initial commit of ebook 5876HEADmain

5 files changed, 8422 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/5876.txt b/5876.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..29a883a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5876.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8406 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century
+by James Richard Joy
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century
+
+Author: James Richard Joy
+
+Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5876]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 15, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TEN ENGLISHMEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Ryan Ramseyer.
+
+
+
+
+TEN ENGLISHMEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+By James Richard Joy
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+
+
+To
+My Daughter
+Helen
+With Her Father's Love
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+
+
+The object of this work is to set forth with as much clearness as
+possible the more important facts in the history of England in
+the nineteenth century. We have chosen to do this through the
+medium of biography, in the belief that the lives of a few
+representative men would present better opportunities for
+interesting and effective treatment than an historical narrative,
+which must have been encumbered by a mass of detail not capable
+of effective disposition within the limited space at our command.
+An introductory chapter serves to give a general view of the
+course of events and to show the relations of the men and
+movements which are afterward presented in more detail.
+
+With but one exception our "Ten Englishmen" are men in public
+life, political or military. Artists, authors, preachers, and
+scholars were purposely left out of the account, because they are
+to receive prominence in other parts of the course for which this
+volume was written. The exception was made in the case of George
+Stephenson, because the revolution in transportation, due to his
+improvement of the locomotive engine, has had such a powerful
+influence upon the industrial development of the nation.
+
+In bringing these great personages before the reader our
+intention has been quite as much historical as biographical. Each
+name is linked with some conspicuous problem in statesmanship,
+and the endeavor has been to set forth the work as well as the
+workman. It is hoped that the library notes appended to each
+chapter will be of assistance to the earnest student, in
+supplementing the meager outlines of this volume with the
+abundance of personal detail and wealth of dramatic incident
+which give life and action to history.
+
+The appendix should not be overlooked. Its selections from
+authentic speeches, letters, dispatches, and other writings bring
+the reader into touch with the men who made England great.
+
+One word more. Our "Ten" are not necessarily "THE Ten." They are
+the men whose lives lay in line with the writer's plan. If they
+serve to accentuate the leading features of the history we are
+not disposed to argue with those who would present other
+candidates for the honor of inclusion in the list.
+
+
+     James Richard Joy
+
+
+
+     Plainfield, N.J., June 4, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+
+
+ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
+
+
+The opening of the nineteenth century found England in the midst
+of a great foreign war, which for almost a generation absorbed
+the thought and energy of the nation, and postponed for the time
+the vital questions of economic and political reform which
+clamored for settlement.
+
+
+THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON
+
+
+The war began in 1793, when the French nation, having overturned
+its ancient throne, and revolutionized its social and political
+institutions, set out on a democratic crusade for "Liberty,
+Equality, and Fraternity," which involved it in a conflict with
+the governments of Europe. William Pitt, who had been Prime
+Minister of George III. since 1783, had twice banded the European
+states against the French republican armies; but while the
+English fleets remained masters of the seas, the enthusiasm of
+the French soldiers, and the genius of their young generals, had
+thus far proved too strong for the mercenary battalions of
+despotism. In the closing month of the year 1800, Pitt's "Second
+Coalition" had been shattered by the defeat of the Allies at
+Hohenlinden. The Peace of Amiens which shortly ensued (March,
+1802, to May, 1803) was but a delusion. England greeted it with
+joy and hope, but soon discovered its unreality. From the renewal
+of hostilities, in May, 1803, until the final triumph of the
+allies, in 1815, the war resolved itself into a struggle between
+Napoleon and England. This young Corsican lieutenant had raised
+himself by sheer force of genius and unscrupulous ambition to
+absolute power. His scheme for the subjugation of Europe beat
+down every obstacle except the steady and unbending opposition of
+England. Pitt, who had withdrawn from the government because of
+the stupid King's refusal to honor his Minister's pledges of
+equal rights to the Irish Catholics, was recalled by the
+universal voice ot the nation to organize the resistance.
+Napoleon had assembled immense armaments upon the Channel coast
+of France for a descent on England, and had created a vast
+flotilla to transport the force to Kent. Great Britain trembled
+with excited apprehension. Three hundred thousand volunteers
+offered their services to the government. But, as often in the
+past, Britain's best defense was her wooden walls, and the
+sagacity, seamanship, and valor of her sailors, who out-
+manoeuvered the combined fleets of France and Spain, crushed
+their power at Trafalgar (October, 1805), and secured the Channel
+against the invader. Pitt's gold had called into existence a
+third coalition (England, Russia. Austria, and Sweden), only to
+see Napoleon hurl it to the ground on the field of Austerlitz
+(December, 1805). England's isolation seemed as complete as the
+Emperor's victory. Russia, Austria, and Prussia made humiliating
+peace with the victor, who carved his conquests into new states
+and kingdoms. Pitt, who, at the news of Austerlitz, had pointed
+to the map of Europe with the words "Roll up that map, there will
+be no use for it these ten years," survived the calamity scarcely
+a month.
+
+Unable to meet, as yet, the English troops in battle on the land
+as he had met and defeated those of the Continent, and unequal to
+England on the seas, Napoleon devised a more insidious plan of
+campaign. Believing that a "nation of shop-keepers" might be
+attacked through its trade, he issued from the Prussian capital,
+in 1806, the famous Berlin Decree, which was the first note of
+that "Continental System," which was intended to close the ports
+of Europe to British goods. The British government met this
+boycott by its "Orders in Council," which placed a blockade upon
+French ports, and authorized the capture of neutral vessels
+endeavoring to trade with them. This inconclusive commercial
+warfare lasted several years, but was far from being successful
+in its object of ruining England. Indeed, it is said that the
+most stringent enforcement of the "Decrees" and "Orders" did not
+prevent the Napoleonic armies from wearing uniforms of English
+cloth and carrying English steel in their scabbards.
+
+England first began to make head against the French conqueror
+when that far-sighted minister George Canning sent Sir Arthur
+Wellesley to Portugal to take command of the British forces in
+the Peninsula. Wellesley had recently returned from India, where
+he had achieved a brilliant reputation for thoroughness of
+organization, precision of manoeuver, and unvarying success,
+qualities which at that time were lamentably rare among British
+generals. In Portugal first, and later in Spain, the sterling
+qualities of the new commander steadily gained ground for
+England, driving out the French marshals, and carrying this
+Peninsular War to a triumphant conclusion by the invasion of
+France (1814). Created Duke of Wellington for his successes in
+the Peninsula, Wellesley held command of the allied forces on the
+Belgian frontier when, on the 18th of June, 1815, they met and
+routed the French at Waterloo. That day made Napoleon an exile,
+and "the Iron Duke" the idol of the English lands in which he
+continued to be the most conspicuous personage for nearly half a
+century.
+
+
+THE RESETTLEMENT OF EUROPE
+
+
+Waterloo brought England into new relations with the nations of
+Europe. The Congress of Vienna, in which the victors endeavored
+to restore the damage wrought by the Corsican intruder, added
+Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Malta, and a few less important
+islands, to the growing colonial empire of Great Britain. The
+Holy Alliance, which had been suggested by the Czar in 1815, at
+the friendly meeting of the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian
+sovereigns at Paris, was in theory a compact between these
+powerful rulers--"an intimate union on the basis of morality and
+religion"--but it soon degenerated into an unholy league for the
+mutual protection of these three despotic dynasties against the
+dormant forces of constitutional liberty, which began to stir
+again in every European state as soon as the Napoleonic specter
+had been laid. The French Revolution had given currency to
+opinions which no congress of sovereigns could wholly repress,
+and now the policy of the "Alliance," to strangle all
+constitutional aspirations and rivet the chains of Bourbonism
+upon limbs that had once known the bliss of freedom, led to
+fierce intellectual revolt, and sometimes to physical violence.
+England had made common cause with Turk and Christian, Kaiser and
+King, against Napoleon, and for a time her statesmen viewed with
+complacency the Holy Alliance, so reassuring in its name and so
+pure in its professions; but when it became evident that this
+mighty league was to be thrown against every liberty-loving
+people in the Old World and the New, George Canning broke the
+irksome bond, and put the land of parliaments and constitutional
+liberty in its rightful place as the friend of freedom and the
+foe to the oppressor. It was the spirit if not the voice of
+Canning which was powerful to save Portugal from the Bourbon, to
+recognize the independence of the revolted American colonies of
+Spain, and to restrain the enemies of freedom from handing
+insurgent Greece back to the Turk. His predecessors had been
+accustomed to sink the interests and desires of England in regard
+for what the continental power called "the good of Europe." He
+was the first statesman of his generation who dared to take an
+independent position on "European" questions--"to write
+'England,'" as he phrased it, "where it had been the custom to
+write 'Europe.'" The policy which he inaugurated marks a turning-
+point in the history of British foreign affairs.
+
+
+Catholic Emancipation
+
+
+George IV., who had been regent since his father's illness in
+1812, reigned in his own name from 1820 to 1830, though his voice
+in the affairs of state was small indeed. His Ministers,
+Liverpool, Canning, Goderich, and Wellington, were confronted by
+serious problems of domestic policy which had sprung up during
+the long period of foreign wars and partly in direct consequence
+of those disturbing conditions. The one recurrent question which
+found definite settlement in this reign was that of Catholic
+emancipation. The penal laws against Roman Catholics had
+disgraced the English statute-books for two centuries. On the
+first of January, 1801, the Legislative Union of Great Britain
+and Ireland had gone into effect under the name of the United
+Kingdom. The Irish Parliament, which had met in Dublin since
+1782, went out of existence, and in the place of "Home Rule"
+Ireland was represented in both houses of the Imperial Parliament
+at Westminster. Pitt had promised the numerous Catholics of
+Ireland that the laws which made them ineligible to represent
+their country in Parliament should be repealed, and had abandoned
+office in disgust when George III. refused to sanction his
+project of Catholic emancipation. In 1807 the Whig ministry
+espoused the same cause, and in turn resigned because of the
+opposition of the Crown. In Daniel O'Connell the cause at length
+found a spokesman whose eloquence, wit, and talent for
+"agitation" soon combined his Irish partisans into "The Catholic
+Association." Working in conjunction with the Whigs of England,
+O'Connell's followers formed a body which could not be neglected.
+Soon after Canning's untimely death the Duke of Wellington had
+taken office. He was a Tory, with all the prejudices of that
+political faith deepened by his birth and training as an Irish
+Protestant, but the agitation had reached such proportions that
+he saw in it a menace of civil war, to avoid which he was willing
+to abandon his most cherished opinions on the Catholic question.
+Accordingly, in 1829, the Iron Duke faced about and brought in
+the bill which, becoming a law by Whig and Canningite votes,
+admitted Roman Catholics to Parliament, and to civil rights only
+a little short of complete. But instead of removing the Irish
+question from politics, it was only prepared for more strenuous
+presentation in a new guise, for O'Connell was returned to
+Parliament at the head of some fifty Catholic members to agitate
+for Irish independence.
+
+
+RAILWAYS
+
+
+The perfection of the steam locomotive and the inception and
+marvelous development of the system of steam railway
+transportation marked the second quarter of the century. The name
+of the Stephensons, father and son, is inseparably connected with
+this work which has affected so deeply the economic and social
+life of the nation, and has contributed in a thousand indirect
+ways to the expansion and consolidation of the empire. It has
+been said that in 1825 the traveler from London to Rome went no
+faster than the courier of the Caesars, eighteen hundred years
+before. Thanks to George Stephenson's inventive genius, the
+traveler of today consumes scarcely more time between London and
+Peking.
+
+
+THE REFORM OF PARLIAMENT
+
+
+The reform of Parliament was the next question to come up for
+settlement. In 1830 representation in the House of Commons still
+remained upon a basis which had been established centuries
+before. Meantime the distribution of the voting population had
+been totally transformed. The most populous shires had no more
+seats than the least of all. There were decayed boroughs which
+had dwindled in population until but a handful of voters
+remained, yet these "rotten" boroughs retained their right to
+choose one or more members of Parliament, while the great modern
+manufacturing towns and seaports were totally unrepresented. The
+agitation for parliamentary reform, which rose in the middle of
+the eighteenth century, was directed against the sale of seats in
+the rotten boroughs, and the shameless bribery. As early as 1770
+Lord Chatham had predicted reform or revolution. His son, the
+younger Pitt, had proposed remedies, but the deluge which
+overwhelmed the government of France in the closing years of the
+century stiffened English conservatism for a century against any
+radical political change. Meanwhile the rapid industrial
+expansion of the kingdom, with its unprecedented increase of
+population, and the sudden growth of insignificant hamlets into
+teeming factory towns, had emphasized the injustice of existing
+arrangements. Earl Grey, who had been an advocate of reform for
+forty years, and Lord John Russell, who had championed the cause
+for a decade, were united in the Whig ministry which succeeded
+Wellington in 1830. Supported by a tremendous popular demand
+which seemed to stir the nation to its depths they brought in
+their first bill in 1831. It prevailed in the Commons by a bare
+majority, but the Tory House of Lords threw it out. This action
+by the privileged class was a signal for an indignant outburst
+from the nation. The "Radicals," as the advanced Whigs were
+already beginning to be called, did not conceal their lack of
+respect for the Upper House, and used revolutionary threats
+against it as a relic of mediaevalism which should no longer be
+tolerated in a free state. But the time had passed when the peers
+could flout an aroused nation. When the Third Reform Bill was
+ready for passage, the ministers secured the King's promise to
+frustrate the opposition of the Lords by filling up the House
+with new peers created expressly to vote for reform. The threat
+sufficed. Wellington and the most stern and unbending Tories
+absented themselves from the decisive division, and allowed the
+Reform Bill to become a law in June, 1832.
+
+
+ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
+
+
+Great things were expected of the first Parliament which was
+chosen on the basis of the new law. The seats gained by the
+disfranchisement of the small and corrupt boroughs were
+distributed to new constituencies in London, Liverpool,
+Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, and the other modern
+cities. The more populous counties were subdivided into
+districts, and the divisions received additional representation.
+The franchise had also been extended and based upon a moderate
+property qualification. The result was, that the center of
+political power passed from the nobility and landed gentry, with
+whom it had resided for centuries, and came to the farmers and
+shop-keepers, the so-called middle class, lying between the
+ancient aristocracy of birth and landed possessions and the still
+unenfranchised masses of mill operatives and agricultural
+laborers. That the new Parliament would show a new temper and be
+dominated by new ideas was but natural. But those who inferred
+from the bitterness of the struggle for reform that the nation
+was on the verge of an abyss into which the Lords and the Crown
+should shortly topple, greatly deceived themselves.
+
+
+THE POOR LAWS
+
+
+The reformed Parliaments devoted themselves to certain long-
+deferred and intensely practical reforms which were social and
+economic in their nature, leaving the constitution alone for the
+next twenty years. In these Parliaments and ministries for the
+next forty years the Whig party usually had the upper hand. In
+1834 Parliament revolutionized the system of public relief to the
+needy which had existed for fifty years, to the extreme
+demoralization of the poorer working-classes and the frustration
+of really benevolent purpose. The old law had assumed that each
+parish owed every native a living. A sliding scale was
+accordingly provided by which, as the rate of wages declined, the
+parish should pay to the workman enough to bring his receipts up
+to the standard amount. Employers took advantage of this system
+cut wages to a minimum, the parish making up the difference.
+Another mischievous clause increased the pauper's dole in
+proportion to the number of his children, with the direct result
+of early and improvident marriages. To put it bluntly, children
+were bred for the bounty. The number of persons receiving parish
+aid was enormously increased. The self-respect of the poor was
+destroyed, and the poor-rate became a burden of millions of
+pounds annually upon the treasury. The act of 1834 put an end to
+these abuses by restricting outdoor relief to the aged and
+destitute, and requiring all other paupers to go to the union
+workhouse. Within two years the poor-rate was diminished fully
+one-third.
+
+
+ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
+
+
+In 1834 slavery was abolished throughout the British dominions.
+The earnest labors of the Abolitionists, Clarkson, Wilberforce,
+Macaulay, and others, had secured the abolition of the slave
+trade thirty years before (1807), but the united opposition of
+the colonial planters to a reform which would deprive them of the
+services of their chattel laborers postponed the consummation of
+the humanitarian measure. The reformed Parliament proved less
+sensitive to the planters' arguments. It destroyed the system
+forever, making a cash compensation to the owners.
+
+A third question, on which Earl Grey's ministry took high moral
+ground, was a redress of another of the ancient wrongs of
+Ireland. The Church of England was by law established in that
+most distressful country, and the people, though mostly Roman
+Catholics, were under the necessity of paying tithes for the
+support of a church which they detested, and which indeed, in a
+large part of the island, had no existence except for purposes of
+taxation. The Irish protest, as has often been the case, took the
+form of violence and outrage, the so-called "Tithe War," which
+postponed rather than hastened the redress of their grievance.
+But in 1835 the ministry of Lord Melbourne relieved the peasants
+of this part of their many burdens.
+
+
+ACCESSION OF VICTORIA
+
+
+The name of Lord Melbourne has been kept green not only by the
+Australasian metropolis, but by the fact that it was his duty as
+Prime Minister to announce to the Princess Alexandrina Victoria
+the fact--to her so momentous--that her uncle, William IV., was
+dead (June 20, 1837), and that she, a girl of eighteen, was Queen
+of England. Victoria, as she was known thenceforward, lived to
+see the dawn of the twentieth century, to witness the enormous
+development of the British empire in population, wealth, and
+power, and it is perhaps not too much to say, to win all hearts
+among her subjects by the simplicity, purity, and strength of her
+character. Had she displayed the stubborn stupidity of her
+grandfather, George III., or the immorality of some of his sons,
+it is not rash to believe that the tide of radicalism might have
+thrown down all barriers and swept away the throne on the flood
+of democracy. By grace of character she was a model
+constitutional sovereign, and her benign reign, the longest in
+English annals, contributed more than the policy of any of her
+ministers to make the monarchy popular and permanent.
+
+The first decade of the Victorian era witnessed three great
+agitations, two of which ended in fiasco and the third in a
+triumph which wrought tremendous changes in the kingdom.
+"Chartism," "Repeal," and "Free Trade" were the three topics on
+which the thought of multitudes was engaged.
+
+CHARTISM
+
+
+Chartism was the name applied to the agitation in favor of a
+statement of principles called "The People's Charter." The six
+points of Chartism were: (l) annual Parliaments, (2) salaries for
+members, (3) universal suffrage, (4) vole by ballot, (5)
+abolition of property qualification for membership in the House
+of Commons, and (6) equal electoral districts. The demand came
+from the workingmen, who were dissatisfied because the Reform
+Bill of 1832 had stopped short of their political stratum. The
+Chartists copied the method of agitation which O'Connell had
+employed in extorting Catholic emancipation. Monster meetings,
+mile-long petitions, copious effusions of printer's ink and
+oratory, and a National Charter Association were a part of the
+machinery. In 1848, when the prevalent hard times increased the
+restless discontent of the masses, the movement culminated in a
+vast assembly on Kennington Common. A respectful half-million
+were to march to Westminster and lay their demands, the six
+points backed by six million signatures, before the Commons. The
+year 1848 was one of widespread discontent, the revolution year
+of the century, and the authorities took pains to guard the peace
+of London with especial care, even Wellington being called into
+service to direct the military. But nine-tenths of the mob failed
+to put in appearance, and the monster petition turned out to be a
+monstrous and clumsy fraud. Nothing came of it at the moment. The
+return of better times took the heart out of the agitation, and
+the progress of orderly political development gradually
+incorporated three of the Chartist points in the law of the land
+without seriously affecting the constitution.
+
+
+O'CONNELL AND REPEAL
+
+
+The second popular war cry was "Repeal." In this agitation, again
+O'Connell's was the chief personage, and his eloquence the chief
+factor. It was in effect another phase of the Irish demand for
+Home Rule. Since the first day of the new century Ireland had
+been, for legislative purposes, a part of the United Kingdom. It
+was the act which had established this "Legislative Union" and
+abolished the Irish Parliament which O'Connell was determined to
+repeal. All that monster meetings, soul-moving oratory, secret
+associations, printer's ink, could do to influence the government
+by parliamentary manoeuver, demonstration of popular feeling,
+intimidation, and threats of insurrection was done. As a member
+of Parliament, and the dictator to his "tail" of half a hundred
+Irish members, the silver-tongued "Irish tribune" exerted a
+considerable political power so long as parties were somewhat
+evenly divided so as to make his support desirable. But when, in
+1841, the Tories came back into office under Sir Robert Peel,
+backed by a strong majority, this influence declined. The arrest
+of O'Connell, in 1843, for treasonable utterances, discredited
+him with his following, which soon fell apart-the more determined
+section to carry Ireland's cause to the extreme of violent
+outbreak, the milder partisans to await a more opportune moment
+to press their agitation for Home Rule.
+
+
+THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS
+
+
+The names of Sir Robert Peel and Richard Cobden are indissolubly
+connected with the legislation which repealed the "Corn Laws" and
+placed English commerce upon the basis of free trade--Cobden as
+the theorist and untiring agitator, whose splendid talents were
+unsparingly devoted to preparing public opinion for the economic
+revolution, and Peel as the protectionist Prime Minister, who was
+open-minded enough to become convinced of his error in persisting
+in the policy in which he had been trained. The necessity for a
+change of commercial policy grew out of the altered conditions in
+the nation. The agricultural England of the eighteenth century
+had in a generation been transformed into a hive of manufacturing
+industry. The rapid adoption of steam power and improved
+machinery in England on the one hand, and the paralysis of
+industry on the Continent during the Napoleonic wars, had wrought
+the change, while the commercial marine, guarded by her powerful
+navy, had brought the carrying trade of the world under her flag.
+The weakest point in the English system was the protective
+tariff, which lay heaviest on imports of grain--or "corn," to use
+the insular term. The Corn Laws were a body of legislation
+enacted from time to time by Parliaments which were controlled by
+the great land-owning interests. The land-owner, whose income was
+derived chiefly from rents upon agricultural lands, consistently
+favored a scale of tariffs which would maintain the price of
+cereal grains at the highest figure. At the close of the great
+war (1815) the nation was confronted with business disaster. "War
+prices" for grain fell rapidly, the markets were stocked with
+more manufactured goods than impoverished Europe could absorb,
+while the English labor market was glutted by the influx of
+several hundred thousand able-bodied soldiers and sailors in
+quest of industrial employment. As early as 1821 Mr. Huskisson, a
+cabinet colleague of Mr. Canning, had endeavored to lighten the
+burden of British manufactures by reducing the import duties upon
+the raw material used by the English looms. He was for getting at
+the root of the matter and disposing of the Corn Laws, so as to
+provide "free food" as well as "free raw materials," but his Tory
+companions believed that such legislation would vote the bread
+out of their own mouths. In 1838 an Anti-Corn Law Association was
+formed at Manchester. Under the direction of Richard Cobden, a
+young and successful manufacturer, who had become the most ardent
+of free traders, a league of similar clubs was organized
+throughout the country, and through it an agitation unsurpassed
+in the history of politics was prosecuted until its object was
+attained. In Parliament he became one of the most effective
+orators, and the chief target of his argument was Peel, the
+leader of the protectionists. In 1845-46 a more powerful argument
+than Cobden's was thrown into the scale. The failure of the Irish
+potato crop, the sole food supply of that unhappy island, "forced
+Peel's hand." In the face of two-thirds of his own party, in
+opposition to his own life-long political creed, he gave notice
+as Prime Minister that he should introduce a bill for the
+immediate reduction and ultimate repeal of the laws which were
+responsible for the high price of food. He had become a convert
+to free trade, and was ready to carry it into practice. The young
+Disraeli as the representative of the Protectionist element of
+his party, lashed the premier in the speech which first gave him
+a following in the Parliament that he was soon to control. But
+enough Peelites followed their leader into the camp of the free
+traders to carry the bill. The Corn Laws disappeared from the
+statute-book.
+
+
+HUMANITARIAN LEGISLATION
+
+
+The sudden and enormous expansion of English industry in the
+early part of the century brought special hardship to several
+classes in the community. The substitution of the factory system
+for cottage industry destroyed home life for thousands of
+families, and the pressure of poverty and the greed of
+manufacturers ground the poor mill operatives between the upper
+and nether millstones. To Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of
+Shaftesbury, more than to any other is due the persistent
+investigation and disclosure which aroused the public mind to the
+prevailing conditions in mine and factory where hours of labor
+were excessive, and where women and children were subjected to
+degrading tasks and brutal treatment. The Factory Law and kindred
+legislation since 1830 are the fruits of the beneficent and
+untiring labors of the Earl.
+
+
+PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
+
+
+The era which had been marked by such political, social, and
+economic reforms and agitations came to a close in the middle of
+the century. The Whigs came into power in Parliament in 1846 for
+a long term. Foreign affairs supplied the most notable topics for
+the next twenty years. The foreign minister during much of this
+time was Lord Palmerston. He it was who piloted the nation
+without disaster through the rocks of 1848-51, when thrones were
+toppling in every European kingdom, and England was being
+appealed to for help against despot and democrat.
+
+
+THE EASTERN QUESTION
+
+
+The "Eastern Question" now came up. The Czar of Russia, an object
+of suspicion to England, because of his rivalry with her for the
+possession of India, endeavored to secure from the Sultan of
+Turkey official recognition of his government as the legitimate
+protector of Christians in the Ottoman empire. Such a
+responsibility would have afforded many opportunities for
+interfering in Turkish affairs. France opposed the demand, and
+Palmerston placed England on the side of Napoleon III., against
+the Czar, who had invaded Turkey in pursuance of his design to
+annex a large part of her European provinces, and advance his
+position toward Constantinople. The Crimean War which followed
+(1854-56) at least checked Russia for the time. It was the only
+European war in which England had borne arms since Waterloo. But
+in Asia and Africa the Queen's troops had found almost continual
+employment along the frontiers of the now vastly extended empire.
+In 1857 Persia had to be chastised for edging toward India by way
+of the Afghan possessions. Russia had been at the Shah's elbow.
+In 1856, and repeatedly until 1860, the British fleets were
+battering open the ports of China and extorting trade
+concessions. But the most memorable war in the imperial history
+of these years was within the borders of the empire, though in a
+distant land. This was the Sepoy Rebellion or Indian mutiny of
+1857.
+
+
+THE GREAT SEPOY MUTINY
+
+
+The British possessions in India had been more than doubled in
+extent since the opening of the century. In 1833 the trade
+monopoly of the East India Company had been broken, but its civil
+and military servants continued to administer the government.
+Their ability was displayed especially in the rapidity with which
+they were extending British authority over the native states when
+the outbreak came. A conspiracy was laid among the Sepoys, the
+native soldiers in the regiments of "John Company." as the great
+corporation was called in Asia. To their private grievances was
+added the false report that the company intended to force them
+into Christianity by serving out to them cartridges which would
+defile them, neat's tallow for the Hindoo venerator of the sacred
+cow, and hog's lard for the Mohammedan hater of swine! In May,
+1857, the mutiny burst into flame. The Sepoys slaughtered their
+officers and many other Europeans, and restored the heir of the
+ancient race of kings to the throne of his fathers at Delhi. Here
+and there, at Cawnpore and Lucknow, a few British troops defended
+themselves and the refugees against the hordes of bloodthirsty
+rebels. The "Massacre of Cawnpore" and "the Relief of Lucknow,"
+phrases which have passed into history, suggest the fate of the
+two beleaguered garrisons. The rebellion was over in a twelve-
+month, smothered in its own blood. Close upon its suppression
+came the death of the East India Company, abolished by act of
+Parliament in 1858. Since that year the crown has ruled the
+Indian realm through a Secretary of State for India, residing in
+London, and a Viceroy holding court at Calcutta. From the defeat
+of the mutineers, in 1859, to his own death, in 1865, Lord
+Palmerston managed to save the nation from being embroiled to the
+fighting-point in the perpetual quarrels of Europe. Italy fought
+and won her liberty from the Austrian; Poland rose against the
+Russian; Denmark had her damaging Schleswig-Holstein War with
+Prussia and Austria. English sympathies were strongly enlisted in
+all these troubles, but Palmerston would not allow her to proceed
+to the point of breaking the peace. From 1861 to 1865, while the
+Civil War was being fought out in America, his government was
+prompt to recognize the belligerent status of the Confederacy,
+and to favor the South by allowing privateers like the "Alabama"
+to be built and manned in English ports. But the actual break
+with Mr. Lincoln's government did not come, and the old Whig
+statesman lived to see the South overpowered.
+
+Through the middle reaches of the century the political power in
+England remained for the most part in the hands of the Whig,
+latterly called Liberal, ministries. The impulse for reform--
+political, economic, and social--had spent itself before 1850,
+and the older statesmen who guided the public policies had no
+sympathy with the demands for radical legislation, church
+disestablishment, universal suffrage, and what not, which came up
+from many parts of the nation. With the death of Palmerston, and
+the retirement of Russell, a new era was inaugurated, and new
+actors stepped to the front of the stage.
+
+
+GLADSTONE AND DISRAELI
+
+
+At the head of the Liberals was William Ewart Gladstone, who in
+his younger days had followed his master, Peel, out of the old
+Tory lines into the camp of the free traders, and had been
+Russell's chief lieutenant, and Palmerston's financial minister
+for the last half-dozen years. He was a man of splendid
+intellectual power, sterling morality, an adept at parliamentary
+management, a shrewd financier, and held a deep conviction that
+it was the part of statesmanship to embody in law what he
+conceived to be the proper demands of the nation. His opponent
+for a generation was Benjamin Disraeli, the young Jewish
+novelist, who had first won a following in the House of Commons
+by voicing the venom of the old-line protectionist Tories against
+the recreant Peel. Versatile, shifty, brilliant, this adventurous
+politician made himself indispensable to the Conservatives, and
+overcame by political moves which were little short of genius,
+the leadership of the opposition. Indeed, he may be said to have
+transformed Conservatism, giving it a new rallying cry, and
+inscribing great achievements upon its banner.
+
+
+LIBERAL REFORMS
+
+
+"Whenever that man gets my place we shall have strange doings,"
+Palmerston had said toward the end of his life, alluding to the
+open-minded Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, and had
+he remained on earth for another generation, he would indeed have
+seen much done by his erstwhile followers under Gladstone's
+direction which he would have accounted passing strange.
+Admitting the democratic principle that the state owed it to
+itself to provide every man's child with an education, Gladstone
+inaugurated (1870) a beneficent system of free public schools. An
+old popular grievance, the viva voce method of voting at
+parliamentary elections, was done away and the secret ballot
+substituted (1872), a change which struck a heavy blow at the
+prevalent bribery and intimidation. He corrected one of the worst
+abuses in the army by abolishing the purchase system, under which
+a junior officer was accustomed to buy his promotion by
+compensating his seniors, a practice which had closed the higher
+grades to men of small means. The extension of the suffrage to
+the agricultural laborers was finally reached by his Reform Bill
+of 1884, the last class being thus admitted to the body politic.
+
+
+THE CAUSE OF IRELAND
+
+
+But it was to the grievances of Ireland that Gladstone bent the
+readiest ear, and it was upon that reef that his political career
+made shipwreck at the last. In his first ministry he undertook
+and carried the disestablishment of the Irish Church, by which
+the Irish Catholics were relieved of an odious burden. His Irish
+Land Act of 1870 aimed to give the tenant-farmer certain valuable
+rights in the land which he rented. The result was rather to
+redouble the cry against "landlordism," with its corollary of
+agrarian crime. A second Land Act (1881) provided a land court
+for adjusting rents. Instead of quieting the disorders this
+indulgent legislation was the signal for a fresh outburst of
+crime. The Irish Land League was organized to secure the
+abolition of landlordism, and when the Irish leader, Charles
+Stewart Parnell, was imprisoned he exhorted the tenants to cease
+paying rent altogether until the government should grant all
+their demands. The Liberals were forced for the moment to use
+strong measures to restore order to Ireland, but the Home Rule
+party in Parliament, skillfully led by Mr. Parnell, continued to
+embarrass legislation and obstruct the ordinary functions of
+government. In April, 1886, Mr, Gladstone, having become Prime
+Minister for the third time, asked Parliament to grant home rule
+to Ireland through an Irish Parliament sitting at Dublin. Parnell
+and his following supported the measure, but the Liberal party
+was rent in twain. Lord Hartington, Joseph Chamberlain, John
+Bright, and others of less note, deserted their old chief. Enough
+of these "Liberal Unionists" seceded to defeat the bill. In
+August, 1892, the aged Liberal chieftain again carried the
+elections and took the seals of office for the fourth time. Home
+Rule was again the principal plank in his platform, and all the
+energies of the "Grand Old Man" were mustered to carry a new law
+differing somewhat from the bill of 1886. Though it passed the
+Commons (301 to 267) it was thrown out by the Lords by 419 to 41,
+and his successor, Lord Rosebery, had no mind to renew the
+contest.
+
+The Gladstonian foreign policy was such as might have been
+expected from a leader whose motto was "Peace, Retrenchment, and
+Reform." It was never aggressive, and in the opinion of many, it
+was lacking in the assertion of British rights. Thus, in 1871,
+when Russia refused to be bound longer by the treaty stipulations
+forbidding her to maintain a war fleet on the Euxine, Mr.
+Gladstone did not hold her to her engagement. In England it was
+thought to be a sign of weakness in his government to allow the
+"Alabama" and "San Juan Boundary" questions to be settled by
+arbitrators instead of by diplomacy or a show of force. In 1881,
+when the Boers of the Transvaal had worsted the British at Majuba
+Hill, they received from Gladstone an honorable peace instead of
+extermination. The abandonment of the Egyptian Soudan, in 1883,
+which carried with it the massacre of General Gordon, at
+Khartoum, was perhaps the heaviest load that the Gladstonian
+foreign policy ever had to bear.
+
+
+DISRAELI AND IMPERIALISM
+
+
+Foreign affairs were the field of Disraeli's most brilliant
+exploits. "He had two ruling ideas," says the historian Oman,
+"the first was the conception of England as an imperial world-
+power, interested in European politics, but still more interested
+in the maintenance and development of her vast colonial and
+Indian empire. This is the notion which friends and enemies now
+using the word in different senses call 'imperialism.' The second
+ruling thought in Disraeli's mind was the conviction that the
+Conservative party ought to step forward as rival to the Liberal
+party in commanding the sympathies and allegiance of the masses."
+In pursuance of this second idea he took the "leap in the dark,"
+in 1867, carrying a reform bill which was but little short of
+democratic in its extension of the right to vote. This was
+followed up by legislation favoring the English tenant-farmers,
+and improving the condition of workingmen in towns. Even after
+Disraeli's death, Lord Salisbury continued his domestic policy,
+instituting local government by means of county councils in 1888,
+making the schools free in 1891, and refunding the national debt
+in 1888.
+
+It was a great day for the British empire when Disraeli's
+telegram to the hard-pressed Khedive of Egypt, in 1875, bought
+for England the controlling interest in the Suez canal, the
+water-gate to India. It was a bold stroke of Disraeli's also
+which, at the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78,
+compelled the victor to take his paw from the throat of his
+victim and submit the treaty to a congress of the powers at
+Berlin, where its terms were modified and England was admitted to
+its benefits. The Second Afghan War (1878-80), and the Zulu War
+(1878-79), and the Boer War, which brought little glory to
+Britain, were the direct result of the Prime Minister's desire to
+extend the empire and strengthen its frontiers. It may have been
+theatrical, but it was certainly impressive to the assembled
+princes of India when Lord Lytton, the Viceroy, proclaimed
+Victoria Empress of India in Delhi, the old capital of the
+Moguls, on January 1, 1877. And though Disraeli (raised to the
+peerage as Lord Beaconsfield) was in his grave, his spirit
+dominated the pageantry of 1887 and 1897, when every nation and
+tribe and kindred and people of the Greater Britain sent
+representatives to London to celebrate the jubilee and diamond
+jubilee of the Empress-Queen, to whose aggrandizement he had
+contributed so effectively.
+
+
+AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS
+
+
+The century closes upon another England than that which was
+struggling against Napoleon at its dawn. Instead of the "right
+little tight little island," a compact and self-contained nation,
+it is now the head of an empire comparable in extent and
+population with no other since the Rome of Augustus. Canada,
+Federal Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa form a Greater
+Britain, while the subject lands and islands dot the globe. The
+problem which confronts the English at the end of the century is
+not whether they can hold their own against a foreign power as in
+the days of Waterloo, but whether all these British commonwealths
+can be made to work together in some sort of federal union, or
+whether the present ties are to dissolve or snap asunder and
+girdle the globe with independent states like the American
+republic, where each may be free to develop under its peculiar
+conditions the genius of the Anglo-Saxon race.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  How was England situated at the opening of the nineteenth
+century?
+2.  What did the names Hohenlinden, Trafalgar, and Austerlitz
+mean to England?
+3.  Sum up briefly the career of Wellesley.
+4.  How did Canning's policy mark a turning-point in British
+foreign affairs?
+5.  What was the result of the Catholic agitation?
+6.  How did the locomotive influence England's empire?
+7.  How was Parliament changed by the Reform Bill?
+8.  What changes in the Poor Laws were at once undertaken?
+9.  What action regarding slavery and Irish taxation?
+10. What was the Chartist agitation?
+11. Describe the agitation for "repeal."
+12. Why did the Corn Laws become intolerable?
+13. What reforms were wrought through the influence of the Earl
+of Shaftesbury?
+14. Through what foreign complications did England pass under
+Palmerston?
+15. What important abuses were corrected under Gladstone's
+leadership?
+16. Describe his dealings with the Irish question.
+17. How were certain great foreign matters dealt with by his
+government?
+18. What brilliant foreign achievements were accomplished by
+Disraeli?
+19. What is England's problem in the twentieth century?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND DURING THE THIRTY YEARS' PEACE. By Harriet
+Martineau.
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND SINCE 1815.     By Spencer Walpole.
+THE HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES.      By Justin McCarthy.
+ENGLAND IN THE XIXTH CENTURY.      By Elizabeth Wormely Latimer.
+THE GREVILLE MEMOIRS.              Edited by Henry Reeve.
+HISTORY OF THE CHARTIST MOVEMENT.  By R. G. Gammage.
+THE REIGN OF QUEEN VICTORIA.       Edited by T. Humphrey Ward.
+HISTORY OF ENGLAND.                By W. N. Molesworth.
+
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+WELLINGTON, AND THE STRUGGLE WITH NAPOLEON
+
+[ARTHUR WELLESLEY, Duke of Wellington, born in Ireland, 1769;
+died Walmer Castle, September 14, 1852; educated at Eton and at
+Angers; entered Seventy-third Regiment as ensign, 1787; purchased
+lieutenant-colonelcy of Thirty-third Regiment, 1793; served in
+Holland expedition, 1794-95; 1796, in India with his regiment;
+1803, major-general, commands in Mahratta War, victory at Assaye;
+1805,in England; 1806, member of Parliament; 1807, Secretary for
+Ireland; 1808, in Portugal; 1809-13, chief in command in
+Peninsula, clears Portugal and Spain of the French; 1814, English
+Ambassador at Paris; 1815, defeats Napoleon at Waterloo; 1815,
+commander-in-chief of allied army in France; 1818, master-general
+of the ordnance; 1822, represents England at Congress of Verona;
+1828-30, Prime Minister; 1829, grants Catholic emancipation;
+1834-35, Foreign Secretary; 1841, commander-in-chief. Buried in
+St. Paul's Cathedral.]
+
+In February, 1792, William Pitt, Prime Minister of George III.,
+unfolding his annual budget in the House of Commons, declared,
+"Unquestionably there never was a time in the history of this
+country when, from the situation of Europe, we might more
+reasonably expect fifteen years of peace, than at the present
+moment." Yet within a twelvemonth after this utterance,
+apparently sincere, France and England were plunged into a war
+which lasted, with but one brief intermission, until 1815. It
+embroiled in succession nearly every nation in Europe. In France
+it provided a theater for the genius of Napoleon, who after
+conquering in turn the best soldiers of the continent, was to
+meet his match in the Duke of Wellington on the field of
+Waterloo.
+
+The first period of the war mainly antedates the century which we
+are considering. In 1793 the Convention, the revolutionary body
+which had taken the place of the overturned French monarchy,
+declared war on Holland and England. Pitt was still at the head
+of King George III.'s ministry, and the conduct of the war
+devolved upon him. Her insular position and powerful fleet
+rendered England safe from invasion, but her active participation
+in the military operations upon the continent was limited in
+measure and distressing in outcome. The expeditions which she
+landed in the Netherlands were shockingly inadequate in numbers,
+and led by high-born generals without knowledge, talent, or
+experience. It is little wonder that they accomplished nothing
+except to feed the French contempt for English arms.
+
+Successive coalitions were formed by the energetic Pitt with
+Prussia, Austria, and other nations to check the advance of the
+republican armies in which, after 1795, the figure of Napoleon
+Bonaparte leaped into prominence. His victories disintegrated
+these alliances, which had been cemented with English gold. At
+the same time his victories so strengthened his personal hold
+upon the army and the nation that he was able to make himself
+absolute master of France.
+
+The Peace of Amiens (March, 1802, to May, 1803) afforded the only
+breathing space in all these twenty-two years of warfare.
+Napoleon, now first consul, was soon to change that republican
+mask for the honest and ambitious title of emperor. The
+hollowness of the peace soon became evident. Under its cloak
+French ships were building and French armies mustering in the
+channel ports for the invasion of England. The character of the
+strife had now radically changed. At the outset, ten years
+before, England had joined hands with the continental monarchies
+to check the spread of the liberal ideas which the French
+republican armies were carrying on their bayonets in a species of
+crusade in the name of liberty. But with the accession of
+Bonaparte to the throne of the Bourbons, England was plunged into
+a struggle for existence. Napoleon himself said that peace could
+never prevail in Europe so long as England had the power to
+disturb it, and all parties in England were resolved to combat to
+the last the establishment of a vast and menacing military
+despotism beyond the Straits of Dover.
+
+The genius of Admiral Nelson preserved the command of the narrow
+seas for England, and forced the Emperor to abandon his project
+of invasion which had aroused the English nation to unprecedented
+military activity. Pitt's subsidies had again set the continental
+armaments in motion, but Napoleon's brilliant dash into Germany
+brought these to naught in the battle of Austerlitz, which
+destroyed the Third Coalition and brought Austria to terms. It
+was this news that the great Prime Minister of George III. took
+so to heart. He survived the disaster but a few weeks. But the
+ministry of "All the Talents" took up his task with no thought of
+abandoning the struggle. The death of Fox soon broke up this
+administration, but those of Portland, Perceval, and Liverpool,
+which followed, were as dogged in their resolution to spend the
+last pound, and the last man, if need were, in ridding Europe of
+the conqueror whose existence England had now come to regard as a
+threat against her national independence.
+
+As his conquests added state after state to the territory in
+which his word was law, Napoleon developed new tactics against
+England. He conceived it practicable to crush that commercial and
+manufacturing power by excluding her goods from the markets of
+Europe. This "continental system" was inaugurated in November,
+1806, by the Berlin Decree which closed the ports of Europe to
+British vessels, and declared a paper blockade against the
+British Isles. This policy he forced upon nation after nation, to
+which his conquests extended. England retaliated by the "Orders
+in Council," which declared a blockade against the French ports,
+and authorized the seizure of neutral vessels found trading with
+them. By a naval raid in September, 1807, the British swooped
+down on Denmark and carried off the Danish fleet to keep that
+weapon from falling into the Emperor's hands. Two months later,
+in anticipation of a British descent, French armies seized
+Portugal and entered Spain.
