XXIX. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)…

XXIX. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

More Coercion for Ireland--The Scottish Reform Bill--Government Defeats--The Church Rates Bill--Mr. Disraeli succeeds Lord Derby--Reunion of the Liberals--The Irish Reform Bill--Mr. Gladstone's Irish Church Resolutions--His Victory--Disraeli's Strategy--Neither Dissolution nor Resignation--Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum--The Suspensory Bill--Remainder of the Session--Lord Stanley's Foreign Policy--General Election--Mr. Disraeli resigns--Mr. Gladstone's Ministry--Attempt on the Life of the Duke of Edinburgh--Trial of O'Farrel--Murphy Riots--Martin v. Mackonochie--Obituary of the Year--Lord Brougham, Archbishop Longley, and Others--The Abyssinian War--Christianity in Abyssinia--The Crescent and the Gallas--European Intercourse--Mr. Plowden--Rise of Theodore--His enlightened Views--Deaths of his best Friends--Arrival of Consul Cameron--The unanswered Letter--Theodore's Retaliation--Provincial Rebellions--Mr. Rassam's Mission--His Interview with Theodore--The King's Charges against Cameron--His Humour changes--Dr. Beke's Letter--Theodore becomes obdurate--Rassam's Arrest--Mr. Flad's Journey--The Captives' Treatment--Merewether's Advice--Lord Stanley's Ultimatum--Constitution of Sir R. Napier's Expedition--Annesley Bay--Difficulties of Transport--Arrival of Napier--Friendliness of the Natives--Attitude of the Chiefs--Two Plans--An unopposed March--Proceedings of Theodore--Massacre of Prisoners--Advance on Magdala--Destruction of Theodore's Army--Negotiations with Theodore--Release of the Prisoners--A Present of Cows--Bombardment of Magdala--Suicide of Theodore--The Return March--The "Mountains of Rasselas"--Sketch of Continental Affairs.

On the 7th of December Parliament was adjourned till the 13th of February, 1868. When it recommenced its sittings on that date the political situation was, of course, unchanged; the Tory Government was in a minority of from sixty to seventy voices in the House of Commons; yet, through the amazing suppleness, versatility, and adroitness of its leader in the Commons, ably seconded by the heavier metal of Lord Cairns, it made headway for a time against all its opponents with surprising courage and success. One of the first measures proposed by Government was to renew the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland for a twelvemonth. Already had the Habeas Corpus Act been suspended for two years in the sister island; yet, although Fenianism was less menacing than it had been, it still appeared to the Irish Government unsafe to dispense with the extraordinary powers for the repression of disorder that had been first granted in 1866. In asking leave to bring in a Bill for the continuance of the suspension, Lord Mayo, Chief Secretary for Ireland, stated that though the Fenian leaders had recently transferred the scene of their active operations to England, there were still events occurring in Ireland that made it necessary that the Government should have this power. That the enlarged powers of repression conferred by the law on the executive had not been ineffectual, he proved by reading an extract from an American paper, which showed that out of forty-three military leaders sent from America to aid and direct the Fenian movement, the three principals had never reached Ireland, and the others had either been brought to justice or were exiles. The Bill passed through all its stages in both Houses with very little opposition.

Time had failed in the Session of 1867 to carry through Parliament measures for the enlargement of the constituencies in Scotland and Ireland similar to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill for England. The matter was now taken up by Government, and Bills were introduced, and eventually passed, for reforming the representation of the people both in Scotland and Ireland. The circumstances attending the progress of these Bills were in some respects unprecedented, and such as involved no slight humiliation to the Government, which, in spite of all Mr. Disraeli's adroitness, was compelled either to allow the details of the measures to be settled pretty nearly as the opposing majority might think fit, or to resist at the imminent peril of defeat and expulsion from office. The measure for Scotland was introduced by the Lord Advocate, Mr. Paton, on the 17th of February. It proposed that the franchise should be settled on nearly the same basis as in England, both for counties and boroughs; so that in the former there would be an ownership franchise of £5 clear annual value, and an occupation franchise of £12; while in boroughs every householder rated and paying rates would have a vote. It further gave seven additional seats to Scotland, without disfranchising any boroughs in England or Ireland; so that, if the Bill had passed in this form, there would have been a permanent increase in the numbers of the House of Commons. No sooner was the draft Bill in the possession of the House, than Scottish members, as if by one consent, set to work to tear it to pieces. It is unnecessary to repeat all the objections that were raised, and the more so because all parties ultimately agreed to pass the second reading, affirming the principle of the Bill; each trusting to obtain the modifications desired in committee. So far all had gone well for Government; but when the House went into committee, their practical powerlessness was apparent to all the world, and must have been painfully mortifying to themselves. Mr. Baxter moved, "That it be an instruction to the committee that, instead of adding to the numbers of the House, they have power to disfranchise boroughs in England having by the Census returns of 1861 less than 5,000 inhabitants." He pointed out that there were ten such small boroughs in England; these he proposed to disfranchise, and to add the ten seats thus obtained to the representation of Scotland. Sir Rainald Knightley proposed that, instead of disfranchising any boroughs, the committee should take one member from each of those boroughs in England returning two members to Parliament which in 1861 had less than 12,000 inhabitants. Mr. Disraeli, on the part of the Government, accepted Sir Rainald Knightley's proposal. But Mr. Gladstone seconded the motion of Mr. Baxter, and it was carried on a division by a majority of 217 to 196. Government was fain to acquiesce; and the only modification that Mr. Disraeli could obtain consisted in reducing the number of the boroughs marked out for immolation from ten to seven. Another and still more damaging alteration in the Government Bill was carried by Mr. Bouverie, who proposed to get rid of the ratepaying qualification in Scotland altogether, by omitting the words making the payment of rates (as in the English Bill) a necessary condition of the franchise. We have seen, in the course of the Reform debates, how devotedly, one might almost say sentimentally, attached was Mr. Disraeli to the principle of the rating franchise. Yet, when defeated on Mr. Bouverie's motion, he resigned himself with a sigh to the excision of his darling principle, not only with reference to boroughs, but also to counties. The occupation franchise for counties was fixed at £14, the reference to rateable value being omitted. Thus amended, the Bill passed through committee, and, meeting with hardly any opposition in the House of Lords, became law.

The author of "Church and State" succeeded in carrying through Parliament this year a Bill for the abolition of church rates. In the debate on the second reading Lord Cranborne said, "What shall we gain if we adhere to the principle of 'No surrender'? That is a question which must be answered by the circumstances of the time. We must look not only to the disposition of the nation out of doors, but to the course of events in this House--the principles upon which parties guide their movements--the laws by which public men regulate their conduct. Looking to these matters, and taking the most impartial view in my power, I am bound to say that I do not think any gain to the Church will arise from prolonging the resistance." After speaking of the deep reluctance he felt to give up anything that the Church possessed, he concluded with the words, "I think it wiser to accept the terms that are now offered to us, because I am distinctly of opinion that we may go farther and fare worse." The passing of this measure, though it could not be said to have reconciled the main body of the Dissenters in any appreciable degree to the existence of the Church as an establishment, at least closed a long and wearisome chapter of local bickerings, distinguished by cheap martyrdom on one side and indiscreet coercion on the other.

Age and the undermining effects of his hereditary malady, the gout, had told heavily this winter on the vigorous constitution of Lord Derby, and he felt no longer equal to the cares and toils of office. His retirement from the Ministry was announced by his son, Lord Stanley, in the House of Commons on the 25th of February, and drew forth expressions of warm and respectful sympathy from both sides of the House. The way was thus naturally opened for the gratification of the great and worthy ambition of a lifetime. Mr. Disraeli was sent for by the Queen, and requested to take the post of Premier and reconstruct the Government. On the 27th Mr. Disraeli had an audience of her Majesty, and kissed hands upon his appointment as First Lord of the Treasury. To pass over two or three minor changes, the new Premier declined to include the Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford (Sir Frederic Thesiger), in the re-constructed Ministry; and that high functionary, despite an appeal to Lord Derby, was therefore compelled to resign the seals, which were given to Lord Cairns. The great ability, industry, and readiness in debate of the new Chancellor were much needed to strengthen the Ministerial side in the House of Lords. On the 5th of March Mr. Disraeli addressed a meeting of his Parliamentary supporters, and encouraged them to look hopefully forward to the future, and to remember through what storms and sunken rocks they had been safely steered.

He admitted the difficulties that lay in their path as a minority having to deal with the great question now pressing on their attention. But the past two years had given them great triumphs, and he had every confidence that with a firm front they might add to them fresh triumphs in 1868. But there were others who felt confident, and with better reason--unfortunately for him--than Mr. Disraeli. That condition of the Liberal party described in the caustic observation of Mr. Bouverie, when it had "leaders that wouldn't lead, and followers that wouldn't follow," was now at an end. Mr. Gladstone, who assiduously felt the pulse of his party, soon discovered that those who had played truant were willing to submit to discipline once more, and his exultation was extreme. "Having put our hand to the plough," he said, at a dinner given to Mr. Brand, the Liberal whip, at the end of March, "we shall not look back. I have entertained from the first a confident hope and belief that a long and arduous struggle would be accompanied by complete success." The battle-ground which the Liberal leader had chosen was well adapted to bring together all the scattered sections of the party; it was the proposal to disestablish the Irish Protestant Church. The perturbed and discontented state of Ireland was a continual source of anxiety. The proposal to abolish the State Church was satisfactory to the Liberals who were only politicians, because it involved what they deemed a useful and tranquillising concession to the feelings of the Roman Catholic majority of the Irish people. It was also satisfactory to that large and important class of Liberals who had Dissenting sympathies, because it aimed at doing away with an Established Church, and reducing its ministers to find their subsistence through reliance on the principle of Voluntaryism.

Although we shall be departing from the strict order of time, we prefer to describe the more important measures that the Government succeeded in carrying through Parliament this Session, before entering upon the narrative of the party contest which resulted in their defeat and paved the way for their resignation. These measures were three in number. Of one, the Scottish Reform Bill, we have already given the history; the two others were the Irish Reform Bill, and the Bill for defining the boundaries of boroughs in England and Wales. The Irish Reform Bill was brought in by Lord Mayo on the 19th of March. It was in appearance a much simpler affair than the corresponding Bill for Scotland; it gave to Ireland no new members, and made no change in the county franchise, which had been fixed at a £12 rental for Ireland some years before. In the boroughs the Bill enacted that the rates of all houses valued at less than £4 a year should be paid by the landlord, and fixed the franchise at £4 a year rental. Practically, therefore, it was a ratepaying franchise as in England. It also contained a redistribution scheme, which proposed to disfranchise six small boroughs, and allot one of the seats thus obtained to Dublin, and the other five to different counties that were inadequately represented. The Bill was read a second time on the 7th of May, and then the real battle began. The redistribution scheme appeared to please no one, and Government withdrew it. The Irish Liberal members complained that the Bill, which only added about nine thousand new names to the register of voters, was absurdly insufficient; they alleged that the qualification for the county franchise was far too high, and that the retention of the freeman franchise was an error. Sir Colman O'Loghlen moved an amendment which, if carried, would have swept away the freeman franchise of Dublin and other cities; and Colonel French endeavoured to reduce the county qualification from £12 to £8. Other amendments also were moved; but from some cause or other Government were always victorious when it came to a division; and the Bill passed through committee substantially as its authors had framed it, minus the redistribution clause. The Irish members complained bitterly of this result, declaring that but for the apathy of English and Scottish Liberals, who had neglected to come to the House to support them, they would have carried the amendments above described, and greatly improved the Bill. As for the county qualification, Sir John Gray declared that though nominally the same as in England, a rental of £12 a year in Ireland was really equivalent to one of £30 a year in England.

The Bill for regulating the boundaries of boroughs in England and Wales was founded on the report of a Royal Commission that had minutely investigated the subject. When introduced into the House there appeared to be an indisposition to accept it as it stood, because the municipalities of a number of boroughs whose boundaries had been extended by the commissioners remonstrated against such extension and petitioned the House that the ancient boundaries might be preserved. A motion was accordingly made and accepted by Government, that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. The recommendations of the Select Committee went to undermine many of the conclusions of the Commission, and independent members moved amendments that were derogatory to the recommendations of the committee. Great wrangling and confusion ensued, but in the end the Bill was carried as altered by the Select Committee; and fifteen important boroughs--among which Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, and Manchester were included--were permitted to retain their ancient boundaries, contrary to the recommendations of the Commission. The Bill was not passed by the House of Lords till near the end of the Session.

At a much earlier period Mr. Gladstone sprang his first mine against the Government position with destructive effect. Three years before, when Mr. Dillwyn had brought up the question of the anomalous spectacle presented to Europe by the Irish Church, Mr. Gladstone had both spoken and written to the effect that, while admitting the scandal and the danger of the existing state of things, he did not believe the question to be within the range of present politics, and considered that a long period must elapse before it would be ripe for settlement. Now, however, he had convinced himself that "the hour was come, and the man." On the 23rd of March he laid three resolutions before the Commons, of which the first declared that, "in the opinion of this House, it is necessary that the Established Church of Ireland should cease to exist as an establishment, due regard being had to all personal interests, and to all individual rights of property." The object of the second and third resolutions was to prevent the creation of any more vested interests for the future. Vacancies occurring in the higher ecclesiastical appointments were not, if in public patronage, to be filled up pending the decision of Parliament; and the Queen was to be humbly solicited by the House to place at the disposal of Parliament with a view to the aforesaid purposes, her interest in the archbishoprics, bishoprics, and other ecclesiastical dignities and benefices of Ireland. Mr. Disraeli, had all his Cabinet been of one mind, would probably have met the resolutions by a direct negative. But his Secretary for Foreign Affairs--Lord Stanley--the high descent and great wealth of whose family, coupled with his own unquestioned ability, enforced consideration for his opinions--was by no means disposed to maintain a war à outrance in defence of the Church of Ireland. It was accordingly agreed that Mr. Gladstone's resolutions should be met at the first stage by an amendment, to be moved by Lord Stanley: "That this House, while admitting that considerable modifications in the temporalities of the united Church in Ireland may, after pending inquiry, appear to be expedient, is of opinion that any proposition tending to the disestablishment or disendowment of the Church ought to be reserved for the decision of the new Parliament." The amendment was ingeniously framed, because it contained an implied menace that the Government, if defeated on the resolutions, would dissolve Parliament sooner than allow the Irish Church Question to be dealt with by the "unreformed" constituencies; thus sending back members to their constituents to face all the trouble and expense of an election many months before the time that they had calculated upon. This disagreeable prospect might again, it was hoped, cause a split in the Liberal party. But the manœuvre did not succeed this time. The debate on the resolutions commenced on the 30th of March, and was continued over four nights; the question being, whether the Speaker should leave the chair so that the House might go into committee on the resolutions, or whether Lord Stanley's amendment should be affirmed. In the course of the debate, Mr. Lowe, the great deserter, who had now returned to his colours, made a vehement and powerful attack on Government for their attempt to link the fortunes of the Church of England with those of the sister Establishment in Ireland. This, he said, was a Mezentian union--an attempt to link the living with the dead.

The division resulted in the rejection of Lord Stanley's amendment by a majority of 61; the numbers being 270 for, and 331 against it. No further progress was made for the moment, as the defeat of Government occurred on the eve of the Easter recess. During the short interval the sense of the country was variously expressed by two great meetings held in St. James's Hall--one for, the other against, Disestablishment. At the first, presided over by Lord Russell, the Chairman professed himself ready to sacrifice what was, in his own opinion, the best course--the plan of concurrent endowment by paying the priests. Great unanimity prevailed. At the Conservative meeting, the only argument put forward that was of much weight was this--that the ill-feeling which prevailed in Ireland towards England was more deep-seated than most Englishmen supposed; and that the disestablishment of the Irish Church, which was far from being a generally unpopular institution, would do nothing to remove this feeling in the minds of the majority, while it would tend to diminish the attachment of the Protestant minority to Great Britain. Parliament resumed its sittings on the 20th of April, and the 27th was fixed for the debate in committee on Mr. Gladstone's first resolution. Three more nights were consumed in the discussion of the question in all its bearings; on the 30th of April the division took place, and resulted in the affirmation of the first resolution, by a majority against Government of sixty-five.

Upon the numbers being announced, Mr. Disraeli rose and said that the vote at which the committee had arrived had altered the relations between Government and the House; he therefore moved that the House should adjourn to Monday, the 4th of May, to enable Government to consider their position. Few imagined that after defeats so decisive Government would be able to follow aught but one of two courses--either immediate resignation or immediate dissolution. Many, indeed, of the Liberal leaders maintained that the only constitutional course open to the Ministry was resignation. But his opponents did not know all that the accomplished and versatile Premier was capable of. Mr. Disraeli was not yet at the end of his resources. He contrived to extract out of defeat a secure tenure of office for seven months longer, and all the rage and vituperation of the baffled victors could avail nothing against his imperturbable front. On the 4th of May he rose in his place, and stated that, having waited on her Majesty, he told her that "the advice which her Ministers would, in the full spirit of the Constitution, offer her, would be that her Majesty should dissolve this Parliament, and take the opinion of the country upon the conduct of her Ministers, and on the question at issue; but, at the same time, with the full concurrence of my colleagues, I represented to her Majesty that there were important occasions on which it was wise that the Sovereign should not be embarrassed by personal claims, however constitutional, valid, or meritorious; and that if her Majesty was of opinion that the question at issue could be more satisfactorily settled, or that the interests of the country would be promoted by the immediate retirement of the present Government from office, we were prepared to quit her Majesty's service immediately, with no other feeling but that which every Minister who has served the Queen must entertain, viz. a feeling of gratitude to her Majesty for the warm constitutional support which she always gives to her Ministers, and I may add--for it is a truth that cannot be concealed--for the aid and assistance which any Minister must experience from a Sovereign who has such a vast acquaintance with public affairs. Sir, I, in fact, tendered my resignation to the Queen. Her Majesty commanded me to attend her in audience on the next day, when her Majesty was pleased to express her pleasure not to accept the resignation of her Ministers, and her readiness to dissolve Parliament so soon as the state of public business would permit. Under these circumstances, I advised her Majesty that, although the present constituency was no doubt admirably competent to decide upon the question of the disestablishment of the Church, still it was the opinion of her Majesty's Ministers that every effort should be made that the appeal should, if possible, be directed to the new constituencies which the wisdom of Parliament provided last year; and I expressed to her Majesty that, if we had the cordial co-operation of Parliament, I was advised by those who are experienced and skilful in these matters that it would be possible to make arrangements by which that dissolution could take place in the autumn of this year."

This speech, so charmingly blended and tempered as it was, concealed under a cloud of plausible words the exact point which every one wanted to know--how far the Ministerial plan was due to the Queen's own initiative, and how much was suggested to her by the Premier. The only point about which there could be no mistake was that the Ministers meant to stay in till the autumn. The Liberals were greatly incensed; and although many of them must have keenly relished the joke, and internally done homage to the genius of this master of political legerdemain, the leaders of the party felt it as a very serious matter to be kept so long out of the fruits of a triumph which they had deemed secure. Mr. Disraeli was questioned and cross-questioned as to the exact nature of the communications that had taken place between the Queen and himself, and as to an apparent discrepancy between his own explanation of the circumstances, and that given by the Duke of Richmond in the other House. Nothing could be more ingenuous and candid than Mr. Disraeli's replies; nevertheless, the transaction continued to be wrapped in some degree of mystery and Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe, and others protested against the course taken by the Ministry as unconstitutional and unprecedented. According to Lord Malmesbury, Mr. Gladstone wished to stop supplies, but could not obtain the support of his party. Mr. Bright, however, severely chastised Mr. Disraeli for his use of the Queen's name, and the Prime Minister winced under the castigation. To the statement of Mr. Lowe, that in not resigning the Ministry was treating the House with disrespect, since the large majorities by which Government had been defeated on the Irish Church Question amounted virtually to a vote of want of confidence, Mr. Disraeli replied that many of those who sided with the majority on these occasions had assured him that they did not so understand the votes they gave; and he challenged Mr. Lowe and those who agreed with him to propose a direct vote of want of confidence, which could be argued and decided on that plain issue. The challenge was not taken up, and the excitement on this particular matter gradually subsided.

To the three original resolutions of Mr. Gladstone a fourth was added in the course of the discussion, relating to the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum. The former, which was originally fixed at £8,000 a year, was raised by Sir Robert Peel, in 1845, to £30,000 a year, and charged upon the Consolidated Fund. It was devoted to the sustentation of the great Roman Catholic seminary for the training of priests at Maynooth, and was administered by the Irish bishops, subject to the control of the Executive. Before Maynooth was established, the Irish priests were generally educated in France, whence they brought back, as it was supposed, feelings of alienation and hostility towards England; it was therefore considered to be an act of wise statesmanship to subsidise a seminary in Ireland itself, so that the priests might be educated at home. The Regium Donum was an annual grant of about £38,000, first instituted by Charles II., in favour of the Irish Presbyterian Church, and distributed among the ministers in stipends of £75 each. Evidently the grounds of justice and conciliation upon which Mr. Gladstone relied in moving for the disendowment of the Irish Church were inapplicable in the case of the Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum, both of which were of very modest amount relatively to the size of the religious communities to which they were allotted, and the payment of which involved no injustice nor inequality. But it was necessary for Mr. Gladstone to include these also in his scheme of disendowment, as, otherwise, he would have forfeited the support of the English Dissenters and the Scottish Radicals. With these the disendowment of the Irish Church was popular, not so much as an abatement of an injustice, as because it committed the State pro tanto to the principle of Voluntaryism. "Levelling down" was the only kind of equalisation which they approved of; they desired that all religious organisations should be denuded of State aid equally with themselves, whether that aid were much or little. This applies more particularly to the Dissenters; with the Scottish members the detestation of everything Roman Catholic was the chief motive for their claiming that the Maynooth Grant should be included in the work of demolition. Mr. Gladstone, in order to preserve the unity of his party, which he had just patched together again with such infinite trouble, was obliged to consent to this enlargement of his scheme; and the fourth resolution accordingly ran thus: "That when legislative effect shall have been given to the first resolution of this committee, respecting the Established Church of Ireland, it is right and necessary that the grant to Maynooth and the Regium Donum be discontinued, due regard being had to all personal interests."

