A short history of our own times, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the general election of 1880.

Front matter

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Contents

Chapter I. A New Reign Opens — II. Some Trembles to the New Reign — III. Decline and Fall of the Melbourne Ministry IV. The Afghan War.— V. Peel's

Administration. -VL The Anti-Corn Law League.— VII. Mr. Disraeli.— VIII. Famine and Political Trouble.— IX. Athens, Rome, and London.— X. Palmerston.— XI. The Crimean War.— XII. The Lorcha Arrow. Transportation.— XIII. The Indian Mutiny.— XIV. The End of "John Company."— XV. The Conspiracy Bill!— XVI. Disraeli's First Reform Enterprise.— XVII. Lord Palmerston Again. -XVIII. The Civil War in America.— XIX. The Last of Lord Palmerston.— XX. The New Government.— XXI. Reform. — XXII. Strife at Home and Abroad. -XXIII. Irish Questions.— XXIV. "Reformation in a Flood."— XXV. The Fall of the Great Administration XXVI. Lord Beaconstield. — XXVII. The Congress of Berlin.

Chapter I. A New Reign Opens

Before half-past two o'clock on the morning of June 20, 1837. William IV, was lying dead in Windsor Castle, while the messengers were already hurrying ofF to Kensington Palace, to bear to his successor her summons to the throne. With William ended the reign of personal government in England. King William had always held to and exercised the right to dismiss his ministers when he pleased, and because he pleased. In our day we should believe that the constitutional freedom of England was outraged, if a sovereign were to dismiss a ministry at mere pleasure, or to retain it in despite of the expressed wish of the House of Commons.

The manners of William IV. had been, like those of most of his brothers, somewhat rough and overbearing. He had been an unmanageable naval officer. He had made himself unpopular while Duke of Clarence by his strenuous opposition to some of the measures which were especially desired by all the enlightenment of the country. He was, for example, a determined opponent of the measures for the abolition of the slave trade. But William seems to have been one of the men whom increased responsibility improves. He was far better as a king than as a prince. lie proved that he was able at least to understand that first duty of a constitutional sovereign which, to the last day of bis active life, his father, George III., never could he brought to comprehend — that the persona] predilections and prejudices of the King must sometimes gix'e way to the public interest. We must judge William by the reigns that went before, and not the reign that came after him, and admit that on the whole he was better than his education, his early opportunities, and his early promise.

William IV. (third son of George III.) bad left no children who could have succeeded to the throne, and the crown passed therefore to the daughter of his brother (fourth son of George), the Duke of Kent. This was the Princess Alexandria Victoria, who was born at Kensington Palace, on May 24, 1819. The Princess was therefore at this time little more than eighteen years of age. The Duke of Kent died a few months after the birth of his daughter, and the child was brought up under the care of his widow. She was well brought up : both as regards her intellect and her character — her training was excellent. She was taught to be self-reliant, brave, and systematical. Prudence and economy were inculcated on her as though she had been born to be poor. One is not generally inclined to attach much importance to what historians tell us of the education of contemporary princes or princesses, but it cannot he doubted that the Princess Victoria was trained for intelligence and goodness.

There is a pretty description given by Miss Wynn of the manner in which the young sovereign received the news of her accession to a throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Ilowley, and the Lord Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, left Windsor for Kensington Palace, where the Princess Victoria had been residing, to inform her of the King's death. It was two hours after midnight when they started, and they did not reach Kensington until rive o'clock in the morning. "They knocked, they rang, thej thumped for a considerable time before they could rouse the porter at the gate ; they were again kept waiting in the court-yard, then turne, I into one of the lower rooms, where they seemed forgotten by everybody. They rang the In II, and desired that the attendant of the Princess Victoria might be sent to inform her Royal Highness that they requested an audience on business of importance. After another delay, and another ringing to inquire the cause, the attendant was summoned, who stated that the Princess was in such a sweet sleep that she could not venture to disturb her. Then they said, ' We are come on business of state to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to that.' It did; and to prove that she did not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room, in a loose white night-gown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified." The Prime- minister, Lord Melbourne, was presently sent for, and a meeting of the Privy Council summoned for eleven o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor administered the usual oaths to the Queen, and her Majesty received in return the oaths of allegiance of the Cabinet ministers and other privy councillors present.

