own words, he kept “pegging away” till, on the 19th of May, Lee, by an artful feigned attack on the Federal right, was able to effect a retreat with his main army to a position twenty miles in front of Richmond. Grant’s losses during these ten days were enormous. On the 16th of May 33,800 of his wounded were under treatment in the hospitals in various parts of the country. Lee’s position on the right was covered by a swamp, and on the left by a rivulet. His front was defended by a curved line of works, the convexity of which projected forward. Grant’s object was now to get between Lee and Richmond. Lee’s object was to compel Grant to attack him before he could reach Richmond, and, as he could always move on a smaller arc than that on which Grant had to manœuvre, the strategic advantage was with Lee. He could always keep his face to the foe, and have the lines of Richmond in his rear as a refuge. On the line of the Chickahominy, attack followed counter-attack, but it was observed that in every instance the attacking party failed, for the configuration of the country enabled troops to entrench themselves easily. In June Grant suddenly changed his plans, and

transferred his whole army to the south side of the James River.[220] He failed to surprise Petersburg on the 16th of Jane, and he then formed an entrenched camp on the angle between the James River and the Appomattox. Lee had now forced him to describe more than half the circuit of Richmond, and, in spite of all his sacrifices, he was no nearer his objective point. Concerted movements by Butler on the James River and by Hunter in the neighbourhood of Lynchburg were foiled by the Confederates, and Grant’s next attack on Petersburg on the 26th of July was repelled. In September, however, he pushed his left wing across the Welden Valley, and menaced the remaining communications between Richmond and the South. The Confederate General Early about the same time effected a diversion by crossing the Potomac, and threatening Washington and Baltimore, but he was driven back by Sheridan. Richmond, however, was now invested by 100,000 enemies, and night and day the thundering of cannon broke on the ears of its inhabitants.

In the west the Federals were more successful. Sherman, starting with a splendid army from Chattanooga in May, drove Johnston before him towards Atalanta, which was evacuated by the Confederates on the 27th of September. The Confederate General, Hood, however, by a rapid movement passed round Sherman’s right wing, and cut his communications with the North. Whenever Sherman attacked him, Hood turned towards Alabama. Then the daring and original idea occurred to Sherman to quit Atalanta—which could not be conveniently held while Hood hovered over his rear—and march straight onwards through Georgia to the sea. He left Thomas with 20,000 men to hold Hood in Tennessee, whilst he himself with 50,000 men proceeded to devastate Georgia by fire and sword. His march was marked by a track of desolation from forty to fifty miles broad. As the year closed he received the capitulation of Savannah, and demonstrated to the world by his marvellous strategy that the Southern Confederacy was like a nut with a hard shell, but no kernel inside. It is the mark of genius to convert defeat into victory, and this was the feat that Sherman achieved when Hood, by cutting his communications with the North, suggested to him the daring stroke by which he pierced the very vitals of the Confederacy. It need hardly be said that Sherman’s march through Georgia was represented to the English people by many aristocratic organs as a retreat, and that his abandonment of Atalanta, when Hood worked round his right, was hailed by Society as a supreme disaster for “the bubble Republic.” At sea the Federals were also fortunate. In June the United States ship of war Kersarge sank the Alabama near Cherbourg, and the Wachusett captured the Florida, though by a violation of the laws of neutrality, in the harbour of Bahia. Confederate partisans from Canada had made futile raids on the territory of New York, thereby increasing the animosity of the Americans against England. The Canadian authorities no doubt arrested the raiders, but they also discharged them because of some technical flaw in their jurisdiction. President Lincoln in July called out a fresh draft of 500,000 men for service, and this did not tend to make the war popular at the beginning of the year. The enormous sacrifices of life which Grant’s strategy involved, also strengthened the hands of the Peace Party or Democrats. When arrangements had to be made for choosing Presidential candidates there was a strange cleavage of Parties. The old Abolitionists nominated General Fremont. The Republican Party, however, at the Baltimore Convention, nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Democrats, on the other hand, selected General McClellan. His manifesto practically meant that he desired negotiations to be opened up for the purpose of restoring the Union with slavery on the old footing—but the Union must be restored. This alienated a strong faction of Democrats, who were for peace at any price—even at the price of cutting the Slave States adrift—and dissolving the Union. General Fremont withdrew, and it was soon evident, especially when news of Sherman’s successes came in, that Mr. Lincoln, as the representative of the national war policy, was the popular favourite.