The resolutions having been carried, in their final shape (May 8th), the Address to her Majesty respecting the temporalities of the Irish Church was duly presented. Some inconsiderate persons supposed that either Mr. Disraeli would advise the Queen, or that the Queen herself, under the influence of an imagined scruple as to the bearing of the Coronation Oath, would refuse, to surrender to Parliament her interest in the Irish temporalities in the manner requested. But both Mr. Disraeli and the Queen knew better the path prescribed to each by constitutional duty. The answer of her Majesty to the Commons' Address, received at the House on the 12th of May, stated that, relying on the wisdom of her Parliament, the Queen desired that her interest in the temporalities of the Irish Church should not stand in the way of the discussion of any measure that Parliament might deem necessary for the welfare of Ireland. To advise her Majesty to any other course would have been the less excusable, because it was quite unnecessary; Mr. Disraeli being serenely confident that the Tory majority in the House of Lords would allow no measure touching the temporalities to pass into law--at any rate that year. This was soon made evident, when, as soon as possible after the receipt of the Queen's consent to legislative action, Mr. Gladstone brought in a Suspensory Bill, the object of which was to stop the creation of new vested interests, by preventing for a limited time any new appointments in the Irish Church, and to restrain for the same period in certain respects the proceedings of the Irish Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Suspensory Bill passed easily through the House of Commons; but when it came to the Lords it was criticised with great severity, and the second reading was refused by a majority of ninety-five.

The rest of the Session passed away with little that was eventful to mark its course. Government brought in an Education Bill, which contained one noteworthy and excellent feature--the provision of a real Minister of Education, in the shape of a new Secretary of State for that special department. But the general scheme proposed in the Bill was slight and not deeply considered; it therefore failed to stand its ground against the numerous objections raised against it, and was before long withdrawn by its promoters. The financial statement of Mr. Ward Hunt, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, showed that the revenue continued to exhibit that character of elasticity which it had maintained for several years. The plan for the public endowment of the Irish Catholic University fell to the ground at an early period of the Session. The Irish prelates (Archbishop Leahy and Bishop Derry) who had been appointed to conduct the negotiation on the part of the University authorities with the Chief Secretary, Lord Mayo, demanded powers so extensive, not only as to the appointment and dismissal of professors and other officers, but also as to the use and prohibition of books, that Government abruptly closed the correspondence. It afterwards appeared that the prelates had not put forward these demands as an ultimatum, and might have abated their terms upon good cause being shown. But it is probable that Mr. Disraeli, knowing how extremely averse was popular feeling from any concession to Romanism, felt little regret that the large demands of the prelates had furnished him with a decent excuse for abandoning the project.

Several measures introduced by Government in the course of the Session met with a similar fate to that which befell the Education Bill. One really useful Act was passed--that for enabling the State to treat with the various electric telegraph companies for the purchase of their lines, in order that the whole telegraphic communication of the country might be placed under the control of the Postmaster-General. The adjustment of the various interests involved was a work of great labour and patience; it was, however, accomplished, and the telegraph companies agreed to accept twenty years' purchase of the net profits of their undertakings. It was calculated that Government would require about £6,000,000 in order to carry the scheme into full effect, the greater part of which sum would be borrowed from the Savings Banks Fund; but the financial part of the arrangement was reserved for the next Parliament. Mr. Scudamore, the originator of the scheme, calculated that the Post Office would derive a net profit of £200,000 a year from taking the telegraph lines into its own hands; but the purchase gave rise, then and afterwards, to much hostile criticism.

The home policy of the Tory Government, checked and foiled as it was at every turn, by the fact of its supporters being a minority in the House of Commons, cannot be deemed, however brilliant it may have been in inception, to have been more than moderately successful in what it achieved. With foreign affairs it was otherwise. Lord Stanley presided over the Foreign Office, and controlled the relations of the country with Foreign Powers with a firmness and dignity that recalled English statesmen of the old school. Of his conduct in the Luxemburg business we have already spoken; of his management of the Alabama question we shall have to speak hereafter. Making a reasonable deduction for partisanship, we may admit that there was much truth in the lofty language used by the Prime Minister with regard to the foreign policy of his Government, in a speech delivered at a banquet in Merchant Taylors' Hall, on the 17th of June. "When we acceded to office," he said, "the name of England was a name of suspicion and distrust in every foreign Court and Cabinet. There was no possibility of that cordial action with any of the Great Powers which is the only security for peace; and, in consequence of that want of cordiality, wars were frequently occurring. But since we entered upon office, and public affairs were administered by my noble friend, who is deprived by a special diplomatic duty of the gratification of being here this evening, I say that all this has changed; that there never existed between England and Foreign Powers a feeling of greater cordiality and confidence than now prevails; that while we have shrunk from bustling and arrogant intermeddling, we have never taken refuge in selfish isolation; and the result has been that there never was a Government in the country which has been more frequently appealed to for its friendly offices than the one which now exists."

A short Act--the Registration of Voters Act--was passed before Parliament separated, in order to facilitate early elections under the Reform Bill of 1867; and the Session came to a close on the 31st of July. After the prorogation of Parliament the Ministry lost no time in making the necessary preparations for a dissolution and general election. The registers of the enlarged constituencies were actively proceeded with and so far completed that it was found possible to dissolve Parliament on the 11th of November, and to summon a new one, to be elected under the Reform Act of 1867, for the 10th of December. The great public question at issue was the existence of the Irish Establishment; and, on a general view, the verdict of the constituencies was given in favour of Mr. Gladstone's proposals, and disappointed the sanguine anticipations of Mr. Disraeli. There was a gain to the Liberal party, as the net result of the elections, of fifteen seats, equal to thirty votes on a division. But their triumph was chequered by several minor reverses, among which the rejection of Mr. Gladstone for South Lancashire was the most remarkable. Every resource that unflagging industry, careful organisation, and incessant oratory could put in requisition was resorted to in order to secure the return of the Liberal leader, but all efforts were in vain; the Conservative candidates--Messrs. Cross and Turner--were returned at the head of the poll, Mr. Gladstone having two hundred and sixty fewer votes than Mr. Turner, who was about fifty below Mr. Cross. There were two principal causes accounting for this result; one the extreme unpopularity of the Irish in South Lancashire, owing to the increased turbulence, drunkenness, and pauperism which their presence in large numbers occasioned, and also to the fact that their competition beat down wages; the other, the influence of the house of Stanley and other great Conservative families in that part of the country. Mr. Gladstone had to console himself with the suffrages of Greenwich, which had generously elected him while the issue in South Lancashire was still undecided. In other parts of Lancashire the same feeling of soreness against the proposal to disestablish the Irish Church, because it seemed to involve a triumph for the locally unpopular Irish Catholics, produced a similar result. This great and representative county, taking boroughs and shire-divisions together, returned twenty-one Conservatives against eleven Liberals. On the other hand, the Scottish electors accepted Mr. Gladstone's proposal with extraordinary favour. Not only did the Scottish boroughs return Liberals without exception, but many counties which had returned Conservative members for years were on this occasion carried for Liberals. Of the whole number of members who came up from Scotland, only seven were Conservatives. In Ireland also there was a Liberal gain, though one of less magnitude. At the election for Westminster--to the deep regret of all who could appreciate the profound political insight and philosophical treatment of great questions which were thus lost to the House of Commons--Mr. John Stuart Mill was defeated by the Conservative candidate, Mr. William Henry Smith.

By the beginning of December it was abundantly evident that Mr. Gladstone would be supported in the new House of Commons by a considerably larger following than before. Mr. Disraeli thereupon took a bold and judicious resolution. He would not go through the forms of meeting Parliament as if he were the master of the situation--of advising a Royal Speech that must either omit all mention of the Irish Church, or mention it in a tone at variance with the sentiments of the great majority of the House,--of renewing or seeing renewed a debate that he knew could only end one way. He resolved, therefore, to resign office before Parliament met, and this resolution he communicated to his friends and supporters by a circular dated the 2nd of December. Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues accordingly resigned, and the Queen, of course, sent for Mr. Gladstone, as the recognised leader of the party, and the ablest exponent of the policy of which the majority of the constituencies had just recorded their emphatic approval. The outgoing Premier declined a peerage for himself, but accepted one for his wife, who became Viscountess Beaconsfield. Mr. Gladstone became First Lord of the Treasury, and the principal offices were thus filled up:--Lord Chancellor, Lord Hatherley (late Sir W. Page Wood); President of the Council, Lord de Grey and Ripon; Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lowe; Home Secretary, Mr. Bruce; Foreign Secretary, Earl of Clarendon; Colonial Secretary, Earl Granville; Secretary for War, Mr. Cardwell; Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Chichester Fortescue; Secretary for India, Duke of Argyll; First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Childers; President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Bright; Chairman of the Poor Law Board, Mr. Goschen; Vice-President of the Council, Mr. W. E. Forster. The new Ministers, having necessarily vacated their seats on taking office, were not present at the meeting of Parliament on the 10th of December, and the only proceedings then taken were of a formal character, including the re-election of Mr. Evelyn Denison as Speaker, and the swearing-in of the new members who were more than 200 in number. Parliament was then adjourned to the 29th of December, at which date, the re-election of the new Ministers having been in no instance opposed, the House reassembled, with Ministers all in their places, but only to be again immediately adjourned to the 16th of February, 1869.

Some events, non-political in their character, which belonged to the year 1868, may here be brought together. In the course of the spring the intelligence of an attempt to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh while in Australia created much excitement in London. Prince Alfred, the second son of the Queen, having taken to a naval life, rose rapidly in the service, and at the time of the attempt was in command of the Galatea, a frigate attached to the Australian station. In the course of a long visit to the colony of New South Wales the Prince had consented to be present at a large picnic at Clontarf (a place on Middle Harbour, Port Jackson), organised partly to do honour to his Royal Highness, partly to benefit the funds of a Sailors' Home. Here, under the bright Australian sky, while all was mirth and enjoyment around, the Prince being engaged in conversation with Sir William Manning, the Attorney-General, while the Governor (Lord Belmore) and the Lord Chief Justice were at a short distance, a person was observed to take deliberate aim at the Prince with a revolver and fire. The Duke fell forward on his hands and knees, exclaiming, "Good God! my back is broken." Sir William Manning rushed at the fellow to seize him, but, seeing him on the point of firing another shot, stooped to evade the bullet, and in the act of stooping lost his balance and fell. But there were so many persons on the ground that the criminal had little or no chance of escape. A stalwart coachbuilder of the name of Vial ran up and seized him from behind, pinioning his arms to his side. The man struggled hard, attempting to liberate his right arm sufficiently to discharge the pistol at Vial over his shoulder; but, finding this impossible, he fired in the direction of the spot where the Duke was lying, with the supposed intention of wounding him again. The bullet, which had struck the back and traversed the ribs, was extracted without difficulty, and the progress of his Royal Highness to recovery was rapid and without check. While the Duke was being borne away, a painful scene occurred. Before the police could take him in charge, the misguided wretch was surrounded by a mob of infuriated loyalists, incapable of restraining either their feelings or their fists. By these the criminal was so mauled, so brutally beaten and bruised, that, when the police at last arrived, he was covered with blood from head to foot and scarcely retained the semblance of humanity. "Lynch him!" "Hang him!" "String him up!"--such were the cries that issued from a hundred throats. When he was brought down to the man-of-war from which he was to be removed to gaol, the sailors were about to hang him at the yard-arm incontinently; but Lord Newry interposed and saved him. After much preliminary investigation, in order to ascertain whether or not the man had accomplices, he was put on his trial on the 26th of March. He gave his name as Henry James O'Farrel, admitted that he had intended to kill the Prince, as a prominent representative of English tyranny over his native land, and at first used language which pointed, like that of Mucius Scævola on a similar occasion, to a secret conspiracy in which he was but one of the adepts and accomplices. When, however, he was condemned to death, he wrote and signed on the day before his execution (April 21st) a full and clear statement, declaring that he had had no accomplices, and that the design of assassinating the Duke had been conceived in his own brain, and communicated to no other person. He admitted that he was a Fenian, but denied that he was connected with, or even cognisant of the existence of, any Fenian organisation in New South Wales. Before he suffered, he was brought to a becoming sense of the guilt of the criminal act he had so nearly consummated. The Duke of Edinburgh, after his recovery, interceded with the Colonial Government, but without effect, for the pardon of the culprit.

The scandalous scenes caused in 1867 by the discourses of the "No Popery" lecturer Murphy were renewed in the May of 1868 with yet more calamitous results. A traveller, passing through the streets of Birmingham, on the night of June 19th, 1867, saw Park Street in ruins; the traffic stopped in the great thoroughfare of High Street and Bull Street; Carr's Lane, Moor Street, etc., strongly occupied by soldiers, and Irishwomen weeping over the destruction of their little property and their wrecked homes. On the 9th of May, 1868, the furious spirit of bigotry which Murphy's lectures had awakened in the breasts of his English auditors, at Dukinfield, Stalybridge, and Ashton-under-Lyne, important manufacturing towns in South Lancashire, found vent in a combined movement against the quarter inhabited by the Catholic Irish in the last-named town. Much fighting ensued, but the party of the assailants was in superior force, and, after having done considerable damage to a small chapel with its school in the Irish quarter, they attacked the principal chapel (St. Mary's). The chapel bell was rung, and the Irish flocked to the aid of their priest; but they were overpowered by numbers, and the fittings and window-frames of the chapel were destroyed. Shots were fired, but no lives were lost. On the 11th there was a renewal of rioting; the English attacked Reyner's Row, the inhabitants of which were mostly Irish, and commenced systematically to sack and gut the houses, and destroy the furniture. Troops were at last sent for by the Mayor; the rioters cheered the soldiers, and adjourned to another street merely to renew the work of devastation. It was the riots of 1780 repeated on a smaller scale. In one of the rushes made by the mob a respectable woman was knocked down and trampled to death. A number of special constables were sworn in; the most mischievous of the rioters were arrested or disarmed, and the disturbance was gradually got under. An attempt was made to renew the same outrages at Stalybridge; but here the authorities were well prepared, and the mob was at once charged and dispersed by a combined force of constables and specials.

In December, a decision, which had been awaited with deep interest by both the great parties in the Church, was delivered by Lord Cairns in the name of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The judgment was in the case of Martin v. Mackonochie. The latter, one of the leading Ritualist clergy in London, and the incumbent of St. Alban's, Holborn, was charged with lighting candles on the communion-table at the time of the celebration of the communion, and with superstitiously prostrating himself before the elements after pronouncing the prayer of consecration. On both charges submitted the judgment was against Mr. Mackonochie. Lighted candles, according to the Judicial Committee, were not "ornaments" within the meaning of the Rubric; and with regard to the prostrations, it was evident that they introduced and implied an adoration to a supposed Divine presence, objectively understood, which the Reformers had carefully eliminated from the worship of the Anglican Church. Mr. Mackonochie was condemned in the costs of the appeal, as well as in the costs of the hearing in the court below.

There died in this year (May 7), at an extreme old age, one whose name recalled the Liberal reaction that set in in Great Britain at the beginning of the century, who had worked with Mackintosh and Charles James Fox, and stood up to defend the unhappy Queen of George IV. This was Lord Brougham, whose splendid talents were neutralised by a restless ambition, which had condemned him, since his ostracism by Lord Melbourne, to a long career of political sterility. Longley, once head-master of Harrow, who since the death of Sumner had been Archbishop of Canterbury, died this year (October 27), and was succeeded by Dr. Tait, the Bishop of London. A life brilliantly commenced, but clouded latterly by many disappointments, was also closed this year (June 11)--that of Sir James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak. The adventurous story of his early life--how, finding himself possessed of wealth, and with no special work to do, he fitted out a yacht, and sailed to the Eastern Archipelago; how he settled down at Sarawak in Borneo, and, as a beneficent friend and lawgiver, taught the Dyaks the benefits of law, and the arts and enjoyments of a higher life; how he warred upon the pirates of the coast and the freebooters of the interior--all this is told, simply and well, in Captain Keppel's "Voyage of the Dido." Milman, the historian of the Jews and of Latin Christianity, also passed away; and Bishop Hampden, whose name was associated with university controversies, and Bishop Jeune, whose name recalls university reform.

The sequence of events in Abyssinia that terminated in the death of the Emperor Theodore and the storming of the rock fortress of Magdala, commenced with the conclusion of a treaty of amity and commerce, in 1848, between Queen Victoria and Ras Ali, the ruler of central Abyssinia. This treaty was the work of Lord Palmerston; and to understand his motives, it is necessary that the reader should have some general knowledge of the previous history of Abyssinia. The natives of this portion of the ancient Ethiopia--which, though within the tropics, enjoys a healthy and delightful climate, on account of its great elevation above the sea--were converted to Christianity by St. Frumentius, sent from Alexandria by the great Athanasius in the fourth century of our era. They never for any long time together broke their connection with Egypt; for centuries the Abuna, or patriarch, of the Abyssinian Church, had been appointed, whenever the dignity fell vacant, by the Coptic Patriarch in Egypt, and submissively accepted by the Abyssinian Christians. Unfortunately, the Copts in Egypt having ages ago adopted the heresy of the Monophysites, the connection between the two countries propagated the same heresy in Abyssinia, and thereby raised in some degree a barrier between the Abyssinians and the rest of Christendom. But the motive that originally induced the Neguses, or Emperors, of Abyssinia to seek the head of their Church from Egypt was wise and laudable; they saw Mohammedanism spreading all around them, cutting them off from all other Christian countries; and they hoped by this ecclesiastical arrangement to guard themselves in some measure against the fatal effects of that isolation.

Ages rolled by and the troubles of Abyssinia continually thickened. Once, before Mohammed arose, she had had the command of the Red Sea and had subdued the southern portion of Arabia, where her dominion for a time promised to be permanent. Gibbon speculates on the strangely different course which human affairs might have taken if the Christian rulers of Abyssinia had been able to subjugate the whole of Arabia and stifle Islam in its cradle. But the Crescent rose higher and higher in the heavens; the Turkish power gradually extended itself along the shores of the Red Sea, and about 1570 succeeded in permanently occupying Massowah and other points on the west coast, thus cutting off Abyssinia from the sea. A still worse infliction came on the unfortunate country about the same time, in the invasion of tribes of savage and heathen Gallas from the south. They came again and again; though often defeated and driven out, they still returned in greater numbers and with greater ferocity than before. These intruding Gallas had become Mussulman, while the Galla tribes to the south remained heathen.

The Portuguese, soon after they had discovered the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, conceived a high idea of the importance of Abyssinia as the key of North-Eastern Africa, and opened diplomatic and commercial intercourse with its rulers. For about a century and a half this heroic little nation, partly by its soldiers, partly by its Jesuit missionaries, maintained a close and constant communication with Abyssinia. About the year 1640 the Portuguese power, succumbing to some mysterious law of national decay, began everywhere to decline. Thenceforward, till official relations were opened between Britain and Abyssinia, near the beginning of the century, it does not appear that any European nation had any intercourse with the country except through the visits of individual travellers or adventurers. The ancient royal family, which bore the sovereign title of Negus (properly "Nagash"), was deposed about 1770, shortly before the visit of James Bruce, the celebrated traveller; and Abyssinia was split up into three or more independent States, the chief of which were Tigré, Amhara, and Shoa. Official communication was first opened between Britain and Abyssinia in 1810, when Mr. Salt, the British Envoy, paid a formal visit to Ras Walda Selassyé, the Prince of Tigré, at Antalo, and presented him with two three-pounder field guns and other presents. But Mr. Salt's visit was an isolated act, and led to nothing. Nor was the visit of Major Harris to the King of Shoa, in 1841, undertaken by orders of the Bombay Government to arrange a treaty of commerce with that potentate, productive of more lasting consequences; although it furnished the materials for one of the most popular and interesting books of travel that the last generation produced. The visit of Walter Plowden, a private Englishman, who first found his way to Abyssinia in 1843, led eventually to more important consequences than either of the official visits just mentioned. After a residence of nearly four years in the country, he returned to England, bearing some presents from Ras Ali, then chief of central Abyssinia, to the Queen. While in London he submitted several memoranda on Abyssinian affairs to Lord Palmerston. The intelligent clearness with which these were written, and the prospect which they held out of extending British trade and influence in those parts of Africa, appear to have made a strong impression on Lord Palmerston, and he appointed Mr. Plowden British Consul at Massowah, for the protection of British trade in Abyssinia. He also entrusted him (Jan., 1848) with presents for Ras Ali, and instructed him to conclude with that ruler a treaty of amity and commerce. Plowden was soon back in Abyssinia and zealously fulfilled his instructions. Ras Ali, an indolent man, had no objection to sign the treaty, but he said he did not expect that it would bring any British traders to Abyssinia. In truth, while the Turks (or rather the Egyptians, for Turkey ceded her possessions on this shore in 1866 to the Pasha of Egypt) were allowed to cut off Abyssinia from the sea, no European trade with the country could flourish.