+
+Up to the entrance of the French into the Spanish Peninsula, the
+protracted hostilities had brought little advantage to the
+British arms except on the sea. It was the Peninsular War,
+precipitated by this fresh encroachment of Napoleon, which first
+gave a laurel to the English arms and prepared Wellington for
+Waterloo. Napoleon and the soldier who was to overthrow him were
+born in the same year. The babe whom the world was to know as the
+Duke of Wellington was christened in Dublin in May, 1769, by the
+name of Arthur Wesley. (In 1798 the older spelling of the family
+name, Wellesley, was resumed.) He was descended from English
+ancestors long resident in Ireland, and was himself the fourth
+son of the Earl of Mornington. The death of the Earl when Arthur
+was but twelve years old left the family in slender
+circumstances. Richard, the eldest son and successor to the
+title, had achieved high university honors, but Arthur was a slow
+student of everything save music and mathematics. After a brief
+residence at Eton he entered a higher institution at Angers, in
+France. His mother thought him worth nothing better than "food
+for powder," and at eighteen he obtained a commission as ensign
+in the Seventy-sixth Regiment of British Foot. Family influence
+and the purchase of his "steps" soon made him a lieutenant-
+colonel (1793) of the Thirty-third Foot. He had already been
+three years a member of the Irish House of Commons where,
+however, he did not distinguish himself.
+
+England was now at war with France, and Colonel Arthur
+Wellesley's first foreign service was in 1794, when his regiment
+was sent to the support of the Duke of York, who was near the end
+of his ignominious campaign in the Low Countries. In March, 1795,
+he was back in England, disgusted with the incompetency of his
+superiors. Of the value of this experience he afterward said,
+"Why, I learned what one ought not to do, and that is always
+something." At the time, however, he was less philosophical, and
+after consulting with his wise elder brother as to the future
+possibilities of distinction in military life, he applied for a
+civil office under the Lord Lieutenant of England.
+
+Instead of droning out his life in a treasury clerkship,
+Wellesley found a more strenuous career abroad. In the autumn of
+1795 his regiment was ordered to India, where he arrived in
+February, 1797. A year later his already famous brother Richard,
+Lord Mornington, came out as Governor-general. The brothers were
+sincerely devoted to each other, and co-operated cordially in the
+important operations which followed. The English possessions in
+India were then limited to the coast regions, the kings and
+princes of the states of the interior being variously bound to
+the East india Company by treaty engagements. The news of the
+victorious progress of the French arms in Europe lost nothing by
+repetition in the bazaars of Hindustan, and emissaries of France
+were not wanting to stir the native princes against England.
+Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798 revealed his intention to
+attack England through her Indian realm. In February, 1799, the
+Governor-general declared war against Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore, a
+powerful prince, who had been plotting in the French interest.
+The younger Wellesley had contributed much to the efficient
+organization of the army which was to invade the Sultan's
+territory, and after the fall of Seringapatam he distinguished
+himself by his firm and orderly administration of the conquered
+domain. In 1802, the year of the Peace of Amiens, he was made a
+major-general. When the news of the treaty with France reached
+him, his opinion was emphatically expressed: "It establishes the
+French power over Europe, and when we shall have disarmed we
+shall have no security except in our own abjectness." The
+conquest of Mysore left only the Mahratta confederacy undominated
+by British authority. These states, a vast domain in western and
+central India, having quarreled among themselves, applied to the
+British for aid. General Wellesley secured the close alliance of
+one party, and as commander-in-chief, took the field against the
+others. On the 23rd of September, 1803, he found himself with
+seven thousand five hundred men in the presence of the Mahratta
+host of fifty thousand men with one hundred and twenty-eight
+guns. Retreat was difficult, speedy reinforcement impossible. The
+young major-general determined an attack immediately, and
+handling his little army with great skill and intrepid courage,
+he routed the enemy in the great victory of Assaye, which broke
+the Mahratta power. For his exploits he received the thanks of
+King and Parliament, and was dubbed a Knight of the Bath.
+
+General Sir Arthur Wellesley returned to England in 1805, after
+seven years absence in India. On his way he touched at the Isle
+of St. Helena, and took note of its beautiful scenery and
+salubrious climate. Doubtless the impression then made was
+recalled ten years later, when it became necessary to select a
+safe residence for his defeated foe. To one who expressed
+surprise that a man of his solid achievement should receive but a
+subordinate post as that to which he was assigned on his return
+to England, General Wellesley said, "I am NIM MUK WALLAH, as we
+say in the East. I have eaten of the King's salt and therefore I
+conceive it to be my duty to serve with zeal and cheerfulness
+when and wherever the King or his government may think fit to
+employ me." This expression explains his lifelong attitude toward
+the crown. He considered himself its "retained servant."
+
+It was two years before his talents were properly utilized.
+Meanwhile he was member of Parliament and secretary to the Lord
+Lieutenant of Ireland. The Peninsular War was his opportunity.
+Napoleon had sent Marshal Junot to Lisbon with an army to seize
+the country and force it into his continental system, the royal
+family retiring to Brazil as he advanced. At almost the same
+time, by a series of conscienceless machinations, he had
+compelled the King of Spain to abdicate, and had occupied Madrid
+and the fortresses of the northern provinces. In spite of popular
+risings against the French, Napoleon made his brother Joseph King
+of Spain. At once revolt flamed out among the common people, and
+the insurrection spread through both kingdoms, and was accepted
+in England as an invitation to come to their relief.
+
+Pitt had foreseen amid the shadows of the defeat of Austerlitz
+that the Iberian Peninsula might be the final field of resistance
+to Napoleon, and now events had brought his successors to the
+same view. It was accessible by England's ocean highway, its
+people were high-spirited, and impatient of foreign domination,
+and a successful campaign there would threaten the French flank.
+In June, 1808, an expedition was dispatched to the aid of the
+Spanish and Portuguese insurrectionists, and the command was
+given to Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley. The night
+before he left London he said to the friend who interrupted his
+reverie, "Why, I am thinking of the French. . . . 'Tis enough to
+make one thoughtful. But no matter; my die is cast. They may
+overwhelm me, but I don't think they will out-manueuver me. . . .
+I suspect all the continental armies were more than half-beaten
+before the battle was begun. I at least will not be beaten
+beforehand."
+
+The qualities which fitted this officer for the heavy work in
+hand were those which had been developed and tested in India. He
+was, first of all, a worker of surpassing industry and the
+closest application. Where others were brilliant, he was
+thorough. No commander ever left less to chance or to the
+inspiration of the moment. He prepared for his campaigns by
+subjecting his troops to the most thorough drill and by providing
+them properly with all the munitions of war. His troops were
+shaped by incessant care and pains into a perfect weapon, the use
+of which he perfectly understood. Further than this, his
+experience in India, where conditions had made him the
+responsible administrator of vast native states, made him the
+right man to conduct a campaign in the peninsula, where, between
+the French and the Nationalists, civil administration had fallen
+into great disorder, and where all sorts of extraordinary tasks
+devolved upon the British representative. His management of his
+uncertain allies, the guerrilla chiefs, and his relations with
+the revolutionary "juntas" called for qualities as rare as those
+which defeated one after another of Napoleon's marshals and
+finally worsted the great captain himself. Thoroughness of
+preparation, the ability to see things as they are, to wait
+patiently, decide promptly, and act with energy--these are
+perhaps simple military virtues, but they bring success, and they
+were in high degree the possession of the young Indian officer,
+who was now to undertake a difficult campaign in a foreign
+country. The event proved that with such qualities a general may
+compass the most difficult tasks, though he may be "cold" in
+temperament, and incapable of kindling in the breasts of his men
+that passionate personal devotion which some hold to be the true
+test of a great soldier.
+
+Wellesley disembarked his expeditionary force in August, at
+Mondego Bay, a hundred miles north of Lisbon, which Junot held
+with twelve thousand men. Junot advanced to meet the English, and
+at Vimiero Wellesley met and defeated the first of Napoleon's
+marshals. Before the close of the day the arrival of a superior
+officer terminated Wellesley's command. He had, however,
+inflicted such a blow that Junot was glad to sign a convention
+which permitted him to evacuate the kingdom. Wellesley returned
+to England.
+
+In the spring of 1809 Wellesley was back in Lisbon. He had
+persuaded the government that Portugal could be defended and made
+the base of operations which should eventually clear the entire
+peninsula of the French. They had intrusted the chief command to
+him, and now left him free for four years to press his campaigns
+to the Spanish capital, and thence to the Pyrenees and beyond
+upon the very soil of France itself.
+
+He was watched by two French armies. Soult was at Oporto in the
+north, and Victor far up the Tagus Valley, between him and
+Madrid. By an unexpected movement, having surprised Soult and
+sent him headlong beyond the frontier, Wellesley crossed the
+border in quest of Victor. The armies clashed at Talavera, in the
+last days of June, in one of the most stubbornly contested
+engagements of the war. The English kept possession of the field,
+and, though Joseph Bonaparte congratulated his soldiers upon the
+glory of the "victory," he knew in his heart, as his greater
+brother told him to his face, that the battle was a French
+defeat.
+
+Conditions were not yet suited for an advance into Spain, where
+the French were gathering in enormous force, with instructions
+from Napoleon to "advance upon the English, pursue them without
+cessation, beat them, and fling them into the sea." To insure his
+forces against the execution of this mandate Wellesley
+constructed a crescent of earthworks about Lisbon, "the lines of
+Torres Vedras," within which he might take refuge, and under
+cover of which, as a last resort, his forces might be safely re-
+embarked for retreat. The veteran Massena was selected by the
+Emperor to drive the English out of Portugal. As he advanced, in
+the summer of 1810, Wellesley retired before him, and just when
+the pursuer believed the game was his, he was confronted by the
+impregnable lines of Torres Vedras, whose position and strength
+was all unsuspected. All winter Massena hovered about the hole,
+but the fox was safe in his earth, and in the spring the old
+hound again turned his face toward Spain, with the English on his
+trail.
+
+For another year the English general, who, in honor of Talavera,
+had been raised to the peerage as Viscount Wellington, was
+engaged in reducing the French garrisons, and forming into useful
+auxiliary troops the raw Portuguese who had risen against the
+invader. The capture of the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo (January,
+1812) opened the road to Spain. So important was this point that
+the captor was rewarded for it with an English earldom, a Spanish
+dukedom, and a Portuguese marquisate. In early summer
+Wellington's army took the offensive on Spanish soil. Marshal
+Marmont's army at Salamanca in the north was his first objective.
+The clash came on the 22nd of July. On the second day of the
+battle of Salamanca the English infantry crushed the weakened
+center of Marmont's line, the marshal was wounded, his army
+hurriedly retreated. On the 12th of August the English were in
+Madrid. The Bonaparte King fled from his capital, whose citizens,
+intoxicated with joy, crowded around the English general, hung on
+his stirrups, touched his clothes, and throwing themselves on the
+earth, blessed him aloud as the friend of Spain!
+
+The work of deliverance was by no means complete. Wellington's
+army was small, and the support of the Spanish auxiliaries was
+not to be counted upon. Though the Emperor was in Russia, some of
+his best marshals and a powerful army were opposed to the English
+in Spain. It was only the most skilful management, in which
+caution and audacity were blended, that brought Wellington safely
+out of his dangerous position in Spain, and allowed him to retire
+to winter quarters on the Portuguese frontier. The effect of the
+campaign upon the Spaniards had been to give him the chief
+command of the national forces. England realizing that the
+general whose coming had been so long awaited was found at last,
+made Wellington a marquis, and voted him the thanks of the Lords
+and Commons and one hundred thousand pounds, besides sending him
+the reinforcements of cavalry which he needed for his broad plan
+of operations for the next campaign.
+
+The winter of 1812-13, which Wellington devoted to his
+comprehensive preparations, saw the disastrous retreat of
+Napoleon from the snows of Russia. From that blow he never
+recovered, and thenceforward he could do little to support his
+eagles in the peninsula. The recall of Soult further weakened the
+resistance. In May, Wellington bade farewell to Portugal and
+recrossed the Spanish frontier, advancing on Madrid from the
+northwest. The King and his army retired toward France.
+Wellington overtook them at Vittoria (June 21) and fought them,
+capturing their guns, baggage, and Spanish plunder, though Joseph
+and the main French army escaped northward through the passes of
+the Pyrenees.
+
+Soult came posthaste from Dresden to resume command. He found the
+army of Spain encamped on French soil, led it through the passes
+again, but the English could not be dislodged. In October an
+English general for the first time since Napoleon came to power
+stood on French soil at the head of an invading army. Soult,
+forced away from Bayonne, fell back on Toulouse, where Wellington
+dealt him another blow on April 14, 1814. That blow was the last.
+Just one week earlier Napoleon, driven back from the Rhine to
+Paris by the allied armies on the northeast, had abdicated the
+throne which had cost so much blood and treasure.
+
+Wellington visited Paris and Madrid, and then returned to London.
+Five years earlier he had left England as Sir Arthur Wellesley;
+he came back Duke of Wellington. His own remark upon his
+campaigns contrasts strangely with the spirit of the Frenchman,
+whose best generals he had out-manoeuvered and overwhelmed. He
+was "a conqueror without ambition," he said. "All the world knew
+that I desired nothing but to beat the French out of Spain and
+then go home to my own country, leaving the Spaniards to manage
+theirs as they pleased." England lavished honors upon the hero of
+the Peninsular War. Parliament thanked him, granted him four
+hundred thousand pounds. He carried the sword of state on the
+occasion of the peace celebration in St. Paul's Cathedral. London
+banqueted him in Guildhall.
+
+For a summer and a winter the Duke represented England at Paris
+and Vienna where the states of Europe were wrangling over the
+restoration of the continent to its antebellum condition. When
+Napoleon escaped from Elba and was welcomed to Paris by his
+former marshals, Europe turned to Wellington to deliver her from
+the new peril. On the 25th of March, 1815, Austria, Russia,
+Prussia, and Great Britain formed the Quadruple Alliance, binding
+themselves to maintain the treaty recently signed at Paris, and
+not to lay down arms until "Buonaparte should be placed
+absolutely beyond possibility of exciting disturbance and
+renewing his attempts to possess himself of the supreme power in
+France."
+
+The Duke arrived at Brussels on the 4th of April to take command
+of the allied army. Instead of the grand armies of the Quadruple
+Alliance he found a composite force of some twenty-five thousand
+English, Dutch, Belgians, Brunswickers, and Hanoverians. The
+Prussians had thirty thousand men within co-operating distance.
+In comparison with the thoroughly disciplined army which he had
+developed and wielded so skilfully in the peninsula this force
+cut a sorry figure. The field-marshal's bitterest complaint was
+that his government had not even provided him with the admirable
+staff which five years of service had made so familiar with his
+methods and desires. On the very verge of the campaign he wrote,
+"I have an infamous army, very weak and ill equipped, and a very
+inexperienced staff." While the armies of Austria and Russia were
+advancing upon France the Emperor was setting an enormous force
+in the field. It was his purpose to fall upon the army on the
+Belgian frontier before the other allies could enter France. For
+the invasion of Belgium he selected one hundred and twenty-five
+thousand men. Prince Blucher, commanding the Prussians, now had
+as many men, while Wellington, his ally, commanded some ninety-
+three thousand, of whom barely one-third were British. Five-
+sixths of the British infantry had never been under fire.
+
+Napoleon's plan was to thrust his army between Blucher and
+Wellington and defeat them in succession. On the evening of June
+15th, news was brought to the Duke at Brussels that the enemy had
+passed the frontier and were engaging the Prussian outposts. He
+at once gave the necessary orders for the advance, and after
+midnight showed himself at the now famous ball of the Duchess of
+Richmond. At eleven the next forenoon he was at QuatreBras, where
+his army was engaged in beating off an attack by Marshal Ney,
+while Blucher was being pounded by Napoleon a few miles to the
+eastward at Ligny. Both the allies retreated, but instead of
+separating as Napoleon hoped and believed, they retired along
+converging lines, the English to Waterloo, the Prussians to
+Wavre, the positions being connected by a roadway. Through the
+rain of Saturday, June 17th, Wellington disposed his sixty-nine
+thousand men and one hundred and fifty-six guns on both sides of
+the Brussels highway, along which Napoleon advanced on the morrow
+with seventy-two thousand men and two hundred and forty cannon.
+The action opened near noon on the 18th, the French making a vain
+effort to carry the Château of Hougomont on the British right.
+Next an army corps was hurled at the center, only to be stopped
+by Wellington's cavalry with appalling loss. In the afternoon the
+Emperor delivered a series of cavalry attacks upon the allied
+center. Twelve thousand horsemen thundered up the gentle slope
+past the English guns, only to break against the bayonet-hedged
+squares of the infantry. At the end of eight hours' fighting the
+French center had advanced to within sixty yards of the British
+position, but the line still held, and Blucher's Prussians were
+rapidly coming up on the right flank. Marshal Grouchy having
+failed to prevent this fatal manoeuver, Napoleon shot his last
+bolt, sending Ney with the Old Guard against the British right.
+But "the bravest of the brave had fought his last battle," and as
+his ten battalions were flung back in disorder, Wellington gave
+the word to his whole line to advance. The rush of his reserves
+of horse scattered the remnants of the tired and disheartened
+host. The wreck of the grand army drifted back over the border,
+and the dispirited Emperor, having risked everything in one bold
+experiment and lost, hastened to Paris, and after a vain attempt
+to rally the nation once more about his standard, abandoned hope
+and sought refuge on board the "Bellerophon," British man-of-war
+(July 15, 1815). At nine o'clock in the evening of the memorable
+day of Waterloo, Blucher and Wellington met. The grizzled
+Prussian kissed the grave Englishman on both cheeks in the
+exuberance of his joy. Without the timely support of his Germans,
+that day might have had another ending.
+
+Waterloo was the last act of the Napoleonic struggle. The Emperor
+went into exile at St. Helena to fret against his prison bars and
+curse his keepers. Wellington had already exhausted his country's
+sources of honor. All that Parliament could do was to present the
+fine estate of Strathfieldsaye to him and his heirs on condition
+of presenting a French tri-color flag to the sovereign at Windsor
+on each anniversary of the 18th of June.
+
+Wellington was above all a soldier, but for the remaining thirty-
+six years of his lifetime his country had little employment for
+the sword. Yet the esteem in which he was held, not only for his
+military achievements, but for his honesty and common sense, made
+him a conspicuous figure in public affairs for most of his long
+life. After Waterloo he remained in France, where his moderation
+saved Paris from the vengeance of the continental commanders. Of
+the allied army of occupation which remained in France until
+1818, Wellington was commander-in-chief. As head of the
+commission which passed upon the foreign claims for damages
+arising from the protracted wars, his fairness again saved France
+from her rapacious creditors.
+
+His work on the continent done, Wellington returned to England to
+enter the public service as a member of Lord Liverpool's cabinet.
+In 1822 he was sent to represent Great Britain at the Congress of
+the Powers at Verona, where he frustrated Russia's intention of
+interfering in the affairs of Spain. In 1826 he was sent to
+Russia on a special mission from Canning to secure the consent of
+the new Czar to English intervention in behalf of the insurgent
+Greeks. On the death of the King's brother, the Duke of York, he
+became commander-in-chief of the army. Disagreement with Canning
+led him to withdraw from that premier's cabinet in April, 1827,
+but in the following January (1828), he himself became Prime
+Minister, with Robert Peel as Home Secretary. With all his Tory
+loyalty to the Church his administration broke its ancient
+monopoly. In 1828 he allowed the Test and Corporation Acts to
+pass, opening the way for Protestant dissenters to hold civil and
+military office. In 1829 he concluded that relief of the Roman
+Catholics of Ireland from their political disabilities could no
+longer be postponed. Peel had been even more reluctant than his
+chief--a native of Ireland--to reach this decision, but the
+growing power of the "Catholic Association," the popular
+organization which the agitator O'Connell had called into
+existence, compelled immediate action. The King was reluctantly
+brought to see the expediency of the act, which, when proposed by
+Pitt a generation before, had so stiffened the neck of his
+father, George III. Perhaps no minister whose prestige was less
+than that of the hero of Waterloo could have won the consent of
+the Hanoverian monarch, whose dynasty had been brought to England
+for the defense of the Protestant faith. The bill for the
+emancipation of the Catholics slid easily through the Commons,
+though the stiff old Tories who had counted Wellington as of
+their number voted solidly against it. Even the Lords failed to
+make the expected resistance, and accepted the measure by a vote
+of two to one despite the known preference of the court and
+clergy, and a bombardment of Protestant petitions. One peer had
+thus predicted the result to Macaulay, who was in doubt as to how
+the Duke would explain the bill and justify his change of front:
+"0, that will be simple enough. He'll say, 'My Lords! Attention!
+Right about face! Quick march!' and the thing will be done." King
+George tried to slip out of his pledges, but the Iron Duke held
+him fast, and the 13th of April, 1829, the act became a law. It
+is the chief monument of the Wellington administration.
+
+Against the next great question, the reform of Parliament, he set
+himself resolutely, expressing his opposition in such
+unmistakable terms as to forfeit at once his office and his
+popularity. The London mob stoned his windows, but could not
+change his attitude toward legislation which he thought
+pernicious to the welfare of his country. He carried on his
+opposition when the reform bills began to come up from the
+Commons into the Peers' chamber. On the 18th of June, 1832, the
+seventeenth anniversary of Waterloo, he was pelted with stones
+and dirt by a yelling mob in the streets of London, and only
+saved from rougher handling by two old soldiers who walked at his
+stirrups and held back the ruffians until the police came to the
+rescue. The Reform Bill had already become a law, Wellington and
+his irreconcilable friends, perceiving the futility of further
+obstruction, absenting themselves from the chamber rather than
+vote contrary to their consciences. Even after the reformed
+Parliament had come into existence this arch aristocrat could see
+nothing but evil in the outlook. He complained that the House of
+Commons "had swallowed up all the power of the state," and he was
+not far wrong. Still his loyalty to the crown, and his
+determination that the government should be upheld kept him from
+merely factious opposition and made him a useful servant of the
+nation. The leader of the majority in the House of Lords, he
+declined to use his position to thwart the purposes of the
+popular House. "I do not choose," he said, in 1834, when the Poor
+Law Bill was up, "I do not choose to be the person to excite a
+quarrel between the two Houses of Parliament. The quarrel will
+occur in its time; and the House of Lords will probably be
+overwhelmed. But it shall not be owing to any action of mine." It
+was in this year that a singular occurrence showed his unique
+place in the confidence of King and nation. In November the King
+dismissed the Melbourne ministry and called on the Duke to form
+another. The latter perceived that no Tory but Peel could manage
+the Commons, but Peel was then traveling on the Continent. The
+Duke accordingly undertook to carry on the government alone until
+that leader's return. And for five weeks he was the cabinet,
+holding all the high offices--Treasury, Home, Foreign, and
+Colonial--himself, so as not to embarrass his successor by making
+appointments. The Whigs raised a great outcry against this one-
+man power, but the people rather admired the industry of the
+veteran who rose at six o'clock in the morning and went the
+rounds of the departments performing the routine duties with the
+greatest industry and fidelity and steadily refusing to use his
+enormous power and patronage for personal or factional rule. Sir
+Herbert Maxwell, the Duke's latest biographer, has attempted to
+describe the Duke's political creed by coining a term. He was not
+"an impracticable Tory," as the Reformers would name him, nor yet
+a mere "Tory opportunist," as sterner Tories would have it. "He
+was a possiblist rather than an opportunist, prepared to resist
+change as long as possible, but to give way rather than throw the
+power into the hands of those (Radicals) who, he honestly
+believed, would wreck the realm."
+
+Wellington was foreign secretary in Peel's first cabinet (1834-
+35), and commander-in-chief in the second (1841-46). His lifelong
+political theory is well exemplified by his words when notified
+by the Prime Minister, in November, 1845, of his intention to
+suspend the Corn Laws, an act most offensive to his party and
+social class. "My only object in public life is to support Sir
+Robert Peel's administration of the government for the Queen. A
+good government for the country is more important than Corn
+Laws." In much the same words the aged leader addressed the House
+of Lords in behalf of Peel's Corn Bill, and though bitterly
+opposed to the measure, they accepted his guidance and gave the
+bill their assent. In 1848 there were many who believed that the
+country was on the brink of a revolution. The Chartist agitation
+was culminating in the presentation of the great petition to
+Parliament, and half a million men were to escort it from
+Kennington to Westminster. Wellington was nearing his seventy-
+ninth birthday, but the government turned to him to organize the
+defense of the capital against mob violence. The old warrior-
+blood warmed in his veins, and he amazed the ministers by the
+clearness of his plans and the energy and decision with which he
+carried them out. Though the affair passed off without
+disturbance, being at all times under police control, so thorough
+were the Duke's preparations as to have made a successful
+revolution impossible.
+
+To his latest year the Duke continued to attend the sessions of
+the Lords, and his opinions were listened to with respectful
+attention. It was fitting that his last speech there should have
+been in a military debate, and that in urging the value of
+militia organization, he should have drawn upon his experience
+with the raw Hanoverian levies in the Waterloo campaign. This was
+in the summer of 1852. On the evening of the 13th of the
+following September he retired in his usual condition of health.
+The next morning he was seized with sudden illness and did not
+live the day out.
+
+Enough has been said in this brief sketch of his public career to
+show that the Duke of Wellington, though among the greatest of
+English soldiers, cannot rank high among English statesmen,
+although he served his country in the highest offices. If read in
+detail the record of his career in the Cabinet and in the House
+of Lords would confirm the reader in the opinion that his only
+sure title to greatness rests in his military career. It has
+often been said that, had he died in the moment of victory as did
+Nelson, it would have been happier for his fame. But it must not
+be forgotten that the years of his political action were those in
+which England was passing through the stages of a social and
+political revolution, in which the democracy was rising to power
+and the landed aristocracy was losing prestige and privilege.
+That this revolution was accomplished without such a convulsion
+as marked this struggle in other European kingdoms may have been
+due, in some degree at least, to the fact that the leader of the
+aristocratic Party was held in honor by the masses of the nation.
+Moments of exasperation there were when the bitterness of popular
+feeling against the obstructionists in the House of Lords vented
+itself upon the Duke, but the prevailing feeling toward him was
+one of pride in his military achievements and confidence in his
+honesty. As McCarthy has well said, "His victories belonged to
+the past. They were but tradition, even to middle-aged persons in
+the Duke's later years. But he was regarded still as the
+embodiment of the national heroism and success--a modern St.
+George in a tightly buttoned frock coat and white trousers!"
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  What share had England taken in the French struggle
+previous to 1802?
+2.  What did the Peace of Amiens prove to be?
+3.  In what ways and with what success did England struggle
+against Napoleon up to the Peninsular War?
+4.  Describe the early life of Wellesley.
+5.  What military experience did lie gain in India?
+6.  What policy did Napoleon pursue in Spain and Portugal?
+7.  What qualities fitted Wellesley to command the Peninsular
+Campaign?
+8.  Describe Wellington's campaigns up to 1813?
+9.  How was the Peninsular War finally closed?
+10. Describe the struggle at Waterloo.
+11. What important acts relative to church questions were
+enacted under Wellington's ministry?
+12. What was his attitude toward the Reform Bill?
+13. What curious instance of "one-man power" did he illustrate
+in 1834?
+14. How was his character shown in his position regarding the
+Corn Laws?
+15. How does he rank among great English leaders?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF WELLINGTON.            By W. Herbert Maxwell.
+HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. By Sir William F. P. Napier.
+SELECTED DESPATCHES OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON. Edited by S. J.
+Owen.
+THE CAMPAIGN OF WATERLOO.      By John C. Ropes,
+The best recent "Life of Wellington" is by Sir Herbert Maxwell. 2
+vols. London. The great "History of the Peninsular War" is by Sir
+Wm. Napier.
+
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+GEORGE CANNING AND EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
+
+[GEORGE CANNING, born, London, April II, 1770; died, London,
+August 8, 1827; educated at Eton and Oxford; Member of
+Parliament, 1793; 1797, editor of Anti-Jacobin periodical; 1807-
+09, Secretary for Foreign Affairs; 1809, duel with Castlereagh;
+1814-16, Ambassador at Lisbon; 1817-20, President of India Board;
+1822, appointed Governor-General of India; 1822-27, Minister for
+Foreign Affairs; 1827, Prime Minister and First Lord of the
+Treasury. Buried in Westminster Abbey.]
+
+During the first twenty years of the nineteenth century Great
+Britain, though possessing the most liberal constitution of any
+of the powers, was the consistent ally of the absolute monarchies
+of Europe. Strange as the situation at first appears, it is not
+difficult to trace the causes which produced it.
+
+For the explanation of most of the phenomena of European history
+in the first half of the century the student must turn back to
+the French Revolution. The social and political ideas which were
+at the bottom of that great upheaval were in part suggested by
+the success of free institutions in constitutional England, where
+parliamentary government had been highly developed while France
+lay bound by her Bourbon despots. A large body of Englishmen
+numbering some of the greatest names in politics and literature
+sympathized deeply with the earlier manifestations of the
+revolutionary spirit.
+
+"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
+But to be young was very heaven"
+
+sang Wordsworth, whose youthful enthusiasm over that dawn was
+soon chilled by the crimes which were committed in the name of
+Liberty--the slaughter of the royal pair, the reign of the
+guillotine, and the enthronement of reason in the place of God.
+The tide of opinion in England was turned by these scenes of
+lawless license, and when, in 1793, the revolutionary government
+of France offered its armed aid to all oppressed peoples,
+England, led by William Pitt, joined Austria and Prussia in a war
+to suppress the dangerous republic, and restore the Bourbon
+dynasty to its ancient throne. Seven successive coalitions were
+thus formed by English diplomacy between 1793 and 1815 to meet
+the changing phases of the struggle which, after 1803, had ceased
+to be monarchy against democracy and had become a universal war
+for self-preservation from Napoleon, the military genius who had
+made himself the dictator of revolutionary France. When the great
+war seemed to have come to an end, in 1814-15, and Napoleon was
+finally caged at St. Helena, England found herself naturally
+taking a principal part in re-establishing the Bourbon Louis
+XVIII. on the throne of France. She had stood with the other
+powers so long against a common foe that she continued to stand
+with them now in undoing, as far as might be, the work which the
+disturbing and renovating conqueror had wrought in the kingdoms
+which he had overrun. Not only were the old boundaries generally
+restored and the exiled monarchs brought back to replace the
+upstart Bonaparte kings, but the constitutional freedom which the
+French arms had introduced in many parts of Europe was annulled
+wherever possible. The Congress of Vienna, in which the allied
+powers formulated their policy, did its best to turn back the
+shadow twenty years on the dial of progress, and England either
+joined in the effort or stood by consenting to the death of so
+many newly won liberties.
+
+When the allied sovereigns were met in Napoleon's capital after
+Waterloo, the Czar of Russia conceived a thought which seemed to
+him to be an inspiration. In the ecstasy of the hour of
+deliverance from the sword which had been the nightmare of the
+continent for a generation Alexander proposed to his fellow
+potentates a covenant binding them to be governed by the
+principles of Christian justice and charity in their dealings
+with their own subjects and in their mutual relations. Sincere
+and pious as the Czar undoubtedly was, this agreement, which was
+accepted by the other monarchs, excepting George IV. of England,
+did not produce the results which one might suppose from its
+name, the Holy Alliance. It was used not only to stifle the
+spirit of liberty in western Europe, but its baleful influence
+was felt in Italy, Spain, and Greece. In effect it was a trades-
+union in which the allied crowned-heads undertook to stifle
+popular liberty wherever it showed signs of life. When Alexander
+explained his proposal to the English commissioners at Paris they
+could scarcely keep a straight face at its absurdity. Yet though
+England refused to become a member of the Holy Alliance, she did
+allow herself for a period of several years to be ruled by its
+decisions, or at least to allow them to be enforced without a
+protest.
+
+Such in brief was the chain of events which associated the
+foreign policy of England with that of the Holy Alliance. The
+brilliant statesman who broke away from this foreign policy and
+led England out upon a line of independent action was George
+Canning.
+
+The future Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister was born in
+London, April II, 1770. His father was an Englishman from the
+north of Ireland, who had read law, but failed to get clients,
+and had succeeded at nothing, from pamphleteering to selling
+wine. He died on his babe's first birthday. The widow married an
+actor and essayed a stage career. What would have become of
+little George had he remained in his mother's company is an
+interesting speculation. An actor called the attention of his
+uncle, a London banker, to the probability that the lad was on
+the high road to the gallows--to which in those days more than
+one road led. This uncle, Stratford Canning, assumed the
+responsibility of the child's education, sent him to Eton and
+later to Oxford. At the former he distinguished himself by his
+witty contributions to "The Microcosm'--most famous of school-boy
+periodicals--and at the University where he was graduated, B.A.,
+in 1791 he won some distinction in literature and oratory, taking
+the University prize with his Latin poem. At Oxford he passed
+through the "blissful dawn" of which Wordsworth sang, and was an
+enthusiastic admirer of the French Revolution of 1789 and of the
+British Whigs who supported it--Fox, Sheridan, and their sort. He
+came up to London as the tide was turning, and his own opinion
+was among the first to change. Pitt, the Prime Minister, had been
+apprised of his talent, sent for him, and had him "chosen" to the
+House of Commons, a simple matter in those unregenerate days,
+when the Tory chieftains had their pockets full of boroughs.
+
+Pitt gave Canning a minor government office--he was not yet
+thirty years of age--and treated him almost as a son, the young
+man reciprocating the regard with a really filial devotion. He
+was ambitious for advancement, and discontented with his slow
+promotion. In 1797, in company with other choice spirits, he
+began the publication of The Anti-Jacobin, a weekly periodical
+which for nearly a year held up to merciless ridicule that
+section of the British public which still countenanced the ruling
+ideas of the French Revolution. When the King's refusal to yield
+on the question of Catholic emancipation (1801) compelled Pitt to
+resign, Canning went out of office with him. Addington, the
+stupid mediocrity who succeeded Pitt, provoked Canning's pen to
+fresh lampoons, some of them long remembered for their savage
+personalities.
+
+When Pitt resumed the premiership, in 1804, to direct the new
+struggle with Napoleon, he again bestowed office upon Canning,
+and when he died, in 1806, Canning became the leader of the group
+of Pittites who endeavored to perpetuate his ideas. In 1807 he
+entered the cabinet in the important capacity of Foreign
+Secretary.
+
+As Foreign Secretary under the spiritless premiership of the Duke
+of Portland, Canning was allowed free hand. The two years and a
+half during which he directed the foreign office were marked by a
+succession of moves which gave a new aspect to the contest with
+Napoleon.
+
+Canning entered upon his duties just as the Fourth Coalition was
+being hammered to pieces, on the same anvil which had destroyed
+the others. By the Treaty of Tilsit (July, 1807), Napoleon
+prepared to unite the northern nations in his war on British
+commerce. Hearing or divining his purpose to further this project
+by seizing the fleet of Denmark, Canning dispatched an armed
+force to Copenhagen with a demand for the surrender of the Danish
+ships. The order was executed, and the Danish vessels were
+brought back to England, though at the cost of a bombardment of
+the Danish capital. The French Emperor's eye was fastened on the
+fleet of Portugal as another auxiliary, and when the Regent
+refused to accede to his request, Napoleon dispatched Marshal
+Junot to drive him from his kingdom and hold its ports and
+fortresses against England.
+
+England now stood almost alone, and Napoleon hoped to complete
+her ruinous isolation by destroying her trade with Europe. His
+"Continental System," which was to make the continent
+commercially independent of Great Britain, was foreshadowed in
+his Berlin Decrees. Fresh decrees were now met by fresh Orders in
+Council, "shutting out from the continent all vessels which had
+not touched at a British port." It was Canning whose genius
+caught at the strategic possibilities of a war in the peninsula
+(Spain-Portugal) as a practical opening on the French flank for a
+final blow at the Napoleonic power. Napoleon's interference in
+the government of Spain by dethroning its monarchs and giving the
+crown to his brother Joseph had exasperated that proud nation and
+provoked the spirited people to arm against the intruder. The
+Portuguese were scarcely less bitter against the French
+conqueror. Canning perceived the possibility of gaining a
+foothold in these kingdoms, which were easily accessible by sea,
+and by utilizing the spirit and resources of the aroused nations
+to consolidate a power there which would threaten France itself,
+whose borders the great soldier had thus far kept inviolate. How
+ably Sir Arthur Wellesley fulfilled Mr. Canning's desire the life
+of Wellington has already shown.
+
+The Peninsular Campaign was scarcely under way when Canning and
+Castlereagh, the War Secretary, quarreled and the former resigned
+from the cabinet. Yet from his place in the House the ex-minister
+continued manfully to uphold the general who was doing England's
+work in Spain. There was need of all the support his genius could
+contribute to this task, for parliament was slow to grasp the
+deep purpose of the campaign, was impatient for results, and
+prone to grumble at the bill of expense. Yet in the end Canning
+enjoyed the satisfaction of pointing to the complete verification
+of his hopes. He might have been Foreign Minister in the
+Liverpool ministry at its outset (1812) had he been willing to
+acquiesce in the leadership of Castlereagh in the House of
+Commons. This would have given him the direction of English
+policy in those critical years in which the Napoleonic empire was
+broken up and European affairs rearranged by the powers at
+Vienna. He lived to regret this as the greatest error of his
+career. He was sufficiently humbled after four years to join the
+government forces as president of the India board, resigning in
+1820. In 1821, when on the point of going out to India, of which
+he had been appointed governor-general, his prospects suddenly
+changed. On the death of his rival, Castlereagh, Canning became
+Foreign Secretary and leader of the Commons. The prize which he
+had long schemed to secure, and had finally given up, suddenly
+fell into his hand. Canning's mind could not but revert to the
+lost opportunity of 1812. Not in a century would the Foreign
+Minister again have a world to set in order. He wrote to a
+friend, "Ten years have made a world of difference, and have made
+a very different sort of world to bustle in than that which I
+should have found in 1812. For fame it is a squeezed orange, but
+for public good there is something to do, and I shall try--but it
+must be cautiously-- to do it. You know my politics well enough
+to know what I mean when I say that for 'Europe' I shall be
+desirous now and then to read 'England.'" The closing sentence
+was the keynote of his policy. For years it had been customary
+for representatives of the powers to treat all important matters
+as "European questions," and England had become habituated to a
+diplomacy which kept English interests in the background for the
+sake of the commonweal of Europe--Europe and the Holy Alliance
+being synonymous. "When Castlereagh," said Canning, "got among
+princes and sovereigns at Vienna, he thought he could not be too
+fine and complaisant."
+
+When Canning began to represent England in her relations with
+foreign countries, he found the Holy Alliance in full vigor. In
+fact, the Czar, Kaiser, and King had just met at Laybach (1821)
+and issued a manifesto declaring that "useful and necessary
+changes in legislation and in the administration of states could
+only emanate from the free will and from the intelligent and
+well-weighed convictions of those whom God has made responsible
+for power. Penetrated with this eternal truth, the sovereigns
+have not hesitated to proclaim it with frankness and vigor. They
+have declared that, in respecting the rights and independence of
+legitimate power, they regarded as legally null and disavowed by
+the principles which constituted the public right of Europe, all
+pretended reforms operated by revolt and open hostilities." In
+plain terms the three monarchs, claiming to rule by divine
+right, reasserted their determination to interfere in the
+private affairs of any state to suppress movements which seemed
+to their majesties to be revolutionary. The powers had already
+acted according to this program in Piedmont and Naples, and were
+preparing to interfere in behalf of the Bourbons in Spain, the
+Spaniards in the revolted American republics, and the Turks in
+Greece when Canning came to power. To the Congress of Verona,
+where these and other questions were to be considered by the
+powers, Canning sent Wellington to speak for England. In
+accordance with his instructions the duke stood for non-
+intervention. Europe had no business to restore the Bourbon to
+the throne from which the nation had thrust him; on the same
+principle Greece must be allowed to fight out her own cause with
+the Turk; as for the Spanish-American colonies, why they were
+already lost to Spain, and England had recognized them as
+independent states. France undertook to do alone for the Spanish
+monarch what the Holy Alliance wished to do in the name of
+Europe. In this England acquiesced, but Russia's attempt to
+second the French in their Spanish project by military support
+was stopped by Canning's threat that such an act would only
+result in England's making the Spanish cause her own. "The
+admission of the jurisdiction of the Holy Alliance over Europe
+was a course which he deemed it vital at almost any cost to
+prevent," says Hill. "The time for Areopagus and the like of
+that," as Canning put it, "has gone by." And again, "What should
+we have thought of interference from foreign Europe when King
+John granted Magna Charta, or of an interposition in the quarrel
+between Charles I. and his Parliament?" To bring his colleagues
+around to his view, Canning showed them that the interference of
+the Holy Alliance in the affairs of Ireland might be justified
+upon the same grounds on which the argument for intervention in
+Spain was based. The King, never too fond of the brilliant
+commoner, whose presence in the ministry he considered scarcely
+less than a personal affront, had the temerity to criticise the
+policy which was so obnoxious to his fellow crowned heads. He
+thought that the English recognition of Spanish-American
+independence was as wicked as the French alliance in 1778 with
+the insurgent English colonists under Washington. Canning's
+recognition of Spanish-American independence was a sagacious
+stroke. It not only gave strength to his contention that peoples
+had a right to decide for themselves who should rule them,
+without consulting the despots of Europe, but its timeliness was
+masterly. Glorifying his own course in one of his most famous
+Parliamentary orations, in December, 1826, he explained why he
+had not joined the Spaniards in making armed resistance to the
+French invasion. He said: "Is the Spain of the present day, the
+Spain of which the statesmen of the time and William and Anne
+were so much afraid? Is it, indeed, the nation whose puissance
+was expected to shake England from her sphere? No, sir, it was
+quite another Spain--it was the Spain within the limits of whose
+empire the sun never set; it was Spain with the Indies which
+excited the jealousies and alarmed the imaginations of our
+ancestors. . . . If France conquered Spain, was it necessary in
+order to avoid the consequences of that occupation that we
+should blockade Cadiz? No, I looked another way: I sought the
+material of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating
+Spain such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that, if
+France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies. I
+called the New World into existence to redress the balance of
+the Old!"
+
+Greece began her struggle for independence in 1821. The heroism
+which her people displayed in their unequal battle with the
+Turks attracted the attention and sympathy of many persons all
+over the world, especially those who saw in the modern Greek the
+representative of the race which had once been the intellectual
+leader of Europe. The powers of the Holy Alliance, however, were
+inclined to regard the outbreak with coldness, seeing in it a
+fresh manifestation of the then growing disposition of European
+peoples to rise against the tyranny of their anointed kings.
+England held aloof from their conferences in regard to the
+matter, trusting to their discordant interests to break up their
+concert of action, since the Russian czar, as the head of the
+Greek faith, might be counted upon in the long run to befriend
+the Greeks, especially as such a step would carry the Russian
+influence into the Balkan Peninsula and mark a full stride
+toward Constantinople, then as now the goal of Russian ambition.
+Canning employed Wellington to negotiate an agreement at St.