Very early in the year, on the 8th of January, the Queen had the gratification of learning that a son and heir had been born to the Prince and Princess of Wales. The event was not expected by her Majesty till March, so that no preparations had been made by the Queen or her Household, at Frogmore—where the Princess was staying at the time—for the accouchement. “There was no nurse,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, “no baby-linen, and no doctor, except Mr. Brown, the Windsor physician, who attended [the Princess] and brought the child into the world, for which it is said he will be made a knight and receive £500. Lady Macclesfield was fortunately in waiting, and as she has had a great many children, she was probably of use. Lord Granville was the only Minister in attendance, having come to dine with the Prince, and there was not time to summon the others, as the Princess was not ill more than three hours. She had been to see the skating, and did not return to Frogmore till four o’clock, soon after which she was taken ill.”[221] A telegram was sent to the Queen at Osborne immediately after the birth of the little Prince, and next day Frogmore was a scene of busy excitement—Ministers of State and the chief members of the nobility thronging in large numbers to offer their congratulations to the Prince of Wales. All over the kingdom the birth of the Prince was hailed with demonstrations of joy, and in London, when the news was announced, the Tower guns fired a double Royal salute. On the 10th of March, the first anniversary of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, their child was christened in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, the Queen being present on the occasion. The King of the Belgians was also there, and among the company were the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Palmerston, many Ministers of State, and nearly all the representatives of Foreign Courts. The King of the Belgians and Princess Helena represented the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who were sponsors, the others being the Duchess of Cambridge; the Dowager Duchess of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; Prince John of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg representing the King of Denmark; the Grand Duchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz representing the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge. Crimson velvet, panelled with gold lace, covered the altar of the chapel. The splendid church plate was displayed, and seats covered with crimson and gold were arranged within the rail for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the officiating clergy. Over the altar was hung a rich piece of tapestry, representing the Baptism of our Saviour. A fluted white plinth, picked out with gold, supported the font, which was a tazza of silver-gilt, the rim representing the flowers and leaves of the water-lily, whilst a group of cherubs were shown playing round the base. The Queen, who was dressed in black silk and crape, formed a sombre figure in this brilliant assembly. The Lord Chamberlain and the Groom of the Stole conducted the infant Prince into the chapel, his Royal Highness being carried in the arms of his nurse, Mrs. Clark, and attended by the Countess of Macclesfield, one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales. The little Prince wore the same robe of rich Honiton lace which had been used for his father at his christening. When the Archbishop came to that part of the service for naming the child, he asked how it should be named. The Queen answered quite audibly, “Albert Victor Christian Edward,” and his Grace accordingly baptised it in these names. After the ceremony was over the company proceeded to the Green Drawing-room and the Picture-gallery, and shortly afterwards partook of a cold luncheon with the Royal Family in the supper-room. In the evening the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a banquet at Marlborough House, where some embarrassment was said at the time to have been caused by Count Bernstoff, the Prussian Minister, refusing to drink the health of the King of Denmark. This incident was for a few days eagerly canvassed by the gossips of clubland, but Bernstoff himself always denied the tale. In fact, he was so much annoyed by the persistency with which it was repeated in Society that he sent an official contradiction to Earl Russell.[222] Among the baptismal gifts one of the most striking was that which was presented by the Queen to her little grandson. It was a beautiful little statuette of the Prince Consort, made to the Queen’s design, and with inscriptions written by herself. The Prince’s figure is clad in gilt armour, copied from the effigy of the Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, and he is represented as Christian in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Round the plinth is the verse from Timothy—“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” On the stump of an old oak behind the figure rests Christian’s helmet, while hard by are the lilies of purity which one always associates with old pictures of the Pilgrim. Beneath the plinth and in front of the entablature of the pedestal is the inscription, “Given to Albert Victor Christian Edward on the occasion of his baptism by Victoria R., his grandmother, and godmother, in memory of Albert, his beloved grandfather.” Appropriate verses written by Mrs. Protheroe, wife of the rector of Whippingham, the Queen’s parish church at Osborne, are inscribed on three of the panels. Beneath the front panel, over the figures 1864, are inscribed in large letters the Prince’s name, and the dates of his birth and baptism. Figures of Faith and Hope, in oxidised silver, stand at the right and left side of the work, and in a third niche behind is the figure of Charity. At the side of each figure are lilies in enamel, and on the frieze over the figure of Faith are the words, “Walk as he walked in—Faith,” the last word being inscribed beneath the figure. This pretty conceit is carried all through. For in the same way one reads, “Strive as he strove in—Hope,” and over the third group one reads, “Think as he thought in—Charity.” To the right of the Prince of Wales’s shield is an infant boy looking up at a full-blown rose on a perfect stem, and beside it a white lily, whilst over the baby fingers droop a cluster of snowdrops, emblematic of the dawning flower-life of the year. The rose, shamrock, and thistle are worked into the background.