Consul Plowden had been residing six years at Massowah when he heard that the Prince to whom he had been accredited, Ras Ali, had been defeated and dethroned by an adventurer, whose name, a few years before, had been unknown outside the boundaries of his native province. This was Lij Kâsa, better known by his adopted name of Theodore. He was born of an old family, in the mountainous region of Kwara, where the land begins to slope downwards towards the Blue Nile, and educated in a convent, where he learned to read, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the Scriptures. Kâsa's convent life was suddenly put an end to when one of the marauding Galla bands attacked and plundered the monastery. From that time he himself took to the life of a freebooter and, through his superior intelligence and undaunted courage, soon attained the reputation of being successful in all his enterprises. Adventurers flocked to his standard; his power continually increased; and in 1854 he defeated Ras Ali in a pitched battle, and made himself master of central Abyssinia. His ambition widened in proportion to its gratification; he now sent to Oobye, the ruler of Tigré, requiring that he should pay him tribute, and insisted that the Abuna, then resident at the Court of Oobye, should be sent to Gondar, which, since the fall of Ras Ali, had been Kâsa's capital. His demands were scornfully rejected, and the Abuna excommunicated him. But Kâsa was equal to the occasion. Monseigneur de Jacobis, a Roman Catholic missionary of great ability and saintly life, was at that time in Abyssinia, with the authority of Vicar-Apostolic; him Kâsa threatened to recognise as bishop unless the Abuna came to Gondar. The Abuna then yielded, revoked the excommunication, and came to live at Gondar, thus giving a kind of religious sanction to the adventurer's power. Fortune still attended the arms of Kâsa. In 1855 he defeated Oobye at a place called Derezgye, in the province of Semyen, and all Tigré submitted to the conqueror. He now resolved to assume a title commensurate with the wide extent of his dominion. In the church of Derezgye he had himself crowned by the Abuna as King of the Kings of Ethiopia, taking the name of Theodore, because an ancient tradition declared that a great monarch so called would one day arise in Abyssinia. Courtly genealogists were not wanting who deduced his pedigree from the line of the ancient kings.

These startling events reached the ears of Mr. Plowden at Massowah and he resolved to visit the new monarch. He arrived at the camp of Theodore in March or April, 1855, and found that a former fellow-traveller, an Englishman named Bell, who had married an Abyssinian lady, was already in Theodore's service, with the title and functions of Grand Chamberlain. At this time Theodore's character and aims were such as to command the admiration and respect of Plowden and Bell, both of whom were able and excellent men. "Plowden said of him that he was generous to excess, and free from all cupidity, merciful to his vanquished enemies, and strictly continent; but subject to violent bursts of anger and possessed of unyielding pride and fanatical religious zeal." His views of government were far more enlightened than those of the majority of his countrymen. He abolished the slave trade, put an end to many vexatious imposts on commerce, and aimed at curtailing or suppressing the feudal privileges of a number of petty chiefs, who were the tyrants of the districts over which they ruled. Consul Plowden thus concluded his report on Theodore's character and policy:--"Some of his ideas may be imperfect, others impracticable; but a man who, rising from the clouds of Abyssinian ignorance and childishness, without assistance and without advice, has done so much, and contemplates such large designs, cannot be regarded as of an ordinary stamp."

Some years passed and the power of Theodore was ever on the rise. After his coronation, the first object which he set before him was the subjugation of the Galla tribes in Abyssinia; after which he said that any Galla who would not abjure Islam and receive baptism should be expelled from the country. This object he partly accomplished by the subjection of the Wolo Gallas to his rule. To keep these wild tribes in check, and also to serve as his own principal stronghold, he about this time made choice of Magdala, an amba, or natural fortress, beyond the river Beshilo, east of the Lake of Dembea, and in the midst of the territory of the Wolo Gallas. He then invaded and reduced Shoa, taking Ankober, the capital, and bringing away with him Menelek, the young heir of Shoa, to bring up with his own son. The whole of Abyssinia was now subject to his power. But a series of misfortunes presently fell upon him and changed the whole aspect of his career. In 1860 his true and judicious friend and counsellor, Consul Plowden, while journeying to his camp, was intercepted by an ally of the chief Negussye, who had set up the standard of revolt in Tigré; and in the fight that ensued Plowden was mortally wounded and taken prisoner. Theodore immediately raised from the merchants of Gondar the sum demanded for his ransom and procured his release; but Plowden died a few days afterwards. About the same time Bell, the King's Grand Chamberlain, fell in battle; and within a few months Theodore lost his first wife, the beautiful and virtuous Tawabeteh. His naturally violent temper was soured and embittered by these losses. He took a terrible revenge on the chiefs who had been instrumental in the deaths of Bell and Plowden; and he bade farewell for the rest of his life to that marital fidelity for which, while Tawabeteh lived, he had been conspicuous. He married for his second wife the daughter of Oobye, the Tigré chief whom he had dethroned; but the union was one of policy, not of affection, and Theodore's illicit amours were both numerous and scandalous. In 1861 he got the rebel Negussye into his power, together with his brother, and put them to death with horrible cruelty.

Theodore was now at the height of his power, and European Governments evinced a considerable desire to court his friendship. The French Government nominated M. Lejean as French Consul at Gondar, but on account of some real or imagined affront paid to an emissary whom Theodore had sent to Paris, with a letter to the Emperor, M. Lejean was sent at a day's notice out of the country. The British Government, on hearing of the death of Plowden, immediately replaced him at Massowah by the appointment of Captain Cameron. This gentleman arrived at Massowah in February, 1862, and visited Theodore at his camp in the following October, bearing a few presents, and a letter in the Queen's name, thanking him for his exertions in ransoming poor Plowden. Captain Cameron was very well received. Theodore told him that he had executed 1,500 of the followers of the chief who had killed Plowden, to revenge his death, and that he might thereby win the friendship of the Queen of Great Britain. He also spoke with great bitterness of the encroachments of the Turks and Egyptians, both on the sea-coast and also on his north-western boundary, on what he called his ancestral dominions. In the following month, when Cameron left his camp, he entrusted him with the famous letter to the Queen of England; the postage of which, as Colonel Sykes said, cost us five millions. In this letter the two ideas then prominent in his mind--to deserve and win the friendship of the Queen, by executing wholesale vengeance on those who had killed Englishmen; and to gain her help in his darling project of humbling the Mussulman--received distinct expression.

The reader already knows what became of this remarkable letter when it reached England. Consul Cameron--after expediting the letter to Massowah, whence it was conveyed to Aden, and home by the Indian mail steamer--turned aside to visit the district of Bogos, a little Abyssinian upland, nearly surrounded by the Egyptians and other Mussulmans of the plains. The Christians of Bogos had on some former occasion complained to the Consul at Massowah of ravages committed in their territory by the neighbouring tribes, and Captain Cameron wished to know whether things were now quiet there, and also whether there was any opening for trade. Mainly with this latter object, he next visited the Egyptian town of Kassala. He arrived at Djenda, near the Lake of Dembea, in August, 1863, calculating that he would thus be in the country when the expected reply from England to the King's letter arrived. It appears that Theodore, who had become prone to suspicion, was offended when he heard that Consul Cameron had been at Kassala, among his mortal enemies the Egyptians; and his dissatisfaction, probably through the channel of Mr. Walker, the Vice-consul at Massowah, had become known at the Foreign Office. Moreover, Lord Russell--who wrote soon after this to a British agent, that "he trusted that interference on behalf of a Christian country, as such, would never be the policy of the British Government"--entirely disapproved of the consul's interesting himself in the Bogos people because they were Christians; his business was only to promote trade. The letter already alluded to contained a proposal by Theodore to the Queen of Great Britain for an offensive and defensive alliance against the Moslem powers. It was well known that if that eccentric offer had been rejected, which, of course, could not have been otherwise, the danger of Consul Cameron and the other British subjects, who were in the power of Theodore, would become very grave. However, through the indiscretion of Consul Cameron in having returned to Abyssinia without an answer to the King's letter, when the missionaries had already got into disgrace, he had to share their misfortune in ill-treatment and imprisonment. The Rev. Mr. Stern had fallen under the heavy displeasure of the King, and had been flogged, almost to death, for having, as Theodore alleged, intruded one day on his privacy before giving a notice of his intended visit in accordance with the Abyssinian court etiquette. Stern had also written a book, entitled "Wanderings among the Falashas in Abyssinia," in which he had reflected upon the avocation of Theodore's mother as a vendor of a purgative herb called kosoo. Mr. Stern was called upon to divulge the name of his informant (who was supposed to be the Coptic Metropolitan of Abyssinia), and, as he refused to do so, the King had him tortured, together with his companion Mr. Rosenthal, Consul Cameron, and other British subjects, until he was forced to confess. They were shortly afterwards sent to the fortress at Magdala, and put in irons.

Absolute power and sensual indulgence had by this time turned Theodore's head, and many of his subsequent actions seem hardly to be those of a sane man. His cruelty, fickleness, and suspicion made his rule more and more intolerable to all his subjects. Rebellions were plotted in every province and after a time broke out. Menelek, the young heir of Shoa, escaped from confinement and, expelling Theodore's lieutenant, established himself as the independent ruler of that country. The chief Gobazye raised the standard of revolt in central Abyssinia, and one of his lieutenants, a chief of the best blood of Tigré, rebelling against his principal, made himself independent in that province. The fabric of Theodore's Christian empire, ruined through his own degeneracy, was fast crumbling to pieces. Meanwhile, the news of Captain Cameron's imprisonment had caused considerable sensation in Britain. Government resolved to send out a regular mission, bearing a letter, signed by the Queen, in answer to Theodore's long-neglected epistle, to demand the release of Cameron and the other captives. The head of the mission was Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, of Chaldean nationality, born at Mossul, near ancient Nineveh, since so well known in connection with Assyrian and Babylonian discoveries. He had held different important political appointments under the Indian Government. He was then acting as first Assistant Political Resident at Aden, and possessed great influence amongst the Arabian and African tribes along the coasts of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. To Rassam were added Dr. Blanc and Lieutenant Prideaux, two officers from the Bombay establishment.

A curt permission to enter the country having been granted, Mr. Rassam's first interview with the King was on the 28th of January, 1866. Theodore was seated on a sofa, and wore the common robe of the country, called a shamma. The letter of Queen Victoria, dated the 26th of May, 1864, was presented by the envoy, and Theodore received it graciously. He then entered upon the subject of his grievances. The cause of all the mischief, the prime offender, was the Abuna Salama, the Coptic Patriarch, who had told false and malicious stories about him to various Europeans. Against the missionaries he had a great deal to say, particularly against Mr. Stern. Against Mr. Cameron, besides the offence of never having brought him back an answer to his letter to the Queen, he laid the charge of having gone to visit the Turks and Egyptians, and of having been friendly with them; and, on one occasion, when he was at Kassala with the Pasha, of having brought the King and his army into contempt by ordering his Abyssinian servants to imitate the war-dance of the royal troops. This story was told to the King by a discharged servant of Mr. Cameron's, named Ingada Wark, who had quarrelled with his master, and it is probably devoid of foundation. We give it here as a sample of the kind of insults and injuries over which the suspicious and wayward mind of Theodore was continually brooding, and of which Mr. Rassam's interesting report is full. When the Queen's letter had been translated for him into Amharic, Theodore was much pleased with its contents. On the 29th of January he sent for Mr. Rassam, and told him that, for the sake of his friend the Queen of England, and in return for the trouble that he had taken in the matter of Consul Cameron, he was pleased to pardon all the European captives, and he had ordered their immediate release. He then ordered a scribe to read an Arabic translation of the letter which he had just written to the Queen, announcing the release of the captives. There is a touching humility, a childlike simplicity, in the tone of this letter, which, coming from one who so often appeared in the light of a bloodthirsty and capricious tyrant, affords a curious study of the complexities of human character. A day or two afterwards Mr. Rassam had another conversation with the King. The misdeeds of Mr. Cameron again formed a prominent topic; and it is worth while to record a part of the King's indictment, because the language which he used on this occasion seems to cast a strong light on the actual sequence of feelings and ideas that influenced him in committing Cameron to prison. Theodore said that after he had written his famous letter to the Queen in the autumn of 1862, he gave it to Consul Cameron, requesting that he would take it down to the coast, and bring up an answer himself; that he gave him money for the journey, and ordered the chiefs of all the provinces between Gondar and Massowah to supply him and his followers with food, and treat him with respect and honour. What he chiefly wanted to effect by the letter was this--that since he had no navy of his own, the Queen should send a vessel to convey his ambassador to Suez, and should procure for him a safe conduct through Egypt. Instead of complying with his request, Mr. Cameron "had gone to play with the Turks" (this refers to the visit to Kassala), and after a long time came back to Gondar, but without an answer to his letter. Six months afterwards, Cameron sent him a letter, which he had received from his Government, and demanded his dismissal, that he might go down to Massowah. The King asked why he had returned to Abyssinia if he wished to be at Massowah? Getting no satisfactory answer to this question, Theodore continued, "I sent and told him, by the power of God you shall be detained in prison until I find out whether you are really the servant of the Queen." For why, Theodore would naturally argue, if he is indeed the servant of the Queen, has he not brought me long ere this an answer to my letter?

But the coming of Mr. Rassam, for whom Theodore, though he afterwards used him so roughly, seems to have conceived a genuine affection, appeared at first to have removed all difficulties. It was arranged that the mission should travel to Korata, a beautiful village on the south-eastern shore of Lake Dembea, and there await the arrival of the captives from Magdala; after which they should all leave the country together. For several days' march the mission accompanied the King and his army; but Theodore turned aside to Zagé, a place on the western shore of the lake, facing Korata across the water. Mr. Rassam reached Korata on the 14th of February. Some weeks elapsed, on almost every day in which the King sent a friendly message or letter to Rassam. The first indication of difficulty was on the 7th of March, when the King wrote, "When the people [prisoners] reach you, we will consult;" that is, "You shall not go home at once, as heretofore arranged, but the whole matter shall be reconsidered." The words filled Mr. Rassam with dismay. About the same time a letter was delivered to the King from the traveller Dr. Beke, who had come out to Massowah, enclosing a petition from the relations of Cameron, Stern, and several other captives, entreating the King to release them. Colonel Stanton, the British agent in Egypt, and Sir William Merewether, the Political Resident at Aden, feared that Dr. Beke's action would perplex the King and lead him to doubt the reality of Mr. Rassam's mission. They tried in vain to make Dr. Beke see the prudence of abstaining from any interference in the difficult and delicate negotiation. For the King had now begun seriously to entertain the thought of detaining Rassam and his party till the envoy should have obtained for him from England a scientific man to teach his people the mechanical arts. On the 12th of March, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Stern, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenthal, and eleven other captives, mostly Germans, arrived at Korata from Magdala. On the same day the King wrote to Rassam, saying that he must have them all over to Zagé and put them on their trial again. Rassam, however, obtained leave to try them at Korata; and, having gone through the forms of a mock trial, he wrote to the King that they all confessed that they had done wrong. It was thought prudent that the captives should throw themselves on the King's mercy; but the fabrication did no good, and probably would have been better left unattempted. The King wavered. On the 25th of March he held separate consultations at Zagé, first with the German artisans, and afterwards with a body of Abyssinian chiefs, and propounded at each the question, whether to detain Rassam or let him go? The chiefs and the artisans were equally unanimous in deciding that Rassam ought to be allowed to depart. Theodore was shaken, and yet he was not quite satisfied. The pressure, however, seemed to be telling upon him, and he wrote to Rassam (April 8th), desiring that he would come and pay him a farewell visit at Zagé "after the light of Easter," and bring Mr. Cameron and the other captives with him. This, however, Mr. Rassam--knowing the hatred that the King bore to Mr. Cameron and one or two others among the captives--thought it more prudent not to do. He obtained the King's consent to leave them behind at Korata, with the understanding that they were to start on a given day on their homeward journey, and himself proceeded to Zagé, on the 13th of April, along with the other members of the mission. Unfortunately for them, Theodore for some time past had been drinking heavily, and the effect of this on his moody imagination and suspicious temper was to fill his mind with a thousand preposterous apprehensions. When, therefore, Mr. Rassam with his two companions arrived at Zagé, to pay, as they supposed their farewell visit, they were seized, cross-examined, and their money and arms taken.

Such treatment of a mission, which even in Abyssinia ought to have been safe under the protection of the law of nations, was, of course, outrageous and unprecedented. At this stage an acute crisis seemed to be reached, calling for the most careful treatment at every point. However, there was nothing to be done at the time but to humour Theodore as far as was practicable, and to use every effort to make their situation known to the British Government. In effecting the latter object Mr. Rassam found very little difficulty. Only one of his messengers appears to have been stopped; all the rest carried safely to the coast, not his letters only, but frequently large sums of money, with praiseworthy honesty and regularity. With regard to artisans from England, Theodore wrote to Mr. Rassam (April 17th), that he wished the envoy to obtain for him, from the Queen, "a man who can make cannons and muskets, and one who can smelt iron, and an instructor of artillery." It was thought expedient to comply with the request, and Mr. Rassam wrote accordingly to the Secretary of State on the following day. Mr. Flad, a lay missionary, was selected as the bearer of Mr. Rassam's letter. As his wife and children were left in Abyssinia in Theodore's power, Mr. Flad's speedy return was counted upon with confidence.

For several weeks the captives were detained at Zagé. During this period Theodore's behaviour was almost that of a madman: at one time he would storm and threaten, throw the captives into irons, and make them tremble for their lives; at another time he would publicly express his sorrow for having ill-treated them, and humbly ask their pardon. In June, cholera having broken out in the King's camp, he transferred his headquarters to Debra Tabor, a large village about twenty miles to the east of Gondar, which at that time served him for a capital. Here he arrived--the captives, of course, accompanying him--on the 16th of June. In regard to Mr. Rassam and the other members of the mission, his frantic behaviour reached a climax on the 3rd of July, 1866, when having summoned them to his presence, he made a wild rambling speech, rehearsing a string of trumpery charges, old and new, against them and the other captives. A few days after this interview, it being at the time the King's purpose to march northward against the rebels, the captives were sent, under the guard of an escort of 200 men, to be confined in the fortress of Magdala, where they arrived on the 12th of July. On the broad level top of the amba, so long as they kept within the boundary fence or palisade, they were free to wander as they pleased; Theodore caused them to be liberally provided with food; and with the exception that they were detained there against their will, they had no cause to complain of their treatment.

On his way home to convey to the British Government Theodore's request for skilled workmen and machinery, Mr. Flad saw Colonel Merewether, the Resident at Aden, and communicated to him the state of affairs. That zealous officer, who seems to have thoroughly understood Theodore's character, and had little hope that he would ever release the captives, except under compulsion, resolved to return to England with Mr. Flad. They arrived in England in the summer of 1866, and reported themselves to Lord Stanley, who had just taken over the administration of the Foreign Office. Lord Stanley decided that Theodore's request to be supplied with mechanics should be complied with, in the hope that this would lead to the liberation of the captives. But, while Colonel Merewether was engaged in selecting and making agreements with artisans, news reached London that Rassam and his companions were no longer simply detained, but that they had been seized and imprisoned. Colonel Merewether now recommended that Mr. Flad (whose wife and children were in the King's camp) should at once be sent back to Abyssinia, with a letter demanding the release of all the prisoners; and that, should this step be vain, prompt measures should be taken to enforce compliance. But Government, unwilling to renounce the hope of obtaining the desired end by peaceable means, determined to send out the artisans, together with a costly cargo of presents, to Massowah, with instructions to proceed no farther until the captives should have all arrived safely at that port. Six skilled artisans, headed by a civil engineer, together with machinery and other presents to the value of about £3,500, were sent out in November, 1866, and arrived in due course at Massowah. But after waiting there nearly six months--it being apparent that the prospect of the release of their countrymen was indefinitely remote--they were sent back to England. In April, 1867, Lord Stanley addressed a final letter to Theodore, informing him that the presents would be sent home again unless the prisoners were released within three months.

As he perceived that a warlike demonstration was inevitable, Merewether's recommendation was that the invading force should consist of one European and six native regiments of infantry, together with other troops, so as to compose an army of about 6,000 men. However, Government resolved to let the period of three months expire which had been named in Lord Stanley's note. When that was over, and still Theodore showed no sign of yielding, Government decided upon sending out an expedition. Bombay was fixed upon as the most convenient base of operations, and the Governor of that Presidency was directed to take the necessary measures. Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, the new Governor of Bombay, desired the Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army, Sir Robert Napier, to state what number of troops was, in his opinion, required for the service. That officer reported that, in his judgment, 12,000 was the smallest number that it would be safe to employ. Acquiescing in the opinion that so large a force was required, the Bombay Government considered that Colonel Merewether, who now for some years had taken the lead in all matters connected with Abyssinia, was too young a man to be placed in supreme command. Or rather such was the opinion of the India Council and the War Office at home. Sir Stafford Northcote, on whom, as Secretary for India, a large share of the responsibility for the right management of the expedition rested, wrote (August 16th, 1867) that, while Government trusted that Colonel Merewether's valuable services would be made available in aid of the expedition, "his rank was not high enough to enable him to take the supreme command of such a force as it was probable would have to be employed." In August, 1867, Sir Robert Napier was appointed to the command of the expedition, and Major-General Sir Charles Staveley, an officer who had served in the Crimea, was nominated second in command. The force employed was to consist of 4,000 British and 8,000 Indian native troops. An advanced brigade, consisting of about 1,200 Indian troops, under the command of Colonel Merewether, was despatched from Bombay in September, preceded by a reconnoitring party under the immediate orders of the colonel himself. The vessel containing the reconnoitring party arrived in Annesley Bay early in October.