+Petersburg for the rescue of Greece. Ultimately England, Russia,
+and France signed a protocol which was to establish Greece as a
+self-governing state, tributary to the Porte, but free in
+matters of commerce and religion. In 1827 the three powers
+demanded an armistice looking toward a treaty settlement, and
+threatened to use force to compel a cessation of hostilities. The
+Porte defied the powers, and his fleet having fired upon the
+allied vessels, the battle of Navarino was precipitated in
+October, 1827. The result was the expulsion of the Turks from
+the country, and the early establishment of the complete
+independence of the kingdom of Greece. Canning did not live to
+see the consummation of his hopes in Greece. His health, which
+had for several years been much enfeebled, gave way completely,
+and on August 8, 1827, he died, at the age of fifty-seven. He
+had then for six months held the highest office in the gift of
+the nation.
+
+In February, 1827, the illness of Lord Liverpool had made it
+necessary to reorganize the cabinet and choose a new Prime
+Minister. After much hesitation the King sent for Canning. Most
+of his former colleagues declined to serve under him because he
+was a professed pro-Catholic, and they were still of the opinion
+that the Protestant constitution of England would be endangered
+if the Irish demand for Roman Catholic emancipation should be
+granted. Others were found to take the place of Wellington, Peel,
+Eldon, and the other Tory leaders, and the Canning ministry got
+under way, only to be abruptly halted at the grave. The remains
+of the Prime Minister were deposited in Westminster Abbey, where
+a statue by Chantry recalls his manly form and expressive
+countenance.
+
+Even in so slight a sketch as the foregoing, some characteristics
+of the man stand forth. Canning's wit, while its mordancy cost
+him many friends, distinguishes him among English statesmen. The
+talent which had stood him in good stead as boy-editor of "The
+Microcosm" at Eton, and which is to be seen in the slings and
+arrows of "The Anti-Jacobin," he never quite lost. His pen was
+always ready to dash off a scrap of lampooning verse, and
+flashes of wit and extended passages of humor enlivened the
+brilliant orations by means of which he explained and defended
+his policies in Parliament. As an orator his speeches were of
+exquisite polish, and the voice, gesture, countenance and entire
+bodily presence of the speaker contributed to their tremendous
+effect. There were not wanting those who criticised his oratory
+as savoring more of the stage than the rostrum, but such persons
+were aristocratic political opponents who would not let the
+world forget that this man whose genius outshone them all was
+the son of a third-rate actress. Be it said to Canning's credit
+that he did not forget his mother, but made her comfort in her
+declining days the object of his solicitous care.
+
+Mr. Hill, whose study of Canning has been of great assistance in
+the preparation of these pages, thus goes to the heart of his
+foreign policy: "The principle which made Canning the antagonist
+of the propaganda of French principles in Europe during the
+early part of his political life made him during his later years
+in an equal degree the antagonist of the principles of the Holy
+Alliance which it is his great glory as a statesman to have
+defeated. The Holy Alliance endeavored to impose upon other
+nations principles and a law of life not their own. As Canning
+objected to the Holy Alliance, so he would have objected to its
+present secular substitute, the Concert of Europe, which simply
+means the agreement of the great powers to inflict their will
+upon the small ones, not allowing them to develop according to
+their native forces and genius, but constraining them to such
+forms and confining them within such limits as suits the
+convenience of a despotic hexarchy of states, or of a majority
+of them. The country which is England at home should be England
+abroad, reserving all its freedom of action. Canning's foreign
+policy, which was for 'Europe' to read 'England,' and to 'get
+rid of Areopagus and all that,' was sound and statesmanlike and
+abundantly justified by its results."
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  How did England join with the rest of Europe in undoing
+the work of Napoleon?
+2.  Give the chief events in the early life of Canning.
+3.  Why did Canning authorize an attack on Denmark?
+4.  What was his relation to the Peninsular War?
+5.  What was his "lost opportunity" of 1812?
+6.  How did he set forth his plans when he became foreign
+secretary in 1821?
+7.  What interference in the affairs of Europe did the
+Holy Alliance attempt?
+8.  How did Canning defend his recognition of Spanish-American
+independence?
+9.  What part did England play in the liberation of Greece?
+10. What were the personal qualities of Canning?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+GEORGE CANNING.             Frank H. Hill.
+POETRY OF THE ANTI-JACOBIN. Edited by Charles Edmonds.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+STEPHENSON AND THE RAILWAY
+
+[GEORGE STEPHENSON, born, Wylam, near Newcastle, June 9, 1781;
+died, August 12, 1848; driver lad in a colliery; at fourteen,
+assistant to his father as fireman of colliery engines; at
+seventeen, engineman; at eighteen, learned to read in night
+school; 1812, enginewright at Killingworth colliery; 1814,
+operated his locomotive, "My Lord"; 1822, engineer of Stockton
+and Darlington Railroad (opened 1825); engineer of Liverpool and
+Manchester Railroad (opened 1830); produced locomotive "Rocket,"
+capable of thirty miles an hour.]
+
+In a bare room of a laborer's tenement in the colliery village of
+Wylam, in Northumberland, on the 9th day of June, 1781, was born
+a babe to whose mind and hand England was to owe as much in
+future years as to any high-born minister of the crown. Indeed,
+one might trust the world to give a verdict in favor of George
+Stephenson, the founder of the steam railway as against his
+sovereign, King George III. himself.
+
+The father, the "old Rob" of the village boys, was the fireman of
+the pumping engine at the colliery hard by. His father before
+him--the Stephensons were no pedigree-hunters, and traced their
+line no farther- -was a Scotchman who, so far as anything was
+remembered of him, had come into the north of England as a
+gentleman's servant. Robert was a favorite with the village
+children, to whom he gave the freedom of the fire-room, and was
+a boon companion of his own houseful of boys and girls, kindling
+their fancy by his headful of tales, and sharpening their
+observation of the beauties of nature by making them the
+companions of his walks a-field, where the birds and other living
+things were the objects of his peculiar interest and love.
+
+As soon as little George was old enough to "take notice" he must
+have discovered the railway which ran before his father's door,
+and his earliest responsibilities were connected with the
+oversight of his younger brothers and sisters lest in their play
+they should fall under the wheels of the cars or the hoofs of
+the horses that supplied the motive power. The road was a wooden
+tramway along which coal cars were dragged from the mines to
+tidewater.
+
+The first tramways in the northern coal-fields were made by
+laying a track of planking on wooden sleepers. This device was
+more than a century old when George Stephenson was born. In some
+places this had been improved by plating the planks with iron.
+While the Wylam lad was still a barefoot boy, cast-iron rails
+were being introduced in Leicestershire, a wheel having been
+designed with a flange to keep it on the narrow track. Thus the
+railway was brought to a stage which needed only the application
+of steam to its motive power to carry it into a new and vastly
+enlarged phase.
+
+The fireman's son was set to win his share of the family bread
+before he was ten. He tended a widow's cows, led the plow-
+horses, and hoed turnips before he entered a colliery as a
+breaker-boy, where his task was to pick out stones and other
+foreign substances from the fuel. Sixpence a day was the wage.
+Soon at twopence more he was promoted to drive the gin-horse
+that, circling around a capstan, hoisted the buckets of water
+and coals out of the pit. At fourteen he became his father's
+assistant in the fire-room at Dewley Burn at a shilling a day. At
+fifteen he obtained a foreman's position in another colliery. At
+seventeen he had gone over his father's head, and had charge of a
+pumping engine at Water-row Pit. When his wages reached twelve
+shillings a week he thought he was "a made man for life," but his
+ignoble content was soon disturbed. Always fascinated by
+machinery, as he was by birds and animals, he made a pet of his
+engines, studying them with a singular fondness, and making
+himself master of their principles and their parts. This
+knowledge prompted him to learn more, especially to find out
+something about the improved engines of Boulton & Watt, of which
+rumors had reached the enginemen of the north. To do this he
+must learn to read, an art which he seems to have considered
+superfluous until he was eighteen. Never did student work harder
+than Geordie Stephenson at his new task, amazing his teachers
+and his mates by his progress at "the three R's." He was now
+brakesman of a hoisting engine, dividing his small leisure
+between his studies and his cobblery, for he added to his
+earnings by mending shoes. His income was now some ninety pounds
+a year. He saved his first guinea and felt himself a rich man.
+At twenty-one he married a farmer's house-servant and went to
+housekeeping in a cottage at Wellington Quay.
+
+It would be a long story, however interesting, to follow the
+young mechanic through the experiences by which he won a name in
+all the North Country as the cleverest of "engine doctors,"
+eking out his wages by making lasts, mending watches, and even
+cutting out coats and trousers for the wives of the pitmen to
+sew up for their husbands. His desire to provide his motherless
+boy Robert with better schooling than he had enjoyed sharpened
+his wits and added strength to his arm. Fortunately the son
+proved to be not only an apt scholar, but had the rare gift of
+being able to teach others. Whatever he learned in the good
+schools to which his father sent him, he imparted to his father.
+So boy and man progressed together in their educational
+partnership.
+
+When George Stephenson became chief enginewright of the
+Killingworth collieries at one hundred pounds a year he thought
+he had reached the summit of his ambition. The duties of the
+position made less demand upon him for manual labor, and left him
+time to carry out some of his mechanical ideas. He devised new
+hoists and pumps for the mines, and then applied himself to the
+ever-present problem of cheapening the transportation of the
+coals between pit mouth and ship side. One of his first
+improvements of this sort was a gravity railway, so arranged that
+the loaded cars, running down to the river by their own weight,
+furnished the power to draw the empty cars to the summit again by
+cable. When George Stephenson took up the problem of
+perfecting a "traveling steam engine" he had the advantage of
+knowing what had been accomplished by other experimenters. For
+fifty years inventors had been turning out steam engines of
+considerable promise in the model stage, but of little practical
+performance. Indeed, about 1803, a Cornishman named Trevithick
+had produced a locomotive which was used for a time to transport
+metal and ore to the Pen-y-darran iron works in South Wales. The
+heavy engine so damaged the tracks that it was soon dismounted
+and degraded to the work of a steam pump. In 1812 a cog-wheel
+locomotive, invented by a Mr. Blenkinsop, began running in a
+colliery a few miles out of Leeds, and served very well its
+purpose to haul heavy trains almost as fast as a horse could
+walk. The next year a Derbyshire mechanic produced a "Mechanical
+Traveler," the legs of which were moved alternately by steam, but
+the bursting of its boiler on its trial trip put an end to its
+picturesque career of doubtful usefulness.
+
+One Mr. Blackett, an enterprising collier of Wylam, introduced
+the ideas of Trevithick and Blenkinsop to the Tyneside and so
+brought them under the observant eye of the Killingworth
+enginewright, who had such a clever way of smoothing away
+difficulties in complicated machinery. After repeated and costly
+experiments, Mr. Blackett evolved a type of locomotive which,
+though noisy and clumsy, did better work than any of its
+predecessors.
+
+After making a careful study of what had been done by others,
+George Stephenson came to the conclusion that he could improve
+upon the existing locomotive models. This was about 1813, when he
+was about thirty-four years old. He said to his friends that
+"there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, if the works
+could be made to stand." One of his employers, Lord Ravensworth,
+advanced the necessary money for constructing his first
+"Traveling Engine" at West Moor, the colliery blacksmith
+undertaking to carry out his designs. Dr. Smiles's description of
+this locomotive may be reproduced: "The boiler was cylindrical of
+wrought iron, eight feet in length and thirty-four inches in
+diameter, with an internal flue tube twenty inches wide passing
+through it. The engine had two vertical cylinders of eight inches
+diameter and two feet stroke let into the boiler, working the
+propelling gear with cross heads and connecting rods. The power
+of the two cylinders was combined by means of spur-wheels which
+communicated the motive power to the wheels supporting the engine
+on the rail. . . The engine thus worked upon what is termed the
+second motion. The chimney was of wrought iron, round which was a
+chamber extending back to the feed pumps, for the purpose of
+heating the water previous to the injection into the boiler. The
+engine had no springs, and was mounted on a wooden frame
+supported on four wheels." The engine made its trial trip July
+25, 1814, on which occasion it showed a speed of four miles an
+hour in drawing a load of thirty tons. This engine was named
+"Blucher," after the distinguished Prussian field-marshal.
+
+Blucher was almost immediately improved by its inventor. First he
+doubled the steam-making power of its boiler by turning the
+exhaust from the cylinders into the smoke-stack, thus creating a
+forced draught. Second he built another engine, in which the
+tooth-wheel driving gear gave way to a simple and direct
+connection between the piston and the driving wheels which rolled
+upon the rails. This type of locomotive, developing some six
+miles an hour, did its work so well in the colliery that it was
+retained, with very slight alterations, for more than half a
+century. The report of its success got abroad slowly, and Mr.
+Stephenson was commissioned to build a railway and a number of
+locomotives for a colliery in another shire. The success of this
+piece of engineering encouraged him in sending his son Robert, a
+youth of fine promise, to Edinburgh to study physical sciences in
+the university, where in his brief residence he took a
+mathematical prize.
+
+The year 1823 marked another forward step for George Stephenson
+and railroads. Two years before a road had been chartered to
+connect the Durham coal-fields with tidewater. Stephenson heard
+of the project, and at once proposed to the company to make an
+iron railroad of the new wooden tramway and equip it with his
+traveling engines. His arguments and demonstrations won over the
+skeptical directors. They had their charter amended so as to
+authorize the use of steam as motive power for the transport of
+passengers as well as merchandise. Thus began the Stockton and
+Darlington Railway, the first in the world with a passenger
+charter. The chief engineer was George Stephenson, on a salary of
+five hundred pounds. At the same time, with the assistance of the
+railroad people, he founded the locomotive shops at Newcastle.
+
+The new railroad, the first public line, was opened in September,
+1825. As its construction progressed, its engineer had become
+increasingly sanguine of success. He said to his son Robert at
+this time: "I venture to tell you that I think you will live to
+see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods
+of conveyance in this country--when mail coaches will go by
+railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the King
+and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper
+for a workingman to travel upon a railway than to walk on foot. I
+know there are great and almost unsurmountable difficulties to be
+encountered, but what I have said will come to pass as sure as
+you live. I only wish I may live to see the day, though that I
+can scarcely hope for, as I know how slow all human progress is,
+and with what difficulty I have been able to get the locomotive
+thus far adopted, notwithstanding my more than ten years'
+successful experiment at Killingworth."
+
+The first train over the road was such an one as had never been
+seen before. George Stephenson was at the lever when the engine
+pulled out with a string of eight cars behind it. One regular
+passenger coach--the first ever built--held the directors, and
+twenty-one improvised passenger "wagons" carried some six hundred
+daring individuals. Coal and flour filled the other cars. The
+journey was safely accomplished at a speed which is said at times
+to have reached the hitherto unheard of rate of twelve miles an
+hour. The road, with its three Stephenson locomotives and many
+horses, was successful from the first, and its dividends were
+among the chief inducements which led to the next and more
+important advance in railroad construction, the Liverpool and
+Manchester line.
+
+Manchester was the great manufacturing center of the industrial
+England, which the inventions of Arkwright and Watt had called
+into existence. Its port was Liverpool. The natural means of
+communication between the two cities was quite inadequate to the
+changed conditions. In 1821 surveys were made for a tramway, and
+before the Stockton road was completed Stephenson had been
+selected as chief engineer of the new and more ambitious
+enterprise. Yet his assertion that trains could be moved between
+the two cities at twenty miles an hour raised serious doubts in
+many minds as to his sanity. A writer in the "Quarterly Review"
+thought that even though a few foolhardy persons might trust
+themselves to a vehicle moving at such speed--twice that of the
+swiftest stagecoaches--Parliament for the general welfare should
+limit the speed of all railways to eight or nine miles an hour,
+as the greatest that could be ventured on with safety.
+
+It was while the grant of a charter to this Liverpool and
+Manchester Railway was being discussed in a committee of the
+House of Commons that the shrewd North Country engineer first
+faced the trained Parliamentary lawyers. He had been cautioned to
+keep his figures for speed within the most moderate limits so as
+not to prejudice the company's case, but his belief in his own
+invention mastered his restraint, though as he afterward said, he
+did his best "to keep the engine down to ten miles an hour." In
+fact, his daring prediction of twelve miles per hour struck the
+learned counsel with horror. They objected that horses would fly
+in terror from such a monster. He replied that horses had been
+known to shy at wheelbarrows. They tried to make him admit that
+the wheels would slip on the smooth rails, but he knew that they
+would bite without teeth. One of the committee said, "Suppose
+that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the
+engine; would not that be a very awkward circumstance?" To which
+the countryman had a ready reply, "Very awkward--for the cow!"
+The opposition, which was largely animated by the existing canal
+interest, ventured some views which the experience of the next
+five years was to make most ridiculous. They declared that the
+plan to carry the rails over the surveyed route across Chat Moss,
+a wide morass, was impossible; and furthermore, that no
+locomotive could make headway against the high winds which at
+times prevailed in that region. Experts were brought to testify
+that "no engineer in his senses would go through Chat Moss if he
+wanted to make a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester." "In my
+judgment," said one of them, "a railroad cannot be made over Chat
+Moss without going to the bottom." The committee decided against
+the bill, but at the next session Parliament granted the company
+the power to construct the road, the question whether or not
+locomotives should be used upon it being left in abeyance. George
+Stephenson was chosen to be chief engineer, at one thousand
+pounds a year.
+
+Chat Moss was conquered by an ingenious device which practically
+floated the road-bed upon its spongy surface. Tunnels were driven
+through the hills, deep cuttings were made wherever needed, a
+ravine was crossed by a viaduct of brick and stone, and more than
+threescore bridges were thrown across the streams. All the plans
+for this complicated work passed under the eye, and many of them
+took their first form in the mind of the chief, whose skill as a
+mechanic was for the time sunk in his genius for civil
+engineering. By dint of the most strenuous application, and by
+the dominance of a spirit of perseverance which no discouragement
+or obstacle could daunt, Stephenson brought the road to
+triumphant completion. The next thing was to convince the
+directors that the steam locomotive was the proper equipment for
+a public railway. As a beginning, he persuaded the company to
+place one of his engines upon its construction trains. The
+experts who were employed to investigate the many proposed
+applications of power decided, however, that the most feasible
+equipment was a series of twenty-one stationary engines located
+at intervals along the right of way and hauling the cars stage
+after stage by means of a rope wound upon a drum-the principle of
+the cable railway which afterwards had its day in our streets.
+Still Stephenson would give the directors no peace. Finally, in
+order to settle the question of the practical utility of the
+traveling engine, the company offered a prize of five hundred
+pounds for the best locomotive engine, to be awarded after a
+competitive test upon certain conditions, the most notable of
+which were:
+
+"2. The engine of six tons weight must be able to draw
+after it, day by day, twenty tons weight at ten miles an
+hour with a pressure of steam on the boiler not exceeding
+fifty pounds to the square inch."
+
+"4. The engine and boiler must be supported on springs and
+rest on six wheels, the height of the whole not exceeding
+fifteen feet to the top of the chimney."
+
+"7. The engine must be delivered complete and ready for
+trial at the Liverpool end of the railway not later than
+the 1st of October, 1829."
+
+"8. The price of the engine must not exceed five hundred
+and fifty pounds."
+
+George Stephenson and his son Robert threw all their resources
+into the production of the locomotive which was to carry their
+colors in the contest. The "Rocket" engine, which was built in
+their Newcastle shop, was fitted with a tubular boiler six feet
+long and three feet four inches in diameter. The fire-box was two
+feet wide and three feet high. On each side of the boiler at its
+rear end was an oblique cylinder, the piston-rods being connected
+with the outside of the two driving wheels, which were in front.
+The two rear wheels were about one-half the diameter of the
+drivers. The tender, also fourwheeled, was a simple affair, the
+water being carried in a large cask.
+
+After a successful trial trip, the "Rocket," which weighed but
+four and a half tons, was sent by wagon across England to
+Carlisle, and thence to Liverpool. It was one of four steam
+engines entered in the competition which attracted wide
+attention. Among the entries was the "Novelty," the production of
+that talented Swede, John Ericsson, who afterwards, in America,
+built the iron-clad "Monitor." The "Novelty" showed fine bursts
+of speed, but failed in point of endurance. The "Perseverance"
+and "Sanspareil" developed radical defects, but the "Rocket,"
+driven by George Stephenson's own hand was prepared for every
+turn of the competition, and surpassed all in power, speed, and
+general serviceability. To its makers the prize was
+unhesitatingly awarded, whereupon the hardy engineer amazed every
+beholder by letting out the last link and dashing past the
+grandstand at the rate of more than thirty miles an hour. The
+forced draft, which had made the Killingworth freight engines so
+successful, coupled with the tubular boiler, formed a combination
+which won the battle for the locomotive once for all, and made
+the name of George Stephenson a household word.
+
+A year later, on the 15th of September, 1830, the Manchester and
+Liverpool Railway was formally opened. The Duke of Wellington--
+the first citizen of the realm--was present with Sir Robert Peel
+and other distinguished personages, together with a vast throng
+of sightseers, enthusiastic spectators of the consummation of
+George Stephenson's dreams. Though marred by a fatal accident,
+the occasion proved the entire practicability of the railway as a
+means of transportation. The multitudes who rode in its cars on
+that memorable day were but a foretaste of the patronage which
+the line was to receive. Although the intention of its projectors
+was to limit its traffic chiefly to freight, the road from the
+first found its offices besieged by persons eager to ride. Thus
+passenger traffic became established as its leading source of
+revenue, and thus were the capitalists encouraged to prosecute
+the extension of the railway system to points where the outlook
+for freight business was much less than between Liverpool and
+Manchester. Though these roads were fiercely opposed by the
+landowners, the canal-men, and turnpike proprietors, they were
+pressed forward in every direction. Robert Stephenson shared with
+his father the responsibility of engineering some of the
+principal lines, though the two men had the grim satisfaction of
+seeing the experts who had ridiculed the initial project now
+eagerly bidding for the opportunity of conducting surveys for the
+new lines.
+
+A mania for building railroads seized the world. The Stephensons
+were in demand not only throughout Great Britain, but even on the
+Continent. They had already made a market for their engines
+abroad, when, in 1835, they were summoned by the King of Belgium
+to assist in laying out a system of railways for that kingdom.
+For his services here the engineer was knighted by the King and
+banqueted at the royal table. Honored at home and abroad; happy
+in the general adoption of the ideas to which he had clung
+through opposition and adversity; proud of the son Robert, for
+whose education he had worked like a slave, and whom he now saw
+hailed as one of the great engineers of the world; fortunate in
+business; respected and beloved by men of every class, George
+Stephenson spent the closing years of his life in affluence and
+ease. He had earned his peace, for he had fought and won the
+battle of the locomotive, and so, by improving the means of
+communication, had advanced the interests of trade, and promoted
+the welfare of England and of mankind. George Stephenson died in
+1848. His son Robert outlived him but eleven years, and was
+buried in Westminster Abbey as one of the great men of the
+century. The boldness of his engineering projects, the skill and
+daring with which he flung his railway bridges and viaducts
+across rivers, valleys, and straits, had caught and held the
+imagination of the world. Together the two men wrote the name of
+Stephenson large and lasting in the record of nineteenth-century
+England.
+
+Had the nineteenth century nothing else to show save the
+improvement in transportation, its fame would be secure. Within a
+dozen years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester
+Railway, Great Britain was covered with railways or railway
+surveys, establishing all the trunk-lines which now exist. The
+thirty and a half miles of the original line grew by leaps and
+bounds to a system of nearly two thousand miles, the property of
+a single company, whose property is valued at five hundred
+million dollars. Twenty-five years after the day of the
+"Rocket's" victory eight thousand miles of railway were in
+operation in the United Kingdom. Another twenty-five years
+brought the total up to eighteen thousand miles, which had cost
+for construction nearly four billion dollars. At the same time
+(1883) the number of locomotives was 14,469, of cars, 490,661.
+Before Manchester and Liverpool were connected by railway thirty
+stage-coaches sufficed for the passenger traffic. The railway
+carried seven hundred thousand passengers between the two cities
+in its first year and one-half. Fifty years later the passengers
+on all the English lines numbered six hundred million, of whom
+eighty-five per cent traveled third-class. The freight traffic in
+the same year was two hundred and twenty-six million tons. Robert
+Stephenson lived to see one per cent of the entire population of
+the United Kingdom employed on the railways. In 1884 the number
+of such employees was 367,793. These few figures are sufficient
+to suggest the magnitude of the economic changes which took place
+in England, and indeed throughout the civilized world, as the
+direct result of the talent, industry, and perseverance of George
+Stephenson, the Northumbrian plowboy.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1. Describe the early life of George Stephenson.
+2. What attempts at locomotives had been made prior to his time?
+3. What success of Stephenson's led to the Stockton-Darlington
+railway?
+4. How did the " Quarterly" comment on the proposed Liverpool
+line?
+5. What was the view of the Parliamentary committee?
+6. Describe Stephenson's work on the Liverpool & Manchester line.
+7. What competitors had the "Rocket"?
+8. Describe the later work of the two Stephensons.
+9. Contrast Stephenson's England with that of to-day.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF STEPHENSON. Samuel Smiles. ("Lives of the Engineers.")
+
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+RUSSELL AND PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
+
+[JOHN RUSSELL, Earl Russell, born, London, August 18, 1792; died,
+Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, May 28,1878; educated at
+Westminster School and Edinburgh University; Member of
+Parliament, 1813; favored Catholic emancipation; 1830-34,
+paymaster general; 1831, introduced the first Reform Bill; 1832,
+carried the third Reform Bill; 1835-39, Home Secretary; 1839-41,
+Colonial Secretary; 1846-52, Prime Minister; 1852-53, Foreign
+Secretary; 1854-55, President of the Council; 1855, Colonial
+Secretary; 1859-65, Foreign Secretary; 1865-66, Prime Minister.]
+
+The Parliament of England is one of the most ancient of political
+institutions. Constitutional historians find its germs in the
+council of the wise men--"The Witenagemot"--which was summoned to
+give advice to the early Anglo-Saxon kings. In the thirteenth
+century Simon de Montfort had added to the assembly of the nobles
+certain representatives of the counties, cities, and boroughs.
+The monarchs found this gathering of the estates of the nation a
+useful instrument of taxation and the Parliament in turn acquired
+certain legislative rights. In time the nobles or peers began to
+sit by themselves, leaving the chosen representatives to meet in
+a House of Commons. The story of the increasing influence of
+Parliament is in great part the history of the English nation.
+Before the close of the seventeenth century the power of
+Parliament had become the leading force in the state. Yet much
+remained to be done in the nineteenth century to bring this
+supreme governing body into living touch with the heart of the
+nation.
+
+The conservative habit of the English had left the constitution
+of the House of Commons untouched for so many years that it had
+lost all but the semblance of a representative body. No uniform
+qualification for the voter existed. In one locality the
+franchise was closely restricted, in others every man, however
+poor, might exercise the right to vote. There were all manner of
+variations in these "fancy franchises," which had been conferred
+by special charters at long separated intervals. Neither was
+there any existing relation between population and
+representation. Strange as the statement will appear to American
+readers, accustomed to the reapportionment of congressional
+representation after every federal census, it is a fact that
+there had been no radical change in the boundaries of election
+districts in England for centuries. The population had meanwhile
+undergone enormous changes. Not only had it increased manifold,
+but the rise of modern industry had occasioned a redistribution
+of the people. London had become a swarming hive. Liverpool docks
+and warehouses were surrounded by a crowded city. Manchester,
+Birmingham, Leeds, and other places scarcely known to the England
+of Tudor and Stuart, were centers of busy industrial life,
+attracting to themselves multitudes of the inhabitants of the
+countryside. The counties, large and small, continued to have
+equal representation in Parliament, though some of them were many
+times more populous than others. In the boroughs the inequalities
+were most flagrant. Where a goodly village had been in Tudor
+times there might now be nothing visible but the crumbling tower
+of the parish church, yet the place still retained its right to
+representation in the House of Commons. Such decayed or "rotten"
+boroughs existed in considerable numbers. Their few voters were
+controlled by the land-owning nobility. McCarthy says, "The case
+of Old Sarum is famous. It returned members to Parliament in the
+days of Edward III., and from that period down to the time of the
+Reform Bill. But the town of Old Sarum gradually disappeared.
+Owing to the rise of New Sarum (Salisbury) and to other causes
+the population gradually deserted it. The town became practically
+effaced from existence; its remains far less palpable or visible
+than those of any Baalbec or Palmyra. Yet it continued to be
+represented in Parliament. It was at one time bought by Lord
+Chatham's grandfather, Governor Pitt. It was coolly observed at
+the time that "Mr. Pitt's posterity now have an hereditary seat
+in the House of Commons as owners of Old Sarum," just as any earl
+had a seat in the House of Lords by virtue of his hereditary
+peerage. When the Reform Bill was passed the member of Parliament
+for the borough of Ludgershall was himself the only voter in the
+borough and had chosen himself to Parliament on his own
+nomination. Another place with two members had only seven
+qualified voters. McCarthy is quite within the truth when he
+asserts that two-thirds of the House of Commons was made up of
+the nominees of the peers and great landlords "who owned their
+boroughs and members just as they owned their parks and their
+cattle." Thus the power of the landed aristocracy, which was the
+House of Lords, lacked but little of being the House of Commons
+as well. The mass of the nation, which was now rapidly gaining in
+education and wealth, had no way of making its influence felt in
+Parliament except by the power of public opinion, to which the
+periodical and pamphlet press was beginning to give expression.
+
+The condition of the representation, the rotten boroughs, as
+those in decay were called, and the pocket boroughs, a name
+applied to those which were the property of individuals, opened
+the way for shameless corruption. Where the electorate was small
+and the secret ballot unknown bribery had free rein. Seats were
+openly bought and sold. As early as 1770 the elder Pitt (Lord
+Chatham) had placed his finger upon this ailing spot in the
+English body politic, and had said, "Before the end of this
+century, either the Parliament will reform itself from within, or
+be reformed with a vengeance from without." His prediction was
+falsified by the reactionary effect of the French Revolution,
+which not only made the English aristocracy cautious about
+readjusting political arrangements, but kept the minds and hands
+of Englishmen so fully occupied with foreign affairs as to divert
+attention from their own domestic troubles. At the close of the
+long struggle with Napoleon the question came rapidly to the
+front. Financial distress and industrial depression made the
+populace restless and discontented. The glowing principles which
+had inspired the French Revolution in its early days with its
+watchwords of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," gained a deep
+lodgment in the popular mind. The dissatisfaction vented itself
+in attacks upon a political system which denied the right of
+representation to so large a proportion of the wealth-producing
+population.
+
+The government at first turned a deaf ear to these appeals, then
+tried to suppress the agitation which swept through the great
+manufacturing towns. It was one of these bungling attempts to
+silence free speech in Manchester on August 16, 1819, which led
+to the trampling and sabring of many innocent persons by
+cavalrymen, the "Peterloo massacre," which the populace long
+cherished as a bloody score against, their aristocratic
+oppressors. For ten years more the democratic press continued to
+agitate even more bitterly for reform, and a lonely "radical"
+member of Parliament would bring forward his motions only to have
+them contemptuously thrust aside. In 1830, however, a ministry
+came into power which allowed nothing to stand in the way until
+the long awaited bill had become a law. The condition which
+contributed to its success, the incidents of the tremendous
+parliamentary struggle, and the men who carried it through, are
+all worthy of the most careful attention of the student of human
+affairs.
+
+The death of George IV. (June 26, 1830) made way for his brother,
+William IV., and made necessary a general parliamentary election.
+The summer had seen a liberal revolution in Paris. The Bourbons
+had been thrust out and Louis Philippe had been accepted as the
+citizen-king of the French, governing under a liberal
+constitution. This revolution, and simultaneous movements
+throughout western Europe, touched an answering chord in the
+breasts of Englishmen, and the Tories found themselves in a
+minority when the new Parliament assembled in November. The Duke
+of Wellington was Prime Minister, the last man from whom the
+popular cause could expect to receive any concessions. At the
+opening of the session the premier took occasion to declare his
+disbelief "that the state of representation could be improved or
+be rendered more satisfactory to the country at large than at the
+present moment." "I am fully convinced," he said, "that the
+country possesses a legislature which answers all the good
+purposes of legislation, and this to a greater degree than any
+legislature has answered in any other country whatever." He
+flatly declared his determined opposition to any measure of
+reform. Within a fortnight his government met its Waterloo and he
+resigned.
+
+Earl Gray, the Whig premier who succeeded Wellington, came into
+office fully resolved to pass a Reform Bill. The responsibility
+of drafting the measure was intrusted to a young Whig commoner,
+Lord John Russell, a younger son of the Duke of Bedford, and a
+scion of one of the great Whig houses. Lord John Russell had
+entered Parliament in 1813, at the age of twenty-one, for one of
+the family boroughs. He was now in his thirty-seventh year, and
+his parliamentary career, if not brilliant for oratory, had at
+least been marked by intelligent devotion to high ideals. In
+1819, before the echoes of Peterloo had died away, he had asked
+Parliament to disfranchise all boroughs of proved corruption, and
+transfer their representation to more deserving constituencies. A
+little later he proved to the House the corruption existing at
+Gram-pound, and secured the disfranchisement of that borough and
+the transfer of its voting rights to the great county of York.
+This was but a small step, but it opened the way to tremendous
+changes. He was determined, he said, to strip "the dead bones of
+a former state of England" of their political influence and give
+it to the "living energy of England of the nineteenth century,
+with its steam engines and its factories, its cotton and woolen
+cloths, its cutlery and its coal mines, its wealth and its
+intelligence." Session after session he returned to this text
+only to be as often defeated by the Tories. He was more
+successful in 1828 when he carried the repeal of the Test and
+Corporation Acts, relics of a bygone age when it was thought
+necessary to the safety of the nation to exclude from military or
+civil office all persons who did not take the communion in
+accordance with the ritual of the Established Church. "Lord
+John," as he came to be called in the course of his half-century
+of parliamentary life, would have advanced from the relief of
+Protestant dissenters to the emancipation of the Catholics, had
+not the Tories, in their dread of civil war in Ireland,
+forestalled him, and made the measure their own (April, 1829).
+
+The first Reform Bill, which had been drafted by Russell, and
+worked over by Lord Durham and other ministers, was presented to
+the Commons on March 1, 1831. Its provisions had been kept
+profoundly secret, and the house was thronged to hear them
+explained in the low and measured tones of Lord John Russell. The
+nation was as eager as the immediate auditory to know how far the
+government would go in granting the popular demand. Touching upon
+some of the existing anomalies the speaker imagined a foreigner
+visiting England; having been impressed with British wealth,
+civilization, and renown, "Would not such a foreigner," he
+queried, "be much astonished if he were taken to a green mound
+and informed that it sent two members to the British Parliament?
+. . . . or if he walked into a park without the vestige of a
+dwelling and was told that it, too, sent two members to the
+British Parliament? But if he was surprised at this, how much
+more would he be astonished if he were carried into the north of
+England, where he would see large, flourishing towns, full of
+trade, activity, and intelligence, vast magazines of wealth and
+manufactures, and were told that these places sent no
+representatives to Parliament!"
+
+By the provisions of the bill sixty boroughs with less than two
+thousand members were to lose both members, and forty-seven
+boroughs were to be reduced to a single member. Of the seats thus
+vacated eight were to be given to London, thirty-four to large
+towns, fifty-five to English counties, five to Scotland, three to
+Ireland, one to Wales. The franchise was to be extended to
+inhabitants of houses taxed at ten pounds a year, and to
+leaseholders and copyholders of counties. The changes added about
+half a million to the number of voters in the United Kingdom.
+
+The country followed the progress of the debate with intense
+interest night after night. The bill passed to its second reading
+by a majority of one in the fullest house on record and the
+country gave itself up to illuminations and other expressions of
+joy. But the bill got no farther. The majority was too close for
+the comfort of the ministers, and having been defeated on a
+matter of detail, they confidently appealed to the country. The
+King dissolved Parliament, and writs were issued for a general
+election. It was at this juncture, when London was illuminating
+to show its satisfaction over the prospect for a reform victory,
+that the darkened windows of the Duke of Wellington's town house
+were stoned by the populace. The rallying cries of the Whigs were
+"The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill," and
+"Reform, Aye or No?" Popular agitation by associations,
+newspapers, speech-making, monster meetings, etc., reached an
+unprecedented height, and the force of public opinion was shown
+at the polls. In spite of pocket boroughs, family influence, and
+flagrant corruption, the reformers came back to Parliament with
+their majority increased to fully one hundred. Of the eighty-two
+members for the counties where the popular feeling had its freest
+expression, only six were opposed to Lord Russell's scheme of
+reform.
+
+Lord Russell's second Reform Bill was introduced on June 24th.
+The minority, hopeless of success in a stand-up fight, resorted
+to the obstructive tactics now known as "filibustering." After
+wasting three months in tedious obstruction the Commons passed
+the bill by a majority of one hundred and nine, and Lord Grey
+laid it before the House of Lords in the most impressive speech
+of his career. He endeavored to persuade the aristocrats before
+him that only by such concessions could the Constitution of
+England be saved. Already there were wide-spread evidences of
+popular discontent in the "nightly alarms, burnings, and popular
+disturbances." The rotten boroughs could no longer be tolerated
+with safety to the state. "This gangrene upon our representative
+system bade defiance to all remedies but that of excision." Deaf
+to his arguments, and blind to everything but their own privilege
+and immediate interest, the peers pronounced against the bill.
+
+The rejection of the second Reform Bill by the House of Lords
+brought England to the brink of revolution. As it was, the
+newspapers were full of signs that the patience of the nation was
+exhausted. Mobs and incendiary fires were reported in many
+districts, and the abolition of the House of Lords found
+strenuous advocates. It was at one of the numerous indignation
+meetings that Sydney Smith hit off the attempt of the Lords to
+stay the progress of reform by comparing it with Mrs.
+Partington's attempt to check the high tide at Sidmouth with a
+mop. "The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up.
+But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The
+Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. Gentlemen, be at your ease;
+be quiet and steady; you will beat Mrs. Partington!"
+
+As soon as the Parliament reassembled in December, Lord John
+Russell offered the third Reform Bill. It was identical in
+principle with the others, though the number of the affected
+boroughs had been slightly altered. It passed its successive
+stages by ample majorities and was in due order presented to the
+House of Lords. The ministers were prepared to play their last
+card. They found the peers determined to mutilate the proposition
+in disregard of the popular demand, now louder than ever, for
+"The bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill." Earl Grey
+and his chancellor, Lord Brougham, thereupon requested King
+William to overcome the opposition by sanctioning the creation of
+new peers sufficient to insure a majority for the act. But the
+King held back. The ministers offered their resignations, and the
+King commissioned the Iron Duke to form a government. But no Tory
+government could stand a day in the face of the hosts of reform
+in the Commons and in the nation, as Wellington had reluctantly
+to confess. The monarch had to yield, and so doing, helped
+establish the principle more firmly than ever before that the
+chief power in the English Constitution is lodged in the House of
+Commons, acting through its ministers. In this case it was
+Commons against King and Lords, and the Commons had their way. To
+save themselves from an inundation of new peerages the Lords
+whose hostility to the bill was irreconcilable absented
+themselves from Westminster when the vote was taken--"skulked in
+clubs and country houses" as Lord Russell sharply phrased it. The
+Duke of Wellington's words will show the temper with which the
+hide-bound Tories received the act. "Reform, my Lords, has
+triumphed. The barriers of the Constitution are broken down, the
+waters of destruction have burst the gates of the temple, and the
+tempest begins to howl. Who can say where its course should stop?
+Who can stay its speed? For my own part I sincerely hope that my
+predictions may not be fulfilled, and that my country may not be
+ruined."
+
+The immediate effect of the reform was to admit the tradesmen and
+tenant-farmers, the sturdy English middle class, to a share in
+the government. Thirty-five years later, after Lord Russell had
+made three or four futile endeavors to carry still further the
+principle of reform, his opponents, the Conservatives, led by
+Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, passed the Reform Bills of 1867-68,
+greatly reducing the property qualification of voters, and
+rectifying inequalities in borough representation. Under this act
+most of the mechanic and artisan class gained the right to vote.
+Finally, in 1884, Mr. Gladstone carried the reform another stage,
+conferring the franchise upon two millions of poor men, including
+the class of agricultural laborers.
+
+His contribution to the success of reform identified Lord John
+Russell with the cause of liberty, and made him a leading man. It
+is not within the scope of this sketch to follow him through the
+shifting scenes of the honorable career in politics and
+statesmanship which now opened out before him, and which
+continued until, when at nearly four-score, the party leadership
+passed from him to his able associate, William Ewart Gladstone.
+Among the notable measures in which he had a leading hand was the
+Municipal Reform Act of 1835, which put the government of cities
+in the hands of the taxpayers and did away with the effete and
+corrupt corporations which had exercised it. His "Edinburgh
+letter," in 1845, hastened Peel's conversion to free trade. He
+was ever concerned in religion and education. After the overthrow
+of Peel's government, in 1846, he was raised to the premiership.
+He held the position until 1852, and again, from October, 1865,
+to June, 1866. His retirement in the latter year removed from
+British politics a conspicuous figure. It was a figure which had
+filled a large place in the affairs of the world, and for the
+most part filled it well, though never again in his career was it
+his lot to become such a popular hero as he was during the early
+battles for reform. Russell's death, in 1878, brought up the varied
+panorama of his life. McCarthy, in reviewing it, touches upon
+some of its points of interest. "He had a seat in the
+administration at his disposal when another young man might have
+been glad of a seat in an opera box. He must have been brought
+into more or less intimate association with all the men and women
+worth knowing in Europe since the early part of the century. He
+was a pupil of Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh, and he sat as a youth
+at the feet of Fox. He had accompanied Wellington in some of his
+peninsular campaigns; he measured swords with Canning and Peel
+successively through years of parliamentary warfare. He knew
+Metternich and Talleyrand. He had met the widow of Charles
+Stuart, the young chevalier, in Florence; and had conversed with
+Napoleon in Elba. He knew Cavour and Bismarck. He was now an ally
+of Daniel O'Connell, and now of Cobden and Bright. He was the
+close friend of Thomas Moore; he knew Byron. Lord John Russell
+had tastes for literature, for art, for philosophy, for history,
+for politics, and his aestheticism had the advantage that it made
+him seek the society and appreciate the worth of men of genius
+and letters. Thus he never remained a mere politician like Pitt
+or Palmerston."
+
+No one will now claim that Earl Russell--he was raised to the
+peerage with this title--is to be ranked with the few greatest of
+English statesmen, but that he served his country devotedly,
+honorably, and courageously will not be denied. His contemporary,
+Lord Shaftesbury, noted his death in his own journal with this
+just comment: "To have begun with disapprobation, to have fought
+through many difficulties, to have announced and acted on
+principles new to the day in which he lived, to have filled many
+important offices, to have made many speeches and written many
+books, and in his whole course to have done much with credit and
+nothing with dishonor, and so to have sustained and advanced his
+reputation to the very end, is a mighty commendation." And the
+Queen, in a letter to his widow, wrote: "You will believe that I
+truly regret an old friend of forty years' standing, and whose
+personal kindness in trying and anxious times I shall ever
+remember. 'Lord John,' as I knew him best, was one of my first
+and most distinguished ministers, and his departure recalls many
+eventful times."
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  In what ways did Parliament fail to be "representative"
+at the opening of the nineteenth century?
+2.  What circumstances favored agitation of this condition?
