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SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 MY LIFE AND WEITINOS 
 

 '# 
 
 ^ «k ^-^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 Sir Archibald Alison. Bart, D.G.L 
 
 
 Atu aiaci:r.'rr.l ':: S^n.i L.h>iTr»-jli^:UnA:'r, 
 
SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 MY LIFE AND WEITINGS 
 
 AX AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 SIE AECHIBALD ALISON, BART, 
 
 D.C.L. 
 
 EDITED BT HIS DAUGHTER-IN-LAW 
 
 LADY ALISON 
 
 IN" TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. IL 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SON'S 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIII 
 
 5 
 
CONTENTS or THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 Xni. FROM THE queen's VISIT TO GLASGOW IN 1849, TO 
 
 MY CREATION AS A BARONET IN 1852, . . 1 
 
 XIV. PROM THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL IN 
 1852, TO THE DEPARTURE OP MY SONS TO THE 
 CRIMEA IN 1854, ...... 60 
 
 XV. PROM THE DEPARTURE OF MY SONS TO THE CRIMEA 
 IX KOVEMBER 1854, TO THEIR DEPARTURE FOR 
 INDIA, . . . . . . . .110 
 
 XVI. MONETARY CRISIS OP 1857, AND CAMPAIGN OP 
 LUCENOW, TO TERMINATION OP CONTINUATION 
 OF MY 'HISTORY OP EUROPE,' . . . 182 
 
 XVII. COMMITTEE OF HOUSE OF COM.JiluNS ON TRANSPOR- 
 TATION, TO THE CONCLUSION OP THE CASTLE- 
 EEAGH LIVES, ....... 240 
 
 XVIIL COUNTRY VISITS — GENERAL REFLECTIONS, . . '421 
 
 XIX. QUIET WINTER AT POSSIL CONVERSATIONS WITH MY 
 
 SON GENERAL REFLECTION?, . . . .388 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 XX. FROM THE BIRTH OP MY GRANDSON IN 1862, TO 
 
 THE TERJIINATION OF JIV PUBLIC CAREER, . 430 
 
 APPENDIX, THE DEATH OF SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, 519 
 
 INDEX, ........ 5:29 
 
SOME ACCOUNT OF MY LIFE 
 AND WEITINGS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FROM THE queen's VISIT TO GLASGOW IN 1849, TO 
 MY CREATION AS A BARONET IN 1852. 
 
 AUGUST 1849 — AUGUST 1852. 
 
 The evident and rapid progress of free-trade princi- 
 ples in the nation at this time, and their open adoption 
 by the Government and the Legislature, induced me 
 to embrace a proposal of Blackwood's to publish a 
 selection from my articles in his Magazine, in which 
 these doctrines were most firmly combated. Of course 
 in so doing at such a time I closed the door against any 
 chance of official or professional promotion from the 
 Liberal party, whether Whig or Conservative, then to 
 all appearance permanently installed in power; I 
 also had no views, either to profit or popularity, in 
 such a publication, as the current of thought in it was 
 directly adverse to that of general opinion. My sole 
 
 VOL. II. A 
 
2 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 motive was to establish my claim to the parentage of 
 principles then exposed to general obloquy, but which 
 I felt convinced were in themselves just, and would in 
 the end be established in the estimation of men of sense 
 by the results of experience. I added a few essays 
 on literary subjects, in order to enliven the otherwise 
 heavy mass of political disquisition. The work was 
 assailed on its appearance by a storm of violent and 
 somewhat uncandid criticisms from the ' Spectator,' 
 ' Examiner,' and nearly all the Liberal journals of the 
 day. Notwithstanding this, and the extreme unpop- 
 ularity of the political principles maintained in the 
 work, it had considerable success : the first edition 
 consisted of 2000 copies, of which 1200 were taken 
 off by the first subscription. I was in heart rejoiced 
 and flattered by this storm of abuse levelled at me by 
 the Liberal critics : it evinced the rage of the demo- 
 cratic party at any one venturing to gainsay their 
 opinions, and disturb what they deemed settled truth. 
 Another work of much more easy composition, but 
 attended at the time by greater popularity, was 
 soon after undertaken by me. The sketch of the life 
 of the Duke of Marlborough, which, as already men- 
 tioned, first appeared in the pages of ' Blackwood's 
 Magazine,' and had been afterwards published in 
 a separate volume, had already gone through two 
 editions, each of 2000 copies. This success, as well 
 as the numerous omissions and imperfections of 
 which I had become conscious, in a work originally 
 constructed chiefly on a single set of correspondence, 
 
1852.] LIFE OF MARLBOROUGH. 3 
 
 induced me to commence its recomposition on a 
 larger scale, and with the assistance of the Conti- 
 nental books on the subject. These were chiefly the 
 elaborate work on the campaigns of the British hero, 
 enriched with the correspondence between the French 
 generals and the Minister at War in Paris, which is to 
 be found in the ' Archives du Depot du Ministere de 
 la Guerre,' published at Paris in quarto ; and the able 
 Life of him, written at the same capital by order of 
 Napoleon, and published in three volumes octavo. 
 These foreign works, with the ' Marlborough Corre- 
 spondence,' edited by Sir George Murray, and the 
 Life of him, in six volumes, by Mr Archdeacon 
 Coxe, furnished all the authentic materials for a 
 complete history of his life ; and as usual in such 
 cases when you proceed to the fountain - head, 1 
 found great, and considering they were written on 
 opposite sides, surprising identity in these narratives. 
 The study of this subject, which occupied me above 
 a year, led me to form the highest estimate of the 
 military and political capacity of Marlborough. It 
 is well known that Napoleon had a high opinion of 
 both, and that he regarded him as perhaps the most 
 consummate general of modern times. I made no 
 attempt to screen Marlborough's political tergiver- 
 sation or occasional underhand intrigues, though I 
 found reason to extenuate both, from the effects of a 
 revolution, which renders for a long time the main- 
 tenance of individual steadfastness or true faith in- 
 consistent with personal advancement. So generally 
 
4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 is this the case in such times, that then it would be 
 more the truth to say that virtue is its own punish- 
 ment than that it is its own reward. Preserving his 
 faith to his sovereign and benefactor inviolate, Marl- 
 borough would have languished in virtuous obscurity 
 in the exile of St G-ermains, or held a subordinate 
 command in the army of the Grand Monarque. 
 Sacrificing it, he became the first general of the 
 age, and for a time the arbiter of Europe. This pre- 
 eminence furnishes no excuse for his treachery, but 
 it adds another to the innumerable proofs which 
 history affords, that success is very far from being 
 in every case a test of real worth, whatever it may 
 be of worldly ability. 
 
 Some time before this Mrs Alison and I had formed 
 a very enjoyable and lasting friendship with Sir John 
 and Lady Matilda Maxwell of PoUok, near Glas- 
 gow. The former was the head and lineal repre- 
 sentative of an ancient and eminent family, whose 
 estates of great extent Avere obtained by a grant 
 still extant, which I have often seen, from William 
 the Lion, seven hundred years ago. Sir John was 
 in the highest degree upright and conscientious, im- 
 pressed with a deep sense of religious obligation, a 
 kind and considerate landlord, liberal and charitable 
 to all around him, and a true model of a Christian 
 gentleman. He had for several years been member 
 for Lanarkshire, and had always lived on intimate 
 terms with the leading members of Parliament, 
 especially on the Liberal side, to which party his 
 
1852.] THE MAXWELLS OF POLLOK. 5 
 
 family had for generations belonged. This rendered 
 his conversation interesting and remarkable, from, 
 the number of eminent men with whom he had 
 been brought in contact ; and although he was not 
 gifted with original talents himself, he had a rare 
 faculty of discerning and appreciating them in 
 others, and had in consequence a mind stored with 
 striking observations and thoughts, which he had 
 imbibed and treasured up in the course of a long 
 and active life, and with the advantage of a varied 
 and extensive acquaintance. 
 
 Lady Matilda, his revered wife, was a person of 
 an entirely different disposition, and yet never was a 
 happier couple. A daughter of the Earl of Elgin, 
 who was so well known from Lord Byron's violent 
 tirade against him for the spoliation of the Par- 
 thenon, and lineally descended from Robert Brace, 
 she possessed in a remarkable degree the talents 
 and originality of her long line of ancestors. With- 
 out possessing regular beauty, her countenance was 
 eminently pleasing, and the benignity of her disposi- 
 tion appeared in the serenity of her manner and the 
 sweetness of her smile. She was of a very serious 
 turn of mind, and deeply imbued with the doctrines 
 of Edward Irving ; but these peculiarities of belief 
 did not in the slightest degree interfere with the 
 gentleness of her disposition or with the universal 
 charity of her feelings. She was pious without 
 being sectarian, beneficent but not exclusive. 
 
 Our intimacy with Sir John and Lady Matilda 
 
6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 Maxwell, among other valuable acquaintances to 
 which it led, brought on one of an interesting kind 
 — Miss Agnes Strickland — who was a frequent 
 guest for weeks together at PoUok House. This 
 able and learned lady was then writing the latter 
 volumes of her highly interesting 'Lives of the 
 Queens of England/ and making researches con- 
 nected with the work, which she projected and after- 
 wards completed, of the ' Biography of the Queens 
 of Scotland.' The vast extent of varied reading and 
 research in printed books, ancient records, family 
 papers, and manuscript correspondence, which the 
 composition of such books necessarily required, ren- 
 dered her conversation at once original and inter- 
 esting. She had strong talents, rather of a mascu- 
 line than of a feminine character, indefatigable per- 
 severance, and that ardour in whatever pursuit she 
 was engaged, without which no one could under- 
 go similar fatigue. But if her powers of thought 
 and composition were those of a man, her heart 
 and feelings were those of a woman. She was 
 impulsive in her disposition, and had to the fullest 
 extent that tendency to exaggerate the merits of her 
 favourites and indulge in the luxury of hero-worship, 
 which is so common in women of cultivated minds. 
 A striking instance of this occurred in a conversation 
 I once had with her, in regard to Queen Mary of 
 England. She was descanting on the lofty character 
 and noble feelings of that princess, to which I re- 
 plied : " That maybe all very true, Miss Strickland; 
 
1852.] MISS STRICKLAND. 7 
 
 but unfortunately she had an awkward habit of 
 burning people — she brought 239 men, women, and 
 children to the stake, in a reign which did not ex- 
 tend beyond a few years." " Oh yes, " she said, " it 
 was terrible, dreadful ; but it was the fault of the 
 age, the temper of the times; Mary herself was 
 everything that is noble and heroic." 
 
 Miss Strickland had great powers of expression and 
 disquisition — too great, indeed ; for when she got ou 
 one of her favourite subjects she descanted with such 
 animation, that in the intensity of her own thoughts 
 she came to forget that those of her auditor were by 
 no means wrought up to a similar point. Like Mac- 
 aulay, she poured out without mercy whatever at the 
 moment was occupying her own mind, without ever 
 recollecting that those she addressed were probably 
 interested in totally different subjects. On this 
 account, what she required above all things was a 
 good listener, and the presence of that quality almost 
 compensated for the want of any other. She did 
 not even require an answer or a sign of mutual intel- 
 ligence ; it was enough if the one she was addressing 
 simply remained passive. One day when I was laid 
 up at Fossil on my library sofa, from a wound in 
 the knee, she was kind enough to sit with me for 
 two hours, and was really very entertaining, from 
 the number of anecdotes she recounted of queens 
 in the olden time. When she left the room she 
 expressed herself kindly to Mrs Alison, as to the 
 agreeable time she had spent; and the latter said 
 
8 AUTOBIOaEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 to me on coming in : " What did you get to say to 
 Miss Strickland all this time 1 She says you were 
 so agreeable : and she was two hours here." " Say," 
 I replied; "with truth I assure you I did not say 
 six A¥ords to her the whole time." 
 
 With the general distress which, for five years after, 
 followed the monetary crisis of 1847, the business 
 of the Court in Glasgow increased so much, that I was 
 sufficiently occupied to preclude the commencement 
 of any considerable literary undertaking. Not only 
 the number but the weight of the cases rapidly aug- 
 mented, and from five to six hours every forenoon 
 was absorbed in their study, or in writing the judg- 
 ments upon them. During the last of these years, 
 in 1850 and 1851, the printing of the library edition 
 of my History was going forward, and the correction 
 of the proof-sheets furnished a light and agreeable 
 recreation in the interval of legal labour. It was 
 during these two years that I first conceived the 
 idea of writing this memoir — which in the latter of 
 them was commenced, and brought to a considerable 
 degree of maturity. My aim in doing so was not to 
 gratify a senseless vanity, for it was from the first 
 a fixed part of my design that no part should be 
 published, or even shown to any one, during my life. 
 My obj ect was to convey to future times, if the work 
 should live so long, a faithful portrait of the event- 
 ful times in which I had lived, and of the many 
 eminent persons whom I had met during a long and 
 varied life. As many of these were the most dis- 
 
1852.] AUTOBIOGRAPHY BEGUN. 9 
 
 tinguished and memorable characters of the age, I 
 felt a wish to transmit my sketches of them to future 
 times ; and I indulged a hope that their celebrity 
 might give an interest to the work, which I was not 
 foolish enough to expect from its own merits. 
 
 My contributions to ' Blackwood's Magazine ' were 
 well kept up during 1850 and 1851.^ On one mo- 
 mentous and interesting topic in which I was large- 
 ly officially engaged I exerted a more than ordinary 
 degree of care. The decennial census came to be 
 taken in the spring of 1851, and various causes had 
 conspired to make it an object of peculiar and last- 
 ing interest. The emigration, which since 1846 had 
 assumed such gigantic proportions as for the last four 
 years of the period to have amounted to above a 
 million of souls, coupled with the terrible Irish 
 famine in that year, from the direct or consequen- 
 
 1 The essays written by me during these last years for ' Blackwood ' 
 were as follows : — 
 
 Deo. 
 
 1849. 
 
 Free Trade at its Zenith, . . Vol. Ixvi 
 
 756. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 1850. 
 
 The Year of Reaction, 
 
 Ixvii 
 
 1. 
 
 April 
 
 )> 
 
 The Ministerial Measures, 
 
 jj 
 
 377. 
 
 May 
 
 3J 
 
 Free-trade Finance, .... 
 
 )) 
 
 513. 
 
 July 
 
 J) 
 
 Chateaubriand's Memoirs, . 
 
 Ixviii 
 
 33. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 J? 
 
 Ledru Rollin on England, . 
 
 )j 
 
 160. 
 
 Sept. 
 
 J) 
 
 Foreign Aifairs, 
 
 )j 
 
 319. 
 
 Deo. 
 
 JJ 
 
 Ancient and Modern Eloq^uence, 
 
 5J 
 
 645. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 1851. 
 
 The Currency Extension Acts of Nature, 
 
 Ixix 
 
 1. 
 
 )> 
 
 jj 
 
 Biography, 
 
 3? 
 
 40. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 3J 
 
 The Dangers of the Country. — External, 
 
 )> 
 
 196. 
 
 Mar. 
 
 » 
 
 The Dangers of the Country — Our In- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ternal Dangers, .... 
 
 3) 
 
 257. 
 
 May 
 
 )) 
 
 The Dinner to Lord Stanley, 
 
 >? 
 
 635. 
 
 June 
 
 3) 
 
 jEschylus, Shakespeare, and Schiller, 
 
 J> 
 
 641. 
 
 Aug. 
 
 V 
 
 The Census and Free Trade, 
 
 Ixx. 
 
 123. 
 
10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 tial effects of which probably not less than a half of 
 that number had perished, had produced a very great 
 effect upon the rate of increase, and especially in the 
 neighbouring island had induced a serious decline. I 
 had been officially charged with preparing the census 
 for Lanarkshire, where a great increase had occurred, 
 and my attention had thus been forcibly drawn to 
 this interesting and important branch of our social 
 economy. The census return exhibited a decline of 
 above a million and a half of persons in Ireland alone 
 since 1841 ; and there could be no doubt that over 
 the whole empire between 1845 and 1851 there had, 
 so far from an increase, been a terrible diminution of 
 inhabitants. This great change from former and 
 recent times appeared much greater than could be 
 accounted for by the famine, how severe soever, of 
 1846; and coupling it with the great and lasting 
 change in the commercial policy of this country in 
 that year, furnished ample materials for serious re- 
 flection. My ideas were thrown into an essay in 
 'Blackwood,' which appeared in Aug. 1851. The 
 views it contained were adverse to the prevailing 
 opinion at the time, which was in favour of an un- 
 limited and perpetual progression, wealth, prosperity, 
 and numbers, under popular institutions, and they 
 were accordingly very generally assailed in the con- 
 temporary journals. The experience of the next ten 
 years, however, and the results of the census of 1861, 
 had already demonstrated their general truth, and 
 given me no cause to blush for my anticipations. 
 
1852.] MR CAYLEY, M.P. 11 
 
 In the spring of these years and of the next two, 
 Mrs Alison and I regularly went to London, and 
 remained there a month or six weeks. I found 
 such a relaxation from the weary labours of my 
 office indispensable, and as I was allowed by the 
 Act of Parliament establishing the Glasgow sheriff- 
 ship to be absent for three months in the year, I 
 was within bounds in doing so. The only diffi- 
 culty was that my whole work when away remained 
 to be done when I returned, as no one else could 
 decide the cases appealed to me from my six sub- 
 stitutes ; but I always got them done within six 
 weeks after my return. The Registration Court 
 had greatly abated in weight of late years : instead 
 of absorbing fifty or sixty days, it could now be 
 concluded in fifteen or twenty, owing to the cessa- 
 tion of any contest in Glasgow ; and this relief fully 
 compensated for my absence in London. 
 
 It was at this period that we formed an acquaint- 
 ance, which soon was matured into a warm and last- 
 ing friendship, with Mr Cayley, M.P. for the 
 Northern Division of Yorkshire. We met him 
 first at the hospitable mansion of our kind and 
 highly valued friend Sir John Maxwell of PoUok, 
 near Glasgow ; and he became a frequent guest of 
 ours at Possil House. It was impossible to figure 
 a man of great talent and acuteness with more 
 pleasing manners. His health was feeble, and he 
 had long been affected with heart complaint, which 
 rendered him painfully breathless; but his spirits 
 
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 were cheerful, and he took the greatest pleasure 
 in social intercourse when a real interchange of 
 ideas could take place. Married young to a very 
 charming person, he had been early left a widower, 
 and had only two sons, both at this time young 
 men, of different dispositions, but of unmistakable 
 talents. The intimacy between Mr Cayley and 
 myself was much enhanced by the entire identity of 
 our views on political subjects, particularly on pro- 
 tection, free trade, and the currency. On the last 
 subject he was in an especial manner strong, and 
 Lord John Russell said on one occasion he made 
 the best speech on the subject which had ever 
 been delivered in Parliament. His education in 
 early life had been limited to what is taught in 
 English schools ; but he had by assiduous labour 
 conquered his deficiencies in maturer years ; and on 
 the subjects which interested him his information 
 was at once full and accurate. It is a proof of his 
 abilities as well as engaging manners, that though 
 he was for thirty years member for the North Rid- 
 ing of Yorkshire, and stood several contests with 
 the territorial magnates of that great district, he 
 was on every occasion placed at the head of the 
 poll, free of expense. He was a Whig of the old 
 school, not a revolutionary Whig, and was the 
 decided friend of the agricultural interest, and of 
 native industry. It was his firm adherence to these 
 principles which secured for him, during eventful 
 times and amidst jarring interests, the long-con- 
 tinued representation of the North Riding. 
 
1S52.] LORD HARDINGE. 13 
 
 Our friendship with Mr Cayley introduced us to 
 another family, for whom also we contracted a 
 lasting friendship. This was that of Sir William 
 Worsley of Hovingham Hall in Yorkshire. Con- 
 nected by marriage with Mr Cayley, the Worsleys 
 were still more closely bound by community of 
 political views, parliamentary interest, and the most 
 faithful and affectionate friendship. We spent a 
 fortnight at the hospitable mansion of Hovingham 
 in the autumn of 1851, and there is no period of 
 my life to which I look back with more pleasure. 
 Our host and hostess, in possession of a noble house, 
 and at the head of a great establishment, were un- 
 wearied in their kindness to their many guests, 
 and a numerous and charming family shared their 
 duties and assisted them in their labours. With 
 the Worsleys we visited several of the finest scenes 
 in Yorkshire, in particular Feversham Hall and 
 Eivaulx Abbey ; and enjoyed, one clear evening, the 
 felicity of seeing a fine view from the top of the 
 cliffs which form the eastern boundary of the plain 
 of Thirsk and Northallerton. 
 
 During the season of 1850 in London I was intro- 
 duced to Lord Hardinge. He had been gratified by 
 my well-deserved notice of him in the account of the 
 battle of Albuera ; and he was desirous of enlisting 
 my services in a cause which he had now much 
 at heart — viz., the awakening of the nation to a 
 sense of its danger, in the event of a rupture with 
 France, from the defenceless state of the empire. 
 This subject, on which the public at that period 
 
14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 evineed an apathy that now is scarcely conceivable, 
 occupied his attention to the exclusion of almost 
 every other. His official situation as Master-General 
 of the Ordnance gave him the means of ascer- 
 taining facts regarding it which no other person 
 enjoyed ; and Lady Hardinge told me that his 
 anxiety on the subject was such that he could not 
 sleep at night for thinking of it, and never awoke 
 without beginning to descant upon it. He told me 
 that at that time, if England should be invaded, he 
 could not collect above 10,000 men to defend Lon- 
 don, after providing for garrisoning the maritime 
 fortresses ; and that he had only forty guns which he 
 could bring into the field, the most of which had 
 not been repaired since the battle of Waterloo, and 
 would infallibly go to pieces if driven in wet weather 
 through a clay field. He earnestly besought me to 
 turn my attention to that subject, and furnished me 
 with the official details necessary for doing so. I 
 need hardly say that I shared his apprehensions, 
 and concurred in his views on the subject, which 
 he assured me were entertained by the Duke of 
 Wellington in an equal degree. In consequence I 
 wrote, after my return home, an essay for ' Black- 
 wood ' on the subject, in which Lord Hardinge's 
 statistics were engrossed.^ It is curious now, 
 as containing an authentic proof of the delusion 
 under which, from the influence of Cobden, Brigbt, 
 and the Manchester school, the nation laboured 
 at that time, and the mortal peril into which it 
 
 1 December 1850. The Defence of Britain. Vol. Ixviii. 736. 
 
1852.] SIDNEY HERBEKT. 15 
 
 was brought in consequence, and from which we 
 were delivered only by the good providence of 
 God. 
 
 Lord Hardinge has borne so important a part in 
 British history, that some account of him will not 
 be unacceptable. His appearance was not striking ; 
 his figure rather little than otherwise ; and his air 
 far from having the martial aspect of his rival in 
 Indian fame, Lord Gough. But his manner was 
 kind, and little acquaintance was required to learn 
 that this was not the result of merely external cour- 
 tesy, but flowed from genuine benevolence of heart. 
 In conversation he was quick, and in the expression 
 of opinion vigorous and decided — a peculiarity com- 
 mon to him with the Duke of Wellington, and one 
 very characteristic of intellectual power. He spoke 
 much on military subjects, and gave a most interest- 
 ing account of the campaign against the Sikhs. I 
 have found him always a kind and steady friend ; 
 and as such, as well as for his distinguished abilities 
 and great public services, I shall always cherish his 
 memory with affection. 
 
 About the same period I formed the acquaintance 
 of another public man — too soon, alas! snatched 
 from the service of his country — Mr Sidney Her- 
 bert, afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea. I met him 
 first at a dinner-party at Lord Hardinge's, at which 
 the Duke of Cambridge and several other leading 
 military men were present ; and as the party was 
 small, and consisted only of men, conversation soon 
 became general, and was very interesting. I saw 
 
16 ATJTOBIOaRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 that they were all as strongly impressed as Lord 
 Hardinge with the peril arising from the defenceless 
 state of the country; but they were hopeless of 
 being able to apply any remedy in consequence of 
 the temper of the House of Commons. Sidney Her- 
 bert, beside whom I was placed, spoke confidentially 
 still more strongly on this subject, saying that unless 
 the public mind were speedily changed regarding it, 
 we should not only lose our position as a first-rate 
 power, but would riin great risk of being conquered 
 by a descent of a land-force, or of being blockaded 
 by a maritime one. He seemed to be very despond- 
 ing ; and it is probable that nothing short of tbe 
 disasters of the Crimean war, and the threatening 
 aspect of Louis Napoleon, would have worked out 
 the great change in our military defences which has 
 since occurred. I could easily see from the style of 
 Sidney Herbert's conversation that his talents were 
 in a peculiar manner administrative, and that if 
 promoted to the position of War Minister, and 
 adequately supported by the House of Commons, 
 he would be a most valuable public servant. He 
 had remarkable talents for conversation, in which he 
 took great delight, and his manners were high-bred 
 and courteous. 
 
 I must make an opportunity of recording my pro- 
 test against the competitive system of examination 
 for admission to the army, navy, and nearly every 
 branch of th6 civil service of Government introduced 
 of late years, which has been so much applauded by 
 
1852.] COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS. 17 
 
 the Liberal press in every part of the country. 
 Nothing can be more absurd than these examina- 
 tions, at least as at present conducted, or more likely 
 to introduce an inferior, and, for all practical pur- 
 poses, an inefficient set of young men into the public 
 service. The reason is that the examinations show 
 only the amount of previous cramming to which 
 the young aspirant for office has been subjected, 
 and of the retentive powers of his memory, but by no 
 means a test either of good conduct, clear judgment, 
 talents, industry, or energy, which, far more than 
 memory, are the requisites for real usefulness in the 
 business of life. One of the questions asked of a 
 boy of sixteen years of age, who was going into the 
 army, was, " What was the name of the queen of the 
 seventh king of Assyria ? " Another, " What is the 
 name of the river on which Madrid stands 1 " A 
 third, " In what year was the ffi'st English Prayer- 
 book printed 1 " As to the first of these questions, I 
 am ignorant of the names of all the kings of Assyria, 
 as well as of Babylon, not to say their wives, except 
 the semi-fabulous great Queen Semiramis, and King 
 Nebuchadnezzar ; as to the second, Madrid, elevated 
 1800 feet above the level of the sea, stands on 
 no river at all, but is passed by a small mountain 
 torrent dry half the year ; and as to the third, it 
 might be a right enough question for a young divine, 
 but was wholly unsuitable for a young soldier. It 
 is not enough to say that these examinations as 
 now conducted are useless : they are positively inju- 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 rious, for tliey subject real merit to an erroneous 
 test; proceed on the supposition that all men are 
 to be schoolmasters, not officers or public servants ; 
 and send forward for the public service in the Church, 
 the State, and the army, a set of young men unfit 
 for the peculiar duties on which they are required 
 to enter. Already complaints are heard of the un- 
 fitness of the youths who have passed these exam- 
 inations for the duties in real life to which they 
 are called. Sir John Lawrence told me last sum- 
 mer, that instead of the active, spirited young men 
 formerly sent out to him when in command of 
 the Punjaub, he got a lot of bookworms, often 
 feeble in body, who could answer any questions 
 regarding the fixed stars or sulphuric acid, but 
 fell off the moment they were put on a spirited 
 horse, although one of the first duties they had to 
 perform was to command districts sixty miles long. 
 It is well known to military men that the young 
 officers from the mercantile classes sent forward 
 from the competitive examinations have been far 
 from exhibiting the spirit in action which their 
 predecessors, drawn from the gentry of the country, 
 showed. The character of our officers is visibly 
 changing from the effects of the competitive system ; 
 and it may with confidence be predicted, that if a 
 British " Bull's Eun " ever occurs, it will be from 
 competitive examinations having introduced that 
 class as officers into the army which made itself 
 so famous in the American ranks. 
 
 At one of Lord Hardinge's dinners in London at 
 
1852.] LADY CLEMENTINA VILLIEJRS. 19 
 
 this period, I was fortunate enough to form the ac- 
 quaintance of perhaps the most charming woman of 
 her time in England, now no more — Lady Clementina 
 ~\*illiers. I was accidentally seated next her, but as 
 another had taken her down, and I had not been 
 introduced to her, the first course passed without 
 our exchanging words. Our host, however, in the 
 interval between the first and second courses, asked 
 me to drink Avine with him, which courteous custom 
 at that period had not gone out. She no sooner 
 heard the name than she turned round and began 
 a conversation which lasted for the next two hours. 
 This led to an acquaintance with Lord and Lady 
 Jersey, who called on Mrs Alison next day, and 
 opened to us the door of their charming mansion 
 in Berkeley Square, which continued a place of 
 frequent and delightful resort till an extraordinary 
 accumulation of domestic misfortune caused its being 
 comparatively closed. Perhaps there was no house 
 at that period in London which possessed higher 
 attractions. Placed by her position and connections 
 in the highest fashion, and possessed of remarkable 
 talents for conversation, which constituted her great 
 enjoyment. Lady Jersey assembled in her drawing- 
 rooms at once the elite of the gay set, and the most dis- 
 tinguished of the political and literary world. You 
 met there the first statesmen, diplomatists, generals, 
 and barristers, with all the foreign ambassadors and 
 foreigners of distinction, as well as the most beautiful 
 and high-born women in English society. A slight 
 circumstance, a passing introduction, or an accidental 
 
20 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 proximity at dinner, was sufficient to open a conver- 
 sation, and often laid the foundation of a valuable 
 acquaintance, in some cases of a lasting friendship. 
 Every one felt that presence in her saloons was a 
 sufficient passport, and required no farther introduc- 
 tion. Men of distinction of all parties were wel- 
 come ; but as the reunions were in a great measure 
 political, and the inclinations of the head of the 
 house were decidedly Conservative, the great major- 
 ity of the guests were of that party. 
 
 The acquaintance which an accidental seat at 
 dinner gave rise to between Lady Clementina Vil- 
 liers and myself, ripened into a friendship which 
 lasted for life. We corresponded regularly for the 
 next nine years, and in all the incidents during that 
 time of our family, she felt and expressed the 
 Theilnah7ne, as the Germans say, which is charac- 
 teristic of true friendship. The last thing she did 
 before her death was to write a letter to me. I 
 ascribed this remarkable mental intimacy to our 
 identity of thought and feeling on every subject, 
 moral, political, and literary, and to the great admi- 
 ration which her remarkable talents, brilliant beauty, 
 and spotless character from the very first awakened 
 in my mind. Her extreme beauty, captivating man- 
 ner, and brilliant conversation, had long made her 
 an object of admiration in the fashionable world. 
 Before many years had elapsed she had refused the 
 heirs to three dukedoms. Nine peers were some- 
 times waiting to secure her hand at the conclusion 
 
1852.] LADY CLEMENTINA VILLIEES. 21 
 
 of a dance. Yet with all this unbounded homage 
 she was never the object of envy or detraction to 
 the less fortunate of her own sex. She was as 
 popular with women as with men ; there was an air 
 of purity and kindness about her which disarmed 
 calumny and stifled jealousy. It was a matter of 
 surprise to all that with these splendid qualities 
 she should have remained Lady Clementina Vil- 
 liers, for when she died she was thirty-one, and 
 there were many surmises in the circle in which she 
 moved as to the cause of this apparently unaccount- 
 able circumstance. So far as my own observation 
 goes, I should say it was simply from an excess of 
 filial affection. Lord and Lady Jersey had been 
 unfortunate in some instances in their family, and 
 Lady Clementina has often spoken to me of the 
 deep grief which the death of her sister, the Princess 
 Esterhazy, had occasioned both to her parents and 
 herself. Bereft of others, they took refuge in her 
 affection, which was boundless and unceasing. Their 
 dependence upon her, in consequence, became ex- 
 treme. She was a personification of self-negation, 
 and has often said to me, that her father and 
 mother would be sadly cast away if she left them, 
 and that she had no enjoyment in life compared 
 to that of making their declining years happy. She 
 died on her return from Germany in 1859, and Ave 
 shall never see her like again. It was said by one 
 who knew her well — "God took a cast and then 
 broke the mould." 
 
22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 During the years 1850 and 1851 we were fre- 
 quently both at dinner-parties, and in the evening at 
 Lord and Lady Londonderry's in Holdernesse House, 
 and the acquaintances thus formed deserve to be 
 noticed, as well from the distinction of those emi- 
 nent persons themselves, and the brilliant society 
 with which they were surrounded, as from the cir- 
 cumstance of its having led to further literary com- 
 position on my part. Lord Londonderry at that 
 period was much broken ; his eyesight was defect- 
 ive, and hearing imperfect ; but he still enjoyed the 
 clearness of intellect, and took the decided views 
 Avhich had characterised him during his long and 
 eventful career. His conversation was peculiarly 
 interesting to me, from its abounding so much in 
 anecdotes of the Peninsular and German wars, and 
 of nearly all the illustrious men who had borne a 
 part in the transactions of Europe during the war. 
 He told me a very curious thing, which was that the 
 greatest efforts were made by the Duke of Welling- 
 ton to dissuade him from publishing the Castlereagh 
 despatches; and that so anxious was his Grace on the 
 subject, that he got the Queen, through Lord Aber- 
 deen, to make a request on the subject in regard to 
 the last volume ! This seems to indicate that jeal- 
 ousy is not confined to beauties or opera-dancers, 
 but that it afi'ects the " greatest, best, and wisest of 
 mankind." This information had the effect of in- 
 ducing a suspicion in my mind that the magnitude 
 of Lord Castlereagh 's services in the great war had 
 
1S52.] LADY LONDONDERRY. 23 
 
 not hitherto been rightly acknowledged, and it pre- 
 disposed me to undertake the task pressed upon 
 me after his death of writing his life. 
 
 Frances Anne, Marchioness of Londonderry, A^ho 
 brought a noble fortune to her able and heroic hus- 
 band, was in every point of view a remarkable 
 woman, even in that age of intellectual activity and 
 cultivation. The last representative of an ancient 
 and noble family, that of Sir Harry Vane- Tempest, 
 in the north of England, a daughter of the Countess 
 of Antrim, who was a peeress in her own right in 
 the north of Ireland, she was heiress to a fine 
 estate in the county of Durham. She was married 
 in April 1819 to Lord Londonderry, then Lord 
 Stewart and ambassador of Great Britain at the 
 Austrian Court. As " Madame I'Ambassadrice," she 
 soon took a lead in that gay metropolis, which she 
 continued to hold till he resigned on Mr Canning's 
 appointment to the Foreign Office in 1823. After 
 that event she returned with her husband to Great 
 Britain, where she soon became a centre of fashion in 
 London, and dispensed hospitality on a magnificent 
 scale, both at her own splendid mansion in the 
 county of Durham, and on her husband's hereditary 
 estates in the north of Ireland. It was hard to say 
 whether entrance to the splendid galleries of Hol- 
 dernesse House or to the noble suite of rooms at 
 AVynyard, was most sought after by aspirants after 
 distinction, whether in the political or in the fashion- 
 able world. As one of the leading patronesses of 
 
24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 the celebrated balls held in Willis's Rooms, called 
 "Almacks," she was an acknowledged queen of 
 fashion; and it was alleged by her enemies — of 
 whom, of course, from her eminence, she had many 
 — that she wielded her power as tyrannically as ever 
 her brother-in-law, Lord Castlereagh, had done that 
 of the British Crown. 
 
 This Marchioness of Londonderry had in many 
 respects a noble character, which appeared for the 
 first time in its true colours, when, on her hus- 
 band's death in 1854, she was left the sole execu- 
 tor and administrator of his great estates. Lord 
 Londonderry had embarked in a vast undertaking 
 — that of creating a harbour amidst the rocks of 
 Seaham, begun on an estate purchased by him from 
 Mr Milbanke, Lady Byron's father, to form a vent 
 for the inexhaustible seam of coal on his estate in 
 its vicinity, which, although eminently prosperous, 
 still required great advances of capital for its com- 
 pletion, and eminent prudence for its management. 
 Never was a human being more qualified for these 
 duties than Lady Londonderry. From the day Avhen 
 she succeeded to her arduous task, she seemed to 
 have but one object, and to be animated but with 
 one desire — that of carrying out in their fullest extent 
 her husband's designs for the improvement of her 
 estates and the welfare of the people. She super- 
 intended everything herself, received all the stewards, 
 factors, and engineers in person, and made herself 
 acquainted with all the details of estates and under- 
 
1852.] LADY LONDONDERRY. 25 
 
 takings, which produced in favourable years £120,000 
 a -year. The whole morning was devoted to busi- 
 ness. She took the lead in everything ; and realised 
 what she told me she herself had said to her agents 
 when they had expressed a hope that they would all 
 pull well together in the team : " Yes, I hope you 
 will ; but, recollect, I must always be on the box." 
 
 She found, as all do who have vigour of mind enough 
 to set their face to the discharge of duty, ample 
 reward in the performance of it. She once said to 
 me, when I expressed surprise at her being able to 
 go through so much work : " When I was a young 
 woman, and cared for nothing but dress and admira- 
 tion, I was often unhappy, lay in bed every day till 
 three o'clock, often in tears ; now I am up every 
 morning at seven, have not a moment all forenoon 
 to myself, and am as happy as possible." This vigour 
 of character, so remarkable in a lady of her rank and 
 previous habits of fashion, met with its deserved 
 reward. I heard from herself that the harbour of 
 Seaham was begun by her husband in 1827 with 
 only £1500 in the bank; its construction cost 
 £250,000 : but nevertheless, when she recounted the 
 circumstance in 1857, she had just before had the 
 satisfaction of depositing the titles of the estate in 
 the charter -room at Wynyard unencumbered, the 
 debt being all paid off. Nor were her efforts con- 
 fined only to undertakings augmenting the fortune 
 of her family. She was equally indefatigable in the 
 establishment of those which lead to the increase 
 
26 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 of human happiness. Churches were built and en- 
 dowed, hospitals, dispensaries, and schools set on 
 foot, an athenseum established, and an infirmary 
 erected. Above 2000 children born or bred on her 
 estates are taught entirely at her expense. 
 
 The kindness of our friends Sir Maxwell and Lady 
 Wallace, introduced us in the autumn of 1851 to the 
 Duke and Duchess of Cleveland, by whom we were 
 invited to Eaby Castle, where we spent some days 
 with a large and agreeable party. This celebrated 
 castellated mansion is one of the few remaining 
 from the olden time that still preserve the customs 
 and usages of the feudal ages. The castle itself, 
 flanked by lofty towers and surrounded by a wet 
 ditch, is entire, and has been converted inside into 
 an elegant and spacious mansion. On the summit 
 of one of these towers a warder is constantly placed, 
 who blows his horn when he sees a carriage or 
 horseman approaching, on hearing which the watch- 
 man at the gate lets down the portcullis, which 
 is not opened till the visitor gives his name and 
 address. The hall into which he is then ushered 
 is so large that carriages all drive into it, and a 
 chariot-and-four seems quite small in it at the foot 
 of the great stair. The library is a noble gallery, 
 eighty feet long ; the kitchen a vaulted room as 
 large as a church, in which a ton of coal is consumed 
 daily when the castle is full. The Duke and Duch- 
 ess did the honours with equal grace and affability, 
 and evinced the perfection of high breeding, which 
 
1852.] THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 27 
 
 consists in making every one feel at ease, and none 
 neglected. 
 
 In striking contrast to this venerable relic of the 
 Plantagenet days, at this time, was a monument in 
 London of modern civilisation. This was the Great 
 Exhibition of works of art and manufacture from all 
 nations, which has rendered the year 1851 memor- 
 able in the annals of industry as well as of the 
 British empire. Being the first undertaking of the 
 kind which had ever been executed, it created a great 
 sensation, and attracted visitors and admirers from 
 the most distant parts of the earth. It was attended 
 with very beneficial effects, but not so much by sub- 
 stituting pacific and friendly rivalry in the arts for 
 the angry passions of war, as from the sense of 
 inferiority which it awakened in many who had 
 hitherto closed the door to improvement by think- 
 ing they had no need of it. 
 
 All the nations of the earth were to be there rep- 
 resented ; but it was not in military array, but in 
 civil garb : there were to be no more envyings, or 
 jealousies, or strife, but only the generous and unself- 
 ish emulation of freemen. Prince Albert lent the 
 weight of his high position, philanthropic heart, and 
 persuasive eloquence to these ideas ; and the general 
 contribution of works of art and productions of in- 
 dustry to the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, proved 
 how widely these ideas had spread among the phil- 
 anthropic and enthusiastic part of mankind. 
 
 No one who has witnessed it can forget the de- 
 
28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 liglatful emotions with whicli the opening of the 
 Great Exhibition on May 2, 1851, was attended. 
 The structure itself was airy and beautiful in the 
 highest degree ; and it had the charm peculiar to 
 itself, and which no similar edifice can ever again 
 possess, of being the first. It was erected in a most 
 favourable position, in the level strip of ground 
 which lies between the Serpentine and Knights- 
 bridge Barracks; was built entirely of glass and iron, 
 except the foundations and staircases ; and was of 
 such vast dimensions that some of the noble elms 
 with which that verdant turf was dotted were cov- 
 ered like plants in a conservatory with the glassy 
 roof No words can adequately express the effect 
 of the interior as you first entered the nave, with 
 the light streaming in from all sides through the 
 transparent roof, and the most beautiful works of art 
 from all quarters of the earth glittering on all sides. 
 The exquisite proportions and airy aspect of this 
 magnificent structure constituted the least part of 
 its attractions. It was the idea, of which it was the 
 expression, which was its principal charm. It was 
 universally regarded as the Temple of Peace; the 
 inauguration of a new era in the world ; but, alas ! 
 we were on the verge of the Crimean war, the 
 India revolt, the Italian contest, the Chinese strife, 
 the terrible American civil war ! 
 
 But when we descended from the unrivalled grace 
 of the structure to the works of art collected under 
 its roof, the impression was of a more mixed kind. In 
 
1852.] THE GREAT EXHIBITION. 29 
 
 the useful arts, and in such as, though ornamental, 
 utility was still the principal object, the British manu- 
 facturers and mechanics maintained their long-estab- 
 lished superiority. But in the purely or chiefly orna- 
 mental they were for the most part much behind their 
 Continental rivals. This was in an especial manner 
 the case in the patterns for curtains and furniture, 
 carpets, ornamental dinner-services, plate, china, glass, 
 jewellery, and ladies' dresses. This effect was here at 
 once conspicuous of the long exclusion of the British 
 artisan from the Continent during the war, and the 
 want of the habitual contemplation of the models 
 of classical taste from his remote geographical situ- 
 ation. This inferiority had long been felt and re- 
 gretted by persons who had travelled, and were con- 
 versant with the works of foreign art ; but it had 
 always been stoutly denied by the sturdy John Bull 
 patriots, who could see no merit in anything which 
 came from abroad. Now, however, if not universally 
 admitted, it was universally felt ; juxtaposition dis- 
 pelled many fond and long-cherished illusions. The 
 finest statuary in the Exhibition came from German 
 or Italian artists ; America sent a large share ; 
 and the two most admired statues, the Greek Slave 
 and the Amazon, both the work of foreigners, have 
 taken a lasting place among the most admired pieces 
 of sculpture. The British artists, however, took their 
 discomfiture in the right spirit ; here, as elsewhere, 
 it was found that a sense of deficiency is the first 
 step to amendment ; schools of art were generally 
 
30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 established, and eagerly attended by the young aspir- 
 ants after artistic perfection ; speedily the old models 
 were thrown aside, and new ones, founded on classi- 
 cal designs, were studied ; the general taste rapidly 
 improved, and when the next Exhibition was opened 
 in 1862, the improvement, especially in the taste of 
 designs, was so remarkable as to excite general ob- 
 servation. 
 
 About this time I was confirmed in the opinion 
 of the expediency of steering clear of all associa- 
 tions for either political or social purposes, and 
 of trusting to individual eifort alone, by a cir- 
 cumstance which occurred. A strong feeling had 
 long prevailed in Scotland that the country was 
 neglected by the Imperial Parliament, and not 
 duly supported by its representatives in the House 
 of Commons ; and an Association had, in con- 
 sequence, been formed to obtain redress, and pro- 
 cure for Scotland its due share of grants for pub- 
 lic purposes from the Imperial Treasury. Lord 
 Eglinton was its chairman, and at his request I 
 attended and moved one of the resolutions at a great 
 meeting held at Edinburgh on the subject in Feb- 
 ruary 1852. The facts I adduced were decisive of 
 the question, so far as the parsimonious dealing with 
 Scotland in regard to public grants is concerned, 
 and the meeting was very successful ; but I soon 
 perceived elements of a dangerous character begin- 
 ning to work in it. Lord Eglinton and I were 
 perfectly united in our views, which were to abide 
 
1852.] THE SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION. 31 
 
 firmly by the Union, and utter nothing which could 
 shake the general attachment to it; but, resting on 
 that basis, to demand for Scotland her full share in 
 the benefits which the neighbouring countries, and 
 Ireland in particular, had long derived from it. To 
 give only two examples : Ireland got £560,000 to 
 support its police establishment from the Consoli- 
 dated Fund ; Scotland, for a similar defensive force, 
 nothing. Ireland, in the potato famine of 1846, got 
 £8,000,000 from the Imperial Parliament ; Scotland, 
 which in its whole western counties had suffered 
 just as much from that calamity, nothing. But we 
 soon found that other more ardent and hot-headed 
 patriots were not content with this object, but not 
 obscurely aimed at a dissolution of the Union as 
 the only remedy likely to be at all effectual to 
 obviate the admitted evils of the present state of 
 things. Already the Irish Eepealers were stretching 
 out the hand of amity to this new and unexpected 
 ally. The movement, therefore, was obviously 
 becoming dangerous, not from the strength of its 
 opponents, but the imprudence of some of its sup- 
 porters ; and accordingly Lord Eglinton and I agreed 
 that it should be allowed to drop, as it soon 
 after was, on occasion of the breaking out of the 
 Crimean war, upon the ground that " England's 
 danger was not Scotland's opportunity." 
 
 Before this took place, however, a public meeting 
 was held in Glasgow, with the Duke of Montrose in 
 the chair, to thank Lord Eglinton for his patriotic 
 
32 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 efforts in behalf of his country in supporting this 
 movement. It was held in the City Hall, and was 
 very numerously and respectably attended. The 
 Duke made an admirable chairman, and showed such 
 talents for public speaking as to make every one 
 regret that he did not take a more prominent part 
 in public affairs. I was intrusted with proposing 
 his health, which afforded an opportunity for some 
 sentences about Graham's Dyke and the Eoman 
 Wall, which were loudly applauded. Lord Eglin- 
 ton spoke on the occasion with modesty and pro- 
 priety, and his usual grace of manner and felicity 
 of expression. A melancholy incident closed this 
 scene of festivity. Lady Eglinton had for some 
 weeks previously been seriously ill ; but no imme- 
 diate danger was apprehended, and as the meeting 
 had brought persons from all parts of Scotland, Lord 
 Eglinton did not feel himself at liberty to put it off. 
 He was our guest at Possil, with Mr Baillie Cochrane 
 and a few other friends on the occasion, and we had 
 a very pleasant supper after it, which broke up at 
 half-past twelve. Between one and two a telegram 
 arrived from Eglinton with the intelligence that her 
 ladyship was dying ; and I had the melancholy duty 
 to perform of conveying to him the intelligence. He 
 was deeply affected, and immediately set out, but 
 before he could reach home Lady Eglinton was no 
 more. 
 
 During the autumn of 1851, after our return to 
 Possil, we had the good fortune to form the acquaint- 
 
1S52.] LORD GOUGH. 33 
 
 ance of another man who has engraved his name on 
 the tablets of British history — Lord Gough. This 
 distinguished warrior, with Lady Gough, paid us a 
 visit for two days, on their way from his son-in-law's. 
 Colonel (now Sir Patrick) Grant, to his villa of St 
 Helen's, near Dublin. It is impossible to conceive 
 a more perfect picture of an old but yet active and 
 vigorous British warrior. His snow-white hair, 
 moustache, and whiskers, bespoke the progress of 
 years, but the lapse of time had brought none 
 of the usual weakness of age, nor abated the acute- 
 ness and vigour of his mind. His figure was as 
 erect, his gait as rapid, his strength as great, as at 
 twenty-five ; and he seemed as capable of heading 
 a charge, and as ready to do so, as he had been at 
 Goojerat, Ferozeshah, or the Sutlej. He was ex- 
 ceedingly frank and aff'able in his manners, and, 
 from his store of military and adventurous anecdote, 
 a most agreeable companion. Judging from his 
 conversation, I should say he was more suited for 
 desperate passages at arms than for the more me- 
 thodical arrangements of a campaign ; assault, not 
 strategy, seemed to be his forte, and so it proved in 
 many parts of. his career, particularly at Chillian- 
 wallah. At Goojerat, however, of which he gave 
 me a most interesting account, his tactics were of a 
 superior order, and deservedly crowned with success, 
 with comparatively little loss. 
 
 In November 1851, I was, unknown to myself, 
 selected by the Conservatives of Glasgow University 
 
 VOL. II. c 
 
 ^7 
 
34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 as a candidate for the Lord-Rectorship, which was 
 in the gift of the students. Any one might be proud 
 of being even named an aspirant to a position which 
 had been held by Burke, Mackintosh, Adam Smith, 
 Campbell, Lord Cockburn, Lord Derby, Jeffrey, 
 and many other illustrious men ; but the honour 
 in my case became the greater from the opponent 
 selected being Lord Palmerston, then Minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, who was supported by the Liberal 
 party in the west of Scotland. The canvass was 
 conducted with great keenness, though fortunately 
 without any of the violence or ill-feeling frequent 
 on such occasions. The election, according to the 
 constitution of the University, took place by " na- 
 tions," as it is called — that is, in four divisions, each 
 of which had a vote, and in which were arranged 
 all the students according to the place of their 
 birth. These were called in barbarous Latin, the 
 Glottiana, or those from the Clyde ; the Transforth- 
 iana, from beyond the Forth ; the Lothiana, which 
 embraced all from Edinburgh ; and the Rothiana, 
 which included all from Ayrshire, Bute, and the 
 north of Ireland. The nations were equally divided 
 between myself and Lord Palmerston, but on the 
 whole there was a majority of Q9 in my favour. In 
 consequence of this circumstance. Colonel Mure of 
 Caldwell, the former Rector, upon whom in such 
 circumstances the casting vote devolved, gave it in 
 my favour. 
 
 The installation took place in the University Hall 
 
1852.] THE GLASGOW LOED-EECTORSHIP. 35 
 
 on the 15tli January 1852, in presence of a very 
 large assemblage, including Lord Eglinton, Profes- 
 sor Aytoun, the Messrs Blackwood, and many of 
 my personal friends. The interest felt on the occa- 
 sion was the greater from its having been preceded 
 by so keen a contest, which had run into a trial 
 of strength between the two great parties that di- 
 vided the State. The speech which I delivered on 
 the occasion, and which is printed in the volumes 
 of these University orations, was very well received, 
 and, in particular, the defeated party were very 
 generous in their expressions of approbation. Upon 
 reflection, however, I think that though the obser- 
 vations made in it were in themselves just, they 
 were not so well adapted for the audience to which 
 they were addressed as the one I had delivered 
 some years before on a similar occasion at Aberdeen. 
 I was now in the first fervour of my admiration for 
 German literature and Schiller's plays, and in con- 
 sequence I dwelt in my speech more on that subject 
 than was judicious to an assembly of young men, 
 manyof them boys, nearly all of whom were unac- 
 quainted with German, and only beginning to master 
 the difiiculties of the dead languages. Goethe says 
 that no man, unless paying them compliments, 
 ever addressed a public assembly for twenty minutes 
 without being deemed tiresome, and this is still 
 more the case if in the course of it high praise is 
 bestowed, however justly, on others. 
 
 About this time I attended, at the request of my 
 
36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [lSi9- 
 
 friends in Edinburgii, a public meeting, held in tlie 
 Music Hall in that city, to arrange a petition to 
 Parliament on the subject of the intemperance un- 
 happily so prevalent among the working classes in 
 Scotland. The subject was a vast one of paramount 
 importance. My official experience in the county 
 of Lanark had unfortunately given me ample ground 
 for representing it, as I did, as one of the greatest 
 evils which affected society. The remedy I proj)osed, 
 however, and which I strongly stated was the only 
 one likely to be effectual in mitigating the evil, con- 
 sisted in merely increasing the duty on spirits till the 
 point was reached when smuggling was likely to be 
 occasioned by it. This, accordingly, has since been 
 done, the duty having been increased over the whole 
 island to 10s. a gallon, from 3s. 8d. in Scotland and 7s. 
 in England, and with the best effect — the consump- 
 tion of s]Dirits in the empire having, in consequence, 
 sunk from 25,500,000 gallons in 1859, to 21,500,000, 
 in round numbers, in 1860. This remedy, however, 
 was deemed much too feeble by several of the 
 speakers, who strongly urged the necessity of a 
 Maine law in Great Britain, rendering , the mere 
 sale of bonded spirits, except by an apothecary on 
 a medical certificate, an indictable offence. As so 
 extreme a remedy was obviously impracticable, and 
 if it could have been carried into practice, likely to 
 produce evils of a much more serious nature than 
 those how great soever arising from intemperance, 
 I withdrew from the association and returned home 
 
1852.] CONTINUATION OF HISTORY. 37 
 
 with two great truths engraven on my mind. The 
 first was the extreme danger of joining any associa- 
 tion, however laudable its general design, when you 
 are not perfectly sure of rational counsels obtaining 
 the direction ; and the second, that there are no men 
 whom it is so hazardous to intrust with the direc- 
 tion of public affairs as the clergy. 
 
 On 2d December 1851, the anniversary of the 
 battle of Austerlitz, the famous coup d'etat took 
 place, which ended in setting Louis Napoleon 
 on the throne of France. This important event 
 forcibly arrested my attention, and produced a 
 new effect on my literary pursuits. I beheld in 
 it the completion of the last act in the French 
 Eevolution, and an additional proof of the truth in 
 Mr Hume's words, " that subsistence of government 
 by popular force, from whatever cause arising, can 
 terminate only in the government of the sword." I 
 felt a strong desire to incorporate its story with my 
 former history, which closed with the battle of Water- 
 loo, and the establishment of constitutional govern- 
 ment in France in the person of the Bourbons, 
 although well aware of the difficulties with which 
 such an attempt would be attended, as the principle 
 on which the work would be written, and the doc- 
 trines it was intended to illustrate, were unpopular 
 ones. Regarding as I did the military despotism 
 of Louis Napoleon as the natural result of the 
 democratic convulsions of 1830 and 1848, free 
 trade as a symptom of the first step in national 
 
38 ATJTOBIOaRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 decline, and the contraction of the currency and 
 its entire dependence on the retention of gold by 
 the Bank of England, which free trade had ren- 
 dered impossible, as the main cause of the national 
 suffering since the Peace, I could not possibly write 
 a work which would at the moment be popular. 
 
 In addition to this cause of unpopularity, there 
 was another which could not fail to arouse some sore 
 feeling and provoke some angry criticism. In treat- 
 ing of contemporary or nearly contemporary events, 
 an author is necessarily brought into contact with 
 many persons who are still alive, or whose recent 
 decease has left warm feelings of attachment in the 
 breasts of their relatives, friends, or political associ- 
 ates. If the author gives way to such feelings, and 
 bestows praise which the verdict of history will not 
 sustain, he justly incurs the reproach of favouritism 
 or sycophancy; if he honestly and fearlessly states 
 his real opinion, and delineates character in such 
 terms as subsequent times will approve, he may 
 obtain the confidence of future ages, but he is almost 
 sure to incur the displeasure of his own. The more 
 impartial a contemporary history is, the more likely 
 is it to incur odium, and to be assailed by one or per- 
 haps both sides. This difficulty was in an- especial 
 manner the case in a general history from 1815 to 
 1852, during which period, from its being one of 
 transition, party spirit ran high in the British do- 
 minions, and there were, comparatively speaking, 
 few external events of importance sufficient to with- 
 
1852.] CONTINUATION OF HISTORY. 39 
 
 draw attention from the ceaseless strife of classes 
 or parties. 
 
 Added to this there was another difficulty, which 
 arose from the paucity of authentic materials on 
 which, so soon after the event, to construct a cor- 
 rect narrative of public transactions. In general, 
 no records exist for contemporary annals, but the 
 dry and often jejune compilations in annual registers 
 and parliamentary debates. For the great catas- 
 trophes of the fall of Charles X. and Louis Philippe, 
 indeed, there were publications and documents in 
 abundance ; but with these exceptions, and those of 
 the Hungarian and Italian wars, there were scarcely 
 any but the journals and periodical literature of the 
 day. To select out of enormous folios the compara- 
 tively small number of incidents worthy of a place 
 in the narrow compass of historical annals, was a 
 work of immense, and generally unobserved and 
 therefore thankless, labour. The reviewers, who felt 
 none of it, could not form an idea of the magnitude 
 of this toil, and they often complained that no other 
 authorities but the ' Moniteur ' the 'Annuaire Histo- 
 rique,' the ' Annual Eegister,' and parliamentary de- 
 bates, were referred to, when in reality there were 
 none other in existence applicable to long periods ; 
 and the very examination of them in their rude state 
 entailed a far greater amount of labour than if the 
 materials had been fashioned and abridged by many 
 intermediate hands. 
 
 I began, however, the " Continuation " on January 
 
40 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 1, 1852, and finished the first chapter in six weeks. 
 It IS, in my own opinion, the best I ever wrote, from 
 being a resume of the principles of my whole work, 
 and the result of the thought and study of a lifetime. 
 On that very account, however, it was likely to be 
 distasteful to, and awaken the animosity of, the great 
 majority of the present generation ; and accord- 
 ingly it was rudely assailed by the Liberal press — 
 both daily, weekly, and monthly — on its first appear- 
 ance, which was in December following. Though 
 in some degree prepared for it, I was on the whole 
 taken by surprise by the violence of the Liberal 
 press, which formed a striking contrast to the indul- 
 gence, approaching to favour, with which my former 
 work had been received. I did not recollect, what I 
 now see clearly, that in this new work I had come 
 abreast of the objects of social and party contention 
 at this very time, and had taken my stand on Con- 
 servative and Protection principles, against all the 
 changes, political, social, and commercial, which the 
 Liberal chiefs had introduced since the Peace. They 
 had flattered themselves that the triumph of their 
 principles was complete when the corn laws were 
 repealed and free trade introduced, and that no one, 
 either on the hustings, in Pai'liament, or in the press, 
 would ever maintain the opposite opinions again. 
 Proportionally great wafe their irritation when they 
 found that an author, whose works had had a 
 considerable circulation, still stood to his guns, — 
 proposed to go over the whole period during which 
 
1852.] CONTINXJATION OF HISTORY. 41 
 
 these changes were introduced on Protection princi- 
 ples, and attempt to deduce from their results addi- 
 tional arguments for them. This was an offence not 
 to be forgiven ; and accordingly they said the Avhole 
 thing was perfectly ridiculous, that it was a vain 
 attempt to revert to obsolete and exploded ideas, 
 and that it would be an insult to the lights of the 
 age to commence any serious refutation of them. 
 
 There can be no doubt that these remarks, re- 
 echoed by the whole Liberal, and nearly the whole 
 of the Peelite press, must have produced a consider- 
 able effect on a large class of readers, and materially 
 lessened the sale of the work. It did so the more 
 that the Conservative press, divided on the subject 
 by Sir E. Peel's secession, and fearful of bringing 
 down on their own heads the Liberal storm, made 
 hardly any attempt to stem the torrent. Never- 
 theless, the success of the work was much larger 
 than I anticipated. The first edition of all the 
 volumes, the cost of which was 15s. each, con- 
 sisted of 5000 copies, and as it extended ultimately 
 to eight volumes, besides a ninth for the index, the 
 cost of the whole was £6, 7s. 6d. A second edi- 
 tion was called for, which had issued from the 
 press, and already reached the third volume, before 
 the publication of the original series had concluded. 
 The second edition consisted of 2000 copies each 
 volume. Such a sale, in the face of such an opposi- 
 tion, and with scarcely any support from the reviews 
 or magazines professing similar principles, is very 
 
42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 remarkable, and strongly indicative of the deep foun- 
 dation which Conservative principles have in the 
 English mind. The monthly sale, which was of 
 course much lessened by the monetary crisis of 1857, 
 has now again revived, and is rapidly increasing, 
 with the practical demonstration which Conservative 
 principles are now (1861) receiving on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 The two great complaints made against this work 
 by the Liberal reviewers were that there was no 
 originality or genius in its pages ; that when not 
 palpably erroneous it consisted of mere truisms or 
 platitudes ; and that a pedantic desire to display 
 learning was conspicuous throughout. To this was 
 added, by those who went more into detail, that the 
 official and real value of exports and imports were 
 not always distinguished, and that errors in dates 
 or other matters of detail were to be met with. In 
 regard to the first charge, my object was, not to 
 enunciate new principles, or to aim at the dis- 
 covery of supposed new truths, but to illustrate the 
 working of old truths in recent events. The con- 
 stant theme of the revolutionary party all over 
 the world was that, with the dawn of the French 
 Revolution, a new era had arisen in human affairs ; 
 that old maxims were no longer applicable ; and that 
 the lessons of experience had ceased to be more fit 
 to guide emancipated mankind than the events of 
 childhood were to direct full - grown and mature 
 years. To me, on the other hand, it appeared that. 
 
1852.] THE LIBERAL REVIEWERS. 43 
 
 beyond any other period in the annals of mankind, 
 the years following the French Revolution contained 
 proofs of the identity of the human heart in all ages, 
 and of the eternal applicability of those maxims 
 which experience had taught the thoughtful and 
 observant in every quarter and time of the world. 
 
 The charge of pedantry in quoting in the notes 
 passages from ancient historians or poets, which, 
 bore an affinity to the events described in the text, 
 was in point of fact well founded ; but the motive 
 for doing so was misrepresented. That motive was 
 by no means to make a boyish or unsuitable display 
 of learning in the ancient or modern languages, but 
 to enliven a narrative necessarily long, and in many 
 places unavoidably tedious, by quotations which 
 might throw a radiance over it. 
 
 As to the complaint that in some of the statistical 
 figures quoted in the notes, the official value of the 
 imports was not always distinguished from the esti- 
 mated or real value, it is sufficient to observe that 
 having once for all explained (vol. iii. p. 673, note) 
 that there was no record of the real value of imports 
 till 1854, and that all previous returns were of offi- 
 cial value only, I deemed it unnecessary to repeat 
 the same thing on every occasion on which these 
 returns were quoted or referred to. 
 
 One rule which I had laid down to myself in my 
 first History was observed with even increased vigi- 
 lance in the continuation of the work. This was to 
 give a full abstract of the arguments for and against 
 
44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISOI^r. [l849- 
 
 every proposed measure of importance, chiefly as 
 they were delivered in the British Parliament or 
 in the French Chamber of Deputies. In doing so I 
 was always careful to give the arguments against 
 the side to which I myself inclined, as fully and 
 forcibly as I could ; and even on some occasions to 
 add some views which had escaped, or were not ade- 
 quately enforced by the original speakers. I took 
 great delight in this sort of rhetorical gladiator- 
 ship, and had enough of the habits of the Bar left 
 to enjoy in the highest degree its frequent prac- 
 tice. It is a singular circumstance that this careful 
 analysis of the debates on both sides of the Channel, 
 on which much pains was bestowed, and which was 
 calculated to abridge so much the labour of ori- 
 ginal reference, has scarcely ever been noticed by 
 any critics. They seem to have thought that all 
 the passages appearing with inverted commas were 
 quotations of the ijiisa verba of the speakers ; where- 
 as they were generally the pith and marrow, in a 
 few paragraphs, of a debate extending sometimes 
 over hundreds of pages. As there is no part of 
 my historical works on which more care and labour 
 were bestowed than on this, so there is none which 
 I feel assured will in the end contribute more to pro- 
 long its existence, or avert for a time the common 
 destiny of earthly things. 
 
 Another rule which I invariably followed was to 
 give on the margin a reference by volume and page 
 to the work from which the statement in the text was 
 
1852.] DUKE OF WELLIISrGTON. 45 
 
 taken ; to abstain as much as possible from insinuations 
 against, or abuse of, private characters ; and to view 
 the acts of public men in as lenient a light as possible. 
 If there is any one thing which more than another 
 impresses the inind in the survey of past events, it is 
 the unnecessary and ill-founded asperity with which 
 party writers and speakers treat each other ; and 
 the torrents of abuse which the press on either side 
 pour out upon all who contradict their opinions or 
 thwart their views. Here, too, I found the habits 
 of the Bar of essential service to me, and the power 
 of keeping your temper in the heat of argument, 
 and reserving your censure for erroneous principles 
 only, as valuable to a political writer as " le calme 
 dans la colore," which G-eneral Foy describes as the 
 chief and most valuable characteristic of the Brit- 
 ish soldier, is to persons engaged in war. In this 
 respect I may with truth say that I have been in a 
 great measure successful ; for my bitterest enemies, 
 amidst all their abuse of me for supporting false prin- 
 ciples, have never accused me of being unjust to in- 
 dividual men. 
 
 During the season of 18.52 we saw for the last 
 time a man whose name will never be forgotten in 
 British story — the Duke of Wellington. I had seen 
 him almost daily riding in the afternoon from Apsley 
 House to the House of Lords, generally going down 
 Constitution Hill, and had observed with pain the 
 sunken eye, and head fallen down on the breast, as 
 if the physical powers of nature were nearly ex- 
 
46 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l8i9- 
 
 hausted. Still his mental powers were undimin- 
 ished, and he attended his duty daily at the Horse 
 Guards or in the House of Peers. At the State 
 ball of this season on May 24th, Mrs Alison and 
 I found ourselves in the crowd close to his Grace, 
 who was leaning on his daughter-in-law, the Mar- 
 chioness of Douro, who attended to him with filial 
 devotion. Observing us gazing at him most at- 
 tentively, he bowed to Mrs Alison, with a smile. 
 After he had left her, I observed to Lady Douro 
 how very much we had both been struck by the 
 extraordinary sweetness and mildness of his ex- 
 pression. She said, " It is so : every one ob- 
 serves it ; but it is what makes us most uneasy, 
 for the physicians tell us that that peculiar expres- 
 sion is the well-known symptom of a disease which 
 we much fear has already begun." She proved 
 too true a prophet : that was the last State ball he 
 was at, and in less than four months he had breathed 
 his last, with an equally sweet smile on his lips, at 
 Walmer Castle. 
 
 The Whig Ministry having been displaced by an 
 adverse vote of the House of Commons in March 
 1852, Lord Derby came into power, and a change 
 took place in the whole law officers of Scotland. 
 I happened to be in London at the time, owing 
 to an engagement to deliver a lecture on the 
 " Social and Moral Effects of the Gold Discov- 
 eries," which I did in Freemasons' Hall. While 
 there I was called upon by Mr Forbes Mackenzie, 
 
1S52.] OFFER OF BARONETCY. 47 
 
 one of the Lords of the Treasury, on the part 
 of Lord Derby and the Government. He stated 
 to me that there was no one in Scotland to whom 
 the Conservatives were so much indebted as to 
 myself; that all the Cabinet were conscious of 
 it ; that Lord Derby was desirous of ascertaining 
 what my views and wishes were on the subject, 
 and for that purpose Lord Eglinton would receive 
 me at his residence in St James's Square at two 
 o'clock. Thither I went accordingly, accompanied 
 by Ay toun ; and his lordship, after receiving me with ' 
 his wonted courtesy, asked what my views were, 
 adding, at the same time, that as I had declined the 
 Solicitor-G-eneralship when the Tories were last in 
 power, he presumed that office did not meet my 
 views. To this I replied that, having declined the 
 Solicitor-General's gown sixteen years before, on the 
 ground of being unwilling to exchange a perma- 
 nent for a precarious situation, I could not take 
 it now. Upon this Lord Derby wrote to me a 
 courteous and very complimentary letter, acknow- 
 ledging my claims, and saying he would recommend 
 her Majesty to confer upon me the dignity of a 
 baronet; which would be the more flattering as the 
 only other person upon whom such an honour was 
 to be conferred was Lord Justice-Clerk Boyle, who 
 was about to retire from the Bench after forty years 
 of honourable and efi'ective public service. Some 
 delay afterwards occurred in making out the patent, 
 owing to a hesitation on the part of the Justice- 
 
48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l8i9- 
 
 Clerk in accepting the baronetcy, as he thought he 
 was entitled to a peerage, and on that ground it 
 was ultimately declined by him. But my name at 
 length appeared in the Gazette, and the patent was 
 made out on 6th June 1852. 
 
 Before this took place, but when it was generally 
 known in London that the honour was to be conferred, 
 I had a gratifying proof of the kindly feelings 
 with which I was regarded by the leaders of the 
 Conservative party. Mrs Alison and I were at a 
 great party at Lord Derby's chambers in Downing 
 Street, and the moment we entered we were sur- 
 rounded by our friends and acquaintances, and con- 
 gratulated by them in the kindest and most cordial 
 manner. Among those who came up were the Duke 
 and Duchess of Richmond, the Duke of Cambridge, 
 Lord and Lady Derby, Lord Stanley, Mr Secretary 
 Walpole, Mr Disraeli, Sir John Pakington, Mr 
 Whiteside, and many others. The cordiality and 
 warmth of these congratulations will never be 
 effaced from our minds. 
 
 The honour of the baronetcy, which was in some 
 degree of a political kind, was soon followed by 
 another of a purely literary character. This was 
 the conferring upon me, along with many others, of 
 the honorary degree of D.C.L. by Lord Derby, as 
 Chancellor of the University of Oxford. The per- 
 sons selected were partly of a literary, partly of a 
 political character. I had no reason to be ashamed 
 of my comrades in either class : for in the former 
 
1852.] AT OXFORD. 49 
 
 were Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Mr Disraeli, Pro- 
 fessor Aytoun, Samuel Warren, Sir Eoderick Murchi- 
 son, and many others ; in the latter were the Duke 
 of Cambridge, Lord Eglinton, Mr Secretary Walpole, 
 Sir John Pakington, and several of the leading 
 Conservative statesmen of the day. The ceremony 
 took place in the beautiful octagonal room called 
 the theatre of the University. The students, as 
 usual, were very noisy before the proceedings com- 
 menced, but the majority were evidently stanch Con- 
 servatives. Bulwer, Aytoun, and myself were very 
 well received, which was a sufficient indication of 
 the inclination of the general mind. 
 
 Several public dianers were given on this occasion 
 by the hospitable heads of colleges in Oxford to 
 Lord Derby and the newly created members of the 
 University, which were peculiarly interesting from 
 bringing together on an auspicious occasion several 
 of the best speakers in England, both in and out 
 of Parliament, and from affording an opportunity of 
 comparing them with each other. There was not, 
 of course, room for bursts of fervid oratory, such as 
 are suitable for impassioned audiences when weighty 
 interests are at stake, or for a lengthened and lucid 
 statement of facts such as would be effective in the 
 House of Commons. But for the speaking which was 
 then required, alternately serious and playful, compli- 
 mentary without being fulsome, alluding to learned 
 topics rather than dwelling on them, elegant at 
 all times, eloquent at some. Lord Derby was un- 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
50 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 rivalled, and I believe never was excelled by any 
 orator in English history. I asked Lord Stanley 
 how his father prepared his speeches, and in par- 
 ticular whether he composed sentences and got 
 them by heart. He said Lord Derby never did 
 so, and deemed the practice highly dangerous, as 
 likely to lead to embarrassment if the prepared 
 sentence was forgotten ; but that he always thought 
 over the whole subject which he was to embrace, most 
 anxiously and carefully beforehand, and arranged 
 exactly the order in which the topics would be 
 brought forward, and the ideas to be expressed in 
 regard to them. He added, what struck me as very 
 remarkable in so practised an orator, and one whose 
 speeches were delivered with such facility that they 
 seemed rather the inspirations of the moment than 
 the result of previous thought, that he never rose to 
 speak even in an after-dinner assembly, without ex- 
 periencing a certain degree of nervous tremor, which 
 did not go off till he had warmed to the subject. 
 
 During this visit to Oxford, an incident occurred 
 so descriptive of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's character 
 that, as characteristic of so eminent a man, I cannot 
 forbear mentioning it. It had been previously 
 arranged that the persons who were to receive 
 degrees the first day were to be those upon whom 
 the honour was to be bestowed rather in considera- 
 tion of their rank or political position than their 
 literary eminence ; and accordingly the Duke of 
 Cambridge, Lord Eglinton, Mr Secretary Walpole, 
 
1852.] BTJLWER LYTTON's VEHEMENCE. 51 
 
 Sir John Pakington, and others of the same sort 
 were installed the first day, and the purely literary 
 or scientific characters, such as Bulwer, Aytoun, Sir 
 Eoderick Murchison, and myself were put off to 
 the second. It never entered into my head to 
 take umbrage at this arrangement, which in the 
 circumstances seemed proper ; but it was other- 
 wise with Sir Edward. In the evening, as Lady 
 Alison and I were sitting at tea in our hotel, 
 a message came in requesting me to see him, 
 which I immediately did, and the first thing he 
 said was, " Well, Sir Archibald, what are you going 
 to do ? I am off in the first train for London. I 
 
 never wanted any of their d d degrees ; it was 
 
 their own doing sending for me, and I am resolved 
 not to submit to the slight now put on us. What ! 
 to think of postponing such men as you and me to a 
 parcel of political drudges, who will never be heard 
 of five years after their death. The thing is in- 
 tolerable ! I hope you are not going to submit to 
 it." During this vehement harangue he was im- 
 patiently quaffing the fumes of a huge Turkish pipe, 
 the volumes of which came out between each fresh 
 ebullition of wrath. Astounded at this extraordi- 
 nary indignation, I could only endeavour to elude 
 and mollify a wrath evidently too violent to be en- 
 countered in front. " Do you not see," said I, " my 
 dear Sir Edward, that the directors of the proceed- 
 ings have paid us the highest compliment in postpon- 
 ing our installation to the second day ? On the first. 
 
52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 those were selected who were recommended for the 
 most part by their rank or position : to-morrow, those 
 will come on who are chosen only for their merit." "It 
 is all very well," answered he, " for you cold-blooded 
 historians to think so, but we of a lighter turn feel 
 otherwise. I shall certainly go off to-night." By 
 degrees, however, he became mollified; and consented 
 to remain to be installed next day, and go with us 
 to Blenheim on the day following. He wrote, how- 
 ever, a letter of remonstrance to Lord Derby on the 
 occasion; and in the evening I received from his lord- 
 ship a very courteous note saying that he had borne 
 no part in the arrangements for the ceremony. 
 
 We saw a great deal of Bulwer on this occasion, 
 and as everything relating to him is interesting, I 
 must recount a very singular conversation which 
 passed between him and Lady Alison. Their discus- 
 sion turned on spirit-rapping, in which it was well 
 known he was a devout believer. And she was anx- 
 ious to see to what length his credulity carried him. 
 He assured her with perfect sincerity, and an agon- 
 ised look which bespoke too clearly the horror with 
 which the vision had been attended, that he had 
 succeeded in calling up the spirit of his daughter, a 
 charming girl to whom he had been deeply attached, 
 and that he had conversed with and received an- 
 swers from her ! Being asked what the subject was, 
 he replied : " The first question I asked her was 
 whether she was happy 1 She said, 'Perfectly so.' 
 The next was, ' What is the state of the soul after 
 
1852.] BULWER AND SPIRITUALISM. 53 
 
 death ? ' She answered : ' I know, but I cannot 
 explain it to you, from having been only a short 
 time here ; but there are some beside me who could 
 do so.'" Whatever maybe thought on this subject, 
 no doubt could remain of the sincerity of his de- 
 claration, for his anxious manner when speaking on 
 the matter put that beyond a doubt. Some weeks 
 after, when dining at his house, where his brother, 
 Sir H. Bulwer, and his son were present, he intro- 
 duced a celebrated mesmeriser to call up some 
 spirits to us, but the attempt totally failed. He 
 ascribed this to my being an unbeliever, which al- 
 ways, he said, marred the effect of the incantation. 
 He mentioned at the same time, what I have since 
 repeatedly heard from other sources, that the Em- 
 peror Louis Napoleon was a believer ; that spirits were 
 frequently called up at small parties of the faithful 
 at the Tuileries ; that the great Napoleon was fre- 
 quently conversed with, and that his hand was 
 sometimes given from behind a curtain to the com- 
 pany to kiss, which the Emperor did on his knees 
 with the greatest fervour. 
 
 The proposed expedition to Blenheim took place 
 on the day after the installation was concluded, and 
 proved one of the most delightful I ever experienced. 
 The day (6th July) was superb ; there was not a 
 cloud in the sky, and the temperature was of that 
 delicious warmth which permits of the enjoyment 
 of shade being felt without experiencing chill or 
 damp. We took Bulwer in our open carriage with 
 
54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 Aytoun : besides these two, the party consisted 
 of Lady Alison and my daughter Ella, then in her 
 nineteenth year, and a very charming person. Bul- 
 wer was in the highest spirits ; the' ill-humonr of the 
 preceding day had entirely gone off, and his conver- 
 sation was very delightful. Talking of the estimate 
 women formed of men, I said : " I think women 
 know a handsome man when they see him ; but they 
 don't know a clever one, or at least one of a supe- 
 rior mind." He thought a little, and then said : 
 " They know a famed man, but not a superior one ; 
 they don't discover talents till they have been 
 acknowledged by men." I have often since men- 
 tioned this opinion of his to superior women, and 
 they always have vehemently denied it ; but I am 
 convinced that it is well founded. At Blenheim 
 we met Lord Eglinton, Mr and Mrs Disraeli, Lord 
 Malmesbury, Lord A. Churchill, and Mrs Duncombe, 
 then in the full radiance of her beauty, and we went 
 in one party over the palace and grounds. In walk- 
 ing through the room hung with the great tapestry 
 representing Marlborough's battles, I observed with 
 satisfaction that I could tell the name of nearly all 
 the villages represented on the canvas, from my 
 knowledge of the localities, acquired in writing his 
 Life. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the gar- 
 dens, then in the first bloom of summer, and present- 
 ing the unique combination of primeval oaks which 
 had witnessed the loves of Henry IL and the fair 
 Eosamond, with the taste and symmetry of modern 
 
1852.] PARTY AT LORD HARDINGe's. 55 
 
 gardening. The rhododendrons in particular, then 
 in full bloom, were beyond measure resplendent. 
 
 On returning to London we found invitations for 
 a party at Lord Hardinge's, and for an assembly 
 to meet the Queen at Stafford House. At Lord 
 Hardinge's we met the Duke of Cambridge, Lord 
 and Lady Derby, Lady Emma Stanley, Lady Jer- 
 sey, and Lady Clementina Villiers, Mr Secretary 
 and Mrs Walpole, Lord and Lady Elcho, and many 
 other persons of distinction. I sat beside Lady 
 Emma Stanley, since married to Lord Shrewsbury's 
 son, but I was nearly opposite to Lord Derby, and 
 the conversation in that part of the table was gen- 
 eral. I was much struck with the high-bred play- 
 fulness of his manner, and the strong turn for hu- 
 mour which formed so striking a feature in his 
 character. The conversation turned much on mes- 
 merism and spirit-rapping ; and though by no means 
 a believer like Bulwer, he recounted several instances 
 in which they had proved successful, which seemed 
 to indicate that, though not prepared to admit 
 what their followers required, he was not disposed 
 utterly to disbelieve in them. Since that time this 
 strange delusion has almost gone out of fashion, 
 and left behind in sensible men one only firm be- 
 lief in connection with it, which is, in the influence 
 of imagination and the marvellous on the credulity 
 of even the most highly gifted of mankind. 
 
 The assembly at Stafford House, given by the 
 Duchess of Sutherland to the Queen, was on a scale 
 
56 ADTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 of unparalleled magnificence. The house, or rather 
 palace, originally built by the Duke of York, and 
 splendidly embellished by the present proprietor, 
 is perhaps better adapted than any in London for 
 a display of that description, being a large square 
 structure, with a magnificent staircase in the centre, 
 penetrating all the storeys, and lighted from the 
 roof. This stair is surmounted by an open gallery 
 going round the quadrangular space on the upper 
 floor ; and the whole second storey is a series of 
 superb public rooms, adorned with very fine paint- 
 ings, forming part of the famous Staff'ord collection. 
 The efi'ect of the whole, especially the great quad- 
 rangular staircase, brilliantly lighted up to do honour 
 to the Sovereign, and filled with the first society, and 
 the most beautiful women in London, was in the 
 highest degree imposing and magnificent. I have 
 never seen anything of the kind which could bear a 
 comparison with it. The Queen, who was received 
 by the brilliant assembly with every demonstration 
 of silent respect, seemed to have been of the same 
 opinion, for on leaving the door she said to the Duke, 
 " I am now leaving the palace and going home." 
 
 I this year received a very pleasant mark of 
 kindness, in a unanimous and spontaneous election 
 as a member of the " Literary Club," held in the 
 Thatched House, St James's Street. This Club, the 
 successor or continuation of that which Johnson and 
 Boswell have rendered immortal, had long been distin- 
 guished as one of the most select and recherche in 
 
1852.] THE THATCHED HOUSE. 57 
 
 London ; and as its numbers were small and lim- 
 ited, a place in it was much coveted in political, 
 legal, and literary circles. My reception on my 
 first introduction was kind and cordial. The num- 
 ber who met at dinner (which they did on the 
 first Friday of every month during the sitting of 
 Parliament) was in general from fourteen to eigh- 
 teen. Politics were carefully eschewed ; and as the 
 party comprised in general that mixture of rank, 
 distinction, and talent which forms the best basis 
 of agreeable and instructive society, these even- 
 ings were in the highest degree agreeable. Sir R. 
 Inglis was always in the chair as long as he lived, 
 and after his death his place was generally taken by 
 Mr Walpole. The Duke of Argyll and other peers 
 were frequently present ; Macaulay, Hallam, Lord 
 Mahon, and Croly represented literature ; the Chief 
 Baron, Baron Alderson, and one or two other judges 
 were generally present ; the Attorney and Solicitor 
 General appeared for the Bar; while Landseer, Baron 
 Marochetti, and Copley Fielding gave to the meet- 
 ings the advantage of refined taste and imagination. 
 Of course no such reunions could be met with out of 
 the metropolis, and the happiness of being admitted 
 to them formed one of the most pleasing incidents 
 of my life. The same kindly feeling caused me to 
 be elected by acclamation a member of the Athe- 
 naeum Club, which to a casual resident in London 
 like me, was a great convenience, from its not being 
 a party club, and from its giving its members the 
 
58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l849- 
 
 advantage of splendid rooms and an extensive and 
 admirably selected library. 
 
 Lord Derby's administration at this time, as is 
 well known, was but of short duration. It came to 
 an end in the winter following, in consequence of a 
 majority against Ministers of nineteen on the ques- 
 tion of extending the house-tax to houses between 
 £10 and £20, which had hitherto been exempted 
 from that burden. From the first moment that the 
 proposal was broached in the House of Commons by 
 Mr Disraeli, I felt assured it would make shipwreck 
 of the administration. The reason was obvious : it 
 was perfectly just, and proposed only to remove an 
 unfair exemption. But that was an exemption in 
 favour of the labour class, to whom the Eeform Bill 
 had given the command of the State ; and there is 
 nothing to which a dominant party cling with such 
 tenacity as to an exemption in their own favour. In 
 proposing the repeal of this exemption, Mr Disraeli 
 fell into the same error into which Lord Grey had 
 fallen in introducing the Eeform Bill ; and that was 
 an over-estimate of the virtue and disinterested- 
 ness of the middle class of society. The more 
 I reflect on this subject the more am I convinced 
 that this error is the root of most of the perni- 
 cious changes and absurd institutions which have 
 been introduced into the world during the last 
 seventy years, and that till the general delusion on 
 this subject is dispelled by experience, all attempts 
 to establish lasting peace and tranquillity in the 
 
1852.] HORNBY CASTLE. 59 
 
 world, or to secure the blessing of real freedom to 
 the nation, -will prove unavailing. 
 
 On returning from London on this occasion, I paid 
 a very interesting visit of some days to the Duke 
 and Duchess of Leeds, at their venerable mansion of 
 Hornby Castle, in Yorkshire. Like Eaby, it is a 
 most interesting relic of the feudal ages, and is pre- 
 served in a style which completely carries you back 
 to the olden time. The approach to it is for some 
 miles through a wild chase, overrun with gigantic 
 hollies and thorns, the native growth of the place. 
 The castle is an ancient structure, of great extent, 
 though of no great height, and with no change in 
 the interior since the days of the Plantagenets. 
 The drawing-room is still the old hall of the castle, 
 a room of great size and height, and now adorned 
 with aU the elegance of modern furniture. The 
 Duke and Duchess, whose kindness was as great as 
 possible, took us a most interesting expedition to 
 Middlemas Castle, the seat of the great and power- 
 ful family of the Nevilles, and the scene of the love 
 passages between Eichard Duke of York and War- 
 wick's daughter, which have been immortalised in Bul- 
 wer s ' Last of the Barons.' Thence we went to Bolton 
 Castle, a noble ruin, farther up towards the elevated 
 moor which separates Yorkshire from Lancashire, and 
 the scene for some time of Queen Mary's captivity. 
 These interesting ruins carried me back for a brief 
 period, amidst the din and strife of modern interests, 
 to the ideas and the contests of feudal times. 
 
60 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 FROM THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S FUNEBAL IN 1852, TO THE 
 DEPARTURE OF MY SONS TO THE CRIMEA IN 1854. 
 
 NOVEMBER 1852 NOVEMBER 1854. 
 