It was a matter of considerable importance to choose the best point on the coast where the force should disembark, and whence it should begin its march on Magdala. Distance from Magdala was one, but not the most important, element in the selection. The high table-land of Abyssinia is bastioned on the north and east by ranges of magnificent mountains, descending frequently in sheer cliffs, many thousand feet high, into the strip of sandy plain that borders the coast. At Annesley Bay, which penetrates far into the land, the mountains approach nearer to the sea than at any other point where the landing of a large force is possible. In this respect, however, Massowah was little inferior, while in facilities for landing it was superior, to Annesley Bay, from which it is about thirty miles distant; but besides that it was somewhat farther from Magdala, political considerations rendered it inexpedient that the British Government should incur so great an obligation to the Pasha of Egypt as would have been involved in the landing of so large an army, with all its baggage and stores, at a much-frequented Egyptian port. Annesley Bay, then, was to be the point of disembarkation. The best pass for the march of an army into the interior was the next subject of inquiry. The first person to point out to Colonel Merewether the superiority of the Senafé Pass was Father Zechariah, a native Abyssinian priest educated at Rome. But the colonel was not satisfied till he had carefully examined several other defiles leading up to the table-land, and had convinced himself that the Senafé Pass, difficult as it was, could be made practicable for the expedition with less trouble than any other.

The route having been decided upon, all that remained was to land the troops as quickly as possible, organise an efficient transport service, and then advance upon Magdala. The distance of the fortress from Annesley Bay was about 400 miles; but the climate on the table-land is magnificent, the difficulties of the road were easily within the power of the strong pioneer force that was at the general's disposal to surmount them, and it became more and more certain that no serious opposition would be met with. A hitch, however, occurred; and it was, as usual, in the transport service. Supplies of food, stores, and ammunition could most easily be transported along the rough and narrow Abyssinian roads on the backs of mules. The world was accordingly ransacked for mules; from Egypt, India, Syria, and Spain they were poured into Annesley Bay in thousands. Any one can buy a mule, but it takes an experienced person to manage him when bought. The Transport department engaged as muleteers thousands of men who are described as "the vilest sweepings of Eastern cities"--men whose languages no one could understand, and who were utterly ignorant of their business. Again, being landed in such vast numbers on a sterile plain like that which divides the sea from the mountains at Annesley Bay, the mules could pick up scarcely anything for themselves; and, with such unmanageable ruffians for muleteers, it was impossible to distribute properly among them the forage that had been brought by sea to the anchorage. In consequence of all this, the mules soon began to die by scores. To supply the animals with water, since the arid shore had next to no resources in this respect, the steamers at the anchorage condensed water at the rate of 32,000 gallons a day (at a cost of nearly £3,000 a month), which was then conveyed along a shoot 480 feet long, raised on trestles above the sea, to tanks on shore. But, whether from the unwholesomeness of this water or some other cause, an epidemic broke out among the animals on shore, and carried off great numbers of them, especially the horses. The 3rd Dragoons lost 318 horses out of 499 landed. In these circumstances Colonel Merewether resolved to push on with his advanced brigade to the healthier position of Senafé, as soon as ever the road through the pass was declared practicable. The main body of the brigade, which had landed on the 30th of October, was accordingly moved forward from Mulkutto (so the landing-place was called) about the end of November, and, threading the pass with little difficulty, arrived at Senafé on the 6th and 7th of December. The Shohos--Mohammedan tribes that infested the mountain valleys and ravines running to the Red Sea--were converted by the power of British gold from being rapacious depredators and thieves into the character of useful traders and carriers.

Sir Charles Staveley, with the second brigade, arrived at Annesley Bay early in December. The 33rd, a British regiment, was with them, and was before long sent on to Senafé, where it arrived on the 12th of January, 1868. Sir Charles set himself energetically to work to bring things into order at the port, while the movements of all the departments were quickened by his presence. The greater part of the troops, as they arrived were sent up to Senafé. Sir Robert Napier himself landed at Mulkutto on the 7th of January and assumed the command. Leaving orders that a transport train should be organised immediately, and a railway laid down from Mulkutto to the foot of the Senafé Pass, he hastened forward to the front. He was at first under the impression that no dependence could be placed for the subsistence of the army on the resources of the country itself and that it would not be safe to move forward from Senafé until six months' supply of food had been accumulated there for a force of 9,500 men. But when he arrived at Senafé and found how admirably General (he had just been made local Brigadier-General) Merewether, and Colonel Phayre, the Quartermaster-General, had made amicable arrangements with the principal men of the neighbourhood, and attracted the natives from all parts to the markets of the camp by the prospect of the liberal payment which they received for their meat, corn, and other produce, Sir Robert Napier saw reason to change his opinion. In fact, the friendliness and openness of the people towards the British were truly strange to European ideas. Their country was being invaded, and its prestige, if it had any, humiliated; but this singular people felt no throes of indignant patriotism, were well pleased to think that the formidable King, who had come to be a dangerous tyrant and freebooter, was to be put down without any trouble to themselves, and pocketed with the utmost satisfaction, inwardly marvelling no doubt at the simplicity of the stranger, the large new silver dollars which they got for their country produce.

With these reassuring prospects before him, the Commander-in-Chief thought that he might safely commence the march into the interior before any very large quantity of stores had been brought up to Senafé. No opposition was to be feared from the rulers of provinces. Immediately after landing General Merewether had dispersed as widely as possible copies of a proclamation, declaring that the sole motive of the British invasion was the desire to liberate the captives; that Britain's quarrel was with Theodore, not with the Abyssinian nation; and that the inhabitants, if they maintained a peaceful attitude, would be treated well and liberally. Mr. Rassam had been in constant communication with Kassa, the Prince of Tigré, and also with Wakshum Gobazye, the Prince of Lasta. They both showed great kindness to his messengers, and rendered them the protection they needed between Magdala and Massowah for two whole years. As soon as Rassam informed them of the intention of the British Government to send a force to punish Theodore, their enemy, they promised their friendship to the troops, and Wakshum went so far as to cause it to be proclaimed through his districts by beat of drum that all his subjects were to supply the British army with whatever they required, and that they were not to fear, as the troops were Christians, and would pay the full price for everything. Kassa wrote a letter to General Merewether, offering friendship and assistance, soon after his arrival at Senafé. To confirm him in these pacific sentiments, Major Grant, the well-known African explorer, was sent to his capital of Adowa, where he was received with great cordiality; and Sir Robert Napier himself, mounted on an elephant, had a formal interview with Kassa on February 19th near Adigerat. Wakshum Gobazye--who for the last three years, though fearing to meet Theodore in the field, had occupied each province of central Abyssinia as Theodore led his army out of it, and who was now employed in consolidating his power--probably regarded the British intrusion in much the same light as Kassa. And there is reason to believe that, after the invasion had been achieved successfully, Wakshum felt hurt that he had not been treated with like consideration to that shown to the Prince of Tigré.

The force that Sir Robert Napier considered necessary amounted finally to upwards of 16,000 men. Four British infantry regiments, the 33rd, the 4th, the 45th, and the 26th, and one cavalry regiment, the 3rd Dragoon Guards--in all about 3,400 men--besides a company of Sappers, formed part of the force; the rest were all Indian troops. The men of the Transport Train numbered 12,600, and the camp-followers about 3,200; so that a host numbering about 32,000 men, exclusive of those attached to the Commissariat and Quartermaster-General's Departments, was collected at Annesley Bay. But a small portion of these was required to overcome the feeble resistance of Theodore's army, and to scale the height of Magdala. To oppose to this large and disciplined force, Theodore had only some 3,000 soldiers armed with percussion muzzle-loaders, 1,000 matchlock-men, a number of spearmen, and about thirty pieces of ordnance, including one enormous mortar which his German artisans had cast for him at Debra Tabor, the management of which no one in his army properly understood.

After Sir Robert Napier had come up to Senafé, discussion arose and much doubt was entertained as to the best method of applying the force in hand to the attainment of the one paramount object of the expedition, the rescue of the captives. There were many who thought, forming their judgment from the ordinary experience of the conduct of uncivilised rulers, that if Theodore (who was known to be on the march from Debra Tabor to Magdala) should reach the fortress before the British army, he would, after the inevitable defeat and dispersion of his army, be certain, in an access of impotent rage and revenge, to put to death the English and other prisoners there confined. It was urged therefore that what ought before all things to be aimed at was to intercept the march of Theodore, and prevent him from ever reaching Magdala. But to effect this it would be necessary to march at once with a lightly equipped force of about 2,000 men, who, while drawing a portion of their supplies from the stores that were already at Senafé, should be largely dependent on the resources of the country through which they marched. The other plan was to wait till stores were accumulated at Senafé in sufficient quantity to support a force capable of marching upon and capturing Magdala (to take which it was thought that siege operations might be required), with only slight dependence on local supplies. It was decided that the march should be on Magdala; and the safety of the prisoners was left to the generosity of the strange monarch, who in all his cruelties and excesses never wholly forgot that he was a Christian King.

It would weary the reader if we were to describe in minute detail a march that was never opposed, and movements of troops involving no triumphs but those of the Control department. The 350 miles of road that separated Senafé from Magdala were indeed full of difficulty; for many steep and lofty ranges had to be crossed; many narrow and uneven tracks to be repaired and widened; many long marches to be made under a tropical sun. The advance guard of the army moved from Senafé on the 18th of January; and the headquarters were established at Buya camp, near Antalo, rather more than half way from the coast to Magdala, on the 2nd of March. When the march was resumed a new arrangement of the forces was adopted. A large proportion of the Indian troops was left at the Buya camp; the column destined to march on Magdala was formed into two brigades and a pioneer force. The latter, commanded by the active Quartermaster-General, Colonel Phayre, consisted of about 500 men. Both brigades were under the command of Sir Charles Staveley; with the first marched the Commander-in-Chief and the headquarters. The total strength of the column was about 3,000 men. From the 12th of March, on which day the march was resumed, seventeen days were required to bring the column to the top of the Wadela plateau, a distance of 118 miles. This plateau, rising in precipitous cliffs from the southern bank of the Takkazye river (a large feeder of the Blue Nile) to the height of nearly 10,000 feet, runs for many miles in a nearly unbroken wall from east to west, and forms one of the most striking natural features in the country. At the time when our troops were scaling Wadela, Theodore arrived in the immediate vicinity of Magdala; that is, he had outstripped our army by a distance of nearly sixty miles. Marching to the right along the flat Wadela plateau, descending by a zigzag road that Theodore had just cut for his guns into the deep valley of the Jidda, crossing it, and ascending the Dalanta plateau, the British army (April 8th), on reaching the southern edge of this last, above the river Beshilo, beheld in front of them the goal of their labours--the table-topped mountain of Magdala.

We must now return to Theodore, who, since he put Mr. Rassam and his companions into irons, had been chiefly stationed at Debra Tabor, in the province of Beguemder. Here he kept his German artisans fully employed in casting guns and mortars, and constructing carriages for their conveyance. His revenues being gone, he obtained subsistence for his army simply by plunder, until the people of Beguemder rose against him, and commenced a desultory warfare against his half-starved soldiers, numbers of whom were continually deserting. The once noble nature of the man was now marred by licentiousness, drunkenness, and cruelty. But when--the resources of the country round Debra Tabor being destroyed by cruel and long-continued rapine--it became necessary to take and act upon a decision, Theodore, it would seem, woke up from his sensual dream, and for a while became himself again. He resolved to return to Magdala, and to transport thither the heavy ordnance that had just been constructed. First setting fire to Debra Tabor, his own capital, he began his march on the 10th of October, 1867, with his European workmen, about 6,000 soldiers, and a host of camp followers. Although the distance to Magdala did not exceed a hundred miles, the difficulties in the way of transporting guns, owing to the want of roads and the mountainous nature of the country, were enormous. Thus labouring on for weeks and months, and conveying his guns and stores without loss on twenty heavy waggons dragged by his soldiers along the roads that he had previously built, Theodore arrived at last (March 25th) on the plateau of Islamgyé below Magdala. On the 29th he came up to Magdala and sent for Mr. Rassam. The interview was very friendly, and the King, who seems to have really liked the envoy, was gracious and affable. His army, through continual desertions, had by this time dwindled down to about 3,000 men. He afterwards told Mr. Rassam that when he was excited he was not responsible for his actions. It is to be hoped that it was so, and that in the fact some palliation may be found for the horrible massacre that he ordered a few days later. On the 9th of April, having on the previous day caused all his native prisoners, 570 in number, to be brought down to Islamgyé from Magdala, he set a considerable number free, including all, or almost all, the women and children. After that he drank deeply and went to lie down in his tent. Those who were retained in captivity, no order having been given to take them back to Magdala, were kept on the barren top of Islamgyé; and having nothing to eat, they began to clamour for food. This enraged him to such a degree that, starting up in a drunken fury, he commanded them all to be put to death, and commenced the butchery by cutting one down with his sword, and shooting two others with his pistols. The rest were hurled alive over the precipice of Islamgyé, and those who showed any signs of life were fired upon by the soldiers stationed below. The massacre lasted from about 4 till 6.30 P.M., and there were no less than 197 victims, only thirty-five of whom were criminals.

Meanwhile the toils were being drawn closer round the doomed King. The 12th Bengal Cavalry and six companies of the 45th Regiment, having been ordered up from the coast by Sir Robert Napier, arrived at the camp on the 8th of April. The 45th accomplished the distance from Mulkutto to the Beshilo River in twenty-five days. The force before Magdala, with these accessions, numbered upwards of 3,700 men, including a rocket brigade consisting of eighty sailors of H.M.S. Dryad. On the 9th of April, the whole force being now concentrated on the Dalanta plateau, the approaches to Magdala were carefully reconnoitred. It was suggested to Sir Robert Napier to send a force round to the saddle connecting Magdala with the Tanta plateau, so as to cut off Theodore's retreat while he was attacked in front. But the Commander-in-Chief deemed that the force at his disposal was not large enough to allow of its being divided with safety. It was finally resolved to attack the position of Magdala by way of the great projecting mass of Fâla, from which the lower terrace of Islamgyé could be easily reached.

Early on the morning of the 10th of April Sir Charles Staveley led the 1st Brigade down the steep side of the Dalanta plateau, forded the Beshilo, and, mounting the bold spur of Gumbaji, proceeded along it in the direction of Fâla. His intention was to choose a suitable site for an encampment, and await the arrival of the 2nd Brigade, led by the Commander-in-Chief, which was to pass the night in the valley of the Beshilo. Meanwhile, Colonel Phayre, with the pioneer force under his command, was moving up the Wark-Waha ravine, parallel with, and to the left of, the march of Sir Charles Staveley, in order to examine the position of the enemy. He ascertained that neither in the ravine, nor on any part of the great open slopes and terraces of which he obtained a view, right up to the ascent of Fâla, was there any trace of a hostile force; and he sent back a message to this effect to Sir Robert Napier, which on its way was read by Sir Charles Staveley. Sir Robert, on receiving Colonel Phayre's report, ordered the Naval Brigade, Colonel Penn's battery of mountain guns, and the baggage of the 1st Brigade, which had been left at the Beshilo by Sir Charles waiting orders to advance, to press forward up the Wark-Waha ravine. They did so, the sailors leading the way. It was about four o'clock when the Naval Brigade, followed by the battery, emerged by a steep ascent from the ravine on to the diversified surface of the Arogé plains, just above which, to their right, on the Aficho terrace, the 1st Brigade was posted. Presently a gun, followed by several others in succession, was fired from the crest of Fâla; the direction being good, and the elevation from which the guns were discharged considerable, the shot came plunging into the ground near the British ranks. Then, from the top of the mountain, rushing down the steep sides of Fâla, came Theodore's warriors in headlong charge. There were about 1,000 musketeers, armed with double-barrel guns, 2,000 men carrying match-locks, and a multitude of spearmen. They reached the bottom of the hill, and began advancing towards the British, part plunging down a ravine called Dam-Wanz on the British left, to attack the baggage train.

With such an inequality of arms as existed between the combatants, no real fighting was possible. The sailors, on seeing the enemy swarming down the hill, quickly got their rocket tubes into position, and opened upon them. Sir Charles Staveley ordered all the infantry of his brigade to come down the steep ascent from Aficho to Arogé, and advance firing against the enemy. Against the Sniders of the British infantry, what was the use of smooth-bore muzzle-loaders and undisciplined valour? The brave chief Gabriyé--Theodore's Fitaurari or Quartermaster-General--after doing all that man could do to encourage his followers, was shot down, and many other chiefs with him. Finding it impossible to get near their enemy, the Abyssinians after a time lost heart and turned to flee. Those who had gone down into the Dam-Wanz ravine were hemmed in there between the Punjab Pioneers and baggage guard in their front, and some companies of the 4th, whom Sir Charles Staveley had sent against their left flank, and mown down with terrible slaughter. As the fugitives retreated up the hill-side, the Naval Brigade advanced, and sent rockets among them with destructive effect. Evening closed in; Theodore, who had watched the action from the top of Fâla, knew that his army was destroyed and his power at an end; the British army seeing its task well-nigh accomplished, but full of anxiety for the fate of the captives, bivouacked that night on the slopes of Aficho and Arogé. The loss of the Abyssinians in this action was estimated at between 700 and 800 killed, and 1,500 wounded. On the English side twenty men were wounded, two mortally.

Theodore, clearly perceiving all further resistance to be vain, now desired to come to terms with the British general. Early on the morning of April 11th he sent down from Selassyé, where he had passed the night, two of the captives, Lieutenant Prideaux and Mr. Flad, to bear his proposals to the British camp. They were instructed to say that the King now desired to be reconciled with the British. The delight and enthusiasm caused by the presence of Lieutenant Prideaux in the camp may be easily imagined. But the "reconciliation" sought by the King, which would have left him seated on his throne, could not, it was thought, be granted. As far as Britain was concerned, if the captives were all given up, her honour was satisfied, her aims were fulfilled, and her troops might be at once withdrawn. But it was considered by the Commander-in-Chief that the British had been welcomed in their country by the Abyssinians, and that the various chiefs had abstained from impeding or molesting the march, on the tacit but clearly implied understanding that Theodore's power was to be destroyed, and that he was to be a king in Abyssinia no longer. No terms, therefore, could be granted which did not involve his absolute submission and deposition from the throne, and a letter to that effect was conveyed to him, which he haughtily returned, together with a cartel of defiance. After a frustrated attempt at suicide, the King held a council of war, and asked the opinions of the bravest and most influential of the surviving chiefs. Most of them gave counsel, like the soldiers on board St. Paul's vessel, "to kill the prisoners, lest they should escape," and then to fight to the last. It is to the credit of Theodore that he resisted this counsel. Doubtless he thought that their release might be the means of relieving him from further demands, but friendly feeling towards Mr. Rassam, and even towards his poor artisans, had probably much to do with his decision. About four o'clock in the afternoon (Saturday, April 11th) the King sent the Governor of Magdala to Mr. Rassam and the other Europeans with the following message: "Go at once to your people; you can send for your property to-morrow." The prisoners made haste to depart, and descended the steep path from Magdala to the saddle of Islamgyé, and thence to Selassyé, where the King still was. Here Mr. Rassam had a final interview with him. Theodore acknowledged that he had behaved ill to the envoy, but said that it was through the conduct of bad men.

Early on the following morning (Easter Sunday, April 12th) Theodore sent down a letter to Sir Robert Napier, the object of which was to do away with the effect of the defiant letter of the previous day, and to request the acceptance of a present of cows. According to Abyssinian ideas, the acceptance of a present would mean that the receiver was satisfied and granted peace to the giver. This letter on reaching the camp was translated by the bearer from the Amharic into Arabic and from Arabic by Mr. Rassam into English. Sir Robert Napier afterwards declared that he authorised no answer to be given that could have led Theodore to believe that he accepted one jot less than the terms of his first demand; and he ordered a letter to be prepared (which, however, was never sent), accepting the cows provisionally, upon the understanding that Theodore would surrender himself as well as all the Europeans. At the time, he verbally authorised Mr. Rassam--or the latter so understood him--to accept the present of cows. Theodore, upon hearing that his gift had not been spurned, was overjoyed. He believed that life and honour were now safe and that the victorious general would not require of him the intolerable humiliation of a personal surrender. He sent down the present, consisting of 1,000 cows and 500 sheep, being all the live stock that he had in his possession; and in the course of the afternoon he sent down all the remaining Europeans and half-castes, fifty-seven in number, with their baggage, to the British camp.