+3.  What was the "Peterloo Massacre"?
+4.  Who was Lord Russell, and what his early relation to the
+reform movement?
+5.  What was the Test and Corporation Act, and when repealed?
+6.  Describe the first Reform Bill, and its effect upon the
+House of Commons?
+7.  How was the second bill treated by the Commons and by the
+Lords?
+8.  What circumstances attended the passage of the third bill?
+9.  How was the principle of reform extended in later years?
+10. What peculiar privileges did Lord John Russell enjoy?
+11. How is his character shown in the use which he made of them?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF EARL RUSSELL.          S. J. Reid.
+RECOLLECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. Lord John Russell.
+THE EPOCH OF REFORM.           Justin McCarthy.
+HISTORY OF THE REFORM BILL.    W. N. Molesworth.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+COBDEN AND FREE TRADE
+
+[RICHARD COBDEN, born, 1804, at Dunford, near Midhurst, Sussex;
+died, London, 1865; after grammar school education, entered
+mercantile house in London, soon becoming a traveling salesman;
+about 1830 became founder of a cotton-printing concern at
+Manchester; traveled in Europe and America; wrote pamphlets on
+commercial and economic questions; 1838, became an ardent
+supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League; 1841, Member of Parliament
+for Stockport; advocate of free trade in the House of Commons;
+received popular testimonial of £79,000 in recognition of his
+services to the free trade cause; 1847-57, Member of Parliament
+for West Riding of York; advocate of arbitration and diminished
+expense for military purposes; 1849, Member of Parliament for
+Rochdale; 1860, negotiated commercial treaty with France.]
+
+The Reform Bill of 1832 invaded the privileges of the landed
+aristocracy by destroying in some measure their control of the
+House of Commons through the pocket boroughs. Sixteen years
+later a second blow was struck at this class through the repeal
+of the Corn Laws.
+
+The Corn Laws aimed to secure to English agriculturists a
+monopoly of the home market for grain. The wars with Napoleon,
+which paralyzed continental industries, stimulated those of
+England to abnormal prosperity. Food advanced in price, but labor
+was in great demand and well paid. The prospect of approaching
+peace in Europe, in 1813, precipitated hard times in Great
+Britain. The price of wheat fell and manufactures declined. The
+land-owning classes, then supreme in Parliament, enacted the Corn
+Law of 1815 for their own protection. By its provisions the
+importation of grain from foreign countries was practically
+prohibited until the price in England reached eighty shillings
+per quarter. Ten members of the House of Lords protested against
+the measure on the grounds that all restraint of trade was
+improper; that the restraint of trade in food was especially
+iniquitous; that the law would not steady or cheapen prices; and
+that "such a measure levied a tax on the consumer in order to
+give a bounty to the grower of corn,"--principles which have a
+modern sound.
+
+England was at that time living under a system of high protective
+tariffs upon imported articles of manufacture as well as of food.
+But in 1823-25 Mr. Huskisson succeeded in having most of the
+tariffs upon raw materials reduced to a fraction of the former
+figures, with the result that production was enormously
+stimulated and valuable foreign markets were opened to English
+commodities. His only modification of the Corn Law (in 1822) was
+to reduce by ten shillings the figure at which importations might
+begin. Later he and Canning made some progress with a "sliding
+scale" bill, a principle which the Duke of Wellington enacted
+into law in 1828. This interesting device provided that when the
+price in the home market reached sixty-four shillings the quarter
+the duty should be 23s 8d. As the price rose the duty fell. When
+wheat was 69s, the duty was 16s 8d, and when the price reached
+73s, foreign corn might come in on payment of one shilling per
+quarter.
+
+As has been shown in a foregoing chapter, the past half-century
+had witnessed a great transformation in the industrial complexion
+of England--from a nation chiefly agricultural it had become the
+center of the world's manufactures. Tens of thousands of families
+had removed from the farms to the cities, "following the work" in
+the mills and factories, and hundreds of thousands of pounds had
+been invested in a great diversity of industrial enterprises. The
+manufacturer and the mill-hand were alike interested in low
+prices for food. The manufacturer also saw in the high tariff on
+grain a barrier against the free exchange of commodities. As his
+output increased it became necessary for him to enlarge his
+market, but when he attempted to sell his goods to America and
+Russia the law interposed to block the bargain by excluding those
+grain-producing countries from selling their superfluous food-
+stocks in England. Apparently here was a clash between the
+interests of manufacturer and agriculturist.
+
+In 1836 a few thoughtful men in London, who were opposed to any
+restraint of trade, formed an Anti-Corn Law Association. But the
+metropolis was stony soil for such a plant. In 1838 a similar
+association was organized in Manchester, one of the new
+industrial cities dominated by modern ideas, crowded with
+factories, and populous with laboring men and women, a fit center
+for such an agitation as was to precede the downfall of the tax
+on food. In Manchester, too, in the person of a calico-printer
+named Richard Cobden, the agitation found its mainspring and its
+clear and persuasive voice.
+
+Richard Cobden sprang from a long line of plain Sussex yeomen.
+His father was a farmer who became bankrupt in 1813, and the lad
+Richard, one of twelve children, was sent by a well-meaning
+relative to a Yorkshire boarding-school--a sort of Dotheboys
+Hall. From such a rough school he passed into the rougher one of
+life, becoming the lad of all work in the London warehouse of the
+same kinsman, later a clerk, and at twenty-one a traveling
+salesman, or "drummer," a position for which his untiring energy
+and engaging sociability were high qualifications. A great
+reader, he was also a superior converser and a "mixer" as the
+present-day phrase goes, adapting himself to his company with
+unusual facility. John Morley records that all his friends agree
+that "they have never known a man in whom this trait of a sound
+and rational desire to know and to learn was so strong and so
+inexhaustible." "To know the affairs of the world was the master-
+passion of his life," and the knowledge which he gained and
+assimilated not merely in his early contact with men in his
+business, but in the wider journeys of observation to which he
+treated himself in later years, contributed much to the
+enrichment of his speeches and writings.
+
+At the age of twenty-four, with two other young men, whose
+capital like his own was little more than energy, probity, and
+business knowledge, he founded a firm in London for the sale of
+Manchester cotton prints on commission. Soon the firm was
+printing its own goods in Lancashire, and Mr. Cobden, prospering
+greatly from the first, took up his residence in Manchester, to
+watch over that end of the business. Though as full of affairs as
+any man in that hive of industry, Cobden found time to store his
+mind by reading and by reflection upon the knowledge gained by
+intercourse with his fellowmen. He visited France, Switzerland,
+and in 1835, America, where he foresaw a growing market for his
+wares, and where, as he wrote, he fondly hoped "would be realized
+some of those dreams of human exaltation if not of perfection"
+with which he loved to console himself. In 1836-37 he visited the
+Mediterranean countries, and on his return was an unsuccessful
+candidate for a seat in the House of Commons.
+
+In May, 1838, Richard Cobden wrote to his brother concerning the
+political outlook in the nation, the Chartist agitation, the
+Radical demands, and the general disorganization which existed
+among the opponents of Tory government. The letter includes these
+significant words: "I think the scattered elements may yet be
+rallied round the question of the Corn Laws. It appears to me
+that a moral, and even a religious, spirit may be infused into
+that topic, and if agitated in the same manner that the question
+of slavery has been, it will be irresistible."
+
+The purposes of the Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association are thus
+stated by Morley: "To obtain by all legal and constitutional
+means, such as the formation of local associations, the delivery
+of lectures, the distribution of tracts, and the presentation of
+petitions to Parliament, the total and immediate repeal of the
+Corn and Provision Laws." Mr. Cobden became a member of the
+executive committee, and his mind, voice, and pen were active in
+the service of the society until its object was attained. In
+response to his appeal for a campaign fund ("Let us invest part
+of our property in order to save the rest from confiscation") six
+thousand pounds poured into the treasury within a month. The
+local societies, which sprang up like wildfire in the
+manufacturing towns, were affiliated with that at Manchester,
+which soon became the headquarters of a far-reaching league.
+
+The leaguers carried political agitation to a point of
+thoroughness beyond anything which had yet been reached by
+O'Connell or the abolitionists. They issued a newspaper organ
+which enunciated its principles and denounced the enemies of free
+trade. Vast editions of tracts and leaflets were scattered
+broadcast throughout the land, and a staff of carefully
+instructed speakers was maintained to itinerate through the rural
+districts and preach the gospel of free corn in tavern, market-
+place, and town hall.
+
+In Parliament the battle must be won, and the league soon began
+its work of capturing seats in the House of Commons. Cobden
+himself was chosen, in 1841, as member for Stockport. Almost
+immediately he exercised his gift as a speaker, securing at once
+the attention of his colleagues by his style of oratory, which,
+with little formal eloquence or rhetorical elaboration, was
+powerfully persuasive, enriched by many happy illustrations drawn
+from life, and infused with a pure and lofty spirit. Whatever the
+topic under discussion, he was always able to show its relation
+to the obnoxious tariff, and to point out that the only sure
+remedy for the prevalent national ills was by way of the repeal
+of "the tax on bread." At first the young calico-printer--he was
+but thirty-seven--who embodied the opposition to the Corn Laws,
+was looked upon as an intruder by the young aristocrats of the
+House. They made fun of his classical allusions, and magnified
+his lack of education, attempting to laugh down his logic. But
+Cobden was not long in proving his ability to take care of
+himself on the floor of the House. It was no mere politician who
+caught the ear of the country with words like these: "When I go
+down to the manufacturing districts, I know that I shall be
+returning to a gloomy scene. I know that starvation is stalking
+through the land, and that men are perishing for the want of the
+merest necessaries of life. When I witness this, and recollect
+that there is a law which especially provides for keeping our
+population in absolute want, I cannot help attributing murder to
+the legislature of this country; and wherever I stand, whether
+here or out-of-doors, I will denounce that system of legislative
+murder."
+
+Out-of-doors Mr. Cobden had the strong support of the most
+eloquent Englishman of his generation, John Bright. The two men
+had been drawn together early by a common interest in the welfare
+of the manufacturing classes, and especially in popular
+education. In September, 1841, Cobden visited his friend in his
+house, and found him plunged in sadness by the death of his young
+wife. After words of condolence, he said, with great earnestness,
+"John, there are thousands of houses in England at this moment
+where wives, mothers, and children are dying of hunger. Now when
+the first paroxysm of your grief is passed, I would advise you to
+come with me and we will never rest until the Corn Law is
+repealed."
+
+"For seven years," Mr. Bright afterward said, "the discussion on
+that one question--whether it was good for a man to have half a
+loaf or a whole loaf--for seven years the discussion was
+maintained, I will not say with doubtful result, for the result
+was never doubtful and never could be in such a cause; but for
+five years or more (1841-46), we devoted ourselves without stint;
+every working hour almost was given up to the discussion and to
+the movement in connection with this question."
+
+Mr. Morley's description of the two orators and their mission is
+memorable: "The public imagination was struck by the figures of
+the pair who had given themselves up to a great public cause. The
+picture of two plain men leaving their homes and their business
+and going over the length and breadth of the land to convert the
+nation, had about it something apostolic; it presented something
+so far removed from the stereotyped ways of political activity,
+that this circumstance alone, apart from the object for which
+they were pleading, touched and affected people, and gave a
+certain dramatic interest to the long pilgrimages of the two men
+who had only become orators because they had something to say
+which they were intent on bringing their hearers to believe, and
+which happened to be true, wise, and just.....In Cobden, as in
+Bright, we feel that there was nothing personal or small, and
+that what they cared for so vehemently were great causes. ....
+Mr. Bright had all the resources of passion alive within his
+breast. He was carried along by vehement political anger, and
+deeper than that there glowed a wrath as stern as that of an
+ancient prophet. To cling to a mischievous error seemed to him to
+savor of moral depravity and corruption of heart. What he saw was
+the selfishness of the aristocracy and the landlords and he was
+too deeply moved by the hatred of this to care to deal very
+patiently with the bad reasoning which their own self-interest
+inclined his adversaries to mistake for good. His invective was
+not the expression of mere irritation, but a profound and
+menacing passion. Hence he dominated his audiences from a height,
+while his companion rather drew them along after him as friends
+and equals. Cobden was by no means incapable of passion, of
+violent feeling, or of vehement expression. His fighting
+qualities were in their own way as formidable as Mr.
+Bright's..... Still it was not passion to which we must look for
+the secret of his oratorical success. In one word, it was
+persuasiveness. Cobden made his way to men's hearts by the union
+which they saw in him of simplicity, earnestness, and conviction,
+with a singular facility of exposition. This facility consisted
+in a remarkable power of apt and homely illustration, and a
+curious ingenuity in framing the argument that happened to be
+wanted.....In such an appeal to popular sentiment and popular
+passion as the contemporary agitation of O'Connell for repeal, he
+could have played no leading part. Where knowledge and logic were
+the proper instruments, Cobden was a master." Nor did his
+efficiency cease when the audience dispersed. In council chamber
+and work-room his alert and inventive mind and persuasive
+conversational eloquence had free scope. His hopeful enthusiasm,
+his clever devices for stimulating the jaded interest of the
+masses, and his unfailing good humor made him the chief engineer
+of the highly complex machinery of the league.
+
+His enthusiasm led to the formation of associations in all the
+centers of industry; it redoubled the efforts and efficiency of
+the lecturers who carried the doctrines of the league into the
+agricultural counties--the enemy's country; it replenished the
+treasury of the league with thousands of pounds by subscriptions
+and by grand bazaars, one of which netted ten thousand pounds; it
+gave life and variety to the newspaper organ of the agitation;
+and in Parliament it met the government by a constant fire of
+questions, a bombardment of solid fact, and a harassing
+recurrence to the necessity of total and immediate repeal as the
+only salve for the economic sores of the kingdom.
+
+His parliamentary opponents attacked him fiercely. They accused
+him of hypocrisy in carrying on an agitation professedly for the
+general good, but really intended to help the cotton
+manufacturers at the expense of the landowners and
+agriculturists. They laid at Cobden's door the miseries of the
+mill-hands of Manchester, crying "Physician, heal thyself." So
+strongly intrenched was "monopoly" in the House of Commons that
+it was slow work for the Anti-Corn Law League with its weapons of
+peaceful agitation to drive it out. Year after year the orators
+traveled through the three kingdoms, addressing thousands, tracts
+were distributed by the ton, and enormous sums of money were
+subscribed (the amount for 1844 being nearly a hundred thousand
+pounds). In order that the popular opinion thus carefully
+cultivated might be brought effectively to bear at the next
+parliamentary election, the league took care that every qualified
+free trader was registered on the polling lists. At Cobden's
+suggestion large numbers of workingmen qualified by becoming
+freeholders.
+
+The eloquence of Bright, the cogent reasoning of Cobden, and the
+long campaign of education were steadily doing their work. The
+number of professed free traders in Parliament was still small,
+but the thoughtful leaders of the great parties, the men who
+studied the sentiment of the country, and watched the signs of
+the times, and weighed well the masses of evidence which the
+league continually brought forward-these men were being converted
+to the Manchester idea. What Cobden said in a popular assembly in
+the summer of 1845 was truer than even he may have believed.
+"What," he asked, "if you could get at the minds of the people
+would you find them thinking as to the repeal of the Corn Laws? I
+know it as well as if I were in their hearts. It is this: they
+are all afraid that this Corn Law cannot be maintained--no, not a
+rag of it--during a period of scarcity prices, of a famine
+season, such as we had in '39, '40, and '41. They know it. They
+are prepared when such a time comes to abolish the Corn
+Laws.....They are going to repeal it--mark my words--at a season
+of distress. That distress may come; aye, three weeks of showery
+weather, when the wheat is in bloom or ripening, would repeal
+these Corn Laws." He had already shown the precarious condition
+of the Irish people, whose only food was the potato, and whom the
+high price of grain kept on the edge of famine. The autumnal
+rains of 1845 precipitated the crisis, and fulfilled Cobden's
+prediction. The failure of the potato harvest plunged Ireland
+into dire distress for food. The league in crowded meetings
+denounced the tax on bread while men starved. The government of
+Sir Robert Peel hesitated as to the proper course. To suspend the
+food tariff might prove a concession to free trade which could
+never be regained. While Peel's cabinet hung back Lord John
+Russell, the leader of the Whigs, issued (November 22) his famous
+Edinburgh letter to his constituents, declaring that the time had
+come for the repeal of the baneful legislation. Peel was of the
+same mind, but some of his Tory colleagues resisted. None were
+more stubborn than Wellington, whose action at this juncture led
+Cobden to say, "Let me remind him that, notwithstanding all his
+victories in the field, he never yet entered into a contest with
+Englishmen in which he was not beaten." The effort of the Whigs
+to form a ministry having failed, Peel resumed the premiership
+which he had resigned. Parliament assembled on January 26, 1846,
+and the Prime Minister's speech foreshadowed his conversion to
+the policy of Cobden. The next day he explained his program. The
+Corn Laws were to be totally repealed by gradual reductions of
+the duty extending over a period of three years. Despite the
+mockery of Disraeli and the protectionists the bill passed the
+Commons by a great majority, and bowing to superior power, the
+Duke of Wellington helped it to pass the House. On June 26th
+Cobden carried the news to his wife: "Hurrah! Hurrah! The corn
+bill is law, and now my work is done!"
+
+Cobden's utter consecration of himself for eight years to the
+Anti-Corn Law agitation had cost him severely. The constant
+travel, exposure, and hardship of speaking in the open air had
+seriously impaired his health. His business had been neglected
+until he had been only saved from bankruptcy by the generosity of
+friends. The league into which he had poured his best thought and
+effort honored him by a popular subscription amounting to nearly
+eighty thousand pounds as a testimonial to his public-spirited
+devotion. He might have entered the government, but preferred
+otherwise. During the twenty years of life which remained to him
+he was the advocate of numerous reforms. Ever a lover of peace,
+he was a strong champion of the principle of international
+arbitration, and of the reduction of armaments. The most
+conspicuous achievement of his later years was his successful
+negotiation of more liberal commercial treaties between France
+and England, a service for which he received the thanks of both
+governments. During the American Civil War his sympathies were
+strongly enlisted for the North against the cause of the slave-
+holders, and his speeches helped to restrain the hostile feeling
+of the aristocracy. Though sometimes exposing himself to ridicule
+and obloquy by running counter to the popular current, Mr.
+Cobden's honesty and sincerity were such that his opponents must
+admit his purity of motive and nobility of soul. His death, in
+1865, was recognized as a national loss.
+
+No eulogium pronounced over his grave by Bright, the companion of
+his labors and triumphs, or by Disraeli and Gladstone, great
+converts to his economic doctrines, is so memorable as the brief
+passage in which Sir Robert Peel, in the last hours of his
+premiership, gave to the free-trade agitator the credit for the
+great reform: "In reference to our proposing these measures," he
+said, "I have no wish to rob any person of the credit which is
+justly due to him for them. But I may say that neither the
+gentlemen sitting on the benches opposite, nor myself, nor the
+gentlemen sitting round me--are the parties who are strictly
+entitled to the merit.....Sir, the name which ought to be, and
+which will be, associated with the success of these measures is
+the name of a man who, acting, I believe from pure and
+disinterested motives, has advocated their cause with untiring
+energy, and by appeals to reason, expressed by an eloquence the
+more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned, the
+name which ought to be, and will be, associated with the success
+of these measures is the name of Richard Cobden. Without scruple,
+sir, I attribute the success of these measures to him."
+
+The commercial policy which England inaugurated, in 1846, under
+the lead of Richard Cobden, continued in force throughout the
+century. Under its workings the commercial supremacy of England
+in the markets of the world has been achieved.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  What conditions brought about the Corn Laws?
+2.  What was the object of the "sliding scale"?
+3.  How did the Corn Laws work against both mill-hand and
+manufacturer?
+4.  Give an account of the early life of Richard Cobden.
+5.  Describe the organization of the Anti-Corn Law Association.
+6.  What impression did Cobden make in the House of Commons?
+7.  How was John Bright enlisted in the agitation?
+8.  Compare the oratorical qualities of the two men.
+9.  In what varied ways did Cobden's enthusiasm make itself felt?
+10. What events fulfilled Cobden's prediction and brought about
+the repeal of the Corn Laws?
+11. What were the chief events of the last twenty years of Cobden's
+life?
+12. What tribute did Sir Robert Peel pay to him?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF RICHARD COBDEN.       John Morley.
+HISTORY OF THE ANTI-CORN LAW LEAGUE. Prentice.
+CORN LAW RHYMES.           Ebenezer Elliott.
+
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+PEEL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS
+
+[ROBERT PEEL, born February 5, 1788, near Bury, Lancashire; died,
+London, July 2, 1850; educated at Harrow and Christ Church,
+Oxford, B.A., 1808 (double first); Member of Parliament, 1809;
+1811, Under-Secretary for the Colonies; 1812-18, Secretary for
+Ireland; 1817, Member of Parliament for Oxford University; 1819,
+advocated return to specie payment; 1820, married Julia, daughter
+of General Sir John Floyd; 1822-27, Home Secretary, Leader of
+House of Commons; 1826, proposed reform of Criminal Law; 1828,
+Home Secretary and Leader of the House; 1829, proposed Catholic
+emancipation; 1834-35, Prime Minister; 1841-46, Prime Minister;
+1842, carried Income Tax; 1846, repealed the Corn Laws; 1846-50,
+without office.]
+
+When the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, the Duke of Wellington
+bluntly declared his conviction that the result would be the
+speedy overthrow of the British Constitution. More sagacious
+observers than the great field-marshal were of the opinion that a
+radical change must ensue, and that the Tory party, long the prop
+of Church and Throne, having lost control of legislation in the
+House of Commons through the abolition of the close and rotten
+boroughs, could never regain the seat of power by electing a
+majority of members. That these forebodings and prophecies did
+not come true was largely due to the consummate political skill
+of Sir Robert Peel.
+
+In reviewing a life so rich in public activity as Peel's it is
+impossible to point to any one important question as his
+particular contribution to the history of his time. There was
+scarcely a single great parliamentary battle in which he did not
+bear a hand on one side or the other. Indeed, hostile criticism
+has censured him for having in not a few instances carried to
+ultimate success the very measures of which, when first proposed,
+he had been the stoutest enemy. This is true of the Resumption of
+Specie Payments, the Catholic Emancipation Acts, and most notably
+of all the repeal of the Corn Laws. The characteristics which
+resulted so strangely may be accounted for in part at least by
+some knowledge of the early life of the great parliamentary
+leader.
+
+The Peels were weavers and printers of calicoes. The father of
+the Prime Minister was one of the wealthiest manufacturers in his
+generation, a thorough-going Tory, and an ardent admirer of Mr.
+Pitt. He was sent to Parliament in 1790, and his support of the
+government by his vote there, and by his contribution of fifty
+thousand pounds to the war fund, won for him, in 1800, a
+baronetcy. There had been Robert Peels before his day, but now
+for the first time there was a Sir Robert.
+
+Sir Robert's most loving care was lavished upon the training of
+his eldest son and namesake, who from the day of his birth,
+February 5, 1788, the patriotic father had prayerfully
+consecrated to the service of his country. Many stories are told
+of the pains which the great calico-printer bestowed on the lad's
+training for a public career. We see the little lad standing on a
+table to declaim or recite to his parental mentor, and read of
+the rigor of cross-examination to which this lad of twelve was
+subjected after hearing a sermon or public address. A current
+anecdote represents the doting father as saying, " Bob, you dog,
+if you're not prime minister, I'll disinherit you." At Harrow, as
+a schoolboy he reflected credit upon his father's training, and
+at Christ Church, Oxford, he achieved the unusual honor of a
+double first class (classics and mathematics). When he left the
+university at the age of twenty-one his father provided him with
+a seat in Parliament, and so, with every favoring circumstance of
+youth, health, education, friends, and wealth, he began his
+eventful career in the House of Commons which was to be the scene
+of his best labors until the day of his death.
+
+Old Sir Robert and his son sat on the same side of the House, but
+the alert and active mind of the young man could not accept
+untested his father's political creed of hide-bound Toryism. The
+first question upon which the son and father parted company was
+on the subject of the resumption of specie payments, which had
+been discontinued in 1797 under the financial stress of the war
+with France. In 1811 the two Peels voted together against a
+resolution looking toward resumption, but the younger man's mind
+was fascinated with the economic aspects of the problem, and half
+a dozen years later, when the subject again pressed for
+settlement, he brought forward the act which placed England on a
+gold basis. The father openly bewailed the son's misguided
+course, but Peel's act became the law (1819).
+
+Before he was thirty, the younger Robert Peel had gained a
+valuable experience in administrative work by a term of six years
+(1812-1818) as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Here, as in the
+preparation of his studies at Oxford and of his speeches for the
+House of Commons, he was painstaking, methodical, thorough, and
+energetic. In fact he applied to the public business the same
+sterling qualities which had made his father and grandfather
+successful merchants and manufacturers. His most notable reform
+in Ireland, which was then in a sad condition of disorder, was
+the replacement of military rule by a well-organized civil force
+of police, acting under the orders of the magistrates. He favored
+a more liberal scheme of popular education for the unhappy
+island, but his Tory prejudices stood in the way of relieving the
+Catholics of their disabilities. Because of his avowed opposition
+to this demand, and his bitter hostility to O'Connell, the
+champion of the cause, Mr. Peel--"Orange" Peel, as the Catholic
+Irish nicknamed him--had the satisfaction of being returned to
+Parliament in 1817 for the University of Oxford, perhaps the most
+ultra-Tory constituency in the three kingdoms.
+
+In January, 1822, Peel entered the cabinet of Lord Liverpool as
+Home Secretary. From the first he showed that his mind was not
+impenetrable to the legal reforms which earnest men had long been
+advocating, but to which the Tories had turned a deaf ear. The
+reform of the criminal law, which still carried the harsh
+statutes of an unquiet age, had been ably championed by Romilly,
+Mackintosh, and others, but it was Peel's way first to oppose,
+then to admit the principle of the reform, and finally to enact
+it into enduring law. On his initiative, in 1823, "nearly one
+hundred felonies were removed from the list of capital crimes,
+and judges were empowered to withhold the death penalty in all
+cases except murder, when the culprit appeared deserving of
+mercy." Other acts originating with him consolidated and unified
+the vast and complex body of criminal statutes so as to simplify
+procedure, and facilitate the ends of justice. Some conception of
+his services in this particular may be gained from the fact that
+"he secured the repeal of two hundred and seventy-eight acts
+relating to the criminal law, embodying their useful provisions
+in eight acts."
+
+On Catholic emancipation Peel's process of conversion was slower.
+He steadily fought the proposals for relief in the House of
+Commons as long as Lord Liverpool lived, and when Canning
+succeeded to the premiership (1827), he resigned rather than
+serve under a pro-Catholic chief. When the Tories came back to
+power under Wellington, in 1828, Peel resumed the Home
+Secretaryship, with the leadership of the House of Commons, a
+position for which he possessed incomparable qualifications. His
+second administration of the home department was distinguished by
+a series of radical improvements in the criminal laws. One law
+for the punishment of offenses against the person took the place
+of fifty-seven existing acts. In 1829 he replaced the ridiculous
+London watch with the police force which has served as a model
+for many other large cities. Many who speak familiarly of the
+blue-coated guardians of the peace as "Bobbies" and "Peelers"
+would be surprised to know that these sobriquets constitute a
+popular tribute to the name of Robert Peel, the creator of the
+model force.
+
+These legal and administrative reforms, beneficent as they were,
+were not great party questions like the two others which the
+Wellington government had to face, and gained so little credit in
+the facing. The Whigs, under John Russell, urged the demand for
+the relief of Protestant dissenters from their political
+disabilities by the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. Peel
+argued against the change, but it was carried, nevertheless, and
+the Tories accepted the measure with the best grace they could
+summon. Their resistance to Catholic emancipation cost them more
+dearly. O'Connell, master of all the arts of agitation, fanned
+the excitement in Ireland into flame. His Catholic Association
+made itself heard, and felt, and feared. In June, 1828, a member
+of the government standing for election for County Clare was
+soundly defeated by O'Connell himself, a man whom the anti-
+Catholic laws disqualified from sitting in Parliament. The
+government knew not which way to turn, and O'Connell, perceiving
+his advantage, lashed his followers to the verge of an
+insurrection. This was the question on which George III. had
+broken with William Pitt a generation before, and now it was only
+by the most vehement arguments, and even by threats of
+resignation, that the ministers could obtain his son's consent to
+the inevitable. In a speech of four hours' duration Peel
+explained the measures to the House of Commons, confessing that
+the necessity under which he acted "was the severest blow it had
+ever been his lot to experience." The speech was an admission of
+defeat, and an elaboration of the measures by which the
+government, in the hour of concession, proposed to limit the
+"dangerous power of the Roman Catholics." The bill became a law,
+and the Irish Catholic members began to sit in Parliament--with
+some of the disturbing consequences which no one foresaw better
+than Peel himself.
+
+The Wellington ministry barely survived the strain of carrying
+Catholic emancipation. The year 1830 found Sir Robert Peel--the
+elder baronet having died--the leader of the opposition. In this
+character he led his party against the Reform Bills of 1831-32.
+Their weak points were mercilessly laid bare, and the excellences
+and past glories of the existing system were effectively
+displayed. But nothing at that day could stop the progress of
+reform, as the King and peers soon learned.
+
+The defeat of the Tories in the first general election under the
+Reform Act was overwhelming. They mustered less than one-fourth
+of the House of Commons. It seemed to most cool political
+observers that the Whigs who now assumed office could not be
+displaced for a decade at least. The spirit of change was alive
+in all the nations of western Europe, and in England there seemed
+to be small need of a political party whose steady resistance to
+innovation was relieved only by the exceptions in which the party
+had espoused reform in extremity to save its own existence.
+Wellington and the rigid Tories of his stripe saw no hope for
+their party, and little enough for England in the way along which
+she was plunging. Peel, however, was supremely suited to the
+times. Bound to the party of Church and Crown by the traditions
+of his father, he nevertheless was endowed with a mind which was
+not quite dominated by prejudice. The study of facts, the
+examination of conflicting claims, the weighing of argument, had
+their full effect upon him, and he had the courage of his
+convictions. At this juncture, when so much was shifting which
+had anchored England to the past, Sir Robert Peel, with his
+clear-eyed vision, his trained judgment, his honesty, and his
+moderation, formed a rallying point for those Tories who had no
+other leader, and attracted to him moderate and enlightened men
+of whatever party who feared the unbalanced radicalism of the
+day, and who were bent on preserving or conserving the best
+elements which remained of the ancient Constitution of England.
+From such accretions grew up a party which gradually dropped the
+name of Tory and adopted that of Conservative. One of Peel's
+biographers, writing of this period as Peel's opportunity, says:
+"Since Conservatism, like Liberalism, is an imperishable instinct
+in human nature, every society must contain a Conservative party,
+and such a party speedily develops, even amid the wildest storm
+of revolution. The Reform Act of 1832 had made room for a
+Conservative party suited to the age. The Tories had been weak
+because their strength was confined to the landed interest.
+Possessed by a panic-dread of change, bred by the events of the
+French Revolution, they had refused to admit any new interests to
+a share of power. In their despite the Reform Act had transferred
+the control of politics from the aristocracy to the middle class.
+But the English middle class was naturally Conservative. It was
+orderly, it was rich, it was sensitive to social influence, it
+was devout and serious in a stiff, unbending way. Some reforms
+certainly it required; an effective administration for the great
+towns where it lived and traded; the amendment of a poor law
+which shocked all its economic maxims; the abolition of negro
+slavery which revolted its religion; the abolition of laws which,
+pressing hardly upon non-conformists, revolted its sense of
+justice. It had not yet declared for free trade, although it
+might be expected to do so. The ameliorations which the middle
+class at this time desired, Peel was ready to approve, and these
+ameliorations once granted, the middle class would tend to be
+Conservative. But theirs would not be the conservatism of squires
+and rectors. They would incline to a conservatism of their own,
+and they would want a leader of their own to formulate it and to
+organize them. They would want a statesman who was bone of their
+bone, and flesh of their flesh; a good man of business, cautious,
+but open to practical suggestions, one who would satisfy their
+ideal of industry and economy; one who would always be grave and
+decorous, never puzzle them with epigrams or alarm them with
+rhetoric; in short, such a great man as they could conceive. Such
+Sir Robert Peel was. There never breathed a politician more truly
+congenial to them. He represented their virtues and their
+failings; he shared their talents and their prejudices; he was
+always growing in their confidence; and when he died lamented by
+all his fellow-citizens, he was most deeply lamented by them."
+
+With such tact and such mastery of the political situation did
+Peel conduct himself in the years of opposition--now mildly
+criticising the government's policy, now joining forces with it,
+and now tearing its policies to pieces--that he constantly grew
+in the national esteem, and began to be looked upon as the
+inevitable successor of the Whigs. His turn came sooner than any
+one expected, in December, 1834. It was too soon, in fact, for
+the first Peel ministry could maintain itself but a few months,
+failing to secure a majority of Parliament. Yet in this brief
+lease of power Peel gave evidence of his fitness to govern. He
+undertook the reform of the ecclesiastical courts, gratified the
+Dissenters by proposing to remove the regulations which required
+all marriages to be celebrated according to the rites of the
+Established Church. He even addressed himself to the delicate
+question of settling the temporalities of the Established Church
+in Ireland, where the collection of church tithes was accompanied
+with much disorder and distress, arising from the fact that the
+vast majority of the tithe-payers were hostile to the Protestant
+bishops and clergy whom they were taxed to support. The
+opposition, led by John Russell, took advantage of the prejudices
+surrounding this subject and forced a succession of adverse
+votes, in consequence of which the Peel ministry abandoned office
+in April, 1835, after one hundred days of power--a period
+sometimes considered the most brilliant in Peel's whole career.
+
+For six years Sir Robert Peel remained in opposition, conducting
+himself so sagaciously as to gather about him all disaffected
+elements of the disintegrating majority. Peel saw to it that
+whatever popular measures of reform were carried by the Melbourne
+ministry should be credited largely to Conservative support.
+Wellington still survived as a great national figure, but his
+political influence was gone, and there was no one in the Whig or
+Liberal camp who could dispute Peel's position as the leading
+public man of England. Of his course at this time he said himself
+(1838): "My object is that by steadily attending to our duty, by
+censuring the government on all occasions when they deserve it,
+enforcing our principles by aiding them to carry those measures
+which we think right, even though by so doing we may be rescuing
+the government, we may establish new claims upon the approbation
+of the country."
+
+The majority of the House of Commons was made up of incongruous
+elements, whose interests were at variance on many questions.
+Peel actually came to the rescue of the ministers not once, but
+so many times as to give bitterness to the taunt hurled at them
+by a Radical orator: "Why! the right honorable member for
+Tamworth (Peel) governs England. The honorable and learned member
+for Dublin (O'Connell) governs England. The Whigs govern nothing
+but Downing Street. The right honorable member for Tamworth is
+contented with power without place or patronage, and the Whigs
+are contented with place and patronage without power!"
+
+Hard times came on and the nation faced an annual deficit.
+Distress was widespread among the people, nourishing the Chartist
+agitation on the one hand, and giving point to the arguments of
+the Anti-Corn Law orators on the other. There was pressing need
+for a wise and energetic Prime Minister, and hope of such
+qualities in Lord Melbourne had long since failed. The general
+elections of 1841 showed a clear majority for the Conservatives,
+and in August Sir Robert Peel came back to power, backed by a
+consolidated party and trusted by the nation.
+
+The most pressing problems were financial. Peel proposed a
+modification of the Corn Law duties, at the same time defending
+the system of protection, not in the interests of the
+agriculturist class, but to make England independent of foreign
+countries for its food supplies. His proposals were enacted into
+law. His first budget attempted to turn the customary deficit
+into a surplus by means of an income tax of seven pence in the
+pound on incomes of one hundred and fifty pounds and upward. His
+revision of the tariff on imports introduced important changes
+looking toward increased freedom of trade, especially in the raw
+materials of manufacture. The times improved; revenue exceeded
+expenditure; consols were quoted at only a fraction below par,
+and two hundred and fifty million pounds of the national debt was
+converted from three and one-half per cent into a loan paying
+three and one-fourth per cent for ten years and three per cent
+thereafter. By another far-reaching measure--the Bank Charter
+Act--Peel placed salutary restrictions upon the issue of paper
+money, and increased his reputation as a master of financial
+legislation.
+
+From year to year, as the surplus revenue increased, the
+government employed it to cut down the duties upon imports. From
+wool, cotton, and glass, and many minor items they were entirely
+removed, and there were reductions throughout the schedules. The
+grants in aid of education were trebled in the face of bitter
+protest from his own party. Education in Ireland was aided by
+grants to the Catholic College at Maynooth and by the
+establishment of other "Queen's colleges" in affiliation with the
+university at Dublin.
+
+In one way and another Ireland played a great part in the history
+of this administration. In 1843 the agitation of O'Connell, for
+the repeal of the union of Ireland with England, culminated in
+immense and angry meetings which threatened the public peace. The
+government then took the matter in hand, "proclaimed" the
+gatherings and arrested O'Connell. It was the failure of the
+potato crop of 1845, and the consequent Irish famine which forced
+Peel to abandon the last stronghold of protection and recommend
+the total and absolute repeal forever of all duties on all
+articles of subsistence. The history of the repeal of the Corn
+Laws, in 1846, has already been given. On the day on which the
+bill passed to its third reading in the House of Lords, all the
+enemies of the government, led by Tory protectionists who
+considered themselves betrayed by their own Prime Minister
+combined to overthrow him. On a bill for the protection of life
+in Ireland Peel was defeated by seventy-three votes. Four days
+later, on relinquishing his place at the head of the government
+he pronounced his memorable valedictory. He should leave a name,
+he said, severely censured by many who deeply regretted the
+severance of party ties, censured also by all sincere
+protectionists. "I shall leave a name execrated by every
+monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamors for
+protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit. But
+it may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with
+expressions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot it is
+to labor and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their
+brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with
+abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer
+leavened by a sense of injustice."
+
+Peel never returned to office. His conversion to free trade had
+split his party, and the Whigs, under John Russell, succeeded to
+the direction of affairs. He remained in the House of Commons,
+and with such personal following as yet remained to him,
+supported the administration. The protectionists were rallied and
+led by George Bentinck and Benjamin Disraeli, whose star waxed as
+Peel's began to wane. Death put a sudden end to his activity. He
+was thrown from his horse while riding up Constitution Hill in
+London, and died on the second of July, 1850. In accordance with
+his expressed wish, his family declined the honors of a public
+funeral, and he was buried without ostentation in the family tomb
+at Drayton Bassett. His statue, voted by the House of Commons,
+was placed in Westminster Abbey.
+
+The Duke of Wellington, in his simple way, said of his late
+associate: "I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had a
+more lively confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire
+to promote the public service. In the whole course of my
+communication with him I never knew an instance in which he did
+not show the strongest attachment to truth; and I never saw in
+the whole course of my life the smallest reason for suspecting
+that he stated anything which he did not firmly believe to be the
+fact." Remarkable testimony this, concerning a great politician.
+From Disraeli, who would perhaps be less drawn to this
+qualification of a statesman, comes this word of praise, with
+many of detraction: "Nature had combined in Sir Robert Peel many
+admirable parts. In him a physical frame incapable of fatigue was
+united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He
+was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and
+with great powers of application, which were sustained by a
+prodigious memory, while he could communicate his acquisitions
+with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man under any
+circumstances and in any sphere of life would probably have
+become remarkable. Ordained from his youth to be busied with the
+affairs of a great empire, such a man, after long years of
+observation, practice, and perpetual discipline, would have
+become what Sir Robert Peel was in the latter portion of his
+life--a transcendent administrator of public business and a
+matchless master of debate in a popular assembly."
+
+The masterly debater never rose to heights of eloquence. His
+thorough and practical mind enabled him to study, sift, and give
+form and substance to the broad political and economic
+conceptions of more idealistic men. Inheriting the narrow
+political creed of his father, he can scarcely be blamed if his
+mind came slowly to advanced positions. Rather shall he not be
+commended who, with such prepossessions and prejudices, and with
+such party co-workers, keeps his mind open to conviction? "The
+resumption of cash payments, the amendment of the criminal law,
+the institution of the Irish constabulary and the London police,
+Catholic emancipation and the emancipation of trade, and a host
+of reforms only less beneficial than these make up a record of
+useful labor which has seldom been surpassed."
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  What unusual preparation had Peel for his public career?
+2.  Upon what political question did he and his father separate?
+3.  Describe his relations to Ireland as Chief Secretary.
+4.  What services did he render to criminal law?
+5.  What police reform is due to him?
+6.  What two famous party questions did he resist, but finally
+of necessity accept?
+7.  Why was Peel especially fitted to lead the new Conservative
+party, formed after 1832?
+8.  What fitness to govern did Peel show in his first ministry?
+9.  How did he serve his country as a member of the opposition?
+10. How did he meet the financial needs of England in his
+second ministry?
+11. How did his enemies finally overthrow him?
+12. Why is Peel's life, in view of his inheritance, especially
+worthy of honor?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+SIR ROBERT PEEL.    J. R. Thursfield.
+SIR ROBERT PEEL.    Justin McCarthy.
+BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES. Walter Bagehot.
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+SHAFTESBURY AND PHILANTHROPY
+
+[ANTONY ASHLEY COOPER, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, born April
+28, 1801; died October 1, 1885; educated at Harrow and Christ
+Church, Oxford (first-class in classics, 1822); Member of
+Parliament 1826; bore a leading hand in legislation for improving
+condition of laboring classes; President of Ragged School Union,
+etc.; succeeded to the earldom on the death of his father, in
+1851.]
+
+The industrial expansion of England in the nineteenth century was
+not a blessing unalloyed. It built great cities and created
+enormous wealth, and gave employment at advanced wages to a
+vastly increased population. But it brought with it changes in
+the social condition of the laboring classes which were
+productive of severe hardship.
+
+The England of the olden time had been an agricultural country
+whose laborers, though poorly paid, either worked under mild
+conditions in the fields, or followed their trades in their
+cottages and workshops. The introduction of the steam engine
+brought with it a demand for fuel which forced thousands of men,
+women, and children to delve in the mines, and the use of
+machines and the adoption of the factory system shut up other
+thousands of both sexes, and all ages, to labor for excessive
+hours in crowded cities under unsanitary conditions. At the
+present time the system of legislation regarding the employment
+of women and minors, and the regulation of unsanitary conditions
+of labor is so thorough that it is difficult to conceive that it
+has all been of recent growth. When the enemies of the abuses in
+mine and factory first raised their voices in the British
+Parliament, they were even told that such things were not proper
+subjects of legislation. In the opening years of the century the
+elder Robert Peel had attacked one of the foulest of industrial
+abuses--the "apprentice system." Under this system the pauper
+children of London and the south of England were rented out to
+the tender mercies of the avaricious cotton manufacturers of the
+north. From the age of seven they were compelled to work in the
+mills at long hours, under unhealthful conditions, and without
+opportunity of education or proper recreation. When not at work
+they were huddled in comfortless barracks little better than
+slave-pens. No wonder they grew up to be hopeless and brutalized,
+if they were so unfortunate as to survive the arduous period of
+their industrial bondage--for it was no less than that. Peel's
+act of 1802, and other remedial legislation which supplemented
+it, did away with the worst features of this white slavery, but
+the general condition of the women and children in the English
+factories and mines continued to be such as to move deeply the
+sympathies of the humane.