 The winter of 1852-53 began with a melancholy but 
 highly interesting spectacle : this was the funeral of 
 the Duke of Wellington, who had died in the middle 
 of September, at Walmer Castle in Kent, and was 
 interred in London, with a public funeral, on the 
 
 18th November following. Fortunately A was 
 
 at home at the latter time on leave, and we at once 
 resolved to go up to London to witness the cere- 
 mony. Nothing could exceed the magnificence and 
 solemn interest of the spectacle. The body, which 
 had been embalmed and brought up from Walmer 
 Castle some days previously, lay in state for five 
 days before in a chapelle ardente provided for the 
 occasion in Chelsea Hospital. Some hundred thou- 
 sand persons during these days went to pay their 
 last respects to the hallowed remains; and so great 
 was the throng, that from the gate of Chelsea Park 
 where you entered, to the door of the Hospital, eigh- 
 
1852-1854.] DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S FUNERAL. 61 
 
 teen barricades were erected, to break the pressure 
 of the crowd, each of which could be passed only by 
 long patience and with no small exertion of physical 
 strength. The morning which ushered in the event- 
 ful day was dark and showery, but the sun broke 
 out as the minute-guns began to be discharged, to 
 announce that the procession had begun from the 
 Horse Guards, whither the body had been brought 
 the night before. It moved slowly through the Park, 
 up Constitution Hill, along Piccadilly to the head of 
 St James's Street, and thence by St James's Palace 
 and along Pall Mall, through Trafalgar Square to 
 the Strand, and thence by Fleet Street to St Paul's. 
 An innumerable crowd lined the streets the whole 
 way that the procession passed : seats in a favour- 
 able situation were sold for a guinea each. It was 
 estimated that at least 1,-500,000 persons were as- 
 sembled along the line. The Queen and all the 
 Court were at the windows of St James's Palace. 
 The coffin was borne aloft on a gigantic car, over- 
 shadowed by lofty sable plumes. On the top of 
 the coffin were the uniform, hat, and sword of the 
 deceased; behind it followed his led charger, with 
 the stirrups reversed and crossed over the saddle. 
 When the mournful cortege appeared in sight, every 
 head was uncovered : and as it crossed Waterloo 
 Place, where we were stationed at a window in the 
 Athenaeum Club, the whole street up to the Quad- 
 rant was like a sea of bare heads, and there were 
 few dry eyes. 
 
62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 The interest increased as the procession approached 
 Temple Bar, where the Lord Mayor and civic digni- 
 taries were placed, and the great bell of St Paul's, 
 heard for miles round, began to toll. The coffin was 
 received at the door of the Cathedral by the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and all 
 the hierarchy of the Church. Both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment were there in very full attendance, and 15,000 
 voices chanted the solemn music set apart for the 
 occasion. The pall was borne by the Duke's old 
 companions in arms. Lord Hill, Lord Seaton, the 
 Marquis of Anglesey, the Marquis of Londonderry, 
 were there ; and Prince Albert, as representing the 
 Queen, stood at the head of the body, to do the last 
 honour to England's noblest subject. The body was 
 laid in a splendid tomb beside that of Nelson. 
 Britain's two heroes repose side by side in the still- 
 ness of death, and the shrine will be visited for ages 
 by those to whom valour, patriotism, and unconquer- 
 able resolution form a passport to immortal renown. 
 
 In the spring of the following year (1853) we as 
 usual went up for six weeks to London. During 
 this season we became acquainted with the Chevalier 
 Bunsen, the learned and highly accomplished repre- 
 sentative of Prussia at the Court of Great Britain. 
 There was no house in London at that time which 
 presented more agreeable society, both in the great 
 assemblies in the superb saloons of the Prussian 
 Embassy, and at the dinner and breakfast parties, 
 where conversation was the principal object. On 
 
1854.] BUNSEN. 63 
 
 the latter occasions the talents of the accomplished 
 host for discussion and anecdote were particularly 
 conspicuous. Sometimes, perhaps, they led him a 
 little too far, as his great facility of elocution and 
 immense store of erudition caused him occasionally 
 to pour out his thoughts too uninterruptedly, and 
 made the party assume too much the appearance of 
 a lecture-room. But this was only a casual occur- 
 rence, and when he got upon some favourite topic : 
 in general his ideas flowed out in that measured 
 strain which admitted others to their share of the 
 conversation. Never was a more benevolent heart 
 or a more simple sincere disposition. Like many 
 other foreign diplomatists, he was the architect of 
 his own fortune ; and was only ennobled late in life, 
 when he had retired from the diplomatic service, 
 as a testimony of his sovereign's gratitude for his 
 public services. Strange to say, though by profes- 
 sion a diplomatist, the bent of his mind led him 
 to theology, and his studies were chiefly directed 
 to that subject. Being free from the usual tram- 
 mels of ecclesiastical education, he carried into his 
 researches on religion the spirit of free and inde- 
 pendent inquiry ; and on that account, after his 
 death, he incurred the undeserved hostility of that 
 narrow-minded sect of theologians who can admit 
 of no deviation from their preconceived opinions. 
 A Liberal in politics, he was the same in religion, 
 but never was a more sincere and devout believer 
 in all the essential particulars of the Christian faith. 
 
64 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 At his parties I found additional proofs of what I 
 have often observed, that diplomatists, when they 
 are able and well informed, are beyond comparison 
 the most agreeable persons to be met with in society. 
 About the same time I became acquainted with 
 Lord Mahon, now Earl Stanhope, and frequently 
 shared in his hospitality in G-rosvenor Place. His 
 parties were generally at breakfast, and of not more 
 than eight persons. The conversation was usually 
 general, and often prolonged, without rising from 
 table, to twelve or one o'clock. The party in general 
 consisted, besides Lord and Lady Mahon, of Lord 
 and Lady Shaftesbury, Mr Hallam, Mr Macaulay, 
 Lord Carlisle, Mr Monckton Milnes, and one or two 
 others. It may easily be conceived that, with such 
 company, there was no lack of either instructive 
 or agreeable conversation. At the same time, I 
 observed, what has frequently struck me in society, 
 when persons are brought together specially to con- 
 verse, there was too constant an effort to say good 
 things and eclipse each other which after a time 
 became wearisome. In justice to Lord Mahon, 
 however, I must say this fault was in no way to be 
 ascribed to him ; for he was always singularly high- 
 bred, and his chief effort was to draw out the 
 colloquial powers of his guests. He is a learned 
 and accomplished man, very well versed in what 
 may be called the antiquities and curiosities of 
 literature, and a very agreeable companion ; but by 
 no means endowed with the robust and energetic 
 
1S54.] MACAULAY. 65 
 
 practical talent of his father, Earl Stanhope. Poor 
 Hallam was sadly broken, like Burke, in old age by 
 the death of his son ; and though he bore it with 
 constancy and resignation, yet this grief preyed upon 
 his mind, and in all probability shortened his life. 
 
 Lord Macaulay, to whom I have alluded before, oc- 
 cupies too important a position in British literature 
 not to deserve a prominent place in a gallery of con- 
 temporary portraits. His reputation as a historian 
 and an essayist is so widespread and established, that 
 it may seem hardly credible to affirm that his ability 
 as a converser was by no means of the same high 
 order, or rather it was not equally pleasing. Gifted 
 by nature with a prodigious and almost unprecedented 
 memory, and with a mind stored with much and 
 varied erudition, possessing a vivid imagination and 
 great power of expression and illustration, he yet had 
 not the art of making himself agreeable. To women, 
 even the most highly gifted, he was generally distaste- 
 ful, notwithstanding all his talents and acquirements. 
 I have often heard him styled by those, who in gen- 
 eral appreciated conversation the most, a perfect 
 bore. I must own that I have sometimes seen 
 him to be such in company, and admitted to be so 
 by his greatest admirers. The reason is to be found 
 in the intensity of his ideas, and the vast extent 
 of his erudition, which caused him to set off at a 
 gallop when any new subject was started, and often 
 utterly distance the slower mortals who were toiling 
 to keep him in sight behind. He had little sym- 
 
 VOL. II. ^ 
 
66 AUTOBIOORAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 pathy with the minds or wishes of his hearers, but 
 poured out whatever chain of ideas or incidents occu- 
 pied his own mind at the time, without the slightest 
 regard to whether it was of interest to his auditors. 
 It need hardly be said that this system is of all others 
 the most unsupportable to women. Literary anec- 
 dote, especially relating to the characters of the 
 age of William III. and Anne, with which he was 
 engaged in his history, formed, when I used to meet 
 him, his favourite topic ; but as the greater part of 
 these men were ephemeral stars, whose names even 
 were now forgotten, the stories regarding them could 
 not be expected to be generally interesting. A little 
 thing, however, a mere accident, often would set him 
 off on a totally different subject, and then, though 
 scholars were amazed at his erudition, the world 
 in general was little either amused or instructed 
 by his discourse. Of this a striking instance oc- 
 curred at Glasgow, when he came to be installed 
 as Lord Rector of the University there in 1854. 
 On this occasion he was presented with the freedom 
 of the city by the Lord Provost, in presence of a 
 very large audience in the City Hall there. After 
 the ceremony was over, at which he made a very 
 brilliant speech, Macaulay was entertained at a de- 
 jeuner at the Lord Provost's (Mr, now Sir Andrew 
 Orr) in Blythswood Square. With the exception of 
 Lord and Lady Belhaven, Lord Macaulay, Lady 
 Alison, and myself, the party consisted entirely of 
 the magistrates of Glasgow. I was placed beside 
 
1854.] MACAULAY AND THE GLASGOW BAILIES. 67 
 
 the great man, and, in order to turn the conversation 
 into channels in which the whole company might 
 take an interest, I began by asking him his opinion 
 of the principal parliamentary orators whom he had 
 heard. He gave his opinion in a very lucid and 
 interesting way ; but unfortunately, in the course 
 of the discussion I said something, in allusion 
 only, about Brougham and Canning, as compared 
 to ^Eschines and Demosthenes. At the word 
 "^Eschines" he set off, and began a harangue which 
 lasted twenty minutes or half an hour on the ora- 
 torical duels between the two speakers " De Corona," 
 and the comparative merit of both with Socrates. 
 The bailies, not one of whom could read Greek, or 
 had even heard of the Athenian orators, remained in 
 mute amazement with their mouths open, but, as may 
 readily be believed, little edified by the conversation.^ 
 
 ^ A singular circumstance occurred in 1S54 at the Athenasum Cluli, 
 wliicli proves that there are sometimes exceptions to the general rule, 
 that eavesdroppers never hear anything favourable of themselves. I 
 "was talking in the library there to an old friend, Mr Crawford, the 
 author of a very learned work on Java, on one of the last voliunes of 
 Grote's admirable History of Greece, and he admitted its value, but 
 complained of its being dull, adding at the same time : "But it must 
 be recollected the subject was uninteresting ; no one can awaken sym- 
 pathy with the disputes of those little Greek republics." " I scarcely 
 think that," I replied : "put the subject into Macaulay's hands, and 
 you will soon see what genius can make of it." At this moment 
 some one passed me from behind, and went forward to take dovra a 
 book from one of the shelves. I left the room immediately after, and 
 before I had reached the outer door at the foot of the stairs, Jlac- 
 aulay came after me saying it was he who had passed, and he Ijad 
 heard what I had said ; adding at the same time how much he was 
 gratified by this spontaneous, and in the circumstances undoubtedly 
 sincere praise. 
 
68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 It is impossible to imagine a more striking con- 
 trast than another very eminent man presented to 
 the brilliant historian and essayist. Mr Disraeli, 
 though leader of the Opposition in the House of 
 Commons, and gifted with uncommon powers both 
 of eloquence and sarcasm, was singularly reserved 
 and silent in general society. Unlike Macaulay, 
 Hallam, or the other professed talkers, he made no 
 attempt to shine on such occasions, but contented 
 himself with listening and addressing a few words 
 to the person next whom he was seated. As every 
 one knew how much there was in him, and how 
 entertaining he could be when he chose, this was 
 often felt to be very provoking, and many were the 
 attempts made to draw him out, though seldom with 
 entire success. Sometimes, however, he was induced 
 to come forward, and then he was very delightful. On 
 one of these occasions I succeeded in drawing him out 
 at a small party at Sir Edward Lytton's; on another, 
 at a very large dinner-party at Lady Londonderry's. 
 The first was a political party, and the conversa- 
 tion related entirely to public subjects, so that 
 Disraeli's remarks were like one of his speeches in 
 Parliament ; but on the latter I succeeded in getting 
 him into a tete-a-tete on his Eastern travels, and 
 then he was animated and interesting in the highest 
 degree. He was seated beside a handsome lady of 
 rank, whom Lady Londonderry had selected for him, 
 but they did not get on, and during half the time of 
 dinner he never said a word. I was directly opposite, 
 
1854.] DISEAELI. 69 
 
 and seeing this, I addressed a question to him about 
 Egypt in reference to his brilliant oriental descrip- 
 tions in ' Tancred,' which I had just been reading. 
 The flint struck fire : Disraeli wakened up, and 
 began a series of pictures of the East, its scenery, 
 manners, and ideas of the highest interest, and even 
 more striking than those contained in his splendid 
 novels. Comparing this with what I had recently 
 before seen of Macaulay at a dinner-party at Sir E. 
 Inglis's, where he dumfoundered the company with 
 a harangue on the wits of Queen Anne's reign, 
 I could not help feeling astonishment at the con- 
 trast between two men, both of the highest position 
 and most brilliant talents, and reflecting on the dif- 
 ference of the agreeability of him who adapts his con- 
 versation to his hearers, compared with that of him 
 who strives to adapt his hearers to his conversation. 
 
 Disraeli's countenance is very striking, and emi- 
 nently characteristic of his Jewish descent ; you 
 would observe and recollect him among a thou- 
 sand. A profusion of dark hair and eyebrows, with 
 very dark eyes, contrast singularly with the smooth 
 and shorn lower part of his face. In his expression 
 you feel the want of the blue eye and open look of 
 the Saxon. He seldom looks you in the face, but 
 when addressing you looks aside ; a peculiarity com- 
 mon to him with O'Connell, and very characteristic 
 of an ambitious Jesuitical turn of mind. 
 
 We were fortunate enough to form the acquaint- 
 ance at this time of a distinguished American, who 
 
70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 held the high position of Minister at the Court of 
 Great Britain, Mr Bancroft. This very able and 
 eloquent politician and historian received me with 
 the utmost courtesy, and we frequently shared his 
 hospitality in Eaton Square. Like all well-bred 
 Americans, he was simple and unpretending in his 
 manners ; and, without affecting republican simpli- 
 city, his establishment was unostentatious, and 
 made no attempt to vie with the magnificent dis- 
 play at the Eussian and Prussian embassies. But 
 nowhere in London at the time was the society more 
 instructive, or the conversation on a higher strain in 
 point of thought and expression. I could not but 
 feel flattered by the manner in which, on all occasions, 
 Mr Bancroft endeavoured to bring me forward. His 
 conversation was like his writings, judicious, sensible, 
 and well-informed, with occasional flashes of genius, 
 Avhich struck you the more from the comparative 
 sober tone of the ideas in which they were embedded. 
 Without sharing the extravagant expectations of his 
 countrymen in regard to the future destinies of the 
 great Eepublic, and totally destitute of their some- 
 times obnoxious vanity, he was, with reason, proud 
 of his country, and anticipated the eventual spread 
 of its institutions over all the civilised portions of the 
 earth. How these anticipations have been verified 
 need be said to none who have lived through 1861 
 and 1862. Bancroft strikes me as a very able writer 
 and profound thinker, much more so than he in gen- 
 eral obtains credit for on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
185i.] BANCROFT THE AMERICAN HISTORIAN. 71 
 
 The reason of this is, that as he wrote for the inhabi- 
 tants of America, he was led to fill his work with a 
 multitude of local details, which the European public, 
 regarding the events at a distance, could not be ex- 
 pected to take much interest in. But many of his 
 thoughts are profound, and many of his expressions 
 eloquent and felicitous. As a specimen of the for- 
 mer, I may mention his observation in regard to 
 the advantage which England has derived from the 
 mildness and humidity of the climate, which per- 
 mits country labour to be continued throughout the 
 greater part, sometimes during the whole, of winter. 
 This does not strike an inhabitant of this country 
 who is accustomed to it ; but it appeared in its full 
 force to the clear-sighted American, who came from 
 a country where snow lies on the ground for half 
 the year, during which time rural labourers are 
 doomed to compulsory idleness. The same diffi- 
 culty is felt in Eussia, and must evidently for long 
 chain its rural inhabitants to real or virtual slavery. 
 For if the working classes are to support themselves 
 by wages, who is to pay them during the severe 
 dreary months of winter idleness 1 
 
 On the 8th August in this year (1852) our valued 
 friend the Duke of Hamilton died, at the advanced 
 age of seventy-seven, and was succeeded by his son, 
 the present Duke, who became the eleventh in suc- 
 cession. In many respects the deceased nobleman 
 was a remarkable and highly estimable man, though 
 he was far from being a perfect character. Educated 
 
72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 for the most part abroad, in a very superficial manner, 
 and thrown early in life without reserve into the gay- 
 est and most dissipated circles of France and Italy, 
 he owed the good qualities which he possessed to his 
 native disposition, and the efforts he had himself made 
 to improve and cultivate his mind. He possessed 
 very considerable natural talents. His taste in the 
 fine arts was refined, and had been cultivated to 
 the utmost by living among the finest models, and 
 with the most eminent artists, in whose society he 
 took great delight. The noble pile of Hamilton 
 Palace, to which he added so much that it became 
 in a manner a new structure, was made, both outside 
 and inside, from his designs ; and the splendid col- 
 lection of paintings, statues, bronzes, and articles of 
 vertu which it contains, was in great part made by 
 him. He was an indulgent and liberal landlord, 
 and eminently patriotic and public-spirited in his 
 feelings. His name was to be seen at the head of 
 nearly all public subscriptions in Lanarkshire for 
 beneficent purposes. He lived during the latter 
 years of his life, when I knew him, mostly at 
 Hamilton Palace, generally alone, and occupied en- 
 tirely with the improvements going on on his pro- 
 perty ; but when occasion required it he opened his 
 doors, and no one could dispense hospitality in a 
 more princely manner. He had been for some time 
 ambassador at St Petersburg, and was personally 
 much liked by the Emperor Alexander ; and as he 
 had lived during his long career with nearly all the 
 
1854.] THE TENTH DUKE OE HAMILTON. 73 
 
 eminent men and women in Europe, his conversation 
 was of the most varied and interesting description. 
 His manners w^ere those of a grand seigneur of the 
 old school, scrupulously polite to all, and in particu- 
 lar he was unbounded in his attentions and flatter- 
 ing expressions to women, especially if they were 
 young and handsome. 
 
 This last tendency unfortunately led him into 
 some serious irregularities and faults, which his best 
 friends lamented, and which for long blasted his 
 domestic peace. Married in 1810 to the elegant 
 and accomplished daughter of Mr Beckford of Font- 
 hill, the well-known author of ' Caliph Vathek,' and 
 the father of two charming children, he was unable 
 to resist the seductions to which those of his rank, 
 tastes, and manners are, beyond all others, exposed. 
 He became enamoured of an Italian lady, of great 
 personal charms, with whom he lived apart from the 
 Duchess for many years, in that land of enchantment 
 and song. When we first knew him this estrange- 
 ment continued, and as he remained at Hamilton 
 Palace alone, of course the parties there were almost 
 entirely of gentlemen. As he grew older, however, 
 these culpable frailties lessened ; the chief liaison was 
 terminated, and the Duchess, who was a most high- 
 minded as well as superior and accomplished per- 
 son, generously overlooked the past, and frequently, 
 and for long periods, solaced his declining years by 
 her presence at Hamilton Palace. We very fre- 
 quently were their guests on these occasions ; indeed 
 
74 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 there was scarcely a year, during a long course of 
 time, that we were not three or four times at parties 
 there, generally for a week together. The Duke, 
 when the irregularities of youth were over, rose in 
 public estimation every day ; and a great impression 
 was produced in his neighbourhood by his appearing 
 on horseback in Glasgow on occasion of the insur- 
 rection there, already recounted, on March 6, 1848. 
 Passionately fond of art, he gave a striking proof of 
 it in his last acts. He had for several years been 
 constructing, at an expense of above £30,000, a costly 
 mausoleum in Hamilton Park, where he himself was 
 to repose, and whither the remains of his long line 
 of ancestors were removed from the old cemetery, 
 which was too near the Palace. The Duke was pos- 
 sessed of a beautiful Egyptian alabaster sarcophagus, 
 covered with hieroglyphics, which he had acquired 
 early in life when travelling in Upper Egypt. He 
 designed it for his own coffin, but as it had been 
 made for a female, it was rather too small for his 
 stature. To see if the difficulty could be removed 
 without injuring the work of art, he repeatedly lay 
 down in different attitudes in the sarcophagus, and 
 as it was small, he left directions that, if necessary, 
 the breastbone should be sawn through, so that it 
 might be doubled up and the body laid in with- 
 out injuring the exquisite place of sepulture! A 
 more striking instance of " the ruling passion strong 
 in death " perhaps was never recorded. 
 
 This year, as usual, we were guests at the hos- 
 
1854.] BARON BEUNNOW. 75 
 
 pitable mansion of Lord and Lady Belhaven at 
 Wishaw, in Lanarkshire, who usually entertained 
 the principal travellers of distinction in Scotland dur- 
 ing the autumn months. At one of these parties we 
 met Baron Brunnow, the accomplished ambassador of 
 Russia at the Court of Great Britain. It was impos- 
 sible to see a more high-bred man, or one who more 
 worthily represented the great and powerful empire 
 of which he was the Minister. Without the varied 
 learning or facundia loquendi of Bunsen, he was 
 a much more finished courtier ; he had evidentlj" 
 been bred in palaces, not in the professor's chair. 
 In him was seen to perfection the high-bred retenue 
 and perpetual self-oblivion which is the invariable 
 mark of familiarity with the highest society, and 
 withal the securest passport to present popularity. 
 A tall commanding figure, and graceful movements, 
 added to the charm of this engaging manner. He 
 was evidently preoccupied and anxious, which, in- 
 deed, was no wonder, as he was intrusted with the 
 arduous duty of reporting to his sovereign the dis- 
 positions and feelings of England at the commence- 
 ment of the differences in regard to Turkey which 
 ended in the Crimean war. He conversed much 
 with me on this subject, and seemed most anxious 
 that the good understanding between the two coun- 
 tries should if possible be preserved unbroken. His 
 great object evidently was to ascertain whether Eng- 
 land would in any event draw the sword, whether in 
 the last extremity " the old lion would fight." I said 
 
76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIE A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 I thought it would, if the quarrel became a political 
 one, and the forces of the empire were called out on 
 the popular side. He seemed much struck by this, 
 but, as is well known, he reported the reverse to his 
 Government, which, trusting to Cobden's assurance 
 of Britain's disinclination to fight, and from jealousy 
 of Louis Napoleon, deemed the opportunity favour- 
 able for renewing its ambitious designs on Turkey, 
 and brought on the Crimean war. 
 
 The hospitality of our kind and accomplished 
 friend, Mr Stirling of Keir, M.P. for Perthshire, 
 made us acquainted this autumn with a celebrated 
 person, whom we often afterwards met both there 
 and in London, Mrs Norton. As these memoirs are 
 intended to record what I saw and felt, not to per- - 
 petuate what I heard, I shall say nothing of the pre- 
 vious fortunes of this highly gifted lady, except that 
 she had been married very early in life to the Hon- 
 ourable George Norton, a brother of Lord Grantley, 
 but had been separated from her husband after hav- 
 ing borne to him three sons, two of whom were now 
 grown up to man's estate. She was at this time 
 apparently about forty, still very handsome, and 
 singularly attractive in her manners and conversa- 
 tion. Her figure, though fine, was not tall or com- 
 manding ; her countenance, of the Eoman cast, was 
 beautiful, and a profusion of black hair descend- 
 ing in curls on her shoulders set off the brilliant 
 colour of her skin. Long acquainted with the 
 men most celebrated for rank, talent, and fashion 
 
1854.] THE HONOURABLE MRS NORTON. 77 
 
 in her day, she had the ease of manner and varied 
 conversation which, more than anything else, these 
 advantages confer, but at the same time she had lost 
 none of the native kindliness and sweetness of 
 her disposition. She was uniformly courteous and 
 aflfable to such a degree indeed, that no one could 
 discover from her manner whose conversation, of 
 those she met in society, she really preferred. 
 
 There is no one perfect, however, in this world, 
 and Mrs Norton had one blemish in society, which 
 increased rather than diminished with the lapse of 
 time. She had associated so frequently with the first 
 in talent and station, that her mind had become im- 
 pregnated, as it were, with the atmosphere which 
 they breathed. Hence her conversation consisted 
 too much of anecdotes — many of them trivial 
 enough — of eminent men. A certain amount of it 
 is the best seasoning to society, but toujours per- 
 drix does not do in mental any more than corporeal 
 feasts. This peculiarity became more conspicuous 
 of late years than it was before ; from finding these 
 anecdotes so often listened to, she became at times 
 egotistical, a common fault of talent and distinction, 
 especially in declining years. 
 
 An important change took place in the beginning 
 of the ensuing winter in the mode of conducting busi- 
 ness in the Sheriff Court at Glasgow, which was at- 
 tended with material alterations in my habits of life. 
 Hitherto the great bulk of the business (and indeed 
 all suits involvinof an interest above £8, 6s. 8d., which 
 
78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 was the limit of the small debt courts in which the 
 parties were heard viva voce and a final decision was 
 pronounced at the moment), was conducted by writ- 
 ten pleadings. Further appeals were competent to 
 the sheriff", and from him to the Court of Session, not 
 only on the merits of the whole cause, but on many 
 intermediate or preliminary points. The proceedings 
 were often protracted to an inordinate length, and 
 attended with a delay and expense little suited to 
 a mercantile community in which rapidity of de- 
 cision was the quality above all others called for. 
 The object of having the cases conducted by written 
 pleadings, and of so many opportunities of review 
 being afforded, was to guard against erroneous deci- 
 sions, and to secure the means of putting the cases 
 right in every stage by appeal to a superior tribunal. 
 But though the object was good, and the system suited 
 to an early stage of society where little confidence was 
 felt in inferior tribunals, and error in judgment was 
 more apprehended than delay in pronouncing it, it be- 
 came no longer applicable when the multiplied transac- 
 tions of commerce had brought a multitude of cases 
 into the inferior courts, all requiring despatch ; and 
 the increase of business in these had habituated the 
 judges to the required rapidity of decision, and ren- 
 dered them familiar with the law to be administered 
 in them. The force of these considerations had been 
 especially recognised in Glasgow, where the multi- 
 tude of nisi prius cases requiring rapid disposal was 
 much greater than in any other parts of Scotland, 
 
1854.] SHERIFF COURT PROCEDURE. 79 
 
 and the local courts in consequence had had an 
 amount of experience which had earned for them the 
 confidence of the community, and reared up a large 
 body of able and respectable practitioners, as capa- 
 ble as the gentlemen of any bar in the kingdom of 
 conducting important and difficult cases. Various 
 representations both from the mercantile and legal 
 part of the citizens had for some time been made 
 to the Lord Advocate on the subject, and the able 
 gentleman who held that office (James Moncreiff), 
 in consequence, prepared a bill, which passed into a 
 law, and came into operation on November 1, 1853, 
 greatly extending the jurisdiction of the sheriff' courts, 
 introducing oral instead of written pleadings, and 
 materially abridging the power of appeal either to 
 the sheriff'-principal or the Court of Session. 
 
 By this Act (the Sheriff" Court Act) the jurisdic- 
 tions of the Small Debt Sheriff" Court was extended 
 to £12 ; that of the Sheriff"'s Ordinary Court without 
 appeal to the Court of Session, raised from £12 to 
 £2.5 ; and in cases above that sum, an appeal to the 
 Court of Session allowed only on the merits of the 
 case as finally decided, not on any intermediate or 
 preliminary points. An appeal to the sheriff" from 
 the interlocutor of the sheriff"-substitute was allowed 
 only against a judgment disposing of the merits of 
 the case, in whole or in part, repelling preliminary 
 defences, allowing a proof disposing of the whole 
 points of evidence in the course of the proof, or 
 granting interim decree for a sum of money. Proofs 
 
80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 were all to be taken by the sheriff-substitute before 
 whom the case depended in person, and the notes of 
 the evidence written out with his own hand ; and 
 the debates were to be all viva voce in open court, un- 
 less the parties preferred lodging a reclaiming petition, 
 one of which was allowed to the sheriff instead of a 
 debate. So strong was the desire for rapid decision, 
 not only in the litigants but among the practitioners, 
 that in almost every case the verbal debate was pre- 
 ferred, and written pleadings soon went almost entire- 
 ly out of use. This introduced a total change in the 
 modes of conducting business, which rendered neces- 
 sary an almost entire alteration in my habits of life. 
 The cases to be decided by me being from 1200 to 
 1500 annually, and the facts found proved and reasons 
 of decisions requiring to be given at length, it became 
 necessary to make some regular and systematic ar- 
 rangements for getting through such a mass of busi- 
 ness without allowing any of it to fall into arrears. 
 To effect this, I appointed Monday, Wednesday, and 
 Thursday for my own debates, which began at eleven 
 in the forenoon, and generally continued till three or 
 four. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday Avere set 
 apart for the substitutes hearing cases, one on each ; 
 and on the other days of the week they were engaged 
 in taking proofs, or in the ordinary routine or crimi- 
 nal business of the office. The Small Debt Court was 
 taken by the substitutes in rotation. This, however, 
 did not exhibit half of my daily work ; for on the 
 other days of the week, when I did not hold my 
 regular courts, I was engaged all forenoon hearing 
 
1854.] GLASGOW SHERIFF COURT. 81 
 
 summary and urgent cases, or such as were intricate 
 and likely to run into long debates, in chambers ; 
 and the number so heard was generally three or 
 four a-day. In addition to this I had my interlocu- 
 tors in the cases heard, to dictate to my clerk, and 
 my official and private correspondence to read and 
 answer, which seldom amounted to less than six 
 letters a-day. The jury trials were taken by myself 
 and the substitutes in rotation, and they came round 
 to one or other of us about once a-month, generally 
 twelve or fifteen cases each time ; and the Eegistra- 
 tion Court, which was held in August and Septem- 
 ber, absorbed from a fortnight to three weeks an- 
 nually. So great a mass of business could not be 
 kept down and prevented from falling into arrears, 
 but by strenuous efforts on my part, directed in 
 a regular and systematic way, and perseveringly 
 acted upon. But all this would have proved unavail- 
 ing, had it not been for two circumstances which 
 eminently contributed to lighten my labours. 
 
 The first of these was the vigour and industry of 
 the sheriff-substitutes whom it had been my good 
 fortune to find for these important situations in 
 Glasgow. The oldest of these, Mr Glassford Bell, 
 had been in office since 1839, and in addition to 
 powerful natural talents, and a good legal head, he 
 had by this time acquired an amount of practical 
 knowledge which had secured for him the confidence 
 of the practitioners before the court and the public, 
 and enabled him, with ease to himself, to get through 
 
 VOL. II. F 
 
82 AUT0BI06EAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 an amount of business -which to one less thoroughly 
 trained would have appeared overpowering. Mr 
 Sheriff Smith was an active and industrious judge ; 
 and Mr Sheriff Strathern, whom I had promoted 
 to the bench on the death of a very able man, Mr 
 Sheriff Steele, in addition to great stores of legal 
 lore, possessed considerable oratorical talents. These 
 substitutes, who prepared the cases, and passed judg- 
 ment upon them in the first instance, generally in 
 long and intricate interlocutors, were of the greatest 
 service to me, because they brought out the facts 
 of the cases, and their views of the law applicable 
 to them, in a distinct and intelligible form ; and 
 whether I agreed or disagreed Avith them, this was 
 an equal advantage. I should think that, on an 
 average, I adhered to their judgments in nearly two- 
 thirds of the cases, and altered or varied in some- 
 what above a third. The average duration of cases 
 after the system of verbal debates was introduced 
 was six months, and their cost £15, — not a third of 
 the time or a fifth of the expense which the same 
 cases would have required if brought before the 
 Court of Session. 
 
 The second — and it was a still more important 
 circumstance for myself individually, which contrib- 
 uted to lighten my labours — was the efficiency, un- 
 swerving fidelity, and ability of my private secretary, 
 Mr P. T. Young. He came with me from Edin- 
 burgh, where he had been my advocate's clerk, and 
 he had in consequence been trained to every depart- 
 
1854.] MR, P. T. YOUNG. 83 
 
 ment of the public business, in all of which he had 
 acquired uncommon proficiency. Tempted by the 
 superior emoluments of the situation of Procurator- 
 Fiscal, which was in my gift, he obtained from me 
 at one time that office, which he held for two years, 
 and the duties of which he discharged with discre- 
 tion and ability. But the business was not to his 
 liking ; it separated him too much from myself, to 
 whom he was warmly attached, and at his own 
 request I restored him again to his original office, 
 though of less emoluments, after he had held the 
 other for some years. Never was there a more for- 
 tunate exchange for me. To a sound legal head and 
 remarkable common -sense he united an industry 
 which nothing could weary, and a suavity of temper 
 which nothing could ruffle. This last quality was 
 of inestimable importance, worried as he was both in 
 his situation as my confidential secretary and in that 
 of Auditor of Court, to which, in order to eke out 
 his scanty emoluments, I promoted him. Never had 
 a man a more faithful and attached assistant : he 
 owed his success in life, as he thought, to me, and 
 his whole soul was wrapped up in my service. During 
 eight-and-twenty years that he has now (1861) been 
 in my employment, there never was an angry word 
 passed, or an angry thought harboured betwixt us. 
 
 Mr Young's legal knowledge and experience, and 
 his thorough acquaintance with my handwriting, of 
 which he could decipher the slightest scrawl, enabled 
 me to accomplish the preparation of my interlocu- 
 
84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 tors with a rapidity which, but for those auxiliaries, 
 would have been impossible. All he required was 
 notes of the facts of the case and of the findings in 
 law, written out by me when the debate was going 
 on, and from these materials he made out in the 
 evening or next day a formal interlocutor, which I 
 always found correct. There can be no doubt that 
 in thus writing out judgments, often in intricate and 
 difficult questions both of fact and law, as it were 
 at high pressure, there was a great risk in some 
 cases of an omission occurring, or of a false step being 
 made ; but it was the only way in which the enor- 
 mous and continually increasing mass of business 
 covild be kept down, or the still greater evil be 
 avoided of mercantile cases, in an especial manner 
 requiring despatch, falling into a serious arrear. 
 
 The sherilTs in Lanarkshire, a county containing 
 above 600,000 inhabitants, for the most part en- 
 gaged in commerce, manufactures, or mines, were 
 charged with the whole of the duties which in Eng- 
 land are discharged by the judges at ?^^s^ prius, 
 by the justices at quarter sessions, by the county 
 court judges, by the revising barristers in the 
 registration courts, by the registrars, superin- 
 tendents, and by the ordinary police magistrates. 
 In addition to this, I was responsible for the peace 
 of the county, and charged with the correspondence 
 with the Secretary of State, Lord Advocate, and 
 military authorities on that subject. This duty of 
 keeping the peace sometimes kept me a month or six 
 
1854.] sheriff's WORK. 85 
 
 weeks in the disturbed districts, to the entire stop- 
 page of other business. Of these various duties, 
 however, by far the heaviest for a long course of 
 years was the Registration Court, in which there 
 were sometimes 6000 claims and 4000 objections to 
 be adjudicated and written upon in G-lasgow alone, 
 besides 3000 in the county and other county burghs. 
 Frequently I have sat in this court fifty-five or sixty 
 days without intermission, seven hours a-day. For- 
 tunately about the time the verbal debates began in 
 1853, it underwent a great diminution, in conse- 
 quence of the decline of interest in the votes, from 
 the great and increasing preponderance of the Liberal 
 party ; and in 1859 the new Act of Parliament, direc- 
 ting the roll to be made up from the valuation roll 
 in burghs by the burgh assessor, reduced the labour 
 of registration, in the burghs at least, to a compara- 
 tive trifle. I had the assistance of seven substitutes 
 of my own appointment — four in Glasgow, and three 
 in the county ; but although they relieved me entirely 
 of the small-debt business, embracing in the city and 
 county about 25,000 cases annually, and of all but 
 my proportional share of the criminal cases, yet in 
 other respects they gave me little relief from the 
 weightiest part of my duties ; nay, their efiiciency 
 sometimes rather increased it than otherwise. For 
 as there was an appeal to me in all civil cases but 
 those in the Small Debt Court, and often two or 
 three in difi"erent stages of one case, the more pop- 
 ular they were, and the more business they got 
 
86 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 through, the more did they send forward to me to 
 review — this right being claimed in every instance 
 of the least moment. 
 
 One effect resulted from the popularity of the Sheriff 
 Court of Lanarkshire, and the immense extent as well 
 as rapid extension of its business, which, though felt 
 at first as rather annoying by myself and my substi- 
 tutes, in the end was attended with beneficial effects. 
 Some jealousy of the popularity of the Sheriff Court 
 of Lanarkshire was excited both in the Bar and on 
 the Bench of the Supreme Court at Edinburgh, by 
 the mortification the latter experienced at seeing 
 their own business declining, while that of a local 
 and inferior court was rapidly increasing, and carry- 
 ing off nearly all the mercantile business of the great 
 commercial city of Glasgow. The transference of 
 the business which had formerly been engrossed by 
 the Edinburgh lawyers to a provincial bar, was in- 
 creased materially when the new bill came into 
 operation, introducing oral instead of written plead- 
 ings, and a provincial bar began to grow up in 
 Glasgow, many of whom made £1000 or £1500 a- 
 year, and pleaded their cases as well as their brethren 
 at the bar in Edinburgh could have done. This 
 feeling was to a certain degree shared by all the legal 
 profession of every grade at Edinburgh; but they 
 generally had the good sense and taste to keep it 
 under. It was otherwise, however, with the Lord 
 Justice-Clerk Hope, who gave expression to it on 
 every possible occasion with much acrimony. 
 
1864.] LORD JUSTICE-CLERK HOPE. 87 
 
 There were many causes which contributed to this 
 result. For many years intimate friends, we had grad- 
 ually become estranged, from the different paths of life 
 which had opened to us. From the beginning of our 
 mutual career at the bar I had owed nothing to him ; 
 all my practice, all my appointments, had come 
 from others. The agents and counsel were so much 
 offended by his irritability and occasional haste of 
 decision on the bench, that his court was in a 
 manner deserted ; while the First Division of the 
 Court, headed by Duncan M'Neill, was overwhelmed 
 with business. The return to the House of Com- 
 mons showed that Hope's Division only decided from 
 eighty to ninety cases in a year, while the First 
 Division, under the able guidance and admirable 
 temper of my old friend M'Neill, averaged 200, and 
 the Sheriff Court of Lanarkshire from 1000 to 1200. 
 Such a result, yearly published to the world in the 
 parliamentary returns, was little calculated to assuage 
 professional disappointment ; and the feelings it ex- 
 cited became such, that they were habitually exhib- 
 ited, not only against myself, but even against my 
 under-sheriffs, and the clerks and officers of court, 
 whenever a case from Lanarkshire was brought be- 
 fore his court. 
 
 At first I was annoyed at these sallies of temper, 
 which led to unseemly exhibitions on the bench, 
 whenever a blot could be discovered in the Lanark- 
 shire cases. But I soon ceased to feel vexation from 
 perceiving that, like all hostility pushed to undue 
 
88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 length, it produced a reaction, and did not lower 
 our court in public estimation, but rather the reverse. 
 It being known that the cases from Lanarkshire 
 were scrutinised with so microscopic and unfriendly 
 an eye by the head of the Second Division, of course 
 all the agents against whose clients unfavourable 
 judgments had been pronounced, wished to carry 
 their cases before that tribunal, in hopes of a reversal. 
 Yet notwithstanding this circumstance, so eminently 
 favourable to the multiplication of aj)peals, the cases 
 carried to the Court of Session from Lanarkshire were 
 seldom above twelve or fifteen in a year, and of these 
 not more than one-half were reversed, out of 1000 or 
 1200 decided. The knowledge of this small propor- 
 tion, coupled with the displays of temper by the Lord 
 Justice -Clerk whenever a Lanarkshire case came 
 before the Second Division, tended to confirm the 
 public confidence in our judgments. This confidence 
 on the part of the community of Glasgow was in- 
 creased by the judgments of the First Division, 
 headed by the Lord Jvistice-General, Avhich in the 
 few cases brought before them were generally con- 
 firmatory of the Lanarkshire decisions. 
 
 The perception of this jealousy, made me adhere to 
 my resolution to withdraw myself as much as pos- 
 sible from all public meetings or oratorical displays, 
 other than those in a manner forced upon me by 
 my ofiicial position in Glasgow. To this rule, how- 
 ever, I made an exception in regard to public meet- 
 ings in Glasgow, for the purposes of religion, charity, 
 
1854.] RESOLUTION ABOUT PUBLIC MEETINGS. 89 
 
 or social amelioration. Such meetings were fre- 
 quent in that great emporium of industry, wealth, 
 pauperism, and licentiousness; and from the gen- 
 eral sense of the weight of the evils under which 
 society laboured, they hardly ever failed to attract 
 attention. On such occasions I was generally re- 
 quested to move the first resolution, and go fully 
 into the subject ; and as I knew that I was main- 
 ly indebted for this lead to my ofiicial situation, 
 I did my utmost on every occasion, however hard 
 pressed for time, to acquit myself as well as I could. 
 I found great benefit from the attention I bestowed 
 on my speeches. They augmented my moral influ- 
 ence, especially with the working classes, with whom 
 it was of the utmost importance I should stand well ; 
 but whose good opinion, from my well-known Conser- 
 vative principles, I was perpetually in danger of losing. 
 By showing, however, that I really had their inter- 
 ests at heart, I succeeded to a surprising degree, not 
 only in commanding their respect, but in winning 
 their aff'ection. To this cause I ascribe much of the 
 facility with which a county, containing at this time 
 above 600,000 inhabitants, for the most part engaged 
 in manufacturing or mining pursuits, was governed, 
 and the public peace preserved ; under circumstances 
 often of extreme distress, arising from commercial 
 difficulties, scarcity of provisions, or their usual con- 
 comitant, long and disastrous strikes among workmen. 
 It will appear in the sequel what frequent and touch- 
 ing proofs I received of the confidence of the work- 
 
90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 ing classes of Glasgow, though often obliged officially 
 to act against them, and always professing opinions 
 adverse to their pretensions by a mere majority of 
 numbers to rule the state. 
 
 On the subject of observing with the utmost strict- 
 ness the rules of courtesy and good-breeding towards 
 all the practitioners before the court, I had early 
 formed a very strong opinion ; and subsequent expe- 
 rience had every day tended more to convince me of 
 its justice. I had uniformly found that more judges 
 had lost their popularity, and become objects of dis- 
 like, from violence of temper than error of decision : 
 all men can form an opinion on his manner, a few only 
 on the matter. Irritability and arrogance of man- 
 ner, blamable at all times and in all places, is 
 peculiarly so in the case of a judge; if it were for 
 no other reason but this, that they always destroy 
 the appearance of equanimity in decision, often its 
 reality, and that as the practitioner is in a position 
 in which he cannot — except in extreme cases — ven- 
 ture on a reply, it becomes a piece of cowardice as 
 well as impropriety to address him in violent or in- 
 temperate language. No one need be told that the 
 temper of a judge is often severely tried on the 
 bench, especially in inferior courts, where the agent 
 who pleads the case is the same party who con- 
 ducts it, and who of course has a personal interest 
 in the costs of the suit. I saw enough of this dif- 
 ficulty during the many and weary months I so often 
 sat, de die in diem, in the Registration Court, in 
 
1854.] INTERCOURSE WITH THE BAR. 91 
 
 Avhich Strong political feeling was mixed upon both 
 sides with the ordinary causes of discord in litigation. 
 But that perception only made it more indispensable 
 for the judge to preserve his own temper, even under 
 the most trying circumstances, for no one can mode- 
 rate the violence of others unless he is master of him- 
 self. I was endowed by nature with an equable 
 temperament, and had sedulously through life culti- 
 vated self-control, and I hope the numerous agents 
 who practised before me never found these qualities 
 wanting on my part on the bench. By care- 
 fully avoiding all sallies of temper myself, I ex- 
 perienced no difficulty in restraining them when 
 beginning in others, and by turning the first ebul- 
 litions of wrath in the practitioners off with a joke, 
 I succeeded in preventing them ripening into serious 
 quarrels. I was on such pleasant terms with the 
 practitioners, that during the whole time I sat on 
 the bench, above a quarter of a century, I do not 
 recollect a single instance of an altercation Avith any 
 of them^ or any breach of the decorum proper in a 
 court of justice ; and so agreeable was our inter- 
 course, that, after the long vacation, I always longed 
 for the sittings of the court to begin. 
 
 Anxious to do everything in my power to extend 
 my moral influence in the numerous and varied strata 
 of society with which I was brought into contact, I 
 accepted the honour proffered to me of Provincial 
 Grand Master of Freemasons for the city of Glasgow, 
 and Lower Ward of Lanarkshire. I had long been a 
 
92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 Freemason, and had frequently observed tlie warm 
 and cordial feelings with which the brethren of the 
 craft regarded each other; and although I was aware 
 that the dignity of Provincial Grand Master in such 
 a populous place as Glasgow would entail upon me 
 a considerable sacrifice of time, which I could ill 
 afford, yet I thought this disadvantage would be 
 more than compensated by the extended intercourse 
 which it would open up to me with circles of society 
 that otherwise I would have few opportunities of 
 meeting, and the kindly feelings which I hoped 
 would in consequence arise betwixt us. I was in 
 no way disappointed. The warmth of feeling, I 
 may say the sincerity of affection, which grew up 
 between me and " the brethren " in my province 
 could hardly be exceeded. They made every allow- 
 ance for the numerous avocations which kept me 
 from most of their meetings, and received me in 
 the warmest manner whenever I could attend ; and 
 as they were a very numerous and influential body, 
 having ramifications through every class of society in 
 Glasgow, Lanarkshire, and the surrounding counties, 
 I found this bond of very essential service. Indeed, 
 I ascribe in a great degree to the kindly feelings of 
 the Freemasons towards me, the ease with which my 
 official duties in critical times were discharged, and 
 the absence of rancorous dispositions on the part 
 even of those against whom I was obliged to proceed 
 and often give judgment. 
 
 During the years 1853, 1854, and 1855, I worked 
 
1854.] CONTINUATION OF HISTORY. 93 
 
 regularly and assiduously at my History, and got 
 through it at the rate of a volume every ten months 
 on an average. As these volumes were all from 650 
 to 750 pages, this was a great exertion, and neces- 
 sitated the writing of three and a half pages on an 
 average of the whole year, which required five pages 
 on those days when the Court was not sitting, when I 
 would work an hour after breakfast, as well as one be- 
 fore it. This accordingly was what I tasked myself 
 to do during the whole seven years of the com- 
 position of the Continuation ; one half being written 
 before breakfast, and the other half between break- 
 fast and twelve o'clock, when I always set off for 
 Glasgow, and wrote no more that day. The reading- 
 requisite for composing a history, of which every 
 paragraph required to be supported by one or more 
 authorities, referred to by volume and page on the 
 margin, was always done in the evening, and it 
 proved a most laborious work, even greater than 
 the collection of materials for my first History had 
 been. This arose, as already mentioned, from these 
 authorities being almost all original — such as the 
 Parliamentary Debates, official despatches in the 
 ' Annual Eegister,' the ' London Gazette,' ' Moniteur, 
 ' Annuaire Historique,' or the like works of vast ex- 
 tent and uncondensed information. I could nowhere 
 find, as in the narrative of the former period, works 
 in which this original labour had been in a great 
 measure done and the result presented in an ab- 
 breviated form. I never intermitted in my writing 
 
94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 when we went from home, either to London or visits 
 in the country ; but, taking the requisite books with 
 me for reference, I continued it the moment I ar- 
 rived. Indeed I eot more done when from home 
 than in my own library ; for, as in the former case I 
 was freed from all judicial or legal work, I generally 
 got seven or eight pages of manuscript completed in 
 our own room. 
 
 I had every encouragement to continue my labours 
 in the History of Europe. In 1847 the crown 8vo 
 edition, in 20 volumes of 12,000 copies each vol- 
 ume, had begun to issue from the press ; in 1849 the 
 library edition, being the eighth, was published at 
 a cost of £10, and this edition consisted of 2000 
 copies; and in 1853 the demand for copies at a 
 cheaper rate from readers who could not afford the 
 higher-priced editions had become so great, that the 
 Messrs Blackwood determined on issuing a stereo- 
 type edition in double column, in 12mo, to be 
 completed in 12 volumes, and sold at the moder- 
 ate price of 5s. a volume, or £2, 8s. for the whole 
 set. The first thing they did was to send agents 
 through the principal towns of Great Britain, to 
 ascertain the number of copies that they were like- 
 ly to take up, and the result of their reports was 
 that it was determined to make the issue of the 
 first volumes 3000 each. The issue began at this 
 rate in spring 1853, and that number was thrown 
 off and rapidly disposed of, the first two volumes 
 embracing the Annals of the Revolution. Of the 
 
1854.] SALE OF HISTORY. 95 
 
 succeeding volumes, containing the military history 
 of the Wars of the Eevolution, 25,000 of each volume 
 was thrown off, and the first subscription was above 
 20,000 copies. The work being stereotyped, the sale 
 of it is unlimited, and is still (1861) going on; an 
 additional thousand being thrown off from the plates 
 when the number in hand seems nearly exhausted. 
 The foreign sale consisted of above 100,000 copies, 
 printed and sold in the original in America, two 
 English editions printed at Brussels, and of the 
 translations into French, German, and Arabic, which 
 were now going on, and of which I possess copies. 
 I think this large circulation was owing to the 
 fortunate choice of a subject; the anxiety of the 
 people in all countries to acquire some information 
 regarding it ; and to my work being the Jirst which 
 embraced the whole subject in a form which, though 
 in itself large, was small in comparison to the ag- 
 gregate of the detached works relating to it. 
 
 At this time I began a system which I have since 
 invariably pursued, never to tvrite after dinner. I 
 had suffered so much from writing at night during 
 the years when the three concluding volumes of my 
 first History were going on, that I felt convinced if 
 I had continued it, I would long since have been in 
 niy grave. My residence at the distance of nearly 
 three miles from my place of business, secured me 
 six miles' walking every day, summer and winter ; 
 and I had, besides, an intermediate occupation of five 
 hours' official business, of so different a kind from 
 
96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE, A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 writing history in the morning, that it was, literally 
 speaking, a rest from it. 
 
 I had learned to speak German a little in 1816 
 and 1821, when travelling in Germany; and sub- 
 sequently, with the constant aid of a dictionary, I 
 had contrived to understand the military authorities 
 referred to in the latter volumes of my History. 
 But I had never before 1850 really studied the 
 language, or read any of its authors as a matter 
 of pleasure. In that year the advice of a first-rate 
 German scholar — my early friend Lady Wallace — 
 led me to wish to form an intimate acquaintance 
 with the great dramatists and poets of the Father- 
 land. I began the study accordingly without any 
 tuition, and with the aid only of a grammar and a 
 dictionary. The same day that I began the gram- 
 mar I began Schiller's ' Mary Stewart.' I read three 
 lines, looked up every word, and was content. By 
 persevering in this system, and sitting every even- 
 ing for two hours for years together, with the dic- 
 tionary on my knee, I at length mastered this lan- 
 guage ; and without being able to write or speak it, 
 I am now, and for many years past have been, able 
 to read Schiller and Goethe as easily as Tasso or 
 Eacine. I cannot describe in adequate terms the 
 addition which the command thus acquired of this 
 language has made to my happiness, or the pleasure 
 which the study of the German drama has afforded 
 me. The great German authors, Schiller, Oehlen- 
 schlager, Goethe, Wieland, Klopstock, Uhland, Kor- 
 
1854.] GERMAN STUDIES. 97 
 
 ner, and others, have since formed the habitual, 
 and indeed daily, objects of my study, and always 
 with increasing admiration. I found the tone of 
 the German mind, especially in the dramatists, more 
 in unison with my own than that of any other 
 country; and my estimation of the great authors 
 whom it has produced, has been such that it has 
 influenced not only my thoughts, but my compo- 
 sitions. 
 
 As I found literary composition a relief and a 
 relaxation after my daily onerous judicial labours, 
 so I found reading in different languages, especially 
 works of imagination, a relief to each other. This 
 is an important observation which I would strongly 
 recommend to all who, like me, are fain to seek in 
 literary pursuits a relaxation from the labours of 
 professional duty. Literature itself becomes a la- 
 bour if it is pushed too far in one branch. No man 
 will find relaxation from a forenoon's ofiicial labour 
 in reading three or four hours without intermission, 
 either at Homer, or Ariosto, or Schiller, or Bulwer ; 
 but he will find great relief in reading an hour alter- 
 nately at each. 
 
 In the autumn of this year (1853) Lady Alison 
 and I went with our daughter to the meeting at 
 Kelso of the Caledonian Hunt, the most fashionable 
 sporting club in Scotland; and while there, we made 
 a pilgrimage to the ruins of Dryburgh, in the neigh- 
 bourhood, to visit the tomb of Sir Walter Scott. 
 Nothing can be imagined more striking than this 
 
 VOL. II, G 
 
98 AUTOBIOaEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 sepulchre, placed in the midst of the ruins which his 
 fancy has done so much to illustrate, and on the 
 banks of the stream which his genius has rendered 
 immortal. No situation could be more appropriate 
 for his last resting-place ; and few spots in Britain 
 will be more interesting to future generations. The 
 monument is of plain granite, with the name of 
 the poet alone engraven on it, and it stands in the 
 midst of the ruined aisles and mouldering arches of 
 the abbey — 
 
 " Where distant Tweed is heard to rave, 
 And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave ! " 
 
 If the grave of the greatest of past novelists pre- 
 sented an object of interest, much more interesting 
 was a visit which we soon after received from the 
 greatest of the present. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton 
 had been elected Eector by the affiliated societies 
 of students in the University of Edinburgh — a situa- 
 tion designed by them to come in place of that of Lord 
 Rector of the University, which the statutes of Edin- 
 burgh University did not, like those of Glasgow and 
 Aberdeen, place at the disposal of the students. A 
 deputation had previously waited on me to inquire 
 whether I would accept it ; but I replied that, having 
 been Lord Eector of Aberdeen and Glasgow, I felt 
 there would be an impropriety in my allowing my- 
 self to be put in nomination by what might be 
 regarded as in some degree a rival body ; and I 
 strongly recommended them to apply to Sir Edward, 
 who, besides his great celebrity as a writer, being as 
 
1854.] BULWER LYTTON IN EDINBUEGH. 99 
 
 yet unknown in Scotland as an orator, would attract 
 mucli more attention than any inhabitant of the 
 country could be expected to do. They did so 
 accordingly ; the invitation was courteously ac- 
 cepted; he was unanimously elected, and Sir Ed- 
 ward came down in March 1854 to be installed in 
 his new dignity and make his address. The hall in 
 which the speech was delivered — one of the largest 
 in Edinburgh ^ — was crowded to excess ; and the 
 speech, which occupied an hour and a half, was 
 listened to with breathless attention. Its language 
 was so terse and elegant, that, to a practised ear, it 
 revealed the labour of previous composition ; but 
 it was so thoroughly committed to memory, and 
 delivered with so much fervour and animation, 
 that it had all the charm of extempore speaking. 
 Never was an effort more successful, or a more 
 brilliant speech delivered to an admiring and intel- 
 ligent audience. Genius broke out almost in every 
 sentence, and the truth of the observation was con- 
 spicuous, that the highest flights of imagination can 
 be appreciated only by those of kindred disposi- 
 tions and brilliancy of fancy. His observations on 
 the great poets, orators, historians, sculptors, and 
 architects of Greece and Eome, were very different 
 from the laboured eulogies of pedants, or the forced 
 enthusiasm of mediocrity. They obviously came 
 from the heart, and were inspired by the hidden fire 
 of sympathetic genius. I have often heard it said 
 
 ^ That in Queen Street. 
 
100 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 by the best judges in the House of Commons that 
 Bulwer Lytton was for an opening the best speaker 
 in that assembly. His unfortunate deafness shut 
 him out from the chance of a reply, unless he had 
 time to see his opponent's speech in the newspapers. 
 On this occasion we saw a great deal of Sir Ed- 
 ward, for we had a house in Edinburgh at the time ; 
 and besides having the celebrated novelist to meet 
 admiring circles in the evening, we had him more 
 than once to dine with us, in a way more suitable 
 for conversation. The more I saw of him I was the 
 more impressed with his extraordinary genius. This 
 did not appear in general conversation, because his 
 infirmity precluded his entering into it ; but it shone 
 forth with the highest lustre in a tete-d,-tete. One 
 of these conversations, which occurred when walking 
 together on the new road cut out on the south side 
 of the Castle of Edinburgh, was so remarkable that 
 it has impressed itself permanently on my memory. 
 We were talking of Queen Mary, a favourite topic 
 with him, which seemed to have strongly impressed 
 his imagination. I said that I thought both her as- 
 sailants and her defenders were right — that each told 
 the truth, but not the whole truth. " She was guilty," 
 I added, "I much fear, of all that her enemies impute 
 to her, and yet she was as noble and heroic a woman 
 as her most devout worshippers maintain. Her char- 
 acter was composed of many different strata, like 
 the ground beneath our feet, which on the surface 
 is filled with the debris of the overhanging rocks ; 
 
1854.] BTJLWER LYTTON IN EDINBUEGH. 101 
 
 below that are several layers of gravel, intermixed 
 with the bones of the Romans, the Saxons, and the 
 Danes, who have successively combated beneath these 
 walls ; while at the bottom of all are the remains of 
 the oak forest, strewed with the bones of the red- 
 deer, which, anterior to the ingress of man, were the 
 sole tenants of the surrounding solitudes." " You 
 are perfectly right," said Sir Edward ; " perfection 
 and immaculate purity are the dream of the poet and 
 the novelist, but they never occur in real life. We 
 are all characters of imperfect goodness ; none are 
 either so good or so bad as they appear at first sight 
 and pass for in the world. I often see ladies who 
 bear the most irreproachable characters, and are 
 respected by all the world, and really are persons 
 of very great merit, endowed with many estimable 
 qualities, and yet, if the truth were known, they are 
 far from the unspotted characters they appear. Never 
 was a truer observation than that ' the most frightful 
 of all spectacles would be a naked human heart.' 
 But this should not make us misanthropes, but 
 Christians. ' Judge not, that ye be not judged.' " 
 In May we again joined in the festive circles of 
 the metropolis. I dined as usual with Lord Hardinge, 
 where I met the Duke of Cambridge and several 
 officers of high rank in the army, and went down 
 the day after to see a review and sham-fight at 
 Chobham. It consisted of about 10,000 men, all 
 regulars, and was certainly a brilliant spectacle. 
 The marching past in review presented a splendid 
 
102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 specimen of British discipline and equipment. The 
 4 2d and 78th Highlanders as they marched past, 
 occupied a wider front than any of the regiments 
 of the line, or even the Guards. Independent of 
 this circumstance, their appearance was finer than 
 that of any other regiments on the ground. The 
 equipment and discipline of the British army^ — so 
 far as regiments went — was then as perfect as pos- 
 sible. But under the ceaseless democratic pressure 
 of the preceding forty years of peace, the other de- 
 partments necessary for service in corps, divisions, 
 and even brigades in the field, had been swept 
 away. The staff, the waggon-train, the commissar- 
 iat-train, the ambulance for the wounded, the re- 
 serve artillery-trains, — everything in short not requir- 
 ed for regimental peace-service, — had been abolished 
 under the insane cry for economy, so long and 
 loudly heard in the House of Commons, ever since 
 the peace. Hence the particularly noble nature of 
 the conduct of these regiments when first brought 
 into the field at the Alma and Inkerman, amid 
 the unheard - of privations and sufferings which so 
 fearfully thinned their ranks during the severities 
 of the ensuing winter. It is a striking proof of the 
 length to which this monstrous system of reduction 
 had been carried, that we have the authority of Mr 
 Disraeli for the assertion that, at the Duke of Wel- 
 lington's funeral, Woolwich could not furnish seven- 
 teen guns, to give the customary salute over the 
 grave of a field-marshal. 
 
1854.] LADY LONDONDERKY. 103 
 
 Lord Londonderry died on the 4th March in this 
 year, and Lady Londonderry shortly after that 
 melancholy event wrote to me, requesting me to 
 write his life. I felt every desire to do so, both in 
 consequence of my respect for the manly and intre- 
 pid character of the deceased, and my regard for 
 herself; but I explained to her that as I was en- 
 gaged in my Continuation of the History of Europe, 
 Avhich promised to be even a more laborious work 
 than I had anticipated, I could not undertake to 
 commence it till after the expiry of two years. 
 These two years — as will appear in the sequel — ex- 
 tended to five ; and the Marchioness doubtless felt 
 some disappointment at the delay and apparently 
 indefinite postponement of the accomplishment of 
 her wishes. I succeeded in persuading her, what 
 was really the truth, that every year was so much 
 gained for a work of that description, as more was 
 daily coming out applicable to it ; and that it would 
 be premature to publish such a work during the 
 lifetime of many of the parties principally concerned 
 in it. She accordingly waited patiently, even when 
 double the promised period had expired. In the 
 interim I had leisure to consider the principles on 
 which such a biography as that which I contemplated 
 should be framed, and the objects it should embrace, 
 and I became convinced that Sir Charles Stewart's 
 life alone would not form sufficient materials for such 
 an undertaking, and that it would at best be very 
 incomplete, if not accompanied by the life of his 
 
104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 brother, Lord Castlereagli, who bore so important 
 a part in the most momentous period of European 
 history. The result of the whole was the composi- 
 tion of my Lives of the Second and Third Marquesses 
 of Londonderry, which, though not formally com- 
 menced till March 1859, was chalked out in my own 
 mind at a much earlier period. 
 
 In September the Duchess of Cambridge and her 
 daughter, the Princess Mary, paid a visit to Scotland, 
 and we were invited to meet them at Hamilton 
 Palace. I was seated beside the latter at dinner, a 
 man of rank having taken her in, and being on her 
 left. I cannot but feel surprised that she is still the 
 Princess Mary. She is a very fine woman, and the 
 vivacity of her manners, and the extent and variety 
 of her conversation, the result partly of natural talent, 
 partly of habitual conversation with the most able 
 men of the age, made her very attractive. She after- 
 wards came to Glasgow, and we had the honour of 
 acting as her and the Duchess's ciceroni for the 
 lions of the city, and of afterwards meeting them 
 at a dejeuner at the Lord Provost's, Mr Stewart of 
 Murdieston. 
 
 An important event took place in this summer 
 in my family, attended with much happiness. My 
 only daughter, Ella Frances Catherine, had, during 
 the preceding winter, formed an acquaintance with 
 Eobert Cutlar Fergusson of Craigdarroch and Orro- 
 land, which soon ripened into a warm attachment 
 on both sides. He was the only son of the Right 
 
1854.] FERGUSSON OP CEAIGDAREOCH. 105 
 
 Honourable Robert Cutlar Fergusson of Craigdar- 
 roch, and the representative of one of the oldest 
 families in Scotland, which, for five centuries, had 
 held considerable estates in Dumfriesshire and Gal- 
 loway. Like many other estates, however, which 
 had long continued in the same family, it had been 
 sadly encumbered with debt, and considerable parts 
 of it had been alienated, chiefly through the failure 
 of Douglas Heron & Co.'s Bank in 1772, when, 
 having £1500 worth of shares in it, nearly the 
 whole of the property had to be sold or mortgaged 
 to meet the calls made on the shareholders. This 
 occurred in the lifetime of the grandfather of my 
 son-in-law, the same who has been immortalised 
 as the winner of " the Whistle " in Burns's bucolic 
 on a memorable drinking-bout. When his son, 
 the father of the present possessor, succeeded as a 
 young man to the property which remained in 1790, 
 it was so burdened that he was under the neces- 
 sity of transferring it to trustees, to be held in the 
 meantime, in the hope of its redemption at some 
 future period. In the interim the landless heir of 
 twenty generations of lairds set out for London to 
 push his fortune, and being conscious of superior 
 talent he passed at the Bar, and began to attend 
 the Courts of Westminster Hall, where he soon con- 
 tracted a good deal of debt without getting any 
 practice. 
 
 His career, however, was not destined to be so 
 terminated, and the turning-point of his fortunes 
 
106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 was a very singular event, which in the ordinary case 
 is attended with very different consequences. He 
 himself gave me the following account of it, when on 
 a visit to him with the late Lord AUoway, when on 
 the South Circuit in spring 1829, before his son — my 
 future son-in-law ■ — was born. " Like most other 
 scapegraces and insolvents," said he, "I was, when 
 I first settled in London, extremely democratic in 
 my opinions, and as I freely sported these ideas 
 in debating clubs and public speeches, I became an 
 object of suspicion to the thriving solicitors. So it 
 was, however, that these extreme opinions were the 
 making of my fortune. After the trial of Arthur 
 O'Connor in May 1798, Lord Thanet and I were 
 accused of having attempted to rescue the prisoner 
 in open court ; and being convicted, we were both 
 sentenced to a year's imprisonment, and to find 
 security for seven years' good behaviour, besides 
 having to pay fines, he of £1000, and I of £100. 
 That was the turning-point of my fortunes. Being 
 allowed the use of books in prison, and having 
 nothing else to do, I read law assiduously, and came 
 to see that there were better things to be done in life 
 than making speeches at democratic clubs. When 
 the period of my confinement expired, I came back 
 into the world a soberer man ; and having been 
 strongly advised to try my fortunes in India, where 
 there was a considerable opening at the Bar, I set 
 out there four thousand pounds in debt, but with 
 
lS5i.] FBRGUSSON OF CRAIGDARROCH. 107 
 
 strong letters of recommendation from the leading- 
 Whig barristers and attorneys, with whom I had 
 become a hero. I sent the letters on by a packet 
 before the one in which I sailed, and the consequence 
 was that when I arrived in the Hooghly, before I set 
 my foot on shore, I had retainers which insured me 
 full employment for two years. I landed and began 
 practice. I lived freely, made largely, and spent 
 rapidly; but I was too much occupied to be involved 
 in any serious extravagance. Before a year was 
 over my personal debt was paid off, and in two 
 years more I was in the receipt of £20,000 a-year. 
 I made a fortune, redeemed my estate in Scotland, 
 and here I am." Mr Fergusson became member of 
 Parliament for the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in 
 which part of his estates were situated, and when 
 the Whigs came into office in 1830, he was made 
 Judge-Advocate. Unfortunately he had not the 
 same faculty of keeping money which he had in 
 making it : besides redeeming his paternal estate, 
 and fitting up its mansion-house, he had a house 
 in Portman Square, another at Boulogne, a third 
 at Paris, and a fourth on the banks of the Lake of 
 Geneva; he lost largely by the purchase of South 
 American bonds, then a very favourite investment 
 with Liberal capitalists ; two years before his death 
 he sank £40,000 in the purchase of an annuity; and 
 he incurred very heavy losses at the gaming-table. 
 Still he left an unencumbered landed estate to his 
 
108 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l852- 
 
 sou, besides a handsome jointure to his widow, who 
 was a Frenchwoman, and resided in Paris. My 
 daughter was married in September 1854, and her 
 husband and she immediately set off for and took 
 possession of Craigdarroch, his beautiful and ro- 
 mantic place in Dumfriesshire. 
 
 My new son-in-law was one of the most charming 
 and amiable persons whom it was possible to conceive. 
 He was still very young, his talents were remarkable, 
 his disposition amiable, and his tastes refined, and 
 it was impossible to figure a more delightful com- 
 panion. You could not converse with him without 
 admiring his ability ; you could not live with him 
 without loving. Kindly and affectionate in his dis- 
 position, he was in the highest degree generous and 
 open-hearted in his conduct ; if he was sid profusus 
 he was not alieni appetens. His mind was ar- 
 dently set on acquiring knowledge, and supplying 
 by assiduous industry the deficiencies of a somewhat 
 neglected education ; his love of poetry was enthu- 
 siastic ; his ear for music exquisite. So great was 
 his proficiency in the latter art, that he could play 
 through nearly the whole of an opera after hearing 
 it once performed. This refined taste was not con- 
 fined to one set of objects, it was conspicuous in his 
 furniture, in a very fine and valuable library, and in 
 the purchase of some exquisite gems of painting, and 
 objects of virtu. My daughter's tastes were equally 
 refined, and habits similar, and she told me that 
 
1S54.] DAUGHTER ELLA's MARRIAGE. 109 
 
 she felt as if she were living in the "Happy Valley " 
 of Easselas. The marriage was blessed with three 
 charming sons, and it promised every felicity. But 
 time had changes in store, and it will appear in 
 the sequel how soon death intervened and cut off 
 the head of the family in his prime. 
 
110 
 
 CHAPTEE XY. 
 
 FROM THE DEPAETUKE OP MY SONS TO THE CKIMEA IN 
 NOVEMBER 1854, TO THEIK DEPARTURE FOR INDIA. 
 
 NOVEMBER 1854 — JULY 1857. 
 
 Hitherto these memoirs have been confined to the 
 life of a laborious civilian, whose time was divided 
 between the duties of an arduous and responsible 
 official situation and the studies and composition 
 necessary for extensive literary undertakings. But 
 the time was now approaching when it was to assume 
 a new character, and when the profession of my sons 
 was to involve Lady Alison and myself in the whirl 
 and the anxieties of Wak. In the summer of 1854 
 the Crimean war broke out ; on the 20th September 
 the battle of the Alma was fought ; and it soon be- 
 came evident that the whole disposable forces of the 
 empire would be required to maintain the struggle 
 on the banks of the Euxine. Both my sons were at 
 this time in the 72d Highlanders, then stationed in 
 Ireland ; and the eldest, for whom I had just pur- 
 chased a company, was at Possil on leave of absence. 
 
1854-1857.] CRIMEAN WAR. Ill 
 
 when the dreaded (by us) summons to join, with a 
 view to embarkation for the East, arrived. He and 
 I were walking in the flower-garden, according to 
 old custom, on a Sunday, the 8th of November, 
 previous to a circuit of about a mile and a half 
 round the grounds, which we usually made on that 
 day, when the dinner-bell in the house was rung 
 violently, and soon after the footman came running 
 out to say a telegraphic message had arrived, and 
 we were wanted. We at once knew what it was, 
 pressed our hands in silence, and after sending word 
 by the servant we would be in directly, continued 
 our wonted walk, conversing as usual, but each in 
 silence feeling we would perhaps never take that 
 walk together again. 
 
 No one can have lived through this eventful 
 period without the conviction that the feelings of the 
 great majority of the nation were more thoroughly 
 embarked in this war than in any contest before 
 or since, if the few last years of the struggle with 
 Napoleon are excepted. Even the dreadful horrors 
 and heroic deeds during the Sepoy revolt in 1857 
 excited no such unanimous and enthusiastic feelings, 
 especially among the working classes of society. 
 This is a remarkable circumstance, when the un- 
 bounded enthusiasm for Russia during the campaign 
 of 1812, 1813, and 1814 is taken into consideration, 
 and the vital character of the national interests then 
 at stake, and brought into hazard during the Sepoy 
 war, is recollected. Still more strange is it that the 
 
112 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 descendants of the Crusaders, the countrymen of 
 Richard Coeur de Lion and of Robert Bruce, who 
 directed his heart to be sent with his followers to 
 the Holy Land, should evince this enthusiasm in 
 behalf of a Mohammedan power, and apparently to 
 check the spread of Christian influence on the shores 
 of the Euxine. Yet the thing was evidently so ; 
 and in all parts of the country the regiments ordered 
 for the Levant took their departure from the har- 
 bours of Creat Britain and Ireland amidst even 
 louder cheers than those who had before sailed for 
 Vittoria and Waterloo, or who afterwards took their 
 departure for Lucknow or Delhi. The true cause of 
 this apparent anomaly was, that the great majority 
 of the people in Great Britain regarded this not as a 
 religious or a national, but as a political war. Russia 
 had for long been held u.p by the whole Liberal party 
 in England as the real and most formidable enemy 
 of freedom : it was to combat this foe, as they deemed 
 it, of human progress, that our legions were now go- 
 ing forth. Impulsive, like every other democracy, 
 the British people threw themselves heart and soul 
 into this contest, which they regarded as an eff"ort 
 to destroy the arch-enemy of freedom, and secure 
 the emancipation of the human race. They did 
 this under the influence of fervent enthusiasm ; 
 not only without the smallest previous preparation, 
 but after having spent the preceding forty years in 
 ceaseless and generally successful efibrts to cripple 
 the only force by which such a contest could be 
 
1857.] MEETINa AT GLASGOW. 113 
 
 brought to a successful issue. Happily, though the 
 House of Commons, acting in obedience to the 
 popular mandate, could destroy the military organi- 
 sation of the British people, they could not destroy 
 their native courage and military spirit, which were 
 nobly displayed at the Alma, Inkerman, Balaklava, 
 and the trenches before Sebastopol ; and thus it hap- 
 pened that while the disasters necessarily conse- 
 quent on long previous improvidence were incur- 
 red, the national honour was saved, and the people 
 might say with Francis I., " Tout est perdu fors 
 I'honneur." 
 
 A striking example of the warmth of the feeling 
 in favour of the war, and of the extent to which it 
 had penetrated all classes of society, occurred in 
 Glasgow, on the occasion of a great public meeting, 
 called to set on foot a subscription for the widows 
 and children of those who fell or were disabled dur- 
 ing the Crimean war. It took place on the 5th Nov- 
 ember 1854, the very day of the battle of Inkerman, 
 and was attended by all the most respectable and 
 eminent of the citizens in Glasgow, and by country 
 gentlemen in the vicinity, of all classes and shades of 
 politics. I was intrusted with moving the first resolu- 
 tion on the occasion of this meeting, which shared 
 largely in the general enthusiasm that prevailed short- 
 ly after the accounts of the victory of the Alma had 
 been received ; and the speech I made was loudly ap- 
 plauded, not so much from any merit of its own, as 
 from its being so completely the reflex of the general 
 
 VOL. IT. H 
 
114 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 feeling of the moment. The subscriptions in the room 
 were very liberal, amounting to above £7500 ; and 
 this was followed up immediately by lists opened in 
 every parish church, chapel, and place of worship of 
 every denomination in the neighbourhood, and by gen- 
 erous support from the workmen of all the principal 
 manufactories and mining establishments in Lanark- 
 shire and the adjoining counties. Altogether the sum 
 received for the Patriotic Crimean Fund in Glasgow 
 exceeded £45,000, exclusive of another subscription, 
 for which above £4000 was got, to provide succour 
 and comforts for the wounded soldiers themselves 
 engaged in the struggle. This list was headed by 
 the Duchess of Montrose, who exerted herself most 
 strenuously in this beneficent and patriotic effort. 
 The sums thus realised, amounting in all to £50,000, 
 were much larger than ever had been obtained for 
 any purpose of public beneficence in Scotland before, 
 the Waterloo Fund itself not excepted ; and on this 
 occasion considerably exceeded those raised in Man- 
 chester, Liverpool, Dublin, or any other city in the 
 empire, except the metropolis. 
 
 This leads me to remark a very singular circum- 
 stance, for which it is difficult to assign any satis- 
 factory reason, but which has been abundantly 
 verified by experience — viz., that the martial spirit 
 is stronger in Glasgow and its neighbourhood than 
 in any other part of the British dominions. I had 
 long been informed by the inspecting field-officers 
 charged with the recruiting in Glasgow that the ag- 
 
1857;] MARTIAL SPIRIT OF GLASGOW. 115 
 
 gregate of recruits got from that city was greater, in 
 proportion to the number of its inhabitants, than in 
 any other part of the British dominions ; and the 
 breaking out of the Crimean war put it to the test. 
 The whole militia regiments raised for the west of 
 Scotland were recruited in Glasgow, and above 2000 
 men offered themselves in one day in that city for 
 the Land Transport Corps. The same thing has been 
 observed in later times. When the Volunteers were 
 established in 1860, G-lasgow at once took the lead; 
 her regiments were more rapidly filled up than those in 
 any other part of the country; and of 21,000 volun- 
 teers who defiled before the Queen on the 7th August 
 1860, nearly 9000 were from Lanarkshire! The popu- 
 lation at that time was 624,000. If the whole island 
 had turned out in the same proportion, the number 
 would not have been 150,000, which was its utmost 
 limit, but 330,000 ! This remarkable circumstance 
 is doubtless in some degree owing to the spirit of 
 roving and adventure which animates all people 
 recently launched on the career of civilisation, who 
 are less attached to the comforts of home than those 
 who have been long habituated to them. But it is 
 probably to be in part ascribed to the martial and 
 adventurous spirit of the Celtic race, of whom, under 
 the name of Irish and Highlanders, nearly half of the 
 population of Glasgow is composed ; a spirit which 
 has been exhibited in every age in France in the 
 undying thirst for military glory, and in Ireland and 
 the West Highlands in the prodigious flood of emi- 
 
116 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 gration which has transferred so large a part of the 
 Celtic race to the American shores. 
 
 The 72d Highlanders embarked at Cork on board 
 the Neptune, for the Mediterranean. Their destina- 
 tion at first was the Crimea, and I had made every 
 provision, in the way of warm clothing and other 
 comforts, for a winter campaign on the part of our 
 boys in the trenches of Sebastopol. But unfortu- 
 nately the provisions in the Crimea ran so short that 
 it became necessary to halt the regiment at Malta, 
 where they passed the winter very agreeably in the 
 gay and varying society of that great landing-place 
 for birds of passage in the Mediterranean. The 72d 
 eventually moved forward to the Black Sea in May 
 1855, and their first operation was to reinforce the 
 troops engaged in the taking of Kertch. At this 
 time the cholera was raging with extreme severity on 
 board the transport, and the 72d suffered severely. 
 The space between decks was like a pestilential 
 cha,rnel-house. When they approached Kertch, it 
 was found that no serious resistance had been 
 made. Nevertheless, from the insubordination of 
 the Turkish and French soldiers employed in the 
 expedition, it underwent all the horrors of a town 
 taken by assault, and gave my sons a melancholy 
 foretaste of the sufferings and calamities of war. 
 
 In May 1855 I attended as usual the Literary 
 Fund dinner in London, and a few weeks after I was 
 in the chair of the annual festival of the Caledonian 
 Asylum in the same place. On both occasions I 
 
1857.] PRESENTATION OF MEDALS. 117 
 
 expressed strongly my conviction of the certainty 
 of a great triumph to the arms of France and Eng- 
 land in the Crimea, if they were persevering and 
 true to each other ; and as this prediction was 
 uttered when the nation was ringing with the ex- 
 aggerated pictures given in the ' Times ' of the 
 sufferings of our troops in the Crimea, and had be- 
 come despondent in consequence, it made some sen- 
 sation, and was noticed in all the newspapers. The 
 reason I assigned for this hope was, that from the 
 days of Xerxes downwards, victory had always rested 
 with the party in the Euxine or ^gean seas which 
 had the command of the ocean ; because such was 
 the poverty and difficulty of transit in the rugged 
 and inaccessible regions which adjoined them, that 
 adequate supplies for any considerable body of troops 
 could only come by sea-carriage, and the aid of 
 maritime superiority. This anticipation proved well 
 founded, and the successful termination of the Cri- 
 mean war was mainly owing to the terrible waste 
 of life on the part of the Eussians in bringing up 
 their troops to that remote corner of their empire, 
 and the facility with which, in the second year of the 
 war, supplies by sea were thrown in to the allied 
 forces. 
 
 A very interesting ceremony, at which Lady 
 Alison and I were present, took place this season, 
 on the 18th May 1855, in the presentation of the 
 medals by the Queen in person in St James's Park 
 to the officers and men, mostly wounded, who had 
 
118 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 returned from the Crimea. The pageant was con- 
 ducted in the open space behind the Horse Guards, 
 and by the kindness of Lord Hardinge we saw 
 it to the greatest advantage — being at a window 
 of his private room at the back of that building. 
 The scene was inexpressibly striking, and conveyed 
 a clear idea at once of the pomp and sufferings 
 of war. The Guards, in splendid order and in 
 the finest discipline, kept the ground, by forming 
 a large hollow square, in the centre of which 
 her Majesty stood on an elevated platform, covered 
 with crimson cloth, surrounded by the commander- 
 in-chief and her generals. At a given signal the 
 men who were to be decorated with the medals by 
 her Majesty came forward, one by one, and in pass- 
 ing knelt down, and she put the ribbon, with the 
 medal suspended to it, round their necks ; and to the 
 most mutilated, or the most distinguished, she ad- 
 dressed a few words in addition. It was an interest- 
 ing but melancholy sight to see these brave men, 
 many of them disabled for life in the service of their 
 country, some supported on crutches, many resting 
 on sticks, receiving in presence of their fellow- 
 citizens the merited reward of their valour from 
 the hands of their sovereign. One gallant officer. 
 Sir Thomas Troubridge, who had lost both his legs 
 at the battle of Inkerman, was wheeled in a little 
 carriage to the front of the Queen's throne, and she 
 graciously descended the steps and put the medal 
 round his neck amidst the cheers of the spectators. 
 
1857.] PRESENTATION OF MEDALS. 119 
 
 The pageant lasted two hours, and the interest with 
 which it was attended seemed to increase rather 
 than diminish as the men came forward to receive 
 their medals. Not the least interesting part of the 
 sight was that of a body of sailors, about forty in 
 number, Avho, in their blue jackets and white trousers, 
 were all decorated by the hands of royalty. We 
 observed one trait highly characteristic of the dif- 
 ferent feelings at different periods of life, in these 
 untaught children of nature. All the young men, 
 as they approached the sovereign, put their hands 
 through their hair to raise it ; all those past middle 
 life, stroked it down to make it cover bald places. 
 All the soldiers saluted ; all the sailors pulled their 
 hair as they passed. 
 
 This interesting scene was the more impressive to 
 us as to many others present, from its recalling the 
 situation and perils of those who were dear to us, and 
 begetting the hope that possibly they might be spared 
 some day to receive a similar honour at the hands of 
 their sovereign. Lady Alison said to me, when the 
 ceremony was over, " What would we give to see our 
 boys receive their medals as those have done?" A 
 similar feeling, it was evident from the expression of 
 their countenances, pervaded many present. Among 
 the rest who received their decorations was the Earl 
 of Cardigan, then at the zenith of his popularity for 
 the celebrated charge of the Light Brigade at Bala- 
 klava. When he rode out of the square formed by 
 the Guards, the crowd surrounded him, and some of 
 
120 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 the most enthusiastic or audacious tried to pull hairs 
 out of the tail of his horse — the same which he had 
 ridden on that occasion — to preserve as relics. His 
 mind, never very strong, fairly gave way under this 
 excess of adulation. Soon after he joined a dejeuner 
 at a lady of fashion's in the vicinity. Throwing 
 himself on a sofa, apparently exhausted by the 
 fatigues of popularity, he exclaimed, "J hope the 
 Queen is not jealous." 
 
 While these scenes were going on in London, the 
 stern realities of war were still being enacted in the 
 Crimea. The 72d Highlanders had their full share 
 in them, and many were the escapes for which we 
 had to thank Providence in the case of our boys. 
 After the reduction of Kertch, they were brought 
 back with that regiment to the front at Sebastopol. 
 
 A never missed his turn in the fatiguing duty 
 
 of the trenches. One night when he was in them, 
 an incident occurred to him which was attended 
 with important effects on his future life and for- 
 tunes, as well as on those of his brother. He was at 
 that time captain of the light company, and as the 
 regiment went down left in front, he was at the head 
 of the column. He had not received any distinct 
 orders where he was to place his men. In this un- 
 certainty he met Sir Colin Campbell, the general 
 in command of the Highland Division, whom he im- 
 mediately addressed in these words : " Sir, I have 
 received no specific orders ; where am I to place my 
 men ? can you tell me where I should do so ? ' 
 
1857.] SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. 121 
 
 " Don't ask me," replied Sir Colin ; " I don't even 
 
 know where I am." " Oh," resumed A , " I 
 
 think I can show you where you are ; " and with 
 these Avords he drew from his breast a drawing of 
 the trenches which he had copied in the inside of 
 the envelope of a letter, and which is now in my 
 possession. Having pointed out the locality, and 
 placed his men, Sir Colin, after a little farther con- 
 versation, said, " Well, sir, you seem to be a sensible 
 fellow ; come to my chateau at two in the morning, 
 when all is quiet, and we will have some talk." He 
 did so accordingly, and found that what Sir Colin 
 called his " chateau " was a little hollow or blindage 
 in the earth, just capable of holding two or three per- 
 sons, in the middle of the trenches occupied by the 
 Highlanders. They remained there for a short time 
 in the dark, talking of the siege, and then separ- 
 ated to return to their respective duties. Such was 
 
 A 's first intercourse with Sir Colin Campbell, 
 
 who at that time had not the slightest idea who he 
 Avas. I was also unacquainted Avith the Highland 
 hero, whom I saw for the first time when he returned 
 to London a year afterAvards, on the conclusion of 
 the peace. 
 
 For the next two months — till they were moved 
 to Kamara to cover the vital line of communication 
 of the army, Avith their base and supplies at Balaklava 
 — the 72d took their regular turn in the trenches, 
 and underwent the usual perils and vicissitudes 
 of that dangerous and exhausting warfare. Both 
 
122 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 our boys had their full share of its dangers and 
 fatigues, and bore them with the spirit of British 
 gentlemen. The one commanded the light com- 
 pany, the other was in the grenadiers ; and as the 
 duty of the commanding officers of companies was 
 to place their sentries in front of the trenches, they 
 both underwent the usual risks attendant on that 
 service. The ordinary way of making the recon- 
 noitring advances Avas to creep along the ground 
 on their hands and knees ; and as the grass was 
 generally long, they often escaped in this manner 
 
 from being seen. On one occasion, however, A 
 
 was discovered, and owed his life to the humanity 
 of a Russian soldier. He was crawling ahead of his 
 men in a winding rocky path near the ravine which 
 separates the Eedan from the Malakoff, when reach- 
 ing the edge of a precipitous descent he beheld a 
 picket of thirty or forty Russian soldiers directly 
 below him. Instantly changing his direction, he 
 succeeded in reaching another path, and as he was 
 crawling along it he suddenly came upon a Russian 
 sentry crouching down behind a large stone, who, 
 without firing or giving any alarm, simply stood up 
 with his musket at his shoulder, to show that he 
 was there. On another occasion, when going ahead 
 in the front to reconnoitre, he forbade any of his 
 men to follow him, as it was attended with obvious 
 danger ; but after having gone about a hundred 
 yards, crawling, he heard a sound of some one be- 
 hind him, and turning round beheld his colour- 
 
1857.] BATTLE OF THE TCHEENAYA. 123 
 
 sergeant softly creeping about ten yards in the rear, 
 following, unseen, his captain. 
 