But on that Sunday evening Theodore was informed by the chief whom he had sent down with the cattle, that the cows had been stopped at the first picket and had not been admitted into the camp. He saw at once that he had been misled and that the British commander intended to abate nothing from the original terms. At dawn the next morning (Easter Monday, April 13th), he called on the warriors who loved him to take nothing but their arms and follow him; the time had come, he said, to seek another home. Followed by four chiefs and a few soldiers, he went up into Magdala, passed through it and out at the other side through the gate leading to the saddle that communicated with the Tanta plateau. But after having gone a little way, his men refused to follow him, and he returned with them into Magdala, and thence went down again to Islamgyé. Meanwhile information had reached the British camp that Theodore had fled from Magdala. The troops were immediately put in motion, while a notice was sent among the Gallas offering a reward for the King's capture. The two brigades scaled the steep ascent of the saddle connecting Fâla with Selassyé, meeting with no opposition whatever. The British regiments slowly advanced until they reached the nearer end of the saddle of Islamgyé. Here they found the greater number of Theodore's guns with their ammunition. A number of chiefs, richly dressed, were seen at the farther end of Islamgyé, galloping wildly about and occasionally firing off their rifles. These in a short time were seen to ascend the steep path leading up into Magdala, pass through the gate called the Koket Bir, and close it after them. About this time authentic information reached the general that Theodore had not escaped, but was still in Magdala. He was one among those who had been just seen to ascend from Islamgyé into the fortress. Sir Robert Napier thought it necessary, in these circumstances, to cannonade Magdala with all the artillery at his disposal. Theodore, and the few followers who remained faithful to him, upon entering the place at the Koket Bir, closed the gate and blocked it up with large stones. This gate stood some distance below the edge of the plateau, at the very brink of which was a second gate. On the rocks, between the two gates, attended by a faithful few, Theodore sat and watched the practice of the English guns. The shells burst all around him; his faithful Minister Ras Engeda and his brother were killed by the same shell.

At 4 P.M. a storming party--consisting of the 33rd Regiment led by Major Cooper, the 10th Company of Royal Engineers, and a company of Madras Sappers--was ordered to attack the Koket Bir. The long line of red-coats wound up the steep pathway, keeping up a hot fire on the hedge and gate above them. A feeble dropping fire was the only reply. For when the bombardment became too hot, nearly all Theodore's followers consulted their safety and fled, taking refuge in the huts on Magdala. The King, and about ten persons who still adhered to him, went down into the Koket Bir when the soldiers commenced to climb the steep, and fired upon them through some rudely constructed loop-holes. Seven men were wounded by this fire. When the soldiers reached the gate, it was found impossible to force it, owing to the large stones with which it had been blocked up; but, after a short delay, a way was made through the hedge on each side of the gate, and the 33rd thus got within the place, removed the stones, and opened the doors to admit the rest of the storming party. The King, meanwhile, had retired up the hill and passed within the second gate. Of his ten companions, six were wounded, more or less seriously. Here he dismissed all his surviving followers, except his faithful valet Walda Gabir, telling them to leave him and save their own lives. "Flee," he said, "I release you from your allegiance; as for me, I shall never fall into the hands of the enemy." As soon as they were gone, he turned to Walda Gabir, and said, "It is finished! Sooner than fall into their hands, I will kill myself." He put a pistol into his mouth, fired it, and fell dead; the ball passing through the roof of the mouth and out at the back of the head.

So ended the career of a man who, if he had inherited a purer and more practical Christianity, and learned to control his passions, might have raised his country's name from obscurity, spread the influences of religion and civilisation through Eastern Africa, and lived in history as one of the benefactors of mankind. Wrath and sensuality were his ruin.

The rest may be briefly told. The huts on Magdala were burnt by order of the British general, and this outpost of Christianity fell again into the hands of the ferocious Gallas. North of the river Beshilo, Sir Robert recognised the authority of the Wakshum Gobazye. Theodore's Queen, Terunesh, and her little boy, Alamayahu, were among the inhabitants of Magdala at the time of its capture, and were consigned to the care of Mr. Rassam. The Queen said that it had been Theodore's last wish that his son should be taken charge of by the British; and this wish was complied with. The boy, who was about ten years old at this time, was placed in charge of the Rev. Dr. Jex Blake, then Principal of Cheltenham College. The unfortunate youth died in 1879. The Queen herself wished to return to her native province, Semyen; but on the way down she died, and was buried at Chelicut near Antalo. The British army commenced its return march on the 18th of April. The arrangements for the march to the coast and the embarkation were made with great judgment and forethought, and the last man of the expedition had left Annesley Bay before the end of June. The landing-piers, wells, roads, and whatever plant had been left behind as not worth removal, came into the possession of the Egyptians, and Abyssinia was sealed up again from intercourse with the outer world, as before the expedition.

Honours were lavished freely on the chief officers in command of the expedition. Sir Robert Napier received the Grand Cross of the Bath and a pension, and was made a peer with the title of Lord Napier of Magdala. General Merewether was made an extra Knight Commander of the Star of India. In moving that the thanks of the House of Commons be given to Sir Robert Napier and his army, Mr. Disraeli, after an eloquent enumeration of the obstacles which they had surmounted, said that that had been accomplished which not one of them ten years ago could have fancied even in his dreams, and they had seen "the standard of St. George hoisted upon the mountains of Rasselas."

Meanwhile Europe was disturbed by those admonitory gusts which portend a coming storm. In France the year passed over uneventfully, but there were many indications of growing discontent. Rochefort began to write in the Lanterne his withering satires against the Imperial Government; and at a public distribution of prizes at the Sorbonne, the son of Marshal Cavaignac, encouraged by his mother and by the sympathy of his fellow-students, refused to receive his prize from the hands of the Prince Imperial. The continual progress of Russia in Central Asia, silent mostly and unmarked, like the rising tide, arrested this year the attention of all Europe, when the news arrived that Samarcand, the ancient capital of Turkestan, and the favourite residence of Timour, had fallen before the arms of General Kaufmann. The Ameer of Bokhara was defeated in several engagements; and Bokhara itself was taken by the Russians, but not permanently occupied, and thenceforward the Cossack advance towards India seriously affected British foreign policy. The Cretan insurrection--which broke out in the summer of 1866, and in which the insurgents, aided by the continual influx of volunteers and supplies from Greece, had resisted for two years and a half the utmost efforts of the Turkish monarchy for its suppression--came to an end at the close of 1868, through the sheer exhaustion of the islanders. To Turkey also the situation of things had become intolerable, and the Turkish Minister at Athens delivered an ultimatum to the Greek Government on the 10th of December, demanding the dispersion within five days of the volunteers enlisted for the Cretan insurgents, and a pledge that no more should be permitted to be enrolled; and requiring Greece to act for the future in conformity with existing treaties. Greece refused the ultimatum, and diplomatic relations were broken off between her and Turkey. The Great Powers interposed, and it was arranged that a conference should be held at Paris early in 1869 to treat of the relations between Turkey and Greece. At this conference, which met on the 9th of January, the discussion lasted over ten days. It was finally decided that Greece should abstain for the future from favouring or tolerating within its territory the formation of bands destined to act against Turkey; and should also take the necessary measures to prevent the equipment in its ports of vessels destined to aid or comfort, in whatever manner, insurrection within the dominions of the Sultan. In Spain, the Bourbon sovereign Isabella, driven from the throne this year by a successful revolution, was compelled to seek as an exile and a suppliant the land that had nursed her ancestors, thanks to the arbitrary régime of her Ministers. A Provisional Government, with Marshal Serrano for President and Prim for Commander-in-Chief, was established. Except that they were not Republicans, the new rulers of Spain proceeded to adopt measures of the usual revolutionary hue. The absolute liberty of the press was decreed; and universal toleration was proclaimed, except for the Jesuits, whose colleges and institutions were ordered to be closed within three days in Spain and the Spanish colonies, the Order itself being suppressed and its property sequestrated to the State. The Republican party was dissatisfied and rose in arms at Cadiz in December. General Caballero di Roda marched against them and persuaded them to submit to the Government. The disintegrating tendency was checked for the moment, only to reappear afterwards in a more virulent form. The general sentiment of the Spanish people was in favour of monarchy, but no monarch could for a long time be found and the search was to involve Europe in short but destructive war.

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XXX. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

England in 1869--The Irish Church Difficulty--The Bishops in Debate--The Queen's Speech--Mr. Gladstone unfolds his Scheme--Provisions relating to Persons and Property--Private Endowments--Churches and Glebe-Houses--Conversion of the Church Property into Money--Disposal of the Surplus--The Maynooth Grant and the Regium Donum--Mr. Gladstone's Peroration--Debate on the Second Reading--A Bumper Majority--The Bill passes through the House of Commons--Lord Redesdale and the Coronation Oath--The Opposition in the Lords--Dr. Magee's Speech--Amendments in Committee--Concurrent Endowment--Mr. Gladstone rejects the Lords' Amendments--Lord Salisbury's Vigour of Language--Danger of a Collision between the Houses--The Queen and Archbishop Tait--Conference between Lord Cairns and Lord Granville--Their Compromise--Its Terms accepted by Mr. Gladstone--The Bill becomes Law--Its Neutral Results.

The condition of the British empire at the beginning of 1869 was externally far from unsatisfactory. The successful and complete accomplishment of the objects for which the Abyssinian expedition had been undertaken was considered to reflect credit on the military administration; the state of Ireland was so much improved that the renewal of the Act suspending the Habeas Corpus in that country was deemed no longer necessary; above all, trade and finance were beginning to show signs of substantial recovery from the effects of the collapse of 1866, and to hold forth the promise of a new and vigorous expansion. With regard to the new Ministry which the deliberate preference of a large majority of the constituencies had just installed in power, confidence in Mr. Gladstone, and in his power to deal adequately with the great question of the day, was widely felt and freely expressed. Yet the difficulty of carrying a just and adequate measure of disestablishment, which should carefully unravel the thousand threads that in the course of three centuries had variously linked the ecclesiastical with the civil establishment of Ireland--a measure that should satisfy the just claims of individuals, and wisely dispose of the portion of the expropriated property not required for the purposes of compensation--was felt to be so great that few expected it to be overcome in the present Session. A succession of contests--a slow and painful adjustment--the attainment of a practical equilibrium after many trials, spread over two or three years--such seemed to be the prospect before the country. That the result was different and that this great work of demolition was accomplished in a single Session, was due to the thoroughness with which Mr. Gladstone laboured at the preparation of the necessary measure and to his genius for the perfecting of details.

There was considerable doubt as to the course that would be adopted by the Bishops. Wilberforce early made up his mind that some sort of surrender was inevitable and, as soon as the election returns left no doubt as to the country's answer to Mr. Gladstone's appeal, wrote to the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Trench--"The time seems now absolutely come, of which we have so often spoken, when you and we should consider whether any and what compromise is possible." The Primate, however, looked rather to a defeat of the Bill in Committee owing to a defection among Mr. Gladstone's following, when he considered that the Prime Minister, to get out of his difficulties, would offer terms that might be accepted. The Bishop of Oxford in a semi-public letter pointed out that such resistance would only aggravate the situation, and that disestablishment might be considered a matter determined. "Some believe that the measure may be resisted a little shorter, some a little longer time, but all are secretly convinced, or are ready openly to avow their opinion, that it is a question practically settled. Wholly unprincipled men like Disraeli are content to use religion, as they would use any other precious thing, as an instrument of obtaining ever so short a tenure of place at the cost of ever so entire a sacrifice of what they so use." He thought, however, that a stand might be made on the question of disendowment and that the following claims must be advanced: (1) entire freedom from State interference, (2) that the Irish Church should be constituted a corporation capable of self-government and of holding property, (3) that the satisfaction-money for vested interests should be in a common fund under common management. This middle course, embodied by Bishop Wilberforce in a pamphlet in the form of a letter to Lord Lyttelton, which, however, he was dissuaded from publishing, was by no means favoured by the Episcopal majority. Indeed, after two private debates, on the 10th of February and the 6th of May, they separated without coming to any conclusion. Though the accuracy of his notes on these discussions, which are reproduced in the third volume of his biography, was afterwards disputed, it is clear that many agreed with the Bishop of Rochester, who abruptly remarked, "I think the Bill iniquitous, and that it ought not to pass."

The formal business involved in the opening of a new Parliament had been despatched in the month of December, 1868. On the 16th of February, 1869, the real Session began. On this unique occasion, the like of which had not occurred since the assembling of the first Parliament elected after the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832, it might have been expected that the Queen would be present and deliver the Royal Speech; that duty, however, was, as on so many previous occasions, discharged by the Lord Chancellor. Mr. Gladstone afterwards explained that it had been her Majesty's earnest wish to meet her Parliament, but that her health, impaired by the severe nervous headaches to which her Majesty was subject, was found unequal to the effort; should, however, the House agree to the Address, her Majesty was desirous of coming to London and receiving it in person from both Houses of Parliament. This proposal was warmly received on both sides of the House; but the serious illness of the youngest son of her Majesty, Prince Leopold, occurring just about this time, prevented the execution of the design. In the Royal Speech, after allusion had been made to the settlement lately effected in the Conference at Paris of the rupture between Greece and Turkey, and to some insignificant disturbances that had broken out in New Zealand, the great legislative project of the year was thus vaguely shadowed forth:--"The ecclesiastical arrangements of Ireland will be brought under your consideration at a very early date, and the legislation which will be necessary in order to their final adjustment will make the largest demands upon the wisdom of Parliament." The Address was agreed to in both Houses without difficulty, Lord Cairns observing that he could not go into the subject of the Irish Church without more light than was afforded by the "rather fortuitous collocation of nouns and adjectives in which the Speech alluded to it." In the Commons Mr. Gladstone, the new Premier, lost no time in giving notice that, on the 1st of March, he should move that the Acts relating to the Irish Church Establishment and the grant to Maynooth College, and also the Resolutions of the House of Commons in 1868, be read; and that the House should then resolve itself into a committee to consider of the said Acts and Resolutions.

The appointed day arrived, and Mr. Gladstone, after causing the Clerk to read the titles of the Acts and the Commons' Resolutions of 1868, proceeded, in a speech of three hours' duration, to unfold to a crowded and expectant House the particulars of the scheme by which he proposed to redeem the pledge of disestablishing the Church of Ireland which he had induced the House to take in the preceding year. So perfect a mastery of all the details of a very complicated measure, joined to so rare a gift for marshalling and harmonising his matter, was perhaps never before found in an English statesman. There were facts to be told, explanatory narratives to be given, reasons to be unfolded, objections to be met, changes to be proposed, and arrangements necessitated by those changes to be precisely defined, as to times, places, and persons; and all these various requirements were to be satisfied in a single speech, and in such a manner that the thread of the exposition should never be broken, nor the interest of the hearer suffered to flag. All this was accomplished by Mr. Gladstone in this memorable speech.

Certain dates were first of all named, by keeping which in memory it became more easy to grasp the general bearing of the scheme. On the 1st of January, 1871 (this, however, was a date which the speaker did not regard as unalterable), the disestablishment of the Irish Church was to take legal effect. At that date the union between the Churches of England and Ireland would be dissolved, all ecclesiastical corporations would be abolished, the ecclesiastical courts would be closed, and the ecclesiastical laws would no longer be binding as laws, although they would still be understood to exist as part of the terms of a voluntary contract subsisting between clergy and laity till they were altered by the governing body of the disestablished Church. Secondly, from the date of the passing of the Act, the Irish Ecclesiastical Commission would cease and determine, and would be replaced by a temporary Commission, appointed for ten years, in which the property of the Irish Church would immediately vest. Thirdly, after a date which it was impossible exactly to define, but which would give time for the complete execution of all those complicated arrangements to which the satisfaction of vested interests under the Act would lead, the residue of the funds of the disendowed Church would be available for employment in such manners and on such objects as should be specified in a later portion of his statement.

From this point, since we cannot follow Mr. Gladstone into the extended exposition of every portion of his plan with which he favoured the House, we propose to describe the contents of the Bill on a different principle, and to consider the leading features of the scheme--(1) in its application to persons; (2) in its application to property.

The persons to whom the provisions of the new measure were to be primarily applied, who from the official clergy of a State Church were to be converted into the ministers of a voluntary association, were these following--two archbishops, ten bishops, and about 2,380 parochial clergy and curates. Before considering and guarding the rights of these persons, it was necessary to provide for the case of those who should, by nomination or election, be added to their number, in the interval between the passing of the Act and the date fixed for the legal disestablishment of the Church. It was provided that during this transition period the patronage exercised in favour of such persons should confer no freehold, and create for them no vested rights of any kind. In the case of episcopal vacancies, the Crown would still appoint, but only at the prayer of the bishops of the province in which the vacancy occurred for the consecration of an individual to be named by them. These interim appointments would carry with them no vested interest and no rights of peerage. With regard to the existing prelates and clergy, the former, as has been already stated, would lose their right to seats in the House of Lords from the date of the legal disestablishment. Before the 1st of January, 1871, the clergy and laity of the Church were invited to meet together and re-organise the institution on a voluntary basis, appointing at the same time a "governing body," through which it might communicate with the Government of the day by the intervention of the Ecclesiastical Commission nominated in the Act. The Irish Convocation had not met, Mr. Gladstone said, for a period of fully a century and a half, if not of two centuries; and not only were there great technical difficulties in the way of its revival, but there also existed a special statute called the Convention Act, certain clauses of which rendered it doubtful whether the Convocation could be legally convoked at all. One of the earliest enactments in the Bill was, accordingly, the repeal of the Convention Act, so far as it affected the Irish Church, and the removal of all disabilities of whatever kind that might hinder the clergy and laity from meeting in synod and reorganising the Church as a voluntary society. The Government would take no power for the Crown to interfere in the election of the governing body, but would merely require that it should be truly representative, as resulting from the joint action of bishops, clergy, and laity. The governing body so appointed would be recognised by the Government, and it would become incorporated under the present Act.

When the 1st of January, 1871, the date fixed for disestablishment, had arrived, the provisions of the Act for satisfying the vested interests, not only of the Protestant clergy, but also of the students and professors of Maynooth, and of the ministers of the Presbyterian Church, would begin to take effect. What is a vested interest? Mr. Gladstone defined it thus, after stating that the "expectation of promotion" could not possibly be comprehended in the definition:--"The vested interest of the incumbent [whether of a see or a benefice] is this--it is a title to receive a certain net income from the property of the Church, in consideration of the discharge of certain duties, to which he is bound as the equivalent he gives for that income and subject to the laws by which he and the religious body to which he belongs are bound." In the possession of such net income, subject only to deductions for the curates whom he might have permanently employed, every incumbent was secured by the Act for the term of his natural life, so long as he continued to discharge the equivalent duties. He might, however, if he chose, commute his right to receive his net income annually from the State for a capital sum to be calculated at a rate of interest of three and a half per cent. This commutation could only be made upon the application of the incumbent, and the sum of money would then be paid to the Church body, "subject to the legal trust of discharging the obligation or covenant which we had ourselves to discharge to the incumbent--namely, to give him the annuity in full so long as he discharged the duties." This commutation would be voluntary; but as it would be greatly to the interest of the State to relieve itself as quickly as possible from the task of maintaining relations of payment with the individual clergymen, the scale on which it was computed would be a liberal one; and Mr. Gladstone hoped that it would be very largely resorted to. The various incidents of the freehold tenure on which the existing incumbents now held their benefices or lands would be allowed to subsist during their lifetime, with two exceptions. The Tithe Rent charge (which, for various important reasons, it was desirable to have the power of dealing with immediately after disestablishment) would, from the date of the passing of the Act, vest in the new Commissioners without any intervening life-interest, the faith of Parliament being, of course, pledged to the payment of the whole proceeds that the clergymen could derive from it. The other exception related to ruined churches, the freehold of which might be in the incumbent; in these cases it would be taken from him and vested in the Irish Board of Works, with an allocation of funds necessary to preserve the churches from desecration or further injury. The vested interest of all incumbents, whether bishops or presbyters, was thus provided for. With regard to curates, Mr. Gladstone distinguished between those who were permanently and those who were temporarily employed. The Act left it to the Commissioners to determine in each case whether a curate applying for compensation had really been in permanent employment, stipulating only that, in order to be entitled to that character, he should have been employed on the 1st of January, 1869; and that he should continue to be so employed on the 1st of January 1871; or that, if he had ceased to be so employed, the cessation should be due to some cause other than his own free choice or misconduct. Such curates were to be held entitled to receive their stipends for life or to commute them, exactly on the same principles as the Act applied to incumbents. Curates of the transitory class were to be compensated by simple gratuities, on the principle recognised in the Civil Service Superannuation Acts.

We now proceed to the consideration of the manner in which the Act proposed to deal with the property of the Irish Church. The annual value of that property, roughly stated, came to about £670,000, and was derived from the following sources of income:--

Income of Ecclesiastical Commissioners £93,950 Revenues of Episcopal Sees 85,879 Tithe Rent charge 404,660 Glebe and Chapter lands let to Tenants 80,812 Other sources 5,199 -------- £670,500

To this must be added the annual value of glebelands farmed by incumbents, which was not, however, very considerable.

An important and difficult question immediately presented itself, to the solution of which Mr. Gladstone devoted all his powers of analysis and all his resources of expression. It was this: among the various endowments enjoyed by the Irish Church, which of them were of a public nature, and had accrued to it as the representative of the ancient endowed Church of the country? which of them were, on the other hand, of a private nature, and were made with the full knowledge and intention of the donors that they were assisting by their benefactions the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland, bound by such and such Articles, and using such and such a liturgy? In the adjustment of so complicated a matter mathematical accuracy was out of the question; but Mr. Gladstone considered that substantial justice would be done by fixing a date, all endowments anterior to which should be deemed public, and those posterior to it private. This date he proposed to fix at the epoch of the Restoration, 1660, on the ground that the Irish Establishment did not attain its regular organisation and definite Protestant character much before that date. On the whole, he thought that the value of the private endowments, so limited, did not exceed half a million sterling; and this sum the Act awarded in compensation for them to the disestablished Church.