The interest or curiosity with which the demeanor of the young Queen was watched was all the keener because the world in general knew so little about her. Not merely was the world in general thus ignorant, but even the statesmen and officials in closest communication with court circles were in almost absolute ignorance. The young Queen had been previously kept in such seclusion by her mother, that "not one of her acquaintance, none of the attendants at Kensington, not even the Duchess of Northumberland, her governess, have any idea what she is or what she promises to be." There was enough in the court of the two sovereigns who went before Queen Victoria to justify any strictness of seclusion which the Duchess of Kent might desire for her daughter. No one can read even the most favorable descriptions given by contemporaries of the manners of those two courts without feeling grateful to the Duchess of Kent for

A SHORT HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.

resolving that her daughter should see as little as possible of their ways and their company.

It is not necessary to go into any formal description of the proclamation of the Queen, her appearance for the first time on the throne in the House of Lords when she prorogued Parliament in person, and even the gorgeous festival of her coronation, which took place on June 28, in the following year, 1838. It is a fact, however, well worthy of note, amid whatever records of court ceremonial and of political change, that a few days after the accession of the Queen Mr. Montefiore was elected Sheriff of London, the first Jew who had ever been chosen for that office; and that he received knighthood at the hands of her Majesty when she visited the City on the following Lord Mayor's day. He was the first Jew whom royalty had honored in this country since the good old times when royalty , was pleased to borrow the Jew's money, or order instead the extraction of his teeth. The expansion of the principle of religious liberty and equality which has been one of the most remarkable characteristics of the reign of Queen Victoria, could hardly have been more becomingly inaugurated than by the compliment which sovereign and city paid to Sir Moses Montefiore.

The first signature attached to the Act of Allegiance presented to the Queen at Kensington Palace was that of her eldest surviving uncle, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland. The fact may be taken as an excuse for introducing a few words here to record the severance of the connection which had existed for some generations between this country and Hanover. The connection was only personal, the Hanoverian kings of England being also by succession sovereigns of Hanover. The crown of Hanover was limited in its descent to the male line, and it passed on the death of William IV. to his eldest surviving brother, Ernest, Duke of Cumberland. The change was in almost every way satisfactory to the English people. The indirect connection between England and Hanover had at no time been a matter of gratification to the public of this country, and Englishmen were not by any means sorry to be rid of the Duke of Cumberland. Not many of George III.'s sons were popular ; the Duke of Cumberland was probably the least popular of all. His manners were rude, overbearing, and sometimes even brutal. Rumor not unnaturally exaggerated his defects, and in the mouths of many his name was the symbol of the darkest and fiercest passions, and even crimes. Some of the popular reports with regard to him had their foundation only in the common detestation of his character and dread of his influence. But it is certain that he was profligate, selfish, overbearing, and quarrelsome.

It was felt in England that the mere departure of the Duke of Cumberland from this country would have made the severance of the connection with Hanover desirable, even if it had not been in other ways an advantage to us. Later times have shown how much we have gained by the separation. It would have been exceedingly inconvenient, to say the least, if the crown worn by a sovereign of England had been hazarded in the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866. Our reigning family must have seemed to suffer in dignity if that crown had been roughly knocked off the head of its wearer who happened to be an English sovereign ; and it would have been absurd to expect that the English people could engage in a quarrel with which their interests and honor had absolutely nothing to do, for the sake of a mere family possession of their ruling house.

Lord Melbourne was the first Minister of the Crown when the Queen succeeded to the throne. He was a man who then and always after made himself particularly dear to the Queen, and for whom she had the strongest regard. He was of kindly, somewhat indolent, nature ; fair and even generous towards his political opponents; of the most genial disposition towards his friends. He was emphatically not a strong man. He was not a man to make good grow where it was not already growing. He was a kindly counsellor to a young Queen ; and happily for herself the young Queen in this case had strong, clear sense enough of her own not to be absolutely dependent on any counsel. Lord Melbourne was not a statesman. His best qualities, personal kindness and good nature apart, were purely negative. He was, unfortunately, not content even with the reputation for a sort of indolent good-nature which lie might have well deserved. He strove to make himself appear hopelessly idle, trivial, and careless. When he really was serious and earnest he seemed to make it his business to look like one in whom no human affairs could call up a gleam of interest. We have amusing pictures of him as he occupied himself in blowing a feather or nursing a sofa-cushion while receiving an important and perhaps highly sensitive deputation from this or that commercial "interest." Those who knew him insisted that he really was listening with all his might and main ; that he bad sat up the whole night before studying the question which he seemed to think so unworthy of any attention ; and that so far from being wholly absorbed in bis trifles, he was at very great pains to keep up the appearance of a tiifler.