The day after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace was marked by a catastrophe which seriously shocked the Queen. The Bradfield reservoir of the Sheffield Waterworks burst, and the letting loose of its pent-up waters spread desolation far and wide all along the river from Bradfield to Sheffield. Whole villages were swept down the Valley of the Don, and places once populous were suddenly converted into a swamp of mud, with here and there a broken mill wheel left to mark the site of what had once been a happy hive of industry. Some of the streets of Sheffield itself were flooded, and low-lying, open spaces were turned into lakes dotted with islands formed by rubbish heaps. Wreckage of all kinds and the corpses of the drowned marked the track of the current. The disaster was appalling in the suddenness of its occurrence. The first intimation that hundreds of people had of it was the lifting up of their beds by the water as they lay asleep in their homes. In Sheffield, during the stillness of the night, those who were awake said they suddenly heard an unearthly roar which increased in volume, that this was succeeded by a hissing noise, as of angry waves dashing on sharp and beetling crags, and then by weird shrieks, soon followed by the rush of a panic-stricken crowd, flying with their families from the neighbourhood of the river for safety, and crying, “Oh, God! the flood! the flood!” Some 270 lives were lost, and property to the value of £1,000,000 was destroyed. A relief fund was at once started both in Sheffield and in London, and on the 16th of January Mr. Roebuck, M.P. for Sheffield, received the following letter, which testified to the sympathetic interest with which the Queen had read the accounts of what had happened:—

An official investigation was made into the cause of the disaster, in the course of which Mr. Rawlinson, the eminent engineer, said, “Several causes may have led to the catastrophe—a fractured pipe, a blown or drawn joint, a creep along the pipes, a pressing down of the pipes in the puddle-trench by the heavy material on both sides of it, or the washing away of the outer slope by a landslip, caused by undiscovered fissures and springs in communication with the interior of the reservoir, which fissures and springs, if they existed, would become active for mischief as the water rose in the reservoir.” The general opinion was that a mistake had been made in laying pipes in the centre of the embankment upon an artificially compressible material—that the bursting of some of these pipes caused a great volume of water suddenly to blow a chasm in the embankment. The celebrated Telford was always opposed to laying pipes through the embankment of a dam, and there could be little doubt that the coroner’s jury came to the right conclusion when they declared in their verdict, that the works had not been constructed with the engineering skill and attention which their magnitude and importance demanded.

On the 30th of April the Queen appeared in public for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort. She visited the gardens of the Horticultural Society, where a flower-show was going on, but the weather was bleak and cold and sleety, and the company assembled to see her were fain to take shelter in the conservatory. She was dressed in deep mourning, yet the visitors all agreed that her appearance was less downcast than they had been led to expect, and she was observed to chat cheerfully with the ladies and gentlemen who were around her. This year, it may also be observed, the Queen’s birthday was kept in London, with all the old ceremonies of high state, for the first time since Prince Albert’s death. The Guards trooped their colours in presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the church bells of the “three Royal Parishes” in London—Westminster, Kensington, and St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields—rang out their most joyous chimes. There was a floral fête at the Horticultural Gardens, and the houses of Ministers of State, of the Clubs, the Government Offices, together with the shops of the Royal tradesmen at the West End, were illuminated as in old times. From May to August the Queen had enjoyed the company of the Princess Louis of Hesse, but when autumn set in and Parliament had been prorogued, the Court migrated to Scotland, and on the 28th of August the Queen broke her journey at Perth to inaugurate a statue to the Prince Consort. The Lord Provost and magistrates of the “Fair City,” and all the local magnates of the county gave her a cordial welcome, and in her suite were the Princess Helena, the Princess Louise, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, the Marchioness of Ely, Sir Charles Wood, and Sir Charles Phipps. After the Queen uncovered the statue, which was greatly admired, she conferred the honour of Knighthood on Lord Provost Ross.