By drawing the line at the year 1660, Mr. Gladstone excluded from the category of private endowments the grants of land in Ulster, which James I., after having planted large numbers of his Scottish countrymen in the room of the exterminated native proprietors, assigned to the dominant Church. These lands were commonly known as the Ulster glebes. A strenuous effort was made in the House of Lords to effect their retention for the Church, on the ground that they partook rather of the nature of private than of public benefactions. But Mr. Gladstone stood firm, and refused to allow these royal grants, the original motive for which was unquestionably in large measure political, to be treated differently from the general mass of the Church property.

An important item of the material belongings of the Establishment, yet one that could not easily be made to enter into any financial estimate, consisted in the churches themselves. As to these, the Act provided that, wherever the "governing body" made an application, accompanied by a declaration that they meant either to maintain the church for public worship, or to remove it to some more convenient position, it would be handed over to them. In the case of St. Patrick's Cathedral, and about a dozen other churches partaking of the character of national monuments, the Commissioners were empowered to allot a moderate sum for their maintenance. Churches not in use, or in ruins, were to be handed over to the custody of the Board of Works.

With regard to glebe-houses, Mr. Gladstone announced that he had changed the opinion that he had expressed in the preceding year. Then he was inclined to consider them as "marketable property," like lands or tithes, and as such to withhold them from the disestablished Church, and allow only a life interest in them to their present possessors. But having investigated the matter more closely, and discovered that although an expenditure of £1,200,000 upon them could be distinctly traced, their annual value could not be rated above £18,600, while there was a quarter of a million of building charges upon them, which the State would have to pay on coming into possession, he had come to the conclusion that the glebe-houses were not, in the strict sense of the words, "marketable property." The Act therefore proposed to hand over the glebe-houses to the Church body, on their paying the building charges; and they would also be allowed to purchase a certain amount of glebe-land round the houses at a fair valuation. The burial-grounds adjacent to churches went with the churches; all burial-grounds were to be reserved: and other existing rights to be handed over to the Poor Law Guardians.

The scheme being thus far developed, the aspect of affairs at the end of two years promised to be this--the churches and glebe-houses, together with strips of land around the latter, would then be the permanent property of the disestablished Church, while the tithes and Church lands, subject to various life-interests, would be vested in the State through its organ the "Commissioners of Irish Church Temporalities." But that the State should long retain all this mass of real property in its own hands was most undesirable. Mr. Gladstone therefore propounded an elaborate scheme for the final extinction of the tithe rent charge within forty-five years, and for the conversion of the lands into money. Landlords would be allowed, if they chose, to purchase the rent charge, so far as it affected their own properties, at twenty-two and a half years' purchase paid down; but if they declined to avail themselves of this option, power was taken for disposing of it to them by a compulsory sale, at a rate which would yield 4-1/2 per cent. interest, they being at the same time credited with a loan at 3-1/2, payable in instalments in forty-five years. Thus, if a landlord's property were burdened with the tithe rent charge to the extent of £90 a year, the State would compel him to buy it out and out for the sum of £2,000; which sum, however, he would not have to pay immediately, but only by instalments coming in the shape of an annual rent of £70, and terminating at the end of forty-five years. How greatly the landlords were gainers by this transaction is obvious. With regard to the Church lands, the tenants on them were to have a right of pre-emption, and three-fourths of the purchase money might be left on the security of the land; one way or other, they were to be converted into money with all practicable despatch.

When by these sales the property of the Irish Church should all have been realised, and its affairs wound up, Mr. Gladstone calculated that the balance sheet would stand as follows. The Tithe rent charge would have yielded £9,000,000; the lands and perpetuity rents would have been sold for about £6,250,000; these sums, together with a balance of £750,000 in money, would make a grand total of £16,000,000. Of this, the Bill would dispose of £7,350,000--viz.: Vested interests of incumbents, £4,900,000; ditto of curates, £800,000; lay compensation, £900,000; private endowments, £500,000; building charges, £250,000. To these would have to be added the sums required for the commutation of the Regium Donum and the Maynooth Grant, the particulars of which will be given presently, amounting to £1,100,000; and finally the expenses of the Commission, £200,000. Consequently there would remain, after the satisfaction of all claims, a surplus of between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000. After discussing various suggestions for the disposal of this surplus, and giving his reasons for not devoting any part of it to the endowment of any religious body or institution, Mr. Gladstone stated that, in the opinion of Government, it would be most fitly and profitably applied to the relief of "unavoidable calamities and suffering," not provided for by the Poor Law. Assuming that the surplus fund would produce an annual return of about £311,000 a year, the Act would allot £185,000 of this revenue to lunatic asylums, £20,000 to idiot asylums, £30,000 to institutions for the harbouring and training of the blind, and of deaf mutes, £15,000 to training-schools for nurses, £10,000 to reformatories, and £51,000 to county infirmaries; thus disposing of the whole revenue.

The arrangements for the extinction of the Regium Donum and the Maynooth Grant have still to be considered. The sum to be dealt with amounted to about £70,000, of which £26,000 was the Maynooth Grant, and the remainder was distributed among the various denominations of Presbyterians. The expectation of life among the clergy being known to be between thirteen and fourteen years, Mr. Gladstone had fixed fourteen years' purchase as the basis of commutation in the case of the incumbents of the Irish Church, and he now adopted the same scale for the Presbyterian Churches and for Maynooth. A sum amounting to fourteen times the annual grant in each case was to be set aside out of the Irish Church Fund, and devoted to the satisfaction of life-interests, or to their commutation, on conditions substantially agreeing with those already explained in the case of the Establishment. About £1,100,000 would be required for the purpose, two-thirds of which would go to the Presbyterians.

At the conclusion of his speech, Mr. Gladstone invited criticisms and suggestions as to the details of the Bill, which it was the desire of its framers to render as little harsh and onerous as possible, consistently with the complete and final execution of the task which they had undertaken. "I trust, Sir," he said, "that although its operation be stringent, and although we have not thought it either politic or allowable to attempt to diminish its stringency by making it incomplete, the spirit towards the Church of Ireland, as a religious communion, in which this measure has been considered and prepared by my colleagues and myself has not been a spirit of unkindness. Perhaps at this time it would be too much to expect to obtain full credit for any declaration of that kind. We are undoubtedly asking an educated, highly respected, and generally pious and zealous body of clergymen to undergo a great transition; we are asking a powerful and intelligent minority of the laity in Ireland, in connection with the Established Church, to abate a great part of the exceptional privileges they have enjoyed; but I do not feel that in making this demand upon them we are seeking to inflict an injury. I do not believe they are exclusively or even mainly responsible for the errors of English policy towards Ireland; I am quite certain that in many vital respects they have suffered by it; I believe that the free air they will breathe under a system of equality and justice, giving scope for the development of their great energies, with all the powers of property and intelligence they will bring to bear, will make that Ireland which they love a country for them not less enviable and not less beloved in the future than it has been in the past. As respects the Church, I admit it is a case almost without exception. I don't know in what country so great a change, so great a transition has been proposed for the ministers of a religious communion who have enjoyed for many ages the preferred position of an Established Church. I can well understand that to many in the Irish Establishment such a change appears to be nothing less than ruin and destruction; from the height on which they now stand the future is to them an abyss, and their fears recall the words used in King Lear when Edgar endeavours to persuade Gloster that he has fallen over the cliffs of Dover, and says:--

'Ten masts at each make not the altitude Which thou hast perpendicularly fell; Thy life's a miracle!'

And yet but a little while after the old man is relieved from his delusion, and finds he has not fallen at all. So I trust that when, instead of the fictitious and adventitious aid on which we have too long taught the Irish Establishment to lean, it should come to place its trust in its own resources, in its own great mission, in all that it can draw from the energy of its ministers and its members, and the high hopes and promises of the Gospel that it teaches, it will find that it has entered on a new era--an era bright with hope and potent for good.... This measure is in every sense a great measure--great in its principles, great in the multitude of its dry, technical, but interesting details, and great as a testing measure; for it will show for one and all of us of what metal we are made. Upon us all it brings a great responsibility. We upon this bench are especially chargeable--nay, deeply guilty--if we have either dishonestly or even prematurely or unwisely challenged so gigantic an issue. I know well the punishments that follow rashness in public affairs, and that ought to fall upon those men, those Phaetons of politics, who, with hands unequal to the task, attempt to guide the chariot of the sun. But the responsibility passes beyond us, and rests on every man who has to take part in the discussion and decision on this Bill. Every man approaches the discussion under the most solemn obligations to raise the level of his vision and expand its scope in proportion with the greatness of the matter in hand. The working of our constitutional government itself is upon its trial, for I do not believe there ever was a time when the wheels of legislative machinery were set in motion under conditions of peace and order and constitutional regularity to deal with a question greater or more profound. And more especially, Sir, is the credit and fame of this great assembly involved. This assembly, which has inherited through many ages the accumulated honours of brilliant triumphs, of peaceful but courageous legislation, is now called upon to address itself to a task which would indeed have demanded all the best energies of the very best among your fathers and your ancestors. I believe it will prove to be worthy of the task." The right honourable gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.

The leader of the Opposition, Mr. Disraeli, said that his own opinion, and that of his party, remained unaltered; they thought disestablishment was a political blunder, and disendowment a legalised robbery; but as the sense of the country had been clearly expressed in favour of dealing with the question, he should not object to the introduction of the Bill, but should offer it a determined opposition on the second reading. The Bill was then introduced, and read a first time, and the 18th of March was fixed for the second reading. On that day Mr. Disraeli moved in the usual form that the Bill be read a second time that day six months. In his speech there was little that was remarkable except where he protested against the confiscation of the Church property on the ground that it would probably end in the sole benefit of the landlords. He ridiculed in particular the project for the extinction of the tithe rent charge, predicting that the end of the whole operation would be that the property of the Church would go into the pockets of the landlords; and the consequence of these sacrilegious proceedings must be such deep discontent that either there must be restitution, or the same principles must be applied to the English Church,--and this, he declared, Mr. Gladstone by his language clearly contemplated. Experience of the absorption of commons and forests by the large landowners justified, it must be owned, a jealous and rigorous examination of this part of the measure; which on the very face of it, as above explained, made a present to the landlords of full twenty-two per cent. of the tithe rent charge to which their properties were previously liable. Mr. Bright made a telling speech in favour of the measure; and the same may be said of Mr. Lowe. On the other side, Sir Roundell Palmer, who had braved the loss, or, to speak more correctly, the postponement of high professional promotion, because he could not go with Mr. Gladstone on this question, disputed the doctrine that the State had the power absolutely to strip the Church of its property, though he admitted its right to restrict or reapportion it. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, who, among the abler opponents of the Bill, was perhaps the only one who spoke with absolute and entire conviction, delivered a bold and trenchant philippic, based on the old dicta of the superiority of the Protestant religion, and the right and duty of England to govern Ireland, not according to the wishes of the Irish, but upon principles approved by the majority of Englishmen. After a four nights' debate, the House divided on the second reading, with the following--for Government--triumphant result: for the second reading, 368; against it, 250; majority, 118. With so compact a majority against them, in a very full House, it was useless for the Conservatives to attempt to make considerable alterations in the Bill in committee. Substantially unchanged it emerged from the ordeal of committee, and the third reading was carried by a majority of 114 votes.

When the Bill reached the House of Lords, it found a tribunal disposed to view it with unfriendly eyes, and to subject it to a searching criticism. A question put to Government by a noble lord before the Easter recess indicated the temper that largely prevailed in the Upper House. Lord Redesdale asked whether the Ministry intended to propose any alteration in the Coronation Oath, since according to the present form, as taken by her Majesty at her accession, the Sovereign undertook to maintain "to the utmost of his power," not merely the Church, but the Churches of his dominions in all their rights, the oath having been so modified at the date of the Union that the Sovereign thenceforward was obliged to swear to maintain the United Church in the possession of all its rights and privileges. Lord Granville replied, on the part of Government, that he entered with reluctance into the line of inquiry started by the noble lord. He conceived, however, that the Coronation Oath was somewhat in the nature of a compact between Sovereign and people, and that if the people, through Parliament, expressed its wish and determination to modify the terms of the compact, the Sovereign was thereby constitutionally released from the obligation of observing it more strictly than the altered mind of Parliament desired. Legislation would be ridiculous, whether the principle of the noble lord or that adopted by the Government were preferred. If Government were right that the Sovereign was released by the voice of the people, as shown by the votes of Parliament, then the passing of a Bill in both Houses on the particular point in question, and its presentation to her Majesty for her assent, relieved her ipso facto from the obligations of the oath. But if, as the noble lord seemed to think, there were some abstract obligation on the Sovereign, something between her and her God, which no arrangement or compromise between her and her subjects could alter, it was clear that any Bill altering the oath would be utterly inefficacious.

The chief brunt of the opposition to the Bill in the House of Lords fell on Lord Cairns. Warned, however, by the large majorities that had carried the Bill through every stage in the Commons, the party of resistance eventually renounced the idea of opposing the second reading, but indulged the hope that they would be able so to cut up and refashion the Bill in Committee, in the direction of granting more favourable terms to the Irish Church, that the disendowing clauses of the Act at any rate would become little more than nominal. Of course, there were many Tory lords who hoisted the flag of "No surrender" and would not yield an inch; nor could the Irish representative bishops be expected to be parties to their own political annihilation. An eloquent, and in every way remarkable, speech against the Bill was made by the Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Magee), who had been recently translated to that see from an Irish deanery by the Government of Mr. Disraeli. The bishop probed the sores of Ireland deeply, and told Government that they would get no thanks from the Irish people unless they carried the expropriation of land much farther than the present Bill proposed to carry it. "How stands the case?" he argued. "At the time of the Rebellion, England confiscated large estates belonging to the Celtic rebels. On nine-tenths of those estates England planted laymen; on the remaining tenth she planted Anglican pastors. Now I ask this one question: Was the confiscation of the land of the rebels just or unjust? If it was unjust, then undo it all. If, in the name of justice, you are to trace back so far the roots of things in Irish history; if you are to make your resolutions in the sacred name of justice, then, in the name of that justice, give back to the descendants of those owners the confiscated estates that you took from them. But do not mock them--for it is mocking them--by telling them that Protestant ascendency is an evil thing. And then, how do you propose to deal with it? By telling them their land is divided into nine-tenths and one-tenth--the nine-tenths in the hands of the Protestant landlords, and the one-tenth in the hands of the Protestant clergy--and we propose to satisfy their demand for justice by ousting from the land the one proprietor, who is the most popular, most constantly resident, and least offensive, while you retain, in all the bitter injustice of their original tenure, the proprietors who are the most detested, and whose possessions they most covet. Do your lordships imagine that the Irish people will be satisfied with that? Do not forget that you have to deal with the most quick-witted people in Europe--people whose eyes are intently fixed on this question--and do you think that they will feel other than the most bitter disappointment when you tell them that you are about to tear down the hateful flag of Protestant ascendency, and they find that you only tear off a single corner of it--or about the fortieth part of the whole? The Irish peasant has already given his answer to your offer of pacification--your pacification consisting in refusing him the land which he does want, and giving him the destruction of the Church, which he does not--the Irish peasant writes his answer, and a terrible answer it is, in that dread handwriting which it needs no Daniel to interpret, and which so often makes English statesmen tremble; and in that answer he tells you that he will be satisfied with nothing else than the possession of the land--which I do the members of her Majesty's Government the justice to believe they have no intention to give."

After having laboured to prove that the Bill was unjust and impolitic, the Bishop denounced it with withering sarcasm as ungenerous. "What a magnanimous sight! The first thing that this magnanimous British nation does in the performance of this act of justice and penitence, is to put into her pocket the annual sum she has been in the habit of paying to Maynooth and to compensate Maynooth out of the funds of the Irish Church. The Presbyterian members for Scotland, while joining in this exercise of magnanimity, forgot the horror of Popery which was so largely relied on, and so loudly expressed, at the last elections in Scotland. They have changed their mind, on the theory that a bribe to Popery is nothing if preceded by plunder of the Protestant Episcopacy. Putting two sins together, they make one good action. Throughout its provisions this Bill is characterised by a hard and niggardly spirit. I am surprised by the injustice and impolicy of the measure, but I am still more astonished at its intense shabbiness. It is a small and pitiful Bill. It is not worthy of a great nation. This great nation in its act of magnanimity and penitence has done the talking, but has put the sackcloth and ashes on the Irish Church, and made the fasting be performed by the poor vergers and organists."

The opponents of the measure were not sufficiently numerous to prevent the second reading, which was carried (June 19th) by a majority of 33, chiefly owing to a large number of abstentions. But now the real work of the adversaries of the Bill began. The Archbishop of Canterbury moved that the Ulster glebes be regarded in the light of private endowments, and made over to the disestablished Church; and this was carried. The same prelate moved that the preamble be altered by the insertion of 1872 as the legal date of disestablishment, instead of 1871. This amendment also was carried by a large majority. Lord Carnarvon moved and carried an amendment to the clause respecting the redemption of life annuities, giving considerably more favourable terms to the Church. Lord Salisbury proposed and carried an amendment, by which the delivery of the glebe-houses to the Church would be made free of the building charges resting upon them. On the motion of Lord Cairns, the House made an important alteration in the preamble of the Bill, wherein it was stated that no part of the surplus was to be devoted to religious or denominational purposes, but that it should be wholly applied to the relief of unavoidable calamities and infirmities. Lord Cairns moved, and successfully, that the whole question as to the disposal of the surplus should be reserved for the decision of a future Parliament. The question of the date was then again brought up, it being understood that the Irish clergy were themselves opposed to the postponement of the date of disestablishment as proposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. On the motion of Lord Cairns, the 1st of May, 1871, was finally agreed to.

The object and effect of all the amendments hitherto described was to secure for the Church, after disestablishment, a large portion of its property, in addition to the sums required for the satisfaction of life-interests. Many peers saw clearly that if passed in this way, the Bill, besides causing dissatisfaction among English Dissenters, would arouse feelings of disappointment and indignation among Irish Roman Catholics, who had been led to expect that the disendowment would be real and bonâ fide, no less than the disestablishment. Attempts were therefore made to keep the balance even by applying a portion of the surplus to the use and benefit of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Churches in Ireland. A proposal of the Duke of Cleveland tending in this direction was rejected; but just before the Bill was read a third time, Earl Stanhope moved and carried an amendment, authorising a certain measure of "concurrent endowment." By this amendment, the clause conveying the glebe-houses to the disestablished clergy received an enlarged scope, so that it should be in the power of the Commissioners to make provision for residences, in cases where they were wanting, for Roman Catholic priests and Presbyterian ministers, as well as for Protestant Episcopalian bishops and clergy. Government, bound by their election pledges to the Dissenters, strenuously opposed this amendment; Lord Granard also, professing to speak for his Catholic countrymen in Ireland, refused his consent to it. On the other hand, Lord Dunraven, a Catholic peer, supported it; and Earl Russell expressed an opinion in its favour, drily remarking, that he doubted whether there would be much feeling of religious equality in Ireland so long as the Protestant clergy were comfortably housed, and the Roman Catholic priests lived in hovels. Lord Stanhope's amendment was carried by a narrow majority, and the Bill was then read a third time and passed, a protest being first signed by Lord Derby and forty-three temporal and two spiritual peers. Lord Derby had previously denounced the Bill with the impressive solemnity of a dying man. "My lords," he said, "I am an old man, and, like many of your lordships, past the allotted span of three score years and ten. My official life is at an end, my political life is nearly closed, and in the course of nature my natural life cannot be long.... If it be for the last time that I have the honour of addressing your lordships, I declare that it will be to my dying day a satisfaction that I have been able to lift up my voice against the adoption of a measure, the political impolicy of which is equalled only by its moral iniquity."

The Bill, as amended by the Lords, came back to the House of Commons; and it became the duty of Government to consider how far they could give way, in order not to imperil the safety of the Bill. In the main it was deemed impossible to accept the measure in the altered form in which it came from the hands of the Lords. Mr. Gladstone announced (July 15th) that he should propose to disagree from all the more important amendments, with the exception that, in the case of Lord Carnarvon's proposal, Government would consent to a modification of the original clause, so as to make it slightly more favourable to the clergy. A few amendments of minor importance he was willing to accept. The course proposed by the Prime Minister was approved by the House, and all the more important of the Lords' amendments were rejected by large majorities.

Violent language was heard in the House of Lords when the Bill, restored nearly to its original shape, came back to them from the House of Commons. The Marquis of Salisbury said that "his reason for opposing the Government project for appropriating the surplus was that it was false and that it was foolish. In the first place, it implied a partial application of the fund for spiritual teaching; and, in the second place, it was a vain attempt of the House of Commons, which distrusted its own resolution against concurrent endowment, to bind itself, like a drunkard taking the pledge, against changing its mind in the future. In truth, the only argument for it was, that the House of Commons had passed it; and the only reason why that House had done so was, that the Prime Minister had bidden it. Why the Prime Minister bade it, he could not search deep enough into the labyrinthine recesses of that mind to detect, unless it were that Mr. Gladstone had desired to give this House a slap on the face. So far from agreeing with the Earl of Shaftesbury's appeal to the House to waive its amendments in deference to the Commons, he believed this was just an occasion on which it was the duty of this House to interfere between the country and the arrogant will of one man." The motion that the House should insist on its amendment, altering the preamble in relation to the surplus, was carried by a large majority.