+
+In the year 1833 the little group of humanitarian leaders who had
+succeeded in turning the attention of the nation to the
+disgraceful condition of child labor, were striving to get a
+hearing in the House of Commons for their "short time" proposal--
+a law framed by Michael Thomas Sadler, for the purpose of
+limiting the hours of child labor in textile factories to ten
+hours a day. Sadler had lost his seat in Parliament, and a new
+spokesman was needed for the cause. The committee ventured to ask
+Lord Ashley to take charge of the bill, and his acceptance
+enlisted in the humanitarian movement a young man who was
+destined to be its champion for half a century.
+
+Antony Ashley Cooper, then sitting in the House of Commons under
+the name of Lord Ashley, and after 1851 known to the world as the
+seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was one of the most remarkable
+Englishmen of the century. This new-found champion of the
+working-classes was born in London, April 28, 1801. His father
+was the sixth Earl of Shaftesbury, and his mother was a daughter
+of the third Earl of Marlborough. The father's preoccupation in
+public life and his mother's social duties left the early home
+training of the lad to a pious domestic, an earnest Christian,
+whose precepts and example did more than anything else to give
+bent to his life. In later years the Earl freely owned his
+mother's housekeeper to be the best friend he had ever had. He
+did little to distinguish himself as a schoolboy at Harrow, but
+Oxford appealed to him, and he applied himself to classical
+studies at the university with a zeal which won for him a degree
+with the first honors.
+
+Parliament was the natural place for a peer's son in those days
+of pocket boroughs, and into the House of Commons he went as Lord
+Ashley at the age of twenty-five. In his diary he recorded his
+devout purpose to use his position "for the success of religion
+and true happiness," and on taking the oaths he "breathed a
+slight prayer for assistance in thoughts and deeds." A man of
+profound introspection, intense religious feeling, and sincere
+purpose to be of service to his kind, had some difficulty in
+adjusting himself to the selfish politics of the House. The first
+subject upon which he found voice was the reform of the laws for
+the care of lunatic paupers, a class whose pitiable state might
+have moved the most stolid heart. To this merciful project he
+addressed himself with a zeal and persistency which were to
+characterize his later efforts for other downtrodden classes.
+
+When the labor leaders turned to him, in 1833, to champion their
+cause, he took the question into consideration over night,
+obtained his wife's cordial approval, consulted his Bible,
+resorted to prayer, and the next day gave himself unreservedly to
+the cause. His friends of the aristocratic families shunned him,
+his parents discountenanced his design and closed their doors
+against him for many years, but, said he, in dedication of
+himself to the work, "I believe it is my duty to God and to the
+poor, and I trust He will support me."
+
+The manufacturers sought to side-track the Ten-Hours Bill by
+proposing that nothing should be done until a committee of
+Parliament should make thorough inquiry into the alleged
+conditions in the mills. But the very commission which they asked
+for could not go against the evidence of their own eyes in the
+factory towns, swarming with ignorant, ragged child-operatives,
+prematurely old. The commission reported: (1) that the work hours
+of children and adults were the same; (2) that such labor was
+resulting in the permanent physical and intellectual
+deterioration of the young; (3) that these maltreated children
+were not free agents, but hired out by parents or guardians; and
+finally, "that a case was made out for the interference of the
+legislature on behalf of the children employed in factories."
+
+In place of the radical measure of Lord Ashley the government
+carried a substitute, the Factory Law of 1833. "Night work was
+prohibited to persons under eight even in cotton, wool, worsted,
+hemp, flax, tow, and linen spinneries and weaving mills; children
+from nine to thirteen were not allowed to work more than forty-
+eight hours a week, and young persons thirteen to eighteen were
+restricted to sixty-eight hours a week. In silk factories
+children might be admitted under nine, and children under thirteen
+were to be allowed ten hours a day. Provision was made for a
+certain amount of school attendance, and factory inspectors were
+provided to inquire into violations of the statute." At the time
+Ashley and his friends bewailed the passage of the Factory Act as
+a defeat, though the former eventually admitted that "it
+contained some humane and highly useful provisions, and
+established for the first time the great principle that labor and
+education should be combined."
+
+Defeat, if that be a defeat, which forces your foe to adopt your
+own principles in order to win, only proved Lord Ashley's
+superior fitness for the leadership of the cause. Instead of
+abandoning the contest he began to prepare for a fresh assault by
+collecting information touching every part of the question. He
+visited the workrooms and lodgings of the operatives in every
+part of the land, examining at first hand their condition, and
+studying the problem in all its bearings with the same
+persistency and intellectual force which had won him his "first-
+class" at the university. Nothing which could subserve his cause
+escaped his searching inquiry, and when he arose to address
+Parliament his mastery of his subject was so complete as to
+baffle the skill of the few who durst ask him questions.
+
+As the Anti-Corn Law gained ground the labor reformers met with a
+new form of opposition. Lord Ashley was taunted with
+inconsistency in seeking the welfare of the factory workers,
+while neglecting to remedy the no less servile condition of the
+agricultural laborers. Manufacturers as high-minded as Cobden and
+Bright did not scruple to say--as doubtless they believed--that
+the outcry against the manufacturers sprang from the desire of
+the landowners to harass the opponents of "the tax on bread."
+John Bright answered Lord Ashley's arguments for the ten hours'
+clause in the bill of 1844 in a speech as vindictive as it was
+eloquent. Though Ashley was again defeated, at this time the new
+Factory Act, which was passed, carried farther the principles of
+the original law. In 1845 his calico print-works measure brought
+relief to thousands of weary little hands, and in 1847 the long-
+worked-for and earnestly prayed-for Ten-Hours Bill became a law.
+Lord Ashley had resigned his seat in Parliament, but had not
+relaxed his efforts in behalf of the bill which he had borne on
+his heart for fourteen years. When the news came that the bill,
+after going through the Commons with flying colors, had passed
+the critical stage in the Upper House, Lord Ashley's feelings
+found vent in this entry in his journal: "I am humbled that my
+heart is not bursting with thankfulness to Almighty God--that I
+can find breath and sense to express my joy. What reward shall we
+give unto the Lord for all the benefits he hath conferred upon
+us? God, in his mercy, prosper the work and grant that these
+operatives may receive the cup of salvation, and call upon the
+name of the Lord! Praised be the Lord! Praised be the Lord in
+Christ Jesus!" The operatives received the news with tumultuous
+joy, for the act brought substantial relief to fully three
+hundred and sixty thousand persons, more than two-thirds of all
+the operatives then employed in the textile industries of the
+kingdom.
+
+The manufacturers who attributed Ashley's professions of
+friendship for their employees to his class hatred of their
+masters little knew the man. His sympathies were engaged in
+behalf of the poor and weak in every calling, and the mill-hands
+were only the first whose cause he championed. The manufacturers
+had sometimes sought to divert attention from their own
+shortcomings by pointing to the greater hardship of the colliery
+workers, and in 1840 Lord Ashley took up this subject by moving
+for a parliamentary commission to inquire into the employment of
+the children of the poorer classes in mines and collieries. The
+first report of this commission, issued in 1842, is one of the
+most appalling of public documents. Sworn testimony was presented
+to show that much of the underground labor was performed by
+children under thirteen years of age, and that little boys and
+girls were set to work in the dark and noisome tunnels at the age
+of five. First as "trappers" these child laborers opened and shut
+the trap-doors in the passages of the mine. The stronger
+children, boys and girls alike, dragged and pushed the little
+coal wagons along the narrow passages--the roofs too low for them
+to stand upright, often so low as to compel them to creep on all-
+fours in the black slime of the floors. Some with laden baskets
+on their backs climbed many times a day up steep ascents. Some
+stood ankle-deep in water from morning till night in the depths
+of the pit, wearing out their little lives at the hand- pumps.
+
+"The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
+The young birds are chirping in the nest;
+The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
+The young flowers are blowing toward the west.
+But the young, young children, O my brothers,
+They are weeping bitterly!
+They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
+In the country of the free."
+
+So sang Elizabeth Barrett of the sorrows of the children of the
+mines and mills in those dismal days, and it must be said for the
+great heart of England that its beat was still true. The coal-
+owners made the pitiful plea in extenuation of all the misery and
+indecency of the mines that without the labor of women and
+children the collieries must shut down, not only for lack of
+profit, but for the cogent reason that the flexible vertebra of
+childhood were especially adapted to the constrained positions
+required in the tunnels, and that there could be no good colliers
+unless as children they became inured to the privations and
+hardships of the life. The government tried to keep the report
+out of the hands of the indignant public, but "by a most
+providential mistake," as Lord Ashley believed, it got into
+circulation, to the horror and disgust of all right-minded
+persons. The press joined in the cry for remedial legislation.
+Ashley's speech in support of his Mines and Collieries Bill made
+an unusual impression in the House of Commons. Even Cobden, who
+had been ready to sneer at the "philanthropists" who opposed the
+repeal of the tax on bread, came over to the orator's side at the
+conclusion of his two hours' plea, and wringing his hand
+heartily, declared, "I don't think I have ever been put into such
+a frame of mind in all my life." From this time he no longer
+entertained doubts of Ashley's sincerity. The Queen and Prince
+Albert added their personal support. The government threw
+obstacles in the way of the bill, and the peers mutilated it, but
+Ashley's persistency carried it at last. Henceforth women and
+girls and boys under ten were excluded from underground work, and
+a system of mine inspection was established to secure the
+observance of the law. Such a triumph for morality and humanity
+was worth more to England than many battles won by force of arms.
+
+There has been no retreat from the positions to which Lord Ashley
+carried the legislative protection of the working-classes. From
+time to time the Factory Laws were extended to cover the special
+demands of other industries, until the state had literally taken
+under its protection the whole class of children and young
+persons employed in manufacturing industries. It has done this in
+the name of the moral and physical health of the community. The
+general laws governing factories and workshops now cover a very
+wide scope. It is required that the building must be kept clean
+and sanitary; that dangerous machinery must be boxed and fenced;
+the hours of labor and meal-time for women and children are
+fixed, and children under ten may not be employed; certain
+holidays and half-holidays must be allowed to all "protected"
+persons; child-workers must go to school a certain proportion of
+the week; medical certificates of fitness for employment are
+required in the case of children; and notice of accidents causing
+loss of life or bodily injury must be sent to the government
+inspector. Many co-operated to bring about these results, but the
+chief advocate of all the beneficent reforms which have
+reinvigorated the English working-classes, saved the women from
+slavish toil and given them opportunity to make homes for their
+families, rescued the children from benumbing toil, and given
+them time for healthful recreation and mental improvement, is, by
+the common award of all, this simple-hearted Christian, Antony
+Ashley Cooper.
+
+On the fly-leaf of a book in his library the Earl of Shaftesbury
+noted in pencil some of the obstacles which beset his progress
+when seeking the good of the distressed children: "I had to break
+every political connection, to encounter a most formidable array
+of capitalists, mill-owners, doctrinaires, and men who by natural
+impulse hate all 'humanity mongers' (tell it riot in Gath!) among
+the Radicals, the Irishmen, and a few sincere Whigs and
+Conservatives.....Peel was hostile.....Fielden and Brotherton
+were the only 'practical' men who supported me, and to practical
+prophecies of overthrow of trade, of ruin to the operatives
+themselves, I could only oppose 'humanity' and general
+principles. The newspapers were on the whole friendly. Out of
+Parliament there was in society every form of 'good-natured' and
+compassionate contempt.....In few instances did any mill-owner
+appear on a platform with me; in still fewer the ministers of any
+religious denomination--so cowed were they (or in themselves so
+indifferent) by the overwhelming influence of the cotton-lords."
+
+Among his opponents Shaftesbury reckoned Peel, who continually
+sought to silence him by giving him government offices; Bright,
+whose malignant opposition has already been noticed; Cobden,
+though latterly a convert; O'Connell, Brougham, and even
+Gladstone, "the only member who voted to delay the bill which
+delivered women and children from the mines and pits."
+
+It is foreign to the purpose of this sketch to pursue the later
+labors of Lord Shaftesbury; his zeal for education; his warm
+espousal of the cause of ragged schools for the instruction of
+the waifs of the London streets; his successful agitation in
+favor of the pitiable chimney-sweeps; in short, his support of
+every cause which appealed to his sympathy for the neglected
+classes, or which promised to benefit humanity physically,
+morally, intellectually, or spiritually. He was the president of
+scores of organizations devoted to Christian and philanthropic
+work, and until the close of his long and useful life, his voice
+and influence could always be counted on to assist such worthy
+causes. As his end approached his only regret was "I cannot bear
+to leave the world with all the misery in it." The Dean of
+Westminster's suggestion that the Abbey should be his last
+resting-place, he brushed aside in favor of the parish church of
+St. Giles, where his boyhood had been passed. He died on the 1st
+of October, 1885, at Folkestone, where he had been taken for the
+invigorating sea breezes. Perhaps the old Abbey Church of
+Westminster never saw a funeral where so many classes of English
+society gathered to pay respect to a dead earl. Costermongers,
+climbing-boys, boot-blacks, cripples, flower-girls sat with
+royalty, bishops, peers, and commoners in sincere mourning for a
+nobleman who was indeed a noble man.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  What social changes accompanied the industrial expansion of
+England?
+2.  What was the "apprentice system"?
+3.  Under what influences did Lord Ashley pass his childhood and
+youth?
+4.  How was the Factory Law of 1833 secured, and what did it
+require?
+5.  How did Lord Ashley prepare for a new Factory Act?
+6.  What opposition did he meet from the Anti-Corn Law workers?
+7.  How was the passage of the "Ten-Hours Bill" in 1847 received?
+8.  What conditions were revealed by the report on mines and
+collieries?
+9.  Describe the events which led to the passage of Ashley's bill?
+10. What factory laws have since been enacted?
+11. What various kinds of opposition did Shaftesbury meet in his
+efforts for reform?
+12. To what other needy causes did he devote the remaining years
+of his life?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE AND WORK OF LORD SHAFTESBURY. Edwin Hodder.
+HISTORY OF THE FACTORY MOVEMENT.  Alfred.
+
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+LORD PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN RELATIONS
+
+[HENRY JOHN TEMPLE, Viscount Palmerston, born October 20, 1784,
+near Romsey, Hampshire; died October 18, 1865, Brocket Hall;
+succeeded to the title and the Irish peerage in 1802; educated at
+Harrow and Cambridge; Member of Parliament, 1807; at once made a
+Junior Lord of the Admiralty; 1809-1828, Secretary at War; about
+1830 joined Whig party; 1830-41,1846-51, Secretary for Foreign
+Affairs; 1852-55, Home Secretary; 1855-58, 1859-65, Prime
+Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. Buried in Westminster
+Abbey.]
+
+The Peace is the accepted name for the condition which succeeded
+in England the generation which had been spent in the wars with
+France and the first Napoleon. For forty years after the Battle
+of Waterloo (1815), this condition was unruffled by actual
+hostilities between England and any European power, unless that
+"untoward event" the Battle of Navarino (1827) and the
+bombardment of Antwerp (1832) should be so considered. Petty wars
+with the native princes of India and on the Afghan frontier
+occurred from time to time, it is true, and the infamous Opium
+War was waged against China (1839-42), but until the Crimean
+Campaigns (1853-56) and the Indian Mutiny (1857) the war spirit
+of the nation was never stirred to its depths. Continental Europe
+during these years passed through many convulsions. Bloody
+revolutions shook many states, and Prussia, Austria, Denmark,
+Turkey, and Italy were involved in wars. The hand that piloted
+England among the rocks of the tortuous channel of foreign
+politics for nearly a generation was that of Lord Palmerston, for
+nearly twenty years Foreign Secretary and twice Prime Minister of
+the Queen's government.
+
+Henry John Temple was the descendant of an historic English
+family, and was born on the Temple estates at Broadlands in
+Hampshire, October 20, 1784. He was, therefore, four years older
+than Sir Robert Peel, whom he long survived, and twelve years the
+senior of his sometime colleague, Lord John Russell. From Harrow,
+where he was reckoned the jolliest boy in the school, and the
+pluckiest fighter, he was sent to Edinburgh in charge of Dugald
+Stewart, one of the great Scottish teachers of the time, and
+thence, after three years under exceptional educative influences,
+to Cambridge. His father's death had given him the title of
+Viscount Palmerston in the Irish peerage, and before receiving
+his degree, his ambition led him to offer himself to the
+university as its candidate for the House of Commons. Though
+rejected there, a pocket borough was provided for him, and in
+1807, at the age of twenty-three, he took his seat as a member
+for Newtown, a borough in which he had never set foot. An office
+was soon found for him in the Perceval government as Secretary at
+War, a post which was charged with the supervision and control of
+military expenditure and accounts--no small responsibility at
+this juncture. During his score of years in this capacity the
+young Palmerston gave evidence of superior abilities as a bureau
+chief, while on the floor of the House his speeches marked him as
+a stanch asserter of the power of England, and a dangerous man to
+trifle with--so quick and powerful was his gift of repartee.
+During the brief ministries of Canning and Goderich he received
+flattering offers of advancement, leaving the cabinet in May,
+1828, with Canning's followers, who opposed the government of
+Wellington.
+
+The young aristocrat who had impressed some of his school-fellows
+as having no ambitions higher than to be a courtier, had forsaken
+"pigtail Toryism," as he called it, and was developing along
+liberal lines. He had been a consistent advocate of Catholic
+emancipation, an admirer of Canning's broad views, and hospitable
+to moderate propositions for the reform of Parliament. When Lord
+Grey's government was formed, in 1830, he naturally accepted
+office under it, becoming what he had long wished to be,
+Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Except for a few months
+he was the spokesman of England in the world's councils until the
+downfall of the Whigs, in 1841.
+
+For the duties of his office Palmerston had many qualifications.
+His long training in public business; his familiarity not only
+with the languages of western Europe, but with foreign public
+men, and the national customs and peculiar modes of thought and
+feeling; his social faculty which gave him ready access to the
+minds of others; and his unfailing confidence in his country and
+in himself, brought him well off from a hundred diplomatic
+battles. As time went on the nation recognized in him some of its
+own most striking characteristics, and his popularity at last
+transcended party lines. In Lord Palmerston "John Bull"
+recognized himself.
+
+Of the governing principles of his foreign policy Palmerston's
+own statement, made in 1848, is as good as can be given. It was
+not based upon any permanent alliance with other states, but
+provided for such freedom of action as should secure the
+"balance of power" in Europe, lest any single state should
+become a menace, like France in the Napoleonic era. Palmerston's
+statement was, "As long as England sympathizes with right and
+justice she will never find herself alone. She is sure to find
+some other state of sufficient power, influence, and weight to
+support and aid her in the course she may think fit to pursue.
+Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this
+country or that is marked out as the perpetual ally or the
+perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we
+have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and
+perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. And if
+I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle
+which I think ought to guide an English minister, I would adopt
+the expression of Canning, and say that with every British
+ministry the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of
+policy."
+
+The achievement of Belgian independence was the first and almost
+greatest success of the new Foreign Secretary. When the powers
+at Vienna, in 1815, were rearranging the map of Europe they had
+joined Belgium with Holland as the kingdom of the Netherlands,
+with the idea of forestalling any further advance of France in
+that quarter. The union was unnatural. Race, language, and
+religion were opposed to it, and in 1830, the Belgians revolted.
+A congress of the powers met in London to labor for a peaceful
+solution. Between the claims of Holland and the aggressive
+policy of France, a rupture was with difficulty avoided. But
+eventually, by tact and firmness, Palmerston had his way, and
+Belgium became an independent state, without precipitating a
+general European war.
+
+The formation of the Quadruple Alliance was the next incident in
+this vigorous foreign policy. Portugal and Spain were plunged in
+civil wars, the pretenders, Don Miguel and Don Carlos,
+attempting to wrest the scepter from the hands of the
+constitutional queens. Austria, preparing to interfere in behalf
+of despotism, was met, in 1834, by the announcement that a
+treaty of alliance had been signed by the four powers-- England,
+France, Spain, and Portugal. Though it remained in force but a
+short time it served its purpose.
+
+The Eastern Question next took on threatening form. Mehemet Ali,
+Pasha of Egypt, rose against the Turkish Sultan, and his son,
+Ibrahim, invaded Syria and threatened Constantinople itself. The
+Turkish empire seemed about to break in two, France supporting
+the Pasha, and so gaining a foothold in Egypt, and Russia
+befriending the Porte, and advancing her frontier to the
+Bosphorus. Such a consummation would have interposed two hostile
+powers between England and her Indian empire. In July, 1840,
+Palmerston completed the Quadrilateral Alliance, by which
+England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia agreed to restore peace in
+the Porte's dominions. This bold stroke, backed by England's
+warlike attitude, and Palmerston's characteristic threat that
+"Mehemet Ali will just be chucked into the Nile" took the spirit
+out of the French government. Mehemet Ali was left to make the
+best terms he could with the Quadrilateral, and the crisis was
+at an end. This was in July, 1841. The next month the Whig
+ministry fell, and Sir Robert Peel returned to power. Palmerston
+went out of office with flying colors. "He had created Belgium,
+saved Portugal and Spain from Absolutism, rescued Turkey from
+Russia, and the highway to India from France." It is true that
+the picture had another side, and that the very brilliancy of
+his moves, the cleverness with which he played the game of
+diplomacy, and his recklessness of the interests of foreign
+courts left feelings of bitterness and defeat in the hearts of
+many European and American statesmen. His enemies called him a
+bully, and denounced his methods as "high handed," but his
+countrymen were satisfied.
+
+From 1841 to 1846, as a member of the opposition, the ex-
+Minister exercised his functions as a critic of the spiritless
+foreign policy of Lord Aberdeen, for which he could find no
+better name than "antiquated imbecility." Upon Peel's overthrow,
+after the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846), he resumed the foreign
+portfolio in the Cabinet of Lord John Russell.
+
+At once the question of the "Spanish marriages" became acute.
+King Louis Philippe of France, and his Minister, Guizot, had
+been plotting to marry the child-queen, Isabella of Spain, to
+her worthless cousin, Don Francisco, and her sister, the
+Infanta, to the Duc de Montpensier, Louis Philippe's brother,
+with results most promising to the King and to France, but most
+distasteful to England, as Palmerston was prompt to declare,
+"Such an objection on our part may seem uncourteous and may be
+displeasing, but the friendships of states and governments must
+be founded on natural interests and not upon personal likings."
+Yet despite these protests, the marriages were celebrated.
+France seemed to have outwitted Palmerston for once. But
+vengeance was not long delayed. The "Citizen King" had few
+friends among the monarchical states of the Continent, and in
+forfeiting the friendship of England he kicked away one of the
+props of his own throne. Within two years came the Revolution
+of 1848, which cost him his crown.
+
+Eighteen hundred and forty-eight was a year of revolutions.
+Throughout western Europe the popular aspirations were
+struggling for expression. Constitutional government was
+clamorously demanded, and the despotism which had ground the
+Italian states under the heel of Hapsburg and Bourbon was for
+the moment shaken. Through her outspoken Foreign Secretary
+England let her liberal sympathies be known, but even Palmerston
+was careful to keep within the bounds of peaceful protest,
+avoiding all provocation to war.
+
+In April, 1847, at Athens, the house of Don Pacifico, a
+Portuguese Jew born on British soil at Gibraltar, was destroyed
+by a mob of Jew-baiters. As a British citizen he put in a claim
+for damages and asked the foreign office to collect it.
+Palmerston had other scores to settle with Greece, and when his
+demands met with slow response, he sent a British fleet to the
+Piraeus to lay hands on Greek shipping. Greece appealed to
+France and Russia for protection. The trouble grew to such
+proportions that the British Parliament took it up. The Lords
+censured the government for its harsh and unjust treatment of a
+friendly state. In the Commons a vote of confidence in the
+foreign policy was moved, and on this question Lord Palmerston
+delivered the greatest speech of his life. It was an exposition
+and defense of his entire official career, and no argument could
+break the force with Englishmen of the triumphant sentence in
+which it culminated. "I fearlessly challenge the verdict which
+this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a
+constitutional country, is to give on the question before it;
+whether the principles on which the foreign policy of this
+country has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led
+us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow-
+subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those who
+are charged with the government of England, and whether as the
+Roman in the days of old held himself free from indignity when
+he could say 'Civis Romanus sum,' so also a British subject, in
+whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye
+and the strong arm of England shall protect him against
+injustice and wrong!"
+
+This "Civis Romanus" speech raised the orator to the highest
+pitch of popular regard. But the premier had found him a very
+troublesome colleague on account of his confirmed practice of
+committing the government on important matters without
+consulting with his chief. He was warned by the Queen's personal
+memorandum that this habit must cease, but an unpardonable case
+occurred in 1851. Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, president of
+the French republic, executed his coup d'etat and overthrew the
+constitutional government. Without consulting Queen or Premier,
+and contrary to their express desire, Palmerston, in
+conversation with the French ambassador, approved the bold
+stroke of the Prince-President. For this indiscretion Lord
+Russell summarily dismissed him.
+
+When Lord Palmerston again took a portfolio, it was to be Home
+Secretary in the coalition cabinet of Lord Aberdeen (1852-55).
+He had become the warm friend and admirer of Lord Shaftesbury,
+whose mother-in-law, Lady Cowper, was now Lady Palmerston, the
+most gracious and skilful helpmeet that any statesman could wish
+to have. His inclination and his position enabled him to put
+through much legislation suggested by the philanthropic peer for
+the welfare of the working- classes. His knowledge of foreign
+affairs was at the service of the government, and came into
+active play when the Czar's claim to a protectorate over all
+Greek Christians in the Turkish empire brought the Eastern
+Question again to a fever heat, in 1853. The Czar Nicholas had
+said in a conversation with the British Minister concerning the
+political weakness of Turkey, "We have on our hands a sick man-
+-a very sick man; it will be a great mistake if one of these
+days he should slip away from us before the necessary
+arrangements have been made." His idea of "arrangements" was
+that Turkey in Europe should fall under Russian protection,
+leaving England free to control her direct route to India by way
+of Cyprus and Egypt. English diplomacy encouraged the Sultan to
+reject the Russian claim to the uttermost. The result was war.
+Turkey first declared it against the Russians, who had already
+invaded her Danubian principalities. Palmerston held that it was
+the duty of Europe to preserve the balance of power by
+preventing Russia from aggrandizing herself at the expense of
+Turkey, and when the Czar refused to withdraw from the
+principalities England joined with France in declaring the war,
+which, from the scene of its chief operations against Russia,
+has since been called the Crimean. Forty years had passed since
+Waterloo and war was an exciting novelty for British youth.
+England plunged into it with enthusiasm, but the feeble and
+incompetent prosecution of the campaign against Sebastopol, with
+the mismanagement of commissary and hospitals, evoked a storm of
+opposition, before which the Aberdeen ministry collapsed. Lord
+Palmerston was the natural choice of Queen and nation to succeed
+him. He became Prime Minister in February, 1855, and though past
+his seventieth year, his energy put a new face on the military
+situation, and his diplomacy gained a substantial advantage over
+Russia in the Treaty of Paris (March, 1856), which closed the
+inglorious conflict, and postponed for twenty years her advance
+toward the Bosphorus. The Queen, who had many reasons to dislike
+the personality of her chief minister, honored him with the
+Garter, in recognition of his services to the state.
+
+Palmerston's government held together until early in 1858,
+handling with vigor the various problems of Eastern policy which
+grew out of the Crimean War, waging the brief expeditionary wars
+with China and Persia, and dealing with characteristic decision
+and pluck with the great Sepoy Mutiny in India, in 1857. To
+Palmerston belongs the credit of selecting the right person in
+Sir Colin Campbell to restore the British power in the revolted
+provinces, and his ready optimism helped to nerve the nation in
+this year of trial. John Bull felt a new pride in "Old Pam"
+when, in his Mansion House speech, in this time of national
+foreboding, he served notice on any foreign nation whom it might
+concern that "it would not be a safe game to play to take
+advantage of that which is erroneously imagined to be the moment
+of our weakness."
+
+Palmerston's willingness to alter the English conspiracy laws
+for the sake of the Emperor of the French, whose life had been
+attempted by the assassin Orsini, cost him his official head in
+February, 1858. The second Derby administration which ensued
+lasted but fifteen months, giving way, in June of the following
+year, to Palmerston's second and last government, with a
+brilliant array of advisers; Earl Russell as Foreign Secretary,
+and Mr. William Ewart Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
+The lifelong determination to spare nothing which might be
+required for the defense of his country was still strong within
+him, as is shown by his strenuous advocacy of increased
+armaments, better coast defenses, and more and more powerful
+ships. "He never ceased for a single moment to keep before the
+nation the great lesson that empires are kept as they are
+gained, by courage and self-reliance."
+
+The Civil War in America afforded one of the latest opportunities
+for the display of his characteristics in dealing with foreign
+affairs. The sentiment of the ruling class in England, the class
+to which Lord Palmerston was allied by birth, interest, and
+lifelong political association, openly showed its sympathy with
+the Southern side. Moreover, the English cotton-mills were shut
+down for lack of the raw staple, and English merchants looked
+longingly at the blockaded markets of the Confederacy. The Prime
+Minister, true to his guiding principle, made "the interests of
+England" the watchword of his policy. He was prompt to recognize
+the "belligerent rights" of the revolted states against an angry
+protest from the Union side; he was strenuous in his demand for
+apology and restitution in the case of the Confederate envoys
+whom Captain Wilkes, U.S.N., seized on board the British steamer
+"Trent"; and he taxed the endurance of Mr. Lincoln's government
+to the uttermost by allowing the "Alabama" and other Confederate
+commerce-destroyers to be built and outfitted in British ports.
+Not even the heavy bill of damages which his country had to pay
+at Geneva for this breach of neutrality has softened the
+bitterness of feeling which his action at that time engendered
+in the United States. If Lord Palmerston was the embodiment of
+"John Bull," he here exhibited the national character at its
+worst.
+
+The "evergreen" premier, vigorous almost to the last, died at
+Brocket in October, 1865. He had outlived many of the traits
+which had laid him open to attack and criticism in his younger
+days, and had gained in weight and dignity. The knowledge of
+what he had done for England, how he had stood for her interests
+in the Commons, and won victories for her in foreign courts,
+and had penetrated and frustrated the designs of her enemies,
+gave him a splendid position in the esteem of English patriots.
+They even looked kindly upon his foibles, his foppish attire,
+his fondness for the turf, and his frivolous gayety, which shone
+undaunted when the national gloom was blackest. When he died
+there was a general belief that England had lost a son who had
+spared nothing in laboring for her aggrandizement, and he went to
+his last resting-place in Westminster Abbey as one who had
+earned a place among her most useful servants.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  Describe the early career of Palmerston.
+2.  How was he especially qualified for the position of Secretary
+of Foreign Affairs?
+3.  What was the chief principle of his foreign policy?
+4.  How was the independence of Belgium brought about?
+5.  What was the work of the Quadruple Alliance?
+6.  How did Palmerston deal with the Egyptian revolt and why?
+7.  What was England's attitude toward the "Spanish Marriage"?
+8.  Describe the "Civis Romanus" speech and the reasons for it.
+9.  Why was Lord Palmerston dismissed from the Cabinet?
+10. What conditions brought on the Crimean War and what was
+England's share in it?
+11. What was Palmerston's attitude in the American Civil War?
+12. How did England regard the premier in the last years of his
+life?
+
+
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF VISCOUNT PALMERSTON. Lord Dolling and Bulwer.
+VISCOUNT PALMERSTON.         L. C. Sanders.
+HENRY HAVELOCK.             (English Men of Action Series.)
+THE INDIAN MUTINY.           G. B. Malleson.
+THE WAR IN THE CRIMEA.       Gen. Sir Edward Hamley.
+
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+GLADSTONE AND THE IRISH QUESTION
+
+[WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE, born, Liverpool, December 29, 1809;
+died, Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales, May 19, 1898; educated at
+Eton and Christ Church College, Oxford University (double first-
+class, 1831); Member of Parliament for Newark as a Tory, 1832
+46; wrote, 1838, "The State in its Relations with the Church";
+held minor financial offices in Peel administration; 1843-45,
+President of Board of Trade; 1847-65, Member of Parliament for
+Oxford University; 1852, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord
+Aberdeen; 1858, Commissioner to the Ionian Islands; 1859,
+Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston; 1865,
+defeated as candidate for Oxford but returned for South
+Lancashire as a Liberal; leader of House of Commons; proposes
+radical Reform Bill; 1868, Member of Parliament for Greenwich;
+1868-74, Premier (I.); Disestablishes Irish Church; carries
+National Educational Law, Ballot Law, Irish Land Act; abolishes
+purchase in the army; resigns Liberal leadership in 1875, and
+publishes works on ecclesiastical controversy; 1876, attacks
+Disraeli's Eastern policy in letters on Bulgarian atrocities;
+1880, Member of Parliament for Midlothian; 1880-85, Premier
+(II.); Irish Coercion Acts; new Land Acts; Arrears of Rent Act;
+Franchise and Redistribution Acts; 1886, Premier (III.); First
+Home Rule Bill Fails; 1892-94, Premier (IV.); 1893, Second Home
+Rule Bill carried through the Commons, thrown out by the Lords;
+retires from public life March, 1894; buried in Westminster
+Abbey.]
+
+From the first day of the nineteenth century to the last the
+statesmen of England have had one standing problem to face. It
+might come up under various forms and disguises, and it might
+seem to demand various remedies, but in some shape or other the
+woes of Ireland have always furnished the test of practical
+statesmanship, and have often been the rock on which proud
+administrations have met with disaster.
+
+By nature Ireland would seem formed for peace and plenty.
+Happily located with the protecting bulwark of Great Britain
+between their emerald isle and foreign foes, blessed with a mild
+and equable climate, and inhabiting an island of singular
+fertility, the Irish would seem to have been marked for
+fortune's favors. Yet such has been the misgovernment of the
+English that the Irish have seen their paternal acres pass into
+the hands of aliens and absentees, their religion made a brand
+of shame and outlawry, their Parliament corrupted and done away,
+their industries crippled and bound down, and themselves reduced
+to wretched poverty.
+
+At the outset of the century the Act of Union went into effect,
+abolishing the Irish Parliament and admitting Irish (Protestant)
+Lords and Commons to the Parliament at Westminster. Pitt
+believed that the change would strengthen the empire and help
+Ireland as well, but it was brought to pass by means of lavish
+bribery, and sorely against the wish of the Irish patriots.
+Furthermore, the determination of Pitt to commend the act to
+Ireland by removing the political disabilities which barred
+Catholics from membership in Parliament was thwarted by the
+stiff-necked George III., who had got it into his head that such
+a concession would do violence to the Protestantism of his
+coronation oath. Pitt resigned in disgust, and Catholic
+emancipation had to await until England had finished Napoleon's
+European business and could turn her hand to the troubles nearer
+home. It was finally carried, in 1829, by Wellington and Peel,
+the reform being fairly forced upon them by the tremendous
+agitation in its behalf by the eloquent Daniel O'Connell and his
+comrades of the Catholic Association. To save the nation from
+civil war the government yielded with scant grace, and O'Connell
+and his "tail" of Irish Catholics came into Parliament to form
+a new and perplexing element in all subsequent political
+calculations.
+
+From his vantage-ground as a member of Parliament O'Connell led
+a fresh agitation for the "Repeal," meaning the repeal of the
+Act of Union which had destroyed the Dublin Parliament. His
+oratory, which in its power over vast multitudes of his
+emotional countrymen has never been surpassed, made him the idol
+of his party. To boisterous congregations of tens of thousands he
+declaimed his bitter harangues on Saxon injustice to the Celt.
+But when the people had been brought to fever heat the agitation
+failed because the orator proved to be a voice and nothing more.
+He yielded meekly to the proclamation of the government
+forbidding further meetings, and his followers forsook him when
+they saw that he would not cross the Rubicon and take arms after
+words had failed. The society called "Young Ireland," formed
+about 1840, took up the agitation for Irish nationality, and
+carried it to greater lengths than O'Connell had dared. Its
+fiery young leaders, Smith O'Brien, Meagher, and Mitchel,
+preached sedition with voice and newspaper press, and in 1848,
+only by the vigorous exertion of physical force was open
+rebellion averted. The principal men of the Young Ireland party
+were seized and condemned to death for high treason, though they
+ultimately got off with transportation to Australia, whence most
+of them eventually found their way to America, whither
+thousands of their countrymen had emigrated since the famine
+year of 1846.
+
+The famine marks a turning-point in the history of the relations
+of England and Ireland. As has been narrated in another place,
+it was the dearth of food in Ireland which forced the government
+of Sir Robert Peel to do what the Cobdenites had been demanding
+for ten years, and repeal the Corn Laws. Probably the
+distressful plight of the Irish peasant had never been brought
+so strongly to the attention of Englishmen as by the reports
+which now reached England from the agents of the relief
+committees who visited every part of the island ascertaining
+conditions and distributing food. From this time a considerable
+number among the English Liberals carried the sad state of
+Ireland upon their heart and conscience. Another result of the
+famine which was to exercise enduring influence upon Irish
+politics was the emigration to America. The hundreds of
+thousands who came to the free republic at this time soon made it
+the asylum of Irish patriots, the hot-bed of anti-English
+conspiracies, and the source of a swelling stream of revenue for
+the Irish nationalist treasury.
+
+It was in America that the next alarm was sounded after two
+unquiet decades. A widely ramified secret society, the Fenian
+Brotherhood, sprang up among the Irish exiles and emigrants in
+the United States about 1857, its members swearing "to free and
+regenerate Ireland from the yoke of England." The movement
+spread to Ireland, and Fenian lodges were organized even on
+British soil. The close of the American Civil War set loose many
+Irish veterans who eagerly enlisted in the cause of "the Irish
+Republic." The reports of vast enlistments and contributions in
+America alarmed the British government. In February, 1866, the
+Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in Ireland, and scores of
+suspects were thrown into jail. In May an armed band of Irish-
+American Fenians crossed the Niagara River to invade Canada. The
+attempt failed miserably, as did the plans for a general rising
+in Ireland. But a succession of surprises, jail deliveries,
+gunpowder plots, and the like, kept the English government in a
+flutter for several years, and gave the name of Fenian a place
+in the somber side of the century's history. The most notable
+result of the Fenian outbreak, beyond its obvious one of
+embittering the feeling between the governing nation and the
+subject race, was that it aroused one man--and he the greatest
+statesman of his time--to the need of providing some far-
+reaching and sufficient remedy for the disease which showed such
+virulence. "We know," says McCarthy, the historian of the epoch,
+"that even the worst excesses of the movement impressed the mind
+of Mr. Gladstone with a conviction that the hour was appropriate
+for doing something to remove the causes of the discontent that
+made Ireland restless.....While many public instructors lost
+themselves in vain shriekings over the wickedness of Fenianism,
+and the incurable perversity of the Irish people, one statesman
+was already convinced that the very shock of the Fenian
+agitation would arouse public attention to the recognition of
+substantial grievance, and to the admission that the business of
+statesmanship was to seek out the remedy and provide redress."
+
+The statesman who accomplished the disestablishment of the Irish
+Church, reformed the Land Laws, and devoted the closing decade
+of a great career to a fruitless endeavor to secure to Ireland
+the benefits of self- government, certainly ranks among the
+century's foremost Englishmen. In length of parliamentary
+service, in the frequency and duration of his terms as premier,
+in administrative ability, in moral force, and moving eloquence,
+it would be difficult to find in the long history of English
+statesmanship a name which shines with a purer ray than that of
+William Ewart Gladstone.
+
+The family name was anciently Gledstane, and the ancestry on
+both sides of the house was purely Scotch. Sir John Gladstone
+made his own way in life, amassed a fortune as a corn merchant
+in Liverpool, and became a member of Parliament and a follower
+of Peel. His gentle and pious wife admirably supplemented his
+masterful nature, and the sons of the household were brought up
+in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. At the age of eleven
+the third son, William Ewart Gladstone, was sent away to Eton,
+where his two brothers were already at school. Here his piety
+and studious habits militated against his popularity, but here
+his intellectual ambition was aroused and his soul was enriched
+by the closest intimacy with Arthur Hallam, whom Tennyson's "In
+Memoriam" has eulogized. Like Canning he was a precocious
+orator, and edited the school paper with an ability which led
+some of his contemporaries to predict a great future for him. "I
+am confident," said Arthur Hallam, "that he is a bud that will
+bloom with a richer fragrance than almost any whose early
+promise I have witnessed." At Christ Church, Oxford, he
+justified the hopes of his friends- -a quiet, abstemious, reading
+man, mighty in debate, learned and devout in theology, and a
+tower of strength in examinations. He graduated with a double
+first class (classics and mathematics) in 1831, as Robert Peel
+had done a generation earlier. His choice of a career would have
+taken him into the clergy of the Church of England, but his
+father saw in him the making of a parliamentary leader, and to
+the House of Commons he was accordingly returned in 1833,
+entering the first Reformed Parliament as a Tory.
+
+Sir Robert Peel was then engaged in rallying the shattered
+forces of Toryism under the new name of Conservatives, and
+building up a working opposition. He welcomed the eloquent young
+Oxonian, and when he became Prime Minister in December, 1834, he
+gave William Gladstone one of the minor offices in his
+shortlived government. In the spring of 1835 he was again a
+private member of the House, free to devote himself to the
+religious and literary pursuits which appealed so strongly to
+him. In 1838, when the Tractarian movement was at its height,
+Gladstone wrote his book on "The State in its Relations with the
+Church." Reviewing the work Macaulay described the author as
+"the rising hope of the stern and unbending Tories," words often
+quoted in later years, when his political bedfellows were of
+quite another sort. The book increased the author's reputation.
+In 1839 he was married to Miss Catharine Glynne of Hawarden
+Castle, Flintshire. In 1840 his second important book, a
+vindication of High Church principles, came from the press. The
+next year his leader, Peel, came back to power, giving
+Gladstone, of course, a post in the government (vice-president
+of the Board of Trade). Gladstone was then a protectionist like
+his party chief. He bore a hand in the preparation of the tariff
+legislation of that epoch-making administration, and though
+temporarily not a member of the House of Commons when the bill
+for the repeal of the Corn Laws was carried, in 1846, he helped
+to frame it, and to secure its passage. He had been fully
+converted to the principles of free trade as preached by Richard
+Cobden and the Manchester school, and remained true to that
+principle to the last.