 The 72d was engaged in supporting the unsuc- 
 cessful assault on the 18th June 1855, but they only 
 crowded the rear of the trenches, and were never led 
 out. The stormers who passed them in the trenches 
 were full of confidence, and said, " In an hour we 
 
 shall be in Sebastopol." A was far from being 
 
 equally confident. A letter which he wrote to me 
 from the trenches on the forenoon of the preced- 
 ing day, concluded with these melancholy, though 
 happily not prophetic words : " Farewell, my dearest 
 father and mother ; I have never known aught but 
 happiness in my intercourse with you. May you 
 live long and happily ; yet think sometimes, though 
 not mournfully, of those who sleep beneath the walls 
 of Sebastopol." 
 
 On the day of the battle of the Tchernaya, when 
 the Eussians were repulsed with such tremendous 
 loss by the French and Piedmontese, the 72d were 
 under arms nearly the whole day ; but they were 
 only spectators of that sanguinary fight from the 
 edge of the plateau. Both my sons saw it to the 
 utmost advantage, and always spoke in the highest 
 terms of the steadiness and discipline which the 
 Eussians, after having sustained fearful losses, evinced 
 in their retreat. The threatening accumulation of 
 force in front of Balaklava on the enemy's part, led 
 to the whole Highland Division, with Sir CoHd 
 Campbell at its head, being marched to Kamara, 
 
124 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 to take part in the maintenance of that vital point 
 of the allied communications. Less perilous than 
 the service in the trenches, the duty to which it was 
 now called was still fatiguing ; for the troops, daily 
 expecting an attack, stood to their arms every morn- 
 ing at two o'clock, drew up in order of battle, and 
 remained there till long after daybreak, in hourly 
 expectation of an attack, like that at Inkerman, 
 which began before daylight. Such was Sir Colin's 
 activity, that he Avas not only always one of the first 
 in the field, but himself often called up his aides- 
 de-camp and principal officers ! 
 
 On occasion of the assault on the 8th September, 
 
 A was again by chance brought into contact 
 
 with Sir Colin Campbell. The whole Highland 
 Division having been ordered up to the front to take 
 part in the assault, they marched at two in the 
 morning from Kamara to the trenches, a distance of 
 twelve miles. When they approached the front they 
 came at once upon the French lines, in the ravine be- 
 tween the Malakofli' and the Redan ; the first thing 
 they saw when entering them was several huge 
 trenches dug, gaping sepulchres to receive the killed 
 in the approaching assault. When the Highlanders 
 got to the English trenches, they were placed in the 
 
 21 -gun battery, and A was beside Sir Colin 
 
 and General Cameron^ during the assault. He stood 
 on the top of the parapet part of the time, informing 
 Sir Colin of the progress of the fight. Sometimes 
 
 ^ Afterwards Sir Duncan Cameron, K.C.B. 
 
1857.] ASSAULT OF SEBASTOPOL. 125 
 
 the old General became so impatient that he insisted 
 on mounting the dangerous elevation himself; and 
 
 when A helped him up, he said : " Thank you, 
 
 my good friend ; when I am as young as you I will 
 do the same in return." The veteran hero never 
 exhibited the slightest symptoms of excitement dur- 
 ing all the heavy fire to which he was exposed. 
 When the French were sorely pressed in the Mala- 
 koff, their General sent to General Simpson request- 
 ing the aid of a division of English — the Guards 
 or the Highlanders ; but the answer unfortunately 
 was that he had enough to do with the Redan ! 
 But for this ill-timed prudence, the British would 
 have shared with the French the glory of that im- 
 portant conquest. 
 
 In the salient of the Malakoff there stood an old 
 tower, which was strongly occupied by the enemy, 
 who made a desperate resistance. A stream of fire 
 incessantly issued from its loopholes, which for long 
 enabled its defenders to defy the utmost efforts of 
 the assailants. General Macmahon, who commanded 
 the assaulting column, ordered the fascines and ga- 
 bions with which the exterior of the work was 
 strewed, to be piled up to give cover against the fire 
 of the tower, and to enable a howitzer to be brought 
 up against it. An accidental circumstance during 
 the execution of this order prevented a terrible 
 catastrophe to both these brave enemies. In digging 
 up one of the fascines, which was buried in the 
 earth, the French engineers came on a concealed 
 
126 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 wire, which ran along the ground. Suspecting what 
 it was, the man had presence of mind, by a violent 
 blow of his hatchet, to cut the line. It was an elec- 
 trical wire by which fire could be instantly commu- 
 nicated from without to a great powder-magazine 
 within the work. It was to have exploded the mo- 
 ment that the assailants were fairly in the Malakoff, 
 and all hope of regaining it was lost ! But for this 
 circumstance, it is more than doubtful whether the 
 French, with all their gallantry, could have held 
 their hard-earned post. 
 
 From his position on the parapet of the 21 -gun 
 
 battery, A had a favourable view of the fight in 
 
 the Eedan ; and his letters to me, written two days 
 after, contained a graphic picture of that famous 
 conflict, its early and unhoped-for success, and ulti- 
 mate failure. The stormers, by a sudden run, got 
 into the work at the apex, with very little opposi- 
 tion, and still less loss ; and if the men would have 
 followed their officers, who most nobly exposed them- 
 selves on the occasion, a permanent lodgment would 
 have been efi"ected. But no efforts on the part of the 
 officers, who rushed forward sword in hand, fol- 
 lowed by the non-commissioned officers, could in- 
 duce the men to follow. They lay down behind the 
 parapet, and in the embrasures under cover of the 
 gabions and fascines, and began firing from behind 
 them, as they had been accustomed to do in the 
 trenches. Meanwhile the Eussians in the work, who 
 were at first only a few hundreds in number, rallied 
 
ISC;.] THE KEDAN. 127 
 
 behind a low dike or trench, forming the base of 
 tlie triangle, where their numbers rapidly increased, 
 and from whence they kept up a biting fire on their 
 assailants. No exertions on the part of their officers 
 could induce the English soldiers, who were almost 
 all raw recruits, to run across the intervening space, 
 not one hundred yards broad, which separated them 
 from this slender parapet. The troops in the work 
 lay down, and would not move on, and those sent 
 up in support streamed up the outer slope of the 
 rampart, but would not cross the top, and lay there 
 slaughtered by the fire of the flanking guns, unwill- 
 ing either to advance or retire, till the slope was 
 crimson with English dead ! At length, after an 
 hour of this unavailing butchery, during which the 
 Russians behind the trench in the Redan had been 
 strengthened to the number of several thousand 
 men, a gallant young officer, waving his hat in his 
 hand, leapt over the ditch ; and the troops, rushing 
 over with loud hurrahs, drove the English out of the 
 work, and hurled them in confusion back to their 
 own lines. An old sergeant, black with smoke, 
 
 passed A in the trenches. " Ah, sir ! " said he, 
 
 " if you Highlanders had been there, we would have 
 kept the Redan ; for you stand shoulder to shoulder, 
 and know each other, but we Avere all scattered. 
 The Englishmen called to the Scotchmen, and the 
 Scotchmen to the Irishmen, and none knew each 
 other, nor the officers in front. We were all jumbled 
 together, and thus we were beaten." 
 
128 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 The fatal mistake committed by General Simpson 
 on this occasion was intrusting the assault to the 
 worn-out regiments of the 2d Light Division, which 
 had borne the fatigues of the siege, instead of to 
 the comparatively new and fresh regiments of the 
 Highland Division, which had been the least ex- 
 posed. The motive for this assigned by him in his 
 official despatch was natural — viz., that those who 
 had borne the dangers of the blockade should have 
 the honour of the assault ; " but in its application to 
 the British army, situated as it was at that period, 
 never was anything more disastrous. The regiments 
 which had gone through the trenches during the 
 preceding nine months had logt for the most part 
 three-fourths of their number by the rigour of the 
 climate, sickness, starvation, or the sword, and their 
 place had been imperfectly supplied by raw recruits, 
 many of whom had never seen any service, and 
 hardly knew how to fire a musket ; while such as 
 had gone through any real training had been en- 
 gaged only in the trenches, where they had learned 
 to seek for cover behind gabions, or by crouch- 
 ing behind parapets, and not to rush quickly under 
 fire across the open, which was the formidable and 
 perilous service to which they were now called. 
 To this unhappy arrangement of the attacking force, 
 the disaster at the Eedan was beyond doubt owing. 
 
 Sensible of the mistake made on this occasion, 
 and burning with desire to wipe out the affront 
 ofi"ered to the British arms, Sir Colin made his dis- 
 
1857.] THE HIGHLAND DIVISION. 129 
 
 positions for the next assault, with the command of 
 which he was intrusted. He resolved to employ 
 the whole Highland Division en masse, in the first 
 attack; the 3d Division being in support. He re- 
 presented — and represented truly — that his men 
 were not equal to such an undertaking in the even- 
 ing of the first day, during which they had marched 
 from Kamara, and been all day fasting in the 
 trenches ; but he offered to deliver the assault at 
 daybreak on the following morning, to which Gen- 
 eral Simpson agreed. 
 
 From the dangers and glories of this assault, how- 
 ever, they were delivered by the movements of the 
 Russians during this eventful night. Gortschakoff, 
 seeing that the French, notwithstanding his utmost 
 efforts to expel them, were firmly established in 
 the Malakoff, and fearing that the English would, 
 by daylight, be masters of the Redan, which would 
 seriously compromise his line of retreat, commenced 
 that retreat at nightfall which has justly rendered 
 his name immortal. It was so skilfully conducted, 
 that though the Highland Division was lining the 
 advanced trenches, the movement was never sus- 
 pected till between one and two, when, in conse- 
 quence of the unusual stillness in the works, yet 
 held by the Russians, it was suspected that they 
 were retiring, and a picket was in consequence told 
 
 off to go forward and reconnoitre. My son F 
 
 was not one of those told off for that service, but 
 fired with ardour he went forward as a vohmteer, 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
130 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 and was one of the first who reached the Eedan. 
 Their way as they ascended the slope was impeded 
 by the multitude of English bodies which lay in 
 confusion where they had fallen ; but this was the 
 principal, if not the only, impediment which they 
 met with. Palisades or abatis there were none — they 
 had long since been knocked away by the allied 
 guns ; and having descended the ditch, they mounted 
 the opposite slope without difficulty or resistance. 
 To their surprise they found everything quiet, the 
 place deserted, and the guns without either a sentinel 
 or artillery-man beside them. But they were soon 
 awakened from their fancied dream of security. 
 
 F had mounted one of the guns, and was 
 
 eagerly gazing on the sea of fire which was arising 
 on all sides, when a loud explosion, accompanied by 
 a quiver in the ground like an earthquake, was felt, 
 and shortly after a shower of stones, arms, fascines, 
 and gravel began to fall around them. It was the 
 explosion of the great mine of the Eedan, which 
 suddenly was fired when the Russians thought the 
 
 forlorn-hope of the enemy was upon it. F was 
 
 blown off his gun through the embrasure down 
 into the ditch, but almost by a miracle he escaped 
 without any serious injury, and rejoined his grena- 
 diers before his dangerous escapade had been even 
 suspected. 
 
 Sebastopol having fallen, the Highland Division 
 was marched back to their old position at Kamara. 
 In the course of the march only one man fell out of 
 
1857.] SON EECOMMENDED FOR PROMOTION. 131 
 
 the ranks from fatigue : a surprising ciraimstance, 
 when it is recollected that on both this and the 
 preceding day they had marched twelve miles, be- 
 sides being a day and a night in the trenches under 
 a heavy fire, with very little food or refreshment of 
 
 any kind ! During the march, A , being close 
 
 to the two generals, heard Sir Colin say to General 
 Cameron : " Who is that young ofiicer there 1 he 
 seemed steady under fire yesterday." " Oh," said 
 General Cameron, "that is young Alison, the son of 
 the historian ; he is a good soldier." Nothing more 
 
 passed at this time ; but A was recommended 
 
 for promotion at the end of the campaign. After 
 this the 72d remained at Kamara, in tents, watching 
 the Eussians, who were encamped in strength on 
 the Mackenzie Heights opposite, which were fortified 
 with the utmost care, protected by a powerful artil- 
 lery, and which they seemed disposed to defend to 
 the last extremity. 
 
 During the winter 1855-56, while the army lay 
 in its position guarding Balaklava and the southern 
 part of Sebastopol which they had wrested from the 
 enemy, an opportunity was afforded of comparing 
 the relative organisation of the two allies, especially 
 in the article of the commissariat, and of the shelter- 
 ing of the troops from the severity of the weather, 
 which set in with great violence. Never was a greater 
 contrast than they both exhibited to what had been 
 presented the winter before. In eflfect they appeared 
 to have changed places. As much as the position, 
 
132 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 resources, and provisions of the British army were 
 improved, were those of the French deteriorated and 
 diminished. The wretched provisions, gaunt faces, 
 wasted figures, which then characterised the British 
 lines, were now transferred to the French ; while the 
 comparative comfort which the English soldiers now 
 enjoyed, was the object of envy to their allies. 
 
 A and F were lodged together in one hut, 
 
 and by the assistance of the men of their companies, 
 who laboured assiduously to render it comfortable, 
 were comparatively well lodged. The French sol- 
 diers used often to come begging to the door, and 
 thankfully received a crust of bread or a glass of 
 beer. They represented their army as almost starv- 
 ing. This is a very remarkable circumstance, as 
 proving that, great as the military resources of the 
 French Empire are, they are not inexhaustible ; and 
 that although those of the British had been reduced 
 by the wretched democratic parsimony of the pre- 
 ceding forty years to the lowest point, yet they were 
 capable of an indefinite expansion, and had now 
 come to surmount those of their allies. It must be 
 added, however, that the French had a much larger 
 army to provide for than the British, for they had 
 150,000 men in the Crimea, and the entire red-coats 
 were not above .50,000. 
 
 The cold was very severe during this winter, not 
 so much from the absolute severity of the frost as 
 from the piercing wind, blowing straight from the 
 steppes of Scythia, with which it was in general ac- 
 
1857.] COLD IN THE CKIMEA. 133 
 
 companied. So piercing were these northern blasts 
 that even the warmest clothing was scarce any 
 protection, and the ordinary tents and huts were 
 as cold as the external air. The only resource 
 was to heap up the whole clothes which could be 
 collected upon your body in bed, and keep your 
 head as long as possible under the clothes. A fa- 
 vourite cat, which had established itself in F 's 
 
 tent, used to creep in beside him, under the clothes, 
 during the night, and proved a very acceptable 
 visitor from the warmth which its fur afforded. 
 The thermometer during the months of December 
 and January generally ranged from 5° to 15° of Fah- 
 renheit when it was frost ; but there were frequent 
 intermissions of thaw, during which the ground was 
 covered to the depth of fifteen or eighteen inches 
 with a slush beyond measure troublesome and dis- 
 agreeable, from its penetrating the huts and filling 
 them with water. The absence of the murderous 
 night-work in the trenches, however, and the afiiu- 
 ence of good provisions, produced a marvellous 
 diminution in the sickness and mortality of the 
 army, especially among the private soldiers, indicat- 
 ing too clearly to what the fearful losses of the pre- 
 ceding winter had been owing. 
 
 During the necessary pause in military operations 
 
 in the depth of winter, A returned for a short 
 
 time to this country. His mother had sufi"ered 
 severely from anxiety at both her sons being in the 
 Crimea; and without telling us, a near and dear rela- 
 
134 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 tive wrote to him, that irnless he returned home at 
 once he would be the cause of his mother's death, 
 and that as the campaign Avas over for the season, 
 and probably altogether, it was now his duty to do 
 so. Leave of absence was not given from the 
 Crimea. After laying the case before his command- 
 ing officer, he with a sore heart was obliged to send 
 in his papers, as the only means of performing what 
 seemed now to have become a sacred duty. He 
 obtained, however, from his commanding officer the 
 concession, that if on arriving in London he found 
 Sir Colin Campbell, who was then in England, 
 averse to his leaving, he might apply to withdraw 
 his resignation. He and Sir Colin crossed each 
 other without knowing it at Paris, and he reached 
 home on the 5th January 1856. The moment his 
 mother, before his arrival, had learned the circum- 
 stances under which he had been induced to come 
 home, she entreated me to write at once to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and ask that all action in regard to 
 his papers might be suspended, as they had been sent 
 in under an erroneous impression. I stated the cir- 
 cumstances to Lord Hardinge exactly as they had 
 
 occurred, and begged that A 's application to 
 
 retire might be cancelled. Lord Hardinge most 
 kindly consented, and my son was enabled to remain 
 in the profession in which his heart lay. He was 
 allowed to stay with us for a short time before set- 
 ting out on his return journey. Our meeting with 
 him was a very joyful one, and many were the 
 
1857.] SIR COLIN's AIDE-DE-CAMP. 135 
 
 hours, during the long winter nights, we spent at 
 Possil discussing the incidents of the siege, and the 
 
 prospects of the respective armies. A returned 
 
 to the Crimea in February, but before he arrived 
 there hostilities had ceased, and the armistice pre- 
 paratory to a general peace had been established. 
 
 During his brother's absence F one morning 
 
 received a message through Colonel Parke, his com- 
 manding officer, to the effect that Sir Colin Campbell 
 wished to speak to him. He went to his headquarters 
 with fear and trembling, afraid he was going to get a 
 reprimand, as he had met Sir Colin one day before 
 when shooting beyond the line of demarcation of the 
 two armies : what was his astonishment when Sir 
 Colin informed him that, as one of his aides-de-camp 
 had gone home, he was about to appoint him in his 
 place ! The offer was of course joyfully accepted, 
 and that day his things were sent up, and he took 
 up his quarters with his veteran general. Thus be- 
 gan a connection which has continued unbroken to 
 the present hour, and has been the source of number- 
 less benefits to both brothers. Sir Colin took a 
 strong and somewhat unaccountable liking to them 
 both ; and to this fortunate circumstance was owing 
 the appointment of both to his staff in India, and 
 the professional advancement they have received. 
 
 After the termination of hostilities A ■ made a 
 
 tour into the centre of the Crimea, where his uniform 
 procured for him a cordial and hospitable reception 
 from the Kussian officers, and he obtained some very 
 
136 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 curious and valuable information as to the condition 
 and sufferings of the Russian troops during the war. 
 
 He mentioned a striking circumstance related to 
 him, fearfully descriptive of the cost at which this 
 terrible war in the extremity of its empire was main- 
 tained by the Russian Government. From all the 
 rising grounds between Simferopol and the neck of 
 the Crimea, and from thence towards the interior of 
 Russia, you could see long lines of white running 
 along the valleys and traversing the hills, which 
 coming from different quarters, all converged towards 
 Sebastopol. They were formed by the bones of men 
 and animals, which had perished during the march 
 from their native villages to that huge and voracious 
 charnel-house. This is not surprising, when it is 
 recollected that the Russian official account, since 
 published, admits a loss of 260,000 men during the 
 Crimean war, besides horses and oxen. By far the 
 greater proportion perished on the road, and com- 
 paratively few either by the sword or in the hospitals 
 at Sebastopol. 
 
 Sir Colin Campbell explained to me, during a very 
 interesting conversation in the following year, how 
 it came to pass that the Muscovite loss on the march 
 reached such terrific proportions. Each colonel 
 during the line of march got a certain sum to feed 
 his troops during their journey. Those who were 
 first on the line sent out foraging-parties to the 
 right and left to seize what provisions and animals 
 they could find for the service of the troops, and a 
 
1857.] RUSSIAN LINE OF MARCH. 137 
 
 single division in this way devastated the country 
 to the distance of three or four miles on each side 
 of the line of march. The next who came did the 
 same, but they were obliged to spread themselves 
 out to a greater distance, perhaps seven or eight 
 miles on each side. The last corps which moved over 
 the triply wasted line were forced to send out fifteen 
 or twenty miles before they could pass the limits of 
 former devastation, and when they did do so they 
 often found the inhabitants fled, with their horses 
 and cattle, to avoid the devastating tempest ready to 
 sweep across them. In this way the fatigue of the 
 troops was greatly increased ; for the soldiers, for 
 one mile they advanced along the direct road, had 
 to march in general four or five on each flank in 
 quest of food. It was like the difierence between 
 the ground gone over by an active dog in search of 
 game, and by his master coming up in the line of 
 his point. It was to this cause that Sir Colin as- 
 cribed the prodigious losses which the Crimean war 
 had inflicted on the Eussian empire, and the fright- 
 ful devastation with which it was attended in the 
 southern provinces. " Had there been," he added, 
 " a railroad from Moscow to the Crimea, we would 
 never have taken Sebastopol." 
 
 This suggests the very important and interesting- 
 consideration, that although without doubt Sebasto- 
 pol might have been taken by a rapid advance im- 
 mediately after the battle of the Alma, yet the suc- 
 cess so achieved, though apparently the chief object 
 
138 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 of the expedition, and undoubtedly very important, 
 would have deprived the war of its great and de- 
 cisive character. The Allies would have taken Sebas- 
 topol with some sixteen or seventeen thousand men, 
 and fifteen sail of the line and twelve frigates — a 
 great advantage, but by no means of the decisive 
 character with which its ultimate capture was at- 
 tended. By the prolongation of the siege, and the 
 profound interest which it awakened in every part 
 of Europe, the national honour on both sides became 
 interested in the issue of the quarrel, and both 
 parties put forth their whole strength to bring it to 
 a successful issue. 200,000 men, and 1200 heavy 
 guns, were brought up by the Allies ; the Eussians 
 hurried 300,000 men forward to the scene of slaugh- 
 ter. Not a fourth, often not a tenth part of those who 
 set out from the interior, reached the theatre of con- 
 flict. Then the struggle, begun by the march on Sebas- 
 topol the day after the battle of the Alma, entirely 
 changed its character. It was no longer for a fort- 
 ress, a province, and a fleet, but for the supremacy 
 in Europe : it was not a beleaguered town which was 
 vanquished in the Malakoff, but an empire. 
 
 The Scientific Association met at Glasgow on 
 September 24, 1855, under the presidency of the 
 Duke of Argyll, who made a most able and luminous 
 speech on the occasion, which elicited genuine admi- 
 ration from men of all parties. He has been more 
 than once our guest at Possil, and his conversation 
 in private is quite equal to his ability in public. He 
 
1857.] DUKE OF AEGYLL. 139 
 
 is not, however, as already mentioned, without cer- 
 tain defects which lessen the weight of what falls 
 from his eloquent lips. From the fact already alluded 
 to of his having never been either at a public school 
 or any of the universities, but entirely educated at 
 home, he has almost unavoidably acquired a degree of 
 self-confidence which appears the more unbecoming 
 that his appearance is singularly youthful ; and his 
 hair of light red, and fair countenance, render him, 
 as has been often said, more like " the yellow-haired 
 laddie " than a grave senator. On one occasion he 
 undertook to set down Lord Derby in the House of 
 Peers ; and the Duchess of Sutherland, his own Duch- 
 ess, and several of their party, came to the House to 
 hear him do so. Lord Derby allowed him to go on 
 to the end, and when he was done, and surprise was 
 expressed by some one that he had not interrupted 
 him. Lord Derby replied, " Oh, he reminds me of a 
 strong navvie who had a little wife whom he could 
 lift up like a child, but who used to beat him when 
 out of humour. When some one expressed surprise 
 at his allowing her to do so, he replied, ' Let that be : 
 it amuses she and doan't hurt L' " The party from 
 Stafford House came in just in time to hear this, 
 and retired with very different feelings from what 
 they anticipated from being present at the putting 
 down of Lord Derby. 
 
 Our valued friends Sir Michael and Lady Octavia 
 Shaw-Stewart,^ and Mr and Mrs Baillie-Cochrane of 
 
 1 Daughter of the Marquis of Westminster. 
 
140 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIH A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 Lamington, were our guests during this scientific 
 meeting. Many of the most distinguished members 
 of the Association dined with us, among whom were 
 Sir David Brewster, Dr Whewell, Sir Eoderick 
 Murchison, and Sir Henry Eawlinson. The first of 
 these very eminent men, Sir David Brewster, had 
 been a friend both of Lady Alison and myself from 
 our earliest years, and we had both received much 
 kindness from him at a time when, from his celebrity, 
 it was much valued. I had, as already mentioned, 
 contributed the articles " Italy " and " Ireland " to 
 the ' Edinburgh Encyclopaedia,' of which he was the 
 editor. His philosophical and scientific abilities are 
 known to all the world, but his private character 
 presents such strange contrasts as to be fully known 
 only to his intimate friends. In private society you 
 cannot meet with a more agreeable man, or one who 
 does more honour to the race of literary celebrities, 
 which so many less judicious do so much to degrade. 
 Modest and unassuming, ever desirous to draw out 
 others rather than advance himself, he brings forth 
 his vast stores of scientific information in the most 
 interesting way, and none knows better how to select 
 from them those topics or facts which are most likely 
 to attract the attention of the great body of ordinary 
 auditors. It is much to be regretted that, to so 
 many great and good qualities, he unites in public 
 and in matters of business an angry and acrimoni- 
 ous spirit, which in a great degree disqualifies him 
 for the pacific or tranquil conduct of public matters. 
 
1857.] DR WHEWELL. 141 
 
 This disposition has more than once brought him 
 into awkward circumstances. Happily, his great 
 scientific reputation has now placed him in the 
 honoured and tranquil retirement of Principal of 
 the University of Edinburgh, and he has distin- 
 guished himself much in that honourable office. 
 His opening speech of the session 1861-62 deserves 
 a place in the very highest rank of philosophical 
 eloquence. 
 
 Dr Whewell was at this time engaged in an 
 angry controversy with Sir David Brewster, upon a 
 subject little calculated, it might be supposed, to 
 awaken the irritable feelings of disputants — the 
 plurality of worlds. He is a man of very great 
 abilities, and in many respects the reverse of Sir 
 David Brewster. Possessed of brilliant powers of 
 extempore eloquence, which has been amply im- 
 proved during the many hours of common - hall 
 dining at Cambridge, he always comes forward pro- 
 minently in society ; and from his great scientific 
 reputation, is generally on such occasions listened 
 to by a pleased and willing audience without any 
 interruption or answer being attempted. He is 
 not averse, however, to meeting a single antagon- 
 ist, engaging, like Dr Johnson, across the table, 
 in intellectual gladiatorship, in which he eminently 
 excels. 
 
 Sir Eoderick Murchison is in every respect, ex- 
 cept in the equal possession of talent, the very re- 
 verse of these professed talkers. Originally a sol- 
 
142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 dier, who had combated in the Peninsula under 
 Wellington, he had subsequently been a man of the 
 world, and only took seriously to science after he 
 had passed the meridian of life. When at Sir James 
 Hall's, in 1834, at a large party, of which Mrs Alison 
 and I were members, he joined, on horseback, a party 
 of fox-hunters, in his walking dress ; and not a lit- 
 tle merriment was excited among the young men 
 in their tights and scarlet coats, at the old stager in 
 his gaiters and trousers ; but their laughter ceased 
 when they saw him clear all the fences gallantly, 
 and finally carry off the brush from them all. The 
 ease and unaffected politeness of manners, arising 
 from an extended intercourse with the best society, 
 which has continued to characterise him through 
 life, was never more conspicuous than at the present 
 moment (1861). Enjoying the advantage of an 
 affluent fortune, partly his own, partly an acquisi- 
 tion by marriage, with a handsome house and estab- 
 lishment in Belgra;ve Square, he forms a valuable, 
 and one of the few remaining links between the 
 world of intellect and the world of fashion. His 
 great scientific knowledge, and extensive additions to 
 geological science secure him the respect of the for- 
 mer ; his unafi'ected courtesy and high-bred manners 
 procure for him an easy entrance into the latter. 
 At his table are to be found united men of the 
 first rank and talent from foreign countries, with 
 the peers, the bishops, the judges, the statesmen and 
 politicians of his own. It is not surprising that he 
 
1857.] MURCHISOJT AND RAWLINSON. 143 
 
 should be popular witli all classes, for his manners 
 bear the mark of that high breeding which is the 
 index of right feeling. Unlike many eminent philo- 
 sophers or barristers, he never harangues — his dining- 
 room is never turned either into a debating club or 
 a lecture-room. He makes no attempt to conceal 
 his knowledge or shut himself up in contemptuous 
 silence, but conveys his information in so pleasing 
 a way that the company hardly know they are re- 
 ceiving it, and are even more impressed by the grace 
 of the delivery than the value of the matter delivered. 
 
 Sir Henry Eawlinson, who, too, was our guest 
 on this occasion, is also a very remarkable man, 
 though of a different description from Sir Eod- 
 erick Murchison. Of younger years, he is much 
 more discursive, and has acquired eminence in a 
 greater variety of ways. He first was distinguished 
 in the East, during the trying circumstances of 
 the war in Affghanistan, and did good service in an 
 important situation at Candahar, when assailed by 
 the Asiatics after the fall of Cabul and the destruc- 
 tion of the principal army. Subsequently he held 
 important situations, half military, half diplomatic, 
 in Persia ; and now bore a part in London society 
 at once as a soldier, a diplomatist, and a man of 
 science. He is very pleasant in society, and is with- 
 out the lecturing propensity which so often lessens 
 the agreeability of eminent men. 
 
 At the concluding festival of the Scientific Asso- 
 ciation, the Duke of Argyll, who, as president, was 
 
144 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 chairman of the dinner, omitted, in proposing the 
 toasts, to give that of the Navy and Army. Such 
 an omission at a dinner where above 1200 persons 
 were present, would have seemed strange at any 
 time, but it was doubly so at that juncture, from 
 the enthusiastic feelings which had so recently been 
 awakened in the country by the desperate passages 
 of arms in the Crimea and the fall of Sebastopol, 
 the intelligence of which had shortly before arrived.^ 
 A. strong feeling of discontent was in consequence 
 awakened in Glasgow and its vicinity at the unwar- 
 rantable omission, accompanied by a keen desire to 
 make reparation.^ This wish led to a dinner, given in 
 honour of the heroes of Sebastopol, the general direc- 
 tion of which devolved upon me. The Duke of Ham- 
 ilton, the premier peer of Scotland, kindly consented 
 to act as chairman, and made a very creditable ap- 
 pearance on the occasion ; while I discharged the 
 duties of croupier. The dinner, which took place on 
 the 18th October, was a brilliant affair; the interest 
 of the occasion, and the Duke of Hamilton's name, 
 having secured the attendance of the nobility and 
 gentry of the west of Scotland. The toast given to 
 me was the " Highland Division ; " and the speech I 
 made on the occasion, falling in as it did with the 
 feeling of the moment, was loudly applauded, and 
 
 1 It reached me at Fossil at 5 p.m. on the 10th September. The 
 Malakoff had been finally taken at the same hour on the 8th. 
 
 2 The Duke of Argyll afterwards told me that he omitted the toast 
 from a dread of a long prosing speech from an officer of the Engineers 
 who was present, and who would have returned thanks for the Army. 
 
1857.] TOAST OF THE "HIGHLAND DIVISION." 145 
 
 largely quoted in the English newspapers. It con- 
 sisted chiefly, if not entirely, of the graphic picture 
 of the strife in the trenches, which was taken from 
 my son's letters, and was a finished painting, com- 
 posed from sketches from nature. It was open, 
 however, to one signal reproach, for an omission 
 which appears to me now altogether inexplicable : 
 though the subject was the Highland Division, I 
 never once mentioned the name of its gallant chief. 
 Sir Colin Campbell. That was partly owing to his 
 being the subject of a separate toast, on which I was 
 of course not to encroach, till some mention of their 
 commander was loudly called for on the occasion. 
 Sir Colin, however, kindly accepted the apology I 
 made to him for this strange omission; and I had the 
 satisfaction of afterwards finding that my speech had 
 been gratifying to the gallant Highlanders, for my 
 health was drunk with applause at a dinner given 
 by their ofiicers to Sir Colin on occasion of his leav- 
 ing the Crimea to return to England. 
 
 The speech was attended with a consequence 
 highly gratifying to myself, as it brought me into 
 contact with a gallant nobleman of long-established 
 European fame. The Due de Coigny, connected by 
 marriage with the Dalrymples of Stair, was one 
 of the distinguished guests at the banquet, and was 
 seated at the chairman's left hand, the Duke of 
 Montrose being on the right. The presence of a 
 veteran of the Grand Army, who had lost his arm at 
 the battle of Salamanca, had survived the horrors 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
14G AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l864- 
 
 of the Moscow retreat, and had subsequently, in a 
 moment of danger, been called to the councils of his 
 sovereign, Charles X., was too remarkable a circum- 
 stance on such an occasion not to call for special 
 notice, and I accordingly alluded to it in compli- 
 mentary but not undeserved terms in the course of 
 my speech. He is in every respect a striking man. 
 Having been an officer in action in 1812, he was of 
 course no longer young ; but his military carriage, 
 erect air, and lost arm, at once bespoke the hero, 
 while his polished and courteous manners evinced 
 the nobleman of ancient descent. 
 
 Later in the season we were at a large party at 
 the hospitable mansion of Keir, consisting of Brew- 
 ster, Murchison, Eawlinson, and Whewell, with the 
 addition of the Duke of Hamilton, Mrs Norton, 
 Monckton Milnes, Lord Ardmillan ■ — recently ele- 
 vated to the Scottish Bench — and a Spanish noble- 
 man, the Marquis Guyamont, with his clever and 
 accomplished daughter. It need hardly be said that 
 the party was most agreeable, and was enlivened 
 with all the charm which distinguished talent, high 
 rank, elegant women, beautiful scenery, and taste- 
 ful entourage can afford. This mansion is one of 
 the most remarkable in Scotland, for you hardly 
 meet elsewhere such a combination of wealth with 
 elegance, learning with refinement, natural beauty 
 with acquired attractions. The library — a beautiful 
 room, fifty feet in length by thirty broad, remark- 
 able for its large and valuable collection of Spanish 
 
1857.] MONCKTON MILNES. 147 
 
 books — is graced by numerous and well-selected quo- 
 tations from the classical writers, which reveal at 
 once the extensive reading and refined taste of the 
 master-spirit which combined them. Mr Stirling 
 himself kept his place among all these men, who, if 
 not of superior talent^ were of greater celebrity in 
 the world. You could not hear the conversation at 
 his table for half an hour without perceiving that he 
 was in natural ability fully their equal. On subjects 
 of taste and foreign painting, especially Spanish, on 
 which he has written two very interesting works, he 
 was decidedly their superior. 
 
 Mr Monckton Milnes,^ who was also at Keir on 
 this occasion, is a remarkable man, both as a poet 
 and as a member of society. A Palmerstonian in 
 politics, and attached to the colours of his leader, 
 he has for a considerable time made a respect- 
 able, but not eminent, figure in Parliament. He 
 has no decided turn for politics, and has probably 
 entered the House of Commons rather as the " best 
 club in London," than for any other or more am- 
 bitious reason. His turn of mind is essentially 
 literary and poetical, and therein he has very great 
 merit. Some of his small lyrical pieces are of re- 
 markable beauty, though not equal to those of Long- 
 fellow or Mrs Hemans. In society his liveliness of 
 manner and quickness of apprehension render him 
 generally agreeable, but there is sometimes too great 
 a straining after effect, and a desire to say good 
 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Houghton. 
 
148 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 things. He is a great diner-out, both in aristocratic 
 and literary circles, and entertains handsomely in his 
 own house ; and it is rarely that a man of talent — 
 habitually moving in such circles — escapes this 
 defect. Sydney Smith had it in an eminent de- 
 gree, though his ready wit made it generally, in his 
 case, be overlooked — " Conversation Sharp " in a 
 still greater. These men do not lecture or engross 
 the conversation to themselves, like Macaulay, or 
 Whewell, or Jeffrey ; they follow the true art of con- 
 versation in giving and taking, cutting and thrust- 
 ing. What renders them sometimes wearisome, is 
 that they make too great and too continued an effort 
 to say good things, or knock down an adversary by 
 a home-thrust ; and as this deprives their conversa- 
 tion of the air of nature, it severs it from one of the 
 principal charms of social intercourse. 
 
 On this occasion there was forcibly brought before 
 our eyes the marked change in social position which 
 the Scottish Bench had undergone, in consequence of 
 the Whig appointments to the seats on it during the 
 preceding twenty-five years. Lord Ardmillan was 
 one of the guests at Keir with whom we were 
 acquainted, though, owing to our different standing 
 at the Bar, and my long residence in Lanarkshire, 
 but slightly so. We met, however, as old friends ; 
 and he was in every respect a valuable addition to 
 society. He was a perfect gentleman in his manners, 
 of good family in Ayrshire, possessed of considerable 
 oratorical powers, and a great and easy flow of con- 
 
1857.] BETERIORATION OF THE SCOTTISH BENCH. 149 
 
 versation, a popular judge, and an estimable private 
 man. But his presence scarcely made itself felt, 
 and this was entirely the result of a feeling against 
 his professional position, as no one could be more 
 pleasing than he was personally. When I was a 
 young man, the judges, all gentlemen, were at the 
 head of society in Edinburgh, and acceptable guests 
 at the tables of the first nobility in Scotland. Now, 
 they were, with few exceptions, to be seen only at 
 each other's houses, and one of them had recently 
 been black-balled at the principal club in Edinburgh, 
 because — as was said at the time — " though the 
 Queen can make a judge, she cannot make a gentle- 
 man." This change was owing in part to the system 
 of exclusive appointments which the Liberal party 
 had followed since they came into power, instead of 
 the disinterested practice of their political opponents 
 which, in the twenty years before 1830, had led 
 them to put six leading Whigs ^ on the Bench. 
 But it was in a still greater degree the result of 
 general causes, and bespoke the growing ascendancy 
 
 ^ Viz., Lord Gillies, Lord Alloway, Lord Eldin, Lord Corehouse, 
 Lord FuUerton, and Lord Monoreiflf, all appointed by the Tory 
 Ministers. It would be hard to find a single Tory placed on the 
 Bench by the Whigs since that time. The Whigs loudly applauded 
 the disinterested practice of their opponents when they themselves 
 were in opposition and profited by it ; and when they came into 
 power did exactly the reverse — video meliora proboque deteriora sequor. 
 They soon exhausted all the men of their own party by seats on the 
 Bench; and as they would not go to their political opponents, they had 
 no recourse but the a^jpointment of men who could not uphold the 
 proper social position of the Bench, and such as previously it had 
 always held. 
 
150 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 of an inferior class in society in political influence, 
 and was the herald of those times when, from the 
 general Americanising of our institutions, patriotic 
 worth, independent talent, and polished manners 
 were to be hustled out of the race, and public ap- 
 pointments were to be sought after by — and only be- 
 stowed on — needy mediocrity, democratic blustering, 
 and time-serving ability. 
 
 During this autumn we had a visit at Possil for 
 two days of a most distinguished gentleman, who 
 proved that if public appointments are bestowed in 
 America on a less worthy class, general estimation 
 is bestowed on. the really great and good. Mr 
 Prescott, who had been on a visit to the Duke and 
 Duchess of Argyll at Inverary, kindly consented to 
 give us some days of his charming society at Possil. 
 I had asked a large party to meet so distinguished a 
 man, but, from some accident to the steamboat, he 
 did not arrive till the dinner was over ; but he soon 
 charmed the whole company by the suavity of his 
 manner and the pleasing way in which he brought 
 out his extensive information. The more I saw of 
 him — especially in a tSte-d-tSte — the more was I 
 struck with his talent and acquirements. There may 
 have existed more profound historians, or writers who 
 have scanned with more accuracy the secret springs 
 of human action ; but there is no one who has, in a 
 more pleasing and graphic way, painted the varying 
 phases of human events, or condensed, in an equally 
 small space, the accumulated information drawn from 
 
1857.] PRESCOTT THE HISTORIAN. 151 
 
 a great variety of sources. His graphic powers — as 
 evinced in his narrative of the wars of Pizarro and 
 Cortes, in Peru and Mexico — are of the highest order ; 
 perhaps their only fault is that the descriptions are too 
 rich, and sometimes redundant. He had not, however, 
 the advantages of having seen the principal scenes 
 he described. Humboldt, whose wonderful memory 
 retained a vivid image of the scenes he had beheld 
 in early youth, detected this on first reading his de- 
 scriptions of Mexico and the Andes. Prescott's last 
 work— the 'History of Ferdinand and Isabella' — is 
 perhaps the most valuable of his contributions to the 
 treasures of history, for it contains the results of 
 research as well as the exhibition of pictorial powers. 
 He told me that when he entered our park and saw 
 a group of old firs standing on a knoll, he thought 
 of my having sat there in the night of extreme cold, 
 which I had described in my History.'- 
 
 During December 1855 Lady Alison and I made 
 a visit of a fortnight to Lady Londonderry at Wyn- 
 yard Park. I was then for the first time admitted 
 to the vast treasures of manuscripts connected with 
 these two eminent men. Lord Castlereagh and her 
 husband, which the archives of Wynyard contained, 
 and which formed the basis of their Lives, which I 
 subsequently composed. I soon saw what a vast field 
 this subject opened, and how immense was the mass 
 of documents, the examination of which would be 
 necessary for its completion. I made considerable 
 
 1 Vide note, vol. i. p. 451. 
 
152 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIB, A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 progress during the fortnight I. was at Wynyard in 
 going through the documents and correspondence, 
 and in selecting such as were to be copied by the 
 Marchioness's secretary, and taken home with me. 
 I was far, at this time, from anticipating the length 
 to which the Memoirs I contemplated would swell, 
 or the immense labour with which they would be 
 accompanied, and imagined that the lives of both 
 brothers would be comprised in one volume of 500 
 pages ! I began soon, however, to discover how much 
 more laborious it is to frame a narrative from manu- 
 script letters than from printed authorities or state 
 papers. No one who has not engaged in both can 
 conceive how wide is the difference ; and it is to this 
 cause I am persuaded that the undue prolixity and 
 overwhelming details, which so often weigh down his- 
 tories formed from antiquarian research and original 
 documents, are to be ascribed. The labour employed 
 in collecting and sifting the materials has been so 
 excessive that they have acquired an undue weight 
 in the author's eyes; as a sickly child, which has 
 been reared with difficulty, does in those of its 
 mother. 
 
 On this and many subsequent occasions I had am- 
 ple opportunities of becoming intimately acquainted 
 with the Marchioness of Londonderry, and getting a 
 clear insight at once into the excellence and foibles 
 of her character. Unfortunately her weaknesses 
 are on the surface, while many of her redeeming 
 qualities are within, and only revealed to those who 
 
1857.] LADY LONDONDEEEY. 153 
 
 are brought into contact with her in business, or 
 with whom she has shared her confidence. At re- 
 ceptions in her own house her manner was polite 
 and high-bred, but stately and frigid, such as in- 
 variably inspired awe in those who were introduced 
 to, or had occasion to pass her. To such a length 
 did this go, that I recollect once, in one of her great 
 assemblies at Holdernesse House, as the Marchioness 
 had taken her seat near one of the doors by which 
 the company were intended to go out, to bow to 
 them in passing, the whole people, the moment they 
 saw her seated in her grandeur, turned about, and 
 went back the way they came, rather than pass 
 through the perilous straits. She is passionately 
 fond of dress, on which she lavishes large sums ; 
 has magnificent diamonds worth above £100,000 ; 
 and still (1855) has by no means lost the taste for 
 admiration. 
 
 In general society she is reserved and even haughty 
 in her manner, seldom conversing except in brief 
 sentences. But it is otherwise when she engages 
 in serious conversation with those whom she es- 
 teems, and are interested in the numerous projects 
 which she has on foot. She then becomes animated, 
 all hauteur of manner wears off, and she enters 
 into unreserved communication of her designs and 
 ideas. Lord Eglinton, who knew her well, has 
 often said to me that in a tite-d-tSte he did not 
 know a more delightful woman. Her residence for 
 several years at Vienna, when her husband was 
 
154 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 ambassador, and subsequent frequent tours on the 
 Continent, had made her intimately acquainted with 
 all the leading political characters of the day ; and 
 her conversation sparkles with anecdotes or sayings 
 of Metternich, Schwarzenberg, the Emperor Alexan- 
 der, Bernadotte, Blucher, Nesselrode, Talleyrand, 
 Chateaubriand, Wellington, Lord Castlereagh, Louis 
 Philippe, Lord Liverpool, Mr Canning, the Emperor 
 Louis Napoleon, the Due d'Aumale, and all the great- 
 est men who flourished from the Congress of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle in 1818 to 1860. It may easily be con- 
 ceived Avhat interest such conversation, coming from 
 so acute and discerning a woman, possessed for one 
 engaged in the pursuits, and occupied with the re- 
 searches, in which I was then immersed. Seeing the 
 interest with which her information was received, 
 the Marchioness was kind enough to drive me out 
 every forenoon for two hours in her pony-carriage ; 
 and on these occasions the conversation never flagged 
 for an instant, and was almost always on the most 
 interesting subjects. Although her manner, how- 
 ever, was thus kind, I was never able to divest my- 
 self of a certain degree of awe, and never felt alto- 
 gether at ease, even in our longest and most confi- 
 dential Ute-a-tetes. 
 
 Lady Londonderry was very kind to Prince Louis 
 Napoleon, when for several years he was at the ebb 
 of his fortunes, immediately before the Boulogne 
 expedition ; and he was a frequent partaker of the 
 hospitalities dispensed on so magnificent a scale at 
 
1857.] LOUIS NAPOLEON. 155 
 
 Wynyard. I have frequently asked Lady London- 
 derry, the Duke of Montrose, and Lord Eglinton, 
 in whose country-houses he had also been a frequent 
 and acceptable visitor, whether they ever discov- 
 ered any symptoms of the determined character 
 and remarkable abilities which afterwards became 
 so conspicuous, and they all said that they never 
 had. They concurred in representing him as thought- 
 ful, taciturn, and proud, neither asking nor accept- 
 ing advice, revealing his intentions to no one, and 
 evidently preoccupied with his own thoughts. He 
 was a keen fox-hunter, and passionately fond of the 
 chase, in which he displayed remarkable nerve ; but 
 in other respects he took little interest in what 
 was going on, and in private was chiefly addicted to 
 pursuits of gallantry. At the lowest point of his 
 fortunes, however, he abated nothing of his lofty 
 pretensions ; and invariably asserted, and generally 
 obtained, the pas in conducting the Marchioness to 
 dinner, even when the Duke of Cleveland, or other 
 persons of the highest rank, were present. That he 
 entertained at this time, and indeed throughout 
 his whole life, the firmest belief of his ultimately 
 ascending the throne of France, I have had from 
 many different sources, on unquestionable authority. 
 Among others the Duke of Newcastle and Lord 
 Burghersh, afterwards Earl of Westmoreland, told 
 me they had heard this from his own lips. 
 
 Another member of the same family, destined one 
 day, I trust, to occupy the same rank and social 
 
156 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 position, was at Wynyard at this time. The Coun- 
 tess Vane, daughter of Sir I. Edwards, descended 
 from one of the ancient families in Wales, compared 
 with whom the Norman chivalry are parvenus, and 
 heiress of a fine estate in that country, possesses all 
 the qualities fitted to grace the elevated rank to 
 which her marriage has called her, and which in any 
 station would render her a delightful companion. 
 Her countenance is singularly pleasing ; her figure 
 is slight and fine, and her smile in a remarkable de- 
 gree winning. But it is chiefly her manners which 
 render her so attractive. They possess the charm 
 which arises from the combinations of high breed- 
 ing with perfect simplicity, and a great desire for 
 information with entire absence of any wish to dis- 
 play what she herself possesses. Her character is in 
 perfect unison with these external qualities. Kindly 
 and domestic in private life, devoted to her husband, 
 her children, and the people on her estates, she is in 
 the country a model of a British lady of great pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 In the spring of 1856, after A , as already 
 
 mentioned, had again left us on his return to his 
 regiment in the Crimea, we repaired as usual to 
 London, and- joined for a short time in the usual 
 gaieties of the metropolis. I now became ac- 
 quainted with Mr Whiteside, member for Trinity 
 College, Dublin, and one of the most distinguished 
 ornaments of the Irish Bar. I had been first in- 
 troduced to him at the Literary Fund dinner in 
 
1857.] ME, WHITESIDE. 157 
 
 Freemasons' Hall, and had afterwards frequently met 
 him at small parties at Lady Jersey's in Berkeley 
 Square. He spoke at the public dinner with the 
 ease and grace which parliamentary practice alone 
 can give, and of which Lord Palmerston is so perfect 
 a master ; and in private his conversation has all the 
 charm arising from simplicity of manner joined to 
 ability of thought. I am indebted to him for a criti- 
 cism on my History of Europe, which I at once felt 
 to be well founded — viz., that my account of the 
 Congress of Vienna was too brief, and by no means 
 on a scale with either the importance of the subject 
 or the detailed account of other negotiations of less 
 moment. The defect was obvious, and it arose partly 
 from want of the materials, which I have since ob- 
 tained, and partly from the fatigue experienced in 
 bringing to a conclusion a long and laborious under- 
 taking. I have endeavoured to supply the defect in 
 my ' Life of Lord Castlereagh,' in composing which 
 I had the advantage both of the ' Londonderry Cor- 
 respondence ' and the important revelations made 
 in the nineteenth voulme of M. Thiers's ' History 
 of the Consulate and Empire.' 
 
 I was indebted, while in London in the spring of 
 this year (1856), to my friend Mr Cayley for an in- 
 troduction to one of the most remarkable men of 
 his age. Lord Palmerston. Mr Cayley and I were 
 writing our names after a Court ball in Prince 
 Albert's book at Buckingham Palace, in the usual 
 way, when the veteran Minister came in. Mr Cayley 
 
158 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 introduced me by name, and Lord Palmerston, tak- 
 ing me kindly by the hand, immediately addressed 
 me in his usual winning manner : " Sir Archibald, 
 if I am not mistaken we are old acquaintances ; I 
 think you were in frocks when I was at your father's 
 house in Shropshire in 1798 with Dugald Stewart." 
 I answered that it was so, and that I pex'fectly recol- 
 lected the circumstance, which I felt much flattered 
 by his remembering. We spoke a little then on in- 
 different topics, and parted. I have repeatedly seen 
 him since, at assemblies or large dinner-parties, but 
 never have had an opportunity of entering into pri- 
 vate conversation with him. I was much struck on 
 this occasion by his lively and youthful manner, be- 
 lying the expression of his countenance, which bore 
 considerable marks of years of anxiety, though less 
 than might have been expected, for he was then 
 seventy years old, of which fifty had been spent in 
 office. 
 
 If not one of the greatest. Lord Palmerston is 
 beyond all doubt one of the most remarkable men 
 of the age. His talents are evidently of the high- 
 est order. Some of his speeches when he was 
 thoroughly in earnest, as in those he delivered 
 on Free Trade, will bear a comjjarison, both in 
 elevation and dignity of thought, and in felicity 
 of expression, with the best specimens of oratory in 
 the English language. His great abilities, and ad- 
 mirable tact in the management both of Cabinets and 
 parties in the House of Commons,- are proved by this, 
 
1857.] LORD PALMERSTON. 159 
 
 that he has been, with a few and very brief excep- 
 tions, a member of every Government which has gov- 
 erned the country for the last fifty years, and in many 
 of them has held the important office of Secretary 
 of War, Foreign Minister, and latterly of Premier, 
 but yet he has never forfeited his public character 
 by the imputation of inconsistency. He never, 
 like Sir James Graham, maintained the proposition 
 that his " principle was change, because he lived in 
 an age of transition, when Government could not be 
 conducted otherwise." On the contrary, such has 
 been his skill and address, that he has contrived to 
 keep uppermost in all the changes of the wheel-of- 
 fortune, and commanded the respect even of those 
 political friends whose side he had left, and whose 
 principles, once his own, he now strenuously opposed ! 
 He has always been constant to what appeared to him 
 at the time to be the interests of his country, into 
 whose hands soever the direction of those interests 
 may have fallen. Yet has he often, by this very de- 
 votion to his country's weal and reputation, brought 
 both into the utmost jeopardy, for he has repeatedly 
 landed it on the brink of a serious war when wholly 
 unprepared for it, and forfeited the support of its 
 allies by his lofty pretensions as Foreign Minister, 
 when it was most required to withstand a formidable 
 combination of foreign enemies. 
 
 In one respect, which, has come in these times to 
 be a matter of no insignificant importance, he is, if 
 Lord Derby is excepted, without a rival among the 
 
160 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 public men of the day. As an after-dinner orator, 
 and in the faculty of turning aside an argument or 
 question which he does not know well how to answer, 
 he is perfect. No one knows so well how to turn 
 an argument with a joke, or defend himself by a 
 happy thrust at his adversary. This power, so rare 
 in public men, can be attained only by a combina- 
 tion of admirable temper with great quickness of 
 apprehension and felicity of expression, and with a 
 thorough knowledge of the audience to which the 
 pleasantry is addressed. Of this faculty his allusion 
 to " that unhappy rapid movement at the Bull's 
 Run " is one of the most fortunate.^ Lord Derby is 
 equally happy in this branch of oratory, and both 
 display it alike in Parliament, on the hustings, on 
 the platform, and in the genial atmosphere of the 
 banquet. It is a remarkable circumstance, char- 
 acteristic of the extent to which our institutions 
 
 1 He was equally bappy on another occasion, in the same session of 
 Parliament, when the great and growing distress in Coventry and other 
 manufacturing districts was the subject of discussion. Lord Palnier- 
 ston said he knew it, and lamented it, bu.t unfortunately it was be- 
 yond his power to remedy it, for it arose from a source more lasting 
 and powerful than any political causes whatever. This was the 
 mutations of ladies' fashions, which, unfortunately for Coventry, had 
 condemned ribbons to temporary seclusion, and so spread distress 
 in those places, such aa Coventry, where they were chiefly manufac- 
 tured. " The same thing," he added, " recently happened in hard- 
 ware ; the fashion of wearing beards, brought on by the Crimean war, 
 had wellnigh ruined Sheffield, when it was suddenly relieved, and 
 attained greater prosperity than ever, from the introduction of steel 
 into an article of ladies' dress, which did for Sheffield that which this 
 House by no legislative or fiscal measures could by possibility effect." 
 There was of course a loud laugh upon this, which caused the dis- 
 tresses of the Coventry weavers to be forgotten. 
 
1857.] RETURN OF SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. 161 
 
 have become popularised since tlie passing of the 
 Reform Bill, that the popular faculty which Pitt or 
 Fox would have despised, which Chatham would 
 have spurned, and Burke condemned, has become 
 one of the most effectual passports to power, and the 
 one in which these two alternate Prime Ministers 
 pre-eminently excel. 
 
 The war in the Crimea having been happily ended 
 by the Peace of Paris, concluded in the spring of this 
 year, Sir Colin Campbell returned home, accom- 
 panied by my youngest son, F -, as his A.D.C. 
 
 They arrived in London on the 6th June, and by 
 eleven o'clock next day Sir Colin came to call 
 
 upon lis at our hotel in Jermyn Street. F 
 
 came with him ; but though we had never before 
 seen him, there was no need of an introduction, so 
 exactly did he resemble the prints, which were al- 
 ready common in the shop-windows. He met us in 
 the kindest manner, and spoke in so very affection- 
 ate and gratifying terms of both our sons that we saw 
 plainly he designed to make them part of his mili- 
 tary " family." We were extremely struck, on this as 
 on all subsequent occasions, with Sir Colin. He had 
 not in his manner a vestige of the rough old veteran, 
 whom we had been led to expect ; no one could 
 have discovered from his conversation or accent 
 that he Avas either a Scotchman or a Highlander. 
 His manner and mode of address were courtesy 
 itself, and more like that of an old diplomatist 
 trained in all the Courts of Europe of the age of 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
162 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 Louis Xiy., than a soldier who had been fifty years 
 in harness. This was more especially the case when 
 addressing women, towards whom he was always 
 scrupulously attentive and polite. It is well known 
 that he was seriously hurt at having an ofiicer far his 
 junior put over his head as Commander-in-Chief after 
 General Simpson's resignation in the Crimea, and 
 that he had returned during the winter, intending 
 not to go out again. But he yielded his own inclina- 
 tions eventually to the Queen, who at Windsor, it is 
 said, asked him to sit beside her on the sofa, and burst 
 into tears at his continued refusal. He respectfully 
 kissed her Majesty's hand, and said he could now 
 hold out no longer. The situation to which he was 
 now appointed, though nominally second, was in real- 
 ity the first. He was to have had the command of 
 a separate corps, consisting of 25,000 British, which 
 was intended to act from the Bulganak, in conjunc- 
 tion with a much larger French force from Eupatoria, 
 against Simferopol and the centre of the Crimea, so 
 as to take the Russian position on the Mackenzie 
 Heights, near Sebastopol, in rear. Had the war gone 
 on, it was easy to see that much of the weight of the 
 contest would have fallen on this corjos d'armee. 
 
 Next day I returned Sir Colin's visit at the White- 
 house, Knightsbridge, where he was staying with his 
 friend Colonel (afterwards Sir Anthony) Sterling. 
 After half an hour's very agreeable conversation 
 with both, he proposed to walk in with me to Lon- 
 don ; and if his previous conversation indicated the 
 
1857.] SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. 163 
 
 vigour and resources of bis mind, this walk evinced 
 not less clearly the strength and activity of his body. 
 1 had all my life been in the habit of walking very 
 fast, insomuch that many of my friends could not 
 keep pace with me ; and this power, the result of 
 regular and constant exercise, had not been seri- 
 ously diminished by sixty -four winters. I soon 
 found, however, that Sir Colin was in this respect 
 fully my match : the little wiry old man stepped out 
 at a pace which kept the grenadier historian, only a 
 few months younger, on his mettle all the way. The 
 more that I saw of Sir Colin, especially in this inti- 
 mate and confidential way, the more was I struck 
 with the acuteness of his mind and his robust natural 
 abilities. His education had been very imperfect 
 since he left the High School of Glasgow, where 
 he had received only its rudiments, and since that 
 time he had been constantly with his regiment, or in 
 command, for the most part on active service. But all 
 these deficiencies had been supplied, and more than 
 supplied, by the native vigour of his mind, and the 
 use he has made of an extensive and varied experi- 
 ence. He has not read, but he has seen and thought 
 much. On the subject of his own profession, in par- 
 ticular, he has reflected long, and drawn his conclu- 
 sions from a very wide personal experience, and the 
 result has been that he is never taken by surprise, 
 and by an intuitive glance sees at once in any situ- 
 ation of difficulty what is best to be done, and does 
 it accordingly. 
 
164 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [lS5i- 
 
 We were extremely struck by F 's appearance 
 
 and manner on his arrival : he was at that time in 
 his undress A.D.C.'s attire, consisting of a blue frock- 
 coat and red waistcoat, with gold band, and, with 
 his auburn locks clustering round his sunburnt coun- 
 tenance, was almost the handsomest young man I 
 ever saw. His physical advantages were enhanced 
 by the simplicity and high breeding of his manners. 
 
 A had remained with the 72d in the Crimea, 
 
 and his company was one of the last which evacu - 
 ated that blood-stained shore. He came to Guern- 
 sey ; but before he left the Crimea I had the satis- 
 faction of learning, by a very kind note from Lord 
 Hardinge, that he had been made a brevet-major. 
 His mother and I now began to taste perhaps the 
 " purest, holiest draught in the cup of life," pride 
 in other's, and those the ones most justly dear 
 to us. 
 
 We met Sir Colin soon after his arrival at a party 
 at the Duchess of Argyll's villa at Campden Hill, 
 which was given for the purpose of presenting the 
 hero with a beautiful brooch, the gift of her Grace, 
 and a select number of her family and friends, which 
 she gave to him with the grace and sviavity for which 
 she is so justly celebrated. The occasion of receiv- 
 ing such a testimonial would have been trying to 
 any man, albeit bred up in courts and drawing- 
 rooms ; bub Sir Colin went through it with the mo- 
 desty which became a brave and distinguished man, 
 and the ease and grace which bespoke a high-bred one. 
 
1857.] DINNER AT THE MANSION HOUSE. 165 
 
 At the same time, thougli he was " the observed of 
 all observers," his good sense told him where the 
 line was to be drawn ; and when a young lady of 
 his acquaintance, vain of the attentions of. the 
 veteran hero, had been, as he thought, sufficiently 
 
 long at his side, he turned to F- , and said, " Miss 
 
 , let me introduce my young friend Mr Alison, 
 
 a much more suitable cavalier for you than I am," 
 — and so saying, bowed and withdrew. His marked 
 and characteristic chivalry to women is not, as in 
 many old men, the result of a boyish and contemp- 
 tible vanity, but of an innate knightly feeling which 
 pervades his whole being, and will descend with him 
 to the grave. 
 
 Before leaving London this season, we were fortu- 
 nate enough to be able to accept an invitation to a 
 great dinner, given by the Lord Mayor at the Man- 
 sion House. Perhaps there is nothing which more 
 strongly impresses on the mind the magnitude and 
 importance of the city of London than the grandeur 
 of these civic entertainments. The hall, of ample 
 size and fine proportions, is decorated by statues 
 placed all round, which give it a classical and refined 
 appearance ; while the dinner is always of the most 
 sumptuous kind. On the day when we were fa- 
 voured with an invitation. Lord Derby, Mr Disraeli, 
 the Duke and Duchess of Manchester, Lord Eglinton, 
 the Duke of Eutland, Lord Salisbury, and nearly all 
 the leading Conservatives, were present. Lady 
 Alison and T got excellent places at the central 
 
166 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 table, a few seats below the chair, so that we heard 
 the speeches to perfection. Beauty was not wanting 
 to grace the spectacle; for the Duchess of Manchester, 
 on the right hand of the Lord Mayor, adorned the 
 dais, and Mrs Buncombe, who sat directly opposite 
 to us, was in her very best looks. Altogether the 
 spectacle was one of the most brilliant which the 
 metropolis in its gayest season could exhibit. 
 
 The speaking, with some splendid exceptions, was 
 hardly equal to the display of beauty and material 
 riches. Lord Derby, indeed, was in his very best 
 vein and singularly felicitous ; but by far the best 
 speech given on the occasion was that of a gentle- 
 man from Canada, who returned thanks for the 
 Colonies, in language which was nervous and eloquent 
 in the highest degree. He was evidently inspired 
 by the scene, where the rank and beauty of Britain 
 were assembled by the hospitality of the chief magis- 
 trate of its first city to listen to its greatest orators. 
 The Lord Mayor was Mr Daniel Salomons, the first 
 Jew who had filled the civic chair, and he performed 
 his arduous duties with equal propriety and good taste. 
 The list of toasts of course Avas in a programme, 
 which was in every one's hands ; but before separat- 
 ing he stood up and said : " I have one toast more 
 to propose, which I am sure you will drink with 
 pleasure, though it is not in the list. I will not 
 make a speech in proposing it : I will only name a 
 name, but it is a name known to all the world — Sir 
 Archibald Alison." The toast was drunk standing. 
 
1857.] PRESENTATION TO SIR COLIN. 167 
 
 with applause : I could not help feeling gratified by- 
 such a compliment. 
 
 Next morning we set out early, and reached home 
 the same night — so wonderfully had railways now 
 abridged a journey which a few years before had 
 required three days and a half of hard travelling. 
 I was immediately immersed in my usual business 
 and pursuits, from which I was ere long roused by 
 a very animating and interesting ceremony. Ever 
 since the repulse of the Eussian cavalry by the 
 " thin red line at Balaklava," and the splendid 
 charges of the light and heavy brigades there. Sir 
 Colin Campbell had been the object of just pride 
 and enthusiastic interest to the people of Scotland ; 
 and extensive preparations had been made for 
 giving him an honourable reception in his native 
 city. A thousand pounds might have been raised 
 with ease for this purpose in half an hour in the 
 Eoyal Exchange ; but that would have defeated the 
 main object of the demonstration, which was not to 
 raise money, but to give expression to widespread 
 sympathy and admiration. To effect this object, it 
 was resolved to limit the subscription to a shilling 
 each, and to make the testimonial a splendid sword, 
 to be paid for by the contributions of the admiring 
 multitude. Three hundred pounds was soon raised 
 in shillings, and the sword was ordered to have 
 all the battles in which he had borne a part em- 
 blazoned on it. The citizens of Glasgow, by their 
 corporation, resolved to present him with the free- 
 
168 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 dom of the city, the highest honour it is in their 
 power to bestow ; and the public anxiety was wound 
 up to the highest pitch upon its being announced 
 that the civic honour and the military testimonial 
 were to be presented to the hero on the same day, 
 immediately after each other, in the City Hall. The 
 Lord Provost (Sir A. Orr) was to present the former, 
 myself the latter. The applications for admission 
 were innumerable ; the hall, large as it was, would not 
 accommodate a tenth part of the numbers who wished 
 te be present ; and to give additional opportunities of 
 seeing the Scottish hero, it was resolved, on the day 
 following the presentation, to entertain him at a 
 public dinner in the City Hall. He arrived by the 
 express train, accompanied by Colonel Sterling, Sir 
 
 David Baird, and F , at ten at night ; and as I 
 
 knew he was extremely averse to displays of any 
 sort, I had taken every imaginable precaution against 
 the hour of his arrival being known. It had oozed 
 out, however, and the station was in consequence so 
 filled with people that it was with difficulty he could 
 reach our carriage, which stood at the door to con- 
 vey them to Possil, where he arrived a little before 
 eleven, in great health and spirits. The crowd ac- 
 companied the carriage to the gate of our park, cheer- 
 ing all the way. 
 
 Next day occurred such a demonstration as per- 
 haps never had been seen in Scotland before. It 
 was known that the freedom of the city and the 
 sword were to be presented to him in the City Hall, 
 
1857.] SIR COLIN IN GLASGOW. 169 
 
 the ceremony beginning at twelve o'clock ; and by 
 half-past ten the whole road from the gate of Possil 
 to the City Hall, a distance of two miles and a half, 
 was paved with human heads. At least 200,000 
 persons had taken their places on the route. Eight 
 policemen were required at the gate to prevent the 
 crowd breaking in and inundating the park. Through 
 this dense mass of human beings Sir Colin took his 
 way in an open carriage and four, with Lady Alison 
 and his two aides-de-camp. The horses went at a 
 foot-pace the whole way, preceded by a strong body 
 of policemen, to force a passage through the throng ; 
 the people all uncovered and loudly cheered as he 
 passed ; all who could reach his hands endeavoured 
 to do so ; and it was with the utmost difficulty that 
 Lady Alison prevailed on the people not to take out 
 the horses and harness themselves instead. The Hall 
 was crowded in every part, and the presentation of 
 the freedom of the city was gone through by the 
 Lord Provost in a very creditable manner. The 
 presentation of the sword, however, was the great 
 event ; and the speech which I made on the occa- 
 sion went fully into his military career, and perhaps 
 did him some service by making many, previously 
 very ignorant, familiar with the subject. When it 
 was over, I called to the aides-de-camp. Sir David 
 
 and F , to buckle on the sword on their general. 
 
 They did so amidst thunders of applause, for the 
 people thought they were hoth my sons. Sir David 
 having light hair, and somewhat resembling our 
 
170 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OP SIB, A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 family. Sir Colin was very nervous on the occa- 
 sion, and spoke feelingly, but with hesitation. Emo- 
 tion choked his utterance ; he told me, after the 
 whole was over, he would rather storm the Eedan 
 than go through it again. 
 
 On that day we had a large party of the principal 
 people in Glasgow and Lanarkshire to meet Sir 
 Colin, covers being laid for twenty-six. He was in 
 great spirits, and very agreeable : a load, he said, 
 having been taken off his mind. The public dinner, 
 seated for 1200 persons, went off next day with 
 great eclat; and Sir Colin spoke with much more 
 facility than on the preceding day. It is remarkable 
 that though he has great difficulty in delivering a 
 speech in public before civilians, he experiences no 
 such embarrassment in addressing soldiers, especially 
 on momentous occasions. On the contrary, his 
 speeches to his men on these occasions are a model 
 of military eloquence. Heart and soul a soldier, he 
 knows how to address himself to their rude and un- 
 tutored but feeling hearts. His address to the High- 
 land Division on leaving the Crimea, and afterwards 
 to the 93d on its return from India, are proofs of 
 this ; nothing finer was ever addressed to warriors. 
 He left us on the third day after luncheon, the crowd 
 awaiting his departure as anxiously as they had done 
 his arrival. 
 
 An incident occurred soon after 'our return to 
 Fossil, which, although trivial in itself, was at- 
 tended with important effects on A 's future 
 
1857.] "LOTHIAN SOCIETY." l7l 
 
 fortunes. He had been since he was a boy a member 
 of the "Lothian Society," in Glasgow, as well as 
 myself, — an association of such as had been born or 
 bred in the Lothians, and had afterwards settled in 
 Glasgow, for the purpose of keeping up old recollec- 
 tions or friendships, and collecting a fund for the 
 relief of the less fortunate of the district. The 
 Society gave him a dinner on his return from the 
 Crimea, and he made, in returning thanks for his 
 health, a speech which, though short, gave a vivid 
 picture of the life and danger in the trenches. This 
 speech got into the newspapers, and Sir Colin read 
 it when on one of his tours as inspecting officer of 
 
 infantry in Britain. Sir Colin afterwards told F 
 
 in India, that it was that speech which determined 
 him, when the time came, to make A his mili- 
 tary secretary in India. 
 
 We met Sir Colin again this autumn with a large 
 party at Keir, where we were with him and Colonel 
 Sterling for three days. On this occasion we had a 
 favourable opportunity of observing the great talent 
 in conversation and decision of mind of Sir Colin, as 
 well as his singularly refined and gallant manners 
 towards ladies. Mrs Norton, with whom he had 
 been previously acquainted, was the object on this 
 occasion of his chivalrous devotion, and many were 
 the occasions on which, in the course of his visit, he 
 seized and kissed her hands, to which, though satiat- 
 ed with admiration and indifferent to it, she good- 
 humouredly submitted without resistance. At this 
 
172 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 period Sir Colin was Inspector-General of Infantry : 
 he had been on one of his ofHcial tours before 
 coming to Keir, and he detailed to me various plans 
 he had matured for lessening the expense of the 
 army to young officers, and for increasing the com- 
 fort of soldiers in barracks. His mind is evidently 
 essentially practical : educated in harness and from 
 the lessons of experience, his whole turn of mind is 
 on what can be done, not what can be said. He is 
 by no means, however, without pleasantry, especially 
 with women. At Keir, Lady Alison was expressing 
 to him her wish that he would get something for 
 
 F to do, for she was afraid he would run wild 
 
 on leave of absence. " My dear lady," said Sir Colin, 
 " an aide-de-camp has but one thing to do in peace, 
 and that is to make love to his general's wife : now 
 I have no wife, therefore my advice to him is in- 
 stead to make love to every pretty girl he sees ; an 
 advice which I have no doubt he will be too happy 
 to follow." 
 
 At a later period of this autumn we paid a visit 
 to Lady Londonderry, in her romantic castle of 
 Garron, on the coast of the county of Antrim, in 
 Ireland. We were invited on this occasion to meet 
 Lord Carlisle, the Lord Lieutenant, an old friend 
 of the Marchioness, who was then making a progress 
 through the north of Ireland. He was received with 
 all the state which suited the occasion ; the guns 
 from the esplanade round the castle were fired when 
 his Excellency's carriage with its escort was seen 
 
1857.] THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. 173 
 
 approaching, and the Marchioness herself, with all 
 her servants in full livery, awaited him at the foot of 
 the stairs. He remained three days, during which 
 I had repeated walks with him on the mountains 
 behind the castle, and also in the wild and romantic 
 chase of Antrim Castle, where we lunched on one of 
 the days. I was struck with the vigour and ability 
 of his conversation, which fully equalled what I had 
 been led to expect from the eloquence of his sjDeeches 
 in public. I was also impressed by a question which 
 he asked me regarding the Crimean war. " Don't 
 you think," said he, "that the Eussians have gained 
 in military reputation by the result of the Crimean 
 war ? " " Certainly," I replied ; " it required all the 
 strength of England and France united to wrest from 
 them one fortress at the extremity of their dominions." 
 At a later time in this year we met the Duke of 
 Newcastle at Elderslie, near Renfrew, the hospitable 
 mansion of Mrs Spiers, one of the most agreeable 
 persons in the west of Scotland. I had a great deal 
 of conversation with him, and was more impressed 
 than I had expected with his ability. His appear- 
 ance, with a magnificent red beard, and keen spark- 
 ling eyes, was in the highest degree striking. He 
 told me a very remarkable anecdote of Louis 
 Napoleon in the following terms : " One day, in 
 1846, at Brodick Castle, when we Avere both on a 
 visit to the Marquis of Douglas, I walked out with 
 Louis Napoleon on the slopes of Goatfell behind the 
 house. As we neither of us cared for shooting, 
 
174 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 we sat down on a luxuriant bed of heath, on the 
 side of a dike, and he became very communicative, 
 telling me what he intended to do when he became 
 Emperor of the French. ' One of the first things I 
 intend to do,' said he, ' is to resume the draining 
 of the marshes of Briere, which you know became 
 flooded by the emigration of the Protestants from 
 them after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and 
 which my uncle had again taken in hand when he 
 was driven from the throne. I shall get a grant 
 from the Chambers to prosecute the undertaking.' 
 This very day," said the Duke, " the papers announce 
 that the Emperor has got a grant from the Chambers 
 of 2,000,000 francs, to recommence the draining of 
 the marshes of Briere." 
 
 The success which had attended the election 
 of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton as President of the 
 United Societies of Edinburgh University, [led to 
 his being chosen at the election of this winter as 
 Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. He 
 came down, accordingly, to make his inaugural 
 sjDeech on January 15, 1857, and did us the favour 
 of being our guest at Possil on the occasion. His 
 speech, which was published with the Collected 
 Addresses of that University, was poetical and elo- 
 quent in the highest degree, and excited unbounded 
 admiration, especially among the fair part of his 
 audience ; but I hardly thought it equal in point of 
 thought and learned allusion to the one which he 
 had made at Edinburgh two years before, which was 
 
1857.] BULWER LYTTON AT GLASGOW. 175 
 
 the finest speech of the kind I ever heard. It is, 
 however, extremely difficult to make two equally 
 good speeches on the same subject, or on subjects 
 having a close affinity to each other ; the first al- 
 most invariably, like the first novel, carries off" the 
 best and most original ideas. In striving to avoid 
 repetitions the second often falls into mediocrity. 
 
 Bulwer on this occasion remained with us three 
 days, on the two first of which we had large parties 
 
 to meet him, while on the last he was alone, A 
 
 being the only addition to our ordinary circle. We 
 had thus the best opportunity of seeing him in do- 
 mestic life ; and nothing, so far as fell under our 
 observation, could be more delightful. The variety 
 of his ideas, the extent of his observation, the differ- 
 ent grades of society in which he had mingled, from 
 the highest to the lowest, and from which he has 
 drawn his observations, the poetical and romantic 
 turn of his mind, — render him a charming com- 
 panion. On the last day of his visit he sat on a 
 stool by the fire in Lady Alison's boudoir, with her- 
 self and A , and fascinated both alike by his 
 
 conversation. He listened with the utmost eager- 
 ness to stories of adventures in the siege of Sebas- 
 topol, the finest subject for romance which modern 
 times has produced, and which it is surprising has 
 not been taken advantage of by genius adequate to 
 the subject. 
 
 On going to London next spring we dined fre- 
 quently at Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's, and on one 
 
176 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 occasion met Sir Henry, his brother, the celebrated 
 diplomatist, who was then ambassador at Madrid. 
 He has great talents, perhaps ecpal to his brother, 
 but they are directed to other objects. An experi- 
 enced and successful diplomatist, he has acquired 
 the elegance and suavity of manner, which is almost 
 always contracted by men whose converse is with 
 emperors and kings, and who are compelled to study 
 the feelings of others in their manner and conver- 
 sation, — -the very thing which men of talent are in 
 general so little disposed to do. Lady Alison sat 
 by Sir Henry at dinner, and was charmed with 
 him. On other occasions we met at Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton's, Mr Disraeli, the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, Lord Clanricarde, and many of the prin- 
 cipal wits about town. The Duke told me much 
 about his illustrious father, which presented him in 
 a very different light from that in which he is gen- 
 erally seen. He said that his great characteristic 
 was the extreme ardour and enthusiasm of his dis- 
 position, which it required the effort of his whole 
 life to subdue, and which his sedate manner had 
 been originally assumed to conceal. I answered 
 that I had no doubt this was the case, from the 
 great vigour and decision of his letters, as well as 
 from the decided line which he always took on im- 
 portant occasions on his sole judgment and responsi- 
 bility. He said that was exactly the case, and that 
 he had numbers of letters of his father in his posses- 
 sion which would put it beyond a doubt. 
 
1857.] THE JERSEYS. 177 
 
 During this season our intimacy with the Jerseys 
 was greatly increased, and besides often dining with 
 them, we were once or twice every week at small 
 evening parties there. These reunions were singu- 
 larly delightful — indeed more so than any other 
 parties I was ever at in London. Lady Jersey saw 
 her friends after the Continental fashion, every even- 
 ing ; and when she had large dinner-parties, which 
 was generally twice a-week, she asked some guests 
 specially in addition to the general invitation which 
 all to whom she was partial received. They were the 
 only parties on the Conservative side which bore a re- 
 semblance to those at Holland and Lansdowne House, 
 which had shortly before been so famous. The Con- 
 servatives were always in a great majority, but unlike 
 the Whig receptions, which were in general exclusive, 
 Liberals of all shades were also there, and foreigners 
 of all nations and parties were sure of a ready welcome, 
 if their manners were suitable. Politics at that time 
 ran very high, and the young Tories, who were san- 
 guine of soon succeeding to power, frequently met 
 there on their way to the House, and added much 
 to the interest and diversity of the scene. Occasion- 
 ally the leaders also were present. The Duke and 
 Duchess of Cambridge, the Princess Mary, Lord 
 and Lady Derby and their daughter Lady Emma 
 Stanley, Mr Disraeli, Mr Whiteside, Mr Secretary 
 Walpole, the Due Decazes, Lord Talbot (afterwards 
 Lord Shrewsbury), Lord Loughborough, Lord Dal- 
 keith, Lord Winchester, Mr and Mrs Baillie-Coch- 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
178 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 rane, the Duke of Rutland, Lord John Manners, 
 Sir Hugh Cairns, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, and many 
 others of the same description, formed the habitual 
 circle which adorned this delightful society. But its 
 principal charm consisted in Lady Clementina Yil- 
 liers, whose beautiful sylph - like form was to be 
 seen always flitting about from one to another, 
 doing the honours without seeming to do so, and 
 introducing or putting those together who she 
 thought would enjoy each other's society. One only 
 reflection arose in the mind of every beholder, and 
 threw a cloud over those charming reunions. Lady 
 Clementina was sensibly fading away ; her beautiful 
 face was becoming like alabaster ; and though her 
 smile was as enchanting as ever, it was painfully 
 evident that the spirit would ere long take its flight 
 to the better world for which it was fltted. 
 
 I was at a very interesting scene this season, at 
 the festival of the Caledonian Asylum, which, as the 
 Duke of Buccleuch, its chief patron, was chairman 
 on the occasion, I made a point of attending. The 
 banquet was numerously attended, and after dinner 
 the children maintained by the institution went round 
 behind the chairs of the platform in their best attire, 
 after joining in chorus in some patriotic songs. They 
 each bore on their breasts the medals which their 
 fathers had won in battle. One little girl had no less 
 thsijijive of these decorations : the Peninsular, Water- 
 loo, Crimean, Turkish, and Legion of Honour. F , 
 
 who was with me, gave her a sovereign, with which 
 
1857.] PRESENTATION OF VIOTOEIA CROSSES. 179 
 
 the little thing was highly delighted, and said she 
 would give to her mother. This charity is admir- 
 ably conducted, and is of very great use. It pre- 
 serves the national feeling in the nobility and gentry 
 of Scotland, by whom it is supported, and binds the 
 recipients of their beneficence to their country by 
 the strong bond of experienced obligation. Nothing 
 can soften the prospect of death more to our gal- 
 lant defenders than the knowledge that their wives 
 and children will be provided for by the gratitude 
 of their countrymen, and I have repeatedly heard 
 Scotch soldiers express great thankfulness for the 
 benefits they have received from this institution. 
 
 A military pageant of general interest took place 
 this summer in Hyde Park, on 24th June, on occa- 
 sion of the presentation of the Victoria Cross by her 
 Majesty in person to those adjudged worthy of the 
 honour. Everything was done to give eclat to the 
 spectacle. The Commander-in-Chief and Sir Colin 
 Campbell were present with brilliant staffs ; the Foot 
 Guards kept the ground ; the Life Guards and Blues 
 opened the procession ; and the Queen, with her Min- 
 isters and Court on an elevated platform in the 
 centre of the ground, presented each of the re- 
 cipients with the Cross as they passed. Among 
 those thus decorated we were glad to see Mr Hope, 
 son of my old friend the Justice-Clerk, who appeared 
 in the diplomatic dress, having exchanged on the 
 peace the military for the Civil service, in which he 
 now is. The day was fine; and everything went 
 
180 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l854- 
 
 on with the utmost regularity and success ; but the 
 scene, though interesting, had not the charm which 
 attended the distribution of the medals behind the 
 Horse Guards two years before. The number of the 
 recipients was not nearly so great on the second 
 occasion as the first, and the general enthusiasm was 
 greatly less, partly from its being the second, partly 
 from the war being over, and the troops returned, 
 which deprived it of the interest of contemporary 
 events, and threw it into the class of historical com- 
 memorations. Not the least interesting part of the 
 
 scene to us was afforded by F , who rode about 
 
 the field on a beautiful grey Arab which I had just 
 given him. 
 
 These spectacles, however striking, were mostly 
 playing at soldiers ; they exhibited only " the pomp 
 and circumstance of glorious war." We were soon 
 wakened, however, to its sad realities. The Indian 
 Rebellion had broken out in the May preceding, and 
 excited very great anxiety ; but we did not antici- 
 pate any immediate danger to our sons, as the 72d 
 was in Guernsey, and under no orders for foreign 
 service. We set out accordingly on the 11th July 
 for Scotland, and arranged with the boys that they 
 should come down to Fossil a few weeks later. On 
 arriving at the station at Glasgow at ten at night, 
 two telegraphic messages were put into our hands ; 
 the first announcing that Sir Colin Campbell had been 
 appointed Commander-in-Chief in India ; the second 
 that A was appointed his Military Secretary, 
 
1857.] DEPARTURE OF SONS FOR INDIA. 181 
 
 and F his A.D.C., and that they were to set 
 
 out next day. Had a bomb-shell fallen and exploded 
 at our feet, we could not have been thrown into 
 greater consternation. Lady Alison's first impulse 
 was to set out instantly by the night -mail and 
 return to London ; but I persuaded her with some 
 difficulty to relinquish that idea, as they would be 
 gone before we could get back, and it would only 
 be a desperate fatigue for nothing. Sir Colin had 
 been sent for the day before by Lord Panmure, 
 when he made the answer, which became so famous, 
 that he would be ready to start next day. Our boys 
 
 got still shorter notice. F was at a matinee 
 
 at Lady Shelley's at Fulham at 4 p.m., and A 
 
 at the same hour was walking with Lady Isabella 
 Gordon in the Park, when they got their summons, 
 and they were both off with Sir Colin in the Dover 
 night-mail at 10 o'clock the next evening. 
 
182 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 MONETAEY CRISIS OF 1857, AND CAMPAIGN OF LUCKNOW, TO 
 TERMINATION OF CONTINUATION OF MY 'HISTORY OF 
 EUROPE.' 
 
 JULY 1857 JANUAKT 1859. 
 
 Soon after our return we paid a visit of some days 
 to our kind and hospitable friends Mr and Mrs Merry, 
 now of Belladrum, tlien residing at Culdees Castle 
 in Perthshire, from whence we visited the beautiful 
 gardens of Drummond Castle, which, strange to say, 
 we had never before seen. In some respects they 
 are the most beautiful in Scotland, chiefly from the 
 union they present of wild Highland with the most 
 highly artificial garden scenery. Situated at the 
 edge of one of the most romantic parts of the High- 
 lands, where the Earn forces its way through vol- 
 canic mountains, finely wooded, and of the most 
 picturesque forms, it is approached by a long avenue 
 of old beeches, planted on the summit of a ridge 
 of whin rocks. On the right hand, in approaching 
 the house, is a fine sheet of water shut in by 
 overhanging woods : it is not a natural lake, but 
 
1857-1859.] DRUMMOND CASTLE. 183 
 
 an artificial one, formed by the Duke of Perth 
 after the Eebellion of 1745, to cover the stables, 
 which had been sullied by the presence of the 
 English cavalry in the campaign of that calamitous 
 year, and the remains of which, like the villages 
 beneath the Sea of Haarlem, may still be seen in 
 calm weather far beneath the waves I The gardens, 
 which are celebrated, lie in a valley of an oblong 
 form, immediately behind the castle, shut in by 
 rocky wooded knolls, covered with birch and oak, 
 bringing Trossach scenery close to the last refine- 
 ments of Italian taste. Six acres in this wood-sur- 
 rounded plain are laid out in the straight alleys, 
 adorned by the formal spiral evergreens, cool foun- 
 tains, jets d'eau, and marble statues, which recall the 
 gardens of Florence or Eome. In this combination 
 of the beauties of nature and art, the gardens of 
 Drummond Castle are unrivalled ; but in extent and 
 mere horticultural beauty they are not equal to those 
 of Drumlanrig in Dumfriesshire. 
 