Such a masquerading might perhaps have been excusable, or even attractive, in the case of a man of really brilliant and commanding talents. But in Lord Melbourne's case the affectation had no such excuse or happy effect. He was a poor speaker, only fitted to rule in the quietest times. Debates were then conducted with a bitterness of personality unknown, or at all events very rarely known, in our days. Even in the House of Lords language was often interchanged of the most virulent hostility.

Lord Melbourne's constant attendance on the young Queen was regarded with keen jealousy and dissatisfaction. According to some critics, the Prime-minister was endeavoring to inspire her with all his own gay heedlessness of character and temperament. According to others, Lord Melbourne's purpose was to make himself agreeable and indispensable to the Queen ; to surround her with his friends, relations, and creatures, and thus to get a lifelong hold of power in England, in defiance of political changes and parties. But he does not appear to have been greedy of power, or to have used any unfair means of getting or keeping it. The character of the young Sovereign seems to have impressed him deeply. His real or affected levity gave way to a genuine and lasting desire to make her life as happy and her reign as successful as he could. The Queen always felt the warmest affection and gratitude for him. Still, it is certain that the Queen's Prime-minister was by no means a popular man at the time of her accession. When tbe new reign began the Ministry had two enemies or critics in the House of Lords of the most formidable character. Either alone would have been a trouble to a minister of far stronger mould than Lord Melbourne ; but circumstances threw them both for the moment into a chance alliance against him.

One of these was Lord Brougham. No character stronger and stranger than his is described in the modern history of England. He was gifted with the most varied and striking talents, and with a capacity for labor which sometimes seemed almost superhuman. Not merely had he the capacity for labor, but he appeared to have a positive passion for work. His restless energy seemed as if it must stretch itself out on every side seeking new fields of conquest. The study that was enough to occupy the whole time and wear out the frame of other men was only recreation to him. His physical strength never gave way. His high spirits never deserted him. His self-confidence was boundless. He thought he knew everything and could do everything better than any other man. His vanity was overweening, and made him ridiculous almost as often and as much as his genius made him admired. " If Brougham knew a little of law," said O'Connell, when the former became Lord Chancellor, " he would know a little of everything." The anecdote is told in another way, too, which perhaps makes it even more piquant : "The new Lord Chancellor knows a little of everything in the world — even of law." He was beyond doubt a great Parliamentary orator, although not an orator of the highest class. Brougham's action was wild, and sometimes even furious ; his gestures were singularly ungraceful ; bis manners were grotesque ; but of his power over his hearers there could lie no doubt. That power remained with him until a far later date, and long at'tev the years when men usually continue to take part in political debate Lord Brougham could be impassioned, impressive, and even overwhelming. If his talents were great, if his personal vanity was immense, let it be said that his services to the cause of human freedom and education were simply inestimable. As an opponent of slavery in the colonies, as an advocate of political reform at home, of law reform, of popular education, of religious equality, he had worked with indomitable zeal, with resistless passion, and with splendid success. He was left out of office on the reconstruction of the Whig Ministry in April, 1835, and he passed for the remainder of his life into the position of an independent or unattached critic of the measures and policy of other men. It has never been clearly known why the Whigs so suddenly threw over Brougham. The common belief is that his eccentricities and his almost savage temper made him intolerable in a cabinet. It has been darkly hinted that for a while his intellect was actually under a cloud, as people said that of Chatham was during a momentous season. Lord Brougham was not a man likely to forget or forgive the wrong which he must have believed that he had sustained at tbe hands of the Whigs. He became the fiercest and most formidable of Lord Melbourne's hostile critics.

The other great opponent was Lord Lyndburst. He was one of the most effective Parliamentary debaters of his time. His style was singularly and even severely clear, direct, and pure ; his manner was easy and graceful ; his voice remarkably sweet and strong. Nothing could have been in greater contrast than his clear, correct, nervous argument, and the impassioned invectives and overwhelming strength of Brougham. Lyndhurst had an immense capacity for work, when the work had to be done ; but his natural tendency was as distinctly towards indolence as Brougham's was towards unresting activity. Nor were Lyndhurst's political convictions ever very clear. By the habitude of associating with the Tories, and receiving office from them, and speaking for them, and attacking their enemies with argument and sarcasm, Lyndhurst finally settled down into all the ways of Toryism. But nothing in his varied history showed that he had any particular preference that way : and there were many passages in his career when it would seem as if a turn of chance decided what part of political life he was to follow. As a keen debater he was perhaps hardly ever excelled in Parliament; but he had neither the passion nor the genius of the orator ; and his capacity was narrow indeed in its range when compared with the astonishing versatility and omnivorous mental activity of Brougham. As a speaker he was always equal. He seemed to know no varying moods or fits of mental lassitude. Whenever he spoke he reached at once the same high level as a debater. The very fact may in itself, perhaps, be taken as conclusive evidence that he was not an orator. The higher qualities of the orator are no more to be summoned at will than those of the poet.