+
+Going out of office, in 1846, with the fall of the Peel
+ministry, Mr. Gladstone continued to occupy a prominent place in
+Parliament, acting with the group of Peelites, so called, who
+kept alive the name and principles of the lost leader. Though
+still accounted as of the Tory party, Mr. Gladstone's alert and
+open mind led him to make fresh and independent studies of
+current political questions and to decide them according to his
+own enlightened judgment. The result was to weaken by degrees
+the ties which bound him to the Tories and to knit more closely
+the bonds which were to unite his fortunes with the Liberals. In
+1852, the Peelites having joined the Liberal coalition to
+overthrow the Derby-Disraeli ministry, Mr. Gladstone's services
+were rewarded with the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, in which
+office he delivered the first of the many budget speeches for
+which he was so celebrated. From 1855 to 1859 he was again out
+of office, and without party affiliations, "a roving iceberg,"
+to use his own description. The latter year found him again at
+the head of the Exchequer, this time in the Liberal Cabinet of
+Lord Palmerston, where he served with distinction, becoming, in
+1865, the leader of the House of Commons, when the death of
+Palmerston raised his colleague, Lord John Russell, to the
+premiership. With his chief--one of the heroes of the first
+successful struggle for parliamentary reform--he now drew up the
+Reform Bill of 1866 which was intended so to modify the
+qualifications for the franchise as to admit four hundred
+thousand new voters to the electorate. Though the government was
+defeated and went out of office on the question, the principle
+scored a singular victory, for in the following year Disraeli,
+bidding high for democratic support, carried by Tory votes an
+even more liberal measure of reform. By this bill, which some
+one called his "leap in the dark," Disraeli boasted that he had
+"dished the Whigs." The taunt was thrown at him which he had cast
+at Peel "that he had caught his opponents bathing and run off
+with their clothes." Rumor imputed to him the boast that by this
+move he had got the best of Gladstone and "would hold him down
+for twenty years," yet, within a twelvemonth, Gladstone had
+attacked and defeated the government in the Commons, and before
+the end of the next year was himself Prime Minister, backed by
+a powerful majority of the Reformed Parliament.
+
+It was an Irish question which caused the overthrow of the
+Conservatives and swept the Liberals into their seats, and
+though this Gladstonian administration (1868-74) and its
+successors (1880-85, 1886, 1892-94) were rich in progressive
+measures, they are pre- eminent for what they did and attempted
+to do for Ireland. The three grievances of Ireland since the
+granting of Catholic emancipation have related to the Established
+Church, the tenure of land, and self- government. Mr. Gladstone
+took them up in succession, removing the first, ameliorating the
+second, and giving his closing years to a tremendous
+parliamentary struggle to secure the third.
+
+The Church of Ireland, as established by law and maintained by
+taxation, was an absurdity. Its doctrines were offensive to
+five-sixths of the Irish people, whose voluntary offerings went
+to support the Roman Catholic priests, while the absentee
+Anglican Protestant rectors lived luxuriously in England or the
+Continent upon the revenues of their Irish parishes. The
+situation was anomalous. In 1867 Mr. Gladstone, ardent Anglican
+though he was, espoused the cause of Irish disestablishment, and
+went to the country on the issue, winning the parliamentary
+elections by a splendid majority. There was loud outcry from the
+British Tories, who professed to fear for the existence of the
+Church of England itself. The majority of the English clergy
+denounced the proposition, and some even declared its author a
+madman; but Mr. Gladstone pursued his chosen way with energy and
+directness. In one of those elevated speeches with which he was
+accustomed to ennoble debate, he laid the details of his plan
+open to the Commons. The Irish Church was to be disestablished
+and disendowed, its bishops were to lose their seats in
+Parliament, and it was to become a free and independent
+ecclesiastical body, like the Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or
+Catholic churches, without further aid from the state. "I
+trust," said the impassioned advocate, "that when instead of the
+fictitious and adventitious aid on which we have too long taught
+the Irish establishment to lean, it shall 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 upon a new era of existence--an
+era bright with hope and potent for good." The Lords did not
+seriously oppose a measure for which the country had spoken so
+distinctly, and the bill became a law, July 26, 1869. One
+standing grievance of Ireland had thus received radical remedy.
+
+In 1870 Mr. Gladstone laid the ax at the root of another tree
+whose fruit had cursed the Irish peasantry. This was the system
+of land tenure which prevailed in the southern and western
+counties. In the province of Ulster, in the north of Ireland, the
+tenantry were of another sort, and there were other means of
+livelihood than agriculture. Out of this condition had sprung the
+so-called "Ulster tenant-right," the vital principle of which was
+that a tenant could not be evicted so long as he paid his rent,
+and "could sell the good will of his farm for what it would fetch
+in the market." This tenant-right was what Palmerston dismissed
+with the scornful remark that it was another name for "landlord's
+wrong." It did not exist elsewhere in Ireland, where a landlord
+might raise the rent and throw a tenant into the street at will.
+The Land Act, which Gladstone carried in 1870, gave legal force
+to the old Ulster custom and applied it to the whole island.
+Provision was made by which the tenant whose improvements had
+increased the value of his holding might receive compensation.
+The Irish landlords and the same class in England made a
+clamorous protest against such "state interference with freedom
+of contract," but without avail. Of what the Land Act of 1870
+accomplished, Mr. Justin McCarthy is a competent judge. He says:
+"It was a first and an experimental measure, and no first and
+experimental measure ever does quite succeed in its object. It
+has had to be amended and expanded over and over again.....But it
+introduced a new principle, which no one since has ever attempted
+to abolish. That new principle was that the Irish tenant was
+entitled to some share and property in the improvements which he
+himself had made in his farm. It was, therefore, in the best
+sense of the word, a revolutionary measure. It created a new
+principle, and that principle has since been settled. It did not
+go nearly far enough in the right direction, but it showed the
+direction in which legislation ought to go, and it was on that
+account the opening of a new era for Ireland."
+
+The same wave of reforming zeal which brought these blessings to
+Ireland gave the English nation its first system of free schools
+(1870), abolished the purchase of commissions in the army (1871),
+agreed to the principle of arbitrations in international disputes
+(the Geneva award on the "Alabama Claims" 1872), and introduced
+the vote by ballot (1872). The effort to establish university
+education in Ireland upon a basis broad enough to afford equal
+opportunities for Roman Catholic and Protestant youth was
+defeated (1873). A few months later, when the national election
+had pronounced against the liberal policy, Mr. Gladstone yielded
+his place to his rival, Disraeli.
+
+In the spring of 1874 Mr. Gladstone formally resigned the
+leadership of his party, then in opposition, and withdrew to a
+considerable degree from active participation in parliamentary
+affairs, devoting himself with his accustomed zeal to his
+studies, which at that time were concerned with ecclesiastical
+subjects. From his retirement he emerged, in 1876, to write that
+trenchant series of letters on the "Bulgarian Atrocities," which
+so stirred the indignation of the English people that Disraeli
+was unable to carry them into an armed alliance with the red-
+handed Turk against the Russians. His fierce and persistent
+onslaughts upon the foreign policy of the government at length
+carried the nation with him and drove Disraeli (now Lord
+Beaconsfield) from power.
+
+No one but Mr. Gladstone could be thought of to head the
+ministry, and in 1880, he came in for his second term as Prime
+Minister. The state of Ireland again concerned him deeply. He
+carried an improved Land Act, but the Lords threw out his bill to
+relieve the special difficulties which the famine of 1880 had
+brought upon the Irish tenantry, and the exasperated tenantry
+resorted to reprisals upon the persons and property of the
+landlords. The Irish Land League, under the direction of Charles
+Stewart Parnell, resisted the operation of the new Land Act until
+its worth should have been tested. Mr. Gladstone and the Irish
+leaders worked at cross purposes, and thoroughly distrusted one
+another. The government found it necessary to exert force in
+order to suppress the agrarian disorders. Mr. Parnell and his
+associates were thrown into jail, and the Land League was
+proclaimed as an unlawful association. Parnell, whose word was
+law with the Leaguers, retaliated by forbidding the tenantry to
+pay rent. In the spring of 1882, when better feeling was
+beginning to prevail, some Irish conspirators (Invincibles)
+assassinated Lord Frederick Cavendish and his secretary in
+Phoenix Park, Dublin. Cavendish was the newly appointed secretary
+for Ireland, and appears to have been mistaken for W. E. Forster,
+his predecessor, who was held responsible for the rigorous
+measures of the past winter. The National League was formed to
+take the place of the proscribed Land League, and Irish distress
+and crime continued with little abatement. The "boycott" was
+applied in its most oppressive form, rents remained unpaid, and
+evictions were frequent and distressing.
+
+Cabinet dissensions over Irish measures and general criticism of
+the foreign policy which had made a generous peace with the Boers
+of South Africa, and was accused of abandoning General Gordon to
+his fate at Khartoum, weakened its hold upon the people and their
+representatives. The Irish members held the balance of power in
+the Commons, and when, in the spring of 1885, they joined forces
+with the Conservatives, the Liberals were again unseated.
+
+Lord Salisbury and Lord Randolph Churchill, the Conservative
+leaders who came into power in 1885, enjoyed a brief and troubled
+tenure of office. The general election of 1885 was the first to
+be held under the Reform Law of the previous year, which had
+given to Ireland the same freedom of electoral franchise which
+had existed in the English and Scottish boroughs since 1869. The
+result was a great increase in the number of Nationalist members
+in Parliament. Of the one hundred and three members for Ireland
+no less than eighty-four were returned as Home Rulers, a compact
+and formidable body acting as a unit under the leadership of Mr.
+Parnell.
+
+The first leader of the little company of Irish Home Rulers that
+had appeared in Parliament in the early '70's was Isaac Butt. His
+repeated attempts to have the subject considered were as often
+rejected with derision. In his own party he was opposed by an
+element which desired to resort to aggressive measures to compel
+the English to heed Ireland's demand for local self-government.
+Prominent in this radical wing was a young Protestant, Charles
+Stewart Parnell, the grandson of Commodore Stewart of the United
+States Navy. In 1880 he was recognized as the chairman of the
+Irish Home Rulers in Parliament. For many years he continued to
+exercise a control over this party and over the Irish people such
+as no one, save perhaps O'Connell himself, had ever attained. He
+conceived and enforced the obstructive policy which so
+embarrassed the second Gladstone administration. By exasperating
+tactics, which we Americans call "filibustering," the
+obstructionists, unable to secure what they wanted for Ireland,
+succeeded in paralyzing the law-making branch of the British
+constitution. It was only by adopting new and arbitrary rules for
+choking off debate that any legislation could be passed in the
+stormy decade beginning with 1881. Arrests, suspensions, and
+expulsions of Irish members repeatedly disturbed the dignity of
+the House of Commons, and kept ever present before the English
+representatives the temper of the subject kingdom.
+
+A statesman as earnest as Mr. Gladstone, as little bound by
+precedent, and as surely impelled in his later years by a purpose
+to enact into law the wishes of the people, could not but be
+profoundly impressed by the unanimity with which, in 1885, the
+Irish used their new gift of the ballot to send men to Parliament
+who were pledged to work for Home Rule. It was no sudden
+conversion but the result of a long consideration which led to
+his open profession, in 1885, of his determination to crown his
+efforts for the relief of the Irish nation by giving them the
+separate legislative body for which they had asked with such
+persistent clamor. It is possible, in reviewing his statements
+for a dozen years previous, in the light of the final
+declaration, that his mind had been dwelling on the subject as
+his old political mentor, Peel, dwelt upon the question of free
+trade in the years before he renounced protectionism utterly.
+
+No sooner did Gladstone come into office, in 1886, than he
+concentrated his energies upon his Home Rule project. His chief
+lieutenant, John Morley, the English Radical, was sent to Ireland
+as chief secretary. In April, in one of the greatest speeches of
+a career remarkable for its eloquence, Mr. Gladstone introduced
+to the House of Commons his first Home Rule Bill, "An act to make
+better provision for the government of Ireland." It proposed to
+establish at Dublin a Parliament of Peers and Commons, under a
+lord-lieutenant appointed by the crown, and an independent privy
+council. The Irish Parliament was to have control of local
+finances except customs duties, and it was excluded from
+interference with army and navy, foreign or colonial affairs, or
+with religious endowments. An essential provision was that after
+the establishment of the Dublin Parliament Ireland should no
+longer be represented in the "imperial" Parliament at
+Westminster. A week later a "purchase of land" bill was
+introduced by the Prime Minister to provide funds for buying out
+the Irish landlords and distributing their holdings among the
+tenants. The Home Rule Bill split the Liberal party in twain.
+Lord Hartington, the Whig, Joseph Chamberlain, the Radical, and
+John Bright, the hero of the non-conformists, broke away from
+their old leader and helped to organize the "Liberal Unionist"
+party, rallying those Liberals who remained true to the Act of
+Legislative Union of the three kingdoms. Ninety-three rallied
+under this banner on April 14th, when the bill was killed on its
+second reading by a vote of 343 to 313. The nation was appealed
+to in vain. In July the Gladstonian government gave up the fight
+against the Conservative and Liberal-Unionist coalition and Lord
+Salisbury resumed the premiership.
+
+For Ireland a new era began, characterized by agrarian crime,
+anti-rent agitation under the "Plan of Campaign," and Parnellite
+obstruction at Westminster.
+
+In 1893 the "Grand Old Man," now Prime Minister for the fourth
+time, and in his eighty-fourth year, made a final endeavor to
+bring order into Ireland, by enabling her to regulate her own
+affairs. The Home Rule Bill of 1893 differed from the earlier
+measure chiefly in respect to the Irish representation at
+Westminster. Ireland, in addition to her local Parliament at
+Dublin, was granted eighty seats in the "imperial" House of
+Commons, though the Irish members might not vote on exclusively
+British measures. "This was to get over two objections: The first
+was the objection of those who complained of Ireland's being
+taxed by the imperial Parliament without representation. The
+second was the objection of those who complained that whereas
+English members could not interfere in the affairs of Ireland,
+Irish members might come over to the imperial Parliament and
+interfere in the affairs of England." The Old Man Eloquent, now
+backed by an overwhelming majority, carried the bill triumphantly
+through the Lower House only to meet defeat by a majority of ten
+to one in the Lords, the stronghold of Conservatism, where every
+progressive measure of reform has to encounter resistance at the
+outset. Though the Lords have learned to yield when the nation
+reiterates its determined demand for a law, they were spared on
+this occasion. Mr. Gladstone did not renew the bill. In March,
+1894, he withdrew forever from public life, which he had adorned
+so long and so conspicuously, his last words in Parliament taking
+the form of an impressive warning against the assertion of
+authority by the Upper House. In his last interview with the
+leader of the Irish Home Rulers he assured them of his belief in
+the ultimate triumph of their cause--a cause whose success was
+mentioned in his prayers.
+
+The Queen offered her aged public servant an earldom on his
+retirement, but his was not an ambition to be pleased with such
+empty rewards. In his beautiful castle of Hawarden, surrounded by
+his books and his family, he spent the years which remained to
+him in a graceful old age. To the last his mind remained alert
+and active. He busied himself with the classical and theological
+studies which had been the delight of his young manhood, and the
+relaxation of his active years. His translations, his
+controversial pamphlets, his letters on public questions, showed
+the refinement and vigor of his remarkable intellect. When he
+died the English-speaking world paid a universal tribute of
+respect to his memory.
+
+In linking these biographies with certain public questions or
+events, the name of Gladstone has been connected with the cause
+of Ireland--a "lost cause," as some may say, because Home Rule,
+which was to have been the capstone of his edifice, was rejected
+by the builders. But it must not be forgotten that it was
+Gladstone who swept away the burdensome Irish Church and improved
+the land laws, the franchise, and the opportunities of education
+in Ireland, and made an English statesman's name beloved in the
+Emerald Isle for the first time since Charles James Fox. Nor
+should his great work for Ireland obscure the grand achievements
+of the earlier years when he led the Liberal party through its
+wonderful program of reform in England; nor should any prejudice
+against the friend of Ireland dull our perception to the clear
+voice which so often pleaded the cause of ignorance and
+oppression at home and abroad, and touched the best that was in
+the conscience of his countrymen. A good, great, learned,
+eloquent statesman, William Ewart Gladstone towers in moral
+grandeur above his fellows like a mountain peak above the
+foothills, and the far-surrounding plain.
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  Why has Ireland menaced the peace of England for more than a
+century?
+2.  What events led up to the organization of the "Young Ireland"
+Society?
+3.  What results had the Irish famine of 1846?
+4.  Describe the Fenian agitations.
+5.  Give an account of the early career of Gladstone.
+6.  What two important books did he write on church affairs?
+7.  What view did he take of the Anti-Corn Law bill?
+8.  How did he clash with Disraeli on the reform movement of 1866?
+9.  To what three grievances of Ireland did he devote himself?
+10. Describe the events connected with the disestablishment of
+the Irish church.
+11. What did he secure to Ireland by the Land Act of 1870?
+12. What other reforms were carried through about the same time?
+13. What did he accomplish by his letters on the "Bulgarian
+Atrocities?"
+14. What difficulties beset his attempts at reform in Ireland in
+1880-85?
+15. How did the policy of Gladstone's cabinet toward the Boers
+and General Gordon weaken its influence?
+16. How did the Irish wing of Parliament make itself fell under
+the new Conservative cabinet?
+17. Describe Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886 and its defeat?
+18. What new attempt at Home Rule was made in 1893, and
+with what result ?
+19. Sum up the chief services of Gladstone to his countrymen.
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF W. E. GLADSTONE.    Justin McCarthy. LIFE OF
+GLADSTONE.                  G.W.E. Russell. W
+ILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.     James Bryce.
+A DIARY OF THE HOME RULE PARLIAMENT. Henry W. Lucy.
+YOUNG IRELAND.              C. G. Duffy.
+DANIEL O'CONNELL.           J.A. Hamilton.
+HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
+IRELAND.                    T. D. Ingram.
+
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+BEACONSFIELD AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE
+
+[BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Earl of Beaconsfield; born, London, December
+21, 1804; died, London, April 19, 1881; baptized in the Church of
+England, 1817; privately educated; studied law in a solicitor's
+office, 1821-24; 1825, published his first novel "Vivian Grey";
+1830-31, traveled in Europe and the Levant; his novel "Contarini
+Fleming" attracts notice 1832; after defeats becomes Member of
+Parliament for Maidstone 1837; marries Mrs. Wyndham Lewis 1839;
+leads the "Protectionist" attack on Peel 1846; leader of
+opposition 1849-52, 1852-58, 1859-66, 1868-74; Chancellor of
+Exchequer 1852, 1858-59, 1866-68; Premier 1868, 1874-80.]
+
+The expansion of the English domain by discovery and colonization
+or by war and conquest has been one of the distinguishing
+features of the nineteenth century. The movement may be said to
+have begun with the planting of the North American colonies two
+hundred years before. A century later the victories of Lord Clive
+and the administration of Warren Hastings, the empire-builder,
+laid a broad foundation for British dominion in India. Before the
+dawn of the nineteenth century the voyages of Captain James Cook
+in the South Pacific had opened new doors to Anglo-Saxon
+expansion in Australia, New Zealand, and the neighboring islands.
+In 1806 England wrested from the Dutch the sovereignty of Cape
+Colony at the southern extremity of Africa, the strategic half-
+way station on the main traveled sea-road to India and the East.
+Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, Aden,
+Singapore, and Hong Kong in the Far Eastern seas were acquired
+and fortified in order to protect British commerce. It could be
+said with truth that the sun never set upon the flag of England,
+and that the morning drum-beat of her garrisons saluted the sun
+in his daily journey around the world. At the close of the
+century the foreign possessions of Great Britain amounted in area
+to ten million square miles, and in population to three hundred
+and fifty million souls.
+
+The problems which have sprung from this vast colonial empire
+have been among the most serious which English statesmen have
+been compelled to face. The colonies in America and Australia
+were English in blood, language, and institutions. In South
+Africa a large proportion of the inhabitants were Dutch "Boers,"
+transferred without their consent and against their will to a
+foreign sovereignty. In India and Burma the English established
+their authority and maintained it by force of arms over teeming
+native populations of another race and religion. How to hold
+together an empire so vast and various; how to adapt
+administrative methods to its novel and changing needs; how, if
+possible, to organize the incongruous multitude of dependencies,
+colonies, and protected states into some sort of federal empire--
+these are among the newer problems of British statesmanship.
+
+Americans know how imperfectly the ministers of George III. were
+prepared to deal with such problems, and how their blundering
+resulted in the independence of the United States. The lesson of
+1776 has not been forgotten, as the history of England's
+conciliatory policy toward Canada and the Australasian
+commonwealth abundantly testifies. Lord Tennyson's verses,
+written in the year of the Queen's jubilee, give expression to
+the altered relation of the mother-country toward her colonial
+offspring:
+
+"Britain fought her sons of yore,
+Britain failed; and nevermore,
+Careless of our growing kin,
+Shall we sin our fathers' sin;
+Men that in a narrower day -
+Unprophetic rulers they-
+Drove from out the eagle's nest
+That young eagle of the West
+To forage for herself alone;
+Britons, hold your own!
+"Sharers of our glorious past,
+Brothers, must we part at last?
+Shall we not thro' good and ill
+Cleave to one another still?
+Britain's myriad voices call,
+Sons be welded each and all
+Into one imperial whole,
+One with Britain, heart, and soul!
+One life, one fleet, one flag, one throne!
+Britons, hold your own."
+
+Although as yet no statesman has arisen who has been able to
+frame a plan of federation which should weld all into "one
+imperial whole," the idea is abroad, and has occupied many minds.
+Perhaps the man whose powerful imagination first grasped the
+"imperial" idea and began to look upon Greater Britain as having
+common interests, and being capable of assuming common
+responsibilities, was Lord Beaconsfield, or Benjamin Disraeli--to
+use the name by which he first came into public notice. Death
+hushed his active mind before he could give form and substance to
+his great concept, and it was left to others trained in his
+school to propagate the idea, and just at the century's close to
+demonstrate its significance and worth. Yet what he did for
+England through a long life spent in conspicuous public service
+renders it impossible to exclude him from any list of Ten Great
+Englishmen of the nineteenth century. Nor is there in the entire
+group a personality more interesting than that of the ambitious,
+determined, witty, eloquent, and amazingly clever Israelite who
+raised himself by sheer force of intellect from an object of
+ridicule and contempt to the leadership of the hereditary
+aristocracy, membership in the House of Lords, chief minister of
+England, friend of the sovereign, and arbiter of the destinies of
+nations. On that January night in 1846, when Sir Robert Peel, as
+Prime Minister, confessed to the House of Commons his conversion
+to the theory of free trade, and his purpose to repeal the Corn
+Laws, he was answered by Benjamin Disraeli in a speech which for
+bitterness of sarcasm, brilliancy of wit, and savagery of
+denunciation, has seldom been equaled in parliamentary history.
+(See Appendix.) He denounced Peel as "a man who never originates
+an idea; a watcher of the atmosphere; a man who takes his
+observations, and when he finds the wind in a particular quarter
+turns his sails to suit it.....Such a man may be a powerful
+minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man who
+gets up behind a carriage is a great whip!" Such an attack,
+voicing the feelings of the Tory protectionists, and coming from
+Peel's own side of the House, at that critical moment, made the
+political fortune of the speaker. From that hour Benjamin
+Disraeli was looked upon as the hope of the remnant of the Tory
+party, which could no longer follow Peel.
+
+Disraeli was in his tenth year of membership in the House of
+Commons. He was a descendant of a line of Spanish and Venetian
+Jews who had sought refuge in England and prospered there. His
+father, Isaac Disraeli, had broken with the family traditions,
+devoting himself to literature instead of getting gain, and had
+renounced the faith of his fathers. The son, Benjamin, was
+baptized into the Church of England at the age of thirteen,
+educated among his father's books and in private schools, and at
+seventeen articled to a firm of London solicitors. Instead of
+practicing law the young clerk practiced authorship so cleverly
+as to make a sensation in his twenty-first year with a novel
+"Vivian Grey" (1826), the first of eleven ("Young Duke," 1831;
+"Contarini Fleming," 1832; "Alroy," 1833; "Henrietta Temple,"
+1836; "Venetia," 1837; "Coningsby," 1844; "Sybil," 1845;
+"Tancred," 1847; "Lothair," 1870; "Endymion," 1880), besides
+several long poems, burlesques, and political pamphlets, and "The
+Life of Lord George Bentinck." "Vivian Grey" was very smartly
+done, and fashionable London was captivated by its clever satire
+and witty dialogue. On the profits of his earlier books he
+traveled extensively in Europe and the Levant, where his Oriental
+imagination was strongly stimulated. Before he was thirty he had
+won his way into the most exclusive circles of London society,
+the vogue of his novels and the brilliancy of his conversational
+powers commending him to the "smart set" of the metropolis. His
+determination "to be somebody" in spite of the disadvantages of
+blood, birth, and lack of money led him to ridiculous
+affectations--yet, however ridiculed at the time, they served his
+turn, and brought him the notice that he craved. N. P. Willis,
+who saw the much-talked-about young Israelitish novelist at Lady
+Blessington's, wrote of the strange vision: "He was sitting in a
+window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected
+from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered
+waistcoat. Patent leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord
+and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets
+served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most
+remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the
+energy of his actions and the strength of his lungs, would seem
+to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and
+has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression
+conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and
+impatient nervousness; and when he has burst forth as he does
+constantly with a particularly successful cataract of expression,
+it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of
+Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordinary as his taste in
+waistcoats. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on
+his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, which on the right
+temple is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness of a
+girl." A lady who met him at dinner described him as appareled in
+a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold
+stripe on the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, lace wristbands
+to his finger tips, white gloves with flashy rings worn outside.
+Add to these the flowing black ringlets, and do not wonder that
+his hostess told the young man that he was making a fool of
+himself. Froude says he dressed in this fantastic guise to give
+the impression of folly so that his sudden displays of brilliancy
+might have the more striking effect coming from such an unlikely
+source.
+
+Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and he did not
+hesitate to compare himself with others to his own advantage. At
+twenty-nine he wrote his sister after an evening in the gallery
+of the House of Commons, "Heard Macaulay's best speech.....but
+between ourselves I could floor them all!" Egotism it doubtless
+was, but it sprang from no empty confidence in himself. The time
+was not distant when he was the acknowledged master of the House
+which looked so tempting from the galleries. He had offered
+himself as a Tory with Radical ideas--a combination as unusual as
+his style of apparel--to the electors of High Wycombe in June,
+1832, but was beaten, as he was again in the autumn. It was said
+that in one of his early candidacies he replied to an elector,
+who had asked him on what he intended to stand, in the
+sententious phrase "on my head!" In 1834 he stood for Taunton,
+only to be defeated a third time. O'Connell, who had helped him
+in his first campaign, was mortally offended by Disraeli's
+allusion to his "bloody hand" in the Taunton canvass. The Irish
+orator, in a bitter rejoinder at Dublin, denounced Disraeli as a
+Jewish traitor, "the heir at law of the blasphemous thief that
+died upon the cross."
+
+After many fruitless struggles the coveted seat was won, and in
+1837 Benjamin Disraeli entered the House of Commons for
+Maidstone, his colleague being Wyndham Lewis, the friend whose
+good offices had gained him the nomination. Not long after the
+death of Mr. Lewis, in 1838, Mr. Disraeli married his lively
+widow, a woman to whose devotion not less than to her ample
+fortune he owed a debt of gratitude which he never failed to
+acknowledge.
+
+Welcomed to the ranks of the Tory opposition by Sir Robert Peel,
+the ambitious recruit plunged at once into oratory--only to have
+his maiden effort drowned by the jeers of his hostile hearers,
+led by O'Connell's "tail" of Irish members. They mocked at his
+appeals for a hearing, and though the Tories cheered his pluck,
+he could not make it go. "At last, losing his temper, which until
+now he had preserved in a wonderful manner, he paused in the
+midst of a sentence, and looking the Liberals indignantly in the
+face, raised his hands and opening his mouth as widely as its
+dimensions would admit, said, in a remarkably loud and almost
+terrific tone, 'I have begun, several times, many things, and I
+have often succeeded at last; aye, sir, and though I sit down
+now, the time will come when you will hear me.'"
+
+Nor did he ever again fail to get a hearing. He spoke often and
+to the point, enlivening his solid argument with touches of wit
+and gleams of imagination which light up the dreary pages of the
+parliamentary journals. At the first he was the steady supporter
+of Peel, but this clever man of ideals, imagination, and insight,
+could have little in common with that prosy, plodding man of
+business, whose stronghold was in the esteem of the plodding
+middle classes. When the Tories came into power in 1841, with
+Peel as Prime Minister, he found no place in his government for
+the supporter whose talent all parties had now begun to
+recognize. The slight bred coolness, and as Peel began to veer
+towards free trade principles, Disraeli, gathering a few ardent
+Tory protectionists about him, made himself a thorn in the
+premier's side. His caustic sayings about Peel's acceptance of
+the principles of the opposition were the talk of the clubs. "The
+right honorable gentleman," he said, "caught the Whigs bathing
+and he walked away with their clothes." He characterized the
+premier's genius as "sublime mediocrity," amid shouts of
+applause, and his government, raised to office by protectionist
+votes, yet steadily promoting free trade measures, he branded as
+"organized hypocrisy." His hostility to the repeal of the Corn
+Laws was based not so much upon economic argument superior to
+that of Cobden, as upon his fundamental belief that the greatness
+of the English nation in all past centuries had been derived from
+the wise rule of the aristocratic, land-owning class, and a fond
+belief that the retention of the tariff upon imported
+agricultural produce would support this ancient pillar of the
+constitution. Furthermore, his contention that England's adoption
+of free trade would be met by rival nations with high tariffs
+against imports of English goods has been borne out by the facts
+of subsequent history, against the confident assertion of Cobden
+and the Manchester school of economists that the world would soon
+follow the lead of England in throwing down all artificial
+barriers to the exchange of commodities. Peel carried his bill,
+as we have seen, but the protectionists wreaked their vengeance
+by overthrowing his government in the moment of victory.
+
+From the hour of his defeat, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel was no
+longer a party chief. The Tory aristocracy who had lent their aid
+to the fatal coalition against him were led at first by Lord
+George Bentinck, but the real director of the organization was
+Disraeli. In 1849 he succeeded to the formal leadership of the
+Conservative opposition in the House of Commons, and in 1852,
+when the Russell ministry went out, he took office under Lord
+Derby as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the House of
+Commons. The Free Trade League bristled up at this resurgence of
+the protectionist champions, but Disraeli was too wise to invite
+a renewal of that contest which the voice of the nation had
+settled, and the subject was left to lapse into innocuous
+desuetude for half a century. Representing but a minority in
+Parliament, the ministry could maintain itself but a few months.
+December, 1852, found the Whigs again in power, where they
+remained until 1859, Disraeli using his talents the while to
+build up and consolidate the Tory opposition and to disintegrate
+the discordant elements, Free Trade, Liberal, Peelite, and
+Radical, who rallied under the government banner.
+
+In 1858-59 the Derby-Disraeli ministry enjoyed a second brief
+lease of office, and after the long Whig administration of
+Palmerston and Russell (1859-66), they succeeded to the direction
+of affairs for the third time.
+
+Out of office Disraeli continued to entertain Parliament with the
+audacious, brilliant, and often masterly speeches which he alone
+of his generation could deliver, and his short-lived experiences
+as the director and spokesman of the government policy equally
+evidenced his administrative ability, his control of his
+followers, and his knowledge of the spirit and temper of the
+Commons and the nation.
+
+When Benjamin Disraeli, the young novelist, was presented to Lord
+Melbourne at a social gathering in the early '3O's his lordship
+had graciously asked how he could serve him. To which the
+flippant young man had replied that he would like to be Prime
+Minister. In February, 1868, the resignation of Lord Derby raised
+Mr. Disraeli to the height of his youthful ambition. He was
+premier until December, 1868, when his great rival and former
+party-associate, Gladstone, wrested the honor from his grasp.
+
+During the third Derby-Disraeli ministry, the Reform Bill of 1867
+was passed. Thirty-five years before the Grey-Russell Whigs had
+disfranchised the rotten boroughs and admitted the middle class
+people of the towns to citizenship and parliamentary
+representation. As years passed the demand increased for a
+further extension of the electoral franchise. The Chartists of
+1848 demanded universal suffrage and were sternly repressed.
+After nearly a score of years the Gladstonian Liberals were
+prepared to gratify this demand in considerable measure, but
+before they could fully develop their policy, they were out and
+the Conservatives were in. It was at this juncture that Disraeli
+took "the leap in the dark," carrying, in 1867, an act "which, in
+its inevitable developments must give the franchise to every
+householder in the United Kingdom; and he gained for his party
+the credit, if credit it was, of having passed a more completely
+democratic measure than the most radical responsible statesman
+had yet dared to propose." His accession to the premiership
+evoked fresh testimony to his popularity. Mr. Froude makes no
+concealment of the attacks which were made upon him by open foes,
+or the disguised contempt of members of the aristocracy whose
+pride of birth had nevertheless allowed them to avail themselves
+of his talent for leadership. "Yet," says the same biographer,
+"when he went down to Parliament for the first time in his new
+capacity, he was wildly cheered by the crowds in Palace Yard. The
+shouts were echoed along Westminster Hall and through the
+lobbies, and were taken up again warmly and heartily in the House
+itself, which had been the scene of so many conflicts-the same
+House in which he had been hooted down when he first arose to
+speak."
+
+When Gladstone's first administration (1868-74) had exhausted its
+volcanic energies, Disraeli for a second time became the chief
+minister of the Queen, this time not to finish out a weakened
+term, but with a clear majority at his back, and with the
+confidence of the Crown and the nation. Internal reforms had gone
+far enough for the time, and foreign affairs for which Mr.
+Gladstone had shown less aptitude needed attention from some one
+who could reproduce the spirit of a Canning, a Palmerston, or a
+John Bull.
+
+The statesmen who had directed the affairs of the nation for the
+past thirty years, had seen little to be thankful for in the
+extensive colonial possessions of England. They had for the most
+part been "Little Englanders," to use a term of recent coinage,
+and while using the military power of the government to put down
+armed resistance to English sovereignty and to defend the
+integrity of the boundaries of the distant colonies, had done
+little else to hold the fabric together. Some of the most eminent
+among them were of the opinion that the possession of the
+colonies was an element of weakness. In the pursuance of such
+theories the English commonwealths of British America, Australia,
+and New Zealand were allowed to develop forms of local government
+but slightly removed from independence. Their constitutions,
+approved by English Liberal cabinets, allowed them to impose
+duties against the mother country, and exempted them from most of
+the burdens of taxation and military service which are the
+natural incidents of dependence.
+
+Disraeli's view of all this was vigorously expressed in 1872.
+"Gentlemen, if you look to the history of this country since the
+advent of Liberalism, forty years ago, you will find that there
+has been no effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much
+energy, and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the
+attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the empire
+of England. And, gentlemen, of all its efforts, this is the one
+which has been the nearest to success.....Not that I, for one,
+object to self-government.....But self-government when it was
+conceded ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of
+imperial consolidation. It ought to have been accompanied with an
+imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England for the
+enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the
+sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should
+have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by
+which the colonies should be defended, and by which, if
+necessary, this country should call for aid from the colonies
+themselves. It ought further to have been accompanied by some
+representative council in the metropolis, which would have
+brought the colonies into constant and continuous relations with
+the home government. All this, however, was omitted because those
+who advised that policy looked upon the colonies of England,
+looked even upon our connection with India as a burden on this
+country, viewing everything in a financial aspect, and totally
+passing by those moral and political considerations which make
+nations great." Further on in the same speech he had declared,
+"in my opinion no minister in this country will do his duty who
+neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible
+our colonial empire, and of responding to those distant
+sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength
+and happiness to this land." Yet his own ministry either had no
+such opportunity, or neglected it, and this far-seeing view of
+imperial relations was bequeathed unfulfilled for the guidance of
+those who were to come after.
+
+Disraeli's six years of government were, however, signalized by a
+series of exploits which restored the tarnished prestige of
+England in the councils of Europe and doubtless served, however
+indirectly, to increase the pride of the colonies in the mother
+country.
+
+When the ship canal was constructed by de Lesseps, connecting the
+Mediterranean with the Red Sea and shortening by one-half the
+route to India, the project had been frowned on by England. In
+1875 the Khedive of Egypt, the largest stockholder in the canal,
+became hard-pressed for funds, and a telegram from Disraeli
+bought the entire block of shares for the English government for
+four million pounds. This stroke secured English control of the
+waterway, and was immensely popular with the nation. The Prince
+of Wales was sent with great pomp on a tour of India, and in 1876
+the Queen's title was made more imposing by the addition of the
+words "Empress of India." The latter move may be viewed as a
+counter-stroke against recent advances of the Russians, whose
+disposition to raise the Eastern Question was irrepressible. The
+revolt of certain Christian states of Turkey in Europe had
+revived the animosities which had smouldered since the Crimean
+War, and while Russia prepared to support the claims of the
+Christians, Disraeli again ranged England on the side of the
+Turk. The Queen-Empress, as if to give personal support to the
+policy of her Prime Minister, raised him to the peerage with the
+title of Earl of Beaconsfield (1876).
+
+The hatreds and intrigues in the Balkan peninsula led to a bloody
+war between Russia and Turkey. It soon became evident that unless
+saved by English intervention, Constantinople must fall into the
+hands of the Czar. Beaconsfield's spirited language at this
+crisis was paraphrased in the London music-halls in the famous
+couplet:
+
+"We don't want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do,
+We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money,
+too,"
+
+a song which gave the name of "Jingo" to the war policy of the
+Conservatives. An English fleet was sent to Constantinople, and
+England refused to recognize the terms of the treaty of San
+Stephano, which Russia had extorted from her conquered foe, and
+demanded that the Eastern Question should be submitted to a
+congress of the powers. That congress was held at Berlin in the
+summer of 1878. Prince Bismarck presided, and Lord Beaconsfield
+attended in person, accompanied by the Foreign Secretary, Lord
+Salisbury (since premier). The provisions of the Berlin treaty
+are too complex to be explained here, but they removed the grip
+of Russia from the throat of the Sultan, and established a group
+of Balkan principalities of varying degrees of autonomy. "Peace
+with honor" Beaconsfield announced as the outcome of his mission
+to Berlin, while the majority of the nation applauded.
+
+Beaconsfield's star culminated at the Congress of Berlin. The
+efforts of his administration to defend India on the side of
+Russia by strengthening English hold on Afghanistan, led to the
+second Afghan War with its bloody massacres and humiliating
+episodes. In South Africa the imperial policy gave offense to
+blacks as well as whites, and led to wars which reflected little
+honor upon British arms. Hard times and consequent hardship among
+the agricultural classes at home combined with the petty but
+distressing occurrences in Asia and Africa to bring about a
+Liberal victory at the general election of 1880, and in April of
+that year Beaconsfield resigned his portfolio and seals to his
+great rival, Mr. Gladstone.
+
+It was characteristic of the man's indomitable energy to
+signalize the year of his fall by writing another novel,
+"Endymion," a remarkable feat for a man of seventy-six years. He
+continued to appear in Parliament until near the day of his
+death, which took place in London, April 19, 1881, on the night
+following Easter Day.
+
+Among the eulogies pronounced in Parliament upon the fallen
+leader none was more satisfactory in its explanation of
+Disraeli's remarkable career than that of the Marquis of
+Salisbury, who, at his death, succeeded to the chieftancy in the
+Conservative party. "To me," he said, "as I believe to all others
+who have worked with him, his patience, his gentleness, his
+unswerving and unselfish loyalty to his colleagues and fellow-
+laborers, have made an impression that will never leave me so
+long as life endures. But these feelings could only affect a
+limited circle of his immediate adherents. The impression which
+his career and character have made on the vast mass of his
+countrymen must be sought elsewhere. To a great extent, no doubt,
+it is due to the peculiar character of his genius, to its varied
+nature, to the wonderful combination of qualities he possessed,
+and which rarely reside in the same brain. To some extent also
+there is no doubt that circumstances--that is, the social
+difficulties which opposed themselves to his early rise and the
+splendid perseverance by which they were overcome--impressed his
+countrymen who love to see exemplified that career open to all
+persons, whatever their initial difficulties may be, which is one
+of the characteristics of the institutions of which they are most
+proud.
+
+"Zeal for the greatness of England was the passion of his mind.
+Opinions might, and did, differ deeply as to the measures and
+steps by which expression was given to the dominant feelings, and
+more and more, as life drew near its close, as the heat and
+turmoil of controversy were left behind, as the gratification of
+every possible ambition negatived the suggestion of any inferior
+motives and brought out into greater prominence the purity and
+strength of this one intense feeling the people of this country
+recognized the force with which this desire dominated his
+actions. In the questions of interior policy which divided
+classes, he had to consider them, he had to judge them, and to
+take his course accordingly. It seemed to me that he treated them
+always as of secondary interest compared to the one great
+question--how the country to which he belonged might be made
+united and strong!"
+
+The party to which Disraeli's genius gave direction and victory
+came again to power after the defeat of the Gladstonian schemes
+for the relief of Ireland, and reinforced by the Liberal-Unionist
+contingent under Joseph Chamberlain it has governed England for
+nearly twenty years. Its head, Lord Salisbury, one of
+Beaconsfield's most trusted lieutenants, has been true to the
+ruling ideas of his brilliant chief. The idea of an English
+empire, its parts inspired with a common purpose, has been
+zealously nourished. The jubilee (1887) and diamond jubilee
+(1897), of Queen Victoria's reign, were seized upon to give
+prominence and honor to the colonial representatives. The
+premiers of the colonies have met in conference at London and the
+whole vast and complex problem of federal empire has come under
+discussion. The problem is still far from solution, but that the
+relation has passed beyond the stage of mere sentiment is shown
+in many ways. The joy of the colonies over the diamond jubilee
+(1897), their united grief at Victoria's passing (1901), their
+welcome to the son of Edward VII., upon his progress around the
+world, and the unanimity with which volunteers sprang to the aid
+of England in the South African War--this response of English
+hearts in Canada, Australia, and elsewhere to the drum-beat of
+the empire was the fulfillment of one of Beaconsfield's
+imaginative dreams. A writer in the "Spectator" two years earlier
+had made the prophecy which in the century's end came to be
+realized:
+
+"The night is full of darkness and doubt,
+The stars are dim and the Hunter's out:
+The waves begin to wrestle and moan;
+The Lion stands by his shore alone,
+And sends to the bounds of Earth and Sea
+First low notes of the thunder to be.
+Then East and West through the vastness grim,
+The whelps of the Lion answer him."
+
+
+
+QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
+
+1.  What different elements make up the present British Empire?
+2.  What prominence did Disraeli gain from his speech against
+Peel in 1846?
+3.  Describe his early life and personal appearance.
+4.  What unsuccessful attempts did he make to enter Parliament?
+5.  Describe his maiden speech in the House.
+6.  How did he regard Peel and the Corn Laws?
+7.  What was "the leap in the dark," which he took in 1867?
+8.  How had the statesmen immediately preceding Disraeli looked
+upon English colonial possessions?
+9.  What was his point of view as expressed in 1872?
+10. How did England secure control of the Suez Canal?
+11. What position did England take with reference to the Russo-
+Turkish War?
+12. What circumstances led to the overthrow of Disraeli's party?
+13. What was Lord Salisbury's estimate of Disraeli?
+14. How have Disraeli's ideas been recognized under the Salisbury
+government?
+15. What is "jingoism"?
+
+BIBLIOGRAPHY
+
+LIFE OF BEACONSFIELD.         J. A. Froude.
+LIFE OF LORD GEORGE BENTINCK. Benjamin Disraeli.
+CONINGSBY.                    Benjamin Disraeli.
+IMPERIAL FEDERATION.          George R. Parkin.
+PROBLEMS OF GREATER BRITAIN.  Sir C. W. Dilke.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+
+
+I
+
+WELLINGTON
+
+
+
+WATERLOO
+
+[This dispatch by the Duke of Wellington touching upon the battle
+of Waterloo is in his usual plain and straightforward manner.]