The Prince and Princess of Wales left the Highlands in the beginning of September for Denmark, and the Queen’s holiday was restful and quiet. The only incident that troubled it seriously was due to the pressure which was put upon her to save the life of Franz Müller, the murderer of Mr. Briggs, chief clerk of Messrs. Robarts and Co., the great bankers in the City. Müller had murdered Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage on the night of the 9th July, between Fenchurch Street Station and Hackney Wick, and after robbing his victim threw his body out on the line. He exchanged Mr. Briggs’ watch-chain for another at the shop of a jeweller called Death in Cheapside, who identified his photograph. He left a hat in the carriage which was traced to him. He then fled to America. The crime was perpetrated with ruthless brutality, and for a time railway travelling was rendered an agony to nervous passengers. The detective police had displayed great skill in following up every clue that led them on the track of the criminal, and their exciting pursuit of him across the Atlantic, his arrest in New York, his return, his trial, at which counsel fought for his life with great courage and audacity, his conviction, his stoical denial of guilt, till at the last moment as the hangman drew the fatal bolt he uttered his confession, with the halter tightening round his throat—all contributed to rivet public attention on this most melodramatic of atrocities. A clever attempt at proving an alibi had been made by his counsel, and there were some who believed in Müller’s innocence. The German colony in England took up his case most warmly, and it was whispered that the Queen herself was among those who feared that a judicial murder would be committed if Müller were hanged. For many days nothing else but his chances of being reprieved were discussed, and the King of Prussia, not to mention several other German Princes, sent autograph letters to the Queen pressing her to pardon the assassin. But her Majesty had watched the case carefully. She refused to interfere with the course of justice, and her prudence was justified by Müller’s strange confession, made just at the moment when he leapt into eternity.[223]

The Queen’s correspondence with the Princess Louis of Hesse seems at this time to have become again overcast by the gloom of her great sorrow. Amidst the solemn silence of her mountain home, the Queen felt the loss of the Prince Consort more acutely than while immersed in the busy life of the political year at Windsor. Her younger children were growing apace, and she now felt the need of her husband’s wise and kindly counsel in educating them for their high station. To the Princess Louis she confided her thoughts, and in one of her Royal Highness’s letters to the Queen, bearing date 20th of September, the following passage on the subject occurs:—“... What you say about the poor sisters, and, indeed, of all the younger ones, is true. The little brothers and Beatrice are those who have lost most, poor little things! I can’t bear to think of it, for dear papa, more peculiarly than any other father, was wanted for his children; and he was the dear friend and even playfellow besides. Such a loss as ours is indeed unique. Time only increases its magnitude, and the knowledge of the want is felt more keenly.”[224] In November the birth of a little grand-daughter at Hesse (the Princess Elizabeth) gave rise to an affectionate interchange of letters between the Queen and the Princess Louis, and in one of these she refers to the efforts made by those round her Majesty to free her from the tyranny of her sad thoughts. “We are both much pleased,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 20th of November, “at the arrangement about Brown and your pony, and I think it is so sensible. I am sure it will do you good, and relieve a little the monotony of your out-of-door existence, besides doing your nerves good. I had long wished you would do something of the kind, for indeed only driving is not wholesome.” On the 18th of December Dr. Norman McLeod, writing in his Diary at Darmstadt, says:—“I was invited

by Prince Alfred to spend the fourth anniversary of his father’s death with him at Darmstadt. The Queen commanded me to see her before I went, so on Monday I went to Windsor. I told her that the more I was confided in, the more I felt my responsibility to speak the truth.”[225] Dr. McLeod was charged with loving messages to the Princess Louis, who, on December 15, writes to the Queen in reply as follows:—“I had not a moment to myself to write to you yesterday, and to thank you for the kind lines you sent me through dear Dr. McLeod. He gave us a most beautiful service, a sermon giving an outline of dear papa’s noble, great, and good character, and there were most beautiful allusions to you in his prayer, in which we all prayed together most earnestly for you, precious mamma! We talked long together afterwards about dear papa, and about you, and, though absent, were very near you in thought and prayer. Dear Vicky[226] talked so lovingly and tenderly of you, of how home-sick she sometimes felt. She was not with us on that dreadful day three years ago, and that is so painful to her. Dear Affie[227] was, as we all were, so much overcome by all Dr. McLeod said. Vicky, Affie, Louis, and myself sat in the little dining-room; he read to us there. Fritz had left early in the morning. The day was passed quietly and peaceably together, and I was most grateful to have dear Vicky and Affie with me on that day.[228] My dear Louis wishes me to express to you how tenderly he thought of you, and with what sympathy on this sad anniversary. Never can we cease talking of home, of you, and of all your trials.” If these trials were heavy, they were, even in the darkest hours of the Queen’s life, lightened by the love with which her children cherished her.

CHAPTER X.

THE DEATH OF PALMERSTON.