These two men were, without any comparison, the two leading debaters in the House of Lords. Lord Melbourne had not at that time in the Upper House a single man of first-class or even of second-class debating power on the bench of the Ministry. An able writer has well remarked that the position of the Ministry in the House of Lords might be compared to that of a waterlogged wreck, into which enemies from all quarters are pouring their broadsides.

Tbe law at that time made it necessary that a new Parliament should be summoned on the accession of the new Sovereign. The result was not a very marked alteration in the condition of parties ; but on the whole the advan tage was with the Tories. Somewhere about this time, it may be remarked, the use of the word " Con-

A SHORT HISTORY OP OUR OWN TIMES.

servative " to describe the latter political part/ first came into fashion. During the elections for the new Parliament, Lord John Russell, speaking at a public dinner at Stroud, made allusion to the new name which his opponents were beginning to affect for their party. "If that," he said, " is the name that pleases them, if they say that the old distinction of Whig and Tory should no longer be kept up, I am ready, in opposition to their name of Conservative, to take the name of Reformer, and to stand by that opposition."

The new Parliament on its assembling seems to have gathered in the Commons an unusually large number of gifted and promising men. Mr. Grote, the historian of Greece, sat for the City of London. The late Lord Lytton, then Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer, had a seat, an advanced Radical at that day. Mr. Disraeli came then into Parliament for the first time. Charles Buller, full of high spirits, brilliant humor, and the very inspiration of keen good-sense, seemed on the sure way to that career of renown which a premature death cut short. Sir William Molesworth was an excellent type of the school which in later days was called the Philosophical Radical. Another distinguished member of the same school, Mr. Roebuck, had lost his seat, and was for the moment an outsider. Mr. Gladstone had been already five years in Parliament. The late Lord Carlisle, then Lord Morpeth, was looked upon as a graceful specimen of the literary and artistic young nobleman, who also cultivates a little politics for his intellectual amusement. Lord John Russell had but lately begun his career as leader of the House of Commons. Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary, but had not even then got the credit of the great ability which he possessed. Only those who knew him very well had any idea of the capacity for governing Parliament and the country which he was soon afterwards to display. Sir Robert Peel was leader of the Conservative party. Lord Stanley, the late Lord Derby, was still in the House of Commons. He had not long before broken definitely with the Whigs on the question of the Irish ecclesiastical establishment, and had passed over to that Conservative party of which he afterwards became the most influential leader, and the most powerful Parliamentary orator.

The ministry was not very strong in the House of Commons. Its adherents were but loosely held together. Sir Robert Peel, the leader of the Opposition, was by far the most powerful man in the House. Added to his great qualities as an administrator and a Parliamentary debater, he had the virtue, then very rare among Conservative statesmen, of being a sound and clear financier, with a good grasp of the fundamental principles of political economy. His high, austere character made him respected by opponents as well as by friends. He had not perhaps many intimate friends. His temperament was cold, or at least its heat was self-contained : he threw out no genial glow to those around him. He was by nature a reserved and shy man, in whose manners shyness took the form of pompousness and coldness. It is certain that he had warm and generous feelings, but his very sensitiveness only led him to disguise them. The contrast between his emotions and his lack of demonstrativeness created in him a constant artificiality which often seemed mere awkwardness. It was in the House of Commons that his real genius and character displayed themselves. Peel was a perfect master of the House of Commons. He was as great an orator as any man could be who addresses himself to the House of Commons, its ways and its purposes alone. Sir Robert Peel had little imagination, and almost none of that passion which in eloquence sometimes supplies its place. His style was clear, strong, and stately ; full of various argument and apt illustration drawn from books and from the world of politics and commerce. He followed a difficult argument home to its utter conclusions; and if it had in it any lurking fallacy, he brought out the weakness into the clearest light, often with a happy touch of humor and quiet sarcasm. His speeches might be described as the very perfection of good-sense and high principle clothed in the most impressive language. Rut they were something more peculiar than this, for they were so constructed, in their argument and their style alike, as to touch the very core of the intelligence of the House of Commons. They told of the feelings and the inspiration of Parliament as the ballad-music of a country tells of its scenery and its national sentiments.