 I was recalled from these romantic scenes by a 
 request to attend a public meeting in Glasgow, to 
 raise a subscription in aid of the Indian Relief Fund, 
 at which I was asked to move the first resolution. 
 It was held in the Merchants' Hall, Avith the Lord 
 Provost in the chair. The accounts recently received 
 of the progress of the insurgents, and the massacres 
 of Delhi, Futtehghur, and Cawnpore, had filled every 
 mind with horror, and cast a melancholy air over 
 this meeting. The great merchants were there, and 
 
184 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 subscribed tbeir £100 apiece with tbeir wonted 
 liberality; but it was more in pity than in hope. 
 It was easy to see tliat they were by no means 
 sanguine as to the result, and that in general opinion 
 a dark cloud Avas settling over our Eastern dominions. 
 The desire for vengeance on the cruel mutineers was 
 the universal feeling ; and I faithfully expressed the 
 sentiments of the meeting when I concluded with 
 these words, which subsequent events rendered pro- 
 phetic : " When Sir Colin Campbell draws the sword 
 which was presented to him by the citizens of Glas- 
 gow, I venture to predict that he will strike a blow 
 which shall resound through Europe and Asia, and 
 prove to the world that wide as is the extent of the 
 British dominions, and unbounded the sphere of Brit- 
 ish beneficence, more terrible is the stroke of British 
 justice, when kindness has been met by cruelty, and 
 fidelity by treason." 
 
 But although men's minds were variously agitated 
 by these calamitous events, there was by no means 
 the same enthusiasm which had attended the de- 
 parture of the troops for the Crimea ; and the sub- 
 scription, which on the former occasion exceeded 
 £45,000 in Glasgow and its vicinity, on this did 
 not reach a third of the amount. This is a very re- 
 markable circumstance, more especially when it is 
 recollected that the Scotch in general, and the in- 
 habitants of Glasgow in particular, are eminently a 
 religious race ; that the Crimean war was undertaken 
 to uphold the Mohammedan dominion in Turkey, 
 
1859.] DRUMLANRIG. 185 
 
 and for a very remote and contingent British interest 
 in the East ; and that the Indian contest was un- 
 dertaken to save our own dominions in Hindostan 
 from dismemberment, to avenge the massacre of our 
 own countrymen, and preserve the foundations of a 
 Christian Government in Asia. This strange per- 
 version of the human mind from what might in the 
 circumstances have been expected, can only be ac- 
 counted for by recollecting how strongly public feel- 
 ing in Europe, and especially in this country, had 
 been excited in favour of the Hungarians and against 
 the Russians in the war of 1849, and how strong 
 was the desire then generally felt to repel the Mus- 
 covites as the eternal enemies of independence and 
 freedom. This turn of the general mind may 
 perhaps be considered as a proof that mankind are 
 more liable to be violently excited by their feelings 
 than even by their interests, and that they will 
 sometimes combat more enthusiastically for " an 
 idea " than for their material welfare, their reli- 
 gion, their children, or themselves. 
 
 Shortly after we paid a visit to Craigdarroch, 
 where Ella, now Mrs Cutlar Fergusson, was happily 
 established, with a kind husband and two beautiful 
 sons. From Craigdarroch we went to Drumlanrig, 
 the noble seat, at no great distance, of the Duke 
 of Buccleuch. It is certainly one of the most re- 
 markable places in Scotland, as well from its vast 
 extent and romantic scenery, as for the exquisite 
 gardens with which the taste of the present Duke 
 
186 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE, A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 and Duchess have adorned its immediate environs. 
 The house is a rectangular building of great extent, 
 surrounding an inner court built about the middle 
 of the seventeenth century by Inigo Jones, in a 
 style very similar to Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh. 
 It is placed on a knoll or eminence, standing in the 
 middle of a little plain, now laid out in ornamental 
 gardens of great extent, and surrounded by low 
 wooded hills. These hills were formerly covered 
 with noble woods of great age, which were nearly 
 all cut down by the last Duke of Queensberry, to 
 whom the estates belonged, who died in 1810. 
 Their place, however, has been supplied by young 
 and thriving plantations, which, although no rivals 
 to the ancient patriarchs of the forest, are suf- 
 ficiently advanced to give the place a clothed and 
 cheerful appearance. It is a striking characteristic 
 of this fine place, which, so far as I have seen, is 
 peculiar to itself, that the park and surrounding 
 farms so melt into each other that you cannot ob- 
 serve where one ends and the other begins. The 
 gardens are sixteen acres in extent, and laid out 
 partly on the spacious terraces which, after the 
 ancient fashion, adjoined the house, and partly on 
 the little plain, already mentioned, beyond them. 
 They are nearly all visible at once from the highest 
 terrace next the house : the flowers are planted in 
 separate plots, each of one kind only, intei-sected by 
 little alleys of white sand ; and as they are so 
 arranged as all to come into blossom at one time, 
 
1859.] BUCHAl^AN HOUSE. 187 
 
 when the family are at home in September and 
 October, they resemble at that period, when seen 
 from that elevated position, a splendid Turkish car- 
 pet, laid out in perfect taste, and emblazoned with 
 the finest colours of nature. We found that the 
 Duke and Duchess still upheld the same character 
 for splendid and courteous hospitality, which we had 
 witnessed seventeen years before at Bowhill. Their 
 manner to their numerous guests was perfection, 
 and their popularity in the many counties in which 
 the family estates lie, is unbounded. 
 
 Entirely different was the character of another 
 of the show-places in Scotland at which we passed 
 some days this autumn. Buchanan House, the seat 
 of the Duke of Montrose, is situated within two miles 
 of Loch Lomond on its eastern side, and at the foot of 
 Ben Lomond, which rears its majestic head above a 
 barrier of heathery hills immediately behind the 
 park. Situated on the edge of the Highlands, it 
 possesses the advantages of both Highland and Low- 
 land scenery ; but its great attraction and unequalled 
 charm consist in the wooded islands of the lake, 
 most of which form part of the Duke's park, and 
 one of which is his deer-forest. Nothing can be 
 conceived more charming than rowing in fine wea- 
 ther round those lovely isles, lying like baskets of 
 flowers on the bosom of the waves, and combining 
 what is lovely in lowland with what is sublime in 
 mountain scenery. The new Castle of Buchanan, 
 which we now saw for the first time, and which was 
 
188 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON, [l857- 
 
 not yet entirely finished, is situated on a high emi- 
 nence, surrounded by old natural trees, and com- 
 manding beautiful views cut out of them over the 
 lake and adjoining mountains. It is built in the old 
 Scotch manor style, of great extent, and is the most 
 perfect specimen of that kind of house that I have 
 seen. There was a large party at Buchanan, and 
 the Duke and Duchess did the honours with the 
 highest politeness and courtesy. Her Grace is a 
 very superior woman, well-informed, and fond of 
 conversation, and is always surrounded by a large 
 and brilliant circle. 
 
 During the same autumn we were for some days 
 at Ardgowan, the splendid seat of my kind and 
 hospitable friend Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart. He 
 was the son of my old friend and contemporary Sir 
 Michael Stewart. I already felt we were dropping 
 into a new generation. Ardgowan, situated on a 
 promontory projecting into the Firth of Clyde, and 
 commanding extensive views of Arran on the one 
 side and the mountains of Argyleshire on the other, 
 and surrounded by fine woods, clothing the steep 
 banks which on either side descend to the sea— is 
 one of the finest places in the west of Scotland. The 
 present hostess — Lady Octavia, sixth daughter of the 
 Marquis of Westminster — threw over the whole the 
 charm of beauty combined with courtesy of manner. 
 We met here Lord St Germans — who afterwards was 
 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland — and Lady St Germans. 
 He was a man of pleasing manners ; and she was 
 
ia59.] PROGRESS OF HISTORY. 189 
 
 evidently a woman of a very cultivated and supe- 
 rior mind. 
 
 We met also this autumn Lady Jersey and Lady 
 Clementina Villiers at Mr Baillie-Cochrane's at Lam- 
 ington, near Biggar. Lord Bathurst was there also. 
 It was a strange thing, in 1857, to meet a statesman 
 who had been a contemporary of Castlereagh and 
 Wellington, and whose conversation was of the 
 campaign of Leipzig and the Congress of Vienna. 
 As might be expected of a man who had been a 
 Cabinet Minister in those times, he was in very ad- 
 vanced years, but he had much that was interesting 
 to recount in anecdotes of the illustrious men with 
 whom he had passed his prime. Lady Jersey and 
 Lady Clementina were as charming as ever. I had 
 several walks in the romantic scenery of Lamington 
 with the latter, which I shall never forget. They 
 were the last I ever had. She was as beautiful as 
 ever, and as delightful ; but the marble-like paleness 
 of her countenance, and the attenuation of her figure, 
 suggested a painful doubt whether she was destined 
 long for this world. They came to Possil afterwards, 
 on their way to Drummond Castle, and I had the 
 pleasure of showing them the lions of Glasgow ; 
 and that was the last time we ever were together, 
 except in the crowded drawing-room of Berkeley 
 Square next season. 
 
 During all this time I worked assiduously at my 
 History every day, and the only difference made 
 when from home was, that I worked harder than 
 
190 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 when in my own library. Having nothing else to 
 do when absent from Glasgow, I taxed myself at a 
 larger amount of writing than when at home. Seven 
 quarto pages was the former allowance, and only 
 five the latter. I took with me, wherever I went, 
 five or six volumes, being the authorities immedi- 
 ately required in the pages I intended to write 
 when absent, which was seldom more than a few 
 days. It is a curious circumstance — to which I 
 have already alluded more than once in the course 
 of these memoirs — that when from home, and hav- 
 ing nothing to do but write my History, I could not 
 manage more than two, or at the utmost three pages, 
 in addition to my regular five pages, although when 
 at home, I had five hours of legal work to go through 
 every day, requiring the closest attention, and often 
 rendering necessary five or six pages of notes of 
 evidence or legal argument. Change of occupation 
 and thought is even a greater rest to the mind than 
 absolute inactivity ; and this is the true explanation 
 of the amount of business got through by those who 
 have been fortunate enough to discover this invalu- 
 able secret, or have had it, as it was with me, forced 
 upon them. 
 
 In one respect during the winter of 1857-58 I had 
 great advantages. I was engaged then in writing 
 the account of the monetary crisis of 1847, the sus- 
 pension of cash payments by Lord John Kussell, 
 and the Chancellor of the Exchequer's famous letter 
 of the 25th October in that year. At the very 
 
1859.] COMMEECIAL PANIC. 191 
 
 time when this was doing, another monetary crisis 
 of parallel features and still greater intensity was 
 going forward, followed by a similar supension 
 of cash payments by Government in the middle of 
 November. The features of the two crises were so 
 identical, that in describing what took place in Octo- 
 ber 1847, I had only to paint what I saw going on 
 around me in November 1857. The great export 
 of gold to the Crimea, for the use of the French 
 and English armies during the war, led to such a 
 drain upon the Bank of England, as obliged its 
 directors to put on the screw violently in 1857 
 ^ — a course which was immediately followed by 
 every bank in the country. Disastrous and ruin- 
 ous everywhere, this sudden contraction of the cur- 
 rency was in an especial manner felt as destructive 
 in Glasgow, in consequence of the great extension 
 of commerce and undertakings which had taken 
 place there since the rise of prices, beginning in 1852 
 with the increased supplies of the precious metals 
 from the mines of California and Australia. The 
 consequence was, such a run upon the banks for 
 specie, and such a cessation of their advances on 
 any even the best security, as led to a suspension of 
 cash payments by two — the Western Bank and the 
 City of Glasgow Bank — and such a pressure upon the 
 others, that even the most affluent narrowly escaped 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 I. was at Hamilton trying cases when this alarm- 
 ing intelligence was brought to me as I sat in 
 
192 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 court. I immediately hurried back to Glasgow 
 when the trial was over, and found the city in the 
 utmost state of consternation. The doors of nearly 
 all the banks were beset by clamorous crowds, even 
 though the banking hours were past ; and the Sav- 
 ings Bank in particular was so besieged that the 
 greatest fears were entertained that it would stop 
 payment. One great bank — the Union — which had 
 the largest circulation in Scotland, was only saved 
 from stoppage by the timely advance of £35,000 
 in gold by a rival establishment, the Clydesdale 
 Bank. By means of this seasonable and generous 
 aid, however, the afternoon was tided over ; and next 
 morning the general panic was much lessened by a 
 letter from the newly elected Lord Provost, Mr Gal- 
 braith, expressing entire confidence in all the banks, 
 — a confidence which the event proved was well 
 founded. This well-timed and courageous step on 
 the part of that patriotic magistrate tended greatly 
 to allay the general alarm ; and at a public meet- 
 ing held in Glasgow a few days after, the Duke 
 of Hamilton, the Duke of Montrose, and the chief 
 merchants of the city came forward and expressed 
 the most entire confidence in the banking estab- 
 lishments of the country. The efiect of this de- 
 monstration was immense ; the panic immediately 
 ceased ; not a note even of the establishments 
 which had failed was depreciated, for all had con- 
 fidence in their ultimate solvency ; and in so far 
 as a monetary crisis was concerned, the danger was 
 
1859.] ■ THE SCOTCH BANKS. 193 
 
 at an end. I took a part in this meeting, and ex- 
 pressed as strong an opinion as any one on the 
 strength of the Scotch system of banking, which, 
 by rendering so many partners liable for the com- 
 pany's debts, secured the holders of the notes in ulti- 
 mate payment. For doing so I was immediately 
 assailed by the ' Times,' with that want of modera- 
 tion and just feeling for which in Scotch matters 
 that celebrated journal is often conspicuous. In 
 consequence I addressed a letter to the editor, which 
 they had the candour to admit in their columns. 
 The issue proved that the eulogium then passed by 
 all the speakers on the Scotch system of banking- 
 was well founded ; for although the late transac- 
 tions of the banks had been on a scale of unprece- 
 dented magnitude, and the liabilities of one alone 
 — the Western — were to the enormous amount of 
 £14,000,000, the whole debts due by them to the 
 public have been discharged to the last shilling. 
 
 But although the solidity of the Scotch system of 
 banking, in so far as the public holders of its notes or 
 securities are concerned, was decisively demonstrated 
 by this serious catastrophe, yet the same cannot be 
 said as to the safety of those establishments to the 
 shareholders, or the guarantee they afford for pru- 
 dent management and a due regard to the interests 
 of the latter. On the contrary, it may safely be 
 admitted that in that point of view the Scotch banks 
 have broken down. This result, however, is not 
 peculiar to them ; it has been arrived at also by the 
 
 VOL. II. N 
 
194 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 experience of joint-stock banks and companies in 
 every part of the country. The truth is, that the co- 
 operative system will not do for capitalists any more 
 than workmen, at least in the state of society in 
 which we are now placed, and in the face of the im- 
 mense profits, on the one hand, which may be gained 
 by a skilfully conducted system of fraud, and the 
 boundless risks on the Other, to which all undertakings, 
 however wisely conducted, are necessarily exposed in 
 a country where general credit is by law made to 
 depend entirely on the retention of gold — the very 
 thing which of all others it is most difficult to retain. 
 In such a state of society, as the one in which we 
 live, joint-stock banks and companies present many 
 advantages, but are attended with corresponding 
 and perhaps greater dangers. By accumulating small 
 capitals together, which could have eff'ected little or 
 nothing taken singly, it has led to many great works 
 being undertaken and completed which never could 
 have been accomplished in any other way. The mag- 
 nificent network of railways which now overspread 
 the land owes its existence chiefly to this system. 
 But on the other hand, the evils it has introduced 
 are equal, perhaps greater. It has changed entirely 
 the description of British transactions and the char- 
 acter of the British merchant. It has rendered the 
 first no longer a steady walk, progressing slowly but 
 advancing securely, but a huge game of chance, sur- 
 passing all lotteries in the world in magnitude, and 
 exceeding them in hazard. In the intricate trans- 
 
1869.] JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. 195 
 
 actions of joint -stock companies, in whicli many 
 hundreds or thousands of persons are subject to the 
 responsibility, and a few clever active men are in- 
 trusted with the management, the temptation to 
 fraud, mismanagement, and perilous adventure is 
 such as is soon found to be irresistible. No words 
 can describe the widespread devastation which the 
 blowing up of these extravagant schemes occasions 
 among a numerous and helpless body of proprie- 
 tors. The Western Bank of Glasgow paid all its 
 creditors in full, and that proved the breadth and 
 solidity of the basis on which it rested. But it did 
 so only by a heavy assessment upon the sharehold- 
 ers, which reduced many thousands of innocent per- 
 sons to beggary from affluent circumstances, and 
 by subjecting a few directors to ruinous actions of 
 damages, which some of their number were glad to 
 compromise for £200,000. 
 
 The way in which the thing goes on, and the dan- 
 ger arises, is this. A joint-stock company is set up 
 with a flourishing advertisement, followed by an 
 engagement to pay a high dividend, sometimes as 
 much as eight or nine per cent. In this way the un- 
 wary and inexperienced are attracted, and that numer- 
 ous class of persons, especially widows and orphans 
 with small capitals, to whom a " good dividend" is 
 the grand object of desire. The next step is to get a 
 few known, established, and respectable capitalists to 
 appear on the direction, especially bankers, manufac- 
 turers, or miners, who necessarily expend a large 
 
196 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 sum weekly. This is in general no difficult naatter ; 
 the joint-stock company in which they appear as 
 directors requires, and speedily comes to absorb, a 
 great quantity of their notes as bankers, or their pro- 
 duce as manufacturers, while the assistance of these 
 banks or great factories is not less valuable to the 
 joint-stock company to which they belong. Thus there 
 being a mutual advantage, the alliance is not long of 
 being formed. The directors, thus placed as so many 
 decoy-ducks at the head of the joint-stock company, 
 are in general wealthy men advanced in life, and 
 either up to the ears in business of their own, or 
 living in easy retirement at their splendid country- 
 houses or elegant villas. To keep up appearances, 
 and secure the advantages they are reaping at both 
 ends of the chain, they go through the form of at- 
 tending the meetings of the joint-stock company, but 
 it is in general but a form only. They get a mass 
 of papers and neatly prepared statements put before 
 them, which they very soon come to subscribe as a 
 matter of course, with very little examination, either 
 from trust in the manager or cashier, or from a clear 
 perception of the impossibility in a hurried meeting of 
 an hour or two once a fortnight, of making themselves 
 masters of the details of a business, to unravel which 
 would require the eiforts of a lifetime devoted to the 
 subject. Before long these periodical meetings be- 
 come little more than a mere form, in which the 
 main object of the directors is to pocket their sove- 
 reigns and get away, and their only duty consists in 
 
1859.] JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES. 197 
 
 signing, with little or no examination, whatever 
 is put before them. 
 
 In this way the practical direction of the com- 
 pany's aflPairs comes to be vested in the manager or 
 cashier, and he is placed in a situation which pre- 
 sents temptation, such as experience proves the vir- 
 tue of few is able to withstand. Doubtless there 
 are some men whose fidelity and strength of mind 
 no temptation is able to assail, and who may be 
 safely intrusted with unlimited powers, or untold 
 gold, without the smallest danger of the trust being 
 abused. But unfortunately such virtue cannot 
 always be relied on, least of all in an age where, 
 from the multitude of undertakings afloat, and the 
 facility which the dexterous find in getting the un- 
 wary in, and themselves out of them when danger 
 threatens, the greatest possible facility is afforded for 
 great gains being made by dishonest means. The 
 great object is to get the market value of the shares 
 raised to such a height, and for such a time, as may 
 enable the initiated few to realise a handsome profit 
 by their purchase and sale. Often the profit is ob- 
 tained without advancing anything, by merely sub- 
 scribing for shares, and selling them before any calls 
 are made. The great object is to get them fairly off 
 at a profit, with no matter how ruinous a loss to the 
 new purchasers; and "when they are once vested in the 
 widow and the orphan, they are allowed to sink and 
 become extinct without further trouble." If they go 
 on, the same system of fraudulent concealment and 
 
198 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [1857- 
 
 misrepresentation is pursued, often for long with sur- 
 prising success. Losses are concealed, large divi- 
 dends paid out of borrowed money, or by encroach- 
 ments on capital ; cooked accounts are exhibited, and 
 the directors, equally with the shareholders, are kept 
 ignorant of the real state of affairs, till a monetary 
 crisis comes, when, owing to a great export of gold to 
 pay for grain or maintain a foreign war, the usual sup- 
 plies from the bank are withheld, those establishments 
 themselves being beset with difficulties, or seized with 
 terror, and then the whole fabric of imposition comes 
 at once to the ground. In a word, under this sys- 
 tem the facility of deceiving and making a profit off 
 the public is equalled only by the readiness with 
 which in their anxiety to clutch a good dividend all 
 classes rush forward to be deceived. All this pro- 
 ceeds from one cause — viz., that the direction of the 
 concern is placed practically uncontrolled in the 
 hands of one party, and the responsibilities connected 
 with it in another ; and that thus the greatest safe- 
 guard against maladministration — viz., that losses 
 arising from delinquency should fall upon the party 
 in fault — is entirely lost, and in its stead a system is 
 introduced which makes clever knaves rich, and in- 
 nocent fools poor. 
 
 Sensible of these evils, and having had ample ex- 
 perience of them in their own joint-stock companies, 
 the Americans have sought to eschew them by 
 vesting the entire direction in one manager, who is 
 very highly paid, and responsible to an unlimited 
 
1859.] THE AMERICAN JOINT-STOCK SYSTEM. 199 
 
 extent for negligence or fraud. This is certainly a 
 considerable improvement on the English system, 
 because, by giving such an officer £4000 or £5000 
 a-year, you are likely to command the services of 
 a superior class of men, less prone to delusion, and 
 probably, from the possession of character, less liable 
 to yield to temptation. But still, even this system 
 does not go to the root of the evil; it does not 
 unite delinquency and responsihility, which is the 
 one thing needful. The shareholders still remain 
 the parties really responsible, the manager the real 
 uncontrolled director of the concern. His salary 
 of £5000 a - year is no guarantee for relief from 
 losses which may amount to millions. Another 
 plan proposed, and strongly advocated by a portion 
 of the press, is to have a Government officer or 
 officers appointed to audit the accounts of joint- 
 stock companies, and publish the state of their 
 affairs. Every one practically acquainted with these 
 matters must be aware that such a system would 
 soon be found to be impracticable, and, if practicable, 
 useless. Not one, but hundreds of auditors would 
 be required to go through the gigantic labours of 
 investigating the affairs of the innumerable joint- 
 stock concerns in the kingdom. Supposing this 
 " army of martyrs " appointed, and in full action, 
 nothing would be easier than to impose upon them 
 by cooked accounts, supported by fictitious vouchers, 
 as the directors are now imposed upon. In a word, 
 the only security which can be relied on against 
 
200 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 maladministration, when large sums of money are 
 intromitted with, or great credit enjoyed, is to make 
 the responsibility coextensive with and attaching to 
 the same persons and fortunes as the administration. 
 Till this is done, there never can be any real security; 
 if it is, the chief dangers are at an end. Look at the 
 conduct of these supine and imposed-on directors of 
 joint-stock companies in the management of their 
 own affairs. Certes there is very little supineness or 
 negligence there, or they never would have amassed 
 the fortunes which they in general possess, and which 
 led to their being taken into the direction. The old 
 law that no bank in London, or within fifteen miles 
 of it, should have more than six partners, was dic- 
 tated by the jealousy of the Bank of England at 
 such rival establishments ; but it was a very wise 
 provision for the interests of the public and these 
 bankers themselves, and it would have been well 
 for both had it been still in force. 
 
 These observations, suggested by my long experi- 
 ence of the Bankruptcy Court of Glasgow, are still 
 more applicable to co-operative societies' operations, 
 which, so far as they have come under my observa- 
 tion, have never come to any permane7it good, and 
 have been productive of infinite loss and distress to the 
 unfortunate obligants. They generally end, after the 
 philanthropic and patriotic directors who set them 
 going are dead or have retired, in falling into the 
 hands of some scoundrels, who run off to America 
 with the funds, leaving the hard-working operatives 
 
1859.] GENERAL DISTRESS. 201 
 
 to pay the debts. But these views are at variance 
 with the prevailing ideas of the age, which are based 
 on the principle of admitting numbers to the direc- 
 tion of affairs, who never cease repeating that "union 
 is strength." So it is; but it is as often for evil as 
 good. I am well aware that these principles are 
 opposed to the opinions of the vast majority of per- 
 sons now in the country ; but it by no means follows 
 from this that they are erroneous. I am content to 
 record them as my opinions, founded on a very ex- 
 tensive experience in the great commercial emporium 
 of Glasgow, and to leave them to be judged of by my 
 country when the present generation has passed away. 
 The public distress consequent on this monetary 
 crisis was of very long duration, although by the 
 meeting above mentioned the panic was allayed. 
 The ruin spread far and wide by the failure of the 
 Western Bank, is still (1861) not nearly at an 
 end. A public meeting was held on the subject, in 
 which, in common with others, I took an active 
 part ; and large subscriptions were, with the usual 
 liberality of the Glasgow merchants, entered into for 
 relief of the unemployed, which had a very beneficial 
 effect both in relieving suffering and appeasing dis- 
 content. One of the first things that the parochial 
 boards did was to meet and pass a resolution, which 
 was immediately acted upon, to disregard the deci- 
 sion of the Court of Session in the former case ten 
 years before, regarding the unemployed able-bodied 
 poor, and to act by my decision the other way. In 
 
202 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 managing the fund, raised partly by subscription 
 and partly by assessment, the same system was 
 adopted which had been done in 1848, and was 
 strictly in terms of my decision. This was to give 
 relief to the able-bodied only in exchange for worh ; 
 to make the wages less than the average usually 
 given to working men ; and to employ the paupers, 
 where it was possible, in making cloth or webs, 
 which were sold, and the price received laid out in 
 paying still more able-bodied applicants for parochial 
 relief In this way the same sum was " turned 
 over," in mercantile phrase, several times, and 
 £10,000 was made to do the work of £50,000 or 
 £60,000. The subscriptions, though very large as 
 usual on the part of the great firms, were much less 
 than they had been either for the Patriotic or the 
 Indian Fund, and did not exceed £12,000. The 
 reason was partly that the funds of charity had been 
 much exhausted by the recent demand on them for 
 the Indian sufferers, and that so many of the affluent 
 classes had been ruined by the monetary crisis, and 
 the calls on the shareholders of the Western Bank. 
 
 The view of this suffering excited in my mind 
 the most painful feelings, chiefly from the clear per- 
 ception which I had that it was of artificial creation, 
 and might have been averted by the simplest act 
 of legislation. The crisis, it is well known, arose 
 entirely from a heavy drain of gold having arisen 
 from accidental causes in America, at a time when 
 the market in Britain had been much exhausted by 
 
1859.] EEMEDY. 203 
 
 the demand for the precious metals during the 
 Crimean war. What was the obvious remedy for 
 such a passing dearth 1 Evidently to issue, during 
 the temporary absence of gold from the British 
 Islands owing to these passing causes, such a cir- 
 culation of inconvertible notes, limited in amount, 
 as might support general credit and facilitate trans- 
 actions during the brief period that elapsed before 
 they returned. Ample provision might be made to 
 prevent the issue from becoming redundant, or de- 
 generating into assignats, by limiting it to a small 
 sum, say four or five millions, and providing for its 
 being drawn in by being taken, and not reissued, in 
 payment of taxes when the precious metals returned. 
 This was exactly what Garnier Pages did in 1848, 
 when Minister of Finance at Paris, after Louis 
 Philippe had been dethroned, and what was done on 
 occasion of the same convulsion in Belgium and Hol- 
 land — and in all these instances with the very best 
 possible effect; while England underwent the most 
 dreadful suifering by delaying to adopt it, or by the 
 want of Government interposition, till universal 
 bankruptcy was at hand. With these facts before 
 me, decisive of the question at issue, I redoubled 
 my efforts in depicting the monetary crisis of 1848, 
 with which I was then engaged in the Continuation 
 of my History, to effect, if possible, the adoption of a 
 different policy in the crisis which was now again 
 approaching. I met with violent abuse from the 
 whole Free-trade and Liberal journals and reviews. 
 
204 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 who vied with each other in the attempt to turn 
 into ridicule a policy which, if adopted, would have 
 saved the nation at least £200,000,000 sterling, and 
 four years of suffering, till the gold discoveries 
 stopped it in 1852. The moneyed classes, who 
 gained immensely by interest being run up to 8 or 1 
 per cent, Avere strong enough to buy up or overawe 
 nearly the whole press ; and the soi-disant friends of 
 the people were unpatriotic enough to abandon them 
 to the tender mercies of the usurers at a time when, 
 and on a question in which, their vital interests were 
 at stake. The great body of the public, intimidated 
 by fear of the Free-trade journals, or disinclined to 
 study a question, difficult indeed, but in which their 
 dearest interests were at stake, remained indifferent 
 and apathetic, and could not be roused to effort by 
 any exertions on the part of the few journals that 
 embraced the cause of labour against capital. Seeing 
 this, I became convinced that the case was altogether 
 beyond the reach of any efforts in contemporary 
 literature, and confined myself to unfolding what I 
 deemed the true views on the subject in my History, 
 leaving the event to speak for itself. 
 
 Our boys set out with Sir Colin Campbell at ten at 
 night from London on the 12th July, and proceeded 
 to India as fast as steam could carry them, by Paris, 
 Marseilles, Alexandria, Suez, and Point de Galle, to 
 Calcutta, which they reached on 13th August, hav- 
 ing completed the journey in thirty days ; an expe- 
 dition almost at that time unparalleled. At Alex- 
 
1859.] SIR COLIN's VOYAGE TO INDIA. 205 
 
 andria they visited the field of battle between the 
 English and French on 21st March 1801 ; at Cairo 
 they gazed at the Pyramids, " from whose summits 
 forty centuries gazed down on their proceedings ; " 
 and in going down the Eed Sea, Sir Colin spoke 
 of the plans which he was maturing^ for the res- 
 toration of the British power in the East, then 
 wellnigh humbled in the dust. The time passed 
 very pleasantly for all, and the old chief was cheer- 
 ful and kind and considerate to every one in his 
 
 external demeanour when in company ; but A , 
 
 who was writing five or six hours every day for him, 
 knew what anxieties were passing through his mind, 
 and with what serious thoughts he regarded the 
 arduous duty in which he was engaged. He was 
 not, however, on that account the less resolute or 
 determined to strain every nerve to restore the 
 British supremacy, amidst 150,000 rebel bayonets on 
 the plains of Hindostan. When he sailed up the 
 Hooghly he had the satisfaction of learning that 
 Lord Elgin, on his way to China in the Shannon, 
 with the 90th Regiment, had arrived there a short 
 time before ; and he landed with his stafi" and tripped 
 up the steps of the quay with the alertness of five- 
 and-twenty instead of sixty-five. 
 
 I was kept accurately informed of all the intended 
 
 movements of Sir Colin, by A 's letters, the 
 
 confidential parts of which, when in the field, were 
 written in the Greek character. In one of his let- 
 ters, dated 1st November, he gave an account of a 
 
206 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 narrow escape Sir Colin had on his way to the front. 
 His party had arrived near a place called Mohuneea, 
 between the Soane river and Benares, when they 
 came upon the mutineers of the 32d Native Infantry. 
 These men had mutinied at Deogur, escaped the 
 parties sent out to intercept them, and were cross- 
 ing the road at right angles to Sir Colin's course 
 on their way to Rhotas-ghur when he and his staff 
 
 came upon them. F and A were in the 
 
 leading carriage, and had stopped to change horses, 
 when the people came out and told them not to 
 go on, as the road close in front was occupied by 
 
 sepoys. A- did not believe them till they said, 
 
 " There they are on the elephants ; " and on looking 
 from the roof of his carriage through his opera-glass, 
 he saw distinctly enough that men on elephants 
 
 crossing their course were mutineers. A and 
 
 F immediately got out their pistols and swords, 
 
 and F ■ went back to stop Sir Colin, who was in 
 
 the next carriage about a quarter of a mile in rear. 
 
 A ■ kept watching them with his glass and 
 
 learning from the people about their numbers and 
 course. They were now about 1000 yards from 
 
 A , but crossing the road. The people said 
 
 there were about 350 or 400 of them, with many 
 elephants, and they pointed out to him their line of 
 march. A bend in the road and a field of sugar- 
 cane concealed the men on foot, but A- ■ could 
 
 see those on the elephants quite well. As soon as 
 F got Sir Colin stopped, the chief ordered A 
 
1859.] A NAEKOW ESCAPE. 207 
 
 back, and they then retired some hundred yards and 
 had a long examination of the mutineers through 
 their glasses, till Sir Colin discovered some twenty- 
 five horsemen turning the corner of a wood on the 
 right, when he with great reluctance decided to go 
 back. And now an amusing scene took place. Sir 
 
 Colin, F , and A , who were the last, fell 
 
 back, halting every short distance and watching 
 their course ; but, as generally happens, the alarm 
 spread through the little column of six carriages, and 
 quite a panic ensued in the rear : one carriage was 
 abandoned by its occupants and got upset ; two 
 ojBficers got upon country ponies, barebacked, and 
 galloped off to the nearest detachment, which was 
 coming up about ten miles in rear. Except Sir 
 
 Colin's and A- -'s two carriages, it was a regular 
 
 rout. Sir Colin all the time was as cool and quiet, 
 tracing the mutineers' course on the map, as if they 
 were a hundred miles off. Fortunately the sepoys 
 had no idea of whom the party consisted, and kept on 
 their own course without molesting it. Sir Colin 
 went back to Jahanabad, where the nearest detach- 
 ment was, and returned under its escort in the 
 evening. The escort halted for some hours until 
 
 Sir Colin had passed the dangerous point. A 
 
 counted twenty elephants with the mutineers. It 
 was the narrowest escape for Sir Colin possible. 
 Five minutes more and he would have been in the 
 middle of them. 
 
 A 's last letter — dated from the Alumbagh, near 
 
208 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 Lucknow, on the 14th November — announced the 
 approaching attack on Lucknow, to relieve the 
 beleaguered Eesidency there, and the quarter in 
 which it was intended to be made. We were 
 therefore extremely anxious for the next mail, 
 which would bring intelligence of its results. The 
 arrival of that momentous news was expected to- 
 wards the end of December ; and on Christmas- 
 day 1857, as we were driving to chapel in the fore- 
 noon, I desired the coachman to stop first at the 
 Western Club on the way, that I might run in for a 
 minute to see the telegram. I did so accordingly, 
 and on entering the lobby I met a gentleman with 
 whom I was unacquainted, who gave me a strange 
 look, which made me start and apprehend some dis- 
 aster. I hastened in to the news-room, and the first 
 thing which met my eye was, — " Great battle in 
 India. Sir Colin Campbell wounded. Major Alison 
 wounded — severely. Captain Alison wounded. The 
 garrison delivered." 
 
 I instantly returned to the carriage and told Lady 
 Alison, who was anxiously awaiting my report, the 
 agitating news, desiring the coachman at the same 
 time to drive home. She was violently affected, as 
 may well be believed ; but chiefly from an apprehen- 
 sion that seized her that her sons were both killed, 
 and that I was communicating the lesser disaster 
 from a wish to prepare her for the greater. It was 
 long before I could make her believe that I had told 
 her the real truth ; and in fact she never altogether 
 
1859.] SONS WOUNDED. 209 
 
 credited it till she herself read the telegram in the 
 London newspapers. She acted, however, on this 
 trying occasion with the greatest fortitude ; and she 
 stood in need of it all to support her under the trial, 
 for we received no further intelligence for a fortnight, 
 and during all that time we knew not whether our 
 sons were alive or dead. 
 
 If it be true, as has been often and finely said, 
 that prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament 
 and adversity of the New, with equal truth it may 
 be said that prosperous circumstances excite the 
 malignant passions, and disastrous the generous. 
 No words can adequately paint the kindness and 
 sympathy we experienced in our distress from all 
 around us, even strangers. The first letter of con- 
 dolence we received was from the secretary of the 
 Duchess of Cambridge, by command of her Eoyal 
 Highness ; the second from Lady Clementina Villiers, 
 ever the foremost to express her sympathy, either in 
 adverse or prosperous fortune. Similar kind letters 
 and messages succeeded each other from all quarters, 
 and from not only our own friends, but from great 
 numbers of persons with whom we were scarcely ac- 
 quainted : for several days I was incessantly engaged 
 in answering them. All our friends in Glasgow and 
 Lanarkshire called, and from several of them we 
 received the only real consolation, which, beyond the 
 expression of kindness and sympathy, it was possi- 
 ble to obtain, and that was information of the dis- 
 tinction between wounds returned as " severe " and 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
210 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 " dangerous ; " the former denoting in general the loss 
 of a limb, the latter a serious hurt in a vital quarter. 
 So it proved in the present instance. On the 9th 
 January, as I was engaged in a bankrupt examina- 
 tion in the sheriff's office, the post came in, bringing 
 
 letters from both A and F , announcing 
 
 that the former liad escaped with the loss of his left 
 arm, and that the latter had entirely recovered. It 
 
 was F 's letter, however, which alone mentioned 
 
 his brother's loss; he himself only alluded to it — 
 though, as already mentioned, he gave a full and 
 most interesting account of the military operations. 
 I instantly ran out to Fossil, and announced the joy- 
 ful intelligence of their lives being spared, to Lady 
 Alison and my sister, who had kindly come to us in our 
 anxiety. On entering the house we all fell on our 
 knees to return thanks to the Almighty for the signal 
 mercies we had experienced. We had good reason 
 to do so : such was the fatal effect of the climate on 
 the wounded, that out of all those who had limbs 
 
 amputated at the relief of Lucknow, A and 
 
 one other alone survived, and they owed their lives 
 to the unbounded care and attention with which 
 
 they had been treated. A told me afterwards 
 
 that he never was happier in his life than when 
 lying in his tent after his arm was taken off; 
 he spent the time almost entirely in reading and 
 writing. During his confinement he read nearly 
 the whole of Napier's ' Peninsular War ' and Mill's 
 ' Political Economy ' twice over. Sir Colin visited 
 
1859.] GENERAL STEIKE. 211 
 
 liim daily, and showed him the most unbounded 
 kindness. 
 
 When the monetary crisis assumed such formidable 
 proportions in November 1857, I said, half in joke, 
 to the magistrates of Glasgow, that they had better 
 begin betimes to enlarge their prison accommodation. 
 They laughed at my warning, and in reply, and as an 
 excuse for doing nothing, observed that they did not 
 see any connection between the export of sovereigns 
 and the import of criminals. The events of the 
 succeeding spring demonstrated, however, in the 
 most striking manner, the intimate connection which 
 exists under our present monetary system between 
 a drain of gold upon the bank and a general depres- 
 sion of industry, accompanied by a serious and 
 alarming increase of crime. The monetary crisis, 
 which was of the severest kind, and had led to a sus- 
 pension of the Bank Charter Act by Government, was 
 attended, as is always the case, by a general prostra- 
 tion of credit, and to the trading classes ruinous re- 
 duction of prices. This as a natural consequence was 
 followed by a reduction of wages ; and the announce- 
 ment of this immediately produced its usual effect of 
 inducing the colliers and iron-miners to unite in a 
 general strike, to prevent its being carried into exe- 
 cution. The leaders of the movement requested an 
 interview, with me, to discuss the expedience of this 
 course and the chances of success in the struggle, 
 which I willingly accorded. We met accordingly, 
 and the discussion lasted three hours. 
 
212 ATJTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 What I chiefly endeavoured to impress upon the 
 leaders — Messrs Macdonald and others — was the 
 intimate and immovable connection which existed 
 between a contraction of the currency, from what- 
 ever cause proceeding, and a reduction of prices, 
 and consequently of wages ; and the extreme im- 
 prudence of their striking, and involving themselves 
 and their families in severe and ■ long - continued 
 distress in an attempt, which necessarily in such 
 circumstances must prove unsuccessful, to prevent 
 the wages of labour from falling in proportion to the 
 fall in the price of the commodities on which the 
 labour was expended. " Strike," I said to them, " if 
 you please, against the law which narrows the circu- 
 lation in paper with every sovereign beyond a certain 
 limit which is exported, and petition the House of 
 Commons to have a law passed ordering the Bank 
 of England, instead of contracting their issues with 
 the export of gold, to expand them in proportion 
 to the specie abstracted, and to declare the notes 
 so issued to be a legal tender inconvertible into cash, 
 but liable to be drawn in, and not again reissued 
 when the gold returns; and then you will effec- 
 tually prevent those fearful oscillations in prices, 
 from which you and the whole working classes in 
 the country sufier so severely. But do not, while 
 you quietly acquiesce in the present monetary laws, 
 which of necessity induce a circulation famine the 
 moment a bad harvest or foreign war induces a great 
 export of gold, commit the solecism of trying to 
 
1859.] COMMENCEMENT OP STRIKE. 213 
 
 obviate its necessary effects on the wages of labour 
 by the ruinous measure of a strike, which in such 
 circumstances must be hopeless." They discussed the 
 matter long and ably, though with that one-sided 
 view which the working classes on such occasions 
 never fail to exhibit; and after a time professed 
 themselves satisfied with my reasoning, but de- 
 clared that matters had gone so far on this occa- 
 sion that they could not prevent the strike going 
 on. They requested me to give their constituents 
 an opportunity of hearing my views on the sub- 
 ject at large on some future occasion, which I pro- 
 mised to do. 
 
 The strike began accordingly in March 1858, and 
 soon appeared in proportions which no previous 
 movement of the kind had ever exhibited in Scot- 
 land. Before many weeks had elapsed, thirty-five 
 thousand men were engaged in it, involving the 
 bread of above a hundred thousand persons, in the 
 three counties of Lanark, Ayr, and Stirling, of whom 
 fully sixty thousand were in Lanarkshire alone. 
 The crisis, therefore, was of the most violent kind, 
 and it was the more so that it occurred at a season 
 when cold and bad weather seriously aggravated the 
 sufferings of the labouring classes out of employment. 
 Fortunately the local authorities had a much larger 
 and more efiicient force to meet it than on any for- 
 mer occasion ; and it may be added, that the experi- 
 ence of former strikes, and the immense impression 
 produced over the country by the disclosures made 
 
214 AUTOBIOGBAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 in the course of the cotton-spinners' trial in 1838, 
 had made the leaders of the strike sensible how much 
 they injured their own cause by having recourse to 
 acts of violence. There were at that time in Lanark- 
 shire two regiments of militia, commanded by Lord 
 Belhaven and Colonel Buchanan of Drumpellier, and, 
 what was perhaps of equal importance, there was a 
 rural police under very efficient direction, consisting 
 of 130 men. I immediately stationed one of these 
 regiments at Coatbridge and Airdrie, while the other 
 was at Hamilton and Lanark, the former of which 
 had become a great mining emporium. Two troops 
 of yeomanry were also called out, and stationed near 
 Coatbridge, in the centre of the mining district ; and 
 strong bodies of police were located in the villages 
 most immediately threatened. The result of these 
 concurring circumstances was, that although the 
 strike was attended with unspeakable suffering to 
 those engaged in it, and immense loss to the trades- 
 men with whom they dealt, there then was greatly 
 less violence used than on any former occasion. In- 
 deed there was not one combination case tried at 
 the circuit in the following spring ; and there were 
 no cases of intimidation and assault in pursuance 
 of the strike, which were not adequately repressed 
 by the police magistrates. As might have been 
 expected, this strike proved unsuccessful ; and after 
 having lasted nearly four months, and cost the 
 working classes in the three counties where it pre- 
 vailed not less than £600,000,' the workmen were 
 
1859.] ADDITIONAL SHERIFF-SUBSTITUTE. 215 
 
 obliged to give in, and accept the terms offered them 
 from the beginning by their masters. 
 
 During the spring I was under the necessity of 
 making an application to the Secretary of State for 
 an additional sheriff-substitute in Glasgow. The 
 vast increase of business in that city had long ren- 
 dered it evident that such an addition to the estab- 
 lishment was absolutely necessary, and the legal 
 bodies in the city had repeatedly petitioned Govern- 
 ment on the subject, while the press had unani- 
 mously supported the same view. The Sheriff 
 Court Act, while it authorised such an appoint- 
 ment, required very properly that the necessity of 
 the case should be certified by the Lord Justice- 
 General, the Lord Justice-Clerk, and the Lord Advo- 
 cate. The first and the last — M'Neill and Mon- 
 creiff — at once, on my application, certified the neces- 
 sity of the appointment in the strongest terms ; 
 but the Lord Justice-Clerk professed himself by no 
 means satisfied, and called for additional statistics — 
 in particular, for returns of the cases which came 
 into court in the year 1857 and 1858. This year 
 being the year after the monetary crisis of 1857, it 
 was anticipated that no increase at all, or at all 
 events only a very trifling one, would be perceptible. 
 As it turned out, however, the reverse was the 
 fact; for the year 1858 was influenced by a still 
 more severe monetary crisis than that of 1857 ; and 
 the returns, in consequence, exhibited such an in- 
 crease of cases over 1847, that the necessity of the 
 
216 AUTOBIOGKAPHV OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 case was completely made out. The Lord Justice- 
 Clerk died about this time, and when the matter 
 came before liis successor, Mr Inglis, he at once 
 granted the certificate, and the Secretary of State 
 sanctioned the appointment, which I conferred on 
 a most deserving young man, Mr Mitford Morrison. 
 
 For some months after he lost his arm, A 's 
 
 wound progressed favourably, insomuch that he was 
 able to march with the army when it began the 
 campaign of 1858 to Futtehghur, and was present at 
 the action there, and also was able to return with 
 the troops to Cawnpore before the second advance 
 on Lucknow in the March of next year. As these 
 marches were performed by him on horseback, he 
 thought his wound was completely healed, and he 
 resumed his duties as military secretary with the 
 Commander-in-Chief. But ere long he was pain- 
 fully undeceived. On one occasion in mounting 
 his horse hurriedly he bruised the stump of his 
 lost arm, which broke out afresh, and being aggra- 
 vated by the fatigue of riding, and the increasing 
 heat of the weather, it ere long assumed the most 
 menacing aspect. Fever appeared, and was daily 
 rising ; and his medical friends gave it as their 
 decided opinion that his liver was ajffected, and that 
 if he remained in India, no care could save his life. 
 Sir Colin upon this insisted upon his coming home, 
 to which A , after holding out as long as possi- 
 ble, was compelled to give a reluctant consent. He 
 set out accordingly on the 6th March, and bore the 
 
1859.] MAJOR Alison's return. 217 
 
 journey well to Calcutta, where he arrived on the 
 9th. 1 Indeed it was evident in his case, what I 
 have often heard observed in others, that the excite- 
 ment produced by change of air and scene was more 
 beneficial to wounds than the fatigue and heat of 
 travelling were hurtful. He had a successful voyage 
 home, until he arrived in France ; but in the course 
 of the journey from Marseilles to Paris — which was 
 performed partly in the night during very cold 
 weather, with no adequate winter clothing — he re- 
 ceived a severe chill, which resulted in an attack of 
 jaundice, that nearly proved fatal. 
 
 We received the intelligence of A being on 
 
 his way home on the 12th April. This was quite 
 unexpected, as the previous accounts had represented 
 him as entirely recovered, and as having resumed his 
 duties with the Commander-in-Chief. Next day a 
 telegram announced that he had reached London. 
 He had been gazetted as Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel 
 before his arrival. I instantly set out by the night 
 train to meet him, and reached London by 11 a.m. 
 the following morning. We met in Rawling's Hotel 
 37 Jermyn Street, our usual place of resort, where he 
 was at breakfast with his kind brother-in-law, Mr 
 Cutlar Fergusson, who happened to be in London at 
 the time, and had hastened there to meet him. It 
 may readily be conceived what a joyful meeting 
 there was, and how many topics we had to- discuss. 
 He looked very thin, and his emaciated appearance 
 afforded evidence of the severity of his wound, and 
 
218 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 the danger he had. run from the amputation ; but on 
 the whole he was much better than I had expected. 
 
 After staying a few days in London, A and 
 
 I prepared to return to Scotland. Before leaving 
 town, however, we attended a levee, where I had the 
 satisfaction of presenting him to the Queen. Hardly 
 had he returned to the hotel when a card arrived 
 from the Lord Chamberlain, inviting him to dine 
 that day with her Majesty at Buckingham Palace. 
 
 A took Lady Malmesbury to dinner; and in 
 
 the evening he was honoured by a command to come 
 and speak to her Majesty, who conversed with him 
 in the most animated way for nearly an hour on the 
 Indian campaign, with the whole particulars of which 
 she showed a thorough acquaintance. 
 
 A — • — returned with me to Fossil, where, as may 
 well be believed, we had a most joyous meeting with 
 his mother. Soon after his arrival at home, he re- 
 ceived a gratifying proof of the estimation in which 
 he was held by his countrymen, by an invitation, 
 signed by the Lord Provost (Mr Galbraith), the 
 magistrates, and chief merchants and citizens of 
 Glasgow, to a public dinner, to welcome him on his 
 return from the East. 
 
 The dinner took place in the Corporation Hall in 
 Glasgow ; and the success of it was complete. The 
 chair was occupied by the Lord Provost, the crou- 
 piers were Sir James Campbell and Sir Andrew Orr, 
 supported by nearly all the city and county magis- 
 trates, and one hundred and fifty of the most respect- 
 
1859.] DINNER TO COLONEL ALISON. 219 
 
 able and eminent citizens of Glasgow, including the 
 city members. Sir John Maxwell of Pollock, and Mr 
 Stirling of Keir, M.P. for Perthshire, were kind enough 
 to come from Keir for the occasion ; and the latter, 
 whose genius and literary taste rendered his opinion 
 of peculiar value, wrote the same night to Lady 
 Alison, who was in London, congratulating her on 
 the success of the demonstration, and speaking in 
 
 very high terms of A 's speech on the occasion, 
 
 as " the very best and in the best taste of any I ever 
 heard on such an occasion." In truth, though I say 
 it that should not say it, it was impossible for any 
 one to make a more becoming speech. Disclaiming 
 any merit in himself, he ascribed at the outset the 
 honour which had been conferred upon him, to the 
 wish of their kind friends to indemnify his mother 
 and myself for the anxiety we had suffered on his 
 own and his brother's account, and to their desire 
 to do honour to Sir Colin Campbell and the army of 
 India. Passing then to the events of the campaign, 
 he gave a graphic narrative of them, which excited 
 general interest, not only in the company to whom 
 it was addressed, but in those to whom it became 
 known through the public press. It first opened the 
 eyes of the public as to the great merits of Sir 
 Colin Campbell's campaign, and the extraordinary 
 difficulties with which he had had to contend in 
 conducting it. I was congratulated in the warm- 
 est manner on leaving the room by all my friends. 
 It was indeed the proudest day of my life, far ex- 
 
220 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 ceeding in gratification any honour I myself had 
 received. 
 
 After the dinner was over, A and I returned 
 
 to London, where Lady Alison already was, to attend 
 the Queen's ball. Lady Alison and I were the guests 
 of our kind and valued friend. Lady Macdonald 
 Lockhart, of Lee Castle, in Lanarkshire, whose 
 house, always agreeable, was now enlivened by the 
 presence of five charming daughters, of elegant 
 forms and delightful manners, the eldest of whom 
 was makina; her debut in the fashionable world. 
 We had ere long serious cause for alarm in the 
 health of A ; and Dr Martin, whom he con- 
 sulted, absolutely forbade his remaining in London, 
 and enjoined country air and exercise, and a quiet 
 life, as the only means of averting a serious illness. 
 He remained accordingly only for the State ball on 
 the 8th June, and immediately after returned to 
 Scotland, where he employed his leisure hours in 
 writing a narrative of the Indian War down to the 
 commencement of the final advance on Lucknow in 
 March 1858, which Avas published in October of the 
 same year in ' Blackwood's Magazine.' ^ It efi"ectually 
 quashed the clamour against Sir Colin Campbell's 
 generalship, which had previously become violent, 
 from the combined influence of military jealousy 
 and civil animosity in India, because he would not 
 give way to the savage measures urged by the intem- 
 perate public press in that country. 
 
 1 Vol. Ixxxiv, p. 480 — " Lord Clyde's Campaign in India," 
 
1859.] ENaLISH AND SCOTCH LAWYERS. 221 
 
 Lady Lockhart was kind enough to allow us to 
 intersperse one of her great dinners with some of our 
 own friends, and I availed myself of her permission 
 to ask three distinguished men of my own profes- 
 sion — Sir Fitzroy Kelly, then Attorney-General, Sir 
 Hugh Cairns, Solicitor-General, and the Lord Advo- 
 cate of Scotland, Mr Inglis. We afterwards met Sir 
 Fitzroy Kelly at Lady Londonderry's, at dinner in 
 Holdernesse House, and dined Math himself and a 
 very charming party at his magnificent house in Pic- 
 cadilly. We there met Lord Stanley, Sir H. Cairns, 
 Mr Whiteside, and the two grandsons of the cele- 
 brated Tippoo Saib. Sir Fitzroy's great reputation 
 as a lawyer was fully sustained by his vivacity and 
 quickness in conversation, though it was not so 
 pleasing as the parliamentary style, and savoured 
 more of addressing juries and cross-examining wit- 
 nesses. I have observed this peculiarity in nearly 
 all the eminent English lawyers whom I have met 
 with, and it prevails more in them than in legal men 
 of corresponding eminence in Scotland. This is easily 
 accounted for when it is recollected how large a por- 
 tion of an English lawyer's life is spent in court, 
 and how riuch talent at the Bar there is directed 
 to the important tasks of cross-examining witnesses 
 and addressing juries, from which legal necessity the 
 Scotch lawyers were at that period exempt, from the 
 most important pleadings being conducted in writing, 
 which left them leisure for extra-professional studies. 
 I have heard it said, in reference to this peculiarity : 
 
222 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 " The hiiman race is composed of three classes — men, 
 women, and sergeants-at-law." This character in an 
 especial manner belonged to Sergeant Wilde, after- 
 wards Lord Chancellor Truro, whom we often met at 
 Wishaw with Mademoiselle d'Este, when he was pay- 
 ing attention to that able and accomplished lady. 
 To these observations on English lawyers, however, 
 I must make an exception in the case of Mr White- 
 side and Sir H. Cairns, in whom the parliamentary 
 element predominates over the legal, and who are 
 in consequence, with their great abilities, among the 
 most agreeable men it is possible to meet. 
 
 Sir Hugh Cairns is one of the most remarkable 
 legal men of the age — it may be added, political 
 men also. No one need be told that he is a first- 
 rate lawyer, alike distinguished for his forensic elo- 
 quence, his skill in cross-examination and addressing 
 juries, and the extent and depth of his legal know- 
 ledge. But in addition to this, he possesses talents 
 and qualifications of a still higher kind ; an enlarged 
 mind, the soul of genius, and a heart that feels for 
 his country. His speech on the great question of 
 the Oudh land tenures sufficiently demonstrates this. 
 In private society he has the simplicity and un- 
 affected modesty which ever characterise true talent, 
 accompanied by the quickness and vivacity which 
 the habit of forensic contests so strongly develops 
 in English lawyers. I regard my acquaintance with 
 him as a very fortunate circumstance ; and as he and 
 Lady Cairns are intimate with Lady Lockhart and 
 
1859.] LORD ADVOCATE INGLIS. 223 
 
 her family, I hope the acquaintance may ripen into 
 a friendship. 
 
 Mr Inglis, then Lord Advocate, is also a remark- 
 able man, chiefly by his legal talents having so early 
 raised himself to the high situation of Lord Justice- 
 Clerk, which he at present holds. He is no com- 
 mon man who, at the comparatively early age of 
 forty-eight, could have raised himself to such a situ- 
 ation, the more especially as, though of most respect- 
 able descent^ he had not the advantage of aristocratic 
 connections. His father was an able man, a minister 
 of Edinburgh, long leader of the Moderate party in 
 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and 
 possessed of distinguished forensic and pulpit force 
 and energ)''. Mr Inglis, his son, had risen rapidly 
 at the Bar, and was Lord Advocate during the ad- 
 ministration of Lord Derby in 1852. He was not 
 possessed of any remarkable oratorical talents, and 
 made little figure on the platform ; but his legal 
 acuteness was great, and few could state a case more 
 forcibly to the Court when a question of jurisprudence 
 arose. In private society his manners were pleasing 
 and unassuming : few could be a more agreeable 
 boon companion. 
 
 While in London my old friend John Hope, 
 Lord Justice-Clerk, died suddenly from an aiffection 
 in the head ; and I was immediately assailed by my 
 friends in Scotland with recommendations to make 
 sure of my acquaintance with several members of 
 the Cabinet to push forward a claim, either for that 
 
224 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 judicial situation, or for some subordinate seat on 
 the Bench in the event of any of the existing judges 
 being promoted. I resolved, however, to do nothing 
 of the kind, and never addressed a line or a word to 
 Government on the subject. I knew that Inglis, as 
 Lord Advocate, was entitled to the office ; and I had 
 no inclination to lower myself by any application on 
 my own account. Besides, I had no wish to change 
 my present situation. I was at the head of a Court 
 which had proved a formidable rival to the Court of 
 Session, and which decided double the number of 
 serious cases which were disposed of by the whole of 
 the judges in the Supreme Court put together. Added 
 to this, that I had now been nearly a quarter of a 
 century sheriff of Lanarkshire, and as such I would 
 be entitled to the maximum retired allowance of 
 three-fourths of my present salary ; whereas if I went 
 on the Bench at Edinburgh, ten years must elapse 
 before I became entitled to any retiring allowance 
 at all. At my age of sixty-six this consideration 
 was decisive. 
 
 On leaving London we paid a visit to Lady Lon- 
 donderry, at her beautiful villa of Seaham Hall, near 
 Seaham, where we met Dr Longley, the Bishop of 
 Durham, afterwards Archbishop of York. We were 
 with him three days there, and he subsequently paid 
 us a visit of the same length at Fossil. I have 
 made few acquaintances in life which I value more 
 than that of this upright and admirable prelate. 
 Without being gifted with the brilliant oratorical 
 
1859.] ARCHBISHOP LONGLEY. 225 
 
 talents which made Bossuet immortal, or the ami- 
 able fancy which has made F^n^lon a household 
 word throughout the world, he possesses in an 
 eminent degree those qualities which fit him to 
 discharge the important duties of those elevated 
 stations in the English Church to which he has 
 been called. He is the model of a Christian 
 bishop. Mild and unassuming in his manners, pa- 
 triotic in his feelings, benevolent in his disposition, 
 he is pre-eminently fitted to fill the archiepiscopal 
 chair to which, fortunately for the country, he has 
 been now called. He has considerable administra- 
 tive talents, and is zealously attached to the interests, 
 spiritual and temporal, of his diocese or province ; 
 but as much as the good which he has effected, and 
 is efi'ecting, it is the charm of his manner which 
 wins every heart. His object seems to be to realise 
 the words of the poet — 
 
 "By winning words to conquer willing minds, 
 And make persuasion do the work of fear." 
 
 And never did human being more completely suc- 
 ceed in that truly Christian object. When we first 
 met him he was in his sixtieth year, but the vigour 
 of his constitution and youthfulness of his manner 
 made him look ten years younger. He was a 
 widower, and had one married daughter ; another, 
 still unmarried, resided with him, and had inherited 
 her father's suavity and charm of manner. 
 
 In August of this year we paid another visit to 
 Buchanan House, the beautiful seat of the Duke 
 
 VOL. 11. P 
 
226 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 of Montrose, near Loch Lomond. Lord Batliurst 
 was one of the guests, as were Sir James Fer- 
 gusson, M.P. for Ayrshire, and Sir David Baird, 
 A.D.C. to Lord Clyde in India. Lord Bathurst, 
 whom we had often met in London, was long a 
 member of Lord Liverpool's Cabinet, and great 
 part of Lord Castlereagh's official correspondence 
 in 1814 and 1815 was addressed to him. He was 
 very old at this time, and evidently lived in the 
 reminiscences of former days. His manners were 
 mild and pleasing, and his memory entire ; but he 
 did not strike me as a man of remarkable ability, 
 and it was with some surprise that I reflected 
 on the positions he had held in the Cabinet in 
 former and arduous times. The weather was beau- 
 tiful during our visit, and we had several charming 
 expeditions, one in particular to the Duke's deer- 
 park, formed by one of the largest islands in Loch 
 Lomond. 
 
 Later in the same autumn we passed several most 
 agreeable days at the hospitable mansion of Mr 
 Stirling of Keir, near Stirling. The party consisted 
 of the Honourable Mrs Norton, Lord Ardmillan, Sir 
 Eoderick Murchison, Sir Henry Rawlinson, and a 
 few others. But its principal attraction was Mr 
 Gladstone, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 who for good and for evil has now left his name 
 indelibly impressed on the tablets of his country. I 
 had been acquainted with him when he was a young 
 man, and he had dined once or twice at our house 
 
3859.] MR GLADSTONE. 227 
 
 in St Colme Street ; but I had not seen him for 
 above twenty years, and in the interval he had become 
 a leading parliamentary orator and a great man. I 
 was particularly observant, therefore, of his manner 
 and conversation, and I was by no means disap- 
 pointed in either. In manner he had the unaffected 
 simplicity of earlier days, without either the assump- 
 tion of superiority, which might have been natural 
 from his parliamentary eminence, or the official ped- 
 antry so common in persons who have held high 
 situations in the state. In conversation he was 
 rapid, easy, and fluent, and possessed in the high- 
 est degree that great quality so characteristic of a 
 powerful mind, so inestimable in discoursing, of 
 quickly apprehending what was said on the other 
 side, and in reply setting himself at once to meet 
 it fairly and openly. He was at once energetic and 
 discursive, enthusiastic, but at times visionary. It 
 was impossible to listen to him without pleasure ; 
 but equally so to reflect on what he said without 
 grave hesitation. He left on my mind the impres- 
 sion of his being the best discourser on imaginative 
 topics, and the most dangerous person to be intrusted 
 with practical ones, I had ever met with. He gave 
 more the impression of great scholastic acumen 
 than of weighty statesman-like wisdom. Eminent 
 at the university, and transferred without any prac- 
 tical training in the business of life at once from its 
 shades to the House of Commons, he was like the 
 ecclesiastics who in Catholic countries were often 
 
228 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 transferred direct from the cloister to the Cabinet, 
 and began to operate on mankind as they would do 
 on a dead body to elucidate certain obscure points of 
 physics, and who have so often proved at once the 
 ablest and most dangerous of governors. After ob- 
 serving his turn of thought for three days, especially 
 in conversation with Mrs Norton and Lady Alison, 
 who kept him admirably in play, I formed in my 
 own mind the measure of his public capacity, and 
 was not surprised at the perilous measure of finance 
 on which he at once adventured when soon after 
 intrusted with the duties of Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer. 
 
 This summer was distinguished by an event of 
 great importance to my family, and which in every 
 point of view has been attended by unmixed bless- 
 ings. My eldest son — now Colonel Alison — had 
 formed an acquaintance before he went to India with 
 Miss Black, only daughter of the late Mr James Black, 
 one of the most enterprising and successful mer- 
 chants in G-lasgow. Possessed of remarkable talents, 
 blended with singular taste and refinement of mind, 
 Mr Black had early in life made a large fortune, and 
 being in delicate health he had spent the last years 
 of his life in travelling, in the course of which he had 
 visited every part of Italy, and had latterly spent 
 two winters at Madeira. He died, however, at the 
 early age of thirty-nine, leaving a family consisting, 
 besides his widow, of three sons and one daughter, of 
 whom one son died in childhood. A paid a visit 
 
1859.] COLONEL ALISON'S MAEEIAGE. 229 
 
 to Mrs Black at a beautiful villa whicli she occupied 
 at Dunoon, on the banks of the Clyde, and there on 
 her birthday, June 20 th, the affair with her daughter 
 was settled. 
 
 The marriage took place on the 18th November 
 following, in St Mary's Chapel, Glasgow. So great 
 was the public interest and curiosity on the subject, 
 that from an early hour in the morning the doors of 
 the chapel were beset with a numerous crowd anxious 
 to obtain admission ; and the moment the doors were 
 opened at ten, every corner of the chapel was filled 
 with spectators. Thousands went away unable to 
 obtain an entrance. The ceremony was performed 
 by our esteemed friend the Rev. Mr Oldham, the in- 
 cumbent of the cure ; Sir David Baird, who had 
 been with my son on Sir Colin Campbell's staff in 
 India, was best man. The appearance of the newly 
 married couple excited universal interest, especi- 
 ally as they had both been known by sight to 
 many of the spectators from early years. They set 
 off amidst the cheers of an immense crowd from 
 the bride's mother's house for Rome and Naples, 
 where they passed the winter in a continual circle of 
 gaiety and happiness. Subsequent experience has 
 not belied these flattering prognostics ; on the con- 
 trary, it has outstripped our most sanguine hopes. 
 I do not believe there is a happier couple in Britain 
 than they have been and are. To great personal 
 attractions Mrs Alison unites good sense, sterling 
 abilities, remarkable taste for the fine arts, an affec- 
 
230 AUTOBIOaUAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 tionate disposition, and the advantages of a refined 
 education. I regard her alliance with our family 
 as one of the most fortunate events of my life. 
 
 If our family this autumn was the scene of joy 
 and festivity, another dear to us was plunged in 
 anxiety and mourning. The pale look and increas- 
 ing thinness of Lady Clementina Villiers of late, 
 while it had enhanced rather than diminished her 
 marble -like beauty, had awakened the serious ap- 
 prehensions of her friends ; and by the advice of her 
 physicians, Lady Jersey in August took her to Ger- 
 many for the benefit of the baths and change of air. 
 They settled and spent two months at Kissingen, 
 where her remarkable beauty and delicate aspect 
 awakened universal interest and admiration. For a 
 time she was decidedly the better of the change ; but 
 unhappily she was seized by a low fever before 
 leaving it, and she returned home in November with 
 the seeds of a mortal malady in her frame. She 
 reached Middleton, Lord Jersey's seat in Oxford- 
 shire, in safety, and strong hopes were for some days 
 entertained of her recovery, but they were destined 
 to prove fallacious. She gradually became weaker, 
 and Lady Jersey wrote to me requesting me to write 
 to her daughter, " as she is always the better of your 
 letters." I did so instantly, giving an account of 
 our son's marriage ; and she wrote to me in return in 
 the kindest manner, but with expressions which 
 revealed in an alarming degree her sense of ap- 
 proaching dissolution. Her anticipation proved too 
 
1859.] DEATH OF LADY C. VILLIERS. 231 
 
 well founded- — that letter was the last she ever 
 wrote; "her last effort," as Lady Jersey expressed 
 it, in announcing the fatal event to me. She was 
 calm and collected in her last moments, oblivious 
 of self, and solicitous only for others, as through 
 her whole life. " Good-bye, dear mamma," were 
 her last words : she sank back on her pillow and 
 expired. If ever a spotless spirit winged its way 
 to heaven, hers did so on that occasion. 
 
 Lady Clementina Villiers was not only one of the 
 most charming and delightful women of her age, but 
 at the same time the most favourable type of a 
 variety in the human species more perfect than any 
 other country ever produced — the high-bred and 
 highly educated woman of the highest fashion. Born 
 of a noble family, descended from an ancient race, 
 gifted by nature with uncommon elegance and 
 beauty, these advantages, great as they were, consti- 
 tuted the least part of her attractions. It was the 
 enchantment of her manner, kind and engaging to 
 all, making no invidious distinctions in favour of 
 any, which won every heart ; while the superiority of 
 her talents and the vast extent of her information 
 rendered her conversation valuable to men of the 
 highest cast, both in Government and political or 
 literary circles. Having lived all her life in the 
 first circles, both in her own country and on the 
 Continent, she had become acquainted at different 
 times with most of the eminent men who had played 
 a part on the theatre of Europe of late years : her 
 
232 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 conversatioD was of Metternich and Schwarzenburg, 
 of Wellington, of Chateaubriand, and of Guizot, 
 as much as of Bulwer, Lord Derby^ or Disraeli. 
 Though oppressed often by the gay life she was com- 
 pelled to lead, and the incessant letters she had to 
 write for her parents, she found time to devote sev- 
 eral hours every day to study, and, after returning 
 from balls at three in the morning, usually rose at 
 seven for that purpose. 
 
 Among the mysteries in which human affairs are 
 involved, one of the greatest and most inexplicable 
 is the different degrees in which, without any moral 
 difference, joy and sorrow seem to be meted out to 
 different individuals, or to the same individuals at 
 different periods of life. Lady Jersey had enjoyed 
 hitherto a very brilliant, and, upon the whole, 
 happy existence, but the muffled drum was in pros- 
 pect : never was accumulated upon a single head 
 in a short period a greater accumulation of misfor- 
 tunes than that which now fellon that of this estim- 
 able and talented lady. Within the period of a 
 year she lost her daughter Lady Clementina, her 
 husband Lord Jersey, her brother the Earl of 
 Westmoreland, her dear friend and relative Lady 
 Peel, and her son Lord Jersey ! The common 
 proverb that misfortunes never come singly proves 
 how generally its truth has been experienced in the 
 ordinary lives of men. 
 
 I was now approaching the termination of the 
 second part of the ' History of Europe.' It was 
 
1859.] CONCLUSION OF HISTORY. 233 
 
 begun on January 1, 1852, and as the period of 
 seven years from that date drew nigh, I became 
 extremely desirous to complete it if I could on the 
 seventh anniversary of its commencement. To at- 
 tain this object, I worked very hard during the last 
 month of 1858 ; and as the beginning of 1859 drew 
 near, my anxiety became extreme to finish it within 
 the appointed time. Still, however, I adhered to 
 my resolution of never writing in the evening, and 
 of concluding all my literary labours before twelve 
 o'clock in the forenoon. As the work had extended 
 much beyond the limits which I originally contem- 
 plated, and the public were naturally and with reason 
 beginning to grumble at a length which seemed in- 
 terminable, it was indispensable to conclude it in 
 the eighth volume, now printing, which had al- 
 ready assumed alarming proportions ; and to accom- 
 plish this, it was necessary both to condense very 
 much the narrative, and to cut out a great deal 
 which would have been a valuable addition to some 
 parts of it. These circumstances increased very 
 much the difficulties of the last volume, perhaps the 
 most important of any, as it embraced the Eevolu- 
 tion of 1848, and consequent wars in Italy and 
 Hungary. At length, however, these were all over- 
 come; and on January 1, 1859, at eleven o'clock in 
 the forenoon, with Lady Alison sitting by my side, 
 I had the satisfaction of writing the last line of the 
 last page, being that day seven years from the day 
 when it was commenced, and that day thirty years 
 
2 3 J: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 siDce the first page of the first volume of the original 
 series had been written. 
 
 It is a very rare thing for the composition of any 
 literary work to extend over so long a period, and 
 still more for any author to have the unbroken 
 health necessary for its completion, and the means 
 of purchasing the large library required for the com- 
 pilation of a historical work of such magnitude, 
 and embracing so great a variety of details. As 
 there were no public libraries containing the works 
 I required in Lanarkshire, nor indeed in Scotland, 
 and I had no time to go to London, it was indis- 
 pensable to purchase all the books myself; and during 
 the period when the work was in course of being 
 written, I expended on the books requisite for it not 
 less than £5000 sterling. I felt a legitimate pride 
 in the reflection that this great library, unique in 
 Britain in the historical class for which it was col- 
 lected, had been purchased entirely from my own 
 unaided resources ; and that as I began it without 
 private fortune, and my official salary was absorbed in 
 my family expenses and life insurances, it was from 
 the work itself that the means of continuing it had 
 been derived. 
 
 During this long period, however, a remarkable 
 difference had arisen both in the manner in which the 
 work was received by the public, and the temper in 
 regard to it evinced by the reviewers. My first His- 
 tory had been on the whole very favourably treated, 
 to an extent indeed often beyond its merits ; and even 
 
1859.] KEVIEWS. 235 
 
 the ' Edinburgh Review,' in an elaborate article, had 
 criticised it with a candonr which was hardly to 
 have been anticipated in regard to the narrative of 
 events of recent occurrence in a party journal. The 
 case, however, was widely different with the second 
 part of the work, which dipped into contemporary 
 events, still the object of vehement party conten- 
 tion. I was now assailed on all sides, with an 
 asperity which was much beyond the rude but 
 honest expression of political hostility. It was 
 personal, not general, and betrayed the bitterness 
 of literary animosity. The ' Edinburgh ' now re- 
 viewed my Continuation in a malignant spirit, and 
 with extraordinary ignorance of the subject. The 
 same temper and disposition was conspicuous in 
 articles on the Continuation in 'Eraser's Magazine,' 
 and in one in the 'Dublin University Magazine.' 
 
 In one respect I stood in a pectiliar position amidst 
 this tempest of hostile criticism. In general, when 
 a writer is assailed by party reviewers on one side, 
 he is defended by the party reviewers on the other. 
 But with me this was far from being the case. Of 
 the reverse there then could not be a stronger proof 
 than was afforded by the ' Quarterly Eeview,' which 
 during the thirty years that it was in course of pub- 
 lication, had never reviewed my History at all, nor 
 mentioned it, even in a note, except in terms of 
 studied disparagement. I knew that this remark- 
 able reticence in regard to a work which had gone 
 through ten editions, was owing to personal causes. 
 
236 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 The feeling began with Mr Croker, who was naturally 
 provoked in the outset at my getting the start of 
 him on a subject with which he was very familiar, 
 and on which he had made great collections, with a 
 view to annals from his own pen. His influence in 
 the conduct of the ' Quarterly Review ' was sufBcient 
 to exclude my work from its pages as long as he 
 lived. After his death, a similar or analogous feeling 
 got up among the contributors to this, — with the ex- 
 ception of 'Blackwood,' — the only remaining Con- 
 servative periodical in the kingdom. I was not one 
 of themselves ; I did not belong to any literary 
 clique in London ; I made no attempt to gain 
 their goodwill, — and yet there were the ten editions 
 staring them in the face, and the author a Scotch- 
 man, dwelling in a remote county, was well known 
 in London society. These considerations sufficiently 
 explain the scarcely disguised hostility of the London 
 Conservative press towards me of late years ; but the 
 same causes could not be considered as having actu- 
 ated the Liberal press, which was more open in its 
 attacks. I have often reflected on this circumstance, 
 with an anxious desire to get at the bottom of it. 
 I did not know one of the London or English re- 
 viewers, either in the daily or periodical press. I 
 had never attacked or injured one of them, and I 
 was ignorant even of their names, and would not 
 have known them if I had seen them. I could not 
 ascribe their hostility to literary jealousy : there 
 were no symptoms of such a feeling in regard to 
 
1859.] LITERARY JEALOUSY. 237 
 
 Macaulay, Bulwer, Dickens, or many others who 
 had acquired a more general popularity than any 
 author could who espoused the Conservative side in 
 politics. The cause to which, after much considera- 
 tion, I am inclined to ascribe it, is the increasing 
 Liberal spirit of the age, and the animosity ex- 
 cited by the sight of an author enjoying a certain 
 amount of popularity, and steadily resisting the 
 growing political feelings of the majority. They 
 had become so accustomed to carry everything before 
 them of late years, and were so deluded by the con- 
 strained yielding of Conservatives on the platform, 
 on the hustings, in the House of Commons, in the 
 press, to the popular voice on every subject, that 
 they could not restrain their indignation at an author 
 who resisted the alleged lights of the age, and amidst 
 a deluge of Liberal views and convictions still 
 asserted the old opinions. They felt the same rage 
 at any author who disturbed these settled opinions, 
 as the Eoman Catholic hierarchy did against the 
 Reformers in the days of Luther, who desired the 
 supremacy of the Pope. As Bulwer said, " You need 
 not wonder at being attacked : if they had had the 
 power, they would have burnt you." 
 
 But the political leaders on both sides showed me 
 great kindness and attention, and spoke of my work 
 in terms very different from those of the reviewers. 
 In the only instance where a reviewer hazarded re- 
 marks not on the words or opinions, but on the facts 
 adduced in the work, in the article above mentioned 
 
238 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l857- 
 
 in the ' Edinburgli Eeview,' he fell into such a series 
 of blunders, admirably shown up in ' Blackwood,' that 
 even the journals on his own side were obliged to 
 admit that he had gone beyond his depth and fallen 
 into serious errors. I felt greatly obliged to the 
 critics for their remarks on words ; for being by 
 nature exceedingly careless on that subject, I was 
 much benefited by their observations. 
 
 The 25th January 1859, was the hundredth anni- 
 versary of the birth of Burns, and great preparations 
 were being made to celebrate it with 6clat. The 
 public enthusiasm increased daily, and as the day 
 approached the excitement became extreme. The 
 dinner in Glasgow was in an especial manner the 
 object of interest, as Colonel Burns, the son of the 
 poet, had promised to be present there on the occa- 
 sion. The committee intrusted with its direction 
 early applied to me to take the chair on the occa- 
 sion ; but being very averse to such displays, when 
 not called on for the purposes of charity or public 
 duty, I earnestly recommended them to get some 
 eminent man from a distance, who might prove a 
 greater attraction than a person with whom they 
 were all familiar. They were unsuccessful, however, 
 in doing so, and I was ultimately obliged to under- 
 take the duties of chairman. The dinner took place 
 in the City Hall, when covers were laid for 800, 
 which were rapidly filled up. Besides this there 
 were several other dinners at a cheaper rate in 
 difi'erent parts of the city, and the excitement 
 
1859.] BURNS'S CENTENARY, ,239 
 
 the whole day was very great. We had a large 
 party in the house, including my able and agreeable 
 friend Mr Monckton Milnes and Colonel Burns, who 
 gave universal satisfaction from the unafiected sim- 
 plicity and quaintness of his manner, and the beauty 
 with which he sang some of his father's songs. The 
 dinner went off with great eclat; and no toast in 
 Scotland was probably ever received with greater 
 enthusiasm than that of "The immortal memory 
 of Eobert Burns " was that evening. The speech I 
 made in proposing it was of course very eulogistic, 
 but not more so than what I really felt ; for from 
 my earliest years I had entertained the utmost ad- 
 miration for the Scottish bard. I had an hereditary 
 right to do so ; for my father, who was intimately 
 acquainted with him, was so impressed with his 
 genius while he was as yet unknown to fame, that 
 he kept the original copy of "Auld Lang Syne," 
 which the bard gave him, till it literally fell to 
 pieces in his waistcoat-pocket. 
 
240 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 COMMITTEE OF HOUSE OF COMMONS ON TRANSPORTATION, TO 
 THE CONCLUSION OF THE CASTLEREAGH LIVES. 
 
 1859-1861. 
 
 We went up to London earlier than usual this 
 year (1859) in consequence of a summons I received 
 to attend a Committee of the House of Commons on 
 transportation and penal servitude. I was examined 
 at great length, and with considerable minuteness, 
 by the committee, as the opinions I advanced on the 
 subject were adverse to those which it was the object 
 of the majority of the Committee to establish. Their 
 aim was to make out that penal servitude was 
 much better than transportation ; mine that it was 
 infinitely worse, and that the removal of convicts to 
 a distant colony was the best system which human 
 wisdom had ever devised, at once for the mother 
 country, the colony, and the convicts. The grounds 
 of this opinion, which I stated, as I felt it very 
 strongly, were the same as those advanced in three 
 articles I had written some years before in ' Black- 
 wood,' and which were reprinted in my collected 
 
1859-1861.] PENAL SERVITUDE. 241 
 
 Essays. In the course of my examination I gave 
 one instance of the working of the penal servitude sys- 
 tem, so extraordinary that I would hardly have ven- 
 tured to adduce it if I had not had the superinten- 
 dent of police at my back to confirm the statement, 
 which he accordingly did. It was to this effect. A 
 man was convicted in 1856 of a garrote robbery in 
 Glasgow, and sentenced to ten years' penal servi- 
 tude ; and within a year of the first conviction, in 
 1857, he was again caught in a second garrote rob- 
 bery in Glasgow, and sentenced to twenty years. 
 Within another year, in 1858, he was caught a 
 third time in a garrote robbery in Glasgow, and 
 was given a sentence for life. He had not in any 
 one of these instances made his escape from the 
 place where he was undergoing his penal servitude ; 
 he was simply liberated on ticket-of-leave, because 
 their cells were full, and they did not know where 
 to put him. This startling fact produced a con- 
 siderable impression, but the majority in favour of 
 the new system was decided, and so the Committee 
 reported accordingly. 
 
 To one who considers the subject dispassionately, 
 and who has had practical experience of the effects of 
 the system thus recommended, it appears one of the 
 most extraordinary facts recorded in history, that a 
 policy which lets loose upon society annually from the 
 penal reformatories from two to three thousand crimi- 
 nals of the most hardened character, rendered adepts 
 in their calling by associating so long together, should 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
242 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 for a moment be tolerated in a country anxiously bent 
 on social amelioration and the diminution of crime. 
 Still more extraordinary must it appear when it is 
 recollected that Great Britain possesses colonial set- 
 tlements in every quarter of the globe, containing 
 ample room for penal colonies for ten centuries to 
 come, and where the most prosperous outlets for 
 ovir population, and markets for our manufactures, 
 might with ease and certainty be established by the 
 forced labour of the most dangerous and burdensome 
 classes of the community at home. Foreign nations 
 are never weary of expressing the immense advan- 
 tages which this country possesses for the disposal 
 and utilisation of its criminal population in its 
 numerous and thriving colonies, and the deplor- 
 able effects which have resulted to them from the 
 want of them ; while experience has proved that the 
 objections of the colonies to the reception of con- 
 victs may at once be turned into an ardent desire 
 for them, by the simple expedient of sending out 
 four or five times the number of free emigrants that 
 there are of convicts, which would at once make the 
 colony so favoured distance all its competitors. Yet 
 is the nation content to forego all these ihimense ad- 
 vantages, and submit voluntarily to the manifold 
 evils of the galleys, so grievously felt and feelingly 
 described in all the statistical writers on the Conti- 
 nental States ! 
 
 It is the combined influence of three circumstances 
 which has produced this strange and otherwise inex- 
 
1861.] TRANSPORTATION V. PENAL SERVITUDE. 243 
 
 plicable phenomenon. The first is, that the substi- 
 tution of penal servitude for transportation, though 
 the cause of a vast additional burden upon society and 
 the nation as awhole,is productive, in the first instance 
 at least, of a great reduction of the charges coming on 
 the Exchequer. The expense of sending the con-\'icts 
 out at fifteen guineas a-head is avoided ; the duration 
 of penal servitude is seldom half of what that of trans- 
 portation would have been ; and in three cases out 
 of four, when the liberated convict is again appre- 
 hended for a fresh crime he is unknown, and escapes 
 with a few months' or days' imprisonment, the cost of 
 which falls not on the executive but on the counties. 
 It was stated to me in the Committee by one of the 
 members, that this saved £300,000 a-year to Govern- 
 ment by throwing it on the counties. In the next 
 place, a very numerous and influential party in the 
 State, the advocates of moral and religious instruc- 
 tion, eagerly clutch at a body of men who might be 
 compelled to submit to their theoretical training; and 
 who, they flatter themselves, by the mere force of 
 education and religious cramming, may within the 
 four walls of their cells, without the aid of any ex- 
 ternal appliances or change of scene and associates, 
 be converted from utter profligates to useful and 
 decorous members of society. In the third place, 
 the establishment of penal reformatories on a great 
 scale in difi"erent parts of the country, and the gen- 
 eral adoption of a system of moral and religious 
 education in all places of confinement, quickly reared 
 
244 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISOX. [l859- 
 
 up a body of men who are personally interested in 
 the maintenance of the new system, and spare no 
 efforts to secure its continuance. The whole body 
 of inspectors, chaplains, schoolmasters, and other 
 functionaries employed about the convicts, and whose 
 numbers increase with every augmentation of the 
 persons confined, are directly interested in uphold- 
 ing the new system, and would be turned adrift if 
 it were either abolished or materially abridged. Of 
 the extent of the sums lavished upon this class of 
 employees, some idea may be formed from the fact, 
 that above one-half of the cost of every prisoner con- 
 fined in jail — which is paid by the counties — goes 
 for moral and religious instruction, and the cost of 
 penal establishments at home has now risen with the 
 abolition of transportation to £1,400,000 a-year ! 
 Thus the new system goes on, while its effects are 
 visible in the frightful revolts of Portland and Chat- 
 ham, and the deplorable increase of murders, rob- 
 beries, and serious crimes of late years, which have 
 with reason attracted so much attention.^ 
 
 ^ "The offences against property and person now committed in our 
 streets nialce us rub our eyes, and ask ourselves wliat century we are 
 living in. Orime is evidently making a fresh start ; it is becoming 
 young again ; there is the spring and saliency of a new morning of life 
 about its ways and habits. It sticks at nothing, and marks its prey as . 
 coolly in our thoroughfares as if it were watching in the lane or forest. 
 A man is knocked down, robbed, and garrotted amid the blaze of lamps, 
 with the police in call, and with cabs and foot-passengers close upon 
 him. In what part of London can you pronounce yourself absolutely 
 safe, when you leave your party and take your walk home ? There 
 was a time, and that not long ago, when any of her Majesty's subjects 
 carried his watch or his purse as safe from' St Paul's to Whitechapel, or 
 
1861.] ARRESTMENT OF WAGES. 245 
 
 I was examined about the same time on another 
 subject of great social interest, at least in Scotland — 
 that of arrestment of wages. To understand this 
 subject, it must be premised that the law of Scotland 
 authorises creditors to receive payment of their debts 
 in three ways, which may all be put in force at the 
 same time — viz., by seizure of the person, for any 
 established debt above £8, 6s. 8d. ; by distraining 
 of furniture or other movable effects ; and by arrest- 
 ment in the employer's hands of any money due to the 
 
 from Cheapside to the City Road, as from his own front door to his 
 own back door ; and when it never oocnrred to him that he might not 
 at the end of his walk have all the teeth in his head that he had at the 
 beginning, or have his skull as compact and smooth as when he 
 started."—' Times.' 
 