Brighter prospects dawned on the year 1865 than could have been anticipated. England was at peace with all the world, and in spite of Lord Palmerston’s irritation against the German Powers, it was certain that the country would not permit him to engage actively in Continental broils. The Civil War in America, so disastrous to Lancashire, was drawing to a close; and though a dubious and desultory conflict with the Maoris in New Zealand was going on, the scene of strife was far away, and the struggle but slightly affected the course of business. Trade was sound and healthy, and the cotton famine had almost disappeared. Lord Palmerston’s Cabinet still held its ground, and though its aged chief had begun to show signs of physical decay, his high spirits and indefatigable energy gave no indication that the end of his career was at hand. Two of the four or five great ladies of fashion who had for forty years exercised a far-reaching, though unseen, influence on political life—Lady Tankerville and Lady Willoughby d’Eresby—had died in January, within a few days of each other. Lady Palmerston was thus left as almost the sole representative of those grandes dames of politics who were the flower and crown of the old order of society, soon destined to perish under the touch of democratic reform. Parliament was opened by Commission on the 7th of February. The Speech from the Throne, which was read by the Lord Chancellor, referred to the Treaty of Peace between the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the King of Denmark, and declared that no renewed disturbance of the peace of Europe was to be apprehended. It regretted the conflict with some of the native tribes in New Zealand, and rejoiced at the tranquillity of our Indian dominions. It spoke with confidence of the condition of Ireland. The Message from the Throne further promised the introduction of Bills for the amendment of the laws relating to patents for inventions, and for conferring on the county courts an equitable jurisdiction in actions involving small amounts. A Bill for inquiring into English public schools was promised, and her Majesty directed that a commission should be issued to inquire into endowed and other schools in England. Lord Derby, though he bore traces of suffering from repeated attacks of gout, was able to speak with fluency and power, but the debates on the Address, it must be admitted, were not interesting, nor did they evoke any material opposition. Discussions took place upon the condition of the Irish peasantry, emigration, the tenure of land, tenant right, and the Established Church. The approaching triumph of the Northern States in the American Civil War was plainly foreshadowed by the increasing civility of Lord Russell’s references to the Federal Government. In a discussion on our foreign relations, he vindicated the neutral policy which his Administration had pursued towards both belligerents, but towards the conqueror his neutrality was now obviously benevolent. He pointed out how Confederate agents were continually employed either in building vessels in this country, or in buying merchant ships which might afterwards be sent to France and other places that they might be fitted out as armed cruisers against the commerce of the United States, and this he now discovered gave rise to the “natural irritation” of the United States against England. The Americans, he said, saw a number of ships, which had come in some way or another from English ports or English rivers, afterwards equipped as men-of-war for the purpose of destroying their sea-borne commerce. It was to be expected that they should wax angry with us in consequence. Still, Lord Russell urged that the Government had done everything in their power to prevent this country from being made the basis of warlike operations against the Federal Government.

In those days Mr. Pope Hennessy was one of the most active and aggressive members of the Irish Party. He had been advanced in public life by the social influence of Cardinal Wiseman, and had attached himself to the Tories as one of Mr. Disraeli’s partisans. His object was to revive, if possible, those Nationalist ideas which Mr. Disraeli had promulgated when bidding for the Irish vote in 1844. Mr. Disraeli’s object in cultivating his enthusiasm was to use him as an agent in cementing “the natural alliance between Catholicism and Conservatism,” which at the time he was most anxious to promote. Early in the Session, then, a lively discussion was initiated by Mr. Hennessy on Irish affairs, obviously with the intention of eliciting from the Ministry declarations that would tend to render Lord Palmerston’s Cabinet unpopular in Ireland. Mr. Hennessy’s motion was “that this House observes with regret the decline of the population of Ireland, and will readily support her Majesty’s Government in any well-devised measure to stimulate the profitable employment of the people; and that an address to the Crown be prepared, founded on the foregoing resolution.” The resolution was supported by a number of speakers, both Irish

and English, among whom were prominent Conservatives, like Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord Robert Cecil, and prominent Whigs like Sir Patrick O’Brien and Mr. Monsell. It was opposed on the part of the Government by Mr. Gladstone, Sir Robert Peel, and Sir George Grey. Sir Stafford Northcote, in speaking on the motion, indicated very plainly that his leaders had already begun to angle for the Irish vote. Ireland, said he, had been crippled by English legislation, and Parliament “ought to approach this question with a feeling of tenderness,” and a desire to see how far it was possible to remedy that grievance. Lord Palmerston concluded the debate with a speech which has been rendered historic by one of its phrases. He said, “Until by some means there can be provided in Ireland the same remuneration for labour and the same inducements to remain which are afforded by other countries, you cannot, by any laws which you can devise, prevent the people from seeking elsewhere a better condition of things than exists in their own country. We are told that tenant right and a great many other things will do it. None of these things will have the slightest effect. As to tenant right, I may be allowed to say that I think it is equivalent to landlord’s wrong.” In 1865 the idea that there was, and ever had been since the conquest of Ireland, a dual ownership in Irish soil—an ownership which naturally and equitably follows from the relations of an unimproving landlord to an improving tenant, had not yet dawned on the English mind.