The state of things was now very serious. A collision between the two Houses seemed to be on the point of taking place which would have strained the Constitution to the last point of tension. Plans for overcoming the resistance of the Lords were openly propounded and generally discussed. It was said that the Ministry would advise her Majesty to bring the Session immediately to a close, that Parliament would be summoned to meet again for the despatch of business in the autumn, that Mr. Gladstone's Bill for disestablishing the Irish Church would then be passed again by the House of Commons in its original shape, and again be sent up to the House of Lords; and that this process must and would be repeated until that House agreed to pass it. Fortunately the new Primate, Archbishop Tait, whose recommendation had been one of Mr. Disraeli's last efforts, was a man peculiarly fitted to mediate between contending parties. Despite his deep sympathies with the cause of Episcopacy in Ireland, which found expression on May 6th, 1869, in a strongly worded resolution against disestablishment and disendowment moved by him in St. James's Hall, he, like Bishop Wilberforce, promptly perceived that the unmistakable declaration of the constituencies had rendered futile any further resistance. The Queen was of similar mind, and under her Majesty's wise command the archbishop had placed himself in communication with Mr. Gladstone early in February. He found the Prime Minister far more moderate than some of his lieutenants, and was able to report to the Queen that the proposed safeguards were admitted in principle, though some of Mr. Gladstone's intentions, particularly for dealing with post-Reformation grants and bequests, did not go as far as he wished. On the 8th of May he held a private conference at Lambeth with eight lay peers, representing the various parties, and in vain endeavoured to persuade them to consent to the second reading of the Bill. On the 3rd of June he again received the Queen's commands to put himself in communication with Mr. Gladstone, but without much success, nor did a letter to Earl Cairns, asking him to persuade his followers to consent to the second reading, produce the desired effect. On the contrary Lord Cairns informed him that at a meeting held at the Duke of Marlborough's house the Conservative peers had authorised Lord Harrowby to move the rejection of the Bill. The Queen wrote in alarm, saying that, though her objections against the measure still existed in full force, she considered that "the rejection of the Bill on the second reading would only serve to bring the two Houses into collision, and to prolong a dangerous agitation of the subject, while it would further tend to increase the difficulty of ultimately obtaining a measure so modified as to remove, or at least to mitigate, the fears of those who are conscientiously opposed to the present Bill as it stands." Accordingly the archbishop not only advised Lord Granville to introduce the Bill in a conciliatory speech, but himself spoke in such a moderate tone as greatly to influence the issue of the debate. After the second reading had been carried--as we have already mentioned--and the Bill had been amended in committee, Archbishop Tait received a further despatch from her Majesty, which ran--"The Queen must say that she cannot view without alarm the possible consequences of another year of agitation on the Irish Church, and she would ask the archbishop seriously to consider, in case the concessions to which the Government may agree should not go so far as he himself may wish, whether the postponement of the settlement for another year would not be likely to result in worse rather than in better terms for the Church." The archbishop accordingly set himself to mediate between the contending parties as represented by Earl Cairns and Mr. Gladstone, and his diary, as published in his biography by Dr. Randall Davidson and Dr. Benham, gives a vivid expression of his hopes and fears. On Tuesday evening he records "a violent and apparently hopeless quarrel between Cairns and Gladstone"; on Thursday, after negotiations with all parties--Irish bishops, Conservative peers, Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Earl Cairns--he could write that "by five o'clock all was settled." On the 22nd of July Lord Cairns announced the result of these negotiations to the House. The point about the date he was willing to waive, so that the legal disestablishment would take place, as originally fixed, on the 1st of January, 1871. Government had made various concessions which, while still thinking them inadequate to the justice of the case, he was willing to accept, rather than run the hazard of a collision between the two branches of the Legislature. They consented that the liabilities of incumbents for the salaries of curates should be confined to the case where a curate had been employed for five years. As to diocesan commutation, Government--who had already added seven per cent. to the amount of the annuities obtainable by commuting incumbents--now agreed to grant five per cent. more; this involved a diminution of the surplus by upwards of £700,000. Better terms for curates had been already conceded. The acceptance of commutation by three-fourths, instead of four-fifths, of the clergy of a diocese was to be held sufficient. Government had also agreed to exempt from the commutation any residence and land in an incumbent's own occupation if the incumbent should so desire. Lastly, there was the question of the disposal of the surplus. Government on this point had consented to amend the 68th clause, so that it would provide for the employment of the surplus for the relief of unavoidable calamity and in such manner as Parliament should hereafter direct.

A general sense of relief, mingled with admiration for the consummate ability and discretion with which Lord Cairns had managed his case, pervaded the House at this announcement. That he deserved less credit for the arrangement than the Queen and Archbishop Tait must now be conceded, but the workings of their wise diplomacy were not revealed until many years had passed. The compromise which the earl had agreed to on his own responsibility was adopted with hardly a dissentient voice, and the Bill was then returned to the House of Commons, where (July 23rd) it received a final consideration. Mr. Gladstone did not conceal that he deemed the last grant of five per cent. in augmentation of the commutation fund to be a matter of great importance, and a concession against the principle of the Bill. But looking to the mischief of leaving the controversy open, and in deference to the opinion of the House of Lords, and wishing to preserve the harmony between the two Houses (which had never been so severely tried, but which, he thanked God, had withstood the trial), Government had not felt justified in refusing the overtures made to them on the point. The Lords' amendments were then agreed to; and the Bill received the Royal Assent on the 26th of July.

This important measure accordingly passed into law. Those who declaimed against the disendowment of the Church as an act of spoliation--confiscation--sacrilege, and predicted that the disregard for the rights of property shown by Government in this instance would fatally weaken the respect for property in the minds of the general community, forgot the fact, of which Mr. Chichester Fortescue took care to remind them, that "the Bill was no more confiscation than the original transfer of the Church property from Roman Catholic to Protestant hands had been; and Parliament, which made that change, might now convert the property to other Irish purposes." On the other hand, the brilliant anticipations of concord and contentment which Mr. Bright indulged in were not realised. He said the Bill was put forward by Government as the means of creating a true and solid union, and of removing Irish discontent, not only in Ireland, but across the Atlantic. Archbishop Trench could not conceal his chagrin. The proposal to disestablish the Irish Church was made, he thought, with levity and precipitation; the Roman Catholics would be but feebly and languidly pleased, whilst the Protestants would entertain the liveliest and most enduring resentment for the wrong inflicted upon them. The former saw that all the changes which the Bill underwent in its progress through Parliament were in the direction of making fresh inroads upon the surplus in favour of the disestablished clergy. Even before the Lords' amendments had so greatly swelled the amounts to be given in commutation and compensation, the O'Donoghue observed, on behalf of his Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen, that the compensation clauses went much farther than was the due of the Irish Protestants, and that to increase them would be an injustice to the Irish people. And while the disendowed Church was thus being, to a large extent, re-endowed, Lord Stanhope's clause--the one solitary indication of a friendly feeling towards the religion of the majority which the Bill would have contained--was summarily and inexorably rejected. It is true that this rejection was promoted by the Irish members themselves. A compact had been entered into between the Irish Liberals and those English and Scottish members who viewed with uncompromising hostility all national establishment or endowment of religion, by which, on condition of the Irish members renouncing everything in the nature of an endowment for the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the English and Scottish Liberals agreed to support the Irish Land Bill when it should be brought forward. Among politicians this was well understood; but to the masses of the Irish people the disestablishment of the Church must have seemed to be carried out in such a way as to establish little claim on their gratitude.

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XXXI. THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued)

Mr Lowe's Budget--The Surplus disappears--Mr. Lowe creates a Surplus and proposes Remissions of Taxes--Cost of the Abyssinian Expedition--Sir Stafford Northcote's Explanation--The Endowed Schools' Bill--Speech of Mr. Forster--The Commissioners--Religious Tests at the Universities--Sir John Coleridge's Bill--Sir Roundell Palmer's Speech--The Bill passes through the Commons--It is rejected by the Lords--The Mayor of Cork--The O'Sullivan Disability Bill--Mr. O'Sullivan resigns--The Bill dropped--Life Peerages--Lord Malmesbury's Speech--Fenianism in Ireland--Deaths of Lord Derby and Lord Gough--European Affairs: the Emperor prophesies Peace--The General Election--The Senatus Consultum--Official Candidates--The Revolution in Spain--Wanted a King--General Grant the President of the United States--The Alabama Convention rejected.

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Lowe, brought forward his Budget, in a speech of great ability, on the 8th of April, 1869. The state of the revenue, he said, was moderately flourishing, although the receipts for the past financial year had fallen somewhat short (to the extent of about half a million) of Mr. Ward Hunt's estimate. His predecessor had calculated upon a revenue of £73,180,000, but the actual amount received did not quite reach £72,600,000. Passing now to the current year, Mr. Lowe estimated the expenditure at £68,223,000, and the revenue at £72,855,000, which would leave an available surplus of £4,632,000 at the end of the year. Nothing could be more satisfactory than such a prospect. Visions of a lowered income tax, of enlarged grants for special purposes, of general easiness in money matters, must have flitted before the minds of the assembled legislators. But Mr. Lowe had no sooner raised the hopes of his hearers than he dashed them to the ground. The whole of this large surplus, it appeared, except the trifling sum of £32,000, would be required to defray the cost of the Abyssinian expedition. The real cost of that expedition was now for the first time made known. Mr. Disraeli had asked for and obtained a vote of £3,000,000, in November, 1867, and a further sum of £2,000,000 had been voted for the expedition in the early part of the Session of 1868. During 1868 every one supposed that £5,000,000 would cover the cost; but this was found to be by no means the case, and a third vote of £3,600,000 was taken in March, 1869. The total cost, Mr. Lowe feared, would hardly fall short of £9,000,000. Now, of the £8,600,000 that had been voted, ways and means had been found only for £4,000,000, so that £4,600,000 had still to be provided for. This sum would just be covered by the anticipated surplus, leaving a balance of £32,000.

Here an ordinary financier would have stopped, content to have balanced the revenue, and to have defrayed out of current receipts, so as not to add a penny to the National Debt, the heavy and unforeseen charges entailed by the Abyssinian expedition. But Mr. Lowe was not an ordinary financier, and, as a surplus did not exist, he resolved that one should be created. He proceeded to unfold a plan for the more economical collection of the revenue, by concentrating in one payment, to be made in January, the income tax and the assessed taxes, instead of dividing the former into two instalments, payable in April and October. This plan he proposed to bring into operation for the first time in January, 1870; so that (no collection being made in October, 1869) the taxes for three quarters, ending the 31st of March, 1870, should be paid next January, in which month the whole of the income tax and the assessed taxes would have to be paid in future years. That is to say, Mr. Lowe proposed to collect five quarters' taxes within twelve months. The reader will think that it is not difficult to create a surplus in this way. Nevertheless, Mr. Lowe showed that the proposed change in the mode of collecting these taxes was based on common sense and sound economy, and that a sum of £100,000 would be saved merely by having one collection instead of two, and employing the Excise officials instead of amateur collectors. He also discussed the assessed taxes with great force and acuteness, and proposed to convert most of them into licence duties, following the successful precedent of the dog tax, and that they should be payable for the future at the beginning of each year, instead of by two instalments in April and October. Assuming that the House adopted his scheme, Mr. Lowe calculated that before the end of the financial year (March 31st, 1870) there would have been paid into the Exchequer, £600,000 of the Excise licences, £950,000 of the land tax and assessed taxes, and £1,800,000 of the income tax--in all £3,350,000--which, with the £32,000 surplus of revenue over expenditure, would put the Government in possession of a surplus of £3,382,000. How was this surplus (which Mr. Lowe might well describe as a "windfall") to be disposed of? As the chief inconvenience attending the transition from the half-yearly to the annual method of payment would fall on the income tax payers, Mr. Lowe thought that they had the first claim to relief from the surplus; he therefore proposed to take off a penny from the income tax. Next he proposed to abolish the import duty of one shilling on every quarter of corn, left by Sir Robert Peel when he repealed the Corn Laws in 1846. This duty, though it produced £900,000 a year, combined in Mr. Lowe's opinion all the bad qualities which a tax could possibly have, and prevented England from becoming a great entrepôt of corn. The fire insurance duties were also to be given up, though this reduction would not take effect till after Midsummer. The total remission of taxes thus foreshadowed would amount to £2,940,000, leaving, when deducted from the estimated surplus, a balance of £442,000. Mr. Lowe admitted that his plan was attended by certain drawbacks. Under its operation the Treasury would be in a state of plethora at one part of the year and starved at another; and there might be taxpayers to whom the concentration and unification of the State's demands on their purses might be inconvenient. But he had various expedients to meet the first objection, the chief among which was that during the non-productive months of the year Government should be empowered to borrow at their discretion from the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt; while with regard to the second objection, the taxpayer, like the eel in the adage, would find the change nothing when he had become used to it. Mr. Lowe's Budget was of course sharply criticised, and the delusive character of a surplus obtained by a financial trick was loudly insisted upon; but the real merits of the scheme, which were obviously great, carried it through.

The statement made by Mr. Lowe, en passant, with regard to the aggregate expenditure on the Abyssinian expedition naturally attracted much attention. The Conservative Government had estimated that the total cost would not exceed £5,000,000; how then, when no unforeseen circumstance had occurred, none but the most shadowy opposition been encountered, and no reinforcements been needed, could the expenses have shot up to the enormous figure of £9,000,000? It appeared that by far the greater portion of the money--more than £7,000,000--had been spent by the Bombay Government. The duty of explanation accordingly fell on Sir Stafford Northcote, Secretary for India in the late Government. Sir Stafford Northcote stated that when the first estimate was framed (that for £3,000,000, laid before the House by Mr. Disraeli, in November, 1867), the expedition had not left India; and that the second estimate (for £2,000,000, additional) was necessarily vague and loose, and exceeded, in fact, the information furnished by the departments. He pointed out, among the reasons for the insufficiency of the estimate, our entire ignorance of the country into which the expedition was despatched, its actual barrenness of supplies, and the necessity of taking precautions against events that never occurred. Much of the excess, he added, had arisen since the period up to which the estimate extended, and in conveying the troops from Abyssinia to India after the expedition was over. These explanations failed to remove the suspicion that there had been culpable laxity on the part of the Bombay Government. The suddenness of the last rise in the estimate was quite mysterious. Mr. Ward Hunt stated, in the discussion that took place in March, 1869, when the supplementary vote of £3,600,000 was demanded, that so recently as the 8th of December, 1868, the Indian Government had telegraphed that they had only spent £5,000,000.

Although the time of Parliament was too much taken up with discussions arising out of the Irish Church Act to allow of any comprehensive educational measure being brought forward in this Session, yet an important Act was passed, by which a machinery fitted to grapple with the long-standing abuses connected with the endowed schools of the country was successfully established. The condition of these schools had lately been inquired into by a Royal Commission, the report of which had been laid before the House. Upon the basis of this report Government were now prepared to legislate, and the duty of preparing a Bill fell into the hands of Mr. W. E. Forster, the Vice-President of the Council. The recommendations of the commissioners had been of a very sweeping character; besides advising that full power of inquiring into the efficiency of every endowed school, and of putting an end to waste and abuse of trust funds, should be taken by Government, they had recommended the formation of a central examining council, and of provincial boards throughout the country under the control of the central authority. But Government did not see their way to the appointment of provincial boards for the present; and the Select Committee to which the Bill was referred, after the second reading, struck out all the clauses that proposed to constitute an examining council. What remained, however, of the Bill was sufficient to make a useful working measure of reform.

In moving the second reading of the Bill, Mr. Forster took occasion to explain in general terms the principal conclusions at which the Commission of Inquiry into Secondary Education, of which he had been himself a member, had arrived. In estimating the provision already existing in the country for the education of the "middle classes," the commissioners found that the schools that came under their observation naturally fell into three groups--denominated by them respectively first grade, second grade and third grade schools, according to the age at which the scholars whom they instructed usually left them. In the first grade schools the average age of leaving was between eighteen and nineteen; in the second grade schools, between sixteen and seventeen; while in those of the third grade, constituting the immense majority in point of numbers, the age of leaving was about fourteen years. As a rule, the parents of boys in the first grade schools were persons of wealth, to whom money was little, if at all, an object in the education of their children The schools themselves were pretty much on a par with the Public Schools, whose condition had been inquired into by a separate commission; and, as in the case of these, a considerable proportion of the scholars left school for the universities. Schools of the second grade were attended chiefly by the sons of professional persons, and of those engaged in commercial pursuits, whose sons were destined to follow similar vocations. In the third grade schools the scholars were found to be for the most part the sons of small farmers, small tradesmen and shop-keepers, and superior artisans. In the schools of all three grades a thorough education was found to be hardly ever imparted, except in Latin and Greek; and efficiency even in these branches was chiefly confined to schools of the first grade. Mr. Forster quoted the evidence of many competent witnesses who had been examined by the commission, to the effect that secondary education in England, considered as a preparation for any of the learned professions or for an industrial career, laboured under grievous deficiencies; yet there was probably no country in Europe in which the bounty of individuals in past ages had provided such liberal endowments for secondary education as was the case in England. Taking these two facts together,--the low standard of actual education and the liberal provision made for it in endowed schools--Mr. Forster drew the obvious conclusion that these schools, under their existing management, failed both to fulfil the intentions of their founders, and to satisfy the needs of society. In support of this conclusion, he adduced some curious evidence from the report of the commission. The head-master of a certain endowed school told an assistant commissioner that "it was not worth his while to push the school, as with the endowment (about £200 a year) and some other small source of income, he had enough to live on comfortably without troubling to do so." In the case of another school, with an endowment of £651 per annum, the master put his nephew and son into the posts of second and third masters. The assistant commissioner "found the discipline most inefficient and the instruction slovenly, unmethodical, and unintelligent; there was no one subject in which the boys seemed to take an interest, or which had been taught with average care or success." At another school, where the endowment was £613 a year, there were thirteen pupils. At another, enjoying an income of £792 from the charity, the head-master taught three boarders and no others and the under master attended when he chose. In a school where the endowment was £300 a year and a house, one boy was found under instruction, while there was a private school with eighty boarders close by. To facts of this kind--lamentable as they were--Mr. Forster did not desire to attach undue weight; he did not conceal from the House that among the endowed schools of every grade many excellent and useful institutions might be found; but he maintained that a case had been made out for interference on the part of the State, in order that where, through negligence or worse, the charitable intentions of a founder were defeated, the endowments might be restored to the beneficial use from which they had been diverted. Since the plan of provincial boards had been given up, the organisation which the Bill proposed to create was exceedingly simple. A small commission, consisting of only three persons, would be appointed; this commission would send round inspectors to inquire into the local circumstances of the endowed institutions, and on receiving their report, would, if change were necessary, draw up schemes for the future government and conduct of the schools. The schemes, when prepared, were to be communicated to the trustees of the different endowments, that they might suggest alterations or modifications; they were then to be submitted to the Education Department, and that department would, after approval, lay them before Parliament. After having lain for a certain time on the table of each House, and not been objected to, a scheme would ipso facto come into operation.

In the course of the fuller explanations which were required of Mr. Forster by various members during the debate, he stated that the Bill dealt with nearly three thousand schools, viz. 782 grammar schools and 2,175 foundations, mostly elementary, with a gross income of £592,000, and a net income for education of £340,000, a sum which, well applied, might effect much; but the money was to a great extent wasted. Requested to name the commissioners to whom he proposed to entrust the preparation of the schemes, Mr. Forster gave the names of Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Arthur Hobhouse, and Canon Robinson. After being passed in the Commons, the Bill was subjected to a searching examination in the House of Lords. Lord Salisbury proposed to exempt from the jurisdiction of the new commissioners all endowed schools founded within the last hundred years, the period named in the Bill being fifty years. But the amendment was lost on a division, and this valuable measure soon afterwards became law.

A Bill for the abolition of religious tests in the universities and colleges of Oxford and Cambridge was brought in in February by the Solicitor-General, Sir John Coleridge. With regard to the universities, the Bill rendered unlawful not only the requirement of any subscription or other test from the candidate for any university degree, but also the exaction of any declaration in the nature of a religious test from any professor, teacher, lecturer, or university officer of any kind, as a condition of his taking or holding office. With regard to the colleges, the Bill only removed all restrictions upon their freedom of action that had been imposed on them from time to time by the authority of Parliament itself. "It leaves the colleges," said the Solicitor-General, "controlled by their statutes; it leaves them controlled by the feelings of their members; it leaves them controlled by all the associations which gather round them, and which are, after all, upon most men's minds as effective as any Parliamentary action can be; and it relieves them only from those restrictions which have been imposed from time to time by Acts of Parliament." He mentioned the case of a Jew who had come out Senior Wrangler at Cambridge that very year, but was deprived by his religion of that natural culmination and reward of great academical distinction which a fellowship usually conferred. Other cases, he added, had come under his knowledge of Oxford men who had renounced fellowships and other offices of emolument sooner than subscribe their belief unreservedly to every part of the Thirty-nine Articles. In cases such as these, should a college desire to open its doors more widely, it would no longer, should his Bill become law, be impeded in doing so by the operation of any law of the land. Its own statutes might still hamper its action in the direction of liberty, but a method of altering these, should the great majority of the governing body desire it, had already been provided by the University Reform Act of 1854. It was true that there were certain colleges the statutes of which could not be altered without the consent of their respective visitors, and that these visitors were sometimes bishops, who were professionally unlikely to be willing to extend the benefit of the foundation to Nonconformists. This defect the present Bill did not deal with, but the Solicitor-General pretty clearly intimated that it would be made the subject of future legislation.

