favour of an extension of the franchise, and Lord John himself had abandoned the doctrine of finality. Mr. Hume, therefore, brought forward his annual motion on the 28th of February, hinting plainly that he would have no objection to extend its scope so as to include female franchise, and the substitution of an elective for a hereditary House of Lords. It was quite certain that Lord John Russell was by this time of opinion that some safe concessions might be made to the Radicals. Several of his colleagues, however—e.g., Mr. Labouchere—were of a different opinion, and it is accordingly right to say that those who denounced Lord John’s “apostasy,” when he opposed Mr. Hume, were somewhat unfair. Had the Prime Minister produced a Reform Bill this Session, every question which it might be possible to deal with would have been put aside. But as he was not likely to carry his own colleagues with him in advocating reform, not only would this sacrifice have been made in vain, but a Government which, in the existing state of parties, was indispensable to the nation, would have fallen. Mr. Hume was beaten by a vote of 242 against 96, though the Prime Minister’s argument against him was rather a plea for delay, than a defiant “Non possumus.”

Writing on the 10th of February, Mr. Greville says in his Journal, “The brightness of the Ministerial prospect was very soon clouded over, and last week their disasters began. There was first of all the Greek affair, and then the case of the Ceylon witnesses—matters affecting Lord Palmerston and Lord Grey”—the Jonahs of the Cabinet. “The Greek case,” continues Mr. Greville, “will probably be settled, thanks to French mediation, but it was a bad and discreditable affair, and has done more harm to Palmerston than any of his greater enormities. The other Ministers are extremely annoyed at it, and at the sensation it has produced.” The Greek case was briefly this: Mr. Finlay, a British subject in Athens, alleged that King Otho had enclosed a bit of his land in the Royal Garden, and demanded compensation. The King offered him the same compensation that had been accepted as fair by other owners of enclosed land in Mr. Finlay’s position. This Mr. Finlay refused, and he demanded £1,500 for the land which, it was admitted, he had bought for £10. Don Pacifico, a Portuguese Jew from Gibraltar, sought damages for the pillage of his house by the Athenian mob. He claimed £31,534. The value of his furniture was shown to be £2,181. The balance was supposed to represent the value of documents proving that he had a claim on the Portuguese Government for £27,000. Mr. Finlay and Don Pacifico had not raised their claims in the ordinary law courts, and to the amazement of everybody, Lord Palmerston proposed to employ the mailed might of England to collect their bad debts. He peremptorily ordered the Greek Government to pay these exaggerated claims, on pain of inflicting on Greece a blockade and reprisals within twenty-four hours. On the 18th of January, Admiral Parker, with the Mediterranean Fleet, blockaded the Piræus—for, contrary to Lord Palmerston’s expectations, Greece refused to comply with his demands. The Greek Government appealed for protection to France and Russia—whose Governments being with that of Britain joint guarantors for the independence of Greece, were justly annoyed that their good offices had not been invoked by Lord Palmerston. Count Nesselrode, burning to avenge the defeat of the Czar over the question of the Hungarian refugees in Turkey, sent a remonstrance to Lord Palmerston, which was couched in the language of bitter contempt and studied insolence. The French Government, on the other hand, pretending that our agent in Athens had blundered, courteously offered to extricate Lord Palmerston from his difficulties by using the influence of France, to compose the dispute with Greece. On the 12th of February Lord Palmerston ordered the British Envoy to inform Admiral Parker that he must suspend coercive operations. It was not till the 2nd of March that these instructions arrived, and in the interval the Admiral had been vigorously coercing the Greeks. France was naturally irritated at this untoward incident, all the more that Lord Palmerston’s explanation of the delay was deemed unsatisfactory. Ultimately, the matter was settled on Greece agreeing to pay Mr. Wyse, the British Minister, £8,500 to be distributed by him as he thought just among the claimants—the value of Don Pacifico’s lost vouchers against the Portuguese Government to be determined by arbitration.

This compromise, however, was made by negotiation in London. A French steamer conveyed the purport of it to Mr. Wyse, the British Envoy at Athens, on the 24th of April. He, however, said that he had no instructions from his Government to countermand his original orders, which were to renew coercion if the French Envoy at Athens could not induce the Greeks to submit. Coercion was therefore again applied, and the Greek Government on the 27th submitted to Mr. Wyse’s demands. These were more onerous in some respects than the terms agreed on by the London Convention, and Lord Palmerston persisted in adhering to the Athenian arrangement. M. Gros at Athens, finding he could not persuade Mr. Wyse to act on the London Convention, had on the 21st of April officially intimated that his action as mediator was ended. This, argued Lord Palmerston coolly, left the British Envoy—in the absence of instructions from England—free to renew coercion, and to enter into the Athenian arrangement. Palmerston, in other words, claimed the right to take advantage of his own delay, in notifying to Mr. Wyse the result of the London Convention, to refuse to act on the finding of that Convention. It is but fair to say that the Queen was quite as indignant as the Government of France, at Lord Palmerston’s rude and provocative conduct. Lord John Russell intimated to her the fact that the French Government had met the affront with which Lord Palmerston had rewarded their efforts to extricate him from the effect of his own blunder, by recalling M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Her Majesty promptly directed her husband, who acted as her confidential secretary, to send the Prime Minister one of those curt, cutting notes, which invariably indicate her displeasure.

The view which the Queen took was the fair and common-sense one, namely, that we should act on the London Convention. The Convention of London which we made with France gave us certain terms. By an accident, for which Palmerston was responsible, Mr. Wyse at Athens had extorted better ones for us at Athens. It was not high policy, but sharp practice; it was not in the spirit of enlightened diplomacy, but in the spirit of the meanest attorneydom, that any claim to benefit by the “accident” which had given better terms to us at Athens than at London, was pressed by Lord Palmerston.

But the Queen’s troubles did not end here. Her birthday was celebrated on the 15th of May, and the absence of the French and Russian Ambassadors from the usual Foreign Office dinner on that occasion, naturally roused suspicion. It was not known that the French representative had been recalled, and that France and England were in open diplomatic conflict. What was the meaning of the absence of these ambassadors? asked Society at the great rout at Devonshire House on the night of the 19th. Questions to this effect were put to Ministers in both Houses. Lord Lansdowne said that the departure of M. Drouyn de Lhuys was purely accidental; and Lord Palmerston had the effrontery to declare, in reply to Mr. Milner Gibson, that M. de Lhuys had merely gone to Paris as a medium of communication between the two Governments. But the Times reported in due course that General de la Hitte, Minister of War, had intimated from the tribune of the French Assembly that, because Lord Palmerston’s explanations in regard to points at issue between the two Governments were not such as France had a right to expect, “the President had ordered General de la Hitte to recall their Ambassador from London.” Nothing could exceed the mortification of the Queen when she was informed of the almost simultaneous publication of these contradictory official statements. Her detestation of equivocal and shuffling Ministerial explanations has long passed into a proverb. Her Majesty’s theory, in fact, is that the Minister is for the time the trustee of the honour of the Crown, and that, especially in foreign countries, where the relation between the British Sovereign and her Ministers is ill understood, the Crown is held personally responsible for what the Minister says, in all matters affecting