One of the results of what Lord Russell called the “natural irritation” of the American people against England was a feeling of much uneasiness as to the safety of Canada. Confederate agents had attempted to make raids on Northern territory from Canadian soil. Threats of reprisals had proceeded from the organs of public opinion in the United States, and something approaching a panic was created in England, when the Federal Government gave formal notice that it was their intention to terminate the Convention under which England and the United States had mutually agreed not to fit out ships of war on the great lakes. It was also suggested that the American Government would soon “denounce” in similar fashion the Treaty of Commerce between the United States and Canada. In the House of Commons the Government was closely questioned on all these complications by Sir J. Walsh, who declared that the steps taken by the Federal Government were tantamount to a declaration of war. Palmerston tried to soothe these fears, and Earl Russell in the Upper House lavished conciliatory flattery on the United States, complimenting them on the patience with which they had endured the unsympathetic demeanour of England—the most unendurable element in which had been the tone of superfine insolence that marked his own despatches.[229] Yet all this time there was perfect tranquillity on the Canadian frontier. The Canadians did not seem to dread an American attack. The American Government, under Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the Irish War Party, was almost fanatically pacific. The truth was, as Mr. Bright said, that English anxiety as to the safety of Canada was due to a feeling “in our heart of hearts that we had not behaved generously to our neighbours; a twitching of the conscience that tended to make cowards of us at this particular juncture.” As usual the people had to pay for this panic in Piccadilly. The Government demanded a vote of £200,000 for the defences of the Canadian frontier, of which Lord Hartington, on behalf of the War Office, proposed to spend £20,000 in fortifying Quebec. As against the United States the frontier of Canada was of course practically indefensible. There was, therefore, reason in the contention of independent critics that such an expenditure might be regarded by the Americans as a provoking menace, rather than as a rational precaution.

By a sad coincidence, whilst these discussions were going on, the hand of death was being laid on the statesman who was of all men most competent to represent those who doubted the possibility of defending Canada. Richard Cobden, who declared that it would be just as possible for the United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England, as for England to enable Canada to contend against the United States, was sickening with his last illness. On the 2nd of April he died, and with him passed away the purest, most generous, and most chivalrous paladin of English Liberalism in the House of Commons. Men of all parties joined in doing homage to his memory. Mr. Disraeli vied with Mr. Bright in passing an eulogium on his public services. The Emperor of the French sent a letter of condolence to his widow. In the United States he was mourned by the American people as if he had been one of their own citizens. Mr. Bright said in the House, “I little knew how I loved him till I lost him,” and it indeed seemed as if this feeling were universal throughout England. Cobden’s disinterested honesty, the charm of his sweet and sympathetic nature, the fascination of his earnest, persuasive and transparently lucid eloquence, his buoyant courage, and his genuine devotion to the English people, all contributed to build up the fabric of his reputation and his popularity. His mission in life had been to beat down the power of the territorial aristocracy, which, in his youth, ruled England in the interest of a few rival groups of great families. In their place he imagined he could put a new order of merchant princes and Captains of Industry—an order of liberal-minded and highly-cultured men whose fortunes were bound up with the interest of Labour, and whose public spirit and civil capacity might recall the era of the Medici in Italy, and of the De Witts in the Low Countries. The leading ideas of the “Manchester School,” which he was credited with founding, have long since ceased to influence the English mind, though some of them have had enough vitality to survive the caprice of circumstances and the course of time. Cobden’s errors sprang from the fact that he believed that political power was to be finally centred in and wielded by the middle-classes. For example, it was for their interests to narrow as much as possible the Imperial responsibilities of England. Therefore, whilst he advocated Colonial autonomy it was not with a view to facilitate Imperial Federation, but to prepare the colonies for an independent existence, which should at once free us from the expense of defending them, and enrich us by the profits of their trade. On the other hand, the working classes regard the colonies as a heritage to be jealously preserved for their order, and the success of Federalism in the United States has induced them to dream of making a similar experiment within the British Empire. Obviously nothing could be more completely at variance with Cobden’s doctrines than these ideas. His scheme of policy was in fact faulty, because it was based on enriching a plutocracy, which, however, has not used its wealth for the purposes he had in view. It has, on the contrary, spent its resources in imitating and reproducing the worst qualities of the old feudal nobility, whose power Cobden desired to destroy. As the result of his policy, and the triumph of that part of it which accumulated wealth in the hands of the manufacturing classes, the country had a House of Commons in 1865, which was as much opposed to Reform as the House of Lords in 1832. For Cobden the irony of fate could hardly have been more cruel.