 " It is pretty well known to what we owe this new and insolent race 
 of criminals ; that we owe them to the ticket-of-leave system. Eng- 
 land is now trying the experiment of ' absorbing' her own criminals, 
 and she does not find it altogether a profitable one. But, if we cannot 
 transport ofi'enders to our colonies as we used to do, this is an experi- 
 ment which we must make, and we must take the consequences of it, 
 so far as the experiment itself is necessary. The question is, however, 
 whether we are not giving the most gratuitously extravagant form to 
 this experiment by our present ticket-of-leave system. A class of con- 
 victed criminals, who have undergone the full period of punishment, 
 and therefore inust be let loose, is one thing ; but a class whom we let 
 loose upon society before their term of punishment is over is another 
 thing. It is certain from the plainest statistics that outrage and vio- 
 lent crimes increase in proportion as the ticket-of-leave multiplies. 
 The judicial statistics of last year give an increase of 556 burglaries 
 over the preceding year, and the same judicial statistics give an increase 
 also of about a thousand tickets-of-leave in that year over the preced- 
 ing year. Nor have we seen the last of this growth and multiplication. 
 The Penal Servitude Act of 1853, which did not allow mitigation of 
 sentence, dies out this year, and leaves full and uninterrupted scope 
 to the ticket-of-leave system. We may therefore expect a still larger 
 harvest of this class of crimes. It is evident that something must be 
 done."—' Times,' August 4, 1862. 
 
246 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 party from "whom payment is sought to be recovered. 
 In the case of the working classes, as most of their 
 debts are below £8, 6s. 8d., and furniture or other 
 movable effects they have none, it is by arrestment 
 of the wages due to them by their employers that in 
 nine cases out of ten payment can be effected ; and 
 this, accordingly, is regarded by those who supply 
 them with food and other necessaries, as their sheet- 
 anchor, and in fact only mode of payment. On the 
 other hand, this summary mode of transferring 
 wages due to him from the workman to his creditor 
 often came to press with extreme severity upon the 
 former, especially as that restraint was permitted on 
 what is called "the dependence," — that is, on the 
 issuing of a writ demanding payment, before any 
 decree had been pronounced finding that anything 
 was due by the workman. This state of the law 
 had long led to serious complaints on both sides. 
 The workmen, supported by the Radicals and phil- 
 anthropists, contended for an entire abrogation of 
 the creditor's right of arrestment, so far as wages 
 were concerned, in which they were supported by 
 the master employers, to whom arrestment of their 
 workmen's wages was a source of infinite trouble 
 and annoyance. The shopkeepers and retail dealers 
 urged that if arrestment of wages were taken away, 
 they would be left without any means, practically 
 speaking, of recovering payment of their debts; and 
 they would be driven by absolute necessity to a stern 
 refusal of credit to all workmen, which in periods 
 
1861.] ARRESTMENT OF WAGES. 247 
 
 of distress or commercial embarrassment would be 
 equivalent to consigning them to beggary. 
 
 I felt deeply interested in this question, and was 
 several times examined regarding it ; for long ex- 
 perience had rendered me familiar with the evils and 
 dangers on both sides, and convinced me that noth- 
 ing would mitigate the one or avert the other but 
 a middle course, equally removed from what was 
 contended for by either side. Perfectly aware as I 
 was of the extreme embarrassment which the present 
 system brought on the working classes, and the real 
 foundation which their complaints had, I was yet 
 not the less convinced that, practically, arrestment of 
 wages was the only effectual means by which credi- 
 tors could receive payment of their debts from a large 
 proportion of the working classes, and that to cut it 
 oiF would be to deprive the latter of all credit. This 
 appeared a terrible state of things to contemplate in 
 a country where, under the existing monetary laws, 
 a money famine was likely to recur every two or 
 three years, followed by a vast multitude of the 
 working classes being suddenly deprived of employ- 
 ment, and where the decisions of the Court of Ses- 
 sion had declared that the able-bodied poor, though 
 unable to find employment, had no claim on their 
 respective parishes for relief during their distress. 
 Holding these views, I stated them strongly before 
 several committees of the House of Commons, and 
 the result was considerable modifications of the right 
 of arrestment of wages, without going the length of its 
 
248 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 total repeal. The most important of these modifica- 
 tions were, — a limitation of the right of arrestment of 
 wages to debts established by decree, excluding those 
 on the dependence of an action ; and an enactment 
 that the wages were only arrestable so far as they 
 did not exceed a "just aliment" to the workman. 
 
 But here a new difficulty arose. The courts were 
 divided as to what should be deemed a "just ali- 
 ment." What was sufficient for a man in one situa- 
 tion and without a family, was evidently insufficient 
 for one in another situation, and burdened with a 
 wife and children. I myself uniformly went on the 
 principle of holding half the wages to be alimentary, 
 and decerning in favour of the creditor only for the 
 other half; a system which was as near an approxi- 
 mation as migh-fe-be to the justice of each particular 
 case, and was recommended by its simplicity, a 
 matter of the highest importance where laws are 
 concerned which practically regulate the rights 
 and interests of large bodies of men. But other 
 sheriffs fixed a specific sum to be deemed alimentary, 
 and sacred from seizure in each particular case. 
 This led to uncertainty in the practice of the courts 
 in this particular, and the masters seeing that, made 
 the laying on of an arrestment the ground of retain- 
 ing the whole wages of the workman, on the plea that 
 they did not know how much the court might event- 
 ually allow as aliment, and that the only way to be 
 safe was to retain the whole till the matter was 
 settled, which was often not for months after. To 
 
1861.] PRACTICAL IGNORANCE OF LEGISLATORS. 249 
 
 remedy this evil, I suggested to the Lord Advocate 
 that in addition to abrogating arrestment on the 
 dependence of an action, the writ served on the 
 master for execution on a decree should contain a 
 distinct notice that it was a warrant to pay over to 
 the creditor only a half of the arrested wages, and 
 that the other half should in every case be paid over 
 to the workman or his family. But this medium 
 did not please the extreme part)'' on either side — the 
 one contending for total abolition of arrestment of 
 wages, the other for its complete and unlimited re- 
 storation ; and in this strife nothing was done, and 
 arrestment of wages with its worst evils still remains 
 — a continual source of annoyance to masters, and of 
 distress to the persons in their employment. 
 
 This leads me to remark how greaf an evil all per- 
 sons practically engaged in the administration of 
 affairs find it to be, that laws are in general passed 
 in the legislature by persons almost entirely unac- 
 quainted with their practical operation when put in 
 force. This evil had been long and sorely felt in the 
 British Parliament, and it was one of the main argu- 
 ments urged in favour of the Eeform Bill, that by 
 enlarging the base of the legislature, it would bring 
 in persons really acquainted with the wants of the 
 country, and capable of discerning what measures 
 were calculated to relieve them. This benefit, how- 
 ever, has by no means been experienced. The re- 
 formed House of Commons contains, indeed, a great 
 mass of practical talent, forming a large majority of 
 
250 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOK. [l859- 
 
 its members ; but it is practical talent divided by 
 separate interests, each of which is actuated by the 
 desire to promote its own advantage, and familiar 
 with the means of doing so, but unacquainted with, 
 or indiiferent to, the wants of others. Thus any 
 measure calculated for the general good, and not for 
 the advancement of the interests or satisfaction of 
 the desires of a particular section, meets with little 
 or no support from the majority ; while those cal- 
 culated to give advantage to one interest at the 
 expense of another, excite the most vivid attention, 
 and are supported with the utmost earnestness, and 
 often with great ability. The speculative part of 
 the assembly again, whose feelings prompt them to 
 support measures calculated for the general good, are 
 very often destitute of the practical knowledge neces- 
 sary to carry their views into effect, and vehemently 
 support measures seemingly beneficial, but which in 
 reality have often in the end a pernicious effect. The 
 most obvious way of rectifying this great evil, which 
 materially neutralises the good eff'ect of free institu- 
 tions, is to compose the Cabinet for the most part of 
 persons trained to the administration of affairs, like 
 the intendants of provinces in the old French mon- 
 archy, a system which produced a Sully, a Colbert, a 
 Torcy, and a Louvois. But how such a system is to 
 be reconciled with the necessities of government in a 
 constitutional monarchy, depending on the majority 
 of a popularly elected assembly, to be swayed mainly 
 by the oratorical talents of its members, constitutes a 
 
1861.] LOKD STANLEY. 251 
 
 difficulty which probably will never be wholly over- 
 come. 
 
 To these general remarks on the want of practical 
 acquaintance with aifairs in the leading members of 
 administration, or the House of Commons, who have 
 been trained in the debates of Parliament, not in the 
 administration of its laws, an exception must be 
 made in the case of Lord Stanley. I was much 
 thrown with him in the course of this spring, 
 both in parliamentary committees and in private, 
 and I was very much struck with his character 
 and abilities. Nature has by no means been fa- 
 vourable to him in the qualities requisite to form a 
 powerful public speaker. He has an impediment in 
 his speech, which makes him like a person speaking 
 with a ball in his mouth, and compels slow and im- 
 peded articulation ; and although gifted by nature 
 with a vivid imagination, he seldom ventures to give 
 it free scope. But these obstacles have been over- 
 come by a resolute will, a persevering disposition, 
 and a powerful mind. The very subjugation of a 
 poetical and imaginative turn has given the more 
 vigour to his intellect, and to the practical views which 
 he takes of all projected measures. Whether he dis- 
 courses on education, on strikes, on church rates, or 
 religious institutions, he shows that he not only 
 looks to the practical results of proposed measures, 
 but is familiar with the probable effects they are 
 likely to produce. He often uses expressions ori- 
 ginal and striking, which indicate a profound and 
 
252 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 reflecting mind. But its general inclination is 
 practical ; and to any one really engaged in the con- 
 cerns of men, it is at once apparent that he has re- 
 markable administrative talents, and is eminently 
 qualified to make a great statesman. It is very 
 singular that these qualities should be found in a 
 young man, the heir of a great fortune and ancient 
 family, who has a hereditary right to eloquence of the 
 highest order, but has never been trained by actual 
 experience to the practical administration of affairs. 
 
 The spring of 1860 was marked by a joyous event in 
 our family, which requires special notice in this bio- 
 graphy. My youngest son, F , had been A.D.C. to 
 
 Lord Clyde during his whole campaign in India since 
 they landed at Calcutta in July 1857, and he had been 
 in every one of the battles under him during that 
 period. He had thus been in the action at Futteh- 
 ghur, the capture of Lucknow, the taking of Bareil- 
 ly, the conquest of Oudh, and every action great 
 
 and small which had since A 's departure been 
 
 fought in India. During these operations he took 
 small-pox, caught from attending the lamented Sir 
 William Peel, who was in the same tent when 
 labouring under the same disorder, of which also his 
 brother A.D.C. Forster died. Nothing could exceed 
 Sir Colin's kindness to him during this malady, 
 which was of the most virulent kind : despite all 
 
 F 's entreaties to the contrary, he came to his 
 
 tent every day, and once sat on his bed for twenty 
 minutes, inhaling the infected atmosphere, which had 
 
1861.] P 'S RETURN. 253 
 
 already proved so fatal. It gives some idea of the 
 terms, almost boyish, that great commander was on 
 with his aides-de-camp, when I mention that at last 
 
 F said to him, as he sat on the bed, " Sir, if 
 
 you don't go away, I'll shy a boot at your head." 
 He recovered, after being for some days given over, 
 and was soon on horseback again, able to take a part 
 in the most arduous duties of the campaign, till it 
 was finally closed by the brilliant charge of the 7th 
 Hussars, headed by Sir William Eussell, on the last 
 body of the Sepoy horse, which drove them into the 
 frontier stream of Nepaul, out of the British terri- 
 tory. The war being over, in the spring of this 
 
 year Sir Colin kindly gave F leave of absence 
 
 a few weeks before he himself returned, to enable 
 him to arrive in time for the London season. We 
 received at Fossil one day, to our great surprise, a 
 letter from India saying he was coming home, and 
 two days after he awoke us at seven in the morning 
 by his animated voice and ringing laugh. He was 
 no longer the joyous youth, but the full-grown man, 
 very handsome, and with high spirits, but with a cast 
 of sternness in his expression, which showed that in 
 the Crimea and India he had sufi'ered and seen much. 
 He immediately went to London, and plunged into 
 society, in which in town or country he has for the 
 last two years been constantly immersed. He is 
 still as affectionate, kind-hearted a creature as ever ; 
 and all the flattery of beauty and fashion has never 
 lessened the enduring attachments of home. 
 
254 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 After the termination of my second History on 
 January 1, 1859, I rested for nearly three months, 
 engaged only in my professional duties and in the 
 revision of my last work for a new edition. I felt, 
 however, after a short time, that I had something 
 still to do, and that I could now no longer with 
 propriety delay the performance of the promise 
 made five j'-ears before to Lady Londonderry that 
 I would write the life of her husband. I at first 
 thought of making the projected biography a life 
 of him alone, and I was sanguine enough to hope 
 it could be accomplished in a volume of four hun- 
 dred pages, to be finished in six months. But I 
 soon found, in looking into the subject, that these 
 views were entirely erroneous ; and both that Sir 
 Charles Stewart's military life did not present suffi- 
 cient objects of interest, taken alone, to form an 
 interesting biography, and that his political career 
 was so interwoven with that of Lord Castlereagh, 
 that the one could not be given with truth without 
 the other. I determined, accordingly, to make it a 
 joint biography ; and I had the satisfaction of learn- 
 ing from Lady Londonderry, when at Wynyard in 
 this spring, that Mr Croker, whose acquaintance with 
 these subjects was well known, had expressed to her 
 the same opinion. I commenced an active search 
 through the mass of letters there, and selected a 
 great number for quotation, which were copied out 
 by her ladyship's secretary, and the copies given 
 to me. I began the work regularly on 27th March 
 
1S61.] THE CASTLEREAGH LIVES. 255 
 
 1859, and fixed my average daily at three quarto 
 pages. This implied, however, four pages a-day on 
 the five days in the week when I was not at my 
 early court ; and I soon came to my former allowance 
 of five pages, except on Mondays and Thursdays, 
 when, from being early in court, I could never manage 
 more than two pages. I worked at this rate reg- 
 ularly and assiduously during the next two years, 
 never intermitting a day, and taking my papers with 
 me and continuing my labours wherever I went. I 
 soon became deeply interested in the subject, and 
 found as I advanced how much more simple bio- 
 graphy is than regular history, and how easy it is 
 to follow out the record of a single life and render 
 it interesting, compared with pursuing the multi- 
 farious threads of general history. 
 
 In the composition of this biography I adopted a 
 plan inconsistent with the usual practice, and which 
 called forth many strictures from the reviewers. It 
 was to give a full account of the transactions, whe- 
 ther civil or military, in which either brother had 
 borne a part. This plan was adopted from a convic- 
 tion that the private life in particular of Lord Castle- 
 reagh — a civilian, and not checkered by many striking 
 personal incidents — could not be made interesting, 
 and that the importance of his public actions could 
 not be either explained or appreciated, unless the 
 whole concurring circumstances in which they oc- 
 curred were fully given. National prejudice, party 
 zeal, and disappointed ambition, had been such as 
 
256 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 to give a false view of many of the great events in 
 Europe at the close of the war, and I early perceived 
 that the peculiar importance of Lord Castlereagh's and 
 Sir Charles Stewart's services in the Cabinet and in 
 the field could not be properly brought out but by a 
 full narrative of the contemporary events on which 
 their actions had borne an influence. This was more 
 especially the case in reference to the campaigns of 
 1813 and 1814 in Germany and France, and the 
 Congress of Vienna in 1815. The most important 
 authorities and documents regarding them, and those 
 most clearly bringing out the effects of Lord Castle- 
 reagh's policy, had only come to light within the 
 last few ye&rs, and in great part since the publication 
 of even the last editions of my general History. I 
 resolved to style my work ' Lives of Lord Castlereagh 
 and Sir Charles Stewart, with Annals of Contemporary 
 Events in which they bore a part.' But though this 
 title somewhat lessened it did not stop the outcry 
 which was raised against the work on its first appear- 
 ance, because it was constructed on the principle of 
 Cgesar's ' Commentaries ' and Quintus Curtius's ' Life 
 of Alexander,' and did not abound with private 
 anecdotes or scandalous stories. 
 
 Hitherto my life had been one of almost unbroken 
 felicity, at least of as great happiness and prosperity 
 as ever attends those in a world of probation and 
 change. I had indeed lost my parents and three of 
 my sisters ; but these were no more than the average 
 of bereavements which are common to all ; and in my 
 
1861.] DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. 257 
 
 own family since my marriage I liad experienced 
 nothing but happiness. In my wife I had found 
 more than I even anticipated in the first fervour of 
 youth and romance. We had now "summered it 
 and wintered it together," and we had contracted 
 the closest of all intimacies, and mutually gained the 
 firmest of all trusts, that which arises from having 
 suffered together. I had found her the partner of my 
 joys and sorrows : my companion in prosperity, my 
 helpmate in adversity. She had doubled the happi- 
 ness of the first, and halved the sorrows of the last. 
 My children had proved a source of unmingled pride 
 and satisfaction ; my sons had earned distinction in 
 the noble profession they had chosen ; my daughter, 
 happily married, with an afi'ectionate and highly 
 gifted husband and three charming sons, had the 
 fairest prospects before her for future life. I my- 
 self had been fortunate far beyond the measure of 
 my deserts : in my profession I had attained an 
 important and honourable station, and in litera- 
 ture I had been successful. It was remarkable, 
 this had occurred when I was under all circum- 
 stances opposed to the ruling influences ; for while 
 the Tories held the reins of power I had inclined 
 to Liberal, and since the Whigs succeeded I had 
 been the uncompromising supporter of Conservative, 
 opinions. But now I was about to experience the 
 usual vicissitude of earthly things, and in successive 
 domestic bereavements and perils to feel the fragil- 
 ity of the tie by which all earthly blessings are held. 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
258 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOK. [l859- 
 
 The first call of Azrael, tlie Angel of Death, was 
 for an infant innocent. My daughter's youngest 
 son, a beautiful boy of fourteen months old, was in 
 perfect health at Craigdarroch, when, in the middle 
 of May, the family began to move to Ninewells, in 
 Berwickshire, which they taken from Baron Hume's 
 daughter, Mrs Macdonald Hume, for three years, to 
 gain time for the projected construction of a new 
 house at their own place. Mrs Fergusson was left 
 last at home with her little boys, her husband having 
 gone forward with the effects, which were in course 
 of being removed from one house to the other ; and 
 she wrote to me on 26th May that she was uneasy 
 about the youngest, for he had been twenty-four 
 hours without sleep. We anticipated no danger, 
 however, when next day at noon a telegram arrived, 
 announcing that he was dead. The family surgeon 
 at Thornhill had thought so lightly of the case, that 
 he said he might safely travel to Glasgow on the 
 way to Ninewells ; and he set out accordingly, but 
 grew weaker as he went on, and died at the hotel 
 in George Square shortly after arriving. We set 
 out from London by the night-train the day we re- 
 ceived the news, and on arriving in Glasgow, found 
 the family in the utmost distress. The little body 
 was taken to Craigdarroch a few days after, and 
 interred in presence of his father and nearest rela- 
 tions in the burying - ground in Glencairn church- 
 yard, where his ancestors for many centuries had 
 been laid. 
 
1861.] NINEWELLS. 259 
 
 Lady Alison's spirits were much affected by this 
 sudden shock ; and to lessen its impression I accept- 
 ed an invitation from Lady Londonderry in the be- 
 ginning of August following, to meet the Bishop 
 of Durham at Seaham Hall. On this occasion we 
 were several days in the house with him, and were 
 every hour more struck with his unaffected simplicity 
 of manners, benevolence of disposition, and solidity of 
 judgment. He afterwards paid us a visit of some 
 days at Possil, on his way through Scotland, and ex- 
 pressed himself much delighted with the scenery of 
 the Clyde, and the beautiful architecture of Glasgow 
 Cathedral. 
 
 Before this time, A , with his wife, had re- 
 turned from Italy, and my daughter having in some 
 degree recovered her spirits after her recent bereave- 
 ment, a family party was arranged at Ninewells, 
 
 where we were all assembled. F alone was 
 
 absent. We were a fortnight together, and there is 
 no period of my life to which I look back with more 
 pleasure. Ninewells is a beautiful place, situated on 
 an eminence above the river Whitadder, in Berwick- 
 shire, called after nine fountains, which issue from 
 steep slopes, at the summit of which the house 
 stands, and whose accumulated flow would turn a 
 mill-wheel. It was the birthplace of David Hume 
 the historian ; but the old house in which he first 
 beheld the light had been pulled down, and its 
 place supplied by a new mansion. Nothing could 
 be more charming than that party. My son-in-law's 
 
260 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 taste in painting, music, and sculpture was exquisite ; 
 his conversation was in tlie highest degree refined 
 and superior. It was delightful to see how the 
 young people brought together by marriage took 
 to each other. Mrs Alison fully appreciated Mr 
 Fergusson, and was appreciated by him ; and Ella 
 did the honours of her establishment to all with her 
 wonted kindness and elegance. The memory of 
 that visit will never be effaced from my recollection, 
 and it will never be renewed in this world. 
 
 The next call of the An^el of Death was for one 
 who had done his work in this world, and was about 
 to receive his reward. My brother, Dr Alison, like 
 myself, had been eminently fortunate in life. He 
 had risen to the Chair of the Practice of Physic in 
 the University of Edinburgh, the highest medical 
 appointment in the country ; he had received the 
 honour of being made chief physician to her Majesty 
 in Scotland ; he had long been in great practice ; and 
 he had won the respect and affection of all who 
 knew him, by the unaffected benevolence of his dis- 
 j)osition, and the unwearied efforts of his philan- 
 thropy. To him Scotland mainly owed the great 
 improvement in the administration of the Scottish 
 poor-laws, which was effected by the late Poor-Law 
 Act. Excessive and long-continued work, however, 
 at length produced its wonted results. He used, 
 after coming in at ten at night worn out by visit- 
 in o- patients, to sit down and write treatises on the 
 poor till four in the morning, and would rise again 
 
1861.] DEATH OF DR W. P. ALISON. 261 
 
 at seven to go to his lecture in the University. 
 Though naturally strong and robust, he sank at 
 length under incessant and long-continued work. 
 After a severe illness in 1846, he was unable to re- 
 sume his academical labours ; and eventually having 
 found that his strength was unequal to its duties, he 
 resigned his chair in the University, and retired 
 into private life. His time down to the period of his 
 death, which did not occur till thirteen years after, 
 was divided between his house, 44 Heriot Eow, where 
 he lived in winter, and Woodville, where he resided 
 all summer, and spent his leisure in study and 
 works of beneficence, amidst flowers, and woods, and 
 nature. Never was a spotless life closed in a more 
 complete earthly paradise ; and here he breathed his 
 last on 27th September 1S59. The magistrates of 
 Edinburgh requested that his funeral might be a 
 public one, to testify the universal respect in which 
 his memory was held, and his remains were accord- 
 ingly carried to their last resting-place attended by 
 the magistrates, the professors, and an immense 
 body of students at the University, and private 
 citizens. He was laid in the family burying-place 
 in St John's churchyard, beside the graves of his 
 father and mother, amidst the tears of nearly all 
 present. By the rich he was lamented as an in- 
 structor and a friend, by the poor mourned as a 
 father. 
 
 Our anxiety during my brother's last illness was 
 fearfully augmented by another impending calamity, 
 
262 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOX. [l859- 
 
 which was threatened at the same time, more har- 
 rowing than the fall into the grave of worth, full of 
 years and of honours. My son, Colonel Alison, had 
 taken a villa, called Craigpark, near Eatho, in Mid- 
 Lothian, where his wife was seized with fever, and 
 was soon most alarmingly ill. We came from Possil 
 on the first alarm, and for two days I walked be- 
 tween Woodville and Craigpark, uncertain which 
 would depart first. But our prayers were heard, the 
 mercy of Heaven prevailed, and the younger and 
 more valuable life was spared. 
 
 But though this precious life was left to us, the 
 Angel of Death was not entirely balked of his prey. 
 I had observed that Eobert Fergusson, Avho had been 
 in perfect health and spirits the day before, looked ex- 
 tremely pale at my brother's funeral, and was obliged 
 to leave the churchyard before the service was con- 
 cluded. Next morning we heard he was worse, and 
 before night his able medical attendant, Dr Gillespie, 
 pronounced his ailment typhoid fever. Every pos- 
 sible attention was bestowed on him, but the virulence 
 of the disease bafiied all their efi"orts, and on the 
 sixth day he expired. Mrs Fergusson showed the ut- 
 most fortitude on the melancholy occasion ; and her 
 mother and I instantly came in from Craigpark to be 
 with her in her distress, and remained in Edinburgh 
 till the funeral was over, at which, of course, I was 
 the chief mourner. The scene going from the man- 
 sion-house of Craigdarroch to the place of interment 
 in Glencairn churchyard, five miles distant, was in- 
 
1861.] DEA.TH OF E. CUTLAR FERGUSSON. 263 
 
 expressibly striking. The interest of all in Dumfries- 
 shire was strongly excited by this event. The youth 
 and early death of the deceased ; the long line of his 
 ancestors, who for centuries had dwelt at the seat of 
 his forefathers ; the fact of his being an only son, 
 with scarcely any relations ; and the youth of the 
 widow and children who were left to lament his loss, 
 as well as his own many interesting and endearing 
 qualities, — had strongly awakened the sympathy of 
 all the neighbourhood. All his tenantry attended the 
 procession on horseback or foot ; the road the whole 
 way, though leading through a sequestered valley, 
 was lined by the peasantry, who evinced the warm- 
 est sympathy on the occasion. Mrs Fergusson, at- 
 tended by her kind friend Mrs Dunbar, witnessed 
 the ceremony in the churchyard, which was per- 
 formed according to the ritual of the Church of 
 England, to which her husband had belonged. He 
 was laid in the same grave with his little son : earth 
 does not contain a warmer heart than beat in his 
 bosom. 
 
 After this melancholy event Mrs Fergusson and 
 her two little boys came to Fossil, and remained with 
 us in deep seclusion for the next two months. The 
 time, notwithstanding the chasm made in our do- 
 mestic circle, passed in perfect quiet, but very de- 
 lightfully. My daughter, who is a person possessed of 
 uncommon decision and strength of character, made 
 up her mind to the inevitable, and set herself sedu- 
 lously to discharge her duties to her little boys, and 
 
264 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 in doing so she met with the appropriate reward in 
 regaining her peace and serenity of mind. The chil- 
 dren were delightful, and came to me every day to be 
 told a story, as I had done to their mother and her 
 brothers twenty years before. We read aloud in the 
 evening, after they had gone to bed, and the time, 
 though we saw no one, passed very pleasantly. A 
 new and endearing bond was now formed between 
 my daughter and myself : we had not only rejoiced 
 but suffered together. 
 
 The 24th December this year was the twenty-fifth 
 anniversary of my taking possession of the sheriff- 
 dom of Lanarkshire in 1834. On this occasion 
 the Faculty of Procurators did me the honour of 
 presenting to me a testimonial in commemoration 
 of the event, and to testify the respect and attach- 
 ment which had grown up between us during that 
 long period. It consisted of a marble bust, one 
 copy of which was presented to myself, and one was 
 placed in the library of the Faculty of Procurators 
 in their rooms in St G-eorge's Place. The presen- 
 tation was made by the Dean of Faculty, my es- 
 teemed friend Mr Morrison, in presence of nearly the 
 whole body of procurators, who are 300 in number. 
 I was deeply gratified by this proof of regard, com- 
 ing from such a body, the most of whom had long 
 had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted 
 with me, both as an individual and as the chief judge 
 of the local courts of Lanarkshire. Lady Alison, and 
 Colonel and Mrs Alison were present on the occa- 
 
1861.] THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT. 265 
 
 sion, and shared my satisfaction. The bust was a 
 correct likeness as I then was ; but on comparing it 
 with the one presented to me fifteen years before by 
 the merchants of Glasgow, done by Mr Park, it was 
 evident that time and hard work had produced their 
 usual effects. 
 
 In the course of this Avinter the volunteer move- 
 ment arose, in consequence of the well-founded alarm 
 awakened in the country by the victories of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon at Magenta and Solferino, and the 
 extension of the influence and power of France over 
 the Italian peninsula. Glasgow was in the front 
 rank in this patriotic effort, and to add to the im- 
 pulse, a great public meeting of volunteers in their 
 uniform was held in the City Hall on 25th January 
 1860. The body of the hall was filled by the 
 volunteers, 1200 in number, already clothed and 
 embodied, and 2000 more, not yet fully equipped, 
 occupied the galleries. The scene was inexpressibly 
 animating and impressive, and conveyed a vivid and 
 striking proof of the extent and depth of the patri- 
 otic feeling, which had thus caused a whole nation 
 to rise up as one man and equip themselves at their 
 own expense to join with the regulars in the de- 
 fence of the country. No other nation in Europe 
 could have exhibited a similar spectacle. I was 
 asked to move the first resolution, and made a 
 speech of nearly an hour, which was received with 
 the utmost enthusiasm. Little was required to 
 awaken applause. I enjoyed the greatest of all 
 
266 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 advantages, a willing and sympathetic audience. 
 The progress of the movement in Lanarkshire was 
 truly astonishing; and in less than six months after it 
 commenced, there were 9000 men in arms, equipped 
 and clothed at their own expense, and in a very re- 
 spectable state of military discipline. 
 
 The extreme distress in which Glasgow generally, 
 and its working classes in particular, had been involv- 
 ed from the effects of the monetary crisis of Novem- 
 ber 1847, and the knowledge which they had that I 
 entertained decided views on the subject, and was 
 inclined to the labour side of the question, in oppo- 
 sition to the interests of capital, led to my being 
 requested by the united trades of Glasgow to deliver 
 a lecture this winter on the subject. I did so ac- 
 cordingly, and took for my theme, "The Monetary 
 Laws, and their Effect on the Wages of Labour." The 
 lecture was delivered extempore, with the statistics 
 only on a sheet of paper before me. It was attended 
 by above 3000 persons, almost entirely composed of 
 the superior ranks of the working classes. Sir John 
 Maxwell occupied the chair, with my valued friend 
 Mr Montgomery Martin on his right hand. The 
 lecture lasted two hours, and though the subject was 
 dry and abstruse, it was listened to with deep atten- 
 tion throughout. Although it appeared fully, and 
 very well reported, in the Glasgow papers next day, 
 and was verbatim transferred to the ' Sun ' the day 
 after in London, and generally given in all the 
 Scotch papers, the demand for it was so great that a 
 
1861.] GEOSVENOE HOUSE. 267 
 
 separate impression of it, in the form of a pamphlet, 
 was sold to the extent of 5000 copies in three days. 
 The marriage of our friend and neighbour. Sir 
 Archibald Campbell of Garscube, with a daughter 
 of the Marquis of AVestminster, a very amiable and 
 accomplished young lady, had made us acquainted 
 with that noble family ; and when we went to Lon- 
 don this year we were frequently at Grosvenor 
 House, both at dinner and evening parties. I was 
 extremely struck with the pictures in the gallery of 
 that noble mansion. The painting of Mrs Siddons, 
 seated in a Gothic arm-chair, in the character of the 
 Muse of Tragedy, in particular struck me as one of 
 the finest efforts of art I had ever seen, worthy to 
 take its place beside any of the greatest works of the 
 Italian masters. It appeared to peculiar advantage 
 in the evening parties, being dark in colour, and 
 directly in front of the great gas chandelier, which 
 brought it fully out. The two Salvators opposite, 
 in the same large room, are noble specimens of art ; 
 and the Blue Boy by Gainsborough in the room 
 beyond, which excited so much admiration at the 
 Manchester Exhibition two years before, is a per- 
 fect gem in its way. On comparing these master- 
 pieces of the English school with the works of the 
 Italian masters with which they are surrounded, we 
 could not avoid the conclusion that it is not genius, 
 but a public capable of appreciating it, which is the 
 real desideratum for British art. The vast majority 
 of spectators, including the purchasers of paintings. 
 
268 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 do not know a good picture from a bad one : they 
 look only for a staring likeness, or for bright colours. 
 The painters seeing this, and finding by experience 
 that bestowing extraordinary pains on a picture is 
 little appreciated, accommodate themselves to the 
 circumstances in which they are placed. They need 
 not work hard to make a good picture^ for they can 
 get a high price for an indifferent one, and they 
 never in consequence require to go beyond medi- 
 ocrity. What prevents the rise of high art in Eng- 
 land is not the want of encouragement, but it is the 
 excess of encouragement coming from persons who 
 cannot appreciate excellence. 
 
 We were guests this season of our kind friend 
 Lady Macdonald Lockhart of Lee Castle, in Lan- 
 arkshire ; and again at her hospitable mansion in 
 Eaton Square, surrounded by her five handsome 
 daughters, we spent a most agreeable time. In the 
 course of it we formed the acquaintance of, and 
 dined with. Sir John Pakington, the able and inde- 
 fatigable First Lord of ^the Admiralty under Lord 
 Derby's administration. I was very anxious to 
 become acquainted with him, as well from what I 
 knew of his capacity as from my desire to ascer- 
 tain his opinion on the naval defences of the coun- 
 try. Sir John Pakington is a man of powerful 
 natural abilities, and what is of still more importance 
 in a statesman, of great good sense. To these valu- 
 able qualities he adds the important one of an 
 extensive practical acquaintance with mankind, ac- 
 
1861.] SIR JOHN PAKINGTON. 269 
 
 quired during his long and able discharge of the 
 duties of chairman of the quarter sessions of War- 
 wickshire, where his estate is situated. He is not 
 an orator in the popular sense of the word — that is, 
 he does not aim in his parliamentary speeches at 
 moving the feelings or exciting the imagination. 
 But his speeches, like his conversation, are distin- 
 guished by sterling good sense, thorough acquaint- 
 ance with the subject, and vigorous condensed ex- 
 pression. I have never heard a more effective 
 speaker, even to an audience generally adverse, than 
 he is. In private life he is courteous, simple, and 
 affable, without a particle of pride or vanity in his 
 composition, and animated always by a sincere de- 
 sire to make all around him comfortable and happy. 
 I found from his conversation that his private 
 opinion as to the defenceless condition of the coun- 
 try, when he took office two years before, was even 
 stronger than might have been gathered from his 
 parliamentary or public speeches. He stated that 
 in May 1858 the navy of Great Britain was decidedly 
 inferior to that of France, and that an invasion at 
 that period was not only practicable, but would in 
 all probability have been attended with success. 
 The country owes a debt of gratitude to this ener- 
 getic statesman for having been the first who appre- 
 ciated the immensity of this danger, and had the 
 courage to state it in presence of a Free-trade ma- 
 jority in Parliament, with whom every consideration 
 was subordinate to the reduction of taxation and in- 
 
270 AXJTOBIOaRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 terests of commerce. But for the knowledge and 
 resolution with wliich he grappled with this enor- 
 mous peril, the independence of Great Britain would 
 ere long have been an empty name. France was 
 superior in her ships of war alone, and also in men 
 from her maritime conscription. Combined with 
 Eussia or America her naval power would have 
 been irresistible, and Great Britain would speedily 
 have found herself blockaded in her own harbours, 
 when the immensity of her commerce would have 
 been the measure of her distress, and of the neces- 
 sity of yielding to the demands of her enemies. 
 Of the feelings of those enemies there could not be 
 a doubt : France had never forgiven Waterloo and 
 the fall of the Empire ; Russia in secret desired to 
 return at Chatham or Portsmouth the visit paid to 
 her at Sebastopol ; and of the temper of America, 
 and her undisguised designs on Canada, subsequent 
 times have afforded ample demonstration. 
 
 I saw a great deal during the season of Mr Wal- 
 pole, formerly Secretary of State for the Home De- 
 partment under Lord Derby ; and the more I saw 
 the more was I inclined to respect him. He was 
 usually in the chair of the Literary Club, which 
 met in the Thatched House, St James's Street, of 
 which I was a member, and I generally was fortu- 
 nate enough to obtain a seat next him at dinner. 
 He is in every respect a superior man, and is 
 possessed of great industry, strong good sense, ster- 
 ling patriotic feeling, and the charm of a high-bred 
 
1861.] SIR JOHN LAWRENCE. 271 
 
 and courteous manner. In conversation he shines 
 even more than in public oratory. He has the rare 
 faculty of combining talent with tact, and great 
 information with colloquial powers which enable 
 him to bring it out in the most agreeable way. 
 This is a much more uncommon combination than 
 is generally supposed, owing to the inherent and all 
 but universal selfishness of human nature. Ability 
 and established fame love to display themselves on 
 every occasion, to the certain mortification of the 
 self-love of others. Hence genius is frequently in 
 heart felt as a bore, and often openly stigmatised as 
 bad. There is much truth in the sarcastic saying of 
 Bulwer : "If a man has acquired any reputation he 
 will do well never to speak but to his next neigh- 
 bour ; if he speaks indifl^erently he will be set down 
 as a fool, if well as a bore." 
 
 At the same club I met and became acquainted 
 with another man, who has left an enduring and 
 immortal name in British annals. This was Sir 
 John Lawrence.-^ His physiognomy was most strik- 
 ing, and eminently characteristic of the resolution 
 which his conduct exhibited. You would know him 
 among a thousand after only a casual sight. The 
 eyebrows dark and meeting in the centre, the large 
 and marked jaw-bones so descriptive of firmness, 
 the steady gaze of the eye, bespoke the man whose 
 moral courage nothing could daunt, and who was qua- 
 lified by nature to arrest the descent of a falling em- 
 
 1 Afterwards Lord Lawrence. 
 
272 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 pire : you felt he was the man who could, if neces- 
 sary, blow a hundred mutineers at once from the 
 cannon's mouth. His conversation was pleasing and 
 animated, but hardly equal to the impression which 
 his personal appearance made on every beholder. 
 He was evidently a man of action, not of words. 
 He had been engaged actively in administrative 
 works and improvements in his great province of 
 the Punjab when the rebellion broke out, and he 
 was called suddenly to arrest the mutiny in his own 
 dominions, and equip troops to wrest Delhi with its 
 great arsenal from the enemy. He did both, and with 
 signal success. Beyond all doubt, but for his moral 
 courage and administrative talents, Delhi would have 
 remained in the hands of the insurgents, and India 
 would have been lost before Sir Colin Campbell and 
 the reinforcements from China and this country 
 could have arrived. 
 
 Dr Croly was another eminent man whom I met 
 frequently, and was twice seated next at dinner, at 
 this club. An Irishman by birth, and still retaining 
 in old age a strong Hibernian accent, he was a liv- 
 ing type of the Protestant and Orange party in the 
 north of Ireland. He had considerable abilities, and 
 great ardour of imagination, as well as decision 
 of character. He was quick with a ready flow of 
 oratory, as well in society as on the platform or in 
 the pulpit, and was entirely without fear in deliver- 
 ing his opinions either in public or private. He was 
 deeply imbued with the feelings and prejudices of 
 
1861.] DR CEOLY. 273 
 
 the Irish Protestants, and on that account Avas by 
 no means a safe guide to follow in political opinion ; 
 but he never failed to say something very striking 
 when roused ; and even when differing from him 
 on many points, you could not help admiring the 
 energy of his expressions and the independence of 
 his thought. His figure was large and heavy, but 
 the fire of genius was in his eye, which shone forth 
 with uncommon lustre beneath the shadow of shaggy 
 eyebrows. Had he been on the Liberal side he 
 would have been lauded to the skies, but being a 
 steady and conscientious Tory, he was put under 
 the ban by the opposite side, and by no means at- 
 tained the general celebrity to which his writings 
 entitled him. 
 
 The most striking spectacle this summer in Lon- 
 don was the great Volunteer Eeview in Hyde Park, 
 when 19,500 men, equipped at their own expense, 
 defiled before the Queen. The day, though a little 
 windy, was favourable. The crowd was immense, 
 and the excitement both of the troops and the spec- 
 tators had reached the highest point. The sight 
 of so large a body of men, volunteers serving with- 
 out pay, and in their own uniform, was extremely 
 imposing. They marched past in very creditable 
 order, considering that most of them had been only 
 a few months embodied, and of that time only two 
 or three days in the week actually drilled: the pru- 
 dence of their commander did not expose them to 
 the risk of movements in line, or of a complicated 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
274 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 kind. The advance in three massive close columns, 
 and the clieers which followed them at the end of 
 the day, were extremely grand, and aifected the 
 Queen and all around her visibly. Such was the 
 concourse of carriages on the occasion, that all the 
 streets and roads leading to Hyde Park were blocked 
 up, and in returning from the neighbourhood of 
 Grosvenor Gate, where we had been stationed durincf 
 the review, we were obliged to make a detour by 
 Piccadilly, St James's Street, and the Park to get 
 home by Buckingham Gate to Eaton Square. In 
 passing through the Park we stopped to see the regi- 
 ments which went home to the eastward, about 6000 
 strong, march past. They looked exceedingly well ; 
 the men seemed in the highest spirits, and delighted 
 Avith their day's exhibition ; and with some few ex- 
 ceptions they had the air and step of soldiers, and 
 appeared to have acquired, considering their recent 
 formation, a surprising degree of efficiency. 
 
 During this summer we were very frequently at 
 small dinner and evening parties at Lady Jersey's, 
 where as usual we met the elite of London society. 
 Among others we frequently met Mr Disraeli, and 
 I had repeated opportunities of observing his man- 
 ner and attending to his conversation, which is 
 always striking. He is in general, as I have already 
 observed, taciturn and cynical, and on that account 
 you are somewhat awed by him, and are a little 
 afraid that he is secretly turning you into ridicule. 
 This feeling however is, I am persuaded, unjust, and 
 
1861.] LOUIS NAPOLEON AND THE CARBONARI. 275 
 
 is founded on his well-known sarcastic powers in the 
 House of Commons, for I have seldom heard of his 
 doing iinkind or sayiug spiteful things in private 
 society. He is, however, sufficiently trenchant in his 
 estimate of others, and makes little allowance for the 
 absence of the abilities with which he himself is so 
 largely gifted. He is full of thought and observa- 
 tion, but makes no attempt to obtrude them on 
 others, or carry away the palm in transient and 
 ephemeral repartee. He is too ambitious for tempo- 
 rary display, and too reflecting for the mere warfare 
 of words. I never could help respecting, but felt no 
 disposition to love him. 
 
 On one occasion at this time, when seated next 
 the Marchioness of Ailesbury at a large dinner-party at 
 Lady Londonderry's, I was told by the former a very 
 singular anecdote of the Emperor Louis Napoleon, 
 whose recent exploits in Italy were then the subject of 
 general attention. The story was this — that shortly 
 after Orsini's execution for an attempt to assassinate 
 the Emperor, the latter was waited upon by two of 
 the highest dignitaries of the fraternity of Carhonari, 
 of which he was a member, who reminded him of 
 his oath, under pain of death, to do everything in his 
 power for the independence of Italy, and gave him fair 
 warning that though he had escaped almost by a mir- 
 acle on this occasion he would not do so on another ; 
 that one after another of their fraternity would seek 
 his life till it was taken, and that unless within six 
 months he commenced war against Austria on behalf 
 
276 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 of Italy, he would infallibly be destroyed. " That," 
 added the Marchioness, " was the real reason of the 
 late war in Lombardy ; and now there will be no 
 more assassination, unless he proves unfaithful to 
 the cause." I give this anecdote without of my 
 own knowledge vouching for its authenticity ; but 
 Lady Ailesbury assured me she had it from the best . 
 authority ; and her well-known friendship with the 
 first persons in Paris, as well as her remarkable in- 
 telligence and talent, induce me to attach credit to 
 the statement. 
 
 I frequently met the Princess Mary of Cambridge 
 during this summer, and on more than one occasion 
 she honoured me so far as to engage me in a long 
 and serious conversation. I formed from these op- 
 portunities of observation a very high opinion of 
 her talents. I am aware of the prestige of royalty ; 
 but allowing for this, it does appear to me on a dis- 
 tant retrospect that the conversation of the Princess 
 Mary was very remarkable. "With high spirits, a 
 decided turn for fun and amusement, and a great 
 flow of conversation, she unites strong good sense, 
 uncommon quickness of ajDprehension, and a truly 
 patriotic and British heart. In personal appearance 
 she is very handsome, with a tall and commanding 
 figure, and most expressive countenance. 
 
 At the State ball this year we saw for the last 
 time the faithful partner of the joys and sorrows of 
 the Queen. Prince Albert, as he occupied his usual 
 place on the dais beside her Majesty, looked remark- 
 
1861.] DEATH OP THE PRINCE CONSORT. 277 
 
 ably "well ; Lis countenance, always handsome and 
 commanding, was mellowed by the first traces of 
 age, and his expression, ever mild and benevolent, 
 had acquired additional sweetness by the first grey 
 hairs which encircled his lofty and intellectual fore- 
 head. He was nearly the tallest in the royal circle, 
 and looked the picture of health and strength ; no 
 one would have supposed when he stood in that 
 august circle, the observed of all observers, that it was 
 for the last time. In the following season the death 
 of the Duchess of Kent precluded all Court festivi- 
 ties, and before another season came round he was 
 no more. The nation never sustained a greater loss 
 than by his early and unexpected death. In addition 
 to great natural talents, and a highly cultivated edu- 
 cation, he possessed eminent prudence and good sense, 
 and a warm and patriotic heart. The wisdom of the 
 counsels which he gave to the Queen during the twenty 
 years they were united appeared in the prosperity of 
 her reign, and the successful way in which the nation 
 was brought through the most formidable dangers 
 during that period. He was eminently the man of 
 the age, abreast of its requirements, aware of its 
 wants, sympathising with its desires. His disposi- 
 tion, warm and philanthropic, led him to support 
 every institution which tended to encourage indus- 
 try, extend commerce, or alleviate sufi"ering, especi- 
 ally among the humblest classes of society. But it 
 was in support of them alone that he came pro- 
 minently forward. His sound judgment and perfect 
 
278 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 tact taught him that in this difficult position, 
 holding neither any political nor military office in 
 this country, his influence in national affairs should 
 make itself felt through others, not in his own per- 
 son. He was of a reserved disposition, but this wore 
 off on further acquaintance, and no one was more 
 affable and charming in intimate intercourse. 
 
 Though his philanthropic disposition inclined him 
 after his marriage with the Queen to pacific amelio- 
 rations, and the alleviation of human suffering, he 
 was not unmindful of the importance of the profession 
 of arms ; he took a warm interest in all the proceed- 
 ings of the War Office, and was fully abreast of all 
 the most recent improvements in naval and military 
 gunnery, which his extensive scientific acquirements 
 enabled him to appreciate. The nation owes him 
 a lasting debt of gratitude for the cordial support 
 which he gave to the successive Governments of 
 Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston, in their endeavours 
 to restore the national defences, so imprudently re- 
 laxed during the long previous peace purchased by 
 the efforts of former times. His refined taste and 
 anxious desire for social improvement and the ele- 
 vation of all classes of society, led him to become an 
 unwearied jpatron of the fine arts, and the nation 
 owes to his enlightened and persevering exertions 
 the great Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, which gave 
 so marked an impulse to the national industry, as 
 well in the ornamental as the useful arts, and have 
 gone so far to compensate the disadvantages of our 
 
1861.] SCOTCH VOLUNTEER REVIEW. 279 
 
 remote and singular situation. A faithful and affec- 
 tionate husband, a kind and judicious father, he pos- 
 sessed, amidst the cares of royalty, the simplicity of 
 private life, and was a model to all his consort's sub- 
 jects in every domestic virtue. He impressed all 
 who approached him on matters of business or sci- 
 ence with the highest opinion of his talents and 
 acquirements. Like many other estimable and un- 
 unobtrusive characters, his value was not rightly 
 appreciated till he was lost, and then the unanimous 
 burst of the national heart fully sympathised with 
 the anguish of .the Sovereign. 
 
 If the review of the volunteers in Hyde Park this 
 summer was a striking scene, still more remarkable 
 and interesting was that of the corresponding Scot- 
 tish force on the 7th August. The inherent martial 
 spirit of the Scottish nation then appeared in its 
 full lustre ; though their numbers were not more 
 than a sixth of those of England, the volunteers who 
 marched past were more numerous than in London, 
 and amounted to 21,500. They came from all quar- 
 ters, from the Solway Firth to Caithness, and pre- 
 sented when assembled a magnificent appearance. 
 Not the least interesting part of the spectacle was 
 the Marquis of Breadalbane, with his grey hairs, 
 riding at the head of his stalwart Highlanders from 
 the mountains of Perthshire. With some few excep- 
 tions the efficiency of the troops was very remark- 
 able, and it was evident that they had all applied 
 with hearty goodwill to the essential duties of drill. 
 
280 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 Nothing could be more favourable than the ground 
 for such an exhibition. The review was held in the 
 Queen's Park, a level surface, varied by a small lake, 
 lying immediately to the north of Arthur's Seat, and 
 at the foot of its overhanging cliffs. The mountain, 
 800 feet high, was covered with spectators, who en- 
 joyed in a natural amphitheatre, on a grander scale 
 than Roman magnificence ever formed, as glorious a 
 prospect as the eyes of the ancient conquerors of the 
 world ever opened upon. At least 200,000 jDorsons 
 were there assembled to witness the spectacle, and, like 
 the armed men, they too had come in great part from 
 the most distant parts of the country. The day was 
 fine, and from the summit of Arthur's Seat waved a 
 huge flag bearing the device of the old Scottish lion, 
 which for centuries had not been seen in that neigh- 
 bourhood. The only drawback to the perfection of the 
 scene was, what is rare in Scotland, volumes of dust, 
 which blackened the faces and almost blinded the eyes 
 of some of the corps as they marched past. The Queen 
 said with truth it was one of the finest spectacles 
 she had ever witnessed, and when the whole force 
 advanced at its close and gave three cheers she 
 burst into tears. It deserves to be recorded that so 
 perfect were the railway arrangements that the im- 
 mense multitude, armed and unarmed, arrived in 
 Edinburgh and returned home without any accident 
 or catastrophe whatever. 
 
 After our return from London this season, we paid 
 a visit to Buchanan House, where I formed an ac- 
 
1861.] LADY -JERSEY. 281 
 
 quaintance with a person whom I was very anxious 
 to know, as well from her own attractions and 
 ability as from the great eminence of her father. 
 This was young Lady Jersey, daughter of Sir R. 
 Peel, who had married Lord Villiers, eldest son of 
 the Earl of Jersey, before he had succeeded to the 
 latter title on the death ©f his father. She was still 
 in deep widow's mourning ; but as she was aware 
 of the friendship which had subsisted between her 
 sister-in-law, Lady Clementina Villiers, and myself, 
 we soon became intimate, and I found her conversa- 
 tion highly interesting. It turned at first on that 
 lamented and admirable person, for whose memory 
 we entertained the same regard. I took advantage of 
 several long conversations we had while walking to- 
 gether in the islands of Loch Lomond, while the rest 
 of the party were shooting, to ask her a great deal 
 about her father's habits of life. I inquired in par- 
 ticular whether it was true, as Lord John Hay had 
 assured me, on the authority of his sister Lady Emily 
 Peel, who had married her brother Sir Robert, that he 
 was by nature extremely choleric, and to such a degree 
 when at college, that he used to shut himself up in a 
 dark room till the fit of passion was over. She said it 
 might have been so when he was a young man, but 
 that he had early acquired such command of his 
 temper, that from her first recollection of him she 
 perceived no trace of infirmity in that particular. 
 She gave a very interesting, and to me unexpected, 
 account of his habits and life when at home. She 
 
282 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 said she could scarcely recollect the time when he 
 came into the room for breakfast or dinner without 
 a book under his arm ; that when they were alone 
 he had the book open before him the whole time 
 on the table, and read by snatches ; and that even 
 when there was company, and he was obliged to 
 attend to his guests, he had the book at hand, gen- 
 erally on the sideboard, and took it up and ensconced 
 himself behind a curtain, or in an oriel in the draw- 
 ing-room, to pursue his study. When alone he often 
 read aloud such passages in the works he was going 
 through as particularly struck him ; and she flattered 
 me by adding that she had often heard him read 
 parts of my History of Europe aloud in that way. 
 She spoke of him with tears in her eyes, and in the 
 most affectionate terms ; and it was easy to see that 
 his domestic kindness had thoroughly endeared him 
 to the members of his family. She was greatly dis- 
 satisfied with all the biographies of him which had 
 hitherto come out, as giving no sort of idea of his real 
 character, and characterised Lord Stanhope's Life, in 
 two volumes, in particular as a failure. Returning 
 to Buchanan House, after this interesting stroll in 
 exquisite scenery, we had the gratification of seeing 
 the last flaming rays of the sun rest upon Ben 
 Lomond's head : it recalled to my mind a similar 
 effect I had witnessed, forty years before, on the 
 snowy mountains of Switzerland from the valley 
 of Kandersteg. 
 
 The Social Science Association met at Glasgow in 
 
1861.] LOED BROUGHAM. 283 
 
 the end of September in this year, and many of the 
 most eminent men of England honoured it with their 
 presence. Among these were Lord Brougham, the 
 famed and venerable president of the society, who at 
 the age of eighty-two retained all the vigour and 
 vivacity of youth, though blended with the garrulity 
 of age ; Sir John Pakington, the able and energetic 
 First Lord of the Admiralty under Lord Derby ; the 
 Lord Advocate, whose eloquence and ability had won 
 such respect since his accession to office ; Sir John 
 Lawrence; the Hon. Mr Kinnaird, whose liberal 
 and patriotic spirit had so much endeared him to 
 the mining and working population of the country ; 
 and Sir John Kay-Shuttleworth, the eloquent and 
 enlightened apostle of education, known throughout 
 the whole empire. I asked all these gentlemen to 
 make Possil their home during their stay in Glas- 
 gow; and Sir Jolin Pakington, Sir John Lawrence, 
 and the Lord Advocate accepted, and were our 
 guests during the week. Lord Brougham had 
 already accepted Sir James Campbell's invitation ; 
 but he dined with ns, as well as Sir J. K. Shuttle- 
 worth and Mr Kinnaird. 
 
 This was the first time I had seen Lord Brougham 
 under my own roof; and as his years were so ad- 
 vanced, I was extremely glad at this opportunity of 
 meeting him under such favourable circumstances. 
 I had once been counsel with him in a great case in 
 the House of Lords, and heard him speak there ; but 
 although that occasion gave room for a full display 
 
284 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 of Ms legal acuteness, force of argument, and powers 
 of sarcasm, it aiforded no measure of his eloquence 
 on popular subjects. It is unfair to judge of a man's 
 powers who has long been before the public eye 
 by what he appears at eighty-two : at such ad- 
 vanced years the wonder perhaps is that he is able 
 to appear in public at all, rather than that he ap- 
 pears at a disadvantage. Yet in Lord Brougham's 
 case it must be confessed there was no appearance 
 of decay of the mental powers. He had still the 
 same fluency of language and command of argument 
 and sarcasm, and with them the same tendency to 
 exaggeration and repetition which distinguished him 
 in his best days. If the influences of time appeared 
 in anything, it was in an undue propensity to speak 
 of himself and his own achievements ; the form which 
 the garrula senectus generally assumes. He com- 
 mitted a mistake in bringing into his introduc- 
 tory lecture, which should have been confined to 
 social or statistical subjects, repeated disquisitions 
 on the party politics of the day — a deviation from 
 the proper subject which every one present felt to 
 be undesirable. He was loudly applauded, however, 
 but rather for w^hat he had been than for what he 
 wa% 
 
 In private society no one could be more delightful 
 than Lord Brougham. His kindliness of manner 
 and simplicity of demeanour won every heart. Con- 
 versation with him flowed naturally, as it was sug- 
 gested by topics started often by others, without 
 
1861. J LORD BROUGHAM. 285 
 
 either effort or anxiety for effect. It was very 
 delightful to see this in a man past eighty, who for 
 more than half a century had occupied an important 
 position in the public eye, and had in many ways 
 acquired such extensive fame. He spoke, like Mrs 
 Norton, much about himself; but that was readily 
 forgiven in him, as in her, from the interesting 
 matter which that subject contained. He looked 
 minutely at the portraits in our dining-room of my 
 ancestors, particularly those of my father and Dr 
 Gregory, and James Gregory the inventor of the 
 telescope which bears his name, and said to me, 
 after he had concluded his examination, " These pic- 
 tures carry me back sixty years, before I left Edin- 
 burgh or mixed with life in London : you must come 
 and see me at Brougham, and bring Lady Alison 
 and Mrs Fergusson with you." He spoke in the 
 highest terms of my father, saying his sermon on 
 Autumn was one of the finest pieces of composition 
 in the English language, and that he could say half 
 of it by heart. He was struck in a great degree 
 with the picture of James Gregory, and said : " That 
 man was the rival of Newton in mathematics ; he 
 discovered fluxions : you may well be proud of your 
 descent from such men." 
 
 While the Association was sitting, I accompanied 
 Sir John Pakington one forenoon to see the iron- 
 plated frigate, the Black Prince, which Avas build- 
 ing in one of the yards of Mr Napier, the great 
 shipbuilder on the Clyde. That able gentleman 
 
286 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 accompanied us over tlie whole vessel, of which we 
 made the most minute inspection. He explained the 
 principles on which it was constructed, the dangers 
 its various parts and contrivances were intended to 
 avert, and the probable influence of such stupendous 
 armed floating fortresses on naval warfare. He 
 seemed not to have a doubt of the capability of his 
 iron plates to resist even the heaviest of Armstrong- 
 guns, at least in forty-nine cases out of fifty, which 
 is almost equivalent to entire protection in actual 
 warfare. He pointed out, however, the weak part 
 in the neck of the vessel, between the poop and the 
 forecastle, where the plating was only two inches 
 thick, instead of four and a half, as it was in the 
 body of the ship, and said he feared a shot or two 
 there might disable her. Sir John Pakington, who 
 thoroughly understood the subject, entirely partici- 
 pated in these views ; and the conversation, to which 
 I attentively listened the whole time without joining 
 in it, was in the highest degree interesting. Coming 
 home, we sent away the carriage, and walked back, 
 a distance of five miles. The conversation fell, as 
 might naturally have been expected, on the vast 
 changes going on in the engines of naval warfare, 
 and the effect they would in all probability have 
 on the future security and independence of Britain. 
 I found that his views on that subject were very 
 gloomy, more especially since, by the recent com- 
 mercial treaty, we had agreed to give the French 
 coal and iron, the staple of our defence, to any 
 
1861.] LORD ADVOCATE MONCREIFF. 287 
 
 extent, in exchange for their wines ; and he added 
 that these vast floating castles would equalise the 
 naval forces of different countries, diminish seriously 
 the advantages of superior seamanship, and reduce 
 naval combats to a trial of gunnery and mechan- 
 ical skill. I entirely agreed with these observa- 
 tions, and observed that, supposing the strength of 
 the iron plates and the weight of the guns to be 
 equal on opposite sides, it was difficult to see how 
 either could be taken, except by running down with 
 the beak against the side, or by boarding ; and that 
 then, in the last stages of civilisation and nautical 
 skill, naval warfare would be brought back to the 
 same method of fighting which was practised in the 
 battles of Salamis and Actium. He acquiesced in 
 the observation, and said he thought it more than 
 probable such would ultimately be the case. 
 
 The Lord Advocate, with whom I became for the 
 first time intimately acquainted on this occasion, 
 proved himself a most agreeable inmate of a house. 
 His abilities in public no one could doubt. His 
 speech, or rather lecture, on the improvement of the 
 LaWj was the best I ever heard on that subject ; and 
 though necessarily professional and uninviting in 
 some of its details, it had the rare merit of keeping- 
 alive the attention and awakening the admiration of 
 a large and miscellaneous audience. I could easily 
 see, from the respect with which he was treated by 
 Sir John Pakington and Mr Kinnaird, that all I had 
 heard of his popularity in the House of Commons 
 
288 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIB, A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 was well founded. His position in a large party at 
 Possil, where they were all Conservative except him- 
 self, might have been unpleasant, had it not been 
 for the gentlemanlike liberality which he exhibited 
 on every occasion, and the cordial terms on which 
 the rival leaders of parties in the House of Commons 
 can meet in private society. Widely different is 
 that cordiality and mutual respect from the rancour 
 and animosity which characterises their subordinates, 
 especially in provincial towns. In nothing does the 
 superiority of society in the metropolis, to any that 
 is usually to be met with in the provinces, more dis- 
 tinctly appear than in this particular. 
 
 At the close of the meeting there was a great 
 dinner in the City Hall, with Lord Brougham in the 
 chair, which was attended by 800 persons. The 
 committee placed me in the croupier's chair, and in- 
 trusted me with the toast, " The Cause of General 
 Education." On such an occasion and in such pre- 
 sence a sanguine view of the subject was antici- 
 pated ; and I coincided with this expectation so far 
 as to represent Great Britain as the chief normal 
 school of the world, and the education of its children 
 therefore as instructing the teachers of mankind. I 
 ventured, however, at the same time to give ex- 
 pression to the opinion I had long entertained, that 
 education, taken by itself, was only a means to an 
 end ; that it altered the description, but had no ten- 
 dency to diminish the frequency, of crime ; and that 
 it depended on the direction given to it whether it 
 
1861.] SPEECH ON EDUCATION. 289 
 
 would prove a blessing or a curse. These views, 
 new to most of the members of the Association, and 
 certainly a novelty at its meetings, were listened to 
 with attention and respect, but by many with evi- 
 dent surprise. Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, however, 
 told me afterwards that what I said was perfectly 
 true, and he was very glad to hear it at length 
 beginning to be delivered from the platform. I 
 learned that Mr Kinnaird had the day before ex- 
 pounded the same sentiments in a very able lecture 
 
 delivered to the Association. A was present 
 
 on the occasion, and returned thanks for the army ; 
 and he spoke with ease, ability, and good taste, 
 although he did not know till a few minutes before 
 that he would be called on to do so. 
 
 An American gentleman of position and talent, a 
 judge at New York, Avho was present on this occa- 
 sion, dined next day with us and a small party at 
 Possil. His conversation was very interesting, the 
 more so from the important events in that country 
 of which it was the precursor, and the verification of 
 his views which subsequent events afforded. He 
 made me aware for the first time that though a con- 
 test at no distant period would arise between the 
 North and the South of America, slavery was not the 
 subject on which the difference would turn. Na- 
 ture, he observed, had drawn the line between the 
 free soil and slave States ; and that line was the 
 division between the countries in which the European 
 could labour in the fields and live, and those where 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
29U AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [1859- 
 
 he could not. Slavery has been disused and abolislied 
 in the North, because it is unnecessary and unprofit- 
 able, freemen being able to work there in the open 
 air, and their labour being more productive than 
 that of negroes. In the South it is adhered to, be- 
 cause it is a condition of existence. The black man 
 is able to bear the heat of the sun in the fields, and 
 thrive under it ; the white man perishes there in six 
 weeks. The line is well known by experience, but 
 it is not the line of latitude. It resembles rather the 
 isothermal lines on the globe, which are as serrated 
 as the aiguilles of the Alps. He deprecated on this 
 account in the strongest manner the interference of 
 England in the matter, as irritating to the feelings 
 of the Americans, and as turning a social distinc- 
 tion established by nature into a source of national 
 hatred and sectarian jealousy. He thought war was 
 inevitable at no distant period between the North 
 and the South, but it would be for conquest and 
 dominion, not for the abolition of slavery, which, 
 if carried out, would lead to the destruction of the 
 Southern States. 
 
 I have thought much on this great question of 
 slavery, since it has led to such serious consequences 
 of late years in the New World, and I have arrived 
 at the conclusion, however repugnant it may be to 
 European ideas, that in certain climates and with 
 certain races of mankind, it is part of the system of 
 nature — is unavoidable ; and that the wisdom of 
 Europeans is to endeavour to mitigate its severity 
 
1861.] SLAVERY. 291 
 
 and remove its harshest features, but not to attempt 
 to abolish it altogether. The two facts, — that the 
 European will work voluntarily, but cannot work 
 without perishing in tropical climates ; and that the 
 negro can work with safety in tropical climates, but 
 will not work unless forced to do so, — seem decisive 
 of the question. Compulsory labour in the tropics 
 is, then, the condition of national existence and of 
 social progress. The experiment of emancipation in 
 the British West India Islands, which has terminated 
 after the experience of a quarter of a century in 
 their ruin, has dispelled the pleasing illusion, so dear 
 to republicans of every age, that all men are equal 
 by nature. So far from being so, they are enormous- 
 ly unequal. " Inequality," as Bulwer remarks, " is 
 the universal law of nature, from the archangel who 
 basks in the splendours of the Godhead to the worm 
 that crawls upon the earth." We cannot account for 
 this ; but neither can we account for the fact that 
 some species of horses are fit only for the plough or 
 draught labour, and others are the companions and 
 fellow-soldiers of man. Our duty is to take things 
 as experience has shown us they are, and not to at- 
 tempt to explain away the economy of nature. The 
 negro, patient, aifectionate, and submissive, is the 
 best of all servants ; but invested with the powers of 
 self-government, he is either indolent, inactive, and 
 sensual, or fierce, relentless, and cruel. A percep- 
 tion of this does not preclude the most sedulous 
 attention to his material interests, and every effort 
 
292 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE. A. ALISON. [l869- 
 
 to ameliorate his condition ; on the contrary, it fur- 
 nishes an additional reason for such philanthropic 
 efforts. It is the obvious duty and true wisdom of 
 tlie Europeans to do everything in their power, with- 
 out abolishing, to modify and soften an institution 
 which has existed from the beginning of the world. 
 
 Lady Alison was during this autumn very seri- 
 ously ill of an alarming internal complaint, and she 
 was unable, in consequence, to take a part, in the 
 large parties we had during the Social Science 
 meetings. Being partially recovered, however, we 
 accepted an invitation to Hamilton Palace in the 
 beginning of November, where a very large and 
 brilliant party were assembled. The Duke and 
 Duchess did the honours with their wonted courtesy, 
 and the party went off with great eclat. Among 
 the rest the Marchioness of Ailesbury, Lady Cam- 
 den, and Mrs Norton were there. The first of 
 these renewed her statement, formerly made to me, 
 as to the threats held out to Louis Napoleon by 
 the Carbonari being the real cause of the Italian 
 war ; and she added — " You see he has done it, and 
 done it effectually ; there is no longer any danger, 
 unless he draws back, of his assassination." Among 
 others, I met here and renewed my former acquaint- 
 ance with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, formerly Sir 
 Stratford Canning, to whom I had the happiness of 
 introducing my two sons, both of whom, as well as 
 ourselves, were guests at the Palace. 
 
 Before winter set in, I became involved in a dis- 
 
1861.] STEEET-PREACHING. 293 
 
 pute of a religious character, which threatened at 
 one time very serious consequences, and required the 
 greatest prudence and consideration in its manage- 
 ment. It arose in this way. During the fervour of 
 the Free Kirk movement in Glasgow, a church of 
 that persuasion had been erected by an enterprising 
 body of citizens in a vacant space in the Bridgegate, 
 one of the oldest streets in G-lasgow, leading to one 
 of the chief bridges over the river, and inhabited at 
 this time by the very lowest classes, chiefly Irish 
 Eoman Catholics. The church was built there by its 
 founders on the principle of planting a station among 
 the heathen, in the hope of converting many of them 
 to what they sincerely believed to be a purer system 
 of Christian belief; and to give additional facilities 
 for the attainment of this object, they constructed a 
 stone pulpit on the outside, from which every Sun- 
 day evening the Free Kirk minister addressed the 
 assembled multitude in the street. This practice 
 began early in the preceding summer, but at first 
 attracted little attention. The preacher, however, 
 Avas a zealous and able man, and possessed in a high 
 degree that sincere fervour which is the most power- 
 ful element in speeches intended to move the work- 
 ing classes. The consequence was that the number 
 of his hearers gradually increased, and at last swelled 
 to such a degree as entirely to block up the street 
 for a distance of at least two hundred yards. This 
 was complained of by the Eoman Catholics, upon 
 the ground that these crowds entirely shut up one 
 
294 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 of the principal thoroughfares in the city, and the 
 chief line of passage for the Eoman Catholics to 
 evening service in their great chapel on the banks 
 of the Clyde ; and that the whole vicinity of the 
 stone pulpit was inhabited by Roman Catholics, 
 who deemed it a sin to hear, what they could not 
 avoid, divine service in a strange form, and incul- 
 cating what they deemed heretical doctrines. To 
 prevent this, and restore the passage through the 
 Bridgegate Vt^hen service was going on, the Catholics 
 fell on the device of hiring a number of cabs, 
 which drove through the crowd during service, so 
 as to prevent the minister being heard. The Free 
 Kirk people seeing this, and being scandalised by 
 so unseemly an interruption of a religious service, 
 closed their ranks to prevent the cabs getting 
 through ; and this led to squabbles and strife, dis- 
 graceful in a civilised society, and eminently hazard- 
 ous in a community containing multitudes so much 
 at variance with each other and yet so zealous as in 
 Glasgow. 
 
 The first intimation I received of these proceedings 
 was from the Eoman Catholic Bishop of Glasgow, 
 the Rev. Dr Murdoch, a most respectable man, who 
 had often and zealously endeavoured to appease 
 any discord which threatened between his flock 
 and the other religious sections of ±he community. 
 He warned me that danger was approaching, and 
 that all his efforts would be unable to prevent a 
 violent collision, if the street-preaching in the Bridge- 
 
1861.] STREET-PREACHING. 295 
 
 gate, which was felt as so serious a grievance by the 
 Roman Catholics, were persisted in. I soon after re- 
 ceived a memorial on the subject, signed by some 
 hundred householders in the neighbourhood, com- 
 plaining of the crowds on the occasion, and of the 
 streets being blocked every Sunday evening. In con- 
 sequence I addressed a letter, in conjunction with 
 Lord Provost Galbraith, who gave me the most 
 cordial support on the occasion, to the Rev. Mr 
 M'CoU, the minister in question, pointing out the 
 risk with which street-preaching in that particular 
 locality was attended, and requesting him to desist 
 there, although he might preach in the Green wher- 
 ever he chose, or in at least fifty other places within 
 the city, which the captain of the police would select 
 as suitable. He returned a respectful answer, saying 
 that he had no wish to disturb the peace of the city, 
 and would begin no disturbance, but that his mission 
 was in the Bridgegate, and he must do his duty 
 there. 
 
 This answer arrived late on Saturday evening, too 
 late to obtain an interdict ; and therefore I directed 
 the captain of police to have two hundred constables 
 ready concealed in the neighbourhood, and went 
 myself at the time when the service was to begin, 
 prepared for any emergency. An immense crowd, 
 evidently animated by angry passions, was already 
 assembled. All the streets in the vicinity were 
 choked with ardent multitudes, whose menacing 
 looks bespoke their anxiety for strife. The Catho- 
 
296 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 lics from all parts of the city were assembled in 
 great strength ; the Orangemen had come in from 
 Paisley and all the neighbouring towns, to support 
 the cause of the Protestant faith against the as- 
 saults of the Popish idolaters, as they deemed them. 
 Upwards of 40,000 men were crowded together in 
 the narrow space of a few streets, ready for strife, 
 and panting for the moment it was to begin. Any 
 trifling incident would have lighted up a conflagra- 
 tion, but happily it did not occur. The police, in 
 dense masses, were brought out from where they had 
 been concealed, and looked much more numerous 
 from their imposing military array than they really 
 were ; the carriages which used to be driven through 
 the crowd to interrupt the service were stopped, and 
 it proceeded to an end without any actual violence 
 being committed. Appearances, however, had been 
 so serious, that the Provost and I sent notice to 
 Mr M'CoU next day, that unless he would engage 
 not to attempt a public service in that place, we 
 would apply for an interdict. He replied that he 
 could not engage not to do so till he had consulted 
 his ecclesiastical superiors, as the right contended 
 for was regarded as vital to the Free Church ; but 
 that, as the season was so far advanced, no more 
 street - preaching would be attempted this winter, 
 and that it would not be resumed again without 
 giving us notice. And so the matter terminated 
 for the time. 
 
 During the sitting of the Social Science Associa- 
 
1861.] ADDRESS TO TRADES-UNIONISTS. 297 
 
 tion at Glasgow, a discussion, regarded with the 
 greatest interest by the working classes, took place 
 in one of the sections, on trades-unions and strikes. 
 I made a short speech on the occasion ; and the 
 sentiments I then delivered, which were in the ab- 
 stract in favour of such movements, when judiciously 
 exercised and clear of violence or intimidation, cre- 
 ated a desire on the part of the trades-unionists in 
 the west of Scotland to have my views more fully 
 explained to them. In the month of December, ac- 
 cordingly, I was requested by the united trades- 
 unionists of Glasgow to deliver them a lecture, which 
 was to be attended by delegates from all the trades- 
 unions in Scotland. It took place in the City Hall, 
 and was attended by three thousand workmen, al- 
 most all of the most respectable appearance and of 
 perfectly respectful demeanour. I could not help 
 thinking it a mark worthy circumstance, and not a 
 little gratifying to myself, that after all that had 
 passed between me and the trades-unions of Glas- 
 gow, and after the decided line I had been obliged 
 to take against them, they should have come to me 
 to instruct them in the principles on M^hich these 
 important public movements should be regulated. 
 
 I began by observing, — partly from a conviction of 
 its truth, partly in order to conciliate my hearers 
 and induce them to listen to observations which, 
 taken by themselves, would be unpalatable, — that 
 with whatever suffering and evils the general ces- 
 sation from labour on the part of large bodies of 
 
298 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 men might be attended, such movements were at 
 times unavoidable, to avoid the still greater evils 
 arising from the subversion of the balance between 
 capital and labour. That such was the accumula- 
 tion of realised wealth, and its power in creating 
 machinery in the later stages of society, that unless 
 a corresponding addition were made to the influence 
 of labour and the means of asserting its rights, it 
 would be crushed and overpowered by the superior 
 weight of its formidable competitor, and the wages 
 of workmen would be beat down to the lowest point 
 consistent with the creation of wealth for their em- 
 ployers ; and that the only way in which this could 
 be done was by the workmen combining together, 
 and compensating the united action of wealth on the 
 one side by the united action of numbers on the 
 other. I held that trades-unions and strikes, there- 
 fore, were unavoidable in every manufacturing com- 
 munity in the later stages of its progress ; and they 
 were, in fact, the way in which the principle of com- 
 petition operated and made itself felt in the advanced 
 and highly civilised stages of society. 
 
 But from this very circumstance it was equally 
 evident that combinations could only be serviceable 
 in maintaining the rights and interests of the work- 
 men, and strikes in enforcing them, when both were 
 regulated on right principles and conducted only by 
 legal means. That what 'these means were was 
 plain — -namely, to do to others as they would be 
 done by, and leave to all competitors the same 
 
1861.] ADDEESS TO TEADES-UNIONISTS. 299 
 
 freedom in regard to their wages which they asserted 
 for themselves, and never to attempt to coerce them 
 by force or violence, which necessarily defeated their 
 own objects, by turning the moral feelings of man- 
 kind against them. That in addition to this, it was 
 indispensable never to use the last and desperate 
 remedy of a strike, except in circumstances when it 
 was likely to prove successful, which could only be 
 expected when it took place with a rising market ; 
 that it was as inevitable that wages should follow the 
 variation of prices as that the temperature of the air 
 should follow the changes of the seasons ; and that 
 as they all saw the justice of a rise of wages follow- 
 ing an advance of prices, it was reasonable that they 
 should admit the justice of a decline of wages follow- 
 ing a fall of prices. That of all attempts the most 
 futile and disastrous was to endeavour by a strike to 
 prevent wages from falling on a decline of prices, 
 because to stop labour at such a time was a step in 
 the interest of the masters, not of themselves, as it 
 relieved the former of the burden of maintaining the 
 latter by wages when they could not make a profit 
 by their labour. All serious and disastrous strikes 
 had arisen from the vain attempt to do this ; and 
 it was the repeated failures of great strikes intended 
 to effect this which had given rise to the common 
 opinion, M^hich in many cases was unfounded, that 
 all strikes were unfortunate. I concluded by point- 
 ing out the close connection which existed between 
 monetary changes and variation of prices, strongly 
 
300 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l8f.9- 
 
 recommeudiiiff them never to strike when the bullion 
 in the Bank of England was under £15,000,000 ; 
 and if possible to select for such a step a time when 
 prices were rising, and bullion was accumulating in 
 the coffers of the bank, and when, in consequence, it 
 would be as much for the interest of the masters 
 to give them the desired advance, as it was when 
 prices were falling to refuse it, and thereby induce 
 a cessation of the payment of wages from which no 
 profit could be made. 
 
 This speech, which was extemj)ore, and spoken 
 from only a few statistics written out, lasted two 
 hours, and was listened to throughout with marked 
 attention. Many parts of it were loudly applaud- 
 ed ; and even those which jarred on preconceived 
 opinions were heard without the slightest attempt 
 at interruption. It made a considerable impres- 
 sion in the way which I was most desirous to ef- 
 fect, by making the men sensible of the absurdity, 
 with reference to their own interests, of attempt- 
 ing in periods of disaster to avert a fall of wages 
 by strikes. I had afterwards the satisfaction of 
 learning that a great strike in the whole coal and 
 mining districts of Scotland, which had been strong- 
 ly recommended from the corresponding unions in 
 England, during the serious monetary and com- 
 mercial depression of 1861, had been mainly pre- 
 vented by that speech. The leaders came down to 
 me from the Middle Ward, and we discussed the 
 matter for two hours. They went away saying that 
 
1861.] THE USURY LAWS. 301 
 
 they themselves saw I was right, and that a strike 
 would be hopeless at that time, but that they feared 
 their constituents would force them into it. In a 
 week, however, they sent me word that the men had 
 been thinking over what I had. said at the great 
 meeting, and that they acquiesced in the abandon- 
 ment of the design. 
 
 The approach of the monetary crisis and com- 
 mercial depression of 1861 revealed in the clearest 
 colours, by the light of the experience presented in 
 the Sheriff Court of Glasgow, the ruinous effects of 
 the repeal of the usury laws, combined with the de- 
 pendence by the monetary laws of general credit on 
 the affluence and retention of gold. Great numbers 
 of cases were brought before the bankruptcy or ordi- 
 nary court, in which it appeared that persons had 
 been allured from employment by wages into trade, 
 by the offer from banks or money-lenders of advances 
 at 2^ or 3 per cent, which in less than twelve months 
 being run up to 30, 40, and even 60 per cent, the 
 borrowers were in consequence reduced to total ruin. 
 It was hard to say in these cases whether the low 
 rate of interest at first, which tempted the adven- 
 ture on hazardous undertakings, or the extravagant 
 usurious rate at last, which caused them to stop, 
 were the greater evil. The old usury laws, which 
 prohibited, by the effectual means of declaring the 
 contract null, the taking of interest at over 5 per 
 cent, operated not less beneficially by preventing 
 the commencement of absurd or hazardous undertak- 
 
302 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. ■ [l859- 
 
 ings ; or at least by saving the honest and cautious 
 trader, when he had once entered into them, from 
 being crushed by a usurious rate of interest, occa- 
 sioned by no imprudence of his own, but by the 
 mere drain of the precious metals abroad. On the 
 other hand, the repeal of these laws, by allowing 
 anything to be charged for the use of money on 
 which the parties were agreed, operated no less 
 fatally, by holding out in the first instance on all 
 sides snares to tempt the unwary into perilous en- 
 terprises, and enabling the capitalists on the first 
 approach of danger to reduce them, when so engaged, 
 to beggary by the price they were compelled to pay 
 for money when the evil day came. Still more ruin- 
 ous was this system when, under the new monetary 
 laws, the recurrence of the dark day after the bright 
 one was as certain and inevitable as the return of 
 night after day. On no other principle does it 
 seem possible to explain the extraordinary fact, that 
 during ten years of advancing prices and consequent 
 prosperity induced by the gold discoveries, and in 
 the face of an annual emigration in these years, 
 which in one year (1852) was 368,000, and never 
 less than 100,000, the paupers in England alone 
 were never less than 800,000 — often 900,000— out 
 of a population below 19,000,000. 
 
 The truth is, that the protection of industry against 
 the tyranny of capital is part of the general protection, 
 which it is the main object of Government and 
 civilisation to efi"ect, of the weak against the strong. 
 
1861.] THE TYRANNY OF CAPITAL. 303 
 
 Armed with the power of giving or withholding 
 employment, and capable of subsisting on realised 
 funds while labour is starving, capital has greater 
 means of oppressing industry than either the robber 
 of rude, or the feudal lord of more advanced times. 
 It is the first duty of Grovernment to interfere to 
 prevent this oppression, which is effected not less 
 by the undue facilities given to borrowing money 
 at one time than by the extravagant price charged 
 for it at another. . This can only be done by a 
 compulsory law against the taking of usurious in- 
 terest, wliich, by depriving capital of the prospect 
 of extravagant interest in the end, will render it 
 chary of lavish advances in the beginning. It no 
 doubt sounds well to say, " Leave everything to 
 find its own level, and money among the rest." That 
 is a very agreeable doctrine to the money-lender, 
 but a most destructive one to the money-borrower. 
 The protection of the borrower against the oppres- 
 sion of the lender in money transactions is a branch 
 of the same principle which prohibits the use of 
 women in mines, which limits the hours of labour 
 in factories, and prohibits the employment of infant 
 children in some of those establishments. It is the 
 necessity of protecting the weak against the strong, 
 not less stringent with the free than with slaves, 
 which is the foundation of all these enactments. 
 Whoever has witnessed, as I have so long done, 
 the arts by which the money-lenders in Glasgow 
 tempt their unwary victims, and then the unrelent- 
 
304 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON". [l859- 
 
 ing way in which they exact the last farthing of 
 extravagant usury from them when a storm ap- 
 proaches, will not wonder at the constant com- 
 plaints in antiquity of the oppression of money- 
 lenders, and the general inefficacy of all legislative 
 measures intended for relief from them. 
 
 The great difficulty now experienced in all measures 
 connected with this subject is that realised wealth 
 gets the command of the press. This is a serious 
 evil, the magnitude of which can only be rightly 
 appreciated by those who, like myself, have for a 
 long course of years been the daily spectators of the 
 evils attendant on the system introduced for the 
 benefit of capitalists on the one hand, and the 
 strenuous and generally successful efforts made by 
 its holders to crush any investigation into it on the 
 other. The influence of numbers, the great counter- 
 poise in the general case to that of wealth, is in this 
 matter unable to combat it. . This arises from two 
 causes. In the first place, the whole afi'air of money, 
 so vital in its effects on the best interests of society, 
 and especially of the working classes, is one on 
 which it is impossible to rouse the masses, simply 
 because it is to a certain degree abstruse, and does 
 not ]Dresent any object which strikes the senses. 
 Every one can understand and appreciate the differ- 
 ence of the big and the little loaf, of cheap or dear 
 bread ; but very few can be brought to understand 
 or take any lasting interest in the far more import- 
 ant influence of a plentiful or contracted currency 
 
1861.] IGNORANCE OF THE MONETARY SYSTEM. 305 
 
 on prices, or the connection between free-trade in 
 the lending of money, and the dangers to the 
 borrowers from its establishment. In the next 
 place, on this very account, the whole monetary 
 system is one which is never selected as a cheval 
 de hataille by the democratic leaders. As it does 
 not afford the means of rousing the masses, it 
 is not one to tempt individual ambition. " The 
 people," says Harrington, "can feel, but they cannot 
 see." They shrug their shoulders, complain of the 
 bad times, or rush into the ' Gazette,' in order to 
 get a personal protection from imprisonment, but 
 they never think of inquiring as to what cause their 
 ruin has been owing. If any attempt is made to ex- 
 plain it, they say it is too difficult a subject for them, 
 and they don't understand it. Meanwhile, realised 
 wealth, with the glittering .prospect of 8 or 10 per 
 cent before its eyes, and thoroughly understanding 
 the subject, quickly buys up the shares of the lead- 
 ing journals, gets the command of their columns, 
 and then employs the ablest writers to support its 
 interests, and run down any one who attempts to 
 oppose them. This despotism is the more formid- 
 able, because it is one of the most irremovable 
 which in the changes of society has come to be 
 imposed by man upon man. 
 
 If the want of protective legislation is severely felt 
 in the later stages of society in this particular, its 
 presence was felt in a pernicious way in another 
 matter of general interest and importance. The 
 
 VOL. TT. u 
 
306 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 vast evils of intemperance, existing to so fearful an 
 extent in Scotland, had long attracted the anxious 
 attention of all the wellwishers to their country in 
 that state, and a great public meeting, as already 
 mentioned, had been held in Edinburgh on the 
 subject, in which I took a part. I soon saw, how- 
 ever, that the leaders of that movement, who were 
 chiefly the clergy, with no practical knowledge of 
 mankind, were inclined to go much too far, and 
 I in consequence withdrew from the association. 
 Many urged the immediate adoption of a Maine 
 Law, or one absolutely prohibiting the sale of spirits 
 except on a medical certificate of its necessity, and 
 declaring the punishment of transportation against 
 any infringement of the Act. A bill was brought 
 forward in 1852 by Mr Forbes Mackenzie, during 
 Lord Derby's administration, which, without going 
 that extravagant length, was sufEciently stringent 
 in the restrictions it imposed on spirit-dealers. By 
 that Act, so well known in Scotland by its author's 
 name, it was provided that no spirit-shop, under 
 severe penalties, should be kept open after 1 1 o'clock 
 at night, and no spirits be sold on Sunday at all 
 " except to hond fide travellers." The execution of 
 this Act Was committed to the police authorities ; 
 and as the evil it was intended to abate was univer- 
 sally felt, it received every facility in being carried 
 into effect. 
 