+
+To Marshal Lord Beresford, G. C. B.: You will have heard of our
+battle of the 18th. Never did I see such a pounding match. Both
+were what the boxers call "gluttons." Napoleon did not manoeuver
+at all. He just moved forward in the old style in columns, and
+was driven off in the old style. The only difference was, that he
+mixed cavalry with his infantry, and supported both with an
+enormous quantity of artillery.
+
+I had the infantry for some time in squares, and I had the French
+cavalry walking about as if they had been our own. I never saw
+the British infantry behave so well.
+
+     WELLESLEY.
+
+
+
+OPPOSITION TO REFORM
+
+[In the House of Lords in the course of the debate on the King's
+Speech, Nov. 2, 1830, the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington,
+spoke in part as follows. The inflexible Toryism of the speech
+disgusted the country and led to the defeat of the ministry. Earl
+Grey came into power and carried the Reform Bill.]
+
+This subject brings me to what noble lords have said respecting
+the putting the country in a state to overcome the evils likely
+to result from the late disturbances in France. The noble Earl
+has alluded to the propriety of effecting parliamentary reform.
+The noble Earl has, however, been candid enough to acknowledge
+that he is not prepared with any measure of reform, and I can
+have no scruple in saying that his Majesty's government is as
+totally unprepared with any plan as the noble Lord. Nay, I, on my
+own part, will go further, and say, that I have never read or
+heard of any measure up to the present moment which can in any
+degree satisfy my mind that the state of the representation can
+be improved, or be rendered more satisfactory to the country at
+large than at the present moment. I will not, however, at such an
+unseasonable time, enter upon the subject, or excite discussion,
+but I shall not hesitate to declare unequivocally what are my
+sentiments upon it. I am fully convinced that the country
+possesses at the present moment a legislature which answers all
+the good purpose of legislation, and this to a greater degree
+than any legislature ever has answered in any country whatever. I
+will go further, and say, that the legislature and the system of
+representation possess the full and entire confidence of the
+country--deservedly possess that confidence--and the discussions
+in the legislature have a very great influence over the opinions
+of the country. I will go still further, and say, that if at the
+present moment I had imposed upon me the duty of forming a
+legislature for any country, and particularly for a country like
+this, in possession of great property of various descriptions, I
+do not mean to assert that I could form such a legislature as we
+possess now, for the nature of man is incapable of reaching such
+excellence at once; but my great endeavor would be to form some
+description of legislature which would produce the same results.
+The representation of the people at present contains a large body
+of the property of the country, and in which the landed interests
+have a preponderating influence. Under these circumstances, I am
+not prepared to bring forward any measure of the description
+alluded to by the noble Lord. I am not only not prepared to bring
+forward any measure of this nature, but I will at once declare
+that as far as I am concerned, as long as I hold any station in
+the government of the country, I shall always feel it my duty to
+resist such measures when proposed by others.
+
+
+
+THE LAUREATE'S TRIBUTE
+
+[The feeling of the English nation toward the Duke of Wellington
+was nobly expressed by Tennyson in his great "Ode," published in
+1852, the year of the Duke's death.]
+
+I
+
+Bury the Great Duke
+With an empire's lamentation;
+Let us bury the Great Duke
+To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation-
+Mourning when their leaders fall,
+Warriors carry the warrior's pall,
+And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.
+
+II
+
+Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
+Here in streaming London's central roar.
+Let the sound of those he wrought for,
+And the feet of those he fought for
+Echo round his bones forevermore.
+
+III
+
+Lead out the pageant, sad and slow,
+As fits a universal woe;
+Let the long, long procession go,
+And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
+And let the mournful martial music blow;
+The last great Englishman is low.
+
+IV
+
+Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
+Remembering all his greatness in the past.
+No more in soldier fashion will he greet
+With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
+O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute;
+Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
+The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
+Whole in himself, a common good.
+Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
+Yet clearest of ambitious crime;
+Our greatest, yet with least pretense,
+Great in council and great in war,
+Foremost captain of his time,
+Rich in saving common sense,
+And as the greatest only are,
+In his simplicity sublime.
+O good gray head which all men knew,
+O voice from which their omens all men drew,
+O iron nerve to true occasion true,
+O fall'n at length that tower of strength,
+Which stood four-square to all the winds that
+Such was he whom we deplore!
+The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er,
+The great world-victor's victor will be seen no more.
+
+. . .
+
+VI
+
+Who is he that cometh like an honored guest,
+With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest,
+With a nation weeping and breaking on my rest?
+Mighty seaman, this is he
+Was great by land as thou by sea.
+Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man,
+The greatest sailor since our world began.
+Now to the roll of muffled drums
+To thee the greatest soldier comes;
+For this is he
+Was great by land as thou by sea;
+His foes were thine; he kept us free;
+O give him welcome, this is he
+Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
+And worthy to be laid by thee;
+For this is England's greatest son,
+He that gained a hundred fights
+Nor ever lost an English gun;
+This is he that far away
+Against the myriads of Assaye
+Clashed with his fiery few and won;
+And underneath another sun,
+Warring on a later day,
+Round affrighted Lisbon drew
+The treble works, the vast designs
+Of his labored rampart-lines,
+Where he greatly stood at bay,
+Whence he issued forth anew,
+And ever great and greater grew,
+Beating from the wasted vines
+Back to France her banded swarms,
+Back to France with countless blows,
+Till o'er the hills her eagles flew,
+Beyond the Pyrenean pines;
+Followed up in valley and glen
+With blare of bugle, clamor of men,
+Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
+And England pouring on her foes.
+Such a war had such a close.
+Again their ravening eagle rose
+In anger, wheel'd on Europe shadowing wings,
+And barking for the thrones of kings;
+Till one that sought but duty's iron crown,
+On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down;
+A day of onsets, of despair!
+Dashed on every rocky square
+Their surging charges foamed themselves away;
+Last the Prussian trumpet blew;
+Thro' the long tormented air
+Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray,
+And down we swept and charged and overthrew.
+So great a soldier taught us there
+What long-enduring hearts could do
+In that world-earthquake, Waterloo!
+Mighty seaman, tender and true,
+And pure as he from taint of craven guile,
+O savior of the silver-coasted isle,
+O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,
+If aught of things that here befall
+Touch a spirit among things divine,
+If love of country move thee there at all,
+Be glad because his bones are laid by thine!
+And thro' the centuries let a people's voice
+In full acclaim,
+A people's voice,
+The proof and echo of all human fame,
+A people's voice, when they rejoice,
+At civic revel and pomp and game,
+Attest their great commander's claim
+With honor, honor, honor, honor to him,
+Eternal honor to his name.
+
+VII
+
+A people's voice! We are a people yet,
+Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget,
+Confused by brainless mobs and lawless powers;
+Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
+His Briton in blown seas and storming showers,
+We have a voice with which to pay the debt
+Of boundless love and reverence and regret
+To those great men who fought and kept it ours.
+And keep it ours, O God, from brute control;
+O statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul
+Of Europe, keep our noble England whole,
+And save the one true seed of freedom sown
+Betwixt a people and their ancient throne,
+That sober freedom, out of which there springs
+Our loyal passion for our temperate kings;
+For, saving that, ye help to save mankind
+Till public wrong be crumbled into dust,
+And drill the raw world for the march of mind,
+Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.
+But wink no more in slothful overtrust.
+Remember him who led your hosts;
+He bade you guard the sacred coasts.
+Your cannons molder on the seaward wall;
+His voice is silent in the council hall
+Forever; and whatever tempests lour
+Forever silent; even if they broke
+In thunder, silent; yet remember all
+He spoke among you, and the man who spoke;
+Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,
+Nor paltered with Eternal God for power;
+Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow
+Thro' either babbling world of high and low;
+Whose life was work; whose language rife
+With rugged maxims hewn from life;
+Who never spoke against a foe;
+Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke
+All great self-seekers trampling on the right:
+Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named;
+Truth-lover was our English Duke;
+Whatever record leap to light
+He never shall be shamed.
+. . .
+
+IX
+
+Peace, his triumph will be sung
+By some yet unmolded tongue,
+Far on in summers that we shall not see;
+Peace, it is a day of pain
+For one about whose patriarchal knee
+Late the little children clung;
+O peace, it is a day of pain
+For one upon whose hand and heart and brain
+Once the weight and fate of Europe hung.
+Ours the pain, be his the gain!
+More than is of man's degree
+Must be with us, watching here
+At this, our great solemnity.
+Whom we see not, we revere;
+We revere, and we refrain
+From talk of battles loud and vain,
+And brawling memories all too free.
+For such a wise humility
+As befits a solemn fame:
+We revere, and while we hear
+The tides of music's golden sea
+Setting toward eternity,
+Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
+Until we doubt not that for one so true
+There must be other nobler work to do
+Than when he fought at Waterloo;
+And Victor he must ever be,
+For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill
+And break the shore, and evermore
+Make and break and work their will;
+Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll
+Round us, each with different powers,
+And other forms of life than ours,
+What know we greater than the soul?
+On God and godlike men we build our trust.
+Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears;
+The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
+The black earth yawns; the mortal disappears;
+Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
+He is gone who seemed so great--
+Gone; but nothing can bereave him
+Of the force he made his own
+Being here, and we believe him
+Something far advanced in state,
+And that he wears a truer crown
+Than any wreath that man can weave him.
+Speak no more of his renown,
+Lay your earthly fancies down,
+And in the vast cathedral leave him,
+God accept him, Christ receive him!
+
+
+
+II
+
+GEORGE CANNING
+
+
+
+POLITICAL POETRY
+
+["The Needy Knife-Grinder," which follows, was one of the most
+notable contributions which appeared in "The Anti-Jacobin." It is
+scarcely necessary to point out its satire upon the humanitarian
+sympathies of those Englishmen who had been carried away by the
+ideas of the French Revolution. The verses--a parody of Stanley's
+"Sapphics"--were the joint production of George Canning and John
+Hookham Frere.]
+
+
+
+THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE NEEDY KNIFE-GRINDER
+
+FRIEND OF HUMANITY
+
+Needy knife-grinder! Whither are you going?
+Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order;
+Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,
+So have your breeches!
+
+Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones
+Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike
+Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day "Knives and
+Scissors to grind O!"
+
+Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?
+Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
+Was it some squire? or parson of the parish?
+Or the attorney?
+
+Was it the squire for killing of his game? Or
+Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
+Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
+All in a lawsuit?
+
+Have you not read the "Rights of Man," by Tom Paine?
+Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
+Ready to fall as soon as you have told your
+Pitiful story.
+
+  KNIFE-GRINDER
+
+Story, God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;
+Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
+This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
+Torn in a scuffle.
+
+Constables came up for to take me into
+Custody; they took me before the justice;
+Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish
+Stocks for a vagrant.
+
+I should be glad to drink your honor's health in
+A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
+But for my part I never love to meddle
+With politics, sir.
+
+  FRIEND OF HUMANITY
+
+I give thee sixpence; I will see thee damned first,
+Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs
+Can rouse to vengeance!
+Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
+Spiritless outcast!
+
+[Kicks the K-g, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of
+republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.]
+
+
+
+THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND.
+
+[The following extract from a speech on Parliamentary Reform
+affords an excellent example of his style of eloquence.]
+
+Other nations, excited by the example of the liberty which this
+country has long possessed, have attempted to copy our
+Constitution; and some of them have shot beyond it in the
+fierceness of their pursuit. I grudge not to other nations that
+share of liberty which they may acquire; in the name of God, let
+them enjoy it! But let us warn them that they lose not the object
+of their desire by the very eagerness with which they attempt to
+grasp it. Inheritors and conservators of national freedom, let
+us, while others are seeking it in restlessness and trouble, be a
+steady and shining light to guide their course; not a wandering
+meteor to bewilder and mislead them.
+
+Let it not be thought that this is an unfriendly or disheartening
+counsel to those who are either struggling under the pressure of
+harsh government, or exulting in the novelty of sudden
+emancipation. It is addressed much rather to those who, though
+cradled and educated amidst the sober blessings of the British
+Constitution, pant for other schemes of liberty than those which
+that Constitution sanctions, other than are compatible with a
+just equality of civil rights, or with the necessary restraints
+of social obligations; of some of whom it may be said, in the
+language which Dryden puts into the mouth of one of the most
+extravagant of his heroes, that
+
+"They would be free as nature first made man,
+Ere the base laws of servitude began,
+When wild in the woods the noble savage ran."
+
+Noble and swelling sentiments! but such as cannot be reduced into
+practice. Grand ideas! but which must be qualified and adjusted
+by a compromise between the aspirings of individuals, and a due
+concern for the general tranquility; must be subdued and
+chastened by reason and experience before they can be directed to
+any useful end! A search after abstract perfection in government
+may produce in generous minds an enterprise and enthusiasm to be
+recorded by the historian and to be celebrated by the poet; but
+such perfection is not an object of reasonable pursuit, because
+it is not one of possible attainment; and never yet did a
+passionate struggle after an absolutely unattainable object fail
+to be productive of misery to an individual, of madness and
+confusion to a people. As the inhabitants of those burning
+climates which lie beneath a tropical sun sigh for the coolness
+of the mountain and the grove, so (all history instructs us) do
+nations which have basked for a time in the torrid blaze of
+unmitigated liberty too often call upon the shades of despotism,
+even of military despotism, to cover them--a protection which
+blights while it shelters; which dwarfs the intellect and stunts
+the energies of man, but to which a wearied nation willingly
+resorts from intolerable heats and from perpetual danger of
+convulsion.
+
+Our lot is happily cast in the temperate zone of freedom, the
+clime best suited to the development of the moral qualities of
+the human race, to the cultivation of their faculties, and to the
+security as well as the improvement of their virtues; a clime,
+not exempt, indeed, from variations of the elements, but
+variations which purify while they agitate the atmosphere that we
+breathe. Let us be sensible of the advantages which it is our
+happiness to enjoy. Let us guard with pious gratitude the flame
+of genuine liberty, that fire from heaven, of which our
+Constitution is the holy depository; and let us not, for the
+chance of rendering it more intense and more radiant, impair its
+purity or hazard its extinction.
+
+
+
+III
+
+GEORGE STEPHENSON
+
+[The bill for the charter of the Liverpool and Manchester railway
+was referred to the Committee of the House of Commons, March 21,
+1825. The canal companies had employed able counsel to oppose it.
+A month was consumed before the company's engineer, Mr. George
+Stephenson, was called by the Committee. The following account of
+his first day's examination is from his fascinating biography by
+Dr. Samuel Smiles.]
+
+On the 25th George Stephenson was called into the witness-box. It
+was his first appearance before a committee of the House of
+Commons, and he well knew what he had to expect. He was aware
+that the whole force of the opposition was to be directed against
+him; and if they could break down his evidence, the canal
+monopoly might yet be upheld for a time. Many years afterward,
+when looking back at his position on this trying occasion, he
+said: "When I went to Liverpool to plan a line from thence to
+Manchester, I pledged myself to the directors to attain a speed
+of ten miles an hour. I said I had no doubt the locomotive might
+be made to go much faster, but that we had better be moderate at
+the beginning. The directors said I was quite right; for that if,
+when they went to Parliament, I talked of going at a greater rate
+than ten miles an hour, I should put a cross upon the concern. It
+was not an easy task for me to keep the engine down to ten miles
+an hour, but it must be done, and I did my best. I had to place
+myself in that most unpleasant of all positions--the witness-box
+of a parliamentary committee. I was not long in it before I began
+to wish for a hole to creep out at! I could not find words to
+satisfy either the committee or myself. I was subjected to the
+cross-examination of eight or ten barristers, purposely, as far
+as possible, to bewilder me. Some member of the committee asked
+if I was a foreigner, and another hinted that I was mad. But I
+put up with every rebuff, and went on with my plans, determined
+not to be put down."
+
+George Stephenson stood before the committee to prove what the
+public opinion of that day held to be impossible. The self-taught
+mechanic had to demonstrate the practicability of accomplishing
+that which the most distinguished engineers of the time regarded
+as impracticable. Clear though the subject was to himself, and
+familiar as he was with the powers of the locomotive, it was no
+easy task for him to bring home his convictions, or even to
+convey his meaning, to the less informed minds of his hearers. In
+his strong Northumbrian dialect, he struggled for utterance, in
+the face of the sneers, interruptions, and ridicule of the
+opponents of the measure, and even of the committees, some of
+whom shook their heads and whispered doubts as to his sanity when
+he energetically avowed that he could make the locomotive go at
+the rate of twelve miles an hour! It was so grossly in the teeth
+of all the experience of honorable members, that the man "must
+certainly be laboring under a delusion!"
+
+And yet his large experience of railways and locomotives, as
+described by himself to the committee, entitled this "untaught,
+inarticulate genius," as he has been described, to speak with
+confidence on the subject. Beginning with his experience as a
+brakesman at Killingworth in 1803, he went on to state that he
+was appointed to take the entire charge of the steam engines in
+1813, and had superintended the railroads connected with the
+numerous collieries of the grand allies from that time downward.
+He had laid down or superintended the railways at Burradon, Mount
+Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, Helton, and Darlington, besides
+improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and Derwent Crook.
+He had constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which sixteen
+were locomotives. Some of these had been sent to France. The
+engines constructed by him for the working of the Killingworth
+Railroad, eleven years before, had continued steadily at work
+ever since, and fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. He was
+prepared to prove the safety of working high-pressure locomotives
+on a railroad, and the superiority of this mode of transporting
+goods over all others. As to speed, he said he had recommended
+eight miles an hour with twenty tons, and four miles an hour with
+forty tons; but he was quite confident that much more might be
+done. Indeed he had no doubt they might go at the rate of twelve
+miles. As to the charge that locomotives on a railroad would so
+terrify the horses in the neighborhood that to travel on
+horseback or to plow the adjoining fields would be rendered
+highly dangerous, the witness said that horses learned to take no
+notice of them, though there were horses that would shy at a
+wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be more shied at by
+horses than a locomotive. In the neighborhood of Killingworth,
+the cattle in the fields went on grazing while the engines passed
+them, and the farmers made no complaints.
+
+Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, and was well
+skilled in practical science, subjected the witness to a
+protracted and severe cross-examination as to the speed and power
+of the locomotive, the stroke of the piston, the slipping of the
+wheels upon the rails, and various other points of detail.
+Stephenson insisted that no slipping took place, as attempted to
+be extorted from him by the counsel. He said, "It is impossible
+for slipping to take place so long as the adhesive weight of the
+wheel upon the rail is greater than the weight to be dragged
+after it." There was a good deal of interruption to the witness's
+answers by Mr. Alderson, to which Mr. Joy more than once
+objected. As to accidents, Stephenson knew of none that had
+occurred with his engines. There had been one, he was told, at
+the Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, with a Blenkinsop engine. The
+driver had been in liquor, and put a considerable load on the
+safety-valve, so that upon going forward the engine blew up and
+the man was killed. But he added, if proper precautions had been
+used with that boiler, the accident could not have happened. The
+following cross-examination occurred in reference to the question
+of speed:
+
+"Of course," he was asked, "when a body is moving upon a road,
+the greater the velocity the greater the momentum that is
+generated?" "Certainly." "What would be the momentum of forty
+tons moving at the rate of twelve miles an hour?" "It would be
+very great." "Have you seen a railroad that would stand that?"
+"Yea." "Where?" "Any railroad that would bear going four miles an
+hour; I mean to say, that if it would bear the weight at four
+miles an hour, it would bear it at twelve." "Taking it at four
+miles an hour, do you mean to say that it would not require a
+stronger railway to carry the same weight twelve miles an hour?"
+"I will give an answer to that. I dare say every person has been
+over ice when skating, or seen persons go over, and they know
+that it would bear them better at a greater velocity than it
+would if they went slower; when they go quick, the weight in a
+measure ceases." "Is not that upon the hypothesis that the
+railroad is perfect?" "It is; and I mean to make it perfect."
+
+It is not necessary to state that to have passed through his
+severe ordeal scatheless needed no small amount of courage,
+intelligence, and ready shrewdness on the part of the witness.
+Nicholas Wood, who was present on the occasion, has since stated
+that the point on which Stephenson was hardest pressed was that
+of speed. "I believe," he says, "that it would have lost the
+company their bill if he had gone beyond eight or nine miles an
+hour. If he had stated his intention of going twelve or fifteen
+miles an hour, not a single person would have believed it to be
+practicable." Mr. Alderson had, indeed, so pressed the point of
+"twelve miles an hour," and the promoters were so alarmed lest it
+should appear in evidence that they contemplated any such
+extravagant rate of speed, that immediately on Mr. Alderson
+sitting down, Mr. Joy proceeded to re-examine Stephenson, with
+the view of removing from the minds of the committee an
+impression so unfavorable, and as they supposed, so damaging to
+their case. "With regard," asked Mr. Joy, "to all those
+hypothetical questions of my learned friend, they have been all
+put on the supposition of going twelve miles an hour; now that is
+not the rate at which, I believe, any of the engines of which you
+have spoken have traveled?" "No," replied Stephenson, "except as
+an experiment for a short distance." "But what they have gone has
+been three, five, or six miles an hour?" "Yes." "So that those
+hypothetical cases of twelve miles an hour do not fall within
+your general experience?" "They do not."
+
+The committee also seem to have entertained some alarm as to the
+high rate of speed which had been spoken of, and proceeded to
+examine the witness farther on the subject. They supposed the
+case of the engine being upset when going at nine miles an hour,
+and asked what, in such a case, would become of the cargo astern.
+To which the witness replied that it would not be upset. One of
+the members of the committee pressed the witness a little
+farther. He put the following case: "Suppose, now, one of these
+engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of nine or ten
+miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get
+in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very
+awkward circumstance?" "Yes," replied the witness, with a twinkle
+in his eye, "very awkward-for the cow!" The honorable member did
+not proceed farther with his cross-examination; to use a railway
+phrase, he was "shunted." Another asked if animals would not be
+very much frightened by the engine passing at night, especially
+by the glare of the red-hot chimney? "But how would they know
+that it wasn't painted?" said the witness.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+LORD JOHN RUSSELL
+
+
+
+THOMAS MOORE TO LORD RUSSELL
+
+[About the year 1816 Lord Russell's health being delicate he was
+rarely in his seat in the House of Commons, and even expressed
+his determination to withdraw from public life altogether. This
+"Remonstrance" from the poet Thomas Moore is valuable at least
+for the view which it gives of the considerations which impelled
+the scion of the great Whig house to serve his country.]
+
+What! thou, with thy genius, thy youth, and thy name!
+Thou, born of a Russell, whose instinct to run
+The accustom'd career of thy sires is the same
+As the eaglet's to soar with his eyes on the sun;
+Whose nobility comes to thee, stamp'd with a seal
+Far, far more ennobling than monarch e'er set;
+With the blood of thy race offer'd up for the weal
+Of a nation that swears by that martyrdom yet!
+Shalt thou be faint-hearted, and turn from the strife,
+From the mighty arena, where all that is grand,
+And devoted, and pure, and adorning in life
+Is for high-thoughted spirits like thine to command?
+Oh no! never dream it; while good men despair
+Between tyrants and traitors, and timid men bow,
+Never think for an instant thy country can spare
+Such a light from her dark'ning horizon as thou!
+With a spirit as meek as the gentlest of those
+Who in life's sunny valley lie shelter'd and warm,
+Yet bold and heroic as ever yet rose
+To the top cliffs of Fortune, and breasted her storm;
+With an ardour for liberty, fresh as in youth
+It first kindles the bard and gives light to his lyre,
+Yet mellow'd e'en now by that mildness of truth,
+Which tempers, but chills not, the patriot fire;
+With an eloquence, not like those rills from a height,
+Which sparkle and foam, and in vapour are o'er,
+But a current that works out its way into light
+Through the filt'ring recesses of thought and of lore:
+Thus gifted, thou never canst sleep in the shade;
+If the stirring of genius, the music of fame,
+And the charm of thy cause have not power to persuade,
+Yet think how to freedom thou'rt pledged by thy name.
+Like the boughs of that laurel, by Delphi's decree,
+Set apart for the fame and its service divine,
+All the branches that spring from the old Russell tree
+Are by liberty claim'd for the use of her shrine.
+
+
+
+ON BRIBERY AT ELECTIONS
+
+[After his unsuccessful contest for a seat in the House of
+Commons for Huntingdon in 1826, Lord John Russell drafted a
+measure for the prevention of bribing and sent it to Lord Althorp
+with a letter which was published in "The Times " and attracted
+much notice. The following passages are extracted.]
+
+Bribery is clearly forbidden by the law, and it is competent for
+every British subject to petition the House of Commons, praying
+them to inquire into any particular instance of that offense
+which may have occurred under his own observation. The House may,
+if it thinks fit, refer such a petition to the Committee of
+Privileges, or to any other committee it may choose to appoint
+for the purpose.
+
+Bribery in a candidate, however, makes void the election, and a
+petition complaining of bribery committed, with a view to the
+last election in a borough, is properly an election petition. But
+a term of fourteen days is the limited period within which a
+petition of this nature can be presented, and various onerous
+duties are imposed upon the petitioner--he must enter into a
+recognizance to pursue his complaint, and must incur an expense
+of some hundreds or even some thousands in prosecuting the
+inquiry.
+
+Still this mode of inquiry is now so established that when upon
+two or three occasions complaints have been sent to me of bribery
+in a particular borough, I feared to bring them before the House
+of Commons lest I should be told that the petition was an
+election petition which could not otherwise be entertained.
+
+. . .
+
+From this state of things great impunity has been allowed to
+gross acts of corruption. A gentleman from London goes down to a
+borough of which he scarcely before knew the existence. The
+electors do not ask his political opinions; they do not inquire
+into his private character; they only require to be satisfied of
+the impurity of his intentions. If he is elected no one, in all
+probability, contests the validity of his return. His opponents
+are as guilty as he is and no other person will incur the expense
+of a petition for the sake of a public benefit. Fifteen days
+after the meeting of Parliament a handsome reward is distributed
+to each of the worthy and independent electors.
+
+This is the practice against which the resolutions of the late
+House of Commons were directed. They pledge the House to inquiry
+not on a question between two rivals contending for a seat, but
+on a question affecting the character and purity of Parliament.
+They allow complaints to be made not only against the sitting
+member, but against the borough; they enlarge the time within
+which such complaints may be made, and instead of deterring
+petitioners by expense, they provide that a specific complaint,
+if fit to be inquired into, shall be inquired into for the sake
+of the public at the public cost.
+
+Such is the proposition approved by the late House of Commons,
+and which I venture to think not unworthy of being countenanced
+by a Whig reformer. There are many other abuses in our present
+mode of elections, to which local remedies might, I think, be
+successfully applied; nor is there any one more fit or more able
+than yourself to conduct such measures. Undoubtedly many
+obstacles would be raised to delay our progress, especially on
+the part of "the presiding genius of the House of Lords." But I
+am persuaded that reformers in general have never made a
+sufficient estimate of the support they would receive, or set a
+sufficient value on the objects they might attain, by a vigorous
+attack on particular abuses.
+
+
+
+THE CHAMPION OF REFORM
+
+[Lord John Russell's share in carrying the Reform Act of 1832 was
+celebrated by Lord Lyttleton in the following lines.]
+
+In England's worst days, when her rights and her laws
+Were spurned by a Prince of the fell Stuart line,
+A Russell stood forth to assert her lost cause,
+And perish'd a martyr at liberty's shrine.
+The smell of that sacrifice mounted to heaven;
+The cry of that blood rose not thither in vain;
+The crime of the tyrant was never forgiven;
+And a blessing was breathed on the race of the slain.
+Dethroned and degraded, the Stuart took flight,
+He fled to the land where the Bourbon bore sway,
+A curse clung to his offspring, a curse and a blight,
+And in exile and sorrow it wither'd away.
+But there sprang from the blood of the martyr a race
+Which for virtue and courage unrival'd has shone;
+Its honors still worn with a patriot grace,
+Still loved by the people, revered by the throne.
+And see where in front of the battle again
+A Russell, sweet liberty's champion, appears;
+While myriads of freemen compose his bright train,
+And the blessing still lives through the long lapse of years.
+
+
+
+V
+
+RICHARD COBDEN
+
+[During the parliamentary session of 1846 when the bill for the
+repeal of the Corn Law was passing through its parliamentary
+stages, Mr. Cobden's letters from London to personal friends and
+to his wife afford frequent glimpses of his interest, his
+suspense, and his final exultation.]
+
+"London, February 19th. To T. H. Ashworth: Your letter has
+followed me here. Peel's declaration in the House that he will
+adopt immediate repeal if it is voted by the Commons, seems to me
+to remove all difficulty from Villiers's path; he can now propose
+his old motion without the risk of doing any harm even if he
+should not succeed. As respects the future course of the league,
+the less that is said now about it publicly the better. If Peel's
+measure should become law, then the Council will be compelled to
+face the question, 'What shall the League do during the three
+years?' It has struck me that under such circumstances we might
+absolve the large subscribers from all further calls, put the
+staff of the League on a peace footing, and merely keep alive a
+nominal organization to prevent any attempt to undo the good work
+we have effected. Not that I fear any reaction. On the contrary,
+I believe the popularity of free-trade principles is only in its
+infancy, and that it will every year take firmer hold of the head
+and heart of the community. But there is perhaps something due to
+our repeated pledges that we will not dissolve until the Corn
+Laws are entirely abolished. In any case the work will be
+effectually finished during this year, provided the League
+preserve its firm and united position; and it is to prevent the
+slightest appearance of disunion that I would avoid now talking
+in public about the future course of the League. It is the
+League, and it only, that frightens the peers. It is the League
+alone which enables Peel to repeal the law. But for the League
+the aristocracy would have hunted Peel to a premature grave, or
+consigned him like Lord Melbourne to a private station at the
+bare mention of total repeal. We must hold the same rod over the
+Lords until the measure is safe; after that I agree with you in
+thinking that it matters little whether the League dies with
+honors, or lingers out a few years of inglorious existence."
+
+"May 16th. To F. W. Cobden: I last night had the glorious
+privilege of giving a vote in the majority for the third reading
+of the bill for the total repeal of the Corn Law. The bill is now
+out of the House, and will go up to the Lords on Monday. I trust
+we shall never hear the name of 'Corn' again in the Commons.
+There was a good deal of cheering and waving of hats when the
+Speaker had put the question, that this bill do now pass.' Lord
+Morpeth, Macaulay, and others came and shook hands with me, and
+congratulated me on the triumph of our cause. I did not speak,
+simply for the reason that I was afraid that I should give more
+life to the debate, and afford an excuse for another adjournment;
+otherwise I could have made a telling and conciliatory appeal.
+Villiers tried to speak at three o'clock this morning, but I did
+not think he took the right tone. He was fierce against the
+protectionists, and only irritated them, and they wouldn't hear
+him. The reports about the doings in the Lords are still not
+satisfactory or conclusive. Many people fear still that they will
+alter the measure with a view to a compromise. But I hope we
+shall escape any further trouble upon the question.....I feel
+little doubt that I shall be able to pay a visit to your father
+at midsummer. At least nothing but the Lords throwing back the
+bill upon the country could prevent my going into Wales at the
+time, for I shall confidently expect them to decide one way or
+another by the 15th of June. I shall certainly vote and speak
+against the Factory Bill next Friday."
+
+"May 18th. To Mrs. Cobden: We are so beset by contradictory
+rumors, that I know not what to say about our prospects in the
+Lords. Our good, conceited friend told me on Wednesday that he
+knew the peers would not pass the measure, and on Saturday he
+assured me that they would. And this is a fair specimen of the
+way in which rumors vary from day to day. This morning Lord
+Monteagle called on me, and was strongly of the opinion that they
+would 'move on, and not stand in people's way.' A few weeks will
+now decide the matter one way or another. I think I told you that
+I dined at Moffat's last Wednesday. As usual he gave us a first-
+rate dinner. After leaving Moffat's at eleven o'clock, I went to
+a squeeze at Mrs. --. It was as usual hardly possible to get
+inside the drawing-room doors. I only remained a quarter of an
+hour, and then went home. On Saturday I dined at Lord and Lady
+John's, and met a select party, whose names I see in to-day's
+papers.....I am afraid if I associate much with the aristocracy,
+they will spoil me. I am already half-seduced by the fascinating
+ease of their parties."
+
+"May 19th. To F. W. Cobden: I received your letters with the
+enclosures. We are still on the tenter-hooks respecting the
+conduct of the Lords. There is, however, one cheering point: the
+majority on the second reading is improving in the stock-books of
+the whippers-in. It is now expected that there will be forty to
+fifty majority at the second reading. This will of course give us
+a better margin for the committee. The government and Lord John
+(who is very anxious to get the measure through) are doing all
+they can to insure success. The ministers from Lisbon, Florence,
+and other continental cities (where they are peers) are coming
+home to vote in committee. Last night was a propitious beginning
+in the Lords. The Duke of Richmond was in a passion, and his tone
+and manner did not look like a winner."
+
+"June 10th. To F. W. Cobden: There is another fit of apprehension
+about the Corn Bill, owing to the uncertainty of Peel's position.
+I can't understand his motive for constantly poking his coercive
+bill in our faces at these critical moments. The Lords will take
+courage at anything that seems to weaken the government morally.
+They are like a fellow going to be hanged who looks out for a
+reprieve, and is always hoping for a lucky escape until the drop
+falls."
+
+"June 18th. To Mrs. Cobden: The Lords will not read the Corn Bill
+the third time before Tuesday next, and I shall be detained in
+town to vote on the Coercion Bill on Thursday, after which I
+shall leave for Manchester. I send you a 'Spectator' paper, by
+which you will see that I am a 'likeable' person, I hope you will
+appreciate this."
+
+"June 23d. To Mrs. Cobden: I have been plagued for several days
+with sitting to Herbert for the picture of the Council of the
+League, and it completely upsets my afternoons. Besides my mind
+has been more than ever upon the worry about that affair which is
+to come off after the Corn Bill is settled, and about which I
+hear all sorts of reports. You must therefore excuse me if I
+could not sit down to write a letter of news.....I thought the
+Corn Bill would certainly be read the third time on Tuesday (to-
+morrow), but I now begin to think it will be put off till
+Thursday. There is literally no end to this suspense. But there
+are reports of Peel being out of office on Friday next, and the
+peers may yet ride restive."
+
+"June 26th. To Mrs. Cobden: My Dearest Kate-Hurrah! Hurrah! the
+Corn Bill is law, and now my work is done. I shall come down to-
+morrow morning by the six o'clock train in order to be present at
+a Council meeting at three, and shall hope to be home in time for
+a late tea."
+
+A CORN-LAW RHYME
+
+[Ebenezer Elliott, "The Corn-Law Rhymer," contributed to the
+agitation such "Songs" as this.]
+
+Child, is thy father dead?
+Father is gone!
+Why did they tax his bread?
+God's will be done!
+Mother has sold her bed;
+Better to die than wed!
+Where shall she lay her head?
+Home we have none!
+
+Father clammed thrice a week-
+God's will be done!
+Long for work did he seek,
+Work he found none;
+Tears on his hollow cheek
+Told what no tongue could speak!
+Why did his master break?
+God's will be done!
+
+Doctor said air was best-
+Food we had none;
+Father with panting breast
+Groaned to be gone;
+Now he is with the blest-
+Mother says death is best!
+We have no place of rest-
+Yes, we have one!
+
+
+
+VI
+
+SIR ROBERT PEEL
+
+[On the night when the bill for the repeal of the Corn Laws came
+up for its passage in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister,
+who had been elected on a protectionist "platform," concluded the
+debate in a powerful speech, which culminated in these impressive
+sentences.]
+
+THE REPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS (1846)
+
+This night is to decide between the policy of continued
+relaxation of restriction, or the return to restraint and
+prohibition. This night you will select the motto which is to
+indicate the commercial policy of England. Shall it be "advance"
+or "recede"? Which is the fitter motto for this great empire?
+Survey our position, consider the advantage which God and nature
+have given us, and the destiny for which we are intended. We
+stand on the confines of western Europe, the chief connecting
+link between the Old World and the New. The discoveries of
+science, the improvement of navigation, have brought us within
+ten days of St. Petersburg, and will soon bring us within ten
+days of New York. We have an extent of coast greater in
+proportion to our population and the area of our land than any
+other great nation, securing to us maritime strength and
+superiority. Iron and coal, the sinews of manufacture, give us
+advantages over every rival in the great competition of industry.
+Our capital far exceeds that which they can command. In
+ingenuity, in skill, in energy, we are inferior to none. Our
+national character, the free institutions under which we live,
+the liberty of thought and action, an unshackled press, spreading
+the knowledge of every discovery and of every advance in science-
+-combine with our natural and physical advantages to place us at
+the head of those nations which profit by the free interchange of
+their products. And is this the country to shrink from
+competition? Is this the country to adopt a retrograde policy? Is
+this the country which can only flourish in the sickly,
+artificial atmosphere of prohibition? Is this the country to
+stand shivering on the brink of exposure to the healthful breezes
+of competition?
+
+Choose your motto. "Advance" or "recede." Many countries are
+watching with anxiety the selection you may make. Determine for
+"advance," and it will be the watchword which will animate and
+encourage in every state the friends of liberal commercial
+policy. Sardinia has taken the lead. Naples is relaxing her
+protective duties and favoring British produce. Prussia is shaken
+in her adherence to restriction. The government of France will be
+strengthened; and backed by the intelligence of the reflecting,
+and by conviction of the real welfare of the great body of the
+community, will perhaps ultimately prevail over the self-interest
+of the commercial and manufacturing aristocracy which now
+predominates in her chambers. Can you doubt that the United
+States will soon relax her hostile tariff, and that the friends
+of a freer commercial intercourse--the friends of peace between
+the two countries--will hail with satisfaction the example of
+England?
+
+This night, then--if on this night the debate shall close--you
+will have to decide what are the principles by which your
+commercial policy is to be regulated. Most earnestly, from a deep
+conviction, founded not upon the limited experience of three
+years alone, but upon the experience of the results of every
+relaxation of restriction and prohibition, I counsel you to set
+the example of liberality to other countries. Act thus, and it
+will be in perfect consistency with the course you have hitherto
+taken. Act thus, and you will provide an additional guarantee for
+the continued contentment, and happiness, and well-being of the
+great body of the people. Act thus, and you will have done
+whatever human sagacity can do for the promotion of commercial
+prosperity.
+
+You may fail. Your precautions may be unavailing. They may give
+no certain assurance that mercantile and manufacturing prosperity
+will continue without interruption. It seems to be incident to
+great prosperity that there shall be a reverse--that the time of
+depression shall follow the season of excitement and success.
+That time of depression must perhaps return; and its return may
+be coincident with scarcity caused by unfavorable seasons. Gloomy
+winters, like those of 1841 and 1842, may again set in. Are those
+winters effaced from your memory? From mine they never can
+be.....
+
+These sad times may recur. "The years of plenteous-ness may have
+ended," and "the years of dearth may have come"; and again you
+may have to offer the unavailing expressions of sympathy, and the
+urgent exhortations to patient resignation.....
+
+When you are again exhorting a suffering people to fortitude
+under their privations, when you are telling them, "These are the
+chastenings of an all-wise and merciful Providence, sent for some
+inscrutable but just and beneficent purpose, it may be, to humble
+our pride, or to punish our unfaithfulness, or to impress us with
+the sense of our own nothingness and dependence on His mercy,"
+when you are thus addressing your suffering fellow-subjects, and
+encouraging them to bear without repining the dispensations of
+Providence, may God grant that by your decision of this night you
+may have laid in store for yourselves the consolation of
+reflecting that such calamities are, in truth, the dispensations
+of Providence--that they have not been caused, they have not been
+aggravated, by laws of man, restricting, in the hour of scarcity,
+the supply of food!
+
+
+
+VII
+
+LORD SHAFTESBURY INTRODUCTION TO THE CAUSE OF LABOR
+
+[In February, 1833, when the failure of Michael Sadler to be
+returned to Parliament left his "Short Time Bill" without a
+champion, Lord Ashley (afterwards known as Lord Shaftesbury) was
+asked to lead the cause. His decision was thus announced to the
+local "Short Time Committees" in the manufacturing towns.]
+
+Rev. G. S. Bull to Short Time Committees.
+
+London, February 6, 1833.
+
+Dear Sir:--I have to inform you that in furtherance of the object
+of the delegates' meeting, I have succeeded, under Mr. Sadler's
+sanction, in prevailing upon Lord Ashley to move his (Mr.
+Sadler's) bill.
+
+Lord Ashley gave notice yesterday afternoon, at half-past two, of
+a motion on the 5th of March, for leave "to renew the bill
+brought in by Mr. Sadler last session, to regulate the labor of
+children in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom, with
+such amendments and additions as appear necessary from the
+evidence given before the select Committee of this House."
+
+This notice, I am very happy to say (for I was present), was
+received with hearty and unusual cheers from all parts of a House
+of more than three hundred. No other notice was so cheered; and
+more than forty, some of them very popular, were given at the
+same time.
+
+I am informed that Lord Ashley received many unexpected
+assurances of support immediately after his notice, and has had
+more since.
+
+Pray call your committee together directly, and read this to
+them. As to Lord Ashley, he is noble, benevolent, and resolute in
+mind, as he is manly in person. I have been favored with several
+interviews, and all of the most satisfactory kind. On one
+occasion his Lordship said, "I have only zeal and good intentions
+to bring to this work; I can have no merit in it, that must all
+belong to Mr. Sadler. It seems no one else will undertake it, so
+I will; and without cant or hypocrisy, which I hate, I assure you
+I dare not refuse the request you have so earnestly pressed. I
+believe it is my duty to God and to the poor, and I trust he will
+support me. Talk of trouble! What do we come to Parliament for?"
+
+In a letter he writes: "To me it appeared an affair, less of
+policy than of religion, and I determined, therefore, at all
+hazards to myself, to do what I could in furtherance of the views
+of that virtuous and amiable man" (meaning Mr. Sadler).
+
+I have just left his Lordship, and find him more determined than
+ever. He says, it is your cause; if you support him, he will
+never flinch.
+
+Yours most faithfully,           G. S. BULL.
+
+
+
+THE MOTIVES OF A REFORMER
+
+[To Richard Oastler, a zealous leader of the working-people
+outside of Parliament, who had pledged him his support, Lord
+Ashley wrote this characteristic letter.]
+
+Lord Ashley to Mr. Richard Oastler.
+
+February 16, 1833.
+
+Dear Sir:-I am much obliged to you for your kind and energetic
+letter; much, very much, is owing to your humanity and zeal, and
+though I cannot reckon deeply on the gratitude of multitudes, yet
+I will hope that your name will, for years to come, be blessed by
+those children who have suffered, or would have suffered, the
+tortures of a factory. It is very cruel upon Mr. Sadler that he
+is debarred from the joy of putting the crown on his beloved
+measure; however, his must be the honor, though another may
+complete it; and for my part, I feel that, if I were to believe
+that my exertions ought to detract the millionth part from his
+merits, I should be one of the most unprincipled and contemptible
+of mankind. Ask the question simply, Who has borne the real evil,
+who has encountered the real opposition, who roused the sluggish
+public to sentiments of honor and pity? Why, Mr. Sadler; and I
+come in (supposing I succeed) to terminate in the twelfth hour
+his labor of the eleven. I greatly fear my ability to carry on
+this measure. I wish, most ardently I wish, that some other had
+been found to undertake the cause; nothing but the apprehension
+of its being lost induced me to acquiesce in Mr. Bull's request.