Mr. Mowbray, the Conservative member for the University of Oxford (who had lately been elected to the seat held for many years by Sir William Heathcote), spoke in opposition to the Bill; but the general feeling of the House was strongly in its favour. It even received the powerful support of Sir Roundell Palmer, who announced that, since the question was last discussed in the House, reflection had induced him considerably to modify the point of view from which he had formerly regarded it. He was now opposed to tests, partly because they were ineffective for the purpose intended; partly because, even if effective, they were impolitic. They were ineffective to keep out the unprincipled atheist or sceptic, who was ready to swallow with a philosophic smile the toughest theological formula that might be presented to him. Nor were they of the slightest use in the case of a man who was orthodox at the time of taking the test, but had afterwards become a free-thinker, since neither law nor custom permitted that a man who had once become a member of Convocation should be liable to any further questioning. But even if they were supposed to operate effectually to the exclusion of all but orthodox Churchmen, Sir Roundell Palmer was now disposed to doubt the policy of retaining them. It was vain, he thought, to endeavour to keep the universities up to a level of churchmanship essentially higher than that which prevailed in society at large. In proportion as members of the Nonconformist body forced their way to the front in all departments of political and social life, in that, or nearly in that, proportion it was desirable that they should be found also among the governing and representative men of the universities. If Churchmen had no cause to dread the competition of Nonconformists on the former fields, neither need they dread it on the latter. At the same time, in order to guard the principle of religious education, and give to it more prominent expression in the language of the Bill itself, Sir Roundell Palmer proposed a slight alteration in the preamble, and the introduction of two new clauses. By the first, the established system of religious worship, education, and discipline within the colleges was expressly reserved intact. By the second, it was provided that every professor, tutor, or lecturer in an English university should, after his appointment, and before entering on the duties of his office, make and subscribe a declaration before the Vice-Chancellor, or before the head of his college, that he would "never endeavour, directly or indirectly, to teach or inculcate any opinion, opposed to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England as by law established." A test similar to this, but omitting of course all reference to the Church of England, was substituted in 1853 in lieu of the old and rigid Calvinistic test for lay professors in the Scottish universities. After an admirable speech from Dr. Lyon Playfair, in support of the Bill, it was considered in committee. Sir Roundell Palmer carried the first of his two clauses without difficulty, but abandoned the second, mainly, it would seem, in consequence of an appeal from Dr. Lyon Playfair, whose long and intimate acquaintance with the Scottish universities enabled him to speak with authority. The corresponding declaration required of lay professors in Scotland was, he admitted, not felt nor objected to, because it was considered to be, on the whole, "innocent and irrelevant;" but it had degenerated into a mere formality, and could not be supposed to exercise the slightest preservative effect on the religious belief of either professors or students. "It is not that test," added the honourable gentleman, "which preserves religion in our Scottish universities, but the inherent truths of religion itself." The Bill then passed through committee, and was read a third time.

When, however, the University Tests Bill reached the Lords, it was treated with little ceremony. It was past the middle of July, and the Peers were still smarting under the sense of the disrespectful treatment which their amendments to the Irish Church Bill had met with in the other House, and indignant at the menacing comments of the press. Farther in the road of Liberalism they were resolved not to be pushed this Session. Lord Carnarvon, when the Bill came on for the second reading, moved the previous question, and, after a short and unimportant debate, his motion was carried on a division by a majority of 91 to 54.

The attention of Parliament was taken up on many nights during this Session by a singular incident, half painful, half ludicrous, which occurred in the sister island. Mr. Daniel O'Sullivan had been elected by the corporation mayor of Cork for the year 1869. Under the Municipal Act for Ireland the Mayor is a justice of peace for the city of Cork during his year of office, and cannot be removed either by the Lord-Lieutenant or by Government. Soon after the beginning of the year Mr. O'Sullivan commenced to sit as a magistrate in the police court of Cork. From almost the first day that he took his seat on the bench down to the beginning of May his conduct was systematically devoted to lowering the administration of the law and bringing it into contempt, and in using insulting and abusive language towards his brother magistrates. But all this was a trifle compared with what followed. On the 27th of April the mayor presided at a banquet given in Cork in honour of two discharged Fenian prisoners, called Colonel Warren and Costello. In proposing the toast of "Our Exiled Countrymen," the mayor said that "he believed a spirit of concession had been aroused on the part of the dominant race. He did not say whether it was owing to Fenianism or to the barrel placed outside the prison at Clerkenwell; but he believed he paid a solemn act of justice to his own countrymen--as solemn an act of justice as if he were a high priest--when he said those noble men, Allen, Barrett, Larkin, and O'Brien, who sacrificed their lives for their country, ought to be remembered and respected as good Catholics and good patriots. There was at this moment in the country a young prince of the Irish nation. When that noble Irishman, O'Farrel, fired at the Prince in Australia, he was imbued with as noble and patriotic feelings as Larkin, Allen, and O'Brien were." (Here the speaker was interrupted by great cheering, and cries of "He was.") This foolish and criminal rant was received with loud demonstrations of applause by Mr. O'Sullivan's audience. Government were soon informed of what had happened, and the conduct of the mayor formed the subject of more than one interpellation in Parliament. The hands of Government were presently strengthened by receiving a memorial addressed to the Irish Executive by more than thirty magistrates of the city of Cork, presided over by the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, Lord Fermoy, in which complaint was made of the seditious language and disorderly behaviour of the mayor, as tending to spread disaffection and throw contempt on the administration of justice. There was not much time to be lost, for the Mayor of Cork is entitled by his office to sit as first commissioner in any commission to be executed within the county of Cork; so that, unless promptly deposed or disenabled, Mr. O'Sullivan would be associated with her Majesty's judges in the Commission of Assize during the ensuing summer. There was no resource but legislation; a general law might be passed, placing the mayors of all Irish corporations under the control of the Crown; or else a short Act, disqualifying Mr. O'Sullivan by name, but affecting the rights of no other person. Government preferred the latter course, and the O'Sullivan Disability Bill was prepared accordingly, and leave to introduce it was moved for by the Irish Attorney-General (Mr. Sullivan) on the 5th of May. A long and animated discussion followed; but in the end leave was given to bring in the Bill, a copy of which, and of the order for the second reading, was ordered to be forthwith served on Mr. O'Sullivan. But on the day appointed for the second reading, when counsel in support of the Bill were about to be heard, and witnesses examined, Mr. Maguire, one of the members for Cork, rose and produced a letter, which he read, from Mr. O'Sullivan, placing his resignation of the mayoralty in the hands of Mr. Maguire and the O'Donoghue. In fairness to the mayor, one or two sentences from this letter ought to be quoted. He declared, in the most solemn and emphatic manner, that the language attributed to him did not in any way express or represent his real meaning; and, further, he solemnly declared that he would himself be the first person to rush to the protection of human life if he knew it to be in danger. "I may also state that I look to the regeneration of my country through constitutional and remedial measures such as that [the Irish Church Act] now passing through the House of Commons, and my belief that the battle of my country is to be fought on the floor of that House." Mr. O'Sullivan must surely have held with the cynic philosopher, that "language was given to man to conceal his thoughts;" for if these were indeed his sentiments, no language could have been devised better calculated to disguise them than that which he used at the Fenian banquet. After hearing the letter, Mr. Gladstone rose and said that, assuming Mr. O'Sullivan's resignation to be, though not technically, yet really and substantially complete, Government would proceed no further with the Disability Bill.

A fresh attempt was made this year, and was very nearly successful, to obtain legislative sanction for the creation of life peerages by the Crown. The subject had slept since the celebrated resolution of the House of Lords in the case of Lord Wensleydale, to the effect that he, having been created a peer for the term of his natural life only, was not entitled to sit and vote in that House. Lord Wensleydale's patent of creation was then altered into the usual form, and everything remained as before. Now the subject was revived by Lord Russell, and the Bill which he introduced was at first received with much favour on both sides of the House. The Crown was to be authorised to create peers for life, subject to certain restrictions, the chief of which were, that not more than twenty-eight such peers should sit in the House at the same time, and that not more than four should ever be created in the same year. The Bill made slow but sure progress; it was read a second time; its mover showed an open and conciliatory spirit in reference to various amendments that were proposed, and accepted one, limiting the creation of life peers to two in one year; and even the ordeal of committee was safely passed. The last stage was at hand; but when (July 8th) Earl Russell moved that the Bill be read a third time, Lord Malmesbury moved, as an amendment, to add the words "that day three months." The noble lord ably paraded the reasons which made it, in his opinion, unnecessary and undesirable to admit life peers to the privileges of the Upper House. It was unnecessary, because that House did not, as was asserted, require to be "popularised," since it possessed, besides great landowners, numerous representatives of the great commercial, manufacturing, mining, and banking interests of the country, and also many distinguished officers of the army and navy, besides fifty peers, at the very least, who had formerly sat in the House of Commons, so that there could be no pretence that on any subject on which they were called upon to deliberate with a view to legislation, numbers of persons would not be found in that House possessed of every qualification for offering an opinion that experience, ability, and personal interest could supply. It was undesirable, because those who held these transitory dignities would not be really the "peers" of the older members of the House,--because they would be destitute of that which was the very essence of nobility, the power to transmit their rank and privileges to their descendants,--and because, since those whom the House would gladly see added to their numbers would decline to accept so equivocal a position, the life peers whom the influence of a Ministry might cause to be created would probably be such persons as the House would not deem a desirable accession, and would therefore, instead of adding to, impair the lustre of that assembly, and weaken its influence in the country. This unexpected attack was feebly met by Earls Russell and Granville, and on a division Lord Malmesbury's motion was carried by a majority of thirty (Contents, 76; Non-contents, 106), and the Bill was consequently lost.

This year was one of considerable suffering to large masses of the population, as the increase of pauperism too plainly showed. Trade was in a state of stagnation, but partially revived towards the close of the year, and gave indications of a more prosperous future. Although Fenianism had been so far suppressed in Ireland that Government ventured to allow the Act for the suspension of Habeas Corpus to expire, the temper of disaffection was as widely spread as ever, and now took the form of an agitation to obtain the release of the Fenian prisoners. The same revolutionary spirit, though under strangely different forms, which caused sympathy to be widely felt in Italy for the conspirators who blew up the Serristori barracks, filled thousands of Irish hearts with a wild desire to obtain the liberation of the heroes of Clerkenwell. Agrarian discontent also was rife, and several agrarian murders were committed in the latter part of the year. Some of the Fenian convicts who were less deeply implicated than the rest were released by Government; but so far was this lenity from having any good effect, that the first use which the liberated prisoners made of their freedom was to proclaim their unabated hostility to the British Government, and, so far as in them lay, before taking their departure for America, to stimulate the minds of their countrymen whom they left behind with exhortations to undying animosity. There was an election for the county Tipperary in the autumn, with the following result:--O'Donovan Rossa, a Fenian, who was at the time in prison, was returned at the head of the poll, beating Mr. Heron, a distinguished Queen's Counsel and a Roman Catholic, by 103 votes. As a matter of course, the election was declared null and void, and the returning officer required to make a fresh return.

In October, 1869, a noble and commanding figure, which had occupied for many years a prominent place in the eyes and thoughts of Englishmen, disappeared from the scene, namely Edward Geoffrey Stanley, fourteenth Earl of Derby. The author of the sketch of his life given in the Times thus eloquently sums up the enumeration of his eminent qualities: "We have spoken of Lord Derby chiefly as a statesman. But, after all, it was the man--ever brilliant and impulsive--that most won the admiration of his countrymen. He was a splendid specimen of an Englishman; and whether he was engaged in furious debate with demagogues, or in lowly conversation on religion with little children, or in parley with jockeys while training Toxophilite, or rendering 'Homer' into English verse, or in stately Latin discourse as the Chancellor of his University, or in joyous talk in a drawing-room among ladies, whom he delighted to chaff, or in caring for the needs of Lancashire operatives--there were a force and a fire about him that acted like a spell. Of all his public acts none did him more honour, and none made a deeper impression on the minds of his countrymen, than his conduct on the occasion of the cotton famine in Lancashire. No man in the kingdom sympathised more truly than he with the distress of the poor Lancashire spinners, and perhaps no man did so much as he for their relief. It was not simply that he gave them a princely donation; he worked hard for them in the committee which was established in their aid: he was indeed the life and soul of the committee; and for months at that bitter time he went about doing good by precept and example, so that myriads in Lancashire now bless his name. He will long live in memory as one of the most remarkable, and indeed irresistible, men of our time--a man privately beloved and publicly admired; who showed extraordinary cleverness in many ways; was the greatest orator of his day, and the most brilliant, though not the most successful, Parliamentary leader of the last half-century."

The death of the gallant Irishman, Lord Gough, recalled the thoughts of many to the tumultuous scenes of the Peninsular War in which the earlier portion of the veteran's life was passed. To Sir Hugh Gough was entrusted the command of the land forces in the opium war with China in 1842, when he took Canton, Amoy, Ning-po, and Chin-Kiang-Foo, forced his way, in conjunction with Admiral Sir W. Parker, for a hundred and seventy miles up the Yang-tse-Kiang, and dictated peace to the Emperor of China at Nankin. After this he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in India, and held that office during the Sikh War in 1845, though to the tactics of Sir Henry Hardinge, the Governor-General, who consented to serve under Gough, the decisive victories of Moodkee, Ferozeshah, and Sobraon are usually ascribed. When the Sikhs rebelled at the beginning of 1849, Gough marched against them, and, though he met with a severe check at Chilianwallah, inflicted such a crushing blow on the enemy at Goojerat, a few weeks later, that the war was practically brought to an end. A grateful country did not fail to recognise and reward his military achievements. He was created a Viscount, received a pension both from the Crown and from the East India Company, and was raised, in 1862, to the dignity of a Field Marshal.

All through the year 1869 France remained at peace with all her neighbours, and the Emperor and his Ministers vied with each other in making pacific declarations on every suitable occasion. Yet there was a different ring about a speech which he made to the soldiers at the camp at Châlons. He told them always to keep alive in their hearts the remembrance of the battles fought by their fathers, and those in which they had been themselves engaged, "since the history of our wars is the history of the progress of civilisation." According to this doctrine, though all things now wore a peaceful appearance, yet if France were to go to war for whatever cause (for the justice of a war was superbly ignored by the speaker), the interests of civilisation would necessarily be advanced. But for the present the French Government was content to live quietly. In Italy, according to an announcement made by the Foreign Minister, the Marquis de Lavalette, though the Pope's Government was making progress in the organisation of its forces, the time had not yet arrived for France to return purely and simply to the September Convention, and to evacuate the Pontifical territory. With regard to Prussia, the language of the Emperor and of the French Foreign Office was uniformly friendly.

The Chambers which had been elected in 1863 were dissolved in April of this year, and new elections were ordered. This was a favourable opportunity for the Emperor's Government to put in practice the aspirations towards greater liberty and a more constitutional system with which the Emperor had declared himself to be animated. If the Government had left the people alone, and allowed them to return the representatives of their choice, it might have been believed that there was some sincerity in those aspirations. But, on the contrary, there never were elections at which the system of official candidates was more unsparingly resorted to, nor where the freedom of the electors was more unblushingly interfered with. The elections were going on all through May. Thiers and Jules Favre were returned for Paris, and Gambetta, Picard, Jules Simon, and other Liberals for the department of the Seine; yet so Conservative were the instincts of the general population, and so assiduously did the Government by its action labour to encourage and reward these instincts, that the number of Opposition candidates returned for the Legislative Body did not much exceed thirty. Napoleon seems to have felt that his government was too successful. Though the Imperial system was founded on the crime of the 2nd of December, the Emperor, to do him justice, earnestly desired to make its origin forgotten by conforming it to the march of ideas and to the needs of French society. It may be questioned whether, in thus acting, he was really consulting its stability. Perhaps if he had carried on the government silently and resolutely, keeping the army in good humour by bribes and flatteries, and not trying to make compromises either with Liberalism or with the honest patriotism of men like Guizot, he might have given to it a longer duration. But he wished to be two things at the same time--a ruler supported on bayonets and a ruler supported on ideas; and this was not a feat easy of accomplishment. Besides his strength was being undermined by a wasting and painful disease, and he wished to preserve the Imperial crown for his son. In the summer he announced his intention of introducing the system of the responsibility of the Ministers to the majority in the Chambers, together with various other privileges and liberties which the French Legislature had been deprived of since the coup d'état; he declared that the system of personal government was distasteful to him and that he desired to abandon it. A Senatus Consultum embodying these reforms was introduced into and discussed in the Senate with great parade in the month of September. It was received with something of coldness and reserve by the majority of the Senators, for which they were rebuked by Prince Napoleon, in a speech which, while expressing gratitude to the Emperor for what he had conceded, disgusted by its broad Radicalism the Emperor's best friends and supporters in both Chambers. Several of the Ministers--among whom were Rouher, Lavalette, and Baroche--unable to see their way to a practical reconciliation between the Empire and the maxims of constitutional government, resigned their posts on the introduction of the Senatus Consultum. It was, however, carried, and with a good effect, doubtless, so far as foreign opinion was concerned; in France, the measure and motives of the Emperor's liberalism were so well understood that the new project awakened little interest.

The Corps Législatif, as soon as it was assembled, proceeded to examine questions connected with election returns. Illegalities and abuses of power were reported from all parts of the country. That odious tool of despotism, the "official candidate," had never been so generally and so offensively put forward. One election in particular, that for the Haute Garonne, in which the Government nominee, an obscure marquis, had defeated the illustrious M. de Remusat, attracted special attention from the impudent illegalities that had been resorted to in order to secure the seat. In one parish 141 electors had deposited their voting-papers in the electoral urn, which the mayor then put away in his bedroom! When the votes came to be examined, 133 were found to be for the official candidate, and only five for M. de Remusat. But forty-one of the electors went before a notary and signed a solemn declaration that they had voted for M. de Remusat. But in spite of corrupt practices of all kinds, which a scrutiny brought to light in this and other elections, the servile majority in the Chamber usually sustained their validity. Nevertheless, the position of the Minister of the Interior, after all these disclosures, was not an agreeable one; and M. Forcade de la Roquette, together with his colleagues, resigned office. The Emperor accepted their resignations and addressed himself (December 27th) to M. Émile Ollivier, formerly a member of the Opposition, requesting him to form an Administration and submit for his approval the names of those who were to fill the different offices.

In Spain the revolution continued its desolating course. Early in the year a republican insurrection broke out at Malaga, and was not suppressed without much bloodshed. The constituent Cortes, for the election and assembling of which careful preparations had been made by Serrano and Prim in the preceding year, met at Madrid on the 11th of February. In a House of 350 members, about 240 (of whom nearly two-thirds were Progresistas and the rest Unionists) were found to be supporters of the Government, 70 or 80 were Republicans, and about 20 Carlists. A committee was appointed to prepare a new Constitution. Its report was read on the 31st of March; it proposed the retention of monarchy and of the principle of hereditary succession, the adoption of the system of two Chambers, and of Ministerial responsibility; the Catholic religion to continue to be the religion of Spain, but all other forms of belief and worship to be tolerated, subject only to the laws of universal morality. The article of the Constitution establishing a monarchy was finally carried (May 20th) by 214 to 71 votes. But the difficulty of finding a monarch remained for the time insuperable. Till an eligible candidate could be found, it was thought desirable, in order to give greater solidity to the Government, to raise Serrano to the Regency. The ceremony of his installation was performed with great pomp and circumstance on the 13th of June. Divergences of opinion manifested themselves among the prime movers of the September revolution. Prim, the ablest and most daring among them, publicly declared that the late dynasty should never reascend the throne of Spain, and that he would never, directly or indirectly, aid in any endeavours in favour of the Prince of the Asturias. Serrano was more cautious; he was generally supposed to be a secret adherent of the said Prince. Topete was an avowed supporter of the Duke of Montpensier. The crown was first offered to the King of Portugal, but he declined to accept it. Prim then conceived the strange notion of offering it to the Duke of Genoa, a boy of fifteen, then being educated at Harrow. With his usual energy Prim overcame all opposition among his colleagues to this extraordinary scheme, except so far as Topete was concerned. The sturdy Admiral thought it absurd and quitted the Ministry rather than have a hand in carrying it out. But the opposition of the King of Italy and of the young Duke's mother caused this plan to fall to the ground. In the autumn republican risings took place in many of the large towns. The insurgents at Valencia proclaimed the democratic and federal Republic in a high-flown and flowery manifesto, the chief parts of which consisted in an infatuated and ridiculous eulogy on their own brilliant virtues. But the troops remained faithful to the Government; Valencia was reduced after a three hours' bombardment, and in the other cities revolt was ultimately put down. A law was passed in October, similar in its object to a Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in England, for the suspension of individual guarantees.

General Grant was inaugurated President of the United States on the 4th of March, 1869. The convention for the settlement of the Alabama and other claims, which had been agreed to by Lord Stanley and Mr. Reverdy Johnson, was rejected by the Senate in the course of the year, and an important diplomatic correspondence on the subject passed between Mr. Fish, the American Secretary of State, and Lord Clarendon.

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