 The result, however, was very different from what 
 was anticipated, and afforded a striking example of 
 
1861.] THE FORBES MACKENZIE ACT. 307 
 
 the extreme danger of attempting to put a barrier 
 against any of the general wants or cravings of man- 
 kind. Nature has spoken out as to the use of 
 ardent spirits in cold and wet climates, by the pro- 
 fusion in which she has put alcohol in barley, which 
 grows so well in the most inhospitable climates ; and 
 that an attempt was being made to thwart her in- 
 tentions on a great scale was soon apparent. No 
 sooner were these severe restrictions imposed on 
 licensed spirit - dealers than a host of unlicensed 
 ones sprang up, who, being for the most part un- 
 known to the police, and having no signs up, were 
 enabled with comparative impunity to set the law 
 at defiance, and permit every species of debauchery 
 to go on in their houses. Their number swelled in 
 two years in Glasgow alone from forty or fifty to 
 eight hundred. Meanwhile the police were involved 
 in frequent contests with the inebriated and their 
 abettors, in the attempt to enforce the law, partic- 
 ularly in regard to closing at eleven ; and in the 
 efi'orts to discover who infringed it, recourse was of 
 necessity had to spies and informers, generally the 
 very worst class of society, and whose co-operation 
 brought obloquy on the administration of the law. 
 Matters were brought to a crisis by the trial 
 before one of my substitutes of three officers of 
 the criminal department for an assault committed 
 in the attempt to carry into execution the Forbes 
 Mackenzie Act, who were convicted and sentenced 
 to six months' imprisonment. The result was 
 
308 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 that, by the common consent of all concerned, 
 sheriff, magistrates, police, and the public generally, 
 the Act was allowed quietly to lapse into desuetude 
 in Glasgow ; and scarcely any attempt is made to 
 enforce its provisions, except in very flagrant cases 
 of contravention, in any of the adjoining towns or 
 villages. 
 
 This illustrates the important truth that it is not 
 only in vain, but positively injurious, to attempt to 
 bar altogether or impose vexatious restraints on any 
 of the great instinctive desires of human nature ; and 
 that the true wisdom is, without attempting altogether 
 to thwart these, to modify their direction, and ren- 
 der them as little hurtful as possible. Much may 
 be done in this way, without incurring the risks 
 with which a more stringent course is attended. The 
 way of doing it in the case of ardent spirits is, in 
 the first place, to raise the price of spirits to all con- 
 sumers, whether in licensed or unlicensed houses, 
 till it reaches the point when, from smuggling be- 
 coming profitable and general, a further increase 
 would be not only nugatory, but pernicious — in- 
 deed it should always be kept well below this point. 
 Apparently this line has been reached by the duty 
 of 7s. now levied on a gallon of spirits. In the 
 next place, it is expedient to raise if possible the 
 class of houses in which spirits are sold, just as it 
 is to keep up the class of persons in whom the 
 political franchise is vested. This is to be done 
 by licensing only houses of a certain class, as those 
 
1861.] LICENSING REFORM. 309 
 
 rented at and above £20; making the licence duty 
 high ; and, as far as possible, enforcing the law 
 against unlicensed and inferior dealers. This seems 
 the only practical way of dealing with the dreadful 
 evil of inordinate drinking. Temperance leagues, 
 associations, and meetings, the eloquence of the 
 pulpit and the platform, are nearly unavailing 
 against it. They may please large audiences, and 
 convert a few waverers on the frontiers of dissipa- 
 tion ; but those who attend such meetings are for 
 the most part already sober, and need no conver- 
 sion. The immense mass of those inclined to evil 
 habits never go to such meetings, nor read anything 
 regarding them. The tens fill them, are delighted, 
 and loudly applaud the speakers ; the hundreds go 
 by to the spirit-shops on the other side unheeding. 
 For this immense mass the only effectual restraint 
 is high price — reason, eloquence, philanthropy are 
 thrown away upon them. But high price, and 
 if possible respectability of houses, are the only 
 securities which should be aimed at : farther re- 
 striction or absolute prohibition are worse than 
 useless, and only aggravate the evils they are in- 
 tended to remedy. 
 
 In the beginning of summer, when the long days 
 had returned, and open-air preaching had again 
 become common, an attempt was made to renew 
 the evening services from the stone pulpit in the 
 Bridgegate. The Rev. Mr M'CoU, with whom, as 
 already mentioned, the Lord Provost and I had 
 
310 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 had a correspondence on the subject in the pre- 
 ceding autumn, sent notice to Captain Smart, the 
 chief of the police, that he proposed to renew his 
 open - air preaching the next Sunday, and that he 
 requested he might receive the necessary protection. 
 Captain Smart immediately forwarded the letter to 
 the Lord Provost and to myself, accompanied by a 
 report to the effect that the design, if persisted in, 
 would be highly dangerous, and that the peace of 
 the city would infallibly be broken by the fury of 
 the contending parties. Since our former correspon- 
 dence on the subject had taken place, Mr Galbraith, 
 the former Lord Provost, had retired from office, 
 and been succeeded by Mr Clouston. The latter 
 gentleman, a man of remarkable intelligence and 
 spirit, entered into the subject as warmly as his 
 predecessor had done, and we addressed a joint 
 letter to Mr M'CoIl, representing the dangers of 
 rousing the religious passions of large bodies of men 
 in such a town as Glasgow, and requesting him to 
 relinquish his intention of preaching in that locality ; 
 mentioning again that he might preach anywhere 
 he pleased in the Green, or in fifty other places 
 which Captain Smart would point out, where it 
 would be attended with no danger, and where he 
 would, if necessary, be protected by the police. He 
 replied that he could not conscientiously abstain 
 from what he regarded as a sacred duty, and that 
 he would preach next Sunday at 7 o'clock from the 
 stone pulpit in Bridgegate. I immediately granted. 
 
1861.] INTERDICT ON STREBT-PEEACHING. 311 
 
 on the application of the procurator -fiscal of the 
 city, an interdict against the proceeding, which was 
 served on Mr M'Coll on Saturday afternoon. 
 
 On the evening for which the open-air preaching 
 in the Bridgegate had been advertised, and at the 
 appointed hour, I directed two hundred policemen to 
 be assembled in a small court in the vicinity of the 
 place threatened with the disturbance, and a reserve 
 of a hundred more to be in readiness at the police 
 office, and I myself repaired to the spot, to satisfy 
 my own eyes as to the temper of the people, and be 
 ready to take the direction if necessary. I found a 
 great crowd assembled, through whom I walked alone, 
 conversing occasionally with the people. 1 was 
 well known to them as the chief opponent of Mr 
 M'Coll's street-preaching, but they received me with 
 respect and courtesy, and seemed impressed with 
 the conviction that, now that it had come to that 
 issue, the law would prevail. Mr M'Coll, however, 
 had the benefit of good legal advice : he made no 
 attempt to break the interdict, and the evening 
 passed without any collision. I remained at the 
 police office till it was dark, and the crowd had 
 dispersed, and then returned home, well pleased to 
 have got without bloodshed through so serious a 
 collision with the Free Kirk and Dissenting con- 
 gregations of Glasgow. 
 
 The interdict granted by me was only till the 
 parties could be heard on the Monday following ; 
 when they were accordingly heard at great length, in 
 
ol2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 a Court composed of myself and my four substitutes. 
 These all concurred with me in opinion that the pro- 
 ceeding attempted was unlawful, as obstructing a 
 common thoroughfare, and endangering the public 
 peace, and that it should be stopped. The inter- 
 dict was accordingly continued till the future orders 
 of Court, which was in effect declaring it perpetual, 
 as the Free Kirk party were too well advised to 
 attempt by pushing on the process to get it recalled. 
 As this was declaring open war on this point 
 against the puritanical party of Scotland^ I was 
 careful in the speech I delivered on the occasion to 
 distinguish between street-preaching in the locality 
 where it was now attempted, and in other situations 
 where it might be done without impediment or 
 danger to the ]Dublic. In such I declared there was 
 no objection to it, and the ministers in exercising 
 their sacred functions there would not only be no- 
 ways disquieted, but protected by the police. In 
 confirmation of this, I observed that as the County 
 Buildings, where the sheriff's office was situated, 
 was in an open space, not a thoroughfare, where no 
 irritation could be caused to any party, I had no 
 objection to Mr M'CoU taking his stand to preach 
 on the steps of that building. 
 
 The good effects of separating in this manner the 
 question of preaching in the Bridgegate from that of 
 open-air or street preaching in general, were soon 
 apparent. Immense was the excitement which the 
 decision at first produced. The Free Kirk journals, 
 
1861.] THE WALLACE MONUMENT. 313 
 
 joined by nearly all the Dissenting and many of 
 the Established churches, opened upon us with the 
 utmost violence. We were a disgrace to the age, — 
 were striving to renew the persecutions of the dark 
 ages, and to stifle the word of God. Some went so 
 far as to insinuate that the hand of the Eomish 
 Church and Hamilton Palace might be discerned in 
 this scandalous attempt. But I was careful not to 
 reply, and to avoid a newspaper controversy ; and 
 by degrees reason came to prevail over furious pas- 
 sions, and the excitement on the subject gradually 
 declined. 
 
 For several years past a desire had been felt in 
 Scotland for a monument to Sir William Wallace, 
 whose heroic arm had laid the foundation of the 
 national independence in a remote age, and under 
 circumstances of extraordinary difficulty. A consid- 
 erable diversity of opinion, however, existed on the 
 subject, and it was regarded with undisguised aver- 
 sion in England, and the ' Times ' newspaper in par- 
 ticular lost no opportunity of representing it in an 
 unfavourable light. The zeal and energy, however, 
 of the promoters of the movement, at length over- 
 came all obstacles ; and a sufiicient sum having 
 been subscribed, and the design of the monument 
 selected, preparations were made for laying the 
 foundation-stone on the 24th June — the anniversary 
 of the battle of Bannockburn. The site selected was 
 appropriate. It was on the summit of the Abbey 
 Craig, a rocky eminence 200 feet in height, sur- 
 
314 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l859- 
 
 mouHting the level plain in which, between the 
 Ochil and Campsie hills, the Forth meanders, and 
 in which Stirling Castle is situated. It overlooks 
 the spot, about a mile distant, where, at a bend of 
 the river, there formerly stood a wooden bridge, by 
 which the English army crossed over to attack the 
 Scotch, drawn up on the southern slopes of the 
 Ochils. It is a remarkable fact, indicating how 
 identical the real principles of war are in all ages 
 and under all circumstances, that the tactics by 
 which Wallace, in the thirteenth century, effected 
 the destruction of the English army at Stirling — 
 viz., allowing half their army to cross and sud- 
 denly attacking them before the rest could get 
 over — were the same by which, five hundred years 
 after, the Archduke Charles defeated Napoleon on 
 the field of Aspern. 
 
 I hesitated at first to accept the chairmanship of 
 the meeting, and even declined it, on the ground that 
 some nobleman of high rank would be more suit- 
 able to discharge its duties ; but finding that they 
 all held back, with the exception of the Duke of 
 Athole," who, as Grand Master of the Freemasons, 
 was to lay the foundation-stone — and being desirous 
 to prevent the thing falling into hands in which it 
 might excite obloquy and sustain damage — I accept- 
 ed the profi"ered honour. Few of the neighbouring 
 gentry attended, but my friend Sir Maxwell Wal- 
 lace, the lineal descendant of the great hero, Avas 
 present, and officiated as field-marshal of the pro- 
 
1861.] THE WALLACE MONUMENT. 315 
 
 cession on the occasion. The management had got 
 into Radical hands, so far as the local committee was 
 concerned, and the Tory landed proprietors in con- 
 sequence stood aloof. Many also were afraid of the 
 thunders of the ' Times,' which it was expected would 
 fulminate on those concerned in the undertaking. 
 
 But if the aristocracy and higher orders hung 
 back, the middle and lower orders exhibited such 
 a gathering at Stirling on that day as had not been 
 seen in this country since the wasted bands of 
 the Scots went forth to combat for its independence 
 on the field of Bannockburn. From the east and 
 from the west, from the north and from the south, 
 they came forth, animated with one enthusiastic 
 feeling. They came from the Solway Firth and the 
 extremity of Caithness, from the Mull of Cantire and 
 the rocks of Aberdeen. Fourteen thousand Free- 
 masons attended, in their respective lodges, with 
 their distinctive scarfs and insignia ; the whole of 
 the volunteer regiments in the adjoining counties 
 turned out ; the magistrates of nearly all the Scotch 
 burghs were present ; and the total number of 
 strangers assembled at Stirling on the occasion was 
 not short of 200,000. The procession, six deep, was 
 arranged on the Links of Stirling, the scene of the 
 exploits of the knights in days of yore ; the Ladies' 
 Rock was clustered with fair forms, as enthusiastic, 
 but less anxious than those who had watched, five 
 hundred years before, their sons and husbands con- 
 fronting the English host on the field of Bannock- 
 
316 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l8o9- 
 
 burn. So numerous were the public bodies which 
 walked in uniform, that Avhen the leading corps 
 were ascending the Abbey Craig, where the founda- 
 tion-stone was to be laid, the last had not left the 
 Links of Stirling, three miles distant I The day was 
 eminently propitious. The sun broke forth in un- 
 clouded brilliancy as the procession began to ascend 
 the Abbey Craig ; the glens of the Ochils, shrouded 
 in shade, brought out their beautiful slopes ; and in 
 the lovely plain at their foot, the waters of the Forth 
 glittered amidst verdant meadows. In the extreme 
 distance the lofty chain of the " Grampians, the na- 
 tive guardians of the land," shut in the prospect to 
 the west ; while to the east, the Firth of Forth was 
 seen expanding amidst the rich and smiling plains of 
 the Lothians. The crowd clustered like bees round 
 the wooded sides of the cliff, and crowned in one 
 dense mass its broad summit, when the Duke of 
 Athole, with all the Masonic ceremonies, laid the 
 foundation-stone of the monument. I then addressed 
 the multitude in a few sentences, which were loudly 
 applauded. An incident added greatly to the effect 
 of the proceeding. As I began, the guns com- 
 menced to fire from Stirling Castle, and I instantly 
 alluded to it as indicating the sympathy of the 
 Queen with the movement — a coincidence which 
 made the rock resound with the shouts of a hundred 
 thousand voices. 
 
 In the evening a dinner took place in the Corn 
 Exchange of Stirling, which was attended by above 
 
1861.] THE WALLACE DINNER. 317 
 
 800 persons. As chairmau of the meeting it fell 
 to me to propose the toast of the evening — "The 
 immortal memory of Sir William Wallace ; " and it 
 required no small tact and consideration to do so. 
 It would have been easy to have wound the audi- 
 ence up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm by praise 
 of the Scotch and abuse of the English, for they 
 were to a man intensely national, and highly excited, 
 and would have received any amount of either with 
 applause. But it is a grating thing in one part of 
 a united kingdom to see a victory celebrated which 
 was won over another part ; and considering how 
 much the security and influence of the British em- 
 pire depends on the cordial union of all its members, 
 it was a difficult task to glorify these old and unde- 
 niable events which shed lustre on the one without 
 bringing discredit on the other. Influenced by these 
 considerations, I endeavoured to present a view of 
 the achievements of Wallace which, while it should 
 do justice to the memory of that illustrious patriot, 
 should at the same time exhibit clearly the immense 
 advantages which Scotland, in common with every 
 other part of the empire, derived from union with 
 England. I had reason to congratulate myself; for 
 although the meeting attracted great attention, and 
 the speeches were quoted at length in the chief Eng- 
 lish as well as all the Scotch papers, no unpleasant 
 feelings were expressed, and in many of the southern 
 journals the subject was mentioned in terms of gen- 
 erous enthusiasm. 
 
318 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON". [l859- 
 
 During the month which preceded this interesting 
 pageant, I was actively engaged with my lives of 
 Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart. It had 
 been intended to have published them before the 
 season came to an end in London in this year, and 
 I had for some time nearly doubled my daily aver- 
 age of writing to effect this object. I wrote five or 
 six instead of three pages a-day. But the general 
 depression of commerce, in consequence of the Ameri- 
 can Civil War, which had recently broken out, and 
 the absorption of public interest on that most im- 
 portant event, induced Mr Blackwood to postpone 
 the period of publication, and it did not appear till 
 the 1st December following. In the meantime, how- 
 ever, I was indefatigable in my efforts to drive the 
 work to a conclusion. I felt the same nervous 
 anxiety which I had experienced when approaching 
 the termination of my History and Continuation, lest 
 anything should occur to prevent its completion. 
 Indeed I felt more anxious ; for the long period 
 which had elapsed since the first of these works was 
 concluded, on 7th June 1842, and the great amount 
 of intellectual labour since undergone, had of course 
 increased the chances and uncertainty of life. At 
 length my labours were brought to a termination. 
 On the 27th July 1861, sitting in the library at 
 Fossil with Lady Alison, the faithful partner of my 
 labours, my joys, and anxieties, I wrote "the last 
 line of the last page," and finally laid aside my 
 historic pen. At the age of sixty -eight it is too 
 
1861.] CONCLUSION OF CASTLEREAGH LIVES. 319 
 
 late to begin any new work ; and the intervals, 
 always brief, of severe and daily increasing profes- 
 sional duty will be amply occupied in revising my 
 numerous writings for successive editions, and add- 
 ing such additional documents in the form of notes 
 as have come out since the text was written. I am 
 happy to say I have not been under the necessity of 
 correcting or withdrawing any statement, beyond an 
 error in the press or the rectifying of a figure. 
 
 The coming of age this summer of our young 
 friend and neighbour, Mr Spiers of Elderslie, a 
 promising young man recently gazetted to the 
 Grenadier Guards, led to a series of brilliant fetes 
 at Elderslie, presided over by his mother, Mrs 
 Spiers, with her usual taste and elegance, at which 
 a very numerous and brilliant party from far and 
 near was assembled. Like her other neighbours, 
 we threw open our house to her guests on the oc- 
 casion, and we had F ■ and his friend Lord 
 
 Loughborough under our roof while it lasted, which 
 was for three days. Both Lady Alison and I were 
 much struck with this highly gifted young man. 
 To brilliant talents and high breeding and manners 
 he adds a vein of romance, very rare in this utili- 
 tarian age in any rank, but most of all in the 
 fashionable society and gay circles in London in 
 which he had for several years moved. He pos- 
 sesses considerable powers of public speaking, and 
 has often tried to get into Parliament ; but owing to 
 his Conservative politics he has hitherto been unsuc- 
 
320 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [1859-1861. 
 
 cessfu]. This is to be regretted, for he is in every 
 way qualified to make a good figure in the House of 
 Commons. If his exclusion, through the prejudices of 
 party, from the public arena continues much longer, 
 it is much to be feared his present desultory habits 
 will become confirmed, and that he will add an- 
 other to the long list of highly gifted persons, of 
 whom, as of the Duke of Orleans, it may be said, 
 that the fairies, having been invited to his christen- 
 ing, all came, and each endowed him with some 
 admirable quality; but one old fairy, who had been 
 forgotten, came of her own accord, and added this 
 fatal one — that he should never make any use of 
 them. 
 
321 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 COUNTRY VISITS — GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 AUGUST 1861 JANUARY 1862. 
 
 There being no State balls or Court festivities this 
 year, in consequence of the death of the Duchess of 
 Kent, the Queen's mother, we did not go to town. 
 Lady Alison's health had been so much shattered 
 by the serious illness she had had in the preceding 
 autumn, that we wished to go to a considerable dis- 
 tance in the long vacation for change of scene and 
 air. At first we thought of Homburg or of one of 
 the German watering-places, and had actually made 
 preparations for such an expedition ; but the ac- 
 counts we received of the excessive gaiety of these 
 establishments, and the solitary situation of such as 
 did not incline to join in them, induced us to change 
 our plans, and go instead for a month to Inverness- 
 shire, where we had many kind friends and near 
 connections. We set out accordingly on the 13th 
 August, and slept that night in Aberdeen, where I 
 had not been since I delivered my rectorial speech 
 
 VOL. II. X 
 
322 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 in Marischal College ia 1845. Since that time the 
 railway system had been eztended through Aberdeen 
 to Inverness, and great additions had been made to 
 that prosperous and handsome city. We went on 
 by the foot of Bennachie in Aberdeenshire, through 
 well-known scenes in Strathbogie, to Belladrum, 
 the hospitable seat of Mr James Merry, the leading 
 partner of the great firm of Merry & Cunningham, 
 ironmasters in Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, and for 
 many years M.P. for the Falkirk Burghs. Mr 
 Merry was well known, in the sporting circles of 
 England, as the winner of the Derby and many 
 other of the highest stakes. He was an old friend 
 of both Lady Alison and myself, and had married 
 the eldest daughter of James M'^Hardy, an intimate 
 legal friend of mine, and a coadjutor in the legal 
 duties of Lanarkshire. Miss M'^Hardy was a young 
 lady of uncommon beauty and most pleasing man- 
 ners, for whom Lady Alison entertained almost the 
 affection of a mother, and we had seen a great deal 
 of her at Fossil before her marriage. They were 
 established at Belladrum, an old Highland place 
 beautifully situated in the Aird, a small circular 
 plain surrounding the embouchure of the Beauly 
 where it joins the firth of the same name. The 
 house, a spacious antique mansion, largely added 
 to by the present proprietor, was fitted up in the 
 most luxurious style of modern elegance ; and the 
 adjoining flower - garden and ornamental ground, 
 laid out in beds of uniform colour and long striped 
 
1862.] BELLADETJM. 323 
 
 borders, rivalled those of Drumlanrig and Drum- 
 mond Castle in taste and beauty. 
 
 We enjoyed ourselves extremely during the three 
 weeks we dwelt in this hospitable residence. Re- 
 leased for a season from all labour, either judicial or 
 literary, in a Highland county presenting the most 
 beautiful scenery within walking and driving dis- 
 tance, surrounded by every comfort which wealth 
 could purchase or kindness supply, enjoying the 
 elasticity of mountain air and the romance of High- 
 land scenery, the time passed in the most agreeable 
 way, which I felt the more keenly from the contrast 
 it presented to the laborious life that in smoky 
 Lanarkshire I had so long led. The celebrated Falls 
 of Kilmorack, and defile of the Druim, four miles 
 long, overhung by splendid woods, situated about 
 five miles from the house, presented a long series 
 of Trossach scenes, perhaps unequalled in Scotland 
 in extent and beauty. I frequently visited them, 
 sometimes alone, sometimes in company with others, 
 and found with satisfaction that at the age of sixty- 
 eight I could walk sixteen miles in four hours, and 
 come in as fresh as the youngest of the party. The 
 walking path to these falls lay across the extensive 
 and varied park of Beaufort Castle, the seat of Lord 
 Lovat, then filled with a large party of friends ; and 
 it looked not a little strange to see elegant female 
 figures, dressed in the last Parisian costume, emerg- 
 ing from the wooded glades, or crossing on slender 
 bridges the mountain torrents which amidst heath 
 
324: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 and pine-clad rocks found their way to the Beauly 
 in that romantic resfion. 
 
 We soon became acquainted with the Lovat party, 
 who dined en masse at Belladrum and we at Beau- 
 fort Castle. We were extremely struck with the 
 persons who composed it, both male and female. 
 Lord Lovat's two sons — the elder styled in Highland 
 phrase the " Master of Lovat," the second, Colonel 
 Fraser of the Guards — were models of Highland chief- 
 tains, both in person and manner. The daughters of 
 the family, Lady Mostyn and the Honourable Miss 
 Fraser, possessed commanding and splendid figures 
 and the most pleasing and affable manners ; and 
 a young friend of theirs, Mrs Fitzherbert, who was 
 very beautiful, exhibited that union of talent and 
 coquetry which is so charming in the French and 
 Polish women. Beaufort Castle was formerly a place 
 of strength, boldly situated on the banks of the 
 Beauly; but it was burnt down in 1745, when the 
 family, true to their principles, espoused the falling 
 side; and the present house is an old one, which was 
 the factor's residence in the days of its feudal gran- 
 deur. The present family have long intended to 
 rebuild the ancient seat on a scale suited to the 
 augmented size of the property ; but they have 
 hitherto been diverted from the design by the pur- 
 chase of successive additions to the hereditary estate, 
 which now forms a noble property forty miles in 
 length. 
 
 While at Belladrum we paid a visit to Mr and the 
 
1862.] LORD LYVEDEN. 325 
 
 Honourable Mrs Vernon, step-daughter of Lord 
 Eglinton, who both received us with the utmost 
 kindness. We had been very intimate in former 
 days, and the regard had been so strong that we had 
 almost felt to her as parents. She was married to 
 the Honourable Mr Vernon, fourth son of Lord 
 Lyveden, and they had taken the beautiful place of 
 Coul, belonging to Sir George Mackenzie, for the 
 sake of the fishing and shooting which it commanded. 
 We were charmed by the unaffected kindness and 
 affection of her manner, which went back at once to 
 the feelings of former days. She is a most superior 
 person, uniting to excellent natural abilities all the 
 advantages of high breeding and refined education. 
 Mr Vernon is evidently a superior man, who has 
 made himself very agreeable to the country gentle- 
 nien in his vicinity. We met there his parents, Lord 
 aDd Lady Lyveden, better known as Mr and Mrs 
 Vernon Smith. I had not been prepossessed in his 
 favour, from his parliamentary appearances as Sec- 
 retary for India ; but I was agreeably surprised by 
 finding him not only polished and agreeable, but 
 quick and intelligent in conversation. I did not see 
 him long enough to be able to determine whether 
 this was the result of native talent, or, as is often the 
 case, of the advantage of having lived in superior 
 and intellectual society. 
 
 Sitting one day in the library at Belladrum, we 
 
 were surprised by F 's walking in, and by his 
 
 announcement that he was on his way to see the 
 
326 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 great Prussian reviews to be held on the Ehine this 
 autumn, in the capacity of Lord Clyde's aide-de- 
 camp. That kind commander, who never loses 
 sight of those for whom he has felt a real regard, no 
 sooner was requested by the Queen to go in her name 
 to these splendid military spectacles than he sent for 
 F to accompany him ; and he left Belladrum ac- 
 cordingly by the night-train the same evening on 
 his way to London. He was received in the kindest 
 manner by the King and Queen of Prussia and the 
 Princess Royal of England, whom he had previously 
 known in London, and with whom he had the 
 honour of riding every day when not attending his 
 general at the reviews, and who, as might have been 
 expected, was insatiable in her questions about all 
 her old friends left behind her in London. The 
 Queen said to him when he was first introduced : 
 "Major Alison, your name is well known to me. I 
 rejoice to see you at my Court, and I see from the 
 decorations you bear that you are fit to be an orna- 
 ment to it." 
 
 After a residence of three weeks at Belladrum, 
 we took leave of our kind host and hostess, Mr and 
 Mrs Merry, and went to Aldourie, the seat of Lady 
 Alison's cousin, William Fraser Tytler, a gallant 
 officer, late of the East India Company's service. 
 I had been there when on a walking tour in the 
 Highlands with my brother in 1815, but not since. 
 Time had in the interval made its usual changes in 
 the family circle. The head of it had some years 
 
1862.] ALDOURIE. 327 
 
 ago gone to his long home ; three elder sons had 
 perished abroad in the service of their country ; 
 the estate had devolved to the fourth, the present 
 proprietor — at the time of my former visit an infant 
 in arms — now returned from India, where he had been 
 on the staff of Lord Gough, covered with decora- 
 tions ; and the mother of a smiling family, then in 
 the fulness of prosperity and beavity, was now a feeble 
 old woman, shrunk to half her former size, and 
 so broken with family afflictions that she never left 
 her room ! Comparing our own lot with that of 
 others, we felt additional reason for thankfulness to 
 the Author of all good for the unusual flow of bless- 
 ings which we had received. We remained for ten 
 days at Aldourie, during which time our host had 
 a numerous circle of visitors. Aldourie is a lovely 
 place, situated on Loch Ness, and enjoys the advan- 
 tage of beautiful drives by the water's edge through 
 the extensive woods fringing the lake and forming 
 part of the property. The party was enlivened by 
 four elegant young women, nieces of the present 
 proprietor, sent home to his kind care by their 
 parents in India. They possessed all the grace 
 and beauty of their family ; and the impression 
 produced by them in that romantic residence may 
 be judged of by an expression used by the clergy- 
 man of the parish to me when they were dancing, 
 " Sir, it is like the poetry of Longfellow." 
 
 At Aldourie we renewed our acquaintance with 
 Sir Patrick Grant, a distinguished officer of the 
 
328 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 Indian army, distantly connected with us by mar- 
 riage. He had married first Miss Jane Ann Tytler, 
 a daughter of the Aldourie family, who had in her 
 early days lived two years with us in St Colme 
 Street. After her death, which happened in India, 
 he espoused, en secondes noces, the third daughter of 
 Lord Gough. Sir Patrick was now a veteran of sixty 
 years of age, but retained the vigour and elasticity 
 of youth. He remained three days, and we had 
 several long walks by the lake -side together. It 
 was impossible to meet a more agreeable companion. 
 Having been thirty years in harness, during which 
 he had been successively Adjutant - General of 
 India, Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Presi- 
 dency, as well as, between General Anson's death 
 and Sir Colin Campbell's arrival, Commander-in- 
 Chief of all India during a most trying and critical 
 period, he had been personally engaged in all the 
 wars of India during the last quarter of a century, 
 and had himself borne important parts in them. 
 Bland, modest, and unassuming in his manners, he 
 added unaffected simplicity to the charm of conver- 
 sation on these interesting subjects. He had re- 
 turned home, after having seen and done so much, 
 and seemed desirous only of passing his latter years 
 as a Highland gentleman, to Avhich position he had 
 been originally born. He had a strong vein of hu- 
 mour in his character, and had stored his memory 
 with a great number of ludicrous and characteristic 
 
1862.] DE GUMMING. 329 
 
 stories, which he brought out without assumption, 
 but with the happiest effect.^ 
 
 Returning from Inverness-shire, we slept at Aber- 
 deen ; and as the hotel in Union Street where we 
 put up was very crowded, from the number of tour- 
 ists and sportsmen returning to the South, and we had 
 not thought of writing before, we had some difficulty 
 in getting rooms. The landlady, however, soon came 
 and told us that a gentleman from the South, upon 
 hearing our names, had given up his room to us, 
 which was the best in the hotel. In the evening I 
 sent in my card, and requested leave to call upon 
 him to thank him for his courtesy; and having ob- 
 tained his consent, I went in and found it was the 
 Rev. Dr Gumming, the celebrated preacher in Lon- 
 don, well known for his frequent and earnest disser- 
 tations on the accomplishment of prophecy. I had 
 often heard him preach, with great admiration, and 
 we had been introduced, but I had never been in com- 
 pany with him before. We sat two hours convers- 
 ing de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, and parted 
 with mutual regret. I found his conversation most 
 agreeable, varied, enthusiastic, and bearing marks of 
 
 1 Among a host of other stories, he told us how, on his return 
 from India, he had gone to see a "woman, now old and infirm, who 
 had tended him in infancy. " Well, Mary," said Sir Patrick, " how 
 many children have you had ?" " Troth, sir, I hae borne my gudeman 
 thirteen." " Thirteen ! How in the world did you contrive to bring 
 up so many ?" " Oh, sir, ye see the Lord was rael merciful, for aye 
 as He sent ane, He took awa' the tidier; so we just hirpilt through." 
 
330 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOK. [l861- 
 
 genius intermingled with strange fancies. He told 
 me that there was no work he had ever read which 
 contained so many illustrations of the accomplish- 
 ment of prophecy, or which he had studied so much 
 with that view, as my History. He added that he 
 thought I had done quite right in the dispute with 
 the Free Kirk about preaching in the Bridgegate of 
 Glasgow. He said he had been applied to by the 
 affiliated churches of that persuasion in London to 
 get up an agitation on the subject in the metropolis, 
 and had read my judgment on the case accordingly; 
 but he had refused to do so, on the ground that the 
 cause of religion could never be served by attracting 
 a crowd which obstructed a public thoroughfare, or 
 endangered the public peace by exciting the angry 
 passions of opposing sects against each other. 
 
 After our return home we paid a visit at the hos- 
 pitable mansion of Lord Belhaven at Wishaw, where 
 we met Dean and Mrs Milman. He had come down, 
 as many other dignitaries of the Church of England 
 had done this autumn, to see the stained-glass win- 
 dows in the Cathedral of Glasgow, which were in 
 course of being put up at the expense of the mer- 
 chant princes of that great commercial emporium, 
 and of the noblemen and gentlemen of the w^est of 
 Scotland. They were, for the most part, executed 
 by Munich artists ; and though they appeared to 
 me somewhat flimsy in colour, and wanting in the 
 deep tones of the old masters, they were generally 
 admired. The cost of the whole was above £14,000 
 
1862.] DEAN MILMAN. 331 
 
 — a striking and honourable proof of the taste and 
 public spirit of the aristocratic and commercial 
 classes of the west of Scotland. 
 
 Bean Milman, as might have been expected from 
 a gentleman of his scholarship and literary celebrity, 
 was a very agreeable man in society, and we passed 
 two days very pleasantly in his company at Wishaw. 
 One thing, however, struck me in his conversation, 
 and the more so that it strongly recalled the Whig- 
 circle at the Bar in Edinburgh, with whom I had 
 lived so much forty years before, and which was so 
 different from anything I had seen during the inter- 
 vening period. This was the extraordinary identity 
 of thought which prevailed in that celebrated party, 
 and the subjection in it of the many to the judg- 
 ment and opinions of the few. Not only were Dean 
 Milman's opinions the same as those which half 
 a century before I had heard so often from Jeffrey, 
 Cockburn, Cranstoun, and Rutherfurd in Edinburgh, 
 but his whole conversation was about the men who 
 formed its leaders. It was Sydney Smith and Mac- 
 aulay, Lord Holland and Lord Lansdowne, Tommy 
 Moore and Eogers, at every word. You would have 
 supposed from his discourse not only that the Whig 
 leaders had been and were the greatest men of the 
 age, but that they were the only ones who were 
 worth thinking of or speaking about. This is a sin- 
 gular circumstance, which I have also observed in 
 the old Whig set in London ; and the more remark- 
 able from the opposite party during the same period 
 
332 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOlv. [186I- 
 
 having contained such men as Mr Pitt and Lord 
 Castlereagh, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Derby, 
 Chateaubriand and Sir Walter Scott, Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton and Mr Disraeli. No such strange 
 circumscribing of thought to their own circle was ever 
 seen among the Tories. I have lived among them as 
 much as most people, and I can vouch for it that the 
 Liberal leaders and orators were always fully as much 
 the object of conversation and interest as those of 
 their own party. The peculiarity of the Whigs in 
 this particular has apparently been owing to their 
 long exclusion from office prior to 1830, and the 
 necessity of sticking together to withstand the weight 
 of their political opponents ; and it has continued 
 since from the mere force of habit, when it was no 
 longer required, after they had gained the ascend- 
 ancy in the State. There can be no doubt that this 
 custom has a strong tendency to enhance a contem- 
 porary reputation, and it has bolstered up many a 
 one ; but it necessarily leads to many serious col- 
 lapses when the capacity of the Whig pets are put to 
 the test of the real business of life. This system of 
 exclusive living and thinking also has been one chief 
 cause of the delusions under which the Whig leaders 
 have long laboured in regard to the probable effects 
 of their legislative measures. One of the most re- 
 markable of these was the opinion, entertained in 
 good faith by Earl G-rey, that the Reform Bill would 
 prove " the most aristocratic measure ever brought 
 into the House of Commons ; " another, that free- 
 
1862.] SHAM FIGHT AT POLLOK. 333 
 
 trade would not prove prejudicial to British agri- 
 culture — an opinion which has been answered by 
 the importation of grain having risen since its intro- 
 duction from an average of 1,500,000 to 16,000,000 
 quarters in a year ! ^ 
 
 The success which had attended the Volunteer 
 Eeview in Edinburgh in the preceding year led to 
 a desire in the west of Scotland to have something 
 similar. The improved discipline and increased effi- 
 ciency of the corps induced them to venture upon 
 the somewhat hazardous experiment of a sham fight, 
 which took place with great eclat in the park of 
 PoUok, near Glasgow, on the 7th October. Sir John 
 Maxwell, its generous and public-spirited proprietor, 
 in the handsomest manner threw open his demesne 
 for the purpose ; and the public interest was wound 
 up to a high pitch on the occasion, as it was the first 
 spectacle of the kind on such a scale which had ever 
 been seen in the west of Scotland. The day waS 
 uncommonly fine; 8000 volunteers were assembled 
 for the sham fight, and at least 200,000 people 
 streamed out of Glasgow to witness it. The move- 
 ments of the troops were executed with a remarkable 
 degree of precision, far greater than could have been 
 exhibited in the preceding year ; and the throwing 
 of a bridge across the river Cart in the park by the 
 
 1 "In the two last weeks of July 1861, the total importation of 
 foreign grain was 492,000 quarters and 489,000 quarters respectively, 
 being at the rate of 24,000,000 quarters in a year, or the food of fully 
 two-thirds of our people." — ' Times.' 
 
334 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 engineers, and transporting a battery of artillery 
 and two battalions of infantry across, was executed 
 amidst the applause of an immense body of specta- 
 tors. The presence of Sir Hope Grant on the field, 
 covered with decorations, earned on the fields of 
 India and China, as well as of the reviewing officer, 
 Sir John Douglas, added to the interest of the spec- 
 tacle. We were truly glad to shake hands with Sir 
 Hope : times were altered since he was so often at 
 Possil, a captain in the 9th Lancers, chiefly known 
 for his love of and proficiency in music, and his 
 gentleman - like unassuming manners. He was in 
 every respect unchanged, save in the glory he had 
 won, and looked fully as young and well as when 
 we had last seen him, fifteen years before. He told 
 us that his health had suifered much in India when 
 he first went there ; but that he had entirely recovered 
 it since he had been engaged on active service, and 
 been eight hours a-day in the saddle. His viOToncello 
 was still, he said, as of yore, his inseparable companion. 
 The effect of the review was much marred by the 
 " ignorant impatience " of the crowd, which, in their 
 anxiety to get nearer, broke down all barriers, and 
 overspread the ground intended for the evolutions ; 
 but this led to a pretty message conveyed to Sir John 
 Maxwell by Lady Augusta Bruce from the Queen : 
 " Tell Sir John not to mind his fences being broken 
 down; he will find the grey jackets his best security."^ 
 
 1 Alluding to the uniform of the volunteers, which for the most 
 part was made of grey cloth. 
 
1862.] MRS CTJTLAE, FERGUSSON's MARRIAGE. 335 
 
 The autumn of this year was marked by an event 
 important in our family, though not of a kind to call 
 for any minute description for the public at large. 
 Since the death of her husband, Mrs Cutlar Fergus- 
 son had lived at Ninewells with her two sons, en- 
 tirely occupied with their care and education. She 
 was too young, however, and attractive, to render 
 it probable that she would remain long unmarried ; 
 and, according to the Scotch phrase, " she met her 
 fate " this summer, in her own house at Ninewells. 
 The Honourable James Charlemagne Dormer, second 
 son of Lord Dormer, had been during the last year 
 of Sir Colin Campbell's campaign in India aide-de- 
 camp along with F in India, and a great in- 
 timacy had in consequence grown up between them. 
 He bore the highest character as a soldier, and was 
 remarkably gentleman-like and pleasing in his man- 
 ners. He had been deputy-adjutant-general to the 
 army in China, and discharged the duties of his post 
 so successfully that he was on his return promoted to 
 the rank of substantive major. He came down with 
 F on a visit to Mrs Fergusson, and an attach- 
 ment soon sprang up between them, which ended 
 shortly in an agreement of marriage. The event was 
 solemnised according to the Catholic form, to which 
 he belonged, in the Eomish chapel in Edinburgh, 
 and immediately after in the Episcopal chapel in 
 York Place in the same city, according to the form 
 of the Church of England, the Church of my daugh- 
 ter. I was deeply impressed with that locality: it 
 
336 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 was my father's chapel, where I had so often listened 
 to his eloquent voice, and at its altar I had stood six- 
 and-thirtj years before, when he sealed my happi- 
 ness by uniting me to Lady Alison. Lady Dormer, 
 mother of my new son-in-law, and her daughter and 
 another son, who paid us a visit of a week at Possil, 
 received Ella into their family circle in the kindest 
 manner, and gave us every reason to congratulate 
 ourselves that she had formed a connection with so 
 estimable as well as distinguished a family. 
 
 That the house of mourning is nigh to the house 
 of mirth, has been observed by the moralists, and 
 confirmed by the experience, of every age. Never 
 was it illustrated in a more striking manner than 
 on this occasion among our immediate friends. 
 Hardly were the marriage -parties at Possil and 
 Craigpark concluded, and the Dormers had taken 
 their departure for London, than intelligence was 
 received from St Andrews that Lord Eglinton, who 
 was living there for the sake of golf, of which sport 
 he was extremely fond, had been seized with a stroke 
 of apoplexy, and this was soon after followed by the 
 tidings of his death. He had been remarkably 
 well for some time before this, walking eight or ten 
 miles every day, playing golf on the Links of St 
 Andrews ; and on the day when he was attacked he 
 had been dining with his friend Mr Whyte-Melville, 
 and was in the lobby of his house putting on his great- 
 coat previous to going home, when he was struck 
 down. He survived the shock for three days ; but was 
 
1862.] DEATH OF LORD EGLINTON. 337 
 
 for the most part of the time insensible, and could 
 only articulate a few words. Nine years before he 
 had had a threatening of the same disorder, but had 
 entirely recovered, and been able to resume his usual 
 active life and athletic exercises. He had for long 
 seen, however, a " little man in the air," as he ex- 
 pressed it, which optical delusion is a well-known 
 symptom of an undue flow of blood to the head ; 
 but what is remarkable, this vision had nearly gone 
 for some weeks before his death, and in one of his 
 last letters to his daughter, the Hon. Mrs North, he 
 said, " You will be glad to hear I have quite got 
 quit of my little friend in the air." 
 
 There is no public man in this age who has 
 been more warmly and generally lamented than Lord 
 Eglinton. The sorrow for his loss was not confined 
 to one section of the community or one political 
 party in the State : it was divested of either the 
 partiality or the rancour of religious partisanship. 
 It pervaded alike the high and the low, the noble 
 and the peasant, the Protestants and the Catholics, 
 the Whigs and the Tories. A Protectionist and a 
 Conservative, who manfully on every occasion as- 
 serted his opinions, he yet won the hearts of the 
 Catholics of Ireland by his equitable and patriotic 
 administration as viceroy of that distracted country. 
 In his own country his ardent and oft-expressed 
 patriotism, his simplicity and kindliness of manner, 
 his generous conduct as a landlord and to the poor 
 in every quarter, and the honhomie with which he 
 
 VOL. II. Y 
 
338 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 joined -in the arrangements and shared the joys of 
 the humblest classes, — had won for him every heart. 
 He was beyond all doubt the most popular noble- 
 man in Scotland, or perhaps in the British empire ; 
 and he was so, although no one was more opposed to 
 the encroachments of democratic power, or descended 
 less to flatter its passions in order to win the suf- 
 frages of the popular party. He had remarkable 
 powers of oratory, and many of his speeches, espe- 
 cially in Ireland Avhen viceroy, are models of dig- 
 nified eloquence, although his education had been 
 neglected, and he had never had the advantages 
 of a university tuiton. 
 
 The funeral took place at Eglinton Castle, and was 
 one of the most melancholy scenes I ever witnessed. 
 It was intended to have been confined to the private 
 friends of the deceased and to the gentlemen of 
 his county, and they alone received letters of in- 
 vitation. So extensive, however, was the acquaint- 
 ance which Lord Eglinton enjoyed, that even they 
 formed a great assemblage, and came from distant 
 quarters. I myself came from Craigpark, in the 
 neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; and in the carriage 
 with me going down from Glasgow were the Earl 
 of Essex, father-in-law to the deceased, and Col. 
 Taylor, M.P. for Dublin county, who both came 
 from London. But public anxiety to testify respect 
 to the deceased broke through all barriers, and con- 
 verted the funeral into a public one. From day- 
 break in the morning vehicles of all kinds poured 
 
1S6-2.] LORD EGLIXTOX'S FUNERAL. 339 
 
 into Kilwinning, where the interment was to take 
 place, conveying the hardy children of the soil to 
 the honse of mourning. Every roof was covered, 
 every window filled, with spectators in mourning ; 
 and when the sad cavalcade set out from Egiinton 
 Castle for the place of interment, two miles distant, 
 a triple row of mourners, all uncovered, awaited the 
 hearse on either side of the road. The old church 
 of Kilwinning, in the inside of which the family 
 vault was situated, was crowded with the persons 
 invited, and the whole country gentlemen of Ayr- 
 shire also spontaneously attended, and filled the gal- 
 leries. He was laid in the family vault, where his 
 ancestors of Xorman descent for many hundred years 
 were laid before him ; but that was not intended to 
 be his last resting-place. Being placed close behind 
 his four daughters, who were stationed at the en- 
 trance of the vault and were deeply agitated, I 
 could see into the gloomy place of sepulture, which 
 was partially lighted with lamps when the cofiin was 
 lowered into it, and I was surprised to see that it 
 was deposited between two other coflins. I after- 
 Avards learnt that this was done by the express in- 
 junctions of the deceased, and that these coflins were 
 those of his two wives. 
 
 Public meetino-s were held shortlv after his death, 
 to devise means of testifying the respect felt for the 
 memory of the deceased. They were held in Ayr, 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, and London ; and 
 large sums were collected at all these places. The 
 
340 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 Scotch subscriptions were all agreed to be massed 
 together, to form a handsome monument in the 
 park of Eglinton over his remains. The Duke of 
 Hamilton presided at the meeting held in Glasgow, 
 and I was requested to move the first resolution. 
 I afterwards had the satisfaction of learning that 
 the picture I then drew of his virtues and char- 
 acter was deemed by his relatives and friends the 
 best and most faithful which had been attempted. 
 I had no merit in the success of the picture. It was 
 impossible to be as intimate with Lord Eglinton as 
 I had been without becoming impressed with the 
 salient points of his character. The appeal was 
 promptly responded to in every quarter. £2500 
 was subscribed at Ayr, and £2000 at Glasgow the 
 first day. A striking testimony was borne to the 
 public character of the deceased by the meeting at 
 Dublin, which was attended by men of the most 
 opposite parties. Father Daly vied with Mr White- 
 side in eulogising the merits of the deceased, and 
 enlarging on the justice and impartiality of his 
 administration ; a memorable instance of patriotic 
 spirit and upright conduct overcoming the strong- 
 est and longest established national and religious 
 animosities. 
 
 But though these feelings sufiiciently explain the 
 alacrity with which the subscriptions were volun- 
 teered, yet it deserves to be considered whether this 
 system of erecting monuments to every public man 
 
1862.] THE PUBLIC MONUMENTS QUESTION. 341 
 
 of eminence who dies lias not been carried too far, 
 and whether the honour, by being made too common, 
 may not ere long cease to be an honour. It was a 
 salutary rule in one of the republics of antiquity, that 
 no public monument should be voted to any citizen 
 till ten years after his death. In the first moments 
 of grief and excitement on the decease of an eminent 
 and beloved person, it is impossible to distinguish 
 the wail of temporary sorrow from the voice of ages. 
 Yet they should ever be considered apart, and the 
 last only made the object of public and lasting 
 monuments. When it is otherwise, the object of 
 the monument is lost ; for no one knows, after the 
 lapse of centuries, who the person was for whom it 
 was erected. How often has it been asked in the 
 Roman Forum, " Who was Phocas ? " whose solitary 
 pillar still stands erect and unshaken amidst the 
 ruin of all around it ; and in the Campagna, " Who 
 was Cecilia Metella ? " she whose beautiful tomb 
 seems to defy the hand of time — the unknown 
 spouse, it can only be said, of an unknown man ; — 
 but no one asked in the Campagna, " Who were the 
 Scipios ? " or, on the shore of Egypt, " Who was 
 Pompey or Cleopatra 1 " There are few men who, 
 according to this test, deserve an enduring monu- 
 ment in Great Britain during the last half-centuiy, 
 and you can hardly name, besides the Prince Consort, 
 more than Mr Pitt, the Duke of Wellington, Lord 
 Castlereagh, and Lord Clyde. Their names will 
 
342 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 never be forgotten ; for the three first saved the 
 British, the last the Indian empire.^ 
 
 My Lives of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles 
 Stewart were published on December 1st, and on the 
 15th of the same month Lady Alison and I set out 
 on a visit to Lady Londonderry at Seaham Hall. 
 We found her surrounded by a very agreeable family 
 party, consisting of Lord Adolphus and Lady Susan 
 Vane, Mr Vandeleur Stewart, an intimate friend and 
 near relation of the family, and Lord Eavensworth, 
 who joined it for some days from his neighbouring 
 seat of Eavensworth Castle. I was much gratified 
 at finding from the whole party that my Lives of 
 Lord Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart had given 
 them satisfaction ; and while at Seaham I received 
 letters to the same efi"ect from Earl Vane, the 
 Duchess of Marlborough, and Lady Portarlington, 
 its absent members. I received also compliment- 
 ary letters from many persons of eminence, and not 
 liable to be led into undue favour by family par- 
 tiality — in particular Mr Disraeli, Mr Ex- Secretary 
 Walpole, Lord Stanley, Sir Edward B. Lytton, and 
 Mr Whiteside. Mr E. H. Patterson also, the able 
 editor of the ' Press,' wrote to me : " You have re- 
 established the reputation of Lord Castlereagh by 
 
 1 If authors were to be included in the category. Sir Walter Scott 
 should unquestionably be added ; but they require no monuments 
 either of brass or stone when they have risen to the highest eminence. 
 Would any monument add to the celebrity or perpetuate the memory 
 of Homer? With truth did Horace say, "Exegi monumentum peren- 
 nius sere." 
 
1862.] LORD A.DOLPHUS VANE. 343 
 
 a coup which has never been equalled in my recol- 
 lection." 
 
 Lord Adolphus Vane had just returned from a 
 tour in the United States, in the course of which he 
 had been some weeks at the headquarters of both 
 the contending parties, and the information he had 
 to give was in the highest degree interesting ; and 
 its accuracy was eventually proved by its being 
 afterwards confirmed by the event. His partiality, 
 as might naturally have been expected with a British 
 nobleman, was all with the South, and he was strongly 
 impressed with the patriotic and heroic spirit with 
 which its inhabitants were animated. He thought 
 also that their generals and officers were superior to 
 those of the North ; which indeed was no more than 
 might have been expected, as two - thirds of the 
 officers in the United States army were from the 
 Southern provinces, and joined their own standards 
 when the civil war broke out. But all this not- 
 withstanding, and despite the rout of Bull's Eun, he 
 had great fears of the Federal forces proving in the 
 end victorious in the contest. The balance, not 
 only of population, but of wealth and warlike re- 
 sources of all kinds, was decidedly in favour of the 
 North. The thirst for conquest and dominion was 
 fully as strong among them as the desire for inde- 
 pendence was in the South, and they had the com- 
 mand of far greater material power to carry it into 
 effect. The guns, tumbrils, harness, horses, baggage- 
 waggons, and materiel of all sorts in the Federal 
 
344 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 army, were not only superior to that of the Southern 
 States, but finer than those of any European army. 
 "If," said he, "you could unite the guns, horses, 
 and equipments of the Northern Americans to the 
 British soldiers in the Crimea, you would form the 
 finest army that ever appeared upon the earth." 
 
 The secession of the Southern provinces, and the 
 disastrous civil war which followed upon it, were 
 due, he thought, to difi'erent causes from those to 
 which they were generally ascribed in Europe. The 
 slave question had very little to do with it ; or 
 rather that question was merely the direction which 
 the real causes of the schism took. More real 
 causes were the arrogance and domineering dispo- 
 sitions of the dominant democracy in the Northern 
 States ; their impatience of control, and determina- 
 tion to make everything yield to their own will; and 
 the entire and daily increasing divergence of the 
 material interests of the two sections of the Amer- 
 ican continent. These causes had so long been in 
 operation, and produced so great a divergence, both 
 of feeling and interest, between the Southern and 
 Northern States of the Union, that not only was the 
 rupture and civil war noways to be wondered at, but 
 it was rather to be regarded as inevitable. It was 
 the same thing as to expect the Andalusians or 
 Neapolitans to submit to the domination and yield 
 to the interests of the manufacturers of Britain, or to 
 the serfs of Eussia. Free-trade was the natural cry 
 of the South, because they had no manufactures, and 
 
1862.] THE AMERICAN QUABKEL. 345 
 
 desired to get those of Britain as cheap as possible ; 
 Protection was the principle of the North, because 
 they had manufactures, both of cotton and iron, and 
 were desirous of excluding the dangerous competi- 
 tion of the British fabrics. Both parties, true to the 
 principle of self-government, were determined to 
 get their own way, and neither would submit to the 
 dictation of the other. The North, excited by a 
 powerful party both in the Old and New Worlds, 
 were set upon the immediate abolition of slavery, 
 without the least regard, to the means of conducting 
 labour in the fields without it : the South, conscious 
 that if carried into effect it would destroy or render 
 valueless their property, were resolute to resist it. 
 In these circumstances a desire for separation was 
 inevitable ; and if anything were wanting to set the 
 angry passions in motion, it was supplied by the 
 imprudent zeal of the English abolitionists, who 
 gave their unqualified support to the American 
 liberating party, and offended the national pride of 
 the opposite party by appearing to dictate to them, 
 in a domestic matter of which they knew little, and 
 in which they had still less title to interfere. 
 
 The social condition of the negroes was repre- 
 sented to me, both by Lord Adolphus and Sir James 
 Fergusson, M.P. for Ayrshire, who had also just 
 returned from Beauregard's headquarters, as very 
 different from what was generally supposed in this 
 country. " One day," said Sir James, " as I was 
 riding through his fields with a Southern planter, he 
 
o46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 asked one of his negroes what o'clock it was, and he 
 pulled out a gold tvatch, and said 'Half-past eleven, 
 sir.' 'Have your negroes,' said I, 'all gold 
 watches 1 ' ' Many have,' replied he, ' and it is 
 no wonder, for there is hardly one of the 200 whom 
 you see before yon who is worth less than £50 or 
 £60— many £200 or £300.' " Both Lord Adolphus 
 and Sir James represented the condition of the 
 slaves, generally speaking, in the Southern provinces, 
 as greatly superior to that of any peasantry in Eu- 
 rope. Without doubt there were exceptions, and a 
 cruel or hard-hearted master was occasionally found 
 who made his household and establishment as 
 wretched as a cruel and hard-hearted father does in 
 Europe ; but you are not entitled to argue from the 
 abuse of an institution against its use — you might 
 as well proscribe marriages, because there are many 
 seliish husbands and some faithless wives in the 
 world. In the general case negroes are well looked 
 after by their masters, for the same reason and by 
 the influence of the same causes that their horses 
 or their cattle are ; it is for their interest to do 
 so, and thereby prevent their property from deteri- 
 orating. Hitherto all attempts to make the negro 
 work as a freeman for wages, so as to yield a profit, 
 have failed ; and the climate is so hot that the 
 European race die in the fields when set to cul- 
 tivate them. Emancipation will be advisable when 
 this is changed, and the negro is as willing to work 
 as the European. In the meantime all that should 
 
1862.] DURHAM. 347 
 
 be attempted is to ameliorate their condition, by pre- 
 venting the separation of parent and child, husband 
 and wife, and permitting them to acquire careful 
 habits, through feeling the advantages of property 
 earned by themselves. 
 
 From Seaham the Marchioness drove us to 
 Durham to see the equestrian statue of her husband, 
 which had recently been inaugurated there. It is 
 in many respects a fine specimen of art ; but it is 
 placed in too small a square, and situated so that 
 you can only see it in front from above — the worst 
 possible position for any architectural edifice or piece 
 of sculpture to be seen in. The feather in the cap 
 is too heavy, also a glaring defect, especially in a 
 group in which it forms so prominent a part. We 
 lunched, before returning, at the villa of Mr John- 
 ston, a great friend of the family's, and most agreea- 
 ble man, who is proprietor of a country-house sur- 
 rounded by old trees, through which is a fine view 
 of Durham Cathedral. At Seaham the Marchioness 
 again drove me over her estate, to point out the vast 
 improvements and public works in which she was 
 engaged, and the beneficent projects she had in 
 view. Among the rest was a huge coal-pit 1800 feet 
 deep, with 800 colliers' houses, which she had re- 
 cently acquired, and for which she had built and 
 endowed a handsome school; and two complete blast- 
 furnaces for the establishment of a great iron- work, 
 in addition to her other gigantic industrial establish- 
 ments. She has also formed an excellent road from 
 
348 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l86l- 
 
 tlie mouth of the dell of Seaham to the town, an 
 equal advantage, as a terrace- walk ou the cliffs over- 
 hanging the ocean, to her own place and the in- 
 habitants of the adjoining country. She was kind 
 enough also to call out the Volunteer Artillery of 
 Seaham to show us — two companies of which are 
 equipped and maintained entirely at her own ex- 
 pense. They are a fine body of men, and have at- 
 tained a surprising degree of efficiency. The Mar- 
 chioness brought them np at her own expense to 
 London, for the great volunteer review in 1860. I 
 addressed a few words to them, which, as usual on 
 such occasions with any one who speaks from the 
 heart, elicited warm applause. 
 
 One remark of Lady Londonderry's on this occa- 
 sion struck me very much. Speaking of the credit- 
 able appearance which the men equipped by her, 
 most of whom were colliers from her own estates, 
 made in their uniforms, I took notice of the kindly 
 relations which evidently subsisted between her and 
 her tenantry, and asked her how she acted with 
 regard to claims against her for alleged negligence 
 of those in her employment which had led to col- 
 liery disasters. She replied that the mode of pro- 
 ceeding was quite simple, and she had never known 
 a deviation from it ; the master in every instance 
 gave indemnification to those suffering by the acci- 
 dent, and without inquiry as to who had been in 
 fault. This appeared very extraordinary and not a 
 little praiseworthy to one like myself, who had been 
 
1862.] employee's LIABILITY. 349 
 
 engaged once or twice every week in hearing and 
 deciding eases arising from coal-pit accidents, two- 
 thirds of which terminated in judgment against the 
 coalmasters. Nay, so determined were they in 
 Scotland to resist all claims for indemnification on 
 such occasions, that the whole ironmasters of the 
 country, it is well known, had some years before 
 entered into a combination to resist all actions at 
 the instance of their workmen, and pay all damages 
 awarded at the joint expense. This strange differ- 
 ence is characteristic of the diversity between the 
 relations which subsist between landlords and their 
 tenantry or workmen in England and Scotland. In 
 the former country strict performance of the bond is 
 not required, but a kindly feeling subsists between 
 the landlord and tenant, which generally leads to the 
 latter being unchanged for generations and even 
 centuries : in the latter, the pound of flesh is in every 
 case required. It may be true, as Adam Smith ob- 
 serves, that the Act of 1449, which gives the tenant 
 an absolute right during the subsistence of his lease 
 against heirs and purchasei's, has been the main 
 cause of the subsequent agricultural prosperity of 
 Scotland ; but there can be no doubt that, by ren- 
 dering the parties independent of each other, and 
 leading each to stand upon his bond, it has led to a 
 business-like relation between them, widely different 
 from the kindly mutual feelings between the land- 
 lords and tenantry in the southern part of the island. 
 During our stay at Seaham a catastrophe occurred 
 
350 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 which had at first an alarming aspect, and drew 
 forth the characteristic qualities of all the members 
 of the family. We had just finished breakfast, and 
 I Avas walking in the ornamental grounds in front 
 of the house, when a cry got up that Wynyard 
 Park Avas on fire. I instantly ran into the house, 
 and found Lady Londonderry in her boudoir in 
 the utmost agitation. Messengers were instantly 
 despatched for Lord Adolphus and Mr Vandeleur 
 Stewart, who were out at a little distance ; the 
 horses were quickly harnessed to the caleche, and 
 they set off at a gallop for the scene of danger. I 
 wished to go with them, but both represented with 
 truth that I would be of more service in remaining 
 Avith the Marchioness during a period of such 
 anxiety. I sat with her in her boudoir along with 
 Lady Alison, and I must say she exhibited the ut- 
 most fortitude as aycU as disinterestedness on the 
 occasion. She said repeatedly, "It is a matter of 
 little moment to me — I have only a few years to 
 live ; but it is hard upon poor Henry " (Lord Vane). 
 For three hours we sat in the boudoir anxiously 
 awaiting a message by the telegraph, A\'hich, from 
 her immense transactions, was brought into the 
 room. At length a message arrived round by Sun- 
 derland, not the direct way from Wynyard by 
 Stockton, to the elfect that the line by Wynyard was 
 interrupted by the fire. Lady Londonderry imme- 
 diately exclaimed, "The house must be burnt down, 
 for the telegraph was at the other end from Avhere 
 
1862.] FIRE AT WYNYAED. 351 
 
 the fire broke out." Another hour of anxious sus- 
 pense ensued, during which every ear was anxiously 
 bent to the telegraph to catch any sound ; at length 
 the bell of the instrument rang violently. The 
 message came soon, but very slowly, as if to pro- 
 long the agony of those watching it : " The chapel 
 is burnt down and seven bedrooms above it ; now 
 the flames are"- — a long pause — "extinct." Lady 
 Londonderry instantly fell back in her chair and 
 burst into a flood of tears, from which she was 
 roused by the embraces of Lady Susan and Lady 
 Alison. The fire, which arose, as almost all fires in 
 country-houses now do, from over-heated stoves, at 
 one time wore the most alarming aspect. The cloud 
 of sm-oke was seen for twenty miles around, and the 
 report was widespread that the house was burnt to 
 the ground. It would have been so without a doubt, 
 but for the courage and energy of Mr Murray, the 
 house-steward at Wynyard, and the prompt assist- 
 ance rendered by the fire-brigade and engines at 
 Stockton, who at the first alarm repaired with the 
 utmost expedition to the spot. As it was, the 
 damage done was above £10,000. It is remarkable 
 that Lady Londonderry has been all her life in a 
 manner pursued by fire : she made a narrow escape 
 from perishing in the flames at Vienna during the 
 sitting of the Congress of Troppau in 1820; Wyn- 
 yard was burnt to the ground in 1841, and has been 
 twice on fire since, on both of which occasions, by a 
 singular chance, we were on a visit to her. 
 
352 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON". []861- 
 
 We remained at Seaham over Christmas, on which 
 day we heard a very striking sermon from the clergy- 
 man at Seaham Harbour, on the death of Prince 
 Albert, from the text of Death seated on the pale 
 horse. With much regret we were obliged to forego 
 an invitation by Lord Eavensworth to his splendid 
 and hospitable mansion of Eavensworth Castle, ow- 
 ing to my being obliged to return to Glasgow to 
 attend officially the winter circuit. We paid, how- 
 ever, in passing, a short visit to my daughter, the 
 Hon. Mrs Dormer, and found her the picture of 
 happiness, at Ninewells, where Major Dormer dis- 
 charged the duties of host with perfect taste, judg- 
 ment, and good feeling. He told us some very 
 curious anecdotes illustrative of the singular viva- 
 ciousness and elasticity of mind of Lord Palmerston, 
 amidst all the cares of his exalted office. He had 
 recently met him at a country-house in England, 
 where a large party, chiefly of gay young men, was 
 assembled. After the ladies had retired from the 
 drawing-room, where he was the gayest of the gay, 
 he went to the billiard-room with the youths, where 
 he played till one, when he retired to his own 
 room to read his despatches, and write letters, 
 till three in the morning, when he went to bed, 
 and was up again at seven to resume his labours, 
 which lasted till breakfast time. 
 
 In returning by Edinburgh to Glasgow, we plunged, 
 near Tranent, into a thick fog, which overspread the 
 earth the whole remainder of the way, and was not 
 
1862.] THE GLASGOW ALBERT MEMORIAL. 353 
 
 dispelled for ten days. It was the densest and dark- 
 est fog ever known even in the proverbially foggy 
 west of Scotland. In the beginning of the year we 
 Avent for a week to Lee Castle, to visit our kind 
 friends the Lockharts, and were indemnified for the 
 darkness we had left behind by the happy faces of 
 that charming family, and the light which beams 
 from beauty's eyes. 
 
 Shortly after our return, a public meeting was 
 held in Glasgow, in imitation of those which had 
 recently before taken place in London and elsewhere, 
 for the purpose of entering into a subscription to 
 raise a monument to Prince Albert, whose early 
 death had spread such a gloom over the whole empire. 
 I was requested to move the first resolution, which 
 the Lord Provost seconded ; and the meeting was 
 eminently successful — no less than £2000 being 
 subscribed in the room, and £4000 more in a 
 few weeks. This was a very large sum to be col- 
 lected in a commercial city then labouring under a 
 long-continued and severe commercial distress, and 
 which had only a few months before made a simi- 
 lar effort for Lord Eglinton's monument. It was 
 generally felt that Glasgow, as the chief manufac- 
 turing city of the kingdom, was in a peculiar man- 
 ner called upon to make an efi"ort to testify the grati- 
 tude felt for the pacific virtues of the illustrious de- 
 ceased, and the warm interest he had always taken 
 in everything which tended to promote the manufac- 
 turing interests of the empire; and sympathy was 
 
 VOL. 11. z 
 
354 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 warm in the first months of her bereavement for 
 the widowed Queen, who had been so early deprived 
 of him who had been her never-failing solace and 
 support during all her arduous duties. 
 
 On my return to Glasgow, I was again solicited, 
 as I had often been before, to give an opening lec- 
 ture to the " Juridical Society " of that plac6 — an 
 association which embraced the chief legal practi- 
 tioners before the Court, and not a few of the young 
 aspirants, and which numbered now 150 members. 
 I did so accordingly, and the subject selected was 
 " The instances in which the English law has been 
 borrowed from that of Scotland." It is a very curious 
 topic, and one with which I had long been familiar ; 
 for the greater part of my address was taken from 
 an article entitled "The Old Scottish Parliament," 
 published in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' by me thirty 
 years before. Much, however, was added, drawn 
 from the numerous instances in which the conveni- 
 ent process of borrowing without acknowledgment 
 had gone on in British legislation during the inter- 
 vening period. The lecture was well received by 
 a numerous and sympathising audience, and was 
 largely and favourably commented on, not only in 
 the journals of Scotland, but also in some of those 
 of the sister kingdom.^ 
 
 In truth the subject is a very curious and instruc- 
 tive one. It distinctly appears, and is demonstrated 
 
 ' A corrected report of my speech on this occasion is given in the 
 'Scottish Law Journal,' February 1862. 
 
1S62.] ADVANCED POSITIOK OF SCOTTISH LAW. 355 
 
 ia my speech by reference to all the statutes, that, 
 strange as it may seem, Scotland has for the last 
 four centuries been about a century and a half in 
 advance of England in useful and beneficent legisla- 
 tion ; that nearly all the improvements and changes 
 which the progress of society has rendered neces- 
 sary in the neighbouring kingdom during that long 
 period have been adopted from the statute-book of 
 this country ; and that in many important particu- 
 lars the law of Scotland is still confessedly ahead of 
 that of England ; and the patriots of South Britain 
 are in vain striving to obtain advantages which 
 those of the North have enjoyed for two centuries.^ 
 How such extraordinary strides in practical and 
 useful legislation, which in many instances preceded 
 the calls of time, have been made by a poor dis- 
 tracted and remote country, without either commerce 
 or realised wealth, and often while maintaining an 
 unequal struggle with its powerful and ambitious 
 neighbour, is a prodigy which, after all the consid- 
 eration I have been able to give to the subject, I can- 
 not satisfactorily explain. At one time I thought 
 that poverty and straitened circumstances were the 
 cause of this phenomenon, because, being destitute of 
 any practice or precedents of their own, the Scotch 
 were compelled to have recourse to that great fountain 
 of legislative wisdom — the Eoman law. But more 
 
 1 Particularly in the important particulars of the commutation of 
 tithes, the repair of churches, general education, a public prosecutor 
 for crimes, a cheap system for the realisation of bankrupt estates, and 
 the conveyance of land and registration of deeds. 
 
356 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 mature consideration has convinced me that this will 
 not entirely explain the phenomenon ; for although 
 the education of the youth of the country at Ley- 
 den and other places on the Continent where the 
 Eoman law was taught, will account for the large 
 importation of that system of jurisprudence into 
 the decision of the questions arising from the ordi- 
 nary transactions between man and man, it will not 
 explain the numerous wise and far-seeing statutes 
 which have since been found to be so beneficial, and 
 have been imported with such happy effect into the 
 legislation of the sister kingdom. In despair, there- 
 fore, at being able to give any explanation on ordi- 
 nary principles of this extraordinary fact, I can only 
 say " quia Deus sic voluit," and put it down, like 
 the early excellence of Grecian sculpture, Italian 
 painting, or Gothic architecture, as another instance 
 of the superhuman direction of the affairs of men. 
 
 About this time (January 1862) I began to per- 
 ceive the turn which the monthly and daily press of 
 England would take in regard to my Lives of Lord 
 Castlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart. The severity 
 and evident ill - nature of the criticisms confirmed 
 me in a resolution I had already formed, to make 
 this the LAST work on which I was to engage. I 
 was now in my seventieth year, and for thirty-five 
 years of that time I had, in one form or another, — 
 in ' Blackwood's Magazine,' in my ' Criminal Law,' 
 or in my ' History of Europe,' — been before the pub- 
 lic. It is rare, indeed, for an author to be endued 
 
1862.] ATTITUDE OF THE KEVIEWERS. 357 
 
 with strength adequate to so long - continued an 
 effort, still more when, during the whole time, he 
 had been oppressed with heavy professional or judi- 
 cial labours. The patience of the reviewers was 
 evidently worn out by seeing an author enjoying 
 a certain amount of reputation continuing to poison, 
 as the Liberals thought, the minds of the rising 
 generation by Tory heresies. They were still more 
 chagrined at seeing an author persevering for so 
 many years in his own opinions, in spite of their 
 utmost efforts to run him down, and resolutely refus- 
 ing to worship the Dagon of Liberalism, to which so 
 many of his countrymen, once as determined as him- 
 self, had of late years made obeisance. I could ap- 
 preciate the intensity of this feeling, and I saw it 
 was expedient no longer to provoke it. Ample em- 
 ployment in the intervals of judicial labour remained 
 for me in the few years yet allotted to my span of 
 existence in revising, correcting, and adding fresh 
 authorities, from works newly published, to my His- 
 tories already before the public. This is particu- 
 larly required in my Continuation, which being 
 almost a contemporary History, and finished before 
 many of the most important works regarding it had 
 seen the light, necessarily stood much in need of 
 such additional confirmation. I may say " confir- 
 mation" without vanity; for I have the satisfaction 
 of knowing that all the vast additions which sub- 
 sequent publications have made to the authorities 
 bearing on my ' History of Europe,' have scarce 
 
358 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON". [186I- 
 
 necessitated any alteration being made in the text 
 previously written. There was often much to be 
 added of matter not previously known, and many 
 fresh authorities for statements previously made. 
 But with the exception of a few corrections in names 
 of places or in their spelling, or in corrections of 
 printers' errors, or in the repetition of the same 
 words in a sentence, there was scarce anything to 
 be taken away. 
 
 In one respect I am happy to say I have been dif- 
 ferent from many, I may say most, of the authors 
 of my day. The genus irritabile vatum is well 
 known, but I take no credit to myself for having 
 been always destitute of this weakness, for in truth 
 I could not be otherwise. I had received from 
 nature the gift — • one of the most valuable in her 
 store — of a temper singularly placid and unruffled, 
 in which a turn of mind essentially practical was 
 mingled with a large vein of romance. I was 
 thoroughly convinced of the justice of my political 
 principles, because they were founded on the safest 
 basis of political thought — observation and experi- 
 ence. I knew that mankind were at bottom every- 
 where much the same, though endowed with infinite 
 varieties of disposition and mental capacity. Thus 
 I was never disappointed, and was saved that acut- 
 est of all pangs arising from generous anticipations 
 cruelly blasted. I never felt the anguish springing 
 from this cause, which in my own time brought 
 Arnold in England and De Tocqueville in France 
 
1862.] POLITICAL CONVICTIONS. 359 
 
 to premature graves. Practical experience, wide 
 observation in real life of men in all grades, had 
 made me thoroughly acquainted with the average 
 mental capacity and ruling active dispositions of the 
 middle class, in whom the Reform Bill had vested 
 the government of the State. Expecting nothing 
 from their possession of power, I experienced no 
 disappointment from witnessing its results. But 
 the military despotism of Louis Napoleon, succeed- 
 ing the dreams of Liberie, Egalite, Fraternite, in 
 1848, and the frightful civil war, blasting the Uto- 
 pian dreams of the great model republic on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, afforded evidence to me 
 that the tide was turning ; that the rapid descent 
 down the perilous incline was in course of being 
 arrested, and that nature had thrown down the 
 breaks, which, although producing rude shocks at 
 the time, could alone prevent a frightful collision 
 at the end. 
 
 Fully convinced as I was that experience would 
 u.ltimately demonstrate my ideas to be well founded, 
 even to the most enthusiastic believers in human 
 perfectibility and indefinite progress, I never at any 
 time experienced vexation at the numerous attacks 
 made on me in the press, especially during the last 
 ten years. I never felt the least disposition to make 
 any reply, or vindicate myself from the numerous 
 charges brought against me. I knew that in main- 
 taining my principles amidst general defection, I 
 was exposing myself to obloquy and lessening the 
 
360 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OP SIK A. ALISON. [18GI- 
 
 popularity of my work, but to these considerations 
 I was indiiFerent when put in competition with what 
 I felt to be truth. Once, and once only, when the 
 most eminent and respectable of my assailants had 
 made an unfounded attack on some of my statistics 
 in my Continuation, I put the necessary materials 
 
 into A 's hands to make a reply ; and his article 
 
 in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' to the strictures in the 
 ' Edinburgh Eeview ' decisively showed that wdien 
 the reviewers left words and came to things, they 
 got beyond their depth, and proved nothing but 
 their own want of knowledge on the subject. 
 
 One of the most common complaints made against 
 me by all classes of reviewers was that I had no 
 faith in human progress, and wished to bring every- 
 thing back to the institutions and ideas of the olden 
 time. If by "progress" they mean a continual, ir- 
 resistible, and uninterrupted advance towards democ- 
 racy, what they accuse me of is undoubtedly true. 
 I am fully convinced that there is a continual pro- 
 gress in human affairs one way or other, either for- 
 wards to democracy or round again to Conserva- 
 tism ; but I am by no means equally clear that the 
 progress in the first direction is destined to be per- 
 manent, or that it can ever be of long duration. On 
 the contrary, I am convinced that after a short and 
 feverish advance the direction of the movement is 
 inevitably turned, and that thus the social body is 
 brought back to much the same position from which 
 it originally started. This revolution of the social 
 
1862.] DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES. 361 
 
 system is as necessarily produced by the social situa- 
 tion of mankind and the laws of political order, as the 
 revolution of the planetary system is by the opposing 
 action of the centrifugal and centripetal forces. 
 
 No one can doubt, says De Tocqueville, who 
 observes the present aspect of affairs in all the civi- 
 lised countries of the world, that the tendency every- 
 where is more or less to democracv, and that that 
 tendency is so strong that to all practical ends it 
 may be considered as irresistible. Most true, the 
 tendency at 'present in all countries is to popular 
 institutions and the irresistible sway of the many; 
 but WHAT NEXT ? The progress will not stop when 
 it has reached even the most absolute form of repub- 
 licanism ; it will go on to something else ; and what 
 is that something else ? That is what it most be- 
 hoves men to know ; that is what De Tocqueville 
 and Arnold, with all their penetration, never dis- 
 covered, or from which, rather, they turned aside 
 their gaze. Yet is it the result of all others the most 
 generally established by experience ; the result which 
 occurred in Rome after the fervour of the Gracchi 
 in the despotism of the Dictator ; in England, in the 
 military government of Cromwell after the trans- 
 ports of the Great Rebellion ; in France, in the mon- 
 archy of Napoleon I. after the visions of 1789, and 
 in the empire of Napoleon III. after the Revolution 
 of 1848 ; and in America, in the civil war of 1862, 
 after the dream of a united and all - conquering 
 republic. It is the opposite impetus communicated 
 
362 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 to human affairs in different stages of their progress 
 which occasions these results. Democratic fervour, 
 like the centrifugal force first communicated to 
 the planetary orbs by the Creator, would, if un- 
 checked, doubtless impel men for ever in one direc- 
 tion ; but is it unchecked 'i can it ever be so 1 
 The centripetal force is for ever there to impede its 
 motion and at length change its direction ; and by 
 the combined action of these two forces the planets 
 are for ever preserved in their orbits, ever advancing, 
 but never breaking loose. What the centripetal 
 force, the impulse of gravitation, is to the heavenly 
 bodies, the instincts of property, that is the forces of 
 Conservatism, are to the moral world ; and nations, 
 albeit ever in motion, are by the opposite action of 
 these two forces for ever retained in their orbits, as 
 certainly as the planets are in their path through 
 the heavens. Nay, notwithstanding this circular or 
 elliptical movement in human affairs, there is an 
 evident progress upon the whole ; and perhaps the 
 nearest approach to it is to be found in the beautiful 
 simile of Goethe, who compares it to the spiral, 
 which, although ever revolving, on the whole ever 
 advances in its course. 
 
 In another sense, I am a devout believer in human 
 progress, and in the ultimate amelioration and im- 
 provement of the species. It is by experience and 
 suffering that wisdom is taught, and the founda- 
 tion of real social happiness laid. An attentive ob- 
 servation of human affairs, both in the individual 
 
1S62.] HUMAN IMPULSES AND NATURAL LAW. 363 
 
 and in nations, has long convinced me that a con- 
 tinual war is going on between the impulses of men, 
 produced by their desires and passions, and the 
 wisdom of nature, which teaches her lessons by the 
 silent admonition of suffering. " Ephraim is joined 
 to his idols ; let him alone." That is the system of 
 nature. The greatest strifes which have occurred in 
 the annals of mankind have arisen from the collision 
 of these opposite principles, and the efforts of human 
 pride and ambition to break through the laws of 
 nature or avert the suffering which is everywhere 
 consequent on their violation. The parable of the 
 Prodigal Son is emblematic of the misery which 
 attends the disregard of the laws of nature by the 
 many as well as by the few; there is a riotous living 
 for nations as for individuals, and " the masses," as 
 as well as the younger son of the family, will often 
 find themselves doomed to feed swine as the conse- 
 quence of their transgressions. The order intended 
 by nature is th^t the richer and more educated 
 classes, guided by the instincts of property and en- 
 lightened by the lessons of history, should direct and 
 rule the greater numbers of the working classes, who 
 are impelled only by the wants of poverty; although 
 their numbers and energy are always required to 
 watch and control the governing powers. The people 
 may occasionally establish for a brief season the dogma 
 of democratic government, but it will only be to fur- 
 nish an additional proof of its dangers, and terminate 
 the more speedily its destructive sway. 
 
364 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l8Sl- 
 
 Among other changes I observe a very great one, 
 which threatens, if not arrested, to be attended 
 with disastrous results. Independence of thought 
 is, with the diffusion of information, rapidly disap- 
 pearing amongst us. We are approaching every day 
 nearer to the situation of America, where, whatever 
 diversity of opinion may exist on any subject, none 
 adverse to that of the multitude is ever expressed. 
 The difference, in this respect, between these times 
 and those when I first began life is prodigious, and 
 forms one of the most important and formidable 
 features of the present. Liberalism, sedulously 
 addressing itself to the prejudices and passions of 
 the great body of the people, has succeeded on all 
 questions of general interest in not only preventing 
 the voice of truth from having any. influence in legis- 
 lation, but even from being heard at all in the 
 State. There are certain subjects which have come, 
 like those between discordant husband and wife, to 
 be regarded as "forbidden," as touching on the 
 deep foundations, non taiigenda non movenda, of 
 popular ascendancy. No one now would venture 
 to write a series of essays, such as I did for ' Black- 
 wood' in 1831 and 18.32 on " Parliamentary. Reform 
 and the French Revolution," or in 1845 and 1846 
 on " Free Trade." If he did, he would find no 
 bookseller who would publish them. Should any 
 luckless wight hazard such a thing, he would imme- 
 diately lose half his subscribers ; whereas formerly, 
 when I took up my pen in ' Blackwood,' the circula- 
 
1862.] POLITICAL TEST. 365 
 
 tion was increased. It is not that the public has 
 come to be of one opinion on these subjects — far 
 from it; opinions were never so divided or so clearly 
 marked on either side. It is that no one ventures to 
 express unpopular opinions, except in the confidence 
 of friendship or the freedom of private conversation, 
 for whoever does otherwise is sure to be impaled by 
 the Liberal press. 
 
 We must not deceive ourselves in this particular 
 from the frequency of " Conservative triumphs," as 
 they are called, in isolated elections, the narrow 
 majority in the House of Commons which keeps a 
 Liberal Ministry in power, or the evident disin- 
 clination of all parties there to go farther in the 
 career of democratic reform. These are indications 
 how parties stand in the country, and they may 
 prognosticate whether Lord Palmerston or Lord 
 Derby is to hold the reins of power in the next 
 few years ; but they afford no test how the opin- 
 ion of the majority in point of numbers has be- 
 come settled, or how far truth by the power of that 
 majority has become banished from the literary or 
 political atmosphere. To ascertain this we must 
 attend to the conversation of the leaders, whether 
 Liberal or Conservative, in private; and it every- 
 where affords material for the most serious reflec- 
 tions. There is, in reality, scarce any difference 
 between them when conversing in private ; you 
 would hardly know whether you are speaking to 
 a Liberal or a Conservative— to Lord Stanley or 
 
366 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 the Duke of Argyll. Everywhere one hears on 
 both sides the same distrust of the majority, the 
 same instances given of its unfitness for the exercise 
 of power, the same lamentations on the declining 
 influence of talent and knowledge in the State, the 
 want of rising young men on either side in Parlia- 
 ment, and the same regret for the ephemeral and 
 inflammatory tendency of popular literature. But 
 unfortunately in public, on the platform, the hus- 
 tings, the House of Commons, there is equal una- 
 nimity, but it is all on the other side. Nothing is 
 heard on either side but sonorous sentences on the 
 blessings of popular institutions, the spread of gen- 
 eral education, and the elevation of the vast majority 
 of the people. If you did not see the name at the 
 beginning of the speech, you would not know whether 
 these declamations proceeded from the "people's 
 Ministry" or the "people's Opposition." I do not 
 blame the Conservative leaders for adopting these 
 tactics ; on the contrary, I think they showed their 
 wisdom in doing so, and in directing, so far as it was 
 possible, the dangerous tendency of a current which 
 it was impossible openly to withstand. But that 
 does not alter the nature of things, or make less 
 evident the direction of that stream or the formid- 
 able line of breakers which lie at no great distance 
 athwart its course. 
 
 What has tended more than any other circum- 
 stance of late years to increase this social revolution 
 has been the vast spread of education (not know- 
 
1862.] THE PENNY PRESS. 367 
 
 ledge), in consequence of the prodigious efforts 
 everywhere made to extend it, and the general 
 establishment of the cheap or penny press. The 
 first gave to all the means of reading ; the last 
 furnished them with the cheap literature which they 
 were able to buy, and liked to read. If the penny 
 press could be brought to convey to the masses of 
 the community works of a pure tendency or sensible 
 character, it is impossible to conceive a more un- 
 mixed blessing than it would prove to mankind. 
 But is this universally or even generally the case 1 
 Is it not notorious, on the contrary, that the fact 
 is the reverse ? Are not in the penny press " sen- 
 sation articles " and " exciting stories " the staple 
 of what may be called their social literature, and 
 unsparing abuse of every person suspected of anti- 
 democratic principles of their political ? How many 
 of these stimulating and highly seasoned productions 
 survive the week or the day of their appearance ? 
 Hardly one ; certainly none is to be found in any 
 well -furnished library, or contributes to form the 
 mind of any well-informed man. But they answer 
 their purpose ; they fill up the vacant hours of a 
 multitude ever desirous, like the Athenian, of some- 
 thing new ; above all, they sell, and contribute to 
 keep afloat an able, energetic class of writers, who, 
 setting aside any attempt to convey information or 
 steady judgment, devote themselves to the easier 
 task of stimulating the imagination and warping 
 the reason. 
 
363 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [lS61- 
 
 This result of general reading, cheap literature, and 
 the penny press, is so universal, that no one attempts 
 to deny that, at present, this effect has taken place. 
 But the well-informed among the Liberal leaders (of 
 whom there are many), while admitting and lament- 
 ing this at the moment, maintain that the evil will 
 only he temporary, and that the people will ere long 
 tire of the exciting; literature which contains no 
 solid information. 
 
 If the perilous and degrading character of the 
 cheap literature now possessing so immense a circula- 
 tion could be arrested by any change in, or improve- 
 ment of, education — any extension of political rights, 
 or any improvement in their social or domestic cir- 
 cumstances — there might be some ground for this 
 pleasing hope. But unfortunately this is far from 
 being the case ; on the contrary, the causes which 
 induce it arise from the first laws of social existence ; 
 they were announced to man on leaving Paradise in 
 the words, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat 
 bread." It is the necessity of daily labour, and of 
 its commencement early in life, which is the real 
 cause of those shortcomings in the general mind, 
 and which renders exciting or exaggerated works 
 chiefly popular. It is not the mere power of read- 
 ing which will lead men to read sensible or valuable 
 books. A few, perhaps one in twenty, will be found 
 in every rank and under every disadvantage who 
 will do so. But the immense majority never can be 
 brought to do so, except by a long-continued and 
 
1862.] CHEAP POPULAR LITERATURE. 369 
 
 costly education, such as is altogether beyond the 
 reach of the working classes. With them the manu- 
 factory, the "workshop, and the mine stand forth in 
 ceaseless and formidable competition with the school 
 by oflfering wages to the children, and the result is 
 general and inevitable. After having got enough 
 education to enable them to read they are set to 
 work ; and unhappily the changes of society have 
 fixed the period when their labour can be rendered 
 profitable much earlier in manufacturing or mining 
 than in pastoral or purely agricultural districts. The 
 necessity of strength for farming operations forms a 
 natural protection to infants in the country ; but 
 none such exists in the workshop or the mine. No 
 one could make anything by setting a child of ten or 
 twelve years old to plough or to dig, and in attend- 
 ing flocks there is ample time for reading ; but some- 
 thing can be made of children even of eight years in 
 coal-mines or factories. Thus the millions must 
 ever be composed mainly of imperfectly educated per- 
 sons, and a "little knowledge is a dangerous thing." 
 