The financial statement of the year was preceded by motions in the House of Commons, for the purpose of obtaining a Parliamentary pledge for the remission of certain duties, which were considered a blot on the fiscal system. One was the Malt Tax, for the repeal or modification of which a desultory agitation had been promoted by the Tories for some years in the agricultural districts. The other motion was in favour of a further reduction of the duties on Fire Insurance. Though the Anti-Malt Tax agitators were beaten, the opponents of the Fire Insurance duties prevailed against the Government. The public had been informed by the Royal Speech that the receipts of the revenue had come up to the estimates; but this information rather understated the fact. The prosperity of the finances, in truth, had exceeded the most sanguine calculations of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Remissions of taxation were consequently looked for, and speculation was busy with conjectures as to the quarter in which reductions would be proposed. The 27th of April was appointed for the financial statement, and on that day Mr. Gladstone presented his accounts and his plans. He had raised a larger revenue than had ever been raised in England by taxation at any period, whether of peace or war. In 1864-65 the actual expenditure had been £66,462,000, being £611,000 less than the estimate. Comparing the expenditure of the year with the revenue, he found that there was an apparent surplus of £3,231,000. The estimated revenue had been £66,128,000, whereas the actual revenue was £70,313,000. It had been expected that there would be a total loss on the year of £3,080,000, whereas there had been altogether a gain of £147,000. This showed how the prosperity of the country was advancing by leaps and bounds. Coming to the estimate of the income and expenditure of the ensuing year, Mr. Gladstone said he had to provide for an expenditure of £66,139,000, while he estimated the revenue at £70,170,000. This showed, on the basis of existing taxation, a surplus of £4,031,000. That surplus, he stated, he would dispose of as follows:—He proposed to equalise the stamp duty on scrip certificates and receipts in the case of English and Foreign transactions. The stamp on agreements for letting houses would be reduced to a penny. The tax on appraisements would be graduated, so that property amounting to £5 would not pay 2s. 6d. but

3d., and so on upwards. The stamp duty on charter parties would be reduced to 6d. There were also to be alterations in regard to Marine Insurance stamps, and stamps on insurances against accidental death, personal injury, and damages to plate-glass. He refused to reduce the Malt Tax, but he proposed to lower the Tea Duty by a remission of 6d. per lb. As to the Income Tax, he admitted that Ministers should do all they could for its reduction. It was, at present, at the lowest point, practically, at which it ever stood. It had never been lower than 6d. in the pound, but still he proposed to remove one-third of it, thus reducing it to 4d. The final loss to the Exchequer by this reduction of 2d. would be £2,600,000, of which about £1,650,000 would fall upon the current year. Dealing with the Fire Insurance duty, he pointed out that it was desirable it should be reduced to a uniform rate of 1s. 6d., and to this would be added the substitution of a penny stamp in lieu of the 1s. duty on insurance policies. The relief given by the proposed reductions would be:—On tea, £2,300,000, on Income Tax, £2,600,000, and on Fire Insurance Duty, £520,000, making a total of £5,420,000, of which £3,778,000 would fall on this year. Deducting this latter sum from the estimated surplus, £4,031,000, there would be still a surplus of £253,000 on the accounts of the coming year.

It was on the 2nd of June that Lord Russell in the House of Lords declared the Civil War in America at an end, and refused Confederate vessels any further rights of harbour in English ports. It has been shown how General Sherman’s devastating march through Georgia exposed the real weakness of the South. At the end of 1864 Hood’s army was pining away in Alabama or Tennessee, and Beauregard, with 20,000 men, alone stood between Sherman’s legions, flushed with victory, and the harassed and outnumbered army of Lee. On Christmas Day the Confederates repelled an attack by Butler on Wilmington, but on the 14th of January, 1865, when operations were renewed by General Terry and Admiral Porter, the key of the position was easily taken, and the Confederates were deprived of their only free and practicable outlet to the sea. On the 17th of February Charleston was evacuated. Sherman had already set forth on his march to the north—Beauregard retreating rapidly before him. And yet, though they thus had victory within their grasp, the leaders of the North made one last effort to conciliate the South. “Although no authorised version of the negotiations has ever been given to the public,” says Mr. Sterne, “it was conceded that, with the single exception of slavery and submission to the authority of the Union on the part of the South, every condition that the Southern States could ask would be submitted to by the North, including the adoption of the Southern debt and the reimbursement to the Southern slave-holders for slaves lost.”[230] In a moment of insanity the Southern Government rejected these generous terms, and so the war went on. Sherman’s movement to the north enabled Grant to press Lee with effect. He forced him back to Petersburg and Richmond. On the 1st of April both towns were captured, and Lee was not only pursued but overtaken and beaten in his last fight. “General,” wrote Grant to his fallen foe on the 7th of April, “the result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood, by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.” The capitulation was arranged on terms which were extremely generous to the vanquished. No prisoners were taken. The officers were paroled, and the troops were all permitted to return home on condition of submitting to the Federal Government. Within a few days Johnston surrendered to Sherman on the same terms, and on the 18th of April the war was at an end.