+I entertain such strong opinions on the matter that I did not
+dare, as a Christian, to let my diffidence, or love of ease,
+prevail over the demands of morality and religion.
+
+Yours,     ASHLEY.
+
+
+
+THE DIARY OF A PHILANTHROPIST
+
+[Lord Shaftesbury's copious diaries were not intended for
+publication, but late in life he permitted Mr. Hodder to
+introduce selections from them in his authorized Biography. These
+extracts from the period when he was fighting the cause of the
+London chimney-sweeps, reflect the spirit of the great
+philanthropist, the legislator who at twenty-five proposed "to
+found a public policy upon the principles of the Bible."]
+
+July 4th. Anxious, very anxious, about my sweeps; the
+Conservative (?) Peers threaten a fierce opposition, and the
+Radical Ministers warmly support the bill. Normanby has been
+manly, open, kind-hearted, and firm. As I said to him in a
+letter, so say I now, "God help him with the bill, and God bless
+him for it!" I shall have no ease or pleasure in the recess,
+should these poor children be despised by the Lords, and tossed
+to the mercy of their savage purchasers. I find that Evangelical
+religionists are not those on whom I can rely. The Factory
+Question, and every question for what is called "humanity,"
+receive as much support from the "men of the world" as from the
+men who say they will have nothing to do with it!
+
+I do not wonder at the Duke of Wellington--I have never expected
+from him anything of the "soft and tender" kind. Let people say
+what they will, he is a hard man. Steven tells me he left the
+Oxford Petition at Apsley House, thinking that the Duke, as
+Chancellor, would present it; he received this answer, "Mr.
+Steven has thought fit to leave some petitions at Apsley House;
+they will be found with the porter."
+
+July 21st. Much anxiety, hard labor, many hopes, and many fears,
+all rendered useless by "counting out the House." The object of
+years within my grasp, and put aside in a moment. A notice to
+investigate the condition of all the wretched and helpless
+children in pin-works, needle-works, collieries, etc. The
+necessary and beneficial consequence of the Factory Question! God
+knows I had felt for it, and prayed for it; but the day arrived;
+everything seemed adverse-a morning sitting, a late period of the
+session, and a wet afternoon; and true enough, at five o'clock
+there were but thirty-seven members, and these mostly Radicals or
+Whigs. Shall I have another opportunity? The inquiry, without a
+statement in Parliament, will be but half the battle, nay, not so
+much--I must have public knowledge and public opinion working
+with it. Well, it is God's cause, and I commit it altogether to
+him. I am, however, sadly disappointed, but how weak and short-
+sighted is man! This temporary failure may be the harbinger of
+success.
+
+August 24th. Succeeded in both my suits. I undertook them in a
+spirit of justice. I constituted myself, no doubt, a defender of
+the poor, to see that the poor and miserable had their rights;
+but "I looked, and there was none to help. I wondered that there
+was none to uphold; therefore God's arm, it brought salvation to
+me, and his fury, it upheld me." I stood to lose several hundred
+pounds, but I have not lost a farthing; I have advanced the
+cause, done individual justice, anticipated many calamities by
+this forced prevention, and soothed, I hope, many angry,
+discontented Chartist spirits by showing them that men of rank
+and property can, and do, care for the rights and feelings of all
+their brethren. Let no one ever despair of a good cause for want
+of coadjutors; let him persevere, persevere, persevere, and God
+will raise him up friends and assistants! I have had, and still
+have, Jowett and Low; they are matchless.
+
+September 16th. I hear encouraging things, both of my speech in
+the House of Commons, and of my suit v. Stocks. The justice of
+the suit is so manifest that even (so to speak) "my enemies are
+at peace with me." What man ever lost in the long run by seeking
+God's honor?
+
+September 19th. Steven wrote to me yesterday, and gave me
+information that he had at last succeeded in negotiating the
+delivery of the wretched sweep behind my house in London. I had
+begun to negotiate, but the master stood out for more money than
+was fair, and we determined to seek the unnatural father of the
+boy, and tempt him, by the offer of a gratuitous education. We
+have done so, and have prospered; and the child will this day be
+conveyed from his soot-hole to the Union School on Norwood Hill,
+where, under God's blessing and especial, merciful grace, he will
+be trained in the knowledge, and love, and faith of our common
+Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ. I entertain hopes of the boy;
+he is described as gentle, and of a sweet disposition; we all
+know he has suffered, and were eager to rescue him from his
+temporal and spiritual tyrant. May God, in his unbounded goodness
+and mercy, accept and defend the child, and train him up to his
+honor and service, now and forever, through the mediation and
+love of our dear and blessed Lord!
+
+
+
+THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN
+
+[Mrs Browning's poem belongs to this epoch and agitation.]
+
+Do you hear the children weeping, Oh, my brothers,
+Ere-the sorrow comes with years?
+They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
+And that cannot stop their tears.
+The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
+The young birds are chirping in the nest,
+The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
+The young flowers are blowing towards the west;
+
+But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers,
+They are weeping bitterly!
+They are weeping in the play-time of the others,
+In the country of the free.
+Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
+Why their tears are falling so?
+The old man may weep for his to-morrow,
+Which is lost in long ago;
+The old tree is leafless in the forest,
+The old year is ending in the frost,
+The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
+The old hope is hardest to be lost!
+
+But the young, young children, Oh, my brothers,
+Do you ask them why they stand
+Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers
+In our happy fatherland?
+They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+And their looks are sad to see,
+For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
+Down the cheeks of infancy;
+"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary,"
+"Our young feet," they say, "are very weak;
+Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-
+Our grave-rest is very far to seek;
+Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
+For the outside earth is cold,
+And we young ones stand without in our bewildering,
+And the graves are for the old."
+
+"True," say the children, "it may happen
+That we die before our time;
+Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen
+Like a snowball in the rime.
+We looked into the pit prepared to take her;
+Was no room for any work in the close clay!
+From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
+Crying, 'Get up, little Alice, it is day.'
+If you listen by that grave in sun and shower
+With your ear down, little Alice never cries;
+Could we see her face, be sure we could not know her,
+For the smile has time for growing in her eyes!
+And merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in
+The shroud by the kirk chime.
+It is good when it happens," say the children,
+"That we die before our time.
+
+Alas! Alas! the children! They are seeking
+Death in life, as best to have;
+They are binding up their hearts away from breaking
+With a cerement from the grave.
+Go out, children, from the mine and from the city;
+Sing out, children, as the thrushes do;
+Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cowslips pretty,
+Laugh aloud to feel your fingers let them through!
+But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows
+Like our weeds anear the mine?
+Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
+From your pleasures fair and fine!
+For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
+And we cannot run or leap;
+If we car'd for any meadows it were merely
+To drop down in them and sleep.
+
+Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
+We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
+And underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
+The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
+For all day we drag our burden tiring
+Through the coal-dark underground;
+Or all day we drive the wheels of iron
+In the factories round and round.
+
+"For all day the wheels are droning, turning;
+Their wind comes in our faces,
+Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,
+And the walls turn in their places;
+Turns the sky in high window blank and reeling,
+Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
+Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,
+All are turning, all the day, and we with all;
+And all day the iron wheels are droning
+And sometimes we could pray,
+'O, ye wheels' (breaking out in mad moaning)
+'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"
+
+Aye, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
+For a moment mouth to mouth!
+Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing
+Of their tender human youth!
+Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
+Is not all the life God fashions or reveals!
+Let them prove their living souls against the notion
+That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
+Still, all day the iron wheels go onward,
+Grinding life down from its mark;
+And the children's souls which God is calling sunward
+Spin on blindly in the dark.
+
+Now, tell the poor young children, Oh, my brothers,
+To look up to Him and pray;
+So the blessed One who blesseth all the others,
+Will bless them another day.
+They answer, "Who is God that he should hear us,
+While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd?
+When we sob aloud the human creatures near us
+Pass by, hearing not, or answer not, a word.
+And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
+Strangers speaking at the door;
+Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
+Hears our weeping any more?
+
+"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
+And at midnight's hour of harm,
+'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
+We say softly for a charm.
+We know no other words except 'Our Father,'
+And we think that, in some pause of the angels' song,
+God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
+And hold both within his right hand which is strong.
+'Our Father!' If he heard us he would surely
+(For they call him good and mild)
+Answer, smiling" down the steep world very purely,
+'Come and rest with me, my child.'"
+
+"But no!" say the children, weeping faster,
+"He is speechless as a stone;
+And they tell us, of his image is the master
+Who commands us to work on.
+Go to," say the children, "up in heaven,
+Dark, wheel-like turning clouds are all we find.
+Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving;
+We look up for God, but tears have made us blind."
+Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
+Oh, my brothers, what ye preach?
+For God's possible is taught by his world's loving,
+And the children doubt of each.
+
+And well may the children weep before you!
+They are weary ere they run;
+They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
+Which is brighter than the sun.
+They know the grief of man without its wisdom;
+They sink in man's despair without its calm;
+Are slaves, without the liberty in Christendom;
+Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm;
+Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
+The harvest of its memories cannot reap-
+Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly
+Let them weep! Let them weep!
+They look up with their pale and sunken faces
+And their look is dread to see,
+For they mind you of their angels in high places
+With eyes turned on Deity.
+"How long," they say, "How long, O cruel nation,
+Will you stand to move the world, on a child's heart--
+Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
+And tread onward to your throne amid the mark?
+Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
+And your purple shows your path!
+But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
+Than the strong man in his wrath.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+LORD PALMERSTON THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF ENGLAND
+
+[In March, 1849, Lord Palmerston dilated as follows upon the
+moral greatness and influence of England.]
+
+I say, in contradiction to the honorable gentleman, that this
+country does stand well with the great majority of the foreign
+powers; that the character of this country stands high; that the
+moral influence of England is great--a moral influence that I do
+not take credit to this government for having created, but which
+is founded on the good sense and the wise and enlightened conduct
+of the British nation. Foreign countries have seen that in the
+midst of the events which have violently convulsed other
+countries in Europe, and which have shaken to their foundations
+ancient institutions, this country has held fast to her ancient
+landmarks, standing firm in her pride of place:
+
+Fell not, but stands unshaken, from within,
+
+Or from without, 'gainst all temptations armed.
+
+That has given confidence to foreign countries in the government
+and people of this country. When other monarchies were shaken to
+their very foundations, England stood unhurt, by its evident
+security giving confidence to other powers. They have seen that
+the government of England is not like that of other countries,
+struggling for its existence, and occupied in guarding against
+daily dangers. They have seen that the British Constitution acts
+in unison with the spirit of the nation, with whose interests it
+is charged. They know that its advice is worthy of being listened
+to; and that advice is valued and respected, and is not spurned
+with contumely, as the honorable member would wish us to suppose.
+
+
+
+THE "CIVIS ROMANUS" SPEECH
+
+[Nothing which Lord Palmerston ever said or did made more for his
+popularity and reputation than the closing passage of his speech
+in the Commons in the "Don Pacifico" debate in June, 1850. He had
+been speaking for five hours, and it was almost morning when he
+flung out these high-spirited words.]
+
+I believe I have now gone through all the heads of the charges
+which have been brought against me in this debate. I think I have
+shown that the foreign policy of the government in all the
+transactions with respect to which its conduct has been impugned,
+has throughout been guided by those principles which, according
+to the resolution of the honorable and learned gentleman, ought
+to regulate the conduct of the government of England in the
+management of our foreign affairs. I believe that the principles
+on which we have acted are those which are held by the great mass
+of the people of this country. I am convinced these principles
+are calculated, so far as the influence of England may properly
+be exercised with respect to the destinies of other countries, to
+conduce to the maintenance of peace, to the advancement of
+civilization, to the welfare and happiness of mankind.
+
+I do not complain of the conduct of those who have made these
+matters the means of attack upon her Majesty's ministers. The
+government of a great country like this is, undoubtedly, an
+object of fair and legitimate ambition to men of all shades of
+opinion. It is a noble thing to be allowed to guide the policy
+and to influence the destiny of such a country; and if ever it
+was an object of honorable ambition, more than ever must it be so
+at the moment at which I am speaking. For while we have seen, as
+stated by the right honorable baronet, the political earthquake
+rocking Europe from side to side; while we have seen thrones
+shaken, shattered, leveled, institutions overthrown and
+destroyed; while in almost every country of Europe the conflict
+of civil war has deluged the land with blood, from the Atlantic
+to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, this
+country has presented a spectacle honorable to the people of
+England and worthy of the admiration of mankind.
+
+We have shown that liberty is compatible with order; that
+individual freedom is reconcilable with obedience to the law. We
+have shown the example of a nation in which every class of
+society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence has
+assigned to it, while at the same time every individual of each
+class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale
+not by injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality, but
+by persevering good conduct, and by the steady and energetic
+exertion of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his
+Creator has endowed him. To govern such a people as this is
+indeed an object worthy of the ambition of the noblest man who
+lives in the land, and therefore I find no fault with those who
+may think any opportunity a fair one for endeavoring to place
+themselves in so distinguished and honorable a position; but I
+contend that we have not in our foreign policy done anything to
+forfeit the confidence of the country. We may not, perhaps, in
+this matter or in that, have acted precisely up to the opinions
+of one person or of another; and hard indeed it is, as we all
+know by our individual and private experience, to find any number
+of men agreeing entirely in any matter on which they may not be
+equally possessed of the details of the facts, circumstances,
+reasons, and conditions which led to action. But making allowance
+for those differences of opinion which may fairly and honorably
+arise among those who concur in general views, I maintain that
+the principles which can be traced through all our foreign
+transactions, as the guiding rule and directing spirit of our
+proceedings, are such as deserve approbation.
+
+I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as
+representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country,
+is to give on the question now brought before it-whether the
+principles on which the foreign policy of her Majesty's
+government has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has
+led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our
+fellow-subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those
+who are charged with the government of England; and whether, as
+the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he
+could say, Civis Romanus sum, so also a British subject, in
+whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful
+eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against
+injustice and wrong.
+
+
+
+THE SEPOY MUTINY
+
+THE DEFENSE OF LUCKNOW
+
+[Tennyson's poem was inspired by the recital of one of the most
+notable features of the Great Mutiny.]
+
+I
+
+Banner of England, not for a season, O banner of Britain, hast
+thou
+Floated in conquering--battle, or flapped to the battle-cry!
+Never with mightier glory than when we had reared thee on high
+Flying at top of the roofs in the ghastly siege of Lucknow--
+Shot thro' the staff or the halyard, but ever we raised thee
+anew,
+And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew.
+
+II
+
+Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our
+lives-
+Women and children among us, God help them, our children and
+wives!
+Hold it we might, and for fifteen days, or for twenty at most.
+"Never surrender, I charge you, but every man die at his post!"
+Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Laurence, the best of the
+brave:
+Cold were his brows when we kissed him-we laid him that night in
+his grave.
+"Every man die at his post!" and there halted on our houses and
+halls
+Death from their rifle-bullets, and death from their cannon-
+balls;
+Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight
+barricade;
+Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stooped
+to the spade;
+Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there
+fell,
+Striking the hospital wall, crashing thro' it, their shot and
+their shell;
+Death--for their spies were among us, their marksmen were told of
+our best,
+So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that would think
+for the rest;
+Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at
+our feet--
+Fire from ten thousand at once of the rebels who girdled us
+round--
+Death at the glimpse of a finger from over the breadth of a
+street;
+Death from the heights of the mosque and the palace, and death in
+the ground!
+Mine? Yes, a mine. Countermine! down, down! and creep thro' the
+hole!
+Keep the revolver in hand! you can hear him--the murderous mole!
+Quiet, ah! quiet--wait till the point of the pick-ax be thro'!
+Click with the pick coming nearer and nearer again than before--
+Now let it speak, and you fire, and the dark pioneer is no more;
+And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew.
+
+III
+
+Aye, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a
+day
+Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echoed away,
+Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur, like so many fiends in
+their hell,
+Cannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yell--
+Fiercely on all the defenses our myriad enemy fell.
+What have they done? Where is it? Out yonder, guard the Redan!
+Storm at the water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm! and it
+ran
+Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side
+Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by the tide--
+So many thousands, that if they be bold enough, who shall escape?
+Kill or be killed, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers
+and men!
+Ready! take aim at their leaders--their masses are gapped with
+our grape--
+Backward they reel like the wave, like the wave flinging forward
+again,
+Flying and foiled at the last by the handful they could not
+subdue;
+And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew.
+
+IV
+
+Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb,
+Strong with the strength of the race, to command, to obey, to
+endure,
+Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him;
+Still, could we watch at all points? We were every day fewer and
+fewer.
+There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that passed:
+"Children and wives--if the tigers leap into the fold unawares-
+Every man die at his post-and the foe may outlive us at last--
+Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into
+theirs."
+Roar upon roar in a moment, two mines by the enemy sprung,
+Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades,
+Rifleman, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as
+true!
+Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank
+fusillades--
+Twice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had
+clung,
+Twice from the ditch where they shelter, we drive them with hand-
+grenades;
+And ever upon our topmost roof our banner of England blew.
+
+V
+
+Then on another wild morning, another wild earthquake out-tore,
+Clean from our lines of defense ten or twelve good paces or more.
+Rifleman high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the
+sun--
+One has leapt upon the breach crying out, "Follow me, follow me!"
+Mark him-he falls! then another, and down goes he.
+Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had
+won?
+Boardings and rafters and doors! an embrasure! make way for the
+gun!
+Now double-charge it with grape! it is charged and we fire and
+they run.
+Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his
+due!
+Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and
+few,
+Fought with the bravest among us, and drove them, and smote them
+and slew,
+That ever upon our topmost roof our banner in India blew.
+
+VI
+
+Men will forget what we suffer, and not what we do; we can fight!
+But to be soldier all day, and be sentinel all thro' the night--
+Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,
+Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to
+arms;
+Ever the labor of fifty that had to be done by five;
+Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive;
+Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around;
+Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the
+ground;
+Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies,
+Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies,
+Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field,
+Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be healed;
+Lopping away of the limb by the pitiful, pitiless knife--
+Torture and trouble in vain-for it never could save us a life.
+Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed;
+Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead;
+Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief,
+Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief;
+Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butchered for all that we knew--
+Then day and night, day and night coming down on the still
+shatter'd walls
+Millions of musket-bullets and thousands of cannon-balls;
+But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.
+
+VII
+
+Hark, cannonade, fusillade! Is it true what was told by the
+scout,
+Outram and Havelock breaking their way thro' the fell mutineers?
+Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears!
+All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout,
+Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer with conquering cheers,
+Sick from the hospital echo them, women and children come out,
+Blessing the wholesome white faces of Havelock's good fusileers,
+Kissing the war-hardened hand of the Highlander, wet with their
+tears!
+Dance to the pibroch! Saved! We are saved! Is it you? Is it you?
+Saved by the valor of Havelock; saved by the blessing of heaven!
+"Hold it for fifteen days!" We have held it for eighty-seven!
+And ever aloft on the palace roof the old banner of England blew.
+
+
+
+THE LIGHT BRIGADE AT BALAKLAVA
+
+[In a letter to the London Times Mr. W. H. Russell, the war
+correspondent, described the charge of the Light Brigade at
+Balaklava, one of the most notable incidents of the Crimean War.]
+
+Supposing the spectator, then, to take his stand on one of the
+heights forming the rear of our camp before Sebastopol, he would
+have seen the town of Balaklava, with its scanty shipping, its
+narrow strip of water, and its old forts, on his right hand;
+immediately below he would have beheld the valley and plain of
+coarse meadowland, occupied by our cavalry tents, and stretching
+from the base of the ridge on which he stood to the foot of the
+formidable heights at the other side; he would have seen the
+French trenches lined with zouaves a few feet beneath, and
+distant from him, on the slope of the hill; a Turkish redoubt
+lower down, then another in the valley, then, in a line with it,
+some angular earthworks; then, in succession, the other two
+redoubts up to Canrobert's Hill.
+
+At the distance of two and a half miles across the valley is an
+abrupt rocky mountain range of most irregular and picturesque
+formation, covered with scanty brushwood here and there, or
+rising into barren pinnacles and plateaux of rock. In outline and
+appearance this portion of the landscape was wonderfully like the
+Trosachs. A patch of blue sea was caught in between the
+overhanging cliffs of Balaklava as they closed in the entrance to
+the harbor on the right. The camp of the marines, pitched on the
+hillsides more than ten hundred feet above the level of the sea,
+was opposite to the spectator as his back was turned to
+Sebastopol and his right side towards Balaklava.....
+
+Soon after occurred the glorious catastrophe which filled us all
+with sorrow. It appeared that the Quartermaster-General,
+Brigadier Airey, thinking that the light cavalry had not gone far
+enough in front when the enemy's horse had fled, gave an order in
+writing to Captain Nolan, Fifteenth Hussars, to take to Lord
+Lucan, directing his lordship "to advance" his cavalry nearer to
+the enemy. A braver soldier than Captain Nolan the army did not
+possess.....I had the pleasure of his acquaintance, and I know he
+entertained the most exalted opinions respecting the capabilities
+of the English horse soldier. Properly led, the British hussar
+and dragoon could, in his mind, break square, take batteries,
+ride over columns of infantry, and pierce any other cavalry in
+the world as if they were made of straw. He thought they had not
+had the opportunity of doing all that was in their power, and
+that they missed even such chances as had been offered to them--
+that, in fact, they were in some measure disgraced. A matchless
+horseman and a first-rate swordsman, he held in contempt, I am
+afraid, even grape and canister. He rode off with his orders to
+Lord Lucan.
+
+.... When Lord Lucan received the order from Captain Nolan, and
+had read it, he asked, we are told, "Where are we to advance to?"
+Captain Nolan pointed with his finger to the line of the
+Russians, and said, "There are the enemy, and there are the
+guns," or words to that effect, according to the statements made
+after his death.
+
+It must be premised that Lord Raglan had in the morning only
+ordered Lord Lucan to move from the position he had taken near
+the center redoubt to "the left of the second line of redoubts
+occupied by the Turks." Seeing that the ninety-third and invalids
+were cut off from the aid of the cavalry, Lord Raglan sent
+another order to Lord Lucan to send his heavy horse towards
+Balaklava, and that officer was executing it just as the Russian
+horse came over the bridge. The heavy cavalry charge took place,
+and afterwards the men dismounted on the scene of it. After an
+interval of half an hour, Lord Raglan again sent an order to Lord
+Lucan: "Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity
+to recover the heights. They will be supported by infantry, which
+has been ordered to advance upon two fronts." Lord Raglan's
+reading of this order is, that the infantry had been ordered to
+advance on two fronts; but no such interpretation is borne out by
+the wording of the order. It does not appear either that the
+infantry had received orders to advance, for the Duke of
+Cambridge and Sir G. Cathcart state that they were not in receipt
+of such instruction. Lord Lucan advanced his cavalry to the
+ridge, close to No. 5 redoubt, and while there received from
+Captain Nolan an order which is, verbatim, as follows: "Lord
+Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow
+the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns;
+troops of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on
+your left. Immediate."
+
+Lord Lucan with reluctance--gave the order to Lord Cardigan to
+advance upon the guns, conceiving that his orders compelled him
+to do so.....It is a maxim of war that "cavalry never act without
+a support," that "infantry should be close at hand when cavalry
+carry guns, as the effect is only instantaneous," and that it is
+necessary to have on the flank of a line of cavalry some
+squadrons in column, the attack on the flank being most
+dangerous. The only support our light cavalry had was the reserve
+of heavy cavalry at a great distance behind them, the infantry
+and guns being far in the rear. There were no squadrons in column
+at all, and there was a plain to charge over, before the enemy's
+guns could be reached, of a mile and a half in length.
+
+At ten minutes past eleven our light cavalry brigade advanced.
+The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according
+to the numbers of continental armies; and yet it was more than we
+could spare. As they rushed towards the front, the Russians
+opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with
+volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past,
+glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendor of
+war. We could scarcely believe our senses! Surely that handful of
+men were not going to charge an army in position? .... They
+advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed
+towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed
+by those who, without power to aid, beheld their heroic
+countrymen rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of
+twelve hundred yards, the whole line of the enemy belched forth,
+from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through
+which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant
+gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying
+wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line was broken-
+-it was joined by the second, they never halted or checked their
+speed an instant. With diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty
+guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy,
+with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer
+which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the
+smoke of the batteries; but ere they were lost to view, the plain
+was strewed with their bodies and with the carcasses of horses.
+They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the
+hills on both sides, as well as to the direct fire of musketry.
+
+Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing as
+they rode up to the guns and dashed between them, cutting down
+the gunners as they stood. We saw them riding through the guns,
+as I have said; to our delight we saw them returning, after
+breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering
+them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill
+swept them down. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying
+towards us told the sad tale--demi-gods could not have done what
+they had failed to do. At the very moment when they were about to
+retreat a regiment of lancers was hurled upon their flank.
+Colonel Shewell, of the Eighth Hussars, whose attention was drawn
+to them by Lieutenant Phillips, saw the danger, and rode his few
+men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful
+loss..... It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to
+cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of that band of
+heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately quitted
+in all the pride of life. At thirty-five minutes past eleven not
+a British soldier, except the dead and dying, was left in front
+of these bloody Muscovite guns.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
+
+[In 1886, Mr. Gladstone, being then in his seventy-seventh year,
+brought in his first bill for Irish Home Rule. The wonderful
+series of speeches in its behalf was closed by one of great power
+on the night of June 7th. It was already clear that the
+secessions from the Liberal ranks would prevent the passage of
+the bill to its second reading. Just before the division the
+Prime Minister spoke. The extract given below reproduces his
+final appeal.]
+
+
+
+HOME RULE FOR IRELAND
+
+This is the earliest moment in our parliamentary history when we
+have the voice of Ireland authentically expressed in our hearing.
+Majorities of Home Rulers there may have been upon other
+occasions; a practical majority of Irish members never has been
+brought together for such a purpose. Now, first, we can
+understand her; now, first, we are able to deal with her; we are
+able to learn authentically what she wants and wishes, what she
+offers and will do; and as we ourselves enter into the strongest
+moral and honorable obligations by the steps which we take in
+this House, so we have before us practically an Ireland under the
+representative system able to give us equally authentic
+information, able morally to convey to us an assurance the breach
+and rupture of which would cover Ireland with disgrace.....What
+is the case of Ireland at this moment? Have honorable gentlemen
+considered that they are coming into conflict with a nation? Can
+anything stop a nation's demand, except its being proved to be
+immoderate and unsafe? But here are multitudes, and I believe
+millions upon millions, out-of-doors, who feel this demand to be
+neither immoderate nor unsafe. In our opinion, there is but one
+question before us about this demand. It is as to the time and
+circumstance of granting it. There is no question in our minds
+that it will be granted. We wish it to be granted in the mode
+prescribed by Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke said, in his first speech at
+Bristol:
+
+"I was true to my old-standing, invariable principle, that all
+things which came from Great Britain should issue as a gift of
+her bounty and beneficence, rather than as claims recovered
+against struggling litigants, or at least if your beneficence
+obtained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should
+appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight--not
+as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe of a
+rigid necessity."
+
+The difference between giving with freedom and dignity on the one
+side, with acknowledgment and gratitude on the other, and giving
+under compulsion, giving with disgrace, giving with resentment
+dogging you at every step of your path, this difference is, in
+our eyes, fundamental, and this is the main reason not only why
+we have acted, but why we have acted now. This, if I understand
+it, is one of the golden moments of our history--one of those
+opportunities which may come and may go, but which rarely return,
+or, if they return, return at long intervals, and under
+circumstances which no man can forecast.
+
+There have been such golden moments even in the tragic history of
+Ireland, as her poet says--
+
+"One time the harp of Innisfail
+Was tuned to notes of gladness."
+
+And then he goes on to say--
+
+" But yet did oftener tell a tale
+Of more prevailing sadness."
+
+But there was such a golden moment--it was in 1795--it was on the
+mission of Lord Fitzwilliam. At that moment it is historically
+clear that the Parliament of Grattan was on the point of solving
+the Irish problem. The two great knots of that problem were, in
+the first place, Roman Catholic emancipation; and in the second
+place, the Reform of Parliament. The cup was at her lips, and she
+was ready to drink it, when the hand of England rudely and
+ruthlessly dashed it to the ground in obedience to the wild and
+dangerous intimations of an Irish faction.
+
+"Ex illo fluere ac retro sublapsa referri,
+Spes Danaum."
+
+There has been no great day of hope for Ireland, no day when you
+might hope completely and definitely to end the controversy, till
+now--more than ninety years. The long periodic time has at last
+run out, and the star has again mounted into the heavens. What
+Ireland was doing for herself in 1795 we at length have done. The
+Roman Catholics have been emancipated--emancipated after a woeful
+disregard of solemn promises through twenty-nine years,
+emancipated slowly, sullenly, not from good will, but from abject
+terror, with all the fruits and consequences which will always
+follow that method of legislation. The second problem has been
+also solved, and the representation of Ireland has been
+thoroughly reformed; and I am thankful to say that the franchise
+was given to Ireland on the readjustment of last year with a free
+heart, with an open hand, and the gift of that franchise was the
+last act required to make the success of Ireland in her final
+effort absolutely sure. We have given Ireland a voice; we must
+all listen for a moment to what she says. We must all listen--
+both sides, both parties, I mean as they are, divided on this
+question--divided, I am afraid, by an almost immeasurable gap. We
+do not undervalue or despise the forces opposed to us. I have
+described them as the forces of class and its dependents; and
+that as a general description--as a slight and rude outline of a
+description--is, I believe, perfectly true. I do not deny that
+many are against us whom we should have expected to be for us. I
+do not deny that some whom we see against us have caused us by
+their conscientious action the bitterest disappointment. You have
+power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have
+organization. What have we? We think that we have the people's
+heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest
+of the future. As to the people's heart, you may dispute it, and
+dispute it with perfect sincerity. Let that matter make its own
+proof. As to the harvest of the future, I doubt if you have so
+much confidence, and I believe that there is in the breast of
+many a man who means to vote against us to-night a profound
+misgiving approaching even to a deep conviction that the end will
+be as we foresee, and not as you do--that the ebbing tide is with
+you and the flowing tide is with us. Ireland stands at your bar
+expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of
+truth and soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and
+in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My right
+honorable friend, the member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen)
+asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the
+heirs. What traditions? By the Irish traditions? Go into the
+length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all
+countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book, find,
+I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless
+the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards
+Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter
+condemnation. Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted
+to stand? No; they are a sad exception to the glory of our
+country. They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its
+history; and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions of
+which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations with
+Ireland, and to make our relations with Ireland to conform to the
+other traditions of our country. So we treat our traditions--so
+we hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed oblivion
+of the past. She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon
+for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us
+in respect of honor, no less than a boon to her in respect of
+happiness, prosperity, and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer.
+Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think not for the
+moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject
+this bill.
+
+
+
+IRISH NATIONALIST POETRY
+
+[From the abundance of poetry which has been inspired by the
+Irish Nationalist cause, the two following poems have been
+selected as characteristic. The first, by Michael Scanlan, has
+been called the Marseillaise of the Fenian movement. The second
+is by Fanny Parnell.]
+
+
+
+THE FENIAN MEN
+
+See who come over the red-blossomed heather,
+Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air,
+Heads erect, eyes to front, stepping proudly together,
+Sure freedom sits throned in each proud spirit there!
+Down the hills twining,
+Their blessed steel shining
+Like rivers of beauty they flow from each glen,
+From mountain and valley, 'tis liberty's rally
+Out, and make way for the Fenian Men!
+
+Our prayers and our tears have been scoffed and derided,
+They've shut out God's sunlight from spirit and mind;
+Our foes were united and we were divided,
+We met, and they scattered us all to the wind;
+But once more returning,
+Within our veins burning
+The fires that illumined dark Aherlou glen,
+We raise the old cry anew,
+Slogan of Con and Hugh,
+Out, and make way for the Fenian Men!
+
+We have men from the Nore, from the Suir, and the Shannon;
+Let the tyrants come forth, we'll bring force against force;
+Our pen is the sword and our voice is the cannon,
+Rifle for rifle, horse against horse.
+We've made the false Saxon yield
+Many a red battle-field,
+God on our side we will do so again;
+Pay them back woe for woe,
+Give them back blow for blow,
+Out, and make way for the Fenian Men!
+
+Side by side for this cause have our forefathers battled
+When our hills never echoed the tread of a slave;
+On many green fields, where the leaden hail rattled
+Thro' the red gap of glory they marched to the grave,
+And we who inherit
+Their names and their spirit
+Will march 'neath our banner of liberty;
+then All who love Saxon law
+Native or Sassenah
+Out, and make way for the Fenian Men!
+
+Up for the cause, then, fling forth our green banners,
+From the east to the west, from the south to the north--
+Irish land, Irish men, Irish mirth, Irish manners--
+From the mansion and cot let the slogan go forth;
+Sons of old Ireland now,
+Love you our sireland now?
+Come from the kirk, or the chapel, or glen;
+Down with all faction old;
+Concert and action bold,
+This is the creed of the Fenian Men!
+
+
+
+POST-MORTEM
+
+Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country,
+Shall mine eyes behold thy glory?
+Or shall the darkness close around them ere the sun blaze
+Break at last upon thy story?
+
+When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle,
+As a sweet new sister hail thee,
+Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence
+That have known but to bewail thee?
+
+Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises
+When all men their tribute bring thee?
+Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor
+When all poet's mouths shall sing thee?
+
+Ah, the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings
+Of thy exiled sons returning!
+I should hear though dead and moldered, and the grave-damps
+Should not chill my bosom's burning.
+
+Ah, the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them
+'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses,
+And my heart should toll within the shroud and quarter
+As a captive dreamer tosses.
+
+I should turn and rend the cere-clothes round me,
+Giant sinews I should borrow,
+Crying, "Oh, my brothers, I have also loved her,
+In her loneliness and sorrow.
+
+"Let me join with you the jubilant procession,
+Let me chant with you her story;
+Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks
+Now mine eyes have seen her glory."
+
+
+
+X
+
+LORD BEACONSFIELD
+
+[The speech which most endeared Disraeli to the Tories was
+delivered in the House of Commons January 22,1846. Peel had just
+declared his conversion to free trade and his intention to repeal
+the Corn Law duties, when Disraeli rose and in behalf of the
+unconverted Tory protectionists poured his fire into the face of
+the Prime Minister.]
+
+Sir, I rise with some feeling of embarrassment to address the
+House at this stage of the debate, as it is only since I have
+entered the House that I have had the advantage of reading her
+Majesty's speech; and I had understood that the great question
+which now agitates the country was not to be discussed on the
+present occasion.....I should have abstained from intruding
+myself on the House at the present moment, had it not been for
+the peculiar tone of the right honorable gentleman (Sir Robert
+Peel). I think that tone ought not to pass unnoticed. At the same
+time I do not wish to conceal my opinions on the general subject.
+I am not one of the converts. I am, perhaps, a member of a fallen
+party. To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in
+favor of protection I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if
+I had relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also.
+I must say that the tone of the right honorable gentleman is
+hardly fair towards the House, while he stops discussion upon a
+subject on which he himself has entered and given vent to his
+feelings with a fervency unusual to him. Sir, I admire a minister
+who says he holds power to give effect to his own convictions.
+These are sentiments that we must all applaud. Unfortunate will
+be the position of this country when a minister pursues a line of
+policy adverse to the convictions which he himself entertains.
+But when we come to a question of such high delicacy as the
+present, we may be permitted to ask ourselves what are the
+circumstances which require one so able, and one so eminent, to
+enter upon the vindication of himself, and to rise in this House,
+amid the cheers of his former opponents, to place himself in a
+position of an apologetical character to those who were once of
+his own party? I have no doubt that the right honorable gentleman
+has arrived at a conscientious conclusion on this great subject.
+The right honorable gentleman says that it is not so much by
+force of argument as by the cogency of observation that he has
+arrived at this conclusion. But, sir, surely the observation
+which the right honorable gentleman has made might have been made
+when he filled a post scarcely less considerable than that which
+he now occupies, and enjoyed power scarcely less ample than that
+which he now wields in this House. I want to know how it is that
+the right honorable gentleman, who certainly enjoys the full
+maturity of manhood, should not have arrived at this opinion,
+which I deplore, although conscientious, at the moment when his
+present government was formed! What, sir, are we to think of the
+eminent statesman who, having served under four sovereigns;
+unable to complain of want of experience or royal confidence;
+who, having been called on to steer the ship on so many
+occasions, and under such perilous circumstances, has only during
+the last three years found it necessary entirely to change his
+convictions on that important topic which must have presented
+itself for more than a quarter of a century to his consideration?
+
+Sir, I must say that such a minister may be conscientious, but
+that he is unfortunate. I will say, also, that he ought to be the
+last man in the world to turn round and upbraid his party in a
+tone of menace. Sir, there is a difficulty in finding a parallel
+to the position of the right honorable gentleman in any part of
+history. The only parallel which I can find is an incident in the
+late war in the Levant.....I remember when that great struggle
+was taking place, when the existence of the Turkish empire was at
+stake, the late Sultan, a man of great energy and fertile in
+resources, was determined to fit out an immense fleet to maintain
+his empire. Accordingly a vast armament was collected. It
+consisted of some of the finest ships that were ever built. The
+crews were picked men, the officers were the ablest that could be
+found, and both officers and men were rewarded before they
+fought. There never was an armament which left the Dardanelles
+similarly appointed since the days of Solyman the Great. The
+Sultan personally witnessed the departure of the fleet; all the
+muftis prayed for the success of the expedition, as all the
+muftis here prayed for the success of the last general election.
+Away went the fleet, but what was the Sultan's consternation when
+the Lord High Admiral steered at once into the enemy's port! Now,
+sir, the Lord High Admiral on that occasion was very much
+misrepresented. He, too, was called a traitor, and he, too,
+vindicated himself. "True it is," said he, "I did place myself at
+the head of this valiant armada; true it is that my sovereign
+embraced me; true it is that all the muftis in the empire offered
+up prayers for my success; but I have an objection to war. I see
+no use in prolonging the struggle, and the only reason I had for
+accepting the command was that I might terminate the contest by
+betraying my master." ....
+
+Well, now, the right honorable gentleman has turned round on us,
+and in a peroration, the elaborate character of which remarkably
+contrasted with the garrulous confidence of all the doings of his
+cabinet, the right honorable gentleman told us that he had been
+assured that a certain power had made him minister, and that a
+certain power would prevent him from being a minister; but that
+he protested against such an authority, and that he never would
+hold office by so servile a tenure. Sir, no one can fill a
+position such as that of the right honorable gentleman and give
+utterance to sentiments so magnanimous as his without reference
+to antecedents. And that leads us to the consideration of that
+government by parties, which must never be lost sight of in
+estimating the position of the right honorable gentleman. It is
+all very well for the right honorable gentleman to say, "I am the
+First Minister"--and by the by, I think the right honorable
+gentleman might as well adopt the phraseology of Walpole, and
+call himself the sole minister, for his speech was rich in
+egoistic rhetoric--it is all very well for him to speak of
+himself as the sole minister, for as all his cabinet voted
+against him, he is quite right not to notice them. I repeat, it
+is all very well for the right honorable gentleman to come
+forward to this table and say, "I am thinking of posterity,
+although certainly I am doing on this side of the table the
+contrary to that which I counseled when I stood upon the other;
+but my sentiments are magnanimous, my aim is heroic, and
+appealing to posterity, I care neither for your cheers nor your
+taunts."
+
+But, sir, we must ask ourselves, as members of the House of
+Commons, as the subjects of a popular government--we must ask
+ourselves, what were the means, what the machinery, by which the
+right honorable gentleman acquired his position, how he obtained
+power to turn round upon his supporters, and to treat them with
+contempt and disdain? Sir, the right honorable gentleman has
+supported a different policy for a number of years. Well do we
+remember on this side of the House--perhaps not without a blush--
+well do we remember the efforts which we made to raise him to the
+bench on which he now sits. Who does not remember the "sacred
+cause of protection," the cause for which sovereigns were
+thwarted, Parliaments dissolved, and a nation taken in?
+Delightful, indeed, to have the right honorable gentleman
+entering into all his confidential details, when, to use his
+courtly language, he "called" upon his sovereign. Sir, he called
+on his sovereign; but would his sovereign have called on the
+right honorable baronet, if, in 1841, he had not placed himself,
+as he said, at the head of the gentlemen of England--that well-
+known position, to be preferred even to the confidence of
+sovereigns and courts? It is all very well for the right
+honorable baronet to take this high-flying course, but I think
+myself, I say it with great respect for gentlemen on this side of
+the House, and gentlemen on the other; I say it without any wish
+to achieve a party triumph, for I believe I belong to a party
+which can triumph no more, for we have nothing left on our side
+except the constituencies which we have betrayed; but I do say my
+conception of a great statesman is of one who represents a great
+idea--an idea which may lead him to power; an idea with which he
+may identify himself; an idea which he may develop; an idea which
+he may and can impress on the mind and conscience of a nation.
+That, sir, is my notion of what makes a man a great statesman. I
+do not care whether he be a manufacturer or a manufacturer's son.
+That is a grand, that is indeed an heroic, position. But I care
+not what may be the position of a man who never originates an
+idea--a watcher of the atmosphere, a man who, as he says, takes
+his observations, and when he finds the wind in a certain
+quarter, trims to suit it. Such a person may be a powerful
+minister, but he is no more a great statesman than the man who
+gets up behind a carriage is a great whip. Both are disciples of
+progress; both perhaps may get a good place. But how far the
+original momentum is indebted to their powers, and how far their
+guiding prudence regulates the lash or the rein, it is not
+necessary for me to notice.
+
+
+
+THE EMPIRE
+
+[Rudyard Kipling's long poem "A Song of the English," and the
+shorter, "White Man's Burden," may be read in connection with
+this topic; but nothing better asserts the imperial idea than the
+lines written by Tennyson at the request of the Prince of Wales
+(Edward VII.) for the opening of the Indian and Colonial
+Exhibition in 1886.]
+
+I
+
+Welcome, welcome with one voice!
+In your welfare we rejoice,
+Sons and brothers that have sent,
+From isle and cape and continent,
+Produce of your field and flood,
+Mount and mine and primal wood;
+Works of subtle brain and hand,
+And splendors of the morning land,
+Gifts from every British zone;
+Britons, hold your own!
+
+II
+
+May we find, as ages run,
+The mother featured in the son;
+And may yours forever be
+That old strength and constancy
+Which has made your fathers great
+In our ancient island state;
+And wherever her flag fly,
+Glorying between sea and sky,
+Makes the might of Britain known,
+Britons, hold your own!
+
+III
+
+Britain fought her sons of yore--
+Britain failed; and nevermore,
+Careless of our growing kin,
+Shall we sin our fathers' sin;
+Men that in a narrower day--
+Unprophetic rulers they--
+Drove from out the mother's nest
+That young eagle of the West
+To forage for herself alone;
+Britons, hold your own!
+
+IV
+
+Sharers of our glorious past,
+Brothers, must we part at last?
+Shall we not thro' good and ill
+Cleave to one another still?
+Britain's myriad voices call,
+"Sons, be welded, each and all,
+Into one imperial whole,
+One with Britain, heart and soul!
+One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne;
+Britons, hold your own!
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TEN ENGLISHMEN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ***
+
+This file should be named 5876.txt or 5876.zip
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+https://gutenberg.org or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04
+
+Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/5876.zip b/5876.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..11554f7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/5876.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..44eafc6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #5876 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5876)