 The price of cheap popular literature is so low 
 that it can be made to pay only when a very large 
 circulation is attained ; and even then, if not accom- 
 panied by a great number of advertisements, it is 
 a hazardous speculation. Thus its proprietors and 
 writers are driven by necessity as well as the desire 
 of gain to do their utmost to extend their circula- 
 tion ; and experience soon teaches tliem that this 
 is to be done only by the adoption of advanced 
 
 VOL. IL 2 A 
 
370 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 Liberal principles in politics, and by the selection of 
 the most taking "sensation articles" in literature. 
 Proofs of this are to be seen on all sides : look at 
 the ' Cornhill ' or ' Macmillan's Magazine ; ' see how 
 much even of ' Blackwood ' is taken up with exciting 
 stories. There is now only one daily paper in Scot- 
 land — the ' Courant ' of Edinburgh — of Conservative 
 politics ; the ' Herald ' of Glasgow, since it became 
 penny, has turned Liberal. In London there is only 
 one daily paper, the ' Standard,' which adheres to 
 the ancient faith in politics ; and despite the talents 
 of my able friend Mr Patterson, the ' Press,' the only 
 weekly one, is understood not to be a paying con- 
 cern. If matters ever come to the point of the 
 whole periodical press being stamped with one char- 
 acter, that of pure and absolute democracy, there will 
 result two literatures in this country, as there has 
 long been in America — one calm, rational, and Con- 
 servative, addressed to the hundreds living in retire- 
 ment and destitute of power in the State ; and 
 another violent, able, and unscrupulous, addressed to 
 the millions in whom the government of the empire 
 is vested. It need hardly be said that such a state 
 of things could not be of long endurance ; the feet 
 and the hands could not for any length of time 
 carry on life while governing the head. But it might 
 subsist long enough to make the very name of popu- 
 lar rule odious, as it has done in France and the South- 
 ern States of America, from experience of the evils it 
 has brought in its train ; and lead men, in hopes of 
 
1862.] FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY. 371 
 
 spurning the despotism of a majority, to shield them- 
 selves under the government of the sword. 
 
 The unanimity of opinion, so far at least as ex- 
 pressed in public in favour of democratic institutions, 
 which is the subject of such self-gratulation among 
 the Liberals of late years, prognosticates in fact, be- 
 yond anything else, the approach of absolute govern- 
 ment. When every voice against the will of the ma- 
 jority is hushed, when seeming unanimity in favour 
 of democratic institutions pervades the State, and the 
 press of all grades is continually singing praises of 
 the wisdom, justice, and patriotism of the ruling 
 majority of the people, it may be prophesied that 
 the days of its empire are numbered, and that 
 the nation is about to sink into the slumber of 
 absolute government. It will be a government 
 indeed in the interest of the majority — that is, 
 yielding to all their wishes, and bestowing on them its 
 whole patronage ; but it will not be the less absolute, 
 or the less rule the minority with despotic sway. 
 What can resist it when it has got possession by 
 numbers of the powers of government, and Avields by 
 a subservient press the whole influence of thought 1 
 The unanimity of expressed opinion, contrasted with 
 the vast variety of concealed, which we every day 
 see around us, is the clearest proof that the power 
 of mind has become disciplined and enslaved by a 
 numerical majority; that, like the Catholic clergy 
 or the imperial press, it has no " inspiration " but 
 what it receives from its leaders. Pure democracy 
 
372 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [1861- 
 
 is the transition state from freedom to tyranny, and 
 so it has ever proved from the beginning of the 
 world. 
 
 Another evil of serious and pressing consequences 
 is the increasing decline in the number of the 
 young men of capacity and statesmanlike qualities 
 who now go into Parliament, compared to that 
 which used to do so before the Eeform Bill was 
 passed. Here again the Americanising of our in- 
 stitutions has become conspicuous, and it is evident 
 that a deterioration in the composition of our Legis- 
 lature has arisen, through a change from which so 
 much of an opposite tendency was anticipated. This 
 is not the case peculiarly with any party ; I have 
 heard it as strongly stated and as feelingly deplored 
 by Mr EUice on the part of the Whigs, as by Mr 
 Walpole on that of the Tories. It cannot be other- 
 wise under the present constitution of the House 
 of Commons, which has two -thirds of its number 
 members for boroughs. How is a young man of 
 talent, but without either aristocratic influence or 
 popular subservience, to find an entrance into the 
 Lower House ? He need not go near any of the 
 large towns, unless he is prepared to pledge him- 
 self to do and say everything which the democratic 
 majority choose to prescribe : in the counties he 
 has not a chance unless he is supported by a large 
 territorial influence. The small boroughs by which 
 all our statesmen in former days got in — by which 
 Burke and Chatham, Pitt and Fox, Wilberforce and 
 
1862.] DETERIORATION OF PARLIAMENT. 373 
 
 Romilly, Canning and Perceval, Palmerston and 
 Stanley, found an entrance, — have either been swept 
 away in Schedules A. and B., or retained only as the 
 snug appanages of some great Whig families. The 
 really independent members — the men who bought 
 their seats, and were, literally speaking, 
 
 " Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri," 
 
 have become so rare that the race may be considered 
 almost extinct. There is abundance of corruption 
 — indeed far more than ever was heard of before 
 our institutions were popularised ; and it is corrup- 
 tion of the worst kind — that of undue influence in 
 large constituencies. Fifty-two seats, almost all of 
 this kind, were challenged at the last general elec- 
 tion on this ground — by far the greatest number 
 ever known in our history. In such a scramble of 
 democratic fervour, Government influence, territorial 
 sway, and commercial wealth, how is it possible for 
 mere statesmanlike ability or independent worth to 
 find an entrance ? It has become so difiicult, that 
 for all practical purposes it may be considered as im- 
 possible ; to render it literally so we have only to 
 establish universal sufirage, which has brought forth 
 the fruit of universal corruption in America. 
 
 An important change little attended to on the 
 south of the Tweed, has taken place in Scotland of 
 late years. The bill which some years ago became 
 law in regard to borough elections, directing every 
 person who is rated in the Government books as 
 
374 AUTOBIOaEAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 occupant of a £10 subject to be enrolled as a voter 
 without Ills knowledge or consent, has rendered it 
 impossible for any one to sit for a Scotch burgh, 
 who is not prepared to forswear his independence, 
 and become the mere delegate of a democratic 
 majority. Nothing was wanting but to extend 
 the same system, without any change, to the suf- 
 frage in the counties (which was done with general 
 approbation in the present session of Parliament, 
 1861), to render the same majority paramount 
 in the manufacturing and commercial districts, 
 and cause Scotland to return permanently 45 
 out of its 53 members bound neck and heels to 
 commercial interests and the chariot - wheels of a 
 democratic majority. The change at one bloAv 
 raised the constituency of Glasgow from 7000 to 
 20,000, and those of every other burgh in a 
 similar proportion. Investigation or inquiry into 
 the validity of votes is impossible in such enor- 
 mous multitudes. It becomes so expensive that it 
 is never attempted. Practically speaking, any per- 
 son who is willing to be rated and pay taxes as 
 for a £10 house is secure of a vote. This may seem 
 an inconsiderable matter to the English, as every- 
 thing is connected with Scotland ; but they will 
 feel the importance of it when it is recollected that 
 it is the Scotch majority which has kept the Liberal 
 Ministry in power for the last twenty years, and 
 may probably do so for twenty years to come. 
 I have been insensibly led into these observations 
 
1862.] DEMOCEACY IN AMERICA. 375 
 
 from my attention having been forcibly turned to 
 the principles of government and the tendency of 
 democratic institutions, by closely watching their 
 practical working on this the first occasion in which 
 they were really put to trial. The American dis- 
 ruption and civil war was now in full vigour, and 
 the attention of all classes in Europe, and especially 
 in Great Britain, was anxiously fixed on the New 
 World, in expectation of witnessing how there the 
 strain would be borne which had so often proved 
 fatal to democratic institutions in the Old. The 
 true experimentum crucis had now arrived for them. 
 More than even in the first French Revolution they 
 were on trial in the presence of mankind. In 1789 
 it was rather the aged monarchies of Europe than 
 the young democracy of America which were put 
 to the test : the old French despotic Government 
 was weighed in the balance and found wanting. 
 It was alleged plausibly, and to a certain extent 
 truly, that the sanguinary excesses which followed 
 the first triumph of liberty in that great country 
 were in reality owing, not to its natural tendency, 
 but to the unnatural turn which it had received 
 from the oppression of former times ; that the bow 
 bent too far one way, was let loose too far in 
 another ; and that it was not the efforts of freedom, 
 but the league of despots, which had induced the 
 atrocities that awakened the horror and detestation 
 of the world. In America, however, the case was 
 different. Liberty there began without any former 
 
376 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 misgovernment or arbitrary traditions to blast its 
 course ; without any league of despots to obstruct 
 its progress ; with unheard-of advantages to facili- 
 tate its advance, and unlimited material resources 
 to reward its efforts. The alleged bars to social 
 progress and general felicity in the Old World, did 
 not exist there. They began their career without 
 a king, a House of Lords, a bench of bishops, or a 
 territorial aristocracy ; with no national debt to 
 weigh down their energies, or direct taxes to damp 
 their industry ; without a standing army to fetter 
 their exertions, or military neighbours to render it 
 necessary ; with the boundless far west as a field 
 for their increase, the wide ocean as a medium for 
 their commerce, and the wealth of Europe as a 
 market for their produce. They began with English 
 blood in their veins, English traditions in their 
 hearts, English literature to ennoble their feelings, 
 and the Christian religion to humanise their spirits. 
 Never did a race of mankind commence their career 
 with more advantages, or more free from the 
 trammels which elsewhere impede progress. How 
 has America stood the test ? how has demo- 
 cratic government played its part, when first per- 
 mitted unlimited freedom of action, relieved of all 
 impediments to progress or impulses to misdirec- 
 tion 1 
 
 The fact is that she has broken down on the first 
 trial. The inherent arrogance and self-sufficiency of 
 a numerical Northern majority has driven the South 
 
1862.] THE SOUTHERN EEVOLT. 377 
 
 into open revolt, and induced a frightful contest, a 
 helium plusquam civile, over the whole breadth of 
 the American continent. Threatened by the fanat- 
 ical theorists of the North, aided by their zealous 
 allies in this country, with the instant abolition of 
 slavery — in other words, the destruction of their 
 property, the ruin of their wives and children, and 
 the loss of their own lives — curbed in their industry 
 by a ruinous protective tariiF, introduced for the 
 benefit of the Northern manufacturers, and which 
 doubled the price of the manufactures they stood 
 in need of, — the Southern States were driven to take 
 up arms, and assert for themselves that right of se- 
 cession which the whole united provinces, on far less 
 provocation, had asserted eighty years before against 
 Great Britain, and in which they had been cordially 
 supported by the whole friends of freedom in the Old 
 World. A contest on a scale of great magnitude 
 soon began between the Northern and Southern 
 States of America, which is still raging, and which, 
 attended hitherto with various and balanced suc- 
 cess, will evidently not be concluded without one 
 party or another being trampled under the feet of 
 rude military power. In the course of this san- 
 guinary and embittered struggle the most stupen- 
 dous efforts have been made on both sides. A 
 million of men, supported at a fabulous cost, are 
 maintained for mutual destruction, — a force as great 
 as had been on foot in Europe in the last stages of 
 the war with Napoleon ; and in the first year of the 
 
378 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 contest, the Northern States alone incurred a debt of 
 £100,000,000, an expenditure greater than that of 
 Great Britain during the darkest period of the Penin- 
 sular war. In the very outset of this tremendous strug- 
 gle the safeguards of freedom were, with the cordial ap- 
 probation of the extreme democrats, set aside in the 
 Northern States ; the press was muzzled, and eighty 
 editors of newspapers were sent to Fort Lafayette ; 
 even the telegraph was stopped, and taken into the 
 hands of Government ; and domiciliary visits and 
 arrests became almost as frequent in Washington dur- 
 ing the first year of the contest, as they had been in 
 France in the last days of the Convention. Liber- 
 ation was proclaimed to all the slaves who would 
 join the invaders — a measure from which even 
 Napoleon shrank in the invasion of Eussia ; while 
 the beneficence of Providence itself was attempted 
 to be frustrated, and the highway of nations stopped 
 by sinking ships loaded with stones at the mouth of 
 navigable rivers. At length, as in France during the 
 fervour of the Revolution, a conscription has been 
 established in both of the contending States, and mili- 
 tary despotism is as completely in force at Washing- 
 ton as ever it was at Eome or Paris. The expendi- 
 ture of the aggressive Eepublic has kept pace with 
 its passions : in two years of warfare it has spent 
 £400,000,000 ; and the New York journals boast 
 that " poor little England " took a century to contract 
 £200,000,000 of debt, but their Government has 
 contracted as much in less than a couple of years. 
 
1862.] BRITISH VIEWS ON AMERICAN STRUGGLE. 379 
 
 Nothing surprised me so much when these events 
 were in progress as the way in which they were re- 
 garded in this country. On every side, in the Con- 
 servative equally with the Liberal press, was to be 
 heard nothing but lamentations over this unnat- 
 ural and fratricidal contest, and astonishment that 
 any cause of discord could have arisen in a pacific 
 democracy, amidst the boundless material capabili- 
 ties of the New World. Some recommended the 
 seceding States again to shelter themselves under the 
 wing of the Union ; a greater number earnestly coun- 
 selled the Northerners to acquiesce in the secession 
 without farther resistance, and restore harmony and 
 peace to the vast fields of transatlantic plenty. The 
 war was universally deplored as the most causeless, 
 the most inconceivable, the most aimless that ever 
 was waged ; and astonishment was universally ex- 
 pressed as to what was the cause to which so sense- 
 less a contest could be ascribed. Nothing could 
 demonstrate more clearly how completely the vast 
 majority in this country had been deluded as to the 
 real tendencies of democracy, — how little impression 
 the lessons of history on this subject had made, — and 
 how rude a shock was required to awaken men to the 
 real truth on the subject. 
 
 To myself it had long appeared not only that it 
 was not surprising that this result had taken place, 
 but that the only wonderful thing was that it had 
 not come about much earlier. Secession was the 
 basis of government in America. The United States 
 
380 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [I86I- 
 
 seceded from the English Government because they 
 had been threatened with a trifling tax on tea, imposed 
 by the British Parliament without their consent in 
 Parliament : it was diflicult to see on what prin- 
 ciple the right of the Southern States to secede 
 could be disputed, when they were threatened with 
 a duty of 25 per cent on all imports, imposed by 
 the manufacturing majority in the Northern States 
 without their consent, and in opposition to their 
 most strenuous efi"orts. The frame of society was 
 essentially different in the North and the South, 
 from the difference of latitude and consequent 
 habits of the people. In the former, the cold 
 of the climate permitted and invited the labour 
 of white men in the fields, a circumstance which 
 rendered universal suffrage possible as the basis of 
 government : in the South, the heat of the climate, 
 which precluded all labour but that of the negroes 
 in rural districts, shut out universal suffrage, and 
 rendered government comparatively aristocratic, be- 
 cause the great bulk of country labourers were 
 blacks, to whom all thought it was impossible 
 the electoral suffrage could be extended. The in- 
 terests of the two parts of America were not less 
 at variance. The South, essentially agricultural, 
 with vast fields of cotton to dispose of, and no 
 manufactures to be ruined by European competi- 
 tion, was naturally disposed to favour free trade : 
 the North, with vast fields of coal and iron, invit- 
 ing manufactures, and affording every facility for 
 
1862.] CONFLICTING INTEKESTS IN AMERICA. 381 
 
 their establishment, saw ruin before it if English 
 goods and minerals were not practically excluded 
 by heavy protective duties, and consequently sought 
 refuge in hostile tariffs. Nothing save the wisdom 
 of a patriotic but absolute Grovernment, like that of 
 Antoninus, could have held long together in peace 
 an empire so vast, so differently circumstanced, and 
 actuated by such discordant interests. But this me- 
 diating power was wanting, for both sections of the 
 Union were governed by a fierce democracy, impa- 
 tient of control, covetous of gain, and animated by the 
 strongest feelings of animosity towards each other. 
 
 Twenty years before, I had predicted the approach- 
 ing dislocation of the union in America, of which 
 the hostile attitude of North Carolina in 1834 had 
 been the premonitory symptom.^ Great was the 
 
 ^ " Each, separate state in America is a democracy in itself, and in 
 it the power of the people is exerted without any control. Every one 
 has its governor, senate, and house of representatives ; the whole 
 number of which, in both houses, are elected by the universal suffrage 
 of the people. These legislative bodies are vested with what practi- 
 cally amounts to absolute powers in their separate states. They ex- 
 clusively manage their debts, finances, improvements, judicial estab- 
 lishment, militia, harbours, roads, railways, canals, and other local 
 concerns. So extensive and undefined are their powers, that it 
 may be doubted whether they do not amount to those of declaring 
 peace and war, and acting in all respects as independent states. Cer- 
 tain it is, that on more than one occasion, — particularly the dispute with 
 the Southern States in 1834, on the question of nullifying the tariff of 
 duties established by Congress ; and the open hostilities which the 
 Northern States carried on with the British inhabitants on the Canada 
 frontier in 1837 and 1839, — the separate states, the Carolinas in the 
 first instance, and New York and Maine in the second, took upon 
 themselves to set the authority of the central government at defiance ; 
 and Congress and the executive were glad to veil their weakness under 
 
382 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 indignation which the publication of the passage 
 quoted in the note excited in the United States. 
 Such was the clamour raised that an edition of the 
 work was printed in America, and advertised with- 
 out the American chapters. This, however, is only 
 a proof of the truth of the maxim of the English 
 law, "the greater the truth the greater the libel, 
 because it is more difficult to hear." Probably there 
 is no impartial observer who will now dispute that 
 these views were well founded, and that the disrup- 
 tion of the Union, so far from being an inexplicable 
 event, was what might have been expected in a coun- 
 try of vast extent impelled by opposite interests, and 
 in every part ruled by an arrogant and intolerant 
 democracy. 
 
 A very interesting discussion on the war in America 
 took place at Hamilton Palace in the beginning of 
 this winter, which deserves to be recorded, from the 
 abilities and information of the speakers. It was 
 in the Duke's smoking - room after supper, and 
 was conducted by the Honourable Charles Murray, 
 son of Lord Dunmore, on the one side, and Lord 
 Elgin, who was on his way to take the government 
 of India, on the other. Mr Murray, who had 
 
 the guise of moderation, wliile in reality tliey succumbed to the whole 
 demands of the insurgent commonwealths. It does not require the 
 gift of prophecy to foretell that a vast confederacy of separate states, 
 each with its own legislature and armed force, and actuated, from dif- 
 ference of climate and situation, hy opposite and conflicting interests, 
 and held together by so slender a tie, is not destined to hang long 
 together." — History of Europe, chap. xc. p. 54 (published in 1841). 
 
1862.] DISCUSSION AT HAMILTON PALACE. 383 
 
 travelled through the whole of the United States, 
 strongly tirged the danger which was approaching 
 this country from the growing military spirit and 
 vast strength of the United States. "You must 
 not," said he, " measure the military capabilities of 
 the Americans from the rout of Bull's Run ; they 
 were beaten then because their army was composed 
 of volunteers who were almost undisciplined — and 
 the bravest men, if not accustomed to act together, 
 are liable to sudden panics : but the spirit of the 
 nation is now roused; a vast force has been enrolled 
 as regular soldiers ; the artillery and horses and 
 materiel of every kind are magnificent; and the 
 men, who are well disciplined, will fight, and fight 
 bravely. Their animosity against England for re- 
 cognising the Southern States as belligerents is un- 
 bounded ; they will conquer the Southern States, 
 and the moment this is done they will turn an 
 army of 300,000 men upon Canada, which that coun- 
 try, even with all the aid that we can give it, will 
 never be able to resist. Six railroads in the United 
 States terminate in Canada ; Montreal is only a 
 short distance from the frontier ; and the Americans 
 could easily send 40,000 men by each line into the 
 long and straggling British provinces which lie on 
 their northern flank. Eely upon it, we had better 
 send our regiments to Canada than to Calcutta : the 
 Yankees will prove more formidable enemies than 
 the sepoys." 
 
 To these arguments, which were delivered with 
 
384 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 uncommon energy and distinctness, Lord Elgin 
 replied : " You are quite mistaken in supposing that 
 Canada is the quarter where danger first threatens 
 the British empire : India is in a much more critical 
 situation, and it is there that our principal military 
 efforts should be directed. The American standing 
 army is contemptible ; and as to their volunteers, the 
 exhibition at Bull's Run sufficiently shows of what 
 stuff they are composed. It is impossible they can 
 ever maintain an army capable of holding its own 
 against that of Great Britain ; for such an army 
 requires a great expenditure, such as can only be 
 raised by taxes, which will never be submitted 
 to in the United States. Their system of finance 
 will soon break down, cash payments must ere 
 long be suspended at the banks and the Treasury, 
 and then the national credit is gone, and no means 
 will remain of defraying the expense of their arma- 
 ments by sea or land. They will never venture to 
 declare war against England, for the first efiect of 
 such a measure would be to have their harbours 
 blockaded, and their custom-house dues, their main 
 source of revenue, destroyed. We have only to 
 remain neutral and the North will speedily waste its 
 resources in a fruitless contest with the South, and 
 America will be divided without our expending a 
 sovereign or firing a gun in the cause." These and 
 many similar arguments were urged with much plausi- 
 bility and diplomatic tact by the noble lord ; and the 
 discussion went on till two in the morning, with the 
 
1862.] LORD ELGIN. 385 
 
 usual result in such cases, of each party being con- 
 firmed in his own preconceived opinion. I have 
 often reflected since, how the event, so far as it has 
 yet gone, has disproved Lord Elgin's arguments, and 
 confirmed the first part at least of his opponent's. 
 
 Lord Elgin always reminds me of an expression I 
 have often heard from Dugald Stewart in reference 
 to a relation of his own, — "Peter's talents are not 
 of the highest order, but they are all of the most 
 marJcetable description." Never was an individual 
 endowed with talents of a more " marketable kind " 
 than Lord Elgin, or better adapted for that peculiar 
 market to which he brought them. Born of an 
 ancient and distinguished house in Scotland, which, 
 reversing the usual order of nobility, numbered 
 kings among its descendants,^ he found himself at 
 his entrance into life the heir to an ancient peerage, 
 but with an impoverished family and a shattered 
 fortune. So embarrassed were its circumstances, 
 that Lord Elgin for long delayed serving himself 
 beir to his father, the ambassador at Constantinople, 
 whom Lord Byron immortalised as the despoiler 
 of the Parthenon. He was naturally, from his 
 father's connections, bred to the civil service ; and 
 he seems to have entered into it with the reso- 
 lution, which he perseveringly carried out, — as War- 
 ren Hastings did his resolve to regain his ancestral 
 
 1 " Kings frae us," is the motto of the Bruce family, of which Lord 
 Elgin is the head, alluding to the descent of Eobert Bruce from its 
 ancestors. 
 
 VOL. II. 2 B 
 
386 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [186I- 
 
 estate of Daylesford, — to restore his family to its 
 ancient fortune and grandeur. In the diplomatic 
 line, and in an age when Liberalism was rapidly 
 encroaching in every department, this could only be 
 effected by " diplomatic conduct " in every sense of 
 the word ; and no man was ever better qualified for 
 it than Lord Elgin. 
 
 I have often met him at small parties at Sir 
 John Maxwell's at PoUok, at Keir, and at Hamil- 
 ton Palace. Although not a man of very remark- 
 able talents or of an original mind, he clothes 
 in fluent diplomatic language the ideas of others 
 with considerable success. Such a turn of mind 
 and intellectual training is incomparably more val- 
 uable to a diplomatic or official servant than an 
 original, forcible one. The latter is the character 
 requisite to form the leaders of men — to make a 
 Pitt, a Wellington, a Castlereagh ; but what is 
 chiefly required in their followers is aptitude to 
 follow out the instructions and elaborate the views 
 of others. That Lord Elgin possesses these sec- 
 ondary and valuable qualities in a very high de- 
 gree is sufficiently proved by his successful career, 
 and the various steps to which he has been pro- 
 moted in the service of the State. As Governor of 
 Jamaica and of Canada, and when intrusted with 
 the direction of the negotiations with China, he has 
 conducted himself with such satisfaction to his su- 
 periors that he has now attained the grand object 
 of his ambition, in being made the Governor-General 
 
1862.] LORD ELGIN. 387 
 
 of India. There it is to be hoped he will succeed 
 in realising the object of his life, which is the res- 
 toration of the fortunes of his family. Nor is he 
 unworthy of such success ; for his decision in return- 
 ing to Calcutta with the 90th Regiment and troops 
 forming the Chinese expedition, when he heard of 
 the commencement of the Indian Mutiny, proved 
 of the most essential service, and was the first 
 circumstance which turned the scales of fortune 
 in our favour on the plains of Hindostan. He 
 has no natural eloquence ; and diplomatic training, 
 as appeared in Lord Castlereagh's case, is the worst 
 school for oratory : but he has an easy flow of well- 
 constructed agreeable sentences. 
 
388 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 QUIET WINTER AT POSSIL — CONVERSATIONS WITH 
 MY SON — GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 
 
 WINTER 1862. 
 
 A and his family paid us a visit of two 
 
 months this winter and spring at Possil, which 
 we enjoyed in the highest degree. It took place 
 at a most interesting time, when public anxiety 
 was wound up to a very high pitch by the Ameri- 
 can civil war, the affair of the Trent, and the 
 apparently approaching hostilities with that coun- 
 try. We talked on the subject for several hours 
 each day, and we agreed in thinking that the 
 Confederates missed their opportunity when they 
 did not advance on Washington the day after the 
 battle of Bull's Eun, and the English theirs in not 
 recognising the Southern Confederacy, and break- 
 ing the blockade when that aggression took place. 
 We never had any sure confidence in the ability of 
 the Southern States to resist the Northern, when 
 the strength of the latter was fairly roused, unless 
 
1862.] BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN WAR. 389 
 
 foreign intervention equalised the contest by open- 
 ing the Southern harbours. 
 
 It is the more extraordinary that Lord Palmerston 
 felt himself precluded from recognising the South 
 American Republic and breaking the blockade, when 
 not only strong material interests in the country, 
 but the principles which for half a century had 
 regulated our foreign policy, concurred in recom- 
 mending such a course. Essentially agricultural, 
 possessing a boundless expanse of territory produc- 
 ing cotton, sugar, and so many products of the sort 
 of which Great Britain stood in need, the Southern 
 States were at the same time without manufactures 
 or desire to establish them, and anxious only to 
 secure at a moderate rate the fabrics of this coun- 
 try in exchange for the rude produce of their own. 
 The Confederates offered us free trade and nominal 
 import duties ; the Federals met our advances with 
 the Moira tariff, imposing duties on imports vary- 
 ing from 25 to 250 per cent, — in most cases amount- 
 ing to total prohibition. Our interests, therefore, 
 recommended alliance with the former, and their 
 release from the domination of the latter. Besides, 
 our invariable policy in every instance during the last 
 forty years had been to support what we call " op- 
 pressed nationalities " everywhere, except in our own 
 dominions. On this principle we had sent, as Lord 
 Castlereagh said, "not regiments, but armies," to 
 support the insurgents of South America against the 
 Government of Old Spain ; established the revolu- 
 
390 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON, [l862. 
 
 tionary party in Spain and Portugal by the aid of 
 the British marines and the sword of Sir Charles 
 Napier; sent warlike stores in 1848 to the assist- 
 ance of the insurgents in Sicily ; and given efficient 
 diplomatic aid and moral support to the Sardinian 
 Government in the war with Austria ; and to the 
 Roman and Neapolitan revolutionists in the subse- 
 quent convulsions in the Italian peninsula in 1861. 
 
 How then did it happen that Lord Palmerston, 
 despite his known inclination to act otherwise, 
 felt himself constrained, after Mason and Slidell 
 were given up, to proclaim, for the first time since 
 the battle of Waterloo, a real and hond fide neu- 
 trality between the contending parties in a neigh- 
 bouring Power ? How did he feel himself forced 
 to muzzle the French, who were willing to have in- 
 tervened, and to permit a ruinous and wasteful war 
 to be prolonged beyond the Atlantic, in order to 
 confirm a protective commonwealth in the New 
 World which should extend over half a continent 
 the prohibitory duties on our manufactures now in 
 force in its Northern States 1 Because this had been 
 done, not by a monarchy, but by a republic, and 
 because in resisting it we would have been enter- 
 ing the lists, not with a king, but with the great 
 democracy of the world ! The idea of resisting a 
 democracy so appalled our Liberal rulers, that it has 
 rendered them insensible alike to the material inter- 
 ests and acute suffering of their own country, and 
 to one of the most flagrant changes in national policy 
 
1862.] BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN WAR. 391 
 
 recorded in the annals of mankind. From being 
 always the ardent well-wishers and often powerful 
 allies of insurgents, we have suddenly become the 
 virtual supporters of a tyrannical majority, which is 
 striving to force an unwelcome and unsuitable gov- 
 ernment on a resisting people struggling for their 
 lives and property ; from being the apostles of 
 free trade we have discovered that our interests 
 are wound up with those of the greatest protective 
 Power in existence ; from being the advocates of 
 universal peace, and the promoters of concord among 
 nations as the main source of general prosperity, we 
 have turned into the passive spectators of a vast 
 aggressive warlike community, openly aspiring to 
 subjugate a confederation struggling for its liberties 
 and its independence. And all this has happened 
 (1862) within two years of the time when Lord 
 John Eussell declared in an official despatch that 
 " when the people of any country rise against their 
 oppressors, it is the duty of the Government of Great 
 Britain to render them any assistance in its power." 
 In justification of the acquiescence of Great 
 Britain in the conquest of the free-trading Southern 
 States of America by the protective Northern, Earl 
 Eussell in the House of Lords, and Lord Palmerston 
 in the Commons, spoke on the great international 
 duty of non-interference, and the illegality of one 
 nation interposiiig in the domestic broils of another. 
 These doctrines are most true, but they do not come 
 with the best grace from a Government which had 
 
392 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 SO recently in an official despatch stated it to be the 
 duty of Great Britain to succour all people insurgent 
 against domestic oppression. 
 
 The publication of the results of the census of 
 1861, which took place in the spring of the fol- 
 lowing year, forcibly attracted my attention, and led 
 to frequent and most interesting conversations be- 
 tween A and myself. As already mentioned, 
 
 from my earliest years the subject of population had 
 been the object of frequent and anxious thought. I 
 never had the slightest doubt about the truth of the 
 main principle of my work on that subject — viz., that 
 the population, if unchecked, has a tendency in the 
 later stages of society to increase faster than sub- 
 sistence can be provided for it ; but it never can then 
 advance in that accelerated ratio, because there are 
 certain checks provided by nature which are succes- 
 sively developed as the state of society requires their 
 operation, and which in these later stages first retard, 
 and at last entirely stop, its progress. This truth 
 was now demonstrated in a way and on a scale more 
 decisive than I could then have anticipated. From 
 the results of the census taken periodically in Great 
 Britain and France during this century, it appears 
 that in both countries the retarding causes to the 
 increase of mankind have come to act so strongly of 
 late years that the rate of increase is rapidly de- 
 creasing, and in several years in the latter country 
 has disappeared altogether, and population become 
 stationary. The quinquennial increase of France, 
 
1862.] RESULTS OF THE CENSUS. 393 
 
 which between 1830 and 1840 was 1,700,000 souls 
 in round numbers, has sunk now to 354,000; and in 
 the years of the Crimean war, from 1854 to 1856, 
 was turned into an annual decrease of from 40,000 
 to 50,000 inhabitants. In Great Britain the same 
 phenomenon has been exhibited in a still more re- 
 markable, because in a longer and a more regular, 
 manner. The decennial increase, which from 1831 
 to 1841 was 2,700,000 in the two islands, has since 
 that time progressively declined, and from 1851 to 
 1861 was only 1,400,000, being about half of what 
 it had been in the preceding period. The rate of 
 increase has declined every ten years since 1801, 
 when the census began to be taken, although the 
 actual number of inhabitants has increased, and 
 the nation, on the whole, though with great vicissi- 
 tudes, has been in a prosperous condition, and its 
 commerce and manufactures have immensely in- 
 creased. 
 
 A subject of great interest, which strongly arrested 
 our attention this winter, was the state of Italy. 
 That beautiful peninsula, with the exception of those 
 portions of it occupied by the Austrians in Venetia 
 and the French in Eome, was in the hands of the 
 Piedmontese forces, who, supported by a large por- 
 tion of the urban population, kept the far greater 
 number of the rural inhabitants down. To over- 
 awe the royalist party in the fields and their 
 friends in the Quadrilateral, imposts of a crush- 
 ing amount were levied over the whole penin- 
 
394 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 sula ; and those in Piedmont, in particular, were 
 thrice as heavy as they had been before the contest 
 with Austria commenced. It was impossible that 
 such a state of things could long continue, and we 
 both watched with eager anxiety the issue of events, 
 the thread of which as yet lay hid in the mind of 
 Lo^^is Napoleon. A and I in some degree dif- 
 fered on the subject ; and without deciding at pres- 
 ent which was in the right, which the course of 
 things will probably have resolved before these pages 
 see the light, it will be more interesting to give a brief 
 summary of the considerations which were adduced 
 while the event was as yet uncertain on either side. 
 "No one can for a moment doubt," said I, "that 
 if you could establish a really united state, embrac- 
 ing all Italy, it would be alike advantageous to the 
 ultimate balance of power in Europe and conducive 
 to the present happiness of the people in the penin- 
 sula. All that may at once be conceded ; but the 
 present question is, whether such a union is practi- 
 cable ; and if it were, whether in the present state of 
 the European Powers it would be desirable for this 
 country ? If we are to judge from experience, nature 
 has, by its geographical conformation, its varied pro- 
 ducts, and by the different races of men settled in 
 Italy, opposed an insurmountable barrier to a union 
 of its different states by any other bond than the rude 
 one of military force. The earliest light of history 
 exhibits the entire peninsula divided into separate 
 principalities, peopled by different races, and actu- 
 
1862.] PROSPECTS OF ITALIAN UNITY. 395 
 
 ated by continual hostility to each other. The Etrus- 
 cans, Sabines, Latins, and Samnites in Central Italy 
 were not only constantly at war with each other, but 
 all opposed to the Greeks, settled on the shores of 
 Naples and Sicily, and to the Gauls, who overspread 
 the whole plains watered by the Po. Every school- 
 boy knows the long and desperate wars immortalised 
 in the pages of Livy, which the Romans maintained 
 for centuries with these various tribes ; and it is no 
 rhetorical hyperbole, but the simple truth, to say 
 that it cost them more blood and effort to advance 
 their standard to the Alps, than after crossing them 
 to subjugate the whole world besides. 
 
 " The great strength, indeed, and admirable organ- 
 isation of the legions, forcibly compressed these dis- 
 cordant states into one dominion, and Eome con- 
 tinued for many centuries to be the capital of the 
 greatest empire upon earth. But with the fall of 
 the empire the ancient and indelible causes of divi- 
 sion in Italy again rose into activity, and, what is 
 very remarkable, the new divisions of the Neapolitan, 
 the Ecclesiastical, the Tuscan, and the Lombard 
 territories, were nearly identical with the old terri- 
 tories of the Samnites, the Latins, the Etruscans, 
 and the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul. During 
 the 1400 years which have since elapsed, till the 
 days of the French Revolution, no attempt was 
 made to unite these rival states, and they themselves 
 were the first to repudiate such an idea. Rome, 
 Florence, Milan, Turin, Genoa, Naples, were each 
 
396 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the capital of a little state, which had its separate 
 histories, monuments, and honours ; and such was 
 the genius elicited by the emulation of these rival 
 communities, that it will always render their capitals 
 interesting to the well-informed and the generous- 
 minded. So strongly have these feelings continued, 
 that the greatest complaint made against the Eng- 
 lish Government by the Liberal party in Italy at the 
 Congress of Vienna and over Europe was, not that 
 they had failed to establish a united Italy, but that 
 they had made a certain step towards it, by uniting 
 Genoa to Piedmont. The Italians themselves are 
 actuated so much by these feelings at this moment, 
 that it is only by military force that Southern Italy 
 is kept united to Northern. Garibaldi was lost on 
 the banks of the Garigliano, if France and England 
 had not let the Sardinian army cross the Eoman 
 state and enter Piedmont. It is rather too much 
 to talk of a united Italy being the object of Italian 
 desire, when Naples is only kept in subjection by 
 sixty Sardinian battalions. 
 
 " Supposing traditions and memories could be 
 swept away, and that Venice, Milan, Naples, Florence, 
 and Genoa could forget the sweets of separate inde- 
 pendence, become willing to bow the neck to Turin, 
 and consent to Eome being the capital of united 
 j|;a,ly, — how is such a change to affect the balance of 
 power in Europe generally, or in this country in 
 particular 1 Situated between France and Austria, 
 ardently coveted by both, and with a population so 
 
1862.] PROSPECTS OF ITALIAN UNITY. 397 
 
 little warlike that it has never in modern times been 
 able to withstand the assault of either, — how is it 
 possible for the 7^egno d' Italia to preserve its inde- 
 pendence, but by leaning upon the support of one 
 or other of these Powers ? Then, on which is it 
 most likely to lean ? On that point there cannot 
 at present be a doubt. It will lean on the Power 
 which so effectively supported it at Magenta and Sol- 
 ferino, and will enter into alliance with it to resist 
 the Austrian Empire, which will never cease to de- 
 sire the restoration of its ancient Italian dominions. 
 A revolutionary state will in the last resort always 
 seek the alliance of the great parent military demo- 
 cracy, as a legitimatist one will seek that of the most 
 powerful legitimate dynasty. Thus a close alliance 
 between united Italy and France may always be 
 looked for, just as there was formerly alliance be- 
 tween France and Scotland, in order to coerce the 
 common enemy, England. 
 
 "What interest has England in making these 
 great additions to the power of France, and propor- 
 tionally weakening that of Austria, which has proved 
 itself in the late war unable to withstand the might 
 of France single-handed, and will be able far less to 
 do so with the resources of united Italy to support 
 its armaments ? Austria is the only Power on the 
 Continent from whom we have nothing to dread, and 
 everything to hope ; for her geographical position and 
 traditionary policy necessarily render her a barrier 
 against Russia on the one side and France on the 
 
398 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 other; while she can never injure us, for her united 
 navy could not lay siege to an English frigate. In 
 striving, therefore, to drive the Austrians out of 
 Italy, and form the whole peninsula into one state, 
 we are weakening our natural ally, from whom we 
 have nothing to fear, and strengthening our natural 
 enemy, from whom we have everything to appre- 
 hend, and against whom we are raising volunteers, 
 and building iron-plated steamers." 
 
 These arguments, which were strongly and re- 
 peatedly urged by me while walking up and down 
 the flower-garden at Possil, were too congenial to 
 
 the mind of A not in great part to command 
 
 his assent. But he had served with the Piedmont- 
 ese army in the Crimea ; he had stood alongside 
 of them for three months at Kamara ; and he had 
 witnessed the gallantry with which they had with- 
 stood the Muscovite battalions on the Tchernaya, 
 He could not, therefore, abandon his old comrades in 
 their efforts to effect an independent nationality. " I 
 admit at once," said he, "that the ground on which 
 the English Government and people are so anxious for 
 the unity of Italy and the expulsion of all foreigners 
 from it, will be proved by the event to be ill-founded. 
 The dream of a united Italy is very bright at this 
 moment ; but when it is realised, and the different 
 capitals accustomed to hold the first place find them- 
 selves sunk into provincial towns, the illusion will be 
 dispelled, and disappointment will prevail, just as 
 it did in Scotland and Ireland after the respective 
 
1862.] PKOSPECTS OF ITALIAN UNITY. 399 
 
 union of those countries with England. But that 
 did not hinder the Union from being a great and 
 now acknowledged benefit to both countries, as well 
 as an incalculable source of strength to the British 
 empire. It is true the rural population of Naples 
 are at this time extremely averse to subjugation by 
 Sardinia ; but they cannot be more so than Scot- 
 land was to submit to Edward I. in the time of 
 Wallace and Bruce : and yet, at length, out of the 
 union of England and Scotland has sprung the great 
 and united British empire. United Italy, it is true, 
 would now be the subjugation of the south by the 
 north ; but is not that the general law of nature in 
 the formation of empires 1 Everywhere the weaker 
 yields to the stronger, the pacific to the warlike; 
 and it was on this basis that the ancient Roman and 
 the modern Spanish and French empires, as well as 
 the British, which have done such great things, were 
 framed. 
 
 " I can see no lasting reason for the apprehension 
 you entertain that the new kingdom of Italy must 
 necessarily fall under the government either of 
 France or Austria, and that the interests as well as 
 inclinations of its rulers will incline it to the former. 
 That this will in the first instance happen when the 
 recollection of the recent domination of the hated 
 Tedeschi is still fresh, and the cannon of Magenta 
 and Solferino are yet resounding in their ears, may 
 be admitted. Nay, this state of things will in all 
 probability continue until the evils of tramontane 
 
400 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 influence are felt from behind Mont Cenis, as they 
 have been from behind the Brenner. But all history- 
 shows that the French cannot maintain a lasting 
 supremacy in Italy, and that not less now than it was 
 four hundred years ago, the words of Ajiosto hold 
 good : — 
 
 ' Che non lice 
 Che '1 giglio in quel terreno, abbia radice.' ^ 
 
 " If there is any one passion more powerful than 
 another throughout the whole Italian peninsula, it is 
 the desire to be independent — to shake off tramon- 
 tane government. As long as the country was divided 
 into separate states, this wish was a vain illusion, 
 incapable of realisation ; and it was doubtless for that 
 reason that Louis Napoleon proposed at Villa Franca 
 to make Italy a federal Power, with the Pope at the 
 head of the confederacy. He thought that was to 
 lay the whole strength of the peninsula at his own 
 feet. But if Italy is united, and becomes a com- 
 pact state, with a noble territory, vast extent of 
 sea-coast, and 25,000,000 of people, this state of 
 things will cease : Italy will desire to be independ- 
 ent of France, as she now does of Austria, and for 
 the same reason. The passion for independence will 
 arise with the means of gratifying it. As it is evi- 
 dent from recent experience that Austria single- 
 handed is not a match for France, Italy will neces- 
 sarily come to seek refuge in the alliance of the 
 weaker against the domination of the greater Power. 
 
 J Aiiosto, ' Orlando Furioso,' x. 33. 
 
1862.] PARTY INCONSISTENCIES. 401 
 
 United Italy must necessarily come to dread France, 
 and be antagonistic to it ; divided Italy is as neces- 
 sarily its ally, for it can only escape from Austria by 
 taking refuge under its protection." 
 
 Without pretending at this time (April 23, 1862) 
 to determine which of these sets of arguments is 
 the better founded, for they will in all probability be 
 decided by the event before these pages see the light, 
 I may pass on to another subject which formed a 
 frequent theme of discussion at this time between 
 
 A and me. This was the strange jumble of 
 
 parties which had taken place in this country in 
 consequence of the Italian and American wars, and 
 the position, inconsistent with their principles and 
 professed objects, which the Eadical party had taken 
 in regard to them. The greatest triumph of Cob- 
 den and Bright, had been the establishment of free 
 trade, and the professed object for which they de- 
 sired it was to encourage human industry, and 
 better the condition of the poor. Yet they now 
 appeared as the strongest supporters of the Federal 
 Government of North America, the most rigidly 
 protective of any in existence, and which had re- 
 cently loaded all imports from Great Britain with 
 almost prohibitory duties ; and they lost no oppor- 
 tunity of maligning and discrediting the Confed- 
 erate States, who had broken off from the union 
 chiefly because they desired free trade, and whose 
 interests, purely agricultural, rendered it certain 
 they would adhere to this policy for at least half 
 VOL. II. 2 c 
 
402 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 a century to come. The warm and oft-expressed 
 sympathy with a free people struggling for a separ- 
 ate nationality, so loudly proclaimed in favour of the 
 Hungarians, the Poles, the Spanish insurgents, and 
 the Italians, was entirely suppressed when the ques- 
 tion came to be an insurrection against a democratic 
 Government. The pity for our suffering operatives, 
 so often proclaimed by them, was entirely forgotten 
 when hundreds of thousands in Britain were starv- 
 ing in consequence of the war waged by the great 
 transatlantic confederacy ; and the leaders of the 
 " peace at any price " party — the loud declaimers 
 against war under any circumstances if waged by a 
 regular Grovernment — lent their cordial support to 
 the great aggressive Western Eepublic, which aspired 
 to the conquest of the whole American continent ; 
 and which had pointed out Canada as the first 
 theatre of their exploits after the Southern States 
 of the Union should have, by the force of five hun- 
 dred thousand bayonets, been again brought under 
 the rule of the great democracy ! 
 
 The true cause of the abandonment by the British 
 of the Confederates to the conquest and subjugation 
 of the Federals, is to be found in the combined efforts 
 of three interested classes of capitalists, who were 
 desirous to prolong the war. The first of these were 
 the holders of cotton, chiefly at Liverpool and Man- 
 chester, who, having got the price of that article in 
 its raw state run up from 6|d. a lb. to 13d. and 14d., 
 were in no hurry to second any measures which 
 
1862,] LIBERAL SYMPA'THY WITH THE FEDERALS. 403 
 
 might alter a state of things so auspicious to them- 
 selves. The second were the holders of large stocks 
 of Manchester manufactured goods in all parts of 
 the world, who, having completely glutted every 
 civilised market with their fabrics, deemed a con- 
 tinuance of the war the best means of raising the 
 price of their redundant stock, and of getting it 
 off their hands to advantage by restricting so much 
 the supply. The third were the holders of American 
 railway or States stock, who dreaded confiscation in 
 the event of a rupture. In addition to this, there 
 were the moral and religious fanatics — the Exeter 
 Hall leaders — who persisted in believing that the 
 war was one, not for dominion or independence, but 
 for slavery or freedom, and who threatened to rouse 
 the religious passions of the people if any attempt 
 was made, either by France or England, to interpose 
 by negotiation or arms in behalf of the Southern 
 American States. To these must be added the ex- 
 treme democrats, headed by Bright and Cobden, 
 who cordially supported the great Northern trans- 
 atlantic democracy, although it was waging war, 
 exercising despotism, and contracting debt, with a 
 vigour almost unparalleled in history. The united 
 efforts of these parties paralysed Lord Palmerston 
 after the affair of the Trent was over, and compelled 
 him to look on as a passive spectator of the forcible 
 subjugation of the Southern States, and the welding 
 of the whole strength of the united provinces into 
 one State, animated with strong feelings of hostility 
 
404 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 towards this country. These reasons proved power- 
 ful enough to overcome the natural sympathy of the 
 English mind with the weaker party contending for 
 independence ; the obvious expediency of opening 
 American harbours for the export of the raw material 
 of our manufactures, and of supporting a State which 
 had adopted, and from its circumstances would, as 
 a matter of necessity, long adhere to, the principles 
 of free trade ; the wisdom of providing a coun- 
 terpart in the Southern half of America against the 
 avowed hostility of the Northern ; and the desire of 
 relieving a desperate amount of suffering in our 
 own manufacturing population. Nothing shows more 
 incontestably that the Reform Bill has vested the 
 government of the State practically in the moneyed 
 classes ; and that the capitalists, by buying up the 
 press, can compel Government to neglect alike the 
 strongest considerations for national independence 
 and the most urgent appeals in the interests of 
 labour. 
 
 But the inconsistency of the conduct of Cobden 
 and Bright on this occasion went farther than merely 
 convicting them of a change of principle. It de- 
 monstrated in a clear manner, and brought to light 
 for the first time in an indisputable way, what 
 throughout had been their real objects and motives 
 of action. In truth, there was no inconsistency in 
 the secret motives by which their public conduct was 
 actuated ; and they were pursuing the same object 
 when aiding Sir E. Peel to establish free trade — 
 
1862.] COBDEN's and BRIGHT's AIMS. 405 
 
 when boasting they would "crumple up Eussia" 
 during the Crimean war — when supporting house- 
 hold suffrage in the British Parliament — when ex- 
 erting all their energies to aid the military despot- 
 ism, protective government, and boundless ambition 
 of the Cabinet of Washington, to crush the inhabi- 
 tants of the South struggling for free trade — and 
 when opposing a policy which would at once have 
 set in motion again the whole spindles of Lancashire. 
 In all these cases they were in reality consistent ; 
 for in all they were engaged in the worship of the 
 same idol, and that idol was moneyed democracy. 
 Therefore it was that they supported free trade in 
 Europe, for it tended to weaken the landed aristoc- 
 racy of Britain — its most formidable enemy in the 
 Old World — and applauded protection in the New, 
 for it was the passion of democracy there. There- 
 fore it was that their hearts were tender at the tales 
 of human suffering when brought on by the wars of 
 monarchs in Europe ; and insensible to them when 
 induced by the ambition of democracy in America. 
 Therefore it was that they condemned any military 
 or naval precautions, and advocated peace at any 
 price in the Old World, and yet gave their cordial 
 support to the warlike ambition of a Eepublic in the 
 New. Therefore it was that they were so loud in 
 their demand for economy in the domestic adminis- 
 tration of this country, and strove by their votes to 
 cut down our establishments, civil and military, to 
 the very lowest point ; and yet at the same time 
 
406 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 gave their strongest moral support to a democratic 
 power, whose expenditure, beyond all precedent pro- 
 fuse, had contracted in two years a debt larger than 
 Great Britain had done in all her wars for an en- 
 tire century before that of the French Revolution 
 began. In all these seeming contradictions there 
 was in reality nothing contradictory, when the rul- 
 ing principle and secret motives are considered. 
 And that principle was the worship of democracy : 
 those secret motives to beat down every interest 
 in society or power in the world which resists its 
 domination. 
 
 The Liberal party are never weary of declaiming 
 on the evils of a lavish expenditure on the part of 
 Government, and the oppressing weight of a large 
 public debt. It is all true — the evils are real, not 
 imaginary ; but they forget that democracy is re- 
 sponsible for them. What gave birth to the English 
 national debt, and originated that burden which 
 now so cramps our energies and paralyses our 
 strength? — the Revolution of 1688 and William of 
 Orange. What added a hundred millions to that 
 debt, and for the first time caused it to assume 
 alarming proportions ? — the American revolt, and the 
 secession on account of 3d. a-pound tax laid on tea. 
 What added six hundred millions to that debt 1 
 — the French Revolution, and twenty years' war to 
 resist the encroachments of the great Parisian de- 
 mocracy. What induced the costly and corrupt Gov- 
 ernment of Louis Philippe, and stopped the whole 
 
1862.] EFFECTS OF DEMOCRACY. 407 
 
 economical measures of the Eestorationi — the three 
 glorious days of 1830. What has, since that, added 
 millions annually to the French debt since 1848, 
 and now causes all Europe to stand to arms, and 
 has arrayed 3,000,000 men at a fabulous cost in 
 the panoply of war for mutual slaughter ? — the Re- 
 volution of 1848 and the cry of "Liberty, Egalitd, 
 et Fraternite." Where was £200,000,000 of debt 
 contracted in two years, and the expenditure raised 
 in one to a higher level than that of England in the 
 year of Waterloo 1 — in the democracy-ruled Federal 
 States of North America. The whole public debt 
 ■which now oppresses the civilised world, and more 
 than half the expenditure in every country entailed 
 upon it, have been the work of democracy. 
 
 These considerations suggested another, by the 
 proof which they afforded of the vast but silent 
 revolution, far more momentous than that produced 
 by the Eeform Bill, though mainly flowing from it, 
 which has taken place since it was passed, in gene- 
 ral thought and opinion and the balance of power in 
 the State. What a theme could these manifest con- 
 tradictions of the Liberal party, and anti-popular 
 position of the Radicals — supporting the American 
 blockade and starving Manchester — have afforded 
 to men like the Harry Brougham of the last genera- 
 tion or the Benjamin Disraeli of more recent times ! 
 But on this occasion nothing has been said on the 
 subject; the inviting theme, fraught with such ob- 
 vious and just declamation, has been shunned by the 
 
408 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIB, A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 Conservative leaders as if it were holy ground. Not 
 a word has been said in Parliament or in the press, 
 either on our moral intervention to beat down Nea- 
 politan nationality, or on our abstinence from in- 
 tervention to permit the extinction of Southern 
 America's independence. A fierce attack was made 
 on Government in 1861 for the repeal of the paper 
 duty as a bribe to the penny press ; and in 1862 the 
 education interest, the offspring of the education 
 mania, beat the Government on the " Eevised Code," 
 and, like the serpent in the fable, made the first use 
 of its vitality to sting its benefactor. But with these 
 exceptions, no movement of importance has been made 
 in either House of Parliament. The contradictory 
 policy of the Whigs, and the abandonment of their 
 professed principles by the Radicals, passed without 
 observation alike in the senate and the country ; and 
 the most favourable opportunity that has yet oc- 
 curred for unfolding the real objects of Liberalism, 
 and discrediting it in the eyes of the working classes, 
 has been lost. 
 
 I do not in the slightest degree blame Lord Derby 
 or Mr Disraeli, or the other Conservative leaders, for 
 their abstinence on this occasion. They knew, doubt- 
 less, the temper of the country, which was still too 
 deeply imbued with Liberal principles to permit of 
 a reaction on general grounds being attempted. 
 Doubtless the cry of Italian unity and independence, 
 and American democracy, would have been too strong 
 for them : they would have lost rather than gained 
 
1862.] THE CONSERVATIVES AND DEMOCKAOY. 409 
 
 ground by an attempt to give battle on such funda- 
 mental questions which lay at the deep foundations, 
 non tangenda non movenda, of the awful powers of 
 the multitude. T myself experienced the same thing, 
 for though boiling over on the subject I made no 
 attempt to publish regarding it. A — — had sent a 
 paper embracing some of these views to Blackwood, 
 but he declined to insert it in his Magazine. I knew 
 that anything I wrote, which would be much more 
 decided, would share the same fate. Even after my 
 death I am afraid no bookseller will publish the pre- 
 ceding fifty pages in their original form as written, 
 unless a considerable time has elapsed (which will 
 probably be the case), and experience has proved the 
 truth of many of the opinions they contain. I make 
 these observations solely to show how sensible I am 
 of the vast silent social revolution in the midst of 
 which we are placed, and which is to all practical 
 purposes extinguishing freedom of discussion in the 
 country. This illustrates a truth which I have more 
 than once asserted in my History of Europe, that 
 there never was a greater mistake than to suppose 
 that the press will in all circumstances be the sup- 
 porter of freedom. It will be so as long as there are 
 opposite and antagonistic great parties in the coun- 
 try, upon one or other of which either party can rest. 
 But if the contest were finally determined in favour 
 of one of them, this balanced eff"ort would be ter- 
 minated, and the press would become instead of the 
 supporter of freedom the most ruthless and formid- 
 
410 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 able enemy of it. It would become either the flat- 
 terer and mouthpiece of monarchical despotism, as 
 in imperial France or China, or of an unbridled de- 
 mocracy, as in republican America. In such circum- 
 stances the boasted freedom of the press would be 
 nothing more than the licence of the Roman praeto- 
 rians or the servility of Romish Jesuitism. 
 
 Another subject which anxiously fixed our atten- 
 tion during this winter was the famous duel between 
 the two ironclads, the Merrimac and the Monitor, 
 in Hampton Roads, America. We deplored the 
 short-sighted policy which led our Government, sac- 
 rificing too much to mercantile profit, to agree to 
 the commercial treaty of 1861 with France, which 
 gave that ambitious power coal and iron — more even 
 than gold, the sinews in future of war — in exchange 
 for its perishable wines and jewellery. The intro- 
 duction of iron -plated vessels we had long seen 
 would make a great change in the method both 
 of attack and defence in sea-fights. Supposing, as 
 is most probable, that the powers of attack and 
 defence at sea are equal, and that the most power- 
 ful artillery which a ship can bear proves unable 
 to pierce the mail by which it can be clad and 
 yet float, the only methods of attack which will 
 remain, and to which the attention of men will be 
 directed, will be striking with a heavy armed beak 
 on the flank of an opponent, or leaping on the low 
 deck, and terminating the contest by boarders. 
 
 The battle, therefore, between the Merrimac and 
 
1862.] THE MEKEIMAC AND THE MONITOK. 411 
 
 the Monitor, was far from inspiring me with those 
 exaggerated opinions of the effect of the change on 
 future maritime contests which the world in gen- 
 eral, especially on the Continent, hastily adopted. I 
 uniformly maintained two propositions, which lie 
 at the foundation of the question. The first was, 
 that as coal and iron were henceforth to be the 
 staples of maritime war, the country which had 
 most of these must have a greater advantage than 
 before over those which had less ; and that as 
 Great Britain had these minerals in greater profu- 
 sion than any other country, her naval superiority 
 would, if she kept them to herself, be more decided 
 than it had been before the change. The second 
 was, that, under the new mode of fighting, iron-cased 
 forts and batteries must have the advantage over 
 any attacking force either at sea or by land ; so that 
 the means of defence for the first time in war would 
 become superior to those of ofi'ence. The reason is, 
 that there is a limit to the weight of armour which 
 a ship can float or of guns it can carry, but there is 
 no assignable limit to the thickness of the iron coat 
 with which a land bastion can be faced, or the size 
 of the ordnance which can be planted upon it. A 
 fort can be faced with iron four feet thick, but no 
 ship could bear such a load ; guns of any size could 
 be placed upon its ramparts, but no means have yet 
 been devised by which artillery of such weight could 
 be brought up, through a country whose railways 
 were broken up, to co-operate in the attack. Ad- 
 
-il2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 mitting that in future ships of war must be iron- 
 cased, and that land batteries will be similarly pro- 
 tected, at least at the embrasures, this can never be 
 done so effectually by the besieging army or the 
 attacking squadron as by those in defence. Thus 
 war, both at sea and by land, will after all be brought 
 back to its old elements; and in the last days of 
 science as in the first, the last ton of iron, the last 
 ton of coal, the last sovereign of gold, and the last 
 heart of lion, will carry the day. 
 
 I have been led, contrary to my general design, 
 into a more lengthened account of the objects of 
 thought which in an especial manner occupied me 
 during this winter, from a double motive. These 
 have formed from my earliest years my chief sub- 
 jects of reflection, but yet they are only to be 
 found scattered through different parts of my volu- 
 minous writings. The reason is, that they related 
 to the events of the day, and the social changes at 
 the moment in progress amongst us. My ideas were 
 for the most part so opposed to the opinions of the 
 majority of my countrymen, that not only would 
 they, if brought out together, have produced no im- 
 pression, but they would have sensibly weakened 
 any influence on foreign subjects which my writings 
 might have acquired. Experience, however, has long 
 taught me that minorities are generally in the right ; 
 and that the most important truths reached by the 
 human mind, and which are now most univer- 
 sally recognised, have been those which a small and 
 
1862.] RECORD OP CONVERSATIONS. 413 
 
 resolute minority, strong in the consciousness of 
 truth, have through evil report and good report main- 
 tained in the face of an abusive and tyrannical ma- 
 jority. The instances of the system of the heavens 
 discovered by Copernicus, of the motion of the earth 
 by Galileo, of the circulation of the blood by Har- 
 vey, of the action of fire on the earth's surface by 
 Hutton, — will immediately occur to every reader. 
 Desirous, therefore, to show how steady have been 
 my opinions on those momentous subjects through 
 a long and active life, and yet anxious to leave the 
 world without an angry feeling against any one, I 
 have deemed it best to bequeath them to future 
 times in a posthumous publication, to be judged of 
 hereafter, according as experience may have confirmed 
 or disproved their truths. 
 
 Another reason which led me to adopt this course 
 was, that I was desirous of preserving some record 
 of the subjects of conversation I had with my eldest 
 son. A most imperfect picture would be presented 
 of our family circle, and the principal subjects of 
 thought which have for a long course of years occu- 
 pied my mind, if a prominent place were not given to 
 that dear relative. Nearly thirty years have elapsed 
 since he became the companion of my walks and the 
 depositary of my thoughts ; for he first began when 
 he was hardly five years of age, and was so little 
 as to be obliged often to take hold of my surtout 
 to keep up with me in walking. During seventeen 
 years that he has been in the army we have been 
 
414 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 seldom together before this winter for any consider- 
 able time ; but our intimacy has suffered no abate- 
 ment ; we corresponded regularly when at a distance, 
 and met again after the longest severance with the 
 undiminished confidence and unlimited trust of 
 earlier years. 
 
 He is one of the few men I have known in life 
 whom fortune, or it may be a beneficent Providence, 
 has thrown into precisely the line for which his 
 tastes and turn of mind fit him. In conversation 
 on any subject of difiiculty or importance he is 
 qualified to take a good place, and he is gifted 
 with an ease of manner and delivery which makes 
 it appear as if he might have .been a public 
 speaker. But the peculiar bent of his mind and 
 the subject on which he is most interested is 
 military strategy. His subsequent experience of 
 real war in the Crimea and India has given him 
 the advantage of seeing how far our notions were 
 justified by the actual events of war. His letters 
 to me from both were most interesting and valu- 
 able. In private he is simple and kind ; the vari- 
 ous events of his career have never detached his 
 heart from home and the impressions of youth ; and 
 though a favourite in society, he still prefers his 
 father's house, I believe, to any other. 
 
 This spring A received the appointment of 
 
 Assistant Adjutant-General to the Inspector-General 
 of Infantry, and two days afterwards set out to com- 
 mence his new ofiicial labours in London. I have 
 
1862.] GEANDDAUGHTER's ILLNESS. 415 
 
 seen little of him since, and probably his long resi- 
 dence with his family under my roof this winter 
 is the last time we may ever be together for any 
 length of time. But we should be selfish indeed 
 if we regretted a severance — for the few years during 
 which in the course of nature it was likely to last — 
 which was consequent upon so fortunate a step in 
 his career. 
 
 The charming period of A 's long residence 
 
 at Fossil with his family during this winter was 
 interrupted by one event which caused us the 
 deepest anxiety, and had wellnigh terminated in a 
 fatal result. After they had been a month with us, 
 and the little children had become thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with us all, the younger, Lady Alison's 
 goddaughter, a delightful child of ten months old, 
 was seized with bronchitis, which soon assumed the 
 most alarming symptoms. The weather, which was 
 beyond all example cold, and a raw east wind, added 
 immensely to the risk of the little patient ; and for 
 three weeks she was in the most imminent danger. 
 In fact, nothing saved her but the skill and judg- 
 ment of her medical attendant, Dr Drummond, and 
 the unwearied kindness and attention of her nurse, 
 Mrs Carmichael. Twice during this terrible illness 
 she swooned away, and we all thought she was 
 gone. I cannot describe the distress which Lady 
 Alison and 1, as well as her father and mother, 
 suffered on this occasion. Our own children had 
 been blessed with such good health, that we had 
 
416 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 never known what it was to live for weeks to- 
 gether in the hourly, sometimes momentary, dread 
 of a little innocent being snatched away. What 
 rendered this protracted anxiety peculiarly distress- 
 ing to myself was the extraordinary affection which 
 during her illness had grown up between myself 
 and the little sufferer. However she might be dis- 
 tressed, she never failed to be quiet, and generally 
 fell asleep, when I carried her about the room, 
 which I often did for hours together. When she 
 began to recover she smiled to me before either her 
 mother or nurse, and manifested the greatest joy 
 when I came into the room, or when she even heard 
 my footstep on the stair leading to it. At length, 
 by the blessing of God, she completely recovered, 
 and is now without any exception the most engaging 
 child I ever met with. This touching incident makes 
 me almost suspect that, irrespective of kindness or 
 custom, there is a certain attraction of blood which 
 is felt among the nearest relations, similar to that 
 which, from the moment of its birth, draws the lamb 
 to its mother ; and that the i?/t<isverwandtschaften 
 give rise to affections as warm as the W^a^Zverwandt- 
 schaften, to which the genius of Goethe has given 
 immortality. 
 
 Though Glasgow and its neighbourhood did not 
 suffer so much as Manchester and the cotton districts 
 of Lancashire in any one branch of industry from 
 the American war, in consequence of its embracing 
 so many different ones, yet it was extremely strait- 
 
lS61i.] DEPRESSION IN GLASGOW. 417 
 
 ened from a general languor and depression in all 
 trade. The mills were generally put upon short time, 
 and the wholly unemployed, though not a tenth of 
 those thrown out in Lancashire, were still very con- 
 siderable. They amounted in August 1862, when 
 an enumeration was taken, to 5000 wholly unem- 
 ployed, and 9000 on half-time, out of 25,000 directly 
 or indirectly dependent on the cotton trade. This 
 gave rise to much anxiety, caused by the decision 
 of the Court of Session, and by the House of Peers, 
 as already noticed, having decided in 1849 that the 
 unemployed poor, if able-bodied, have in Scotland no 
 legal claim on their respective parishes, as they have 
 in England and Ireland. As I had decided the 
 opposite way, and they had reversed my decision, 
 I was not a little curious to see how the case would 
 work now that the law was left in the state in which 
 it had been placed by these exalted authorities. The 
 result confirmed my view, and vindicated the wisdom 
 of the old Scottish Parliament, which had enacted that 
 all persons shall obtain relief from their parishes, 
 " quhilk of necessitie mon live be alms." ^ The 
 parochial boards intrusted with the working of the 
 Act, seeing the necessity of the case, and the im- 
 possibility of providing for it by voluntary subscrip- 
 tions, had a meeting on the subject, and voluntarily 
 agreed during the continuance of the distress to give 
 the able-bodied poor out of employment relief from 
 the parish funds, in exchange for work to which they 
 
 1 Act 1579, c. 31. 
 VOL. II. 2 D 
 
418 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 were to be set. This was exactly what fourteen 
 years before I had decided they were bound to do, 
 according to the plain enactments of the old Scottish 
 statutes. The Court of Session had held that an 
 assessment for such a purpose was illegal ; but the 
 necessity of the case was now so obvious, and the 
 expediency of dividing the burden equally over all, 
 instead of throwing it exclusively on the charitable 
 and humane, so apparent, that no complaint on the 
 subject was made by the ratepayers ; and the crisis, 
 which threatened at first to be very serious, was 
 surmounted without difficulty. 
 
 In another instance, about the same time, I had 
 an example of the way in which necessity and ex- 
 perience often overcome even the most determined 
 interested resistance, and lead to the establishment 
 of bulwarks for society, under circumstances which 
 at one period may appear incapable of realisation. 
 I had, as already mentioned, made great efforts in 
 1842 and subsequent years to persuade the Lanark- 
 shire Commissioners of Supply to take advantage of 
 the Act of Parliament authorising them to set on 
 foot a police force in the county. I asked only £4000 
 a-year, which would have been provided by an 
 assessment of a penny in the pound. The proposal 
 was warmly supported by many of the most influ- 
 ential proprietors in the county ; but the Duke of 
 Hamilton and Lord Belhaven strongly opposed it, 
 the little lairds all joined them, and the "igno- 
 rant impatience of taxation " proved too strong 
 
1862.] THE LANAEKSHIRE POLICE. 419 
 
 for me. Seeing this, and having been defeated, 
 several times in my endeavours to get the consent 
 of the Commissioners to this measure, I told them 
 plainly I would let them take their own way and 
 see how they liked it. Before many years had 
 passed, the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Belhaven 
 had becocae the greatest owners of coal and iron 
 mines in the county, and they began to see what it 
 was to have several thousand colliers and iron-miners 
 out on strike, going about idle for months together, 
 without any civil force to coerce them. This was 
 in an especial manner felt during the terrible mone- 
 tary crisis of 1847 and 1848, and again on occasion 
 of a similar crisis in 1857. The result was a general 
 conviction of the necessity of the measure ; and to 
 it the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Belhaven, now 
 personally interested in the order of the county, no 
 longer offered any resistance. Thus a police force 
 was at length established in 1856, and its advan- 
 tages were so speedily experienced that it now 
 amounts to 140 men, whose cost is £14,000 a-year. 
 Heavy as this burden is, more than triple that 
 which I had originally contended for, the benefit 
 of the force has been so strongly felt that it is no- 
 where complained of, and the peace of the county, 
 without military intervention, is maintained without 
 difficulty. 
 
 I drew from my experience in these local con- 
 cerns many consolatory conclusions as to the more 
 important interests of mankind in social life. It. 
 
420 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 confirmed me in the opinion which, as previously 
 mentioned, I had already arrived at from the obser- 
 vation of human affairs as developed in history, that 
 there is a continual war going on between the errors 
 and passions of men, which lead to evil, and the 
 lessons of experience, which are the voice of God 
 speaking to restrain them. I saw, ar^i at this 
 moment (May 1862) see, the same thing going on 
 in the great theatre of the world. How many illu- 
 sions which overspread the nation from 1815 to 
 1854 are now dispelled ! Where are now the loud 
 clamours for the reduction of our armaments by 
 sea and land, which so often during that long 
 period brought the nation to the brink of ruin 1 
 Where is the old confidence in the wisdom, justice, 
 and integrity of the masses, since America has shown 
 the depth of their corruption and the folly of their 
 conduct when permitted solely to direct public affairs *? 
 Against whom are our volunteer battalions arrayed, 
 and what has become of the shouts of enthusiasm 
 with which the revolutions at Paris in 1830 and 1848 
 were at first hailed 1 Everywhere we see around us 
 a return to old feelings and opinions ; and that 
 not suddenly, or in consequence of temporary excite- 
 ment, but slowly and gradually, from the experience 
 of the results of the opposite set of principles. This 
 affords a lesson both for caution in conduct, and of 
 trust in Providence ; for it shows that if evil is at 
 one time rampant and apparently irresistible, it will 
 eventually work out its own abolition by the irrev- 
 
1862.] REVIEW OF THE CASTLEREAGH LIVES. 421 
 
 ocable laws of the moral world. Every day's experi- 
 ence adds further proofs of the errors of man, and 
 the wisdom of God. 
 
 In the beginning of May, for the first time, I saw 
 the 'Edinburgh Review' for April 1862, with an 
 article on my Castlereagh Lives. I was not dis- 
 satisfied by it, for, without intending it, the reviewer 
 completely vindicated the general plan of the work, 
 and so evinced the hostile spirit with which he was 
 animated, as to deprive his criticisms of weight with 
 the candid portion even of his own party. He be- 
 gins with some obvious typographical errors, such as 
 "Gray" for Grey, " Lansdown " for Lansdowne, " Sir 
 Peregrine Pickle" instead of Sir Peregrine Maitland, 
 &c., which have for some months gone the round of 
 the Liberal press, and the observations on which, in 
 themselves quite just, I am the first to agree with.^ 
 But then he goes on to blame the plan of the work, 
 which he says is neither a biography nor a history, 
 but a sort of hybrid production, without the interest 
 or merit of either. It is undoubtedly true, as he 
 says, and as I myself said in my preface, that the 
 object of biography is character, while of history it 
 is events. But he forgets to add that this is only 
 applicable when the events are undisputed. When 
 they have been falsified by party animosity or na- 
 tional hatred, the only solid foundation that can be 
 laid for the biography of the public men who bore 
 a part in them is in a full and correct statement of 
 
 ' They are printers' errors, and will be corrected in the next edition. 
 
422 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the general facts. The reviewer himself has fur- 
 nished evidence of this necessity; for without prov- 
 ing the inaccuracy of any of the facts which I 
 mention, bearing on Lord Castlereagh's public 
 career, he nibbles at every one of them, and en- 
 deavours to throw the discredit of all failures on 
 his shoulders, and ascribes the merit of success to 
 others. This has for half a century been the tra- 
 ditionary doctrine of the Whig party; and as they 
 live almost exclusively with each other, and seldom 
 read any works but those of their own political per- 
 suasion, they felt indignant when success was mainly 
 traced to Lord Castlereagh, and the failures to others 
 for whom he was not responsible. In the violence 
 of these party writers I trace evidence both that 
 such an interweaving of biography with general his- 
 tory was in Lord Castlereagh's case essential to the 
 right delineation of his character, and that the effort 
 made to vindicate it by such a combination has not 
 been altogether unsuccessful. 
 
 One remarkable circumstance took place at this 
 time (May 1862), eminently characteristic of the 
 strong hold which democratic principles have ob- 
 tained of the working classes in the manufactur- 
 ing districts, and of the despotic power which has 
 been acquired over them by their popular leaders. 
 The distress in these quarters, great through the whole 
 winter, had now become excessive. Nearly all the 
 mills in Lancashire were working only on short time 
 — many of them only two days in the week — and 
 
1862.] THE DEMOCRATS AND THE COTTON FAMINE. 423 
 
 58,000 persons, involving the support of at least 
 200,000 human beings, were entirely out of em- 
 ployment. This number, it is well known, will ere 
 long be swelled, if nothing intervenes to arrest the 
 disastrous progress, to 500,000, involving the support 
 of at least 1,500,000 people ; for the stock of cotton 
 from all quarters will not, even at the present 
 diminished rate of consumption, last more than 
 six weeks. The working classes in the manufactur- 
 ing districts have borne this severe and long-pro- 
 tracted period of suffering with a patience and 
 resignation which does them the highest honour. 
 But the extraordinary thing is this : a word from 
 England and France would at once stay the famine ; 
 and the Emperor Napoleon, it is well known, has 
 long been desirous to pronounce that word, for 
 Lyons and Eouen are suffering as much as Man- 
 chester and Glasgow under the cotton scarcity. 
 Yet the English Government, not content with 
 abstaining themselves, have muzzled the French 
 Emperor, who was both able and willing to raise the 
 blockade and terminate the distress. This conduct, 
 dictated by a dread of Bright, Cobden, and their 
 followers, is contrary to the policy of this country 
 for the last half - century, which has been one of 
 incessant interventions (though always on the revolu- 
 tionary side). It indicates more clearly than any- 
 thing yet has done the general and silent inroad 
 which republican ideas have made among the great 
 body of the people. The working classes, the chief 
 
424 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISOjS^. [i862. 
 
 sufferers under this policy, are content to remain 
 idle and suffer in silence without raising a voice 
 against a system which is entailing on them severe 
 and protracted distress. They would rather sell their 
 last shirt and pledge their last blanket, than do any- 
 thing which might tend, even in the remotest degree, 
 to endanger the supremacy of the great conquering 
 and ambitious transatlantic republic. 
 
 This shows the influence of an abstract principle 
 in human affairs, and how well Louis Napoleon 
 knew human nature when he said that he crossed 
 the Alps and made war on Austria in Italy for an 
 " idea." Indeed, so far is it from being true that 
 mankind are at all times and in all places governed 
 by their interests, that the greatest changes in hu- 
 man affairs, and the most terrible and sanguinary 
 wars that ever desolated the world, have arisen from 
 the worship of an idea. The indomitable spirit 
 which animates workmen in a strike against their 
 masters has often for centuries together inspired 
 successive generations of men. What animated the 
 Roman legions, and carried the standard with the 
 letters S.P.Q.E. to the remotest corner of the civil- 
 ised earth ? An idea — the belief that the republican 
 eagles were destined to conquer and civilise the 
 whole of mankind. What led to the crusades, and 
 for centuries together precipitated Europe in armed 
 multitudes on Asia? An idea — the passion to de- 
 liver the Holy Sepulchre out of the hands of the 
 infidel. What raised up the great fabric of the 
 
1862.] POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND IDEAS. 425 
 
 transatlantic republic, and laid the foundations 
 of a State destined to overshadow and subdue the 
 New World ? An idea — the vision amidst primeval 
 plenty of democratic equality. What broke down 
 the ancient barriers of European civilisation, and 
 reared up a power which carried its eagles to Cadiz 
 and the Kremlin ? An idea — the dream of liberty 
 and equality, which resulted in the French Revolu- 
 tion. What shook all the thrones of Europe sixty 
 years after, and poured the elements of war and dis- 
 cord into the peaceable bosom of European society 1 
 A dream — that of " Liberty, equality, and fraternity," 
 which has led to two of the most terrible and bloody 
 wars of modern times. It is not surprising that 
 when such is the temper of the public mind, the 
 operatives of Britain should submit to any suffer- 
 ing rather than obstruct in the New World the real- 
 isation, as they conceive, of republican equality and 
 general democratic dominion. 
 
 The Liberal leaders, to shake themselves loose, if 
 possible, of the responsibility for the disastrous re- 
 sults which have flowed to this country from the 
 American contest, say that at least the people of 
 Great Britain may console themselves with the re- 
 flection that they had no hand in producing them, 
 and that they are sufl"ering under the visitation of 
 Ood, or from the madness of others, not from the 
 consequences of their own imprudence. Alas ! here 
 they are more mistaken than on any other point 
 of this lamentable case. The operatives themselves. 
 
426 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISOK. [l862. 
 
 indeed, are entirely blameless ; but are their leaders 
 equally so ? Who raised the cry of free trade, 
 and for half a century incessantly inculcated the 
 doctrine that " to buy cheap and sell dear " con- 
 stituted the whole elements of political wisdom ? 
 Was it not pointed out to them over and over 
 again, in the clearest terms, and by none more 
 emphatically than by myself,^ that we were incur- 
 ring the utmost risk in permitting national industry 
 to run to such an extent into one single manu- 
 facture, dependent for its material on one single 
 State, which, by simply closing its ports against the 
 exports of cotton, could reduce our manufacturing 
 population to the greatest straits 1 Was it not 
 pointed out that by a small protective duty on 
 foreign cotton imported, such an impulse would be 
 given to its cultivation in our own colonies in the 
 East and West Indies as would speedily render us 
 independent of all other nations for the supply of 
 this vital article of the national necessity ? All this 
 was disregarded, and was represented to applaud- 
 ing multitudes as the last eflfort of an obsolete 
 and expiring faction. It was said that these ap- 
 prehensions were chimerical ; that the stoppage of 
 the export of cotton from America was impossi- 
 ble ; that money would always find money's worth, 
 and that the "almighty dollar" would soon break 
 through any blockade that might be attempted. 
 
 ' In "Free Trade and Protection," published in 1846 in 'Black- 
 wood's Magazine,' and afterwards in a separate pamphlet. 
 
1862.] THE COTTON FAMINE. 427 
 
 Where are all those promises now, when by the 
 last poor-law return the paupers in Lancashire 
 alone are a hundred thousand more than they were 
 in the corresponding period of last year, and there 
 is not cotton in the country for six weeks' consump- 
 tion ? Let us not deceive ourselves : the cotton 
 famine is the effect of our own act, and might 
 have been avoided, if the direction of the State had 
 been in other hands than those who, set only on 
 mercantile profit, were resolved to sacrifice every- 
 thing to buying the materials of manufacture in the 
 cheapest market, in order that they might sell it in 
 its finished state in the dearest. 
 
 What is still more extraordinary, and seems at 
 variance with the obvious dictates of prudence, is 
 that the whole country appears insensible to a still 
 greater and more terrible possible danger, of which 
 the cotton famine is, as it were, a premonitory 
 warning. Since free trade was introduced in 
 1846, the importation of foreign grain has in- 
 creased, in round numbers, from 2,000,000 quarters 
 to 16,000,000 annually; and these immense num- 
 bers are yearly on the increase. Estimating 
 the annual consumption of grown persons at a 
 quarter of grain, and considering how considerable 
 a part of our inhabitants are infants or children, 
 this will imply that the staple food of nearly two- 
 thirds of our people is derived from foreign states 
 — the population of the two islands being now 
 29,000,000. It is impossible to contemplate such a 
 
428 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON". [l862. 
 
 state of matters without serious apprehensions, more 
 especially when it is recollected that more than half 
 of this foreign grain (53 per cent) comes from two 
 countries only — Russia and America, who were both 
 in a hostile league against us in 1811, in obedience 
 to the sovereign mandates of Napoleon, — nay more, 
 were within three weeks of becoming so again, when 
 the close of the Crimean war led to the adjournment 
 of their hostile designs. Where should we be if 
 Russia and America were at any future time to 
 combine in hostility against this country ? Without 
 fitting out an iron-cased frigate, without embarking 
 a regiment, they could now, in three months, by 
 simply passing a non-Intercourse Act, as the Ameri- 
 cans once did to aid the French in our destruc- 
 tion, starve us into submission in three months. 
 To the same cause the extraordinary fact is to be 
 ascribed, that amidst all our immense foreign 
 trade and unprecedented emigration, the paupers 
 of the country undergo no diminution, and have 
 been for the last ten years, with an emigration on 
 an average of above 200,000 a-year, from 800,000 
 to 900,000 in number. The demand for labour has 
 gone past them, and " called new worlds into exist- 
 ence" on the Volga and the Mississippi, while the 
 industrious poor of Britain have been landed in the 
 workhouse or driven into exile. The distress pro- 
 duced by the cotton famine, which at most does not 
 involve the bread of above 2,000,000 persons, is but 
 a mild premonitory symptom of the far more terrible 
 
]86-2.] RESULTS OF FREE TRADE. 429 
 
 food famine which, on the first breaking out of 
 serious hostilities between this country and any two 
 great maritime Powers, will threaten our entire pop- 
 ulation. It is a system of policy threatened with 
 such danger, that it is now, almost without a dis- 
 senting voice, at least in public, the object of gen- 
 eral approval in this country ! 
 
430 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FROM THE BIRTH OF MY GRANDSON IN 1862, TO THE 
 TERMINATION OF MY PUBLIC CAREER. 
 
 The great happiness was accorded to my son, Colonel 
 Alison, and indeed to us all, of tlie birth, on the 
 20th May in this year (1862), of his son. Great 
 was the joy which his arrival occasioned in our 
 family ; and as soon as we heard of Mrs Alison 
 and her son, Archibald the fourth, being well and 
 flourishing, Lady Alison and I resumed our wonted 
 flight to the south, which the preceding summer 
 had been discontinued for the first time for fifteen 
 years, owing to her delicate state of health. We 
 set out on Tuesday 27th May, and the same 
 evening reached the hospitable mansion of our 
 friends, Mr and Mrs Alexander Campbell, to the 
 latter of whom^the daughter of my valued friend, 
 Mr Campbell Douglas of Mains — I was guardian. 
 We found them most comfortably settled ; and no 
 reception could be more kind and cordial than we 
 experienced from them. Mr Campbell — a younger 
 
1862.] EAEL RUSSELL AND THE AMERICAN WAR. 431 
 
 son of Mr Campbell of Camis Eskan, in Dumbar- 
 tonshire — was the leading partner of a great house 
 engaged chiefly in the American and Indian trade, 
 and a most superior and intelligent man ; and his 
 home was rendered still more agreeable by the pres- 
 ence of Miss Douglas, his sister-in-law, my youngest 
 ward, a charming girl of eighteen, just returned in 
 improved health and beauty from Madeira, whither 
 she had been sent by her physicians the winter 
 before. 
 
 I was very anxious to hear the opinions of men of 
 different parties on the American question, — the 
 great subject of interest to all classes at this junc- 
 ture; and in the varied society into which I was 
 now thrown, I had soon an opportunity of ascertain- 
 ing them, as at Mr Campbell's I met many leading 
 American merchants ; and at a public dinner of the 
 Caledonian Asylum, shortly after my arrival, I had 
 the good fortune to be introduced to and enjoy a long 
 conversation with Earl Russell ; and I subsequently 
 met and had a protracted conference with Lord 
 Shaftesbury, the acknowledged head of the Exeter 
 Hall party. What struck me first with all these 
 different parties was the extreme timidity with which 
 they approached the subject. They gave me the im- 
 pression of living in a society in which the free ex- 
 pression of thought had become on this subject as 
 much restrained as it is in St Petersburg or Wash- 
 ington. Every one spoke, when the subject was 
 approached, sotto voce : they seemed to fear that the 
 
432 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 very walls had ears, and would repeat what was said 
 at New York. I expressed, the day after my arrival, 
 in a large party, my wishes for the success of the 
 Confederates ; and a gentleman next me — an Amer- 
 ican merchant — whispered, " I am so glad to hear 
 that sentiment spoken : we all feel, but no one 
 A^entures to express it." This was a very general 
 feeling on the subject ; and Lord Shaftesbury ad- 
 mitted to me, a few days after, that it was so. He 
 said he had no expectation that the war would be 
 ended in the course of this year, and that he antici- 
 pated still greater distress in Lancashire than had 
 been yet experienced. But no one had courage to 
 hint at what was the only way of cutting short the 
 distress, by declaring for the Confederates. They 
 contented themselves, in public and private, with 
 deploring this " unnatural fratricidal contest," but 
 did nothing to hasten its termination. They re- 
 sembled, as it seemed to me, the Emperor Charles 
 v., who, as Robertson has observed, ordered prayers 
 to be put up in the churches in his dominions 
 for the delivery of the Pope, made prisoner in his 
 palace by the Constable Bourbon, while by a simple 
 order addressed to his general, he could at once 
 have effected his liberation. 
 
 I was at first at a loss to account for this general 
 fear of speaking out on this subject, so different from 
 anything I had yet seen in English society ; but I 
 was not long in discovering to what it was owing. 
 It sprang from the great amount of vested interests 
 
1862.] INFLUENCE OF VESTED INTERESTS. 433 
 
 involved in the question. No one knew how far 
 those interests spread in society : all knew that their 
 name was legion. Almost every one, either personally 
 or through connections, was interested in American 
 trade or stock ; and although they saw the dangers of 
 a temporising policy, they had not nerve to venture 
 on a decisive one. They acted from the same mo- 
 tives as the Prussian Government did during the ten 
 years which preceded the battle of Jena. On one 
 occasion, when a gentleman in company was express- 
 ing the opinion which had been long enunciated 
 by the ' Times,' that ' ' Lancashire was now suffering 
 from no fault of its own, but from the conscientious 
 adherence of our Government to its traditionary 
 policy of non-intervention," I could not help observ- 
 ing, " England is certainly suffering for its tradi- 
 tionary policy ; but it is not the traditionary policy 
 of non-intervention — for, for half a century past we 
 have been perpetually intervening, morally or phys- 
 ically — it is the traditionary policy of free trade 
 which has brought about the calamity. A penny a 
 pound protective duty on our colonial cotton would 
 have insured an ample supply of it^ without recourse 
 to foreign states, and we should then have suffered 
 nothing from the American civil war. Manchester 
 is now reaping the fruits of the system she herself 
 introduced, which sacrifices everything to buying 
 cheap." No one made any answer to this remark ; 
 and I could see it excited surprise and aroused at- 
 tention. Mr Campbell said to me, after the com- 
 VOL. II. 2 E 
 
434 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISOK. [l862. 
 
 pany had taken their departure, " Did you observe 
 how your remark about free trade was taken ? It is 
 curious that, though it seems so obvious, I never yet 
 heard the observation made in public or private, nor 
 even alluded to in the press." 
 