Lord Stanley was a far more energetic and impassioned speaker than Sir Robert Peel, and perhaps occasionally, in his later career, came now and then nearer to the height of genuine oratory. But Lord Stanley was little more than a splendid Parliamentary partisan, even when, long after, he was Prime-minister of England. He had very little indeed of that class of information which the modern world requires of its statesmen and leaders. Of political economy, of finance, of the development and the discoveries of modern science, he knew almost as little as it is possible for an able and energetic man to know who lives in the throng of active life and hears what people are talking of around him. He once said good-humoredlv of himself that he was brought up in the prescientific period. He had, in fact, what would have been called at an earlier day an elegant scholarship ; he had a considerable knowledge of the politics of his time in most European countries, an energetic, intrepid spirit, and with him the science of Parliamentary debate seemed to be an instinct. There was no speaker on the ministerial benches at that time who could for a moment be compared with him.

Lord John Russell, who had the leadership of the party in the House of Commons, was really a much stronger man than he seemed to be. He had a character for dauntless courage and confidence among his friends; for boundless self-conceit among his enemies. He had in truth much less genius than his friends and admirers believed, and a great deal more of practical strength than either friends or foes gave him credit for. He became, not indeed an orator, but a very keen debater, who was especially effective in a cold, irritating sarcasm which penetrated the weakness of an opponent's argument like some dissolving acid. The thin, bright stream of argument worked its way slowly out, and contrived to wear a path for itself through obstacles which at first the looker-on might have felt assured it never could penetrate.

Our English system of government by party makes the history of Parliament seem like that of a succession of great political duels. Two men stand constantly confronted during a series of years, one of whom is at the head of the Government, while the other is at the head of the Opposition. They change places with each victory. The conqueror goes into office ; the conquered into opposition. It has often happened that the two leading opponents are men of intellectual and oratorical powers so fairly balanced that their followers may well dispute among themselves as to the superiority of their respective chiefs, and that the public in general may become divided into two schools, not merely political but even critical, according to their partiality for one or the other. For many years Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel stood thus opposed. Peel had by far the more original mind, and Lord John Russell never obtained so great an influence over the House of Commons as that which his -rival long enjoyed. Lord John Russell was a born reformer. He had sat at the feet of Fox. He was cradled in the principles of Liberalism. He held faithfully to his creed ; he was one of its boldest and keenest champions. He had great advantages over Peel, in the mere fact that he had begun his education in a more enlightened school. But he wanted passion quite as much as Peel did, and remained still farther than Peel below the level of the genuine orator.

After the chiefs of Ministry and of Opposition, the most conspicuous figure in the House of Commons was the colossal form of O'Connell, the great Irish agitator, of whom we shall hear a good deal more. Among the foremost orators of the House at that time was O'Connell's impassioned lieutenant, Richard Lalor Shiel.

A reign which saw in its earliest years the application of the electric current to the task of transmitting messages, the first successful attempts to make use of steam for the business of transatlantic navigation, the general development of the railway system all over these countries, and the introduction of the penny -post, must be considered to have obtained for itself, had it secured no other memorials, an abiding place in history. The history of the past forty or fifty years is almost absolutely distinct from that of any preceding period. In all that part of our social life which is affected by industrial and mechanical appliances we see a complete revolution. A man of the present day suddenly thrust back fifty years in life wotdd find himself almost as awkwardly unstated to the ways of that time as if he were sent back to the age when the Romans occupied Britain. He would find himself harassed at every step he took. He could do hardly anything as he does it to-day. Sir Robert Peel travelled from Rome to London 1 to assume office as Prime-minister, exactly as Constantine travelled from York to Rome to become Emperor. Each traveller had all that sails and horses could do for him, and no more. A few years later Peel might have reached London from Rome in some forty-eight hours.

It is a somewhat curious coincidence that, in the year when Professor Wheatstone and Mr. Cooke took out their first patent " for improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms in distant places by means of electric currents transmitted through metallic circuit," Professor Morse, the American electrician, applied to Congress for aid in the construction and carrying on of a small electric telegraph to convey messages a short distance, and made the application with* out success. In the following year he came to this country to obtain a patent for his invention ; but he was refused. He had come too late. Our own countrymen were beforehand with him. Very soon after we find experiments made with the electric telegraph between Euston Square and Camden Town. The London and Birmingham Railway was opened through its whole length in 1838. The Liverpool and Preston line was opened in the same year. The Liverpool and Birmingham had been opened in the year before ; the London and Croydon was opened the year after. The Act for the transmission of the mails by railways was passed in 1838. In the same year it was noted as an unparalleled, and to many an almost incredible, triumph of human energy and science over time and space, that a locomotive had been able to travel at a speed of thirty-seven miles an hour.