The victors astonished the world by their moderation. Not a single rebel, save the governor of a military prison, who was convicted of behaving with revolting brutality to Federal prisoners in the South, perished on the scaffold. Even the few prominent civilians who were arrested and imprisoned were soon released. The best men, both in the Northern and Southern States, vied with each other in promoting a policy based on conciliation for the future and oblivion for the past. Mr. Lincoln, who had been re-elected President in the autumn of 1864, began his second term of office on the 4th of March, 1865. On the evening of the 14th of April he visited Ford’s Theatre at Washington with Mrs. Lincoln and another lady and gentleman, and about half-past ten, during a pause in the performance, he was shot by one Wilkes Booth, who suddenly entered the President’s box and discharged a pistol at his head. Booth then leaped on the stage flourishing a dagger, and exclaiming “Sic semper tyrannis!” escaped from the theatre. Mr. Lincoln never recovered consciousness, and he died on the morning of the 15th.

From every part of the world expressions of sympathy were conveyed to Mrs. Lincoln and the American people, who had been thus cruelly deprived of the sagacious and upright statesman whose civic courage and unquenchable patriotism had saved the Union. The Queen, who had always admired Mr. Lincoln’s character and career, sent an autograph letter to Mrs. Lincoln, expressing, with simple and womanly tenderness, her sympathy for the President’s family.[231] Addresses on the assassination of the President were presented by both Houses of Parliament to the Crown, and the Queen in reply to these wrote: “I entirely participate in the sentiments you have expressed in your address to me on the subject of the assassination of the President of the United States. I have given directions to my Minister at Washington to make known to the Government of that country the feelings which you entertain in common with myself and my whole people with regard to this deplorable event.” The miscreants who had conspired against Lincoln’s life had also intended to assassinate his chief Ministers, and one of them inflicted severe wounds on Mr. Seward and his son, from which, however, they both recovered.

Mr. Lincoln was succeeded by the Vice-President, Mr. Andrew Johnson, who, in the first moments of excitement which followed Lincoln’s murder, charged Mr. Jefferson Davis and the leaders of the South, with being Booth’s accomplices. These charges, however, were not generally credited, because it was clear that the life of Lincoln, whose policy was notoriously one of clemency and moderation, was quite as precious to the conquered States, as to their conquerors. But undoubtedly the angry passions which Booth’s crime had stimulated, increased the difficulty of reorganising the territory now held by the Federal troops. To admit the Southern States to the Union with their old rights of sovereignty and autonomy as if nothing had happened was impossible. The negroes, though free, were unenfranchised, and therefore at the mercy of their old masters. But the negroes had bled and suffered for the Union during the war, and they could not be abandoned now. Moreover, Lincoln’s proclamation abolishing slavery gave them an implied promise of protection from subsequent oppression. But then the American Constitution contained no provision for dealing with the difficulty which the war had created. To enfranchise with a stroke of the pen a vast ignorant servile population, which had been demoralised by slavery, was fraught with the utmost peril, not only to American democracy, but to American civilisation. Again, the States themselves had always determined the conditions of enfranchisement. As sovereign communities they had the clearest right to organise their own internal administration free from all interference from the Federal authorities, who had no power over them, save that of seeing that they adopted a republican form of government. The first step taken was to organise the Freedman’s Bureau with agents all over the South with the object of protecting the negroes from injustice and oppression. But President Johnson had spent his life in the Slave State of Tennessee, and he had many sympathies with the slave-owners. Taking his stand on the letter of the Constitution, he refused to sanction those methods of reconstruction which Congress adopted, and sent military governors to rule the conquered States, until their permanent government was organised. The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery in the United States was carried in June. But the President vetoed the Freedman’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, his veto being overridden by the majority in Congress, in which, however, the Southern States were not yet represented. In a word, the President was soon in open conflict with the Republican majority that had carried the country through the long and bloody war.