 I was very glad to make the acquaintance of Lord 
 Eussell at the Caledonian Asylum dinner, as, strange 
 to say, I had never before met him, nor heard 
 him speak in public. He received me with the 
 cordial affability which the real leaders of party 
 know so well how to display, and which contrasts 
 so strongly with the jealousies and animosity of their 
 subordinate followers. He was particularly anxious 
 to learn the state of the manufacturers in Lanark- 
 shire, and their ability to bear a prolonged cotton 
 famine ; and I could easily gather from the strain 
 of his inquiries, though he did not express any de- 
 cided opinion on the subject, that he anticipated a 
 prolonged contest in America. This was the more 
 remarkable, as, in the course of the preceding spring, 
 he had expressed an opinion in Parliament that the 
 contest would be over in three months, which had 
 already more than elapsed. 
 
 I was agreeably surprised on this occasion with 
 Lord Russell's public speaking. It was much more 
 polished and condensed than 1 had anticipated from 
 his reported speeches : his style was more that of a 
 refined literary composer than of a practised parlia- 
 mentary debater. Perhaps this may have arisen from 
 his speeches on this occasion being on set subjects, 
 
1S62.] LORD STEATFOED DE EEDCLTFFE. 435 
 
 and having been carefully prepared and committed 
 to memory. His figure is diminutive and slender, 
 his voice feeble, and when he is much animated, it 
 degenerates into a sort of cry ; but his eye is very 
 expressive, and bears the distinctive mark of high 
 intellect. I could not help being much struck with 
 his address in public speaking, — simple, and without 
 either pomposity or affectation ; very different from 
 the inflated style of provincial orators or local celebri- 
 ties, which is in an especial manner conspicuous in 
 several of the popular speakers in Scotland. 
 
 At this dinner I also for the first time heard Lord 
 Stratford de Eedcliffe address a large assembly. I 
 had long known him, as I have already mentioned, 
 and admired his remarkable conversational talents, 
 but this was the first time I had heard him speak in 
 public, and I never heard an address which, though 
 short, was more impressive. Grave and earnest, it 
 was delivered with the solemnity of manner which 
 suited his position, long at the head of British diplo- 
 macy in the East, and which added much to the 
 weight of the sentiments delivered. Unlike Earl 
 Eussell's speech, it was extempore ; for the toast 
 intrusted to his charge, the " Churches of all Deno- 
 minations in Scotland," had been destined for the 
 Bishop of London, who was accidentally detained 
 away. Nevertheless, the structure of the sentences 
 was so accurate, and the ideas so suitable to the 
 occasion, that it could not have been more perfect 
 if it had been the result of the most laboured com- 
 
436 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 position. It did not take above fifteen minutes in 
 delivery, but it was listened to with marked atten- 
 tion throughout, and elicited warm and general 
 applause at its close. That brief speech gave me a 
 higher opinion of Lord Stratford de EedclifFe's abili- 
 ties than I had previously conceived, either from the 
 intercourse of private society, in which he so much 
 excels, or from his public diplomatic career. 
 
 The chief attraction of London during this season 
 was the great Exhibition, which was opened with 
 much pomp on the 1st May, and was in full splendour 
 when we arrived at the end of the month. Situated 
 low, at the extremity of the Kensington Museum, 
 with its chief approach coming down a descent, and 
 possessing little architectural symmetry or beauty, 
 it was greatly inferior, so far as externals go, to its 
 predecessor in Hyde Park in 1851. The domes at 
 each end were in themselves finely proportioned and 
 of great size, exceeding, it is said, the far-famed one 
 of St Peter's at Eome, and when seen singly and on 
 a level they had a very imposing effect ; but there 
 was no centre in the edifice to correspond to these 
 wings, which, from an architectural point of view, 
 was a fatal defect.^ But if the interior is considered, 
 and the variety of interesting objects which had 
 been there brought together from every part of the 
 world, it was much superior in its contents to its 
 
 ^ The able artist who gave the design of the edifice is not to blame 
 for this defect, for in the plan as he originally made it there was a 
 splendid dome, which was omitted from motives of economy. 
 
1862.] THE EXHIBITION. 437 
 
 predecessor. The two picture-galleries, exhibiting 
 the chefs-d'oeuvre of the British, French, and Flemish 
 modern schools of painting, were in themselves deeply 
 interesting, and presented attractions to which there 
 was nothing comparable in the last Exhibition. In 
 many branches of art, also, the improvement in taste 
 was conspicuous, and this was in an especial manner 
 the case with the ornamental dessert services and 
 bijouterie for dinners d la Russe, now so much in 
 vogue both in London and Paris. 
 
 The recent French and English pictures, now for 
 the first time brought into juxtaposition, and fit 
 objects of comparison, presented ample subjects for 
 reflection. The first observation they suggested was 
 the immense divergence in the character of the two 
 nations. The British pictures were nearly all por- 
 traits, or fancy pieces descriptive of domestic or 
 parental love : the French were almost all battle- 
 pieces, or views of stormings, with portraits of mar- 
 shals or generals. The first had been inspired by 
 the afi"ections of peace, the second by the excite- 
 ments of war. The second reflection was, that the 
 French artists were decidedly superior to the Brit- 
 ish in large compositions, and in the arrangement of 
 figures and shade in their triumphal exhibitions ; 
 the British superior to them in the delineation 
 of the human countenance in portraits or small 
 groups. The third, that neither the one nor the 
 other were, with the exception of Turner and Eey- 
 nolds, either in historical, portrait, or landscape 
 
438 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 painting, to be compared to the great masters of 
 the Spanish and Italian schools, whose works appear 
 to acquire only additional lustre from every century 
 which passes over them. To this observation an 
 exception must however be made in the delineation 
 of animals. Those of Landseer were superior, both in 
 design and execution, to any which ever were made 
 in modern Europe. Here, too, the national habits ap- 
 peared to have given a peculiar direction to the efforts 
 of human genius ; and it was the practice of deer- 
 stalking and moor-game shooting, so common with 
 our young men of fortune, which led Landseer into 
 the Highland glens and rendered him so perfect a 
 master of their appearance and habits. 
 
 Two painters only of the British school have 
 been gifted by nature with genius equal to the 
 great Italian masters, and those were Sir Joshua 
 Eeynolds and Turner. They did not, however, 
 attain to equal excellence. Reynolds's portraits will 
 not bear a comparison with those of Vandyck, Titian, 
 or Velasquez ; and in the delicacy of finishing and 
 harmony of colour, Turner is not equal to Claude or 
 Salvator. One or two of his pictures, particularly 
 the " Building of Carthage " in the National Gallery, 
 will bear such a comparison when seen at a distance; 
 but on a nearer examination the superiority of the 
 great Claude Lorraine in the combination of neatness 
 of finish with general effect is apparent. It is in this 
 respect that both the best landscapes and portraits of 
 the English school fall short of those of the Italian 
 
1S62.] FRENCH AND ENGLISH PAINTING. 439 
 
 masters. Those that are general in their effect with us 
 are not sufficiently minute ; those that are minute are 
 deficient in breadth. To unite the two, as Raphael, 
 Correggio, and Titian did, is to attain the highest 
 triumph of art ; and it will never be reached but by 
 men of genius addressing their works to a body of 
 countrymen whose taste is so refined, and sense of 
 beauty so perfect, that they will not take off" their 
 hands anything in which this combination is not at 
 least attempted. 
 
 If the French and English pictures of the present 
 day are obviously defective in ideal beauty, and no 
 longer aim at the expression of profound emotion, 
 the same cannot be said of the artists of the Flemish 
 and German school, whose works in great numbers 
 adorned the halls of the Exhibition, Art has made 
 a vast step in their able hands. The historical 
 pieces, in particular of Gallait and the Flemish art- 
 ists, recall the best days of the Italian and Spanish 
 schools, both in the elevation of the designs and the 
 delicacy of the execution. The subjects, generally 
 mournful, are sometimes painful; but the conceptions 
 are grand, and infinitely beyond the best contempor- 
 ary pieces of the English school. They are not mere 
 battle-pieces, or portraits of marshals, like the French ; 
 nor family groups, or single figures, like the English : 
 but Scriptural compositions, suited for altar-pieces or 
 church decoration ; or scenes from the most touching 
 incidents in the history of the Low Countries. As 
 such, they possess the highest merit, and justly en- 
 
440 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 title the Flemings to the first place in contemporary 
 high art. Nor must the German landscapes be over- 
 looked, — some of which, particularly mountain-scenes 
 or waterfalls in Norway, are of the very highest merit, 
 and present that combination of minuteness of finish- 
 ing with breadth of effect, which is the characteristic 
 of the works of nature, and which so strongly ap- 
 pears in the paintings of Claude, Euysdael, Poussin, 
 and all her most successful imitators. 
 
 There was noticeable a great improvement in all 
 branches of British manufacture which minister to 
 material comfort or convenience, but little or none in 
 those which aim at the display of taste or the expres- 
 sion of sentiment. On this subject Lady Jersey 
 made a remark to me, which, from a person of 
 her taste and experience, seemed well worthy of 
 consideration. It was, that these great exhibitions, 
 in this and other countries, from which so much was 
 expected, were in reality destructive to the higher 
 branches of art ; because they tended to lower it to 
 the level and requirements of the masses, and keep 
 artists in a perpetual fever striving after some- 
 thing new, which is inconsistent with the slow and 
 patient effort by which alone real excellence is to 
 be attained. Novelty — perpetual novelty — becomes 
 then the great object : temporary or passing popu- 
 larity the reward to which all look. How such a 
 state of things tends to lower the standard of ex- 
 cellence in the fine arts need be told to none : it is 
 the same thing as the exchange which is now going 
 
1862.] EXHIBITION OF BRITISH PRODUCTS. 441 
 
 on of works of durable fame for flash "sensation" 
 articles or novels for magazines. This, however, is 
 but a part of the general change which is taking 
 place in every department of taste and in all the 
 works of genius. 
 
 In one respect in particular this Exhibition was 
 decidedly superior to its predecessor in 1851, — 
 and the difi'erence marks the mighty step made 
 in advance during the intervening period by the 
 British empire. In the displays of the natural pro- 
 ductions and growing manufactures of the colonies 
 there can be no sort of comparison between them. 
 The gold and other metals of Australia and River 
 Columbia ; the wool of New Zealand and Victoria ; 
 the cotton of India, the West Indies, and Demer- 
 ara ; the magnificent masts of Vancouver Island ; 
 the teak of Bombay ; the indigo of Hindostan ; 
 the wines of the Cape, and innumerable other pro- 
 ducts of our vast colonial empire — some natural, 
 some manufactured, — were here exhibited in the ut- 
 most profusion, and attracted general attention. On 
 seeing the vast extent and variety of these produc- 
 tions, and recollecting that they are all the produce 
 of one empire, it is impossible to resist the conviction 
 that what is a foreign trade to other countries, to the 
 inhabitants of this is a home one ; and that, by the 
 benignity of nature, all the productions of the earth 
 and of human skill may be obtained without wander- 
 ing beyond the limits of our own dominions. 
 
 London at this time — that is, during the first 
 
442 ADTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIK A. ALISON. '[l862. 
 
 weeks of June — was crowded both with natives of 
 this country and foreigners. The pressure at the 
 opera, the theatres, the parks, and private parties, 
 was extreme. We witnessed it in its full intensity 
 at receptions at the Duchess of Montrose's, the March- 
 ioness of Westminster's, the Marchioness of London- 
 derry's, Lady Combermere's, the Duchess of Hamil- 
 ton's, Lady Isabella Stewart's, Lady Derby's, Lady 
 Macdonald Lockhart's, and other places. One thing 
 struck us very much on all these occasions, as it had 
 done previously, and that was the remarkable dearth 
 of beauty in these elevated circles. You often left 
 an assembly where seven or eight hundred persons 
 had been assembled, without having seen a single 
 woman decidedly handsome in it. The Duchess 
 of Manchester and Lady Constance Grosvenor are 
 perhaps the only very beautiful women to be met 
 with in the highest circles of London society. This 
 is a remarkable circumstance, the more so when it 
 is recollected that, though the aristocracy for the 
 most part intermarry with each other, yet their 
 ranks are, to a greater degree than any in Europe, 
 recruited from the less elevated circles — either from 
 the advantages of fortune, or the attractions of 
 beauty or a captivating manner. 
 
 Another circumstance we remarked since we were 
 last in London two years ago, was the increasing 
 number and splendour of that section of the female 
 community who are never alluded to in mixed good 
 society except by circumlocution. It was a common 
 
1862.] THE DEMI-MONDE. 443 
 
 observation in London at this time, that these per- 
 sons had the best of everything, — the best private 
 boxes at the opera, the best horses in the Parlf, the 
 best carriages and liveries at the races, the finest 
 jewels and dresses, and, worst of all, the most fashion- 
 able cavaliers in attendance. Certainly the change in 
 this respect was remarkable since I first recollect Lon- 
 don ; and not less so that they form, at least in gay 
 circles, a frequent subject of conversation, and even 
 more with women among each other than with men. 
 When one of the most dashing of this sisterhood 
 makes her appearance, in the most elegant attire, 
 driving her beautiful white ponies in a perfect phae- 
 ton in the Park, the sensation, especially among the 
 ladies, is almost as great as when the scarlet liveries 
 of the outriders announce the approach of the Queen. 
 This change is eminently characteristic of an altera- 
 tion in general manners and feeling. No one doubts 
 that courtesans were perhaps as numerous in my 
 younger days as they are now ; but the mode 
 in which they are regarded, and the position they 
 occupy in society, are indicative of a great change. 
 Probably it has arisen, as it did in the days of 
 Charles IL, from a reaction against the undue strict- 
 ness of the opposite section of the community ; 
 and the " pretty horsebreakers " owe their present 
 notoriety and position in the world to Exeter Hall 
 in these times, as they did to the Puritans in the 
 days of Cromwell. 
 
 At a party at the hospitable mansion of the accom- 
 
444 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIE A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 plished President of the Academy, Sir Charles East- 
 lake, I met Sir Edwin Landseer this season. I 
 was very desirous to see so eminent a man, and 
 I was far from being disappointed. His counte- 
 nance and figure are eminently characteristic of 
 his turn of mind, and the branch of art in which 
 he stands pre-eminent. With a short square-built 
 figure, wild grey hair and whiskers, long eye- 
 brows, and keen piercing eyes, he resembles noth- 
 ing so much as the Skye terriers which he has so 
 often immortalised in his paintings. His quick- 
 ness and vivacity, both in expression and conversa- 
 tion, are very remarkable. In his own department 
 of the delineation of wild animals, of their habits, 
 places of abode, and sorrows, he is unrivalled ; but he 
 is rather perfect in one branch of art than alive to 
 the highest. I saw this very distinctly in Lady 
 Eastlake's drawing - room, where there is a very 
 fine collection of old paintings, among which a 
 large Holy Family by Palma Vecchio, and an old 
 woman's head by Eembrandt, are the most remark- 
 able. The first is a noble painting, in the highest 
 style of Italian art, and in the best preservation ; 
 the last as fine a specimen as possible of Eembrandt's 
 peculiar and photographic style. He paid no atten- 
 tion to the first, but devoted his whole notice to 
 the latter. I required nothing more to convince 
 me that he was a first-rate artist in the imitation 
 of the real, but without any remarkable turn for 
 the expression of the ideal. 
 
1862.] SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION. 445 
 
 In the midst of this whirl, — arising from the co- 
 incidence of the great Exhibition, the Epsom races, 
 Parliament, picture-galleries, and the gay season at 
 the same time, — the Social Science Association com- 
 menced its sittings, tinder the auspices of many 
 distinguished men, and of not a few remarkable 
 women. The venerable Lord Brougham, now in 
 his eighty-third year, was president ; and his intro- 
 ductory lecture, read with a distinct voice, from 
 manuscript, showed his ardent but volatile and un- 
 settled mind. It was an hour long, and embraced 
 all the topics of the day, from the dangers of democ- 
 racy, as evinced in the warlike propensities of the 
 American republicans, to the decision of the recent 
 court-martial on the charges against an officer of 
 the 4th Dragoon Guards. I observed two things 
 at this meeting of evil augury to the future useful- 
 ness of the Association. The first was, that it had 
 become too political, — a fault, however, mainly owing 
 to the venerable president, who never failed to bring 
 every political question of the day into his inaugural 
 discourse — a practice inconsistent with the main ob- 
 ject of the institution, which was to bring men of 
 all parties, on neutral grounds, to join in common 
 measures for the amelioration and improvement of 
 mankind. The second was, that the persons who 
 took the lead in most of the departments were 
 theoretical visionaries, without practical acquaint- 
 ance with the subjects of their discourse, or persons 
 interested in supporting some project set on foot by 
 
44G AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 others. Among the first class were Miss Faithful! 
 and a host of ladies, benevolent and zealous in the 
 highest degree, but whose position in society and 
 habits of life precluded their acquaintance with the 
 real, and, I fear, almost insurmountable difficulties 
 with which the social question they were interested 
 in is beset. Amoncf the second were Sir Joshua 
 
 O 
 
 Jebb, the head of the convict establishments of 
 Great Britain, against whom, although it cannot 
 be objected that he is without practical acquaint- 
 ance with the subject of his essays, yet he is open 
 to exception of a different kind — viz., that he is 
 wedded to a particular theory which he is endeav- 
 ouring to carry into practice, — and that is, the 
 reformation of criminals within the four walls of 
 a jail by means of moral and religious instruction. 
 To myself, whom woful experience had taught that 
 three-fourths of the worst criminals in Glasgow were 
 returned convicts, liberated with the best characters 
 from the chaplains and schoolmasters of the reforma- 
 tories, such ideas seemed worse than visionary.^ 
 
 During our residence in London on this occasion, 
 a great party contest took place between the Min- 
 isterialists and Opposition, which ended in smoke, in 
 consequence of Mr Walpole, by Lord Derby's recom- 
 mendation, withdrawing his amendment on Lord 
 
 1 Out of 1140 convicts concerned in the great revolt at Chatiam in 
 1861, no less than some three-fourths had certificates of good char- 
 acter, and about one-fourth excellent. It is lamentable to think how 
 easily the benevolent and pious, but weak-minded instructors, are 
 deceived by these adroit ruffians. 
 
1862.] FATE OF MR WALPOLE's AMENDMENT. 447 
 
 Palmerston's finance resolutions on the 3d June. 
 I of course heard a great deal from the Conservative 
 leaders on this exciting subject ; and the impression 
 left on my mind was, that the seeds of divisions 
 were sown between them. As Disraeli was the 
 acknowledged leader of the Conservatives, it was 
 a very awkward thing to have intrusted so import- 
 ant a matter to another ; the more especially as that 
 other acted upon it without any consultation with 
 his friends, and on his own authority, fortified by 
 Lord Derby's recommendation. I found Disraeli, 
 Sir John Pakington, and others, very indignant at 
 his having done so, more especially as this important 
 step was taken on the night before the Derby, which 
 being a holiday, would have left ample time for con- 
 sultation. In this respect there seems to have been 
 a want of that consideration for others which is so 
 indispensable in the leaders of a political party. At 
 the same time, it appeared to most of them, as it 
 did to me, that Disraeli's declamation against the 
 Government expenditure, and his condemnation of 
 " bloated armaments," was ill-judged, at a time when, 
 from the preparations and enormous forces of France, 
 and the imminence of a war with America, nothing 
 could be clearer than that they were absolutely neces- 
 sary. The true ground to have taken was that chosen, 
 a few nights after, by Sir John Pakington^ — viz., that 
 the estimates were by no means too high, or the pre- 
 parations uncalled for ; but that there was too much 
 reason to apprehend that we were fast getting into 
 
448 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 what Lord Derby had justly styled a state of " chronic 
 deficit," and that the real fault was in Ministers hav- 
 ing, to conciliate Bright and the penny press, remitted 
 the paper duty and duties on French silks and jewel- 
 lery, at a time when they knew, or might have fore- 
 seen, that an increase of expenditure had become 
 unavoidable. The reason of Disraeli's not having 
 taken this ground — which, in reason, could not by 
 possibility have been gainsaid — was that he would 
 not by so doing have won the support of Bright 
 and the Radicals, whose aid he deemed necessary 
 to the overthrow of the Ministry ; another proof to 
 the many, which his conduct had afforded, that he 
 looked too much to temporary triumphs for him- 
 self and his party, without sufficient regard to polit- 
 ical consistency. 
 
 I met Mr Walpole a few days after the withdrawal 
 of his amendment, and he spoke to me, without re- 
 serve, on the subject : " The fact was," said he, " we 
 did not wish to displace the Government at this time. 
 We could easily have done so by bringing forward a 
 party motion for economy, on which Bright and Cob- 
 den, with their followers, must have joined with us ; 
 and if this could have been done without displacing 
 the Government, we were prepared to have gone on 
 with it, — for we are extremely uneasy at the growing 
 deficiency in the revenue to meet the unavoidable and 
 increasing expenses of the State. But we were not 
 prepared for a change of administration, or desirous 
 of taking the helm, with a growing deficit in the Ex- 
 
1862.] THE CONSERVATIVE POSITION. 449 
 
 chequer, when a war with America or France, or both, 
 was possibly impending. We don't wish to come 
 in till, independent of coalitions, we have got a real 
 Conservative majority in the House, which may en- 
 able us, without control from others at variance with 
 us on many points, to carry out our own policy. We 
 think that time will soon come, and the next general 
 election will bring it about. Conservative opinions 
 are rapidly gaining ground in the country; and with 
 that change a corresponding alteration is taking place 
 in the estimate of public men. No one now stands 
 up for Charles Fox as they used to do : the Whigs 
 even have ceased to do so. On the other hand, the 
 reputation of Mr Pitt is every day increasing ; and 
 even Macaulay has done him justice as a peace Min- 
 ister. You have done infinite service to the cause 
 by your vindication of Lord Castlereagh, which is 
 triumphant and complete. No one now abuses him 
 as they used to do, nor ever will, if they have any 
 knowledge of the facts. I am thinking of making a 
 slight sketch of Mr Perceval, on the scale of Southey's 
 Life of Nelson, if I can find time to go over the 
 materials. I think you have hardly done him jus- 
 tice ; but, to be sure, you had enough to do with your 
 own heroes. Sir James Graham behaved nobly on 
 that subject : he insisted on his bust being put 
 up among the worthies of England in the hall of 
 Rugby." 
 
 The advanced years of Lord Palmerston, and the 
 extremely small majority, if there were any, by which 
 
 VOL. II. 2 F 
 
•450 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 he was maintained in power, as well as the strong 
 and evident reaction in favour of Conservative opin- 
 ions, which was going on over the whole country, 
 naturally led to some discussion among the Conser- 
 vative leaders as to who should be their chief, in the 
 event, as they anticipated, of Lord Derby declining 
 to take the helm, or of his being disabled by ill- 
 health from taking it. I found that the majority in- 
 clined to Earl Grey as their future leader. They had 
 not yet confidence enough in Disraeli, however much 
 they admired his abilities ; and they thought Wal- 
 pole, though eminently prudent and upright, without 
 sufficient nerve or command of ready oratory for the 
 situation. Lord Grey had a historic name of Liberal 
 fame, which would break the fall of the Whigs and 
 give a Conservative administration somewhat of a 
 united or coalition character. Lord Eglinton, from 
 his great and general popularity and tried adminis- 
 trative talents, had formerly been thought of for 
 leader : but his lamented death rendered it neces- 
 sary to look elsewhere ; and the great talents and 
 known business capacity of Earl Grey suggested him 
 for that onerous position. 
 
 I was not intimately acquainted with Earl Grey, 
 but I had met him twice — once at Balmoral in 1849, 
 and again at Wishaw in 1856 — on both of which 
 occasions I had been several days in the house with 
 him, and had conceived a high opinion of his 
 abilities. Without the commanding features, noble 
 forehead, or ready eloquence of his father, he had 
 
1862.] EAEL GREY. 451 
 
 more practical acquaintance with the country, and 
 was a safer man to intrust with its destinies. He 
 never would have committed the enormous error 
 of forcing through the Eeform Bill, in the belief 
 "that it was the most conservative measure ever 
 brought into Parliament." Such a mistake could 
 only have been committed by an able man wedded 
 to theoretical opinions, and without the practical 
 acquaintance with affairs which official duties can 
 alone confer. In this respect Earl Grey was the 
 reverse of his father. The Whigs had been in 
 power for thirty years, and he had held different im- 
 portant situations under them, the duties of which 
 he had discharged with distinguished ability and 
 success. His colonial administration, in particular, 
 had changed the old system in that branch of the 
 public service, and introduced a new one more con- 
 sistent with the requirements of the time, and to the 
 adoption of which the tranquil state of the British 
 colonies is mainly to be ascribed. He is possessed 
 of great administrative power, and is a man of action, 
 fitted to take the lead in the deliberations of the 
 Council board. Oratory or eloquence is not in a 
 peculiar manner his forte; but he expresses what 
 he says distinctly and forcibly. I was much struck 
 with a conversation which I overheard at Balmoral, 
 between him and the Queen. Though bred up a 
 Whig, he is not a decided partisan : his mind is too 
 acute not to be open to new impressions and the 
 considerations on either side ; and it may be re- 
 
452 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 garded as no small proof of the candour of his mind, 
 as well as the patience with which he is endowed, 
 that the son of the author of the Eeform Bill, as 
 Lady Grey assured me, read aloud to her the whole 
 ' History of Europe during the French Revolution/ 
 in the course of their winter evenings. 
 
 The National Gallery formed a frequent and most 
 attractive object of visits to Lady Alison and myself, 
 while in London on this occasion. In addition to the 
 treasures which it formerly possessed, and to Avhich 
 large additions had recently been made, especially 
 from the early Italian school, it now contained a 
 noble collection of Turners, of which few only were 
 descriptive of his latter aberrations of taste. No 
 one can form an adequate conception of the greatness 
 and versatility of his genius, who has not minutely 
 studied this collection. The variety of objects rep- 
 resented, and the diversity of the effects produced, 
 are astonishing. While his pictures of the building 
 of Carthage by Dido and the decline of the same 
 city worthily take their place beside the master- 
 pieces of Claude, the various shipwrecks rival the 
 finest of Vernet, and several pastoral or wood scenes 
 the most admired of Gaspar Poussin. It would be 
 going too far to say that he is equal in every point 
 to each of those great masters. Unquestionably his 
 shades and colouring have not the exquisite mellow- 
 ing of Claude, and his storms will hardly stand a 
 comparison in the finish of the waves with the best 
 of Vernet ; but in the variety of his conceptions, and 
 
1862.] THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 453 
 
 the power of representing so many diiferent ones on 
 canvas, he is superior to them all. Altogether, he is 
 the greatest artist that England has produced ; and 
 if he had continued through life as he began, and 
 avoided the extravagant colours and wild designs of 
 his later days, he would have been the greatest land- 
 scape-painter that ever existed. 
 
 The throwing open of this noble collection, in 
 addition to the other inestimable treasures of the 
 National Gallery, afforded an additional proof of 
 the observation already more than once made, but 
 constantly forced on the mind by farther experience, 
 of the extremely limited extent of taste for the fine 
 arts in Great Britain. The gallery is thrown open 
 gratis twice a-week ; and I often went there to see 
 the people, and observe them when gazing on the 
 masterpieces of Raphael, Eubens, Correggio, Titian, 
 and Turner. The number of visitors,, even on the 
 gratis days, was small, and composed almost en- 
 tirely of artists, most of them female, advanced in 
 years. Even they evinced little admiration for the 
 great pictures; and as to the ordinary spectators, they 
 gazed on them as they would on a sign-post, without, 
 to all appearance, any perception of their beauty. 
 
 I was much struck with this insensibility to the 
 highest excellencies of art, when sitting opposite the 
 exquisite painting by Claude of the Temple of 
 Apollo, exhibited at the British Institution in Pall 
 Mall. It is perhaps the most beautiful landscape in 
 the world, in the finest order, and, to any one who 
 
454 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 can appreciate the highest excellence of art, of ravish- 
 ing beauty. I sat before it for half an hour, and 
 several hundred people of respectable appearance 
 passed before it during this time ; but not one did 
 more than bestow on it a passing look. I must say 
 I thought this very remarkable, and not a little 
 contradictory of the boasts of the march of intellect 
 and progress of civilisation of which we hear so 
 much. There appears to me to be scarce any per- 
 ceptible improvement in this respect from the time 
 when I first recollect London, before the Continent 
 was opened, fifty years ago. 
 
 On the evening of the 16 th June we were at a 
 splendid party, given by the Duke and Duchess of 
 Hamilton to the Duke of Cambridge and the Princess 
 Mary, in their magnificent chateau of Hamilton 
 House. Nothing could be more sumptuous than 
 the suite of apartments, eight in number, terminat- 
 ing in a beautiful conservatory, all richly and yet 
 tastefully decorated, in which the company, that 
 comprised the whole 6lite of London, was received. 
 The Duke and Duchess did the honours, both to their 
 royal guests and the rest of the party, with their 
 usual grace and courtesy. In the course of the 
 evening, the Princess Mary beckoned me to her side, 
 and, after a few of the usual questions, said : " Sir 
 Archibald, I am glad to see you, to tell you how 
 much we are all pleased with your son, — I mean the 
 major, not the colonel, — whom the Duke knows 
 well. I had heard so much of him from Lord 
 
1862.] PRINCESS MARY OF CAMBRIDGE. 455 
 
 Clyde, and my cousin, the Princess Royal, in Prus- 
 sia, that I was quite anxious to form his acquaint- 
 ance. So I asked him to dance with me, and I need 
 hardly say I was noways disappointed." I feel 
 greatly more gratified by testimonies to the merit 
 of my sons than I possibly could be by compliments 
 addressed to myself : I can appreciate now the grati- 
 fication which women feel in being courted in their 
 daughters. 
 
 On the previous evening we had dined with the 
 Dowager Lady Jersey, in the family mansion in 
 Berkeley Square. The aspect of the rooms as we 
 entered them awakened melancholy recollections. 
 Inhabited now only by the aged mother, who had 
 lost her husband and all her children except two, 
 this splendid house afforded a monument of the 
 insecurity of earthly things. The party consisted, 
 besides Lady Alison and myself, only of Lord and 
 Lady John Manners, and the Hon. Mr and Mrs Ben- 
 tinck. Lady Jersey, in her eightieth year, evinced 
 the talents and conversational powers and vivacity 
 for which she had always been distinguished. 
 
 I was much struck on this occasion with the mis- 
 chief which the ' Times ' had done to the American 
 question, by spreading the belief that the contest in 
 America was hopeless, and that the Confederates 
 must prevail, either by force of arms or the insol- 
 vency of their opponents. I found it impossible 
 to persuade Lord John that this would not be the 
 case. He thought, by simply adhering to the 
 
456 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 system of neutrality, we would obtain all the ad- 
 vantages of a rival republic, without any of the 
 expenses or dangers with which an active inter- 
 vention would be attended. No one who was not 
 in London at this time could form an idea of the 
 extent to which this delusion — for I can give it no 
 other name — extended, even in the best-informed 
 English circles. It withstood the whole evidence 
 to the contrary, arising from the repeated defeats ex- 
 perienced by the Confederates subsequent to their 
 great victory at Bull's Eun ; all the falsifications of 
 prophecies concerning a breakdown of Federal credit 
 from the immensity of their debt, or their suspen- 
 sion of cash payments ; and the many incontrover- 
 tible proofs of the South being overmatched, and 
 in the most imminent danger of being subjugated 
 by the main force of a tyrannical majority in the 
 North. Notwithstanding these facts, people still 
 clung to the predictions of the ' Times ' as infallible 
 oracles, and in the midst of repeated defeats com- 
 forted themselves with the belief that the Confeder- 
 ates could never be conquered. I wished I could 
 share the same opinion. That the Confederates have 
 made a noble stand against the overwhelming odds 
 with which they have been assailed is undoubted ; 
 but all history tells us that there is a certain amount 
 of superiority in military numbers and resources 
 which will beat down the most strenuous opposi- 
 tion, and defeat the most just of causes. Witness 
 Poland, La Vendue, and Tyrol. 
 
1862.] THE OPEEA. 457 
 
 We were frequently at the opera duriug this visit 
 to London, both at Covent Garden and the Hay- 
 market. We had not been much at either for some 
 years, and we were greatly surprised at the increas- 
 ing splendour of the way the pieces were got up, and 
 the vast assemblage of the highest and middle ranks 
 by which they Avere attended. Two dramas we saw 
 were the " Huguenots " and " Robert le Diable ; " and 
 certainly these were represented with a degree of mag- 
 nificence at both opera-houses to which we had never 
 before seen anything equal, either in Paris or London. 
 The very striking scene in particular in " Eobert le 
 Diable," where the nuns rise from their graves in the 
 ruined monastery, and casting aside their winding- 
 sheets, exhibit their siren charms in the evolutions 
 of the brilliant dances, till they are all swallowed 
 up in the flames, was brought forward with splen- 
 did efi"ect. Mario and Formes at the one house, 
 and Mademoiselle Titiens at the other, exhibited 
 their great powers to the utmost advantage, and 
 never failed to elicit unbounded applause. What- 
 ever may be said of a taste for architecture, painting, 
 or sculpture, not appearing to have sensibly spread 
 during the last half- century, the same cannot be 
 said of a taste for the drama, either in its highest 
 and most costly, or subordinate and cheaper depart- 
 ments. When I first recollect London, there were 
 only two theatres for the legitimate drama — Drury 
 Lane and Covent Garden — and one opera - house, 
 being the one still open in the Hay market. Now 
 
458 AUTOBIOQKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 there are two opera-houses, both of which are crowded 
 during every evening of the season, and eight lesser 
 theatres, of more or less celebrity. This is a greater 
 increase than can be explained merely by the addi- 
 tion to the population of London, which has, how- 
 ever, more than doubled during that period. Much 
 of this is doubtless owing to the railway system, 
 which periodically brings the wealthy of the pro- 
 vinces to the metropolis in quest of amusement or 
 excitement. But much also is to be ascribed to 
 increasing appreciation of the stage, from greater 
 mental refinement and cultivation in the middle 
 classes of London. 
 
 We went also to the Princess's Theatre, in Oxford 
 Street, to see Mr and Mrs Charles Kean in " Louis 
 XL" — a drama expressly written to exhibit the 
 great and varied powers of both these celebrated 
 performers. The former is certainly a great actor, 
 • — as much so in characters which are adapted 
 for him as his father ever was. He looked older 
 than even the lapse of twenty years since I first 
 recollected him could account for ; but his profes- 
 sion in the intervening period had been a very 
 laborious, and, at times, a racking one, which was 
 probably the cause of so much change. He did not 
 appear, however, at all too old for the character 
 of Louis XL ; and he performed the part of that 
 astute cruel tyrant with equal truth to nature 
 and dramatic effect. If Charles Kean looked older 
 than I expected, the same could not be said of Mrs 
 
1862.] SUNDAY IN LONDON. 459 
 
 Kean — ci-devant, Miss Ellen Tree — who is still in 
 the zenith of her charms, and the full enjoyment of 
 her powers. She too is an admirable actress, and 
 cannot be surpassed in many parts. She excels 
 particularly in "King Een^'s Daughter" and other 
 similar pieces, in which simplicity and naivete of 
 character, or innocent coquetry, is the thing to be 
 represented. She has not the great and varied 
 powers of Miss Helen Faucit — Avho is, beyond all 
 doubt, the greatest tragic actress now on the stage ; 
 but within the more limited walk, which suits her 
 powers, Mrs Kean is as near perfection as can be 
 imagined. 
 
 There is no scene in London more characteristic 
 of English habits and manners than the West-end 
 Parks on a fine Sunday. They are always crowded 
 with people, — not the aristocratic fashionables, who 
 roll in their carriages in Hyde Park, — but the 
 middle and humble classes, who with their wives 
 and children resort to these beautiful scenes, in 
 quest of fresh air and the enjoyment of looking 
 at interesting rural objects. Nowhere are they 
 presented in greater numbers, or in a more ex- 
 quisite assemblage. The mixture of old elms, under 
 which Charles 11. sauntered, with young trees and 
 bushes from every part of the world ; the reflec- 
 tion of the masses of foliage in the waters of the 
 lakes ; the delightful intricacy of wood and water 
 which everywhere present themselves ; the pilps of 
 splendid architecture which surround the space, and 
 
460 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the gigantic towers of Westminster Abbey and the 
 new Houses of Parliament, which form the back- 
 ground of the scene, — afford a group of charm- 
 ing and interesting objects which I have never seen 
 equalled in any other metropolis. The quantities 
 of different kinds of water-fowl that are sporting 
 in the water, and catching the food thrown to them 
 by the bystanders on the banks, add to the illusion 
 and park-like character of the scene. On Sunday 
 it is diversified by ten or a dozen missionaries, each 
 of whom stations himself under a tree, and preaches 
 to a crowd of from thirty to fifty persons. They, in 
 general, listen attentively to the discourse, while the 
 immense mass of the pedestrians, all respectably, 
 some elegantly dressed, quietly pass by on the other 
 side, and pay no more attention to the crowd or the 
 preaching than they do to the water-fowl sporting in 
 the water, or the children playing on the turf. This 
 is real liberty, where each class does what suits its 
 inclination, without interfering with any other class ; 
 and Government leaves all at liberty, except when 
 they offend public propriety or mutually injure each 
 other. 
 
 A most splendid public performance attracted in 
 an especial manner our attention at this time, — 
 and that was the commemoration of Handel at the 
 Crystal Palace, on 23d June and following days. 
 This great musical festival was got up with the 
 utmost splendour. Four thousand performers — a 
 number unprecedented in this country, probably in 
 
1862.] THE HANDEL FESTIVAL. 461 
 
 Europe — formed the orchestra and chorus, and 
 discharged their duties with admirable unity -and 
 effect. Such was the skill with which they had 
 been instructed, and had learned their parts, that, 
 though brought from many quarters, and having 
 only had the advantage of one rehearsal together, 
 they went through the complicated choruses in the 
 " Messiah " and " Israel in Egypt " as if they were 
 one huge instrument emitting the sound. This mag- 
 nificent festival confirmed me in the opinion I had 
 already formed and heard expressed by the best 
 judges, that the latter is, on the whole, superior to 
 the former, and is the most sublime musical con- 
 ception ever composed by man. On the inter- 
 vening day between the two oratorios, a selection 
 was performed, in which the great powers of Made- 
 moiselle Titiens and Madame Dolby shone forth 
 with the brightest lustre. The well-known sym- 
 phony sung by the former, " Let the bright ser- 
 aphim," with the echo by the horn, was exquisite, 
 and was fully heard by 15,000 persons, who formed 
 the entranced audience. Her voice, clear and 
 piercing, was distinctly audible above the instru- 
 ments and voices in that gigantic chorus. This 
 is a very singular circumstance ; for the voice of 
 the strongest man in the room could not have 
 been heard in a similar manner, or by a tenth 
 part of the auditors to whom hers penetrated. It 
 distinctly appeared on occasion of this festival 
 that the taste of the middle classes for music has 
 
462 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 increased in the most signal manner of late years — 
 another of the many proofs which experience affords 
 that it is the earliest of the fine arts to be developed 
 among a people, while architecture is the next, and 
 painting and sculpture the last. 
 
 The comparison which passing in successive days 
 from the International Exhibition to the Crystal 
 Palace afforded, confirmed me in the opinion that 
 the latter was the more imposing of the two. In- 
 dependently of the superior lightness, airiness, and 
 grace of the structure, the commanding situation 
 on which it stands, and the superb view which 
 it commands, the collection of beautiful objects 
 which it presents is more perfect and extensive. 
 The reason is obvious. The Crystal Palace con- 
 tains facsimiles of the most exquisite remains of 
 art of all ages, from the days of Nineveh down- 
 wards, — the Exhibition, the works of one single age 
 only. True, the former are copies, the latter orig- 
 inals ; but good copies of exquisite models are in- 
 finitely superior to indifferent or mediocre originals. 
 Supposing the genius of the present age in the fine 
 arts to be equal to any one of those which preceded 
 it, which it certainly is not, it is obviously out of the 
 question to suppose it can equal them all put to- 
 gether. You might as well suppose that the poetry 
 of any one age is to equal that of all ages put to- 
 gether, from Homer to Schiller. On this account, 
 the absolute amount of beauty in the Crystal Palace 
 
1862.] LOXDOX ATTRACTIONS. 463 
 
 greatly exceeds that contained in an exhibition of 
 contemporary genius. 
 
 The great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace ^vere 
 not the only spectacles which at this period drew 
 foreiorners and strangers to London. In the two 
 latter weeks of June there Avere several others, not 
 less attractive to a considerable portion of the 
 community. There was a great cattle-show for the 
 country-gentlemen, in which the Scotch shorthorns 
 and mares carried off the first prizes ; a beautiful 
 display of rhododendrons and roses, in the Horticul- 
 tural Gardens in Princes Gate ; and a prodigious 
 show of dogs, equally interesting to sportsmen, for 
 the field, and fine ladies, for the drawing-room. The 
 natural consequence of this unparalleled combination 
 of attractive objects was to induce an equally unpre- 
 cedented crowd of strangers to London ; and accord- 
 ingly the throng was such as never before had been 
 witnessed. Not only were all the streets, and especi- 
 ally those leading to the great Exhibition and the 
 Crystal Palace, crowded with foot-passengers, but 
 the strings of omnibuses, cabs, private carriages, and 
 vehicles of all description were such as to render it 
 always a source of difiBculty, often of danger, to at- 
 tempt to cross one of the principal thoroughfares. 
 At the crossing at Hyde Park Corner, down Gros- 
 venor Place, from Piccadilly up Park Lane, at the 
 intersection of Oxford Street with Eegent Street, 
 and at that of Bond Street with Conduit Street, 
 
464 AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the mass of carriages was so prodigious that it 
 was often several minutes before a passage was 
 practicable, and then only by the policemen hold- 
 ing up their hands and stopping the string till 
 the foot-passengers got across. The string of car- 
 riages, three abreast, often stretched from the head 
 of St James's Street, along Piccadilly and Knights- 
 bridge, without interruption to the Exhibition, a 
 distance of two miles and a half. The hotels and 
 lodging-houses were all so crowded that it was with 
 the utmost difficulty, and only by paying extrava- 
 gant prices, that accommodation was anywhere to 
 be obtained. If you went to any of the great ob- 
 jects of attraction — the Crystal Palace, the Exhi- 
 bition, the flower-show — the carriages and visitors 
 appeared so numerous that you came away with the 
 impression that all London had been there assembled ; 
 but those who were at any of the others left them 
 with the same belief. While 50,000 visitors, at 2s. 6d. 
 each, were at the Exhibition ; 16,000, with tickets 
 varying from 5s. to £1, Is., were at the Handel Fes- 
 tival; the flower-exhibition, at 2s. 6d., was crowded; 
 and 8000 persons, at 2s. 6d. each, thronged the cattle- 
 show. The two opera-houses and the two theatres 
 were every night so crammed with spectators that 
 you would suppose the whole interest and wealth of 
 the metropolis was concentrated in them. Foreign- 
 ers had their full share in this prodigious throng; 
 and for the first time since the Norman Conquest, 
 French was as much spoken as English in the prin- 
 
1862.J LONDON CROWDS. 465 
 
 cipal streets. The principal shops had notices — " Ici 
 on parle Frangais ; " " Qui si parla Italiano ; " " Hier 
 Spricht man Deutsch,"— in their windows. In a 
 word, London was, at this interesting time, truly 
 and in every sense, an "International" metropolis — 
 the common forum of the world. It was the middle 
 classes of this and other nations which formed the 
 great majority of the crowd ; and it was a common 
 observation that, amidst the immense strings of 
 carriages which thronged the Park at six o'clock, 
 there were fewer handsome equipages than were 
 often seen on ordinary occasions. 
 
 In one particular, London at this time exhibited 
 a spectacle which had never been witnessed, to a 
 similar extent at least, in any other capital. Though 
 the crowds in the principal thoroughfares were so 
 prodigious, and public and private carriages in hot 
 haste were crossing each other in every direction, at 
 every hour of the day and great part of the night, 
 not only was there never any brawl or disturbance, 
 but no coercive force of any kind in the least ade- 
 quate to restrain it was visible. Not a foot-soldier, 
 not a dragoon, was anywhere to be seen. The only 
 guardians of the pu.blic peace were the police, who, in 
 the most frequented localities, were stationed about 
 forty yards from each other, generally singly, and 
 always unarmed. The mounted patrols, a few of 
 whom were to be seen in the middle of the street, in 
 the places where the pressure was the greatest, had 
 their cutlasses by their side ; but they were never 
 
 VOL. n. 2 G 
 
466 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 drawn, and the riders generally stood still, and never 
 went out of a walk. A single foot-policeman, standing 
 in the middle of the street, sufficed at any time, and in 
 all places, not only to assign their proper side to the 
 carriages, but to stop them for any length of time till 
 the throng had abated, and they might be permitted 
 to move on. There might be a hundred carriages 
 thus stopped by one unarmed man, including those 
 of the Duke of Cambridge, the Duchess of Suther- 
 land, the Duchess of Buccleuch, and half the nobility 
 of England : they were all halted and ke]Dt standing, 
 often for a considerable time, by one man, without 
 even a baton in his hand ! He merely held up his 
 hand, and they were all still : he put it down, and 
 with one accord they all moved on. There was not 
 an attempt at or a thought of resistance, from the 
 prince's chariot to the lowest and most disreputable- 
 looking cabman plying for his shilling fare. Such 
 is the authority of the law in England, that in the 
 orderly habits of the people, and their universal 
 respect for the law, London may challenge a com- 
 parison with any other metropolis that ever existed. 
 This honourable feature in the British character was 
 the more remarkable, that at this very time, while 
 three millions of men were universally yielding obe- 
 dience to the law in London, without the slightest 
 coercion, the most frightful crimes were of daily 
 occurrence in Ireland, without any one of the peas- 
 antry giving the slightest aid either to prevent their 
 perpetration or bring the offenders to justice. 
 
1862.] THE TWO EXHIBITIONS COMPARED. 467 
 
 The International Exhibition of 1862 naturally 
 suggested a comparison with the objects of manu- 
 facture and art which had been collected in the 
 previous one of 1851, and many thoughts, both 
 as to the progress made by the world generally in 
 the production of these objects, and the relative 
 position which G-reat Britain held in comparison 
 with other nations in regard to them. Compared 
 with the first Exhibition, it was evident that a very 
 great improvement had taken place, more especially 
 in such branches of manufacture as ministered to 
 utility and comfort. There was a considerable ad- 
 vance in the patterns of English carpets and dra- 
 peries, and in costly articles of plate and jewellery. 
 The British manufactures and works of art were 
 superior in texture and materials to those of the 
 Continental nations, but the latter had the advan- 
 tage in refinement of taste, chasteness of design, 
 and delicacy of workmanship. This was in an espe- 
 cial manner the case in regard to the plate and jewel- 
 lery of England and France, both of which presented 
 most beautiful and interesting objects. In richness 
 of material and cost of manufacture, none from Paris 
 could equal the gorgeous display presented by Hunt 
 & Koskell, late Storr & Mortimer ; but the designs 
 of the Parisian jewellers were the finer, and the 
 sharpness and delicacy of their chiselling of orfev- 
 rerie were much beyond the English. This ap- 
 peared distinctly even in articles for dessert services 
 of mere ormolu dor6. Nothing could exceed both the 
 
468 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 beauty of the designs and the admirable delicacy of 
 the moulding of many of the articles exhibited, par- 
 ticularly those of Goupd Fr^res, jewellers to the Em- 
 peror and Empress. If the productions of the two 
 nations could be characterised with justice in a few 
 words, it would perhaps be best done by saying that 
 the English artists aimed chiefly at the display of 
 wealth, and had attained their object : the French 
 at the production of beauty, and had been equally 
 successful in the attainment of theirs. To these 
 observations, however, I must make an exception, 
 in the case of the Venus of Gibson, one of the most 
 perfect specimens of the ideal which modern Europe 
 has produced. 
 
 Shortly before leaving town we dined with a 
 distinguished party at our new connection's, Lord 
 Dormer's, where we had the satisfaction of meeting 
 our daughter and her husband, who, like all the 
 world, had come up to town from Craigdarroch to 
 enjoy some weeks of the gay season in London. 
 The party consisted for the most part of Eoman 
 Catholics of high rank or ancient descent, and was 
 very agreeable. I took to dinner a lady of rank, 
 and, as I soon found, a zealous Catholic. As I 
 had never met any person of that persuasion with 
 whom I deemed it expedient to enter upon religious 
 discussion, I led her into it in order to learn from 
 one of themselves the real opinions and feelings of 
 the ultramontane party in this, which they justly 
 regarded as a crisis in their fate. She entered on 
 
1862.] ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEWS. 469 
 
 the subject without reluctance ; and much as I had 
 expected it, I was surprised with the violence of the 
 feelings she expressed, which I could easily per- 
 ceive, from the language of which she made use, 
 was merely the echo of those of the leading men of 
 her party. The circumstance on which she most 
 dwelt, and which was evidently the cause of this 
 exasperation, was the spoliation of the territories 
 of the Pope, and the subjugation of Southern by 
 Northern Italy, backed by France and England. 
 As I entirely concurred with her in the iniquity 
 and impolicy of that aggression, she opened fully 
 out, and I gleaned from her expressions the pensee 
 intime of the ultramontane party. She considered 
 the movement in Italy which had terminated in this 
 result, not — as I did — as a political revolution, but 
 as a religious movement, the object of which was to 
 overturn the Eoman Catholic faith by stripping its 
 head of his temporal possessions. The soul of this 
 movement she considered Lord Shaftesbury, in whose 
 hands she deemed Lord Palmerston, in this matter, 
 as a puppet ; and she spoke with the utmost asperity 
 of the shameful conduct of Great Britain in be- 
 coming a consenting party to despoiling without 
 the shadow of a pretext the oldest sovereign in 
 Christendom, and in cloaking ambition under the 
 veil of zeal for the temporal interests and religious 
 freedom of mankind. Without vouching for the 
 reasonableness or justice of these opinions, which 
 largely partook of the acrimony of religious rancour, 
 
470 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 joined to the asperity of excited fear, I deem it 
 material to record them as the feelings of a large, 
 zealous, and powerful party in every country of 
 Europe.^ 
 
 If ever there was a contrast to this ebullition 
 of ultramontane z6al, it was furnished by a party 
 with whom two days after we dined at the Arch- 
 bishop of York's. This upright and amiable prelate 
 had a house in Upper Grosvenor Street, where he 
 entertained in a style which befitted his rank 
 as a spiritual peer, second only to the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury. The day before we dined 
 with him twenty-four bishops had partaken of his 
 hospitality. At our party there was a pleasant 
 mixture of ladies and gentlemen, and the enter- 
 tainment was at once brilliant and agreeable. I took 
 a lady to dinner, whom I soon discovered to be 
 as keen on the extreme Protestant as my friend at 
 Lord Dormer's had been on the Eoman Catholic 
 side. According to the opinions now expressed, the 
 Catholic faith was rapidly approaching its fall, and 
 
 1 These strong feelings were shared at this time by the ablest converts 
 from the Church of England to the Romish faith. " I do hereby," says 
 Dr Newman, " profess ex animo, with a full internal assent and consent, 
 that Protestantism is the dreariest of possible religions; that the thought 
 of the Anglican service makes me shiver, and the thought of the Thirty- 
 nine Articles makes me shudder. Return to the Church of England ! 
 No ; the net is broken, and we are disjoined. I should be a consum- 
 mate fool (to use a mild term) if in my old age I left the land flowing 
 with milk and honey for the city of confusion and the house of bond- 
 age. — John H. Newman. 
 
 "The Oratory, Birminqham, JM»re 28, 1862." 
 
 — ' Times,' July 1, 1862. 
 
1862.] INTERESTS OF REALISED CAPITAL. 471 
 
 the missionaries of the Church of England were the 
 apostles who would bring about its extinction : two 
 days before, it was a Church built by our Saviour 
 on a rock, and the gates of hell could not prevail 
 against it. Without pretending to determine which 
 of these opinions is the better founded, which time 
 at the appointed season will reveal, it may, I think, 
 be confidently anticipated that as long as the prel- 
 ates and clergy of the Church of England possess 
 the good sense, moderation, and truly Christian 
 spirit which characterises the present Archbishop of 
 York, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
 
 The longer our stay in London was prolonged, 
 the more forcibly was I struck with the irresistible 
 influence which under the Reform Bill the interests 
 of realised capital had acquired in the State, and the 
 dangers with which, from Government being directed 
 by its interests, the nation was threatened. The 
 perils of the " cotton famine," as it was called, were 
 rapidly increasing; 50,000 persons were out of em- 
 ployment, throwing 150,000 into pauperism; and 
 200,000 more were on half-time, retaining 500,000 
 more on the borders of starvation. The prospects 
 for the future were still more alarming ; the stock of 
 cotton in the country was not equal to a month's 
 consumption ; from America and India none was to 
 be expected ; and the war had almost entirely pre- 
 vented the planting of any crop for the succeeding 
 year. Yet with all this, the subject was scarcely 
 ever mentioned in London society, and the subscrip- 
 
472 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 tions in aid of the local ones in Lancashire were as 
 yet extremely trifling. By common consent the 
 subject was ignored, alike in the Cabinet, in Parlia- 
 ment, on the platform, on the hustings, and in the 
 pulpit. If it were ever mentioned at all, it was only 
 to deplore this " fraternal internecine war," and to 
 express a hope that the whole of the differences 
 would soon be adjusted, and peace and prosperity 
 restored to the earth. It was not said how this 
 pacification was to be effected ; and whether the 
 great conquering republic was to be resti'aiued 
 within its own bounds, or the sway of the Northern 
 democracy extended over the whole North American 
 continent. The leaders of all parties contented 
 themselves with expressions of horror at the con- 
 tinuance of the contest, and with fervent aspirations 
 for its termination, without taking a step, even the 
 remotest, to forward that desirable consummation. 
 
 It was not difficult to perceive one of the causes 
 of this strange indifference on the part of the great 
 majority of the nation, and to what the disinclination 
 of Manchester to solicit aid from any other quarter 
 was owing. Free trade had broken down on the first 
 serious trial ; and the suffering with which we were 
 surrounded in the cotton - spinning districts was 
 owing to the policy which its supporters had suc- 
 ceeded in imposing on the Government. Their 
 anxiety on all occasions in public to ascribe the 
 prevailing distress to the dissensions of a foreign 
 nation, over which they have no control, betrayed 
 
1862.] CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE FREE-TRADERS. 473 
 
 the secret consciousness that in reality it had arisen 
 from their own policy, and was the accomplishment 
 of what had been predicted as likely to result from it 
 by their opponents. They knew that the protection- 
 ists, and none more frequently and earnestly than 
 myself, had warned them of the peril of allowing 
 one's self to become dependent on a foreign, which 
 might any day be converted into a hostile, nation 
 for a vital article of the national livelihood, and that 
 the first condition of independence to nations, as to 
 individuals, is to rely for everything material solely 
 on yourself.^ They saw that their constant reply to 
 these observations — viz., that everything was gov- 
 erned by price, that money would always purchase 
 money's worth, and therefore that such apprehen- 
 
 ^ As for example : " The provinces from which we must chiefly look 
 for our supply of grain if our harbours are thrown open are Poland 
 and the Ukraine, which wait at the beck of the Emperor Nicolas. 
 With what joy would such a measure be hailed in the salons of St 
 Petersburg ! Vain would thus be the prowess of the British arms, vain 
 the recollections of their former glory! — without fitting out one ship 
 of the line, without raising one hostile banner, the Emperor of Russia 
 woidd easily beat down the once dreaded power and independence of 
 England. By simply closing his harbours, by shutting up the gran- 
 aries of Dantzic and Odessa, he would speedily starve us into submis- 
 sion. The populace of Great Britain, deprived of their wonted sup- 
 ply of bread, would become ungovernable, as that of Rome was in 
 ancient days when the mouth of the Tiber was closed against importa- 
 tion of grain from Egypt and Lybia, and submission would soon be 
 felt to be a matter of necessity. Can we, who with our eyes open pro- 
 pose to do such things, blame the Carthaginians, who first surrendered 
 their galleys and arms to the Roman generals, and then, when the 
 legions were encamped around their walls, found themselves without 
 weapons to withstand their inveterate enemies, and perished through 
 the impotence which themselves had created ? " — Free Trade and Pro- 
 tection, pp. 63, 64 (published in 1840). 
 
474 AUTOBIOaRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISOiST. [l862. 
 
 sions were cliimerical — had. been disproved by the 
 event. The moderate duty of a penny or three- 
 halfpence a pound on foreign cotton, when the Ameri- 
 cans laid an ad valorem import of thirty per cent 
 on our manufactures twenty years ago, would long 
 ere this, by securing to the Indian cotton a steady 
 market in this country, have provided for us an ample 
 supply of that necessary article from our own domin- 
 ions free of all risk from foreign wars or blockades. 
 Under such a system the price of cotton would in 
 two or three years have become as low as it had 
 formerly been under the free trade system, just as 
 the price of grain raised in the British Islands under 
 protection was on an average of ten years as low 
 as it has been during the last ten under free trade. 
 All these benefits have been foregone, in order to 
 give full scope to the principle of buying in the 
 cheapest market and selling in the dearest. Even 
 at the eleventh hour the benefit of an ample supply 
 of cotton might have been secured by simply rais- 
 ing the blockade in conjunction with France, and 
 that this was not done chiefly because it would 
 have affected the interests of the holders of Amer- 
 ican cotton and British cotton goods. The great 
 model republic, which was to have been the ex- 
 ample of liberty, economy, and peace, had proved 
 the most ambitious, the most aggressive, and the 
 most extravagant that ever existed. All this they 
 saw, and not knowing what to say to it, they 
 thought it best to ignore the subject, and avoid 
 
1862.] CONSCIOUSNESS OP THE FREE-TEADEES. 475 
 
 everything which could bring it prominently before 
 the public eye. 
 
 Indeed, if the matter be considered dispassionately, 
 and in the light in which it will appear to future 
 times, it must be evident that it could not be other- 
 wise. There are three great interests in society — 
 those of the producers, the buyers and sellers, and 
 the consumers. If the power is substantially vested 
 in the producers, a very large, often the largest, body 
 in the State is sure of having its interests attended 
 to by the Government. If it is vested in the con- 
 sumers, they also, often the largest section of the 
 community, are equally secure of being well cared 
 for. But if it is vested, as it has been in this coun- 
 try, in the shopkeepers — that is, the buying and sell- 
 ing class — the power is given to a section of society 
 whose interest is not only not identical with those 
 of either the producers or consumers, hut is opposite 
 to both. To buy cheap and to sell dear, constitutes, 
 according to them, the Alpha and Omega of political 
 wisdom. To buy cheap is to grind down the pro- 
 ducer to the lowest point of remuneration consistent 
 with continued production ; to sell dear is to fleece 
 the consumer to the utmost extent consistent with 
 undiminished purchases. To vest the substantial 
 power of the State in the buying and selling class is 
 to sacrifice the interest of the millions of producers 
 or consumers to those of the thousands or the tens 
 of thousands of traders. Nevertheless this is what 
 the Eeform Bill has done in the British empire, be- 
 
476 
 
 ATJTOBIOGEAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. 
 
 [l862. 
 
 cause it has given the boroughs, almost entirely gov- 
 erned by the shopkeepers, three-fifths of the seats in 
 the House of Commons. Thence the cotton famine, 
 under which the nation is still sufi"ering, and the 
 effects of which are making themselves known, de- 
 spite all the efforts of the trading class to ignore 
 or suppress them. Thence the far more terrible 
 bread famine, which will ensue on the first occa- 
 sion on which America and Eussia, who together 
 furnish one-half of the sixteen millions of quarters of 
 grain which we annually import, unite and close 
 their harbours, as they were on the verge of doing 
 during the Crimean war, the one to avenge the 
 Trent outrage, the other to return at Portsmouth the 
 visit we paid them at Sebastopol.^ 
 
 1 Table showing the percentage of wheat and flour imported from 
 different countries into Great Britain in the four first months of 1860, 
 1861, and 1862 ;— 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Total Importation. 
 
 Quarters, ...... 
 
 From Russia, ...... 
 
 ,, Prussia, 
 
 „ Denmark, ..... 
 
 ,, Mecklenburg, .... 
 
 ,, Hanse Towns, .... 
 
 ,, France, ...... 
 
 , , Turkey and Wallachia and Moldavia, 
 
 „ Egypt 
 
 ,, United States, .... 
 
 ,, British North America, 
 
 ,, other countries, .... 
 
 Total, 
 
 Four months ended April 30. 
 
 1860. 
 
 560,468 
 
 33 
 16 
 13 
 10 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 1861. 
 
 1862. 
 
 2,484,983 2,132,632 
 Percentage. 
 17 
 
 100 
 
 11 
 5 
 2 
 5 
 7 
 7 
 5 
 
 30 
 
 11 
 
 100 
 
 12 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 43 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 100 
 
 In the sources of our supply of flour the changes have been equally 
 remarkable. In the first four months of 1860 half our total importa- 
 
1862.] 
 
 LADIES DEESSES. 
 
 477 
 
 To turn to a very different and to many a more 
 interesting subject than the realities of a cot- 
 ton and the dangers of a bread famine, I cannot 
 leave this contemporary record of London during 
 the period of the International Exhibition in 1862, 
 without recording the impression universally, I be- 
 lieve, produced on the male sex by the extra- 
 ordinary and preposterous style of ladies' dresses. 
 When the pictures of our present beauties on the 
 canvases of Grant and Swinton come to be re- 
 garded by future times, as we now do those of 
 Eeynolds or Lawrence, it will be a never - failing 
 matter of astonishment how anything so mon- 
 strous and disfiguring to their most valued charms 
 ever was for a moment tolerated by the fair sex. 
 The present fashion is greatly more extravagant 
 than either the hoops and high head-dresses which 
 
 tions "were from France, and only a third came from the United 
 States. This year the United States supply has amounted to 79 per 
 cent of the whole, while only 1 per cent has been derived from 
 France. Annexed are the figures : — 
 
 Flour. 
 
 Total Importation. 
 
 Four months ended April 30, 
 
 1S60. 
 
 1861. . 
 
 1862. 
 
 Cwts., 
 
 From Hanse Towns, .... 
 
 „ France, 
 
 „ United States, .... 
 
 , , British North America, 
 
 „ other countries, .... 
 
 Total, 
 
 64.5,145 
 
 16 
 49 
 33 
 
 2 
 
 2,541,907 
 
 Percentage. 
 
 4 
 
 16 
 
 65 
 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 2,792,812 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 79 
 
 6 
 11 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 — Parliamentary Papers in ' Times,' June 24, 1860. 
 
478 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 we see in the portraits of the first of these mas- 
 ters, or the tight bathina;-dresses which are the 
 subject of so much ridicule in the second. A 
 sharp pyramid is the form universally aimed at 
 in dress — the head being the apex, and the base 
 a space covered by the ample folds, seldom less 
 than a yard and a half in diameter. What the 
 object can be of thus enveloping the human fig- 
 ure in a vast network, which renders it alike in- 
 visible and unapproachable, it is not for me to deter- 
 mine ; and to render the wonder still greater, the 
 dresses are worn so long, that both in front and 
 behind they sweep along the ground. I mention 
 the fact only, leaving its explanation to those ac- 
 quainted with the mysteries of female attire. What 
 the object can be of so extraordinary a costume it 
 seems impossible to divine. That it is allowable for 
 women by dress to supply in some degree the defi- 
 ciencies or conceal the defects of nature may be at 
 once admitted ; and no one ever found fault with 
 dress for aiming at this object. But how they sup- 
 pose that giving dimensions to their dress at the 
 bottom, which makes it look as if they had bladders 
 round their ankles, or were unnaturally swollen in 
 those places, is to make them more attractive, it is 
 impossible to conceive. They are not in general so 
 very anxious to appear not to stand on trijles, or to 
 conceal slim and finely turned ankles, as this style 
 of dress would lead one to believe they are. Has 
 a blight fallen on female figures, and are they all 
 
1S62.] LOED CLYDE. 479 
 
 desirous to prevent any guess even being formed of 
 the proportions of their limbs 1 I have often remon- 
 strated with ladies on the subject, but they all stood 
 up vigorously for the present fashion. Doubtless 
 anything so monstrous will not long endure; and 
 the portraits perpetuating it will be regarded by 
 future times as a curious proof of the extent to which 
 the mania of fashion can obliterate not only all the 
 dictates of taste and common-sense, but the plainest 
 suggestions of nature. 
 
 During the greater part of the time that we were in 
 London Lord Clyde was in Paris; but towards the end 
 of our visit, when we had just returned from one of the 
 Handel festivals in the Crystal Palace, he suddenly 
 broke in upon us in Eaton Square. What struck us 
 most at first was how well and how much younger 
 he looked ; he certainly would have passed for ten 
 years younger than when we had last seen him, imme- 
 diately before his departure for India five years before. 
 This is a very remarkable circumstance, considering 
 his age, now bordering on seventy, and the bodily 
 fatigue and mental anxiety he had since undergone 
 during his Indian campaign. His manner was as 
 frank and cordial as ever, and he spoke with the 
 greatest interest of both our sons and our son-in-law, 
 their prospects, and the best means of advancing 
 them. He said, among other things : " Sir Archi- 
 bald, there were two men on my staff during my last 
 campaign, one or other of whom I always employed 
 when a message was to be delivered under fire, with 
 
480 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 rapidity, decision, and exactly as received ; and the 
 one of these by a singular chance was your youngest 
 son, and the other is now your son-in-law." We 
 were highly gratified with such a comjjliment from 
 such a man. He added, as he was going away, 
 " One of the greatest misfortunes which ever hap- 
 pened to me in life was your eldest son receiving 
 the severe wound which obliged him to return 
 home from Cawnpore." 
 
 Next day I returned his visit in his chambers in 
 the Albany ; and the scene I found there, with what 
 passed, was so characteristic, that I cannot refrain 
 from portraying it. It was about twelve when I 
 called ; and as soon as I announced my name I was 
 shown into his bedroom. The old general was sitting 
 at his dressing-table in his dressing-gown, without a 
 neckcloth, with a profusion of letters and notes before 
 him — some open, others unopened. He shook me 
 warmly by the hand, and after a few common obser- 
 vations said : " My good friend, is it possible you 
 have come so far merely to return a visit of form 
 to me, or have you anything you wish me to do 1 " 
 Whilst saying this he stooped his head, and looked 
 at me very keenly with his dark eyes from under his 
 shaggy eyebrows. "Nothing in the world," I re- 
 plied, " except to express to you our warm gratitude 
 for your unbounded kindness to our boys, and our 
 
 wish that you would use your influence with F 
 
 to induce him to terminate the gay life he has been 
 leading in London for three seasons, and go on full 
 
1862.] LORD Clyde's generosity. 481 
 
 pay again." " Well, then, you are right," he an- 
 swered : " I agree with you ; and I think more of it 
 than I cared to tell his mother when I sawher yester- 
 day. I will do as you wish ; but it will cost you 
 X1400 or £1500 to make the exchange for him. If 
 this cursed affair of the prize-money was decided, I 
 would gladly assist him in this advance ; but I have 
 as yet got nothing, and not even heard whether I am 
 to get any : have you ? " "I have heard nothing," 
 I replied ; " but I cannot think, in any event, of 
 trespassing farther on your kindness ; and I have 
 the money for his exchange lying in Coutts's." 
 " Oh, but if I get anything worth having, I must 
 contribute, you know. I have no relations, except 
 my sister, who is quite independent, and has more 
 money than she knows what to do with. I am an 
 old fellow, and have no thoughts of marrying ; and 
 what have I to do with my money but to advance 
 my Indian family ? You know we can't take it 
 with us to the next world : and it is far better to 
 make others happy while still in this." 
 
 We returned to Fossil on the 28th June, and 
 found the place resplendent with rhododendrons in 
 full bloom. I found an arrear of 112 cases awaiting 
 me for debate, though I had not left one unheard ; 
 and they were, besides, growing at the rate of 20 
 a-week. This promised me ample occupation ; and 
 I fixed every day from 12 till 5 for the hearing of 
 cases, and plunged at once into my old habits, read- 
 ing Goethe, Alfieri, and Bulwer every evening. I 
 
 VOL. II. 2 H 
 
482 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 began also Edgar Quinet's account of the battle of 
 Waterloo, which is very able and interesting. The 
 day after we returned was a Sunday, and we were 
 extremely struck with the appearance of Glasgow on 
 that day, and not at all surprised at the impression 
 it never fails to make on strangers. After the bustle 
 and crowds of London, even on Sunday, it looks like 
 a city of the dead. In the broad straight stone 
 streets there was not a carriage, and very few foot- 
 passengers to be seen, except as the churches were 
 closing, when they were crowded. This strange Pu- 
 ritanical aspect of a city containing nearly 500,000 
 inhabitants was sufficiently striking, and attested 
 the working of a great and general influence in all 
 classes of society. The extreme evangelistic party 
 would doubtless consider it as the greatest triumph 
 of their persuasion, and the best possible way in 
 which the Sabbath could be spent in a great city ; 
 but to me, who knew the scenes which were being 
 enacted in many of the houses adjoining these de- 
 serted streets, the impression was difi"erent. I con- 
 sidered it in great part as an example of mingled 
 profligacy and hypocrisy, and could not help recall- 
 ing to mind the graphic words of the ' Times ' : 
 " The Glasgow Puritan, after dinner, draws down 
 the blinds, sits down to his whisky-and- water, and 
 returns thanks to God he is not as other men, who 
 go to Crystal Palaces or parks." Nor was it without 
 keen regret that I called to mind the beautiful scene 
 we had witnessed, some Sundays before, in the gar- 
 
1862.] GLASGOW PURITANISM. 483 
 
 dens of Kew, filled with the working classes in their 
 Sunday attire, and conducting themselves with per- 
 fect propriety, and lamented the narrow-minded zeal 
 which had so often thwarted endeavours to present 
 a similar scene in the Botanic Gardens of Glasgow. 
 
 The truth is, that the clergy have, by an acci- 
 dental combination of circumstances, acquired an 
 undue influence in that city, and hence many evils 
 which, for the present at least, are altogether beyond 
 the reach of remedy. Formerly, it was a place of 
 resort to the gentlemen of landed property in the 
 vicinity, and the great part of the merchants who 
 made fortunes in it were cadets of their families, and 
 after they had become rich continued to live in it. 
 Thus a counterpoise existed to the influence of the 
 clergy and the extreme Puritans. Now, this is 
 altered. Scarce any sons of gentlemen from the 
 neighbourhood go into business in Glasgow; and the 
 men who conduct its vast manufacturing and com- 
 mercial interests are chiefly those who have risen 
 from the ranks, and have learned, by having gone 
 through the inferior grades, how profit is to be made 
 in the superior. Having done so, and realised a for- 
 tune, they hive ofi" either to London or to the country 
 estates which they have purchased, and cast aside 
 Glasgow as a tender which is no longer required. 
 Thus there is no class of society possessed either of the 
 influence arising from fortune, rank, or station, or of 
 the intellectual ability capable of withstanding the 
 power of the clergy, incessantly and often admirably 
 
484 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 exerted in the pulpit. Thus Glasgow has become the 
 most priest-ridden city in the British dominions, or 
 perhaps in Europe. Mr Buckle's observations on this 
 point, though exaggerated in regard to Scotland in 
 general, are scarcely so with respect to Glasgow. The 
 people of the country, and of the western provinces 
 in particular, are naturally addicted to theological 
 disputes, and extremely accessible to religious fer- 
 vour. The clergy of all denominations seeing this, 
 and being mainly dependent, both for their liveli- 
 hood and reputation, on the favour of their flocks, 
 and especially of the female portion of them, vie with 
 each other in professions of sanctity and the strict 
 attention to the outward ceremonial of religion, 
 especially the Judaical observance of the Sabbath. 
 Thence the extreme strictness of general opinion in 
 Glasgow and its vicinity on this particular, and 
 thence also a more discreditable peculiarity by which 
 numbers in that city are distinguished. This is a 
 hypocritical profession of religious opinion, and a 
 strict observance of its external ceremonial, accom- 
 panied by a secret disregard of its precepts, and 
 unbounded indulgence in all the pleasures which 
 wealth can purchase. . As a set-off against these 
 faults, which arise from the external circumstances 
 I have mentioned, it must be added that their mu- 
 nificence is highly praiseworthy, — and nowhere is 
 charity, when required, either in public or private, 
 dispensed with a more liberal hand. 
 
 Shortly after our return home, a very able article 
 
1862.] "dawn of animated LIFE." 485 
 
 in the ' Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review ' 
 fell into my hands, entitled, " Dawn of Animated 
 Life." Few works on- any subject ever impressed me 
 more ; for it unfolds not merely the past history of 
 the globe disclosed by geology, but the actual and 
 present working of the power of creation on the 
 surface of the earth. The ceaseless creation of coral- 
 reefs in the ocean of the Pacific, by the agency of 
 little animals, has long been known, but the powers 
 of the microscope have now discovered a similar 
 agency, on a still greater scale, under nearly the 
 whole extent of the Atlantic. The experiments 
 made, and discoveries that have come to light in the 
 attempt to lay the electric cable to North America, 
 have revealed what the 'Review' justly calls the 
 " astounding fact," that over a surface at the bottom 
 of the Atlantic, 1500 miles in length, and 600 in 
 breadth, the creation is going forward of a vast coat- 
 ing of limestone or chalk, in general three or four feet 
 in thickness, which at some future period may form 
 the chalk-cliffs of a new Albion. The agents in 
 this mighty work are an innumerable multitude 
 of insects, semi -animated, chained to the spot, so 
 small that ten thousand of them would be con- 
 tained in an ounce, but so numerous and so in- 
 dustrious that they have spread a white sheet from 
 the Old to the New World ! These anitTudculcB, in- 
 visible to the naked eye, and only revealed by the 
 powers of the finest microscopes, are of varied form 
 and exquisite beauty : no ladies' ornaments can equal 
 
486 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the delicacy visible in tlie forms of these multitudin- 
 ous agents in creation. While the telescope brings to 
 light innumerable worlds, of which the entire solar 
 system is only a speck revolving round a greater 
 sun, beyond the reach of human ken, — the micro- 
 scope reveals an equally infinite progression towards 
 infinity in the other direction, and tells us that 
 myriads of living beings are unceasingly employed 
 in the great work of decay and renovation over 
 the whole surface of nature in one of these mov- 
 ing orbs. 
 
 A few days after our return, we had a family 
 
 party of two days for the christening of A -'s little 
 
 boy, which took place on the 8th July. He is a fine 
 child, and I trust will do honour to his family. A 
 few weeks after, we were thrown into a state of the 
 utmost anxiety by the sudden and alarming illness 
 of my little grandson, Archy Fergusson, who was a 
 weakly child, and was brought to imminent danger 
 by an attack of bronchitis with which he Avas seized 
 at Ardrossan, whither he had been sent for the bene- 
 fit of sea-bathing. He recovered, thank God, on this 
 occasion ; but his delicacy of constitution induced 
 the physician to recommend removal during winter 
 to a milder climate. 
 
 I had not been long back in Glasgow before I 
 found that such was the rise in the price of cotton 
 in consequence of the blockade of the Southern States, 
 that not only had ordinary supplies of it risen 
 from 6^d. to 15d. a pound, but some of the finer 
 
1862.] PROFITS IN THE COTTON FAMINE. 487 
 
 kinds, New Orleans, had advanced from 7^d. to 2s. 
 and 2s. 2d. the pound I This prodigious rise had 
 been progressive and almost uninterrupted, and had 
 been going on for a period of fifteen months. The 
 consequence was that all persons engaged in that 
 trade had gained largely, and some had made colossal 
 fortunes. One house in Liverpool, I was assured, had 
 cleared £1,000,000 in this way; the share of its pro- 
 fits falling to a partner in Glasgow being £300,000 ! 
 The total profits made in Britain by this rise in 
 the price of cotton was estimated, hj the most com- 
 petent observers, at £20,000,000. A like sum, it 
 was generally said, had been realised by the holders 
 of Manchester cotton goods, with which the market 
 in every part of the world had become, during the 
 three preceding years, so thoroughly glutted that 
 they were absolutely unsaleable. Lancashire was 
 on the verge of a commercial crisis, exceeding those 
 of 1847 and 1857 in intensity, when the American 
 war came to the rescue, and at once converted 
 the most gloomy prospects into the brightest sun- 
 shine. Warehouses were everywhere emptied of 
 stocks, recently unsaleable, at immense profits ; and 
 the forcible stoppage in the production raised prices 
 of manufactured goods, which, under other circum- 
 stances, must have been sold with the most ruinous 
 reductions. It need hardly be said that these 
 profits were not the result of a real addition to the 
 productive industry of the nation : on the contrary, 
 they were just the reverse. They arose from a sud- 
 
488 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 den and unexpected stoppage of that industry, and 
 the consequent enhancement of the price of its for- 
 mer produce on hand, by the great diminution of the 
 present supply. Of course this was attended by a 
 vast diminution in the demand for manufacturing 
 labour : above a hundred thousand persons were now 
 out of employment in Lancashire alone, and more 
 than double that number were on half-time. The 
 same cause which threw hundreds of thousands of 
 workmen out of bread at one end of the chain, 
 realised profits of millions of pounds at the other 
 to the fortunate possessors of cotton and cotton 
 goods. 
 
 During the course of this autumn, I had the hap- 
 piness of meeting Mr Mason, the well-known Con- 
 federate Commissioner to Great Britain, at a dinner- 
 party at the hospitable mansion of my esteemed 
 friend, Mr Dalglish, M.P. for Glasgow. The con- 
 versation began at seven o'clock, and continued 
 till after twelve. I found Mr Mason a singu- 
 larly intelligent and agreeable man, extremely well 
 informed on his own subjects, and possessing that 
 ready flow of language by which well - educated 
 Americans are in general distinguished. As might 
 have been anticipated from the political position 
 which he held, he was thoroughly convinced of 
 the ultimate success of the Confederate States, and 
 extremely desirous to impress a similar belief on 
 his auditors. As the great victories of Richmond 
 had been gained, and were known in this country. 
 
ISea] STONEWALL JACKSOX. 489 
 
 this was not so difficult a task as it would have been 
 at an earlier period of the contest. He was decidedly 
 of opinion, however, that the Federal States would 
 never break down from want of money, and that the 
 anticipations of the ' Times ' on that point were 
 unfounded. The spirit of the North, as well as 
 of the South, he affirmed, was so determined, they 
 would take the Government paper on both sides 
 to any extent, at its nominal value, as long as the 
 fervour lasted : the collapse would not come till the 
 physical means of carrying on the contest were 
 exhausted by the failure, as in France in 1814, of 
 the class capable of bearing arms. " Stonewall " 
 Jackson was the real hero of the war : he was the 
 Wallace of the Confederate States. His sobriquet 
 of " Stonewall " was got in this way : At the battle 
 of Bull's Run, the Confederate right, where he was 
 stationed, was greatly outnumbered, and obliged to 
 fall back, in the form of a concave line, to avoid 
 being turned. Beauregard, who was in the chief 
 command, was very uneasy about his right, and sent 
 repeated aides-de-camp to inquire whether they re- 
 quired any assistance. At length Jackson sent back 
 word — " Tell the General I will stand like a stone 
 wall." He was as good as his word ; and by his 
 obstinate resistance gained time for Johnson to come 
 up, who, by a flank movement, converted a doubt- 
 ful struggle into a decisive victory. 
 
 Jackson, like all other really great men, is simpli- 
 city itself in private life. He neither affects the air, 
 
490 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OP SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 dress, nor swagger of youug soldiers : when riding 
 about he is in general hardly distinguishable from 
 an ordinary trooper ; but when the shells begin to 
 burst around, and the round-shot to fall in the ranks, 
 he at once stands forth, and the hero facile pmiceps 
 is at once recognised. He. said to Mason when the 
 contest began : " We have no navy : we are inferior 
 to the Yankees in men, money, arms, and artillery ; 
 but we have union, determination, and an interior 
 line of railway communication. I have read Alison's 
 campaign of the Archduke Charles in Germany in 
 1797, and Napoleon's in France, in 1814; and I 
 don't see why we should not make as good a use 
 of our interior line as they did of theirs." I could 
 not but feel much gratified by this information, so 
 illustrative of Bolingbroke's remark, that history is 
 " philosophy teaching by examples." Jackson was a 
 very well-read man, had been professor of the mili- 
 tary art at the Military College of the State of 
 Virginia — and had long made strategy a favour- 
 ite subject of study. But to this disposition, which 
 is indispensable to the highest eminence in war, he 
 united unshaken coolness in danger, and a rapid but 
 just coup-d'ceil on the field of battle, which are by 
 no means always found in conjunction with anterior 
 studies. 
 
 Stonewall Jackson had a favourable opportunity 
 for testing his theoretical principles as to the use to 
 be made of an interior line of communication in the 
 campaign of 1862 ; and it is to the skilful use which 
 
1862.] STONEWALL JACKSON. 491 
 
 he made of it that the important series of victories 
 in front of Richmond, in the end of July of that year, 
 is mainly to be ascribed. A direct railway ran from 
 his position in the valley of the Shenandoah to the 
 neighbourhood of Richmond, where the army arrayed 
 in defence of Richmond was assembled, at the dis- 
 tance of eighty miles. Of this railroad the Confed- 
 erates had the entire command ; while the Federals 
 could only pass from one to the other by a long cir- 
 cuit down the valley of Shenandoah by Washington, 
 Fortress Munro, and up the James River, which was 
 an affair of a week. Skilfully availing themselves of 
 this advantage, the Confederate generals, with much 
 parade, sent 3000 men from their lines before Rich- 
 mond to Jackson, and took care that the enemy should 
 know it; and the same night Stonewall Jackson set out 
 from his position with about 12,000 men,who marched 
 along the railway, and was followed by 12,000 more, 
 who took up the first body when they overtook them, 
 who were moved forward in the carriages. Proceed- 
 ing in this manner, riding and tying, the whole body, 
 24,000 strong, reached the neighbourhood of Rich- 
 mond in thirty hours, and disembarking from the 
 railway at a few miles' distance, appeared suddenly 
 and unexpectedly directly in the rear of M'Clellan's 
 position. This of course rendered an immediate re- 
 treat by the latter, across from the Chickahominy 
 to the James River, unavoidable ; and led to the 
 series of bloody battles which delivered Richmond, 
 entirely changed the face of the campaign, and at 
 
492 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 once converted the Confederates, hitherto acting on 
 the defensive, into the attacking party. Jackson put 
 the same principles into practice shortly after, in 
 the campaign, by leaving M'Clellan unmolested in 
 his retreat down the James River, and hurrying his 
 forces, reinforced by those from Richmond, into the 
 rear of Pope's army in the valley of the Shenandoah, 
 upon him and Washington ; thus repeating, on a 
 greater scale, the audacious march of Napoleon across 
 the St Bernard into the rear of Melas's army, in the 
 campaign of 1800. 
 
 Mr Mason made some striking and important ob- 
 servations in regard to the possibility of cultivating 
 low lands in the tropical regions without the forced 
 labour of slaves. I had made the remark that the 
 great difficulty of the slave question arose from 
 this : that the European, who was free and willing 
 to work for wages, speedily died if he attempted to 
 work in such situations in the fields ; but that the 
 African negro revelled in the sun, and multiplied in 
 the moist hot lands, and did not suffer at all from 
 rural labour ; but then he would not work unless 
 compelled, and slavery seemed a condition of national 
 existence. Mason upon this observed : " So com- 
 pletely is this the case, that I know many cotton- 
 plantations in the low grounds where the negroes 
 are perfectly healthy, and increase rapidly in the 
 fields ; but the climate is so deadly to Europeans, 
 that the white overseers are obliged to return home 
 every night, often a distance of ten or fifteen miles. 
 
1862.] MR MASON. 493 
 
 to their homes, situated 800 or 1000 feet higher in 
 the mountains. You are quite mistaken in Europe 
 as to the relation of master and slave in America. 
 It is patriarchal — suah as is described in the Old 
 Testament : a sense of mutual dependence is the 
 basis on which it rests. You have not had a single 
 slave insurrection consequent on the invasion of the 
 Federal forces. The white men all left their estates 
 to join the armies, and the women, old men, and 
 children were alone left in charge of the estates ; but 
 they were perfectly safe with their negro servants. 
 I have heard prayers voluntarily offered up in the 
 negro churches for their masters' safety when with 
 the armies. A separation of parent and child, hus- 
 band and wife, sometimes takes place, when an estate, 
 with all that is on it, is sold ; but this is done only 
 under the stern law of necessity, and is so much con- 
 demned by public opinion that it is very rare. Such 
 as it is, it is not so frequent as the separation of 
 families is in England. Look at Mrs Hemans's 
 ' Graves of a Household.' " 
 
 When I asked Mr Mason how it was possible for 
 the Confederate States to withstand the endless con- 
 scriptions of men and heavy taxation requisite for 
 the maintenance of the war, he replied : " Sir, the 
 explanation is simple : we have neither a conscrip- 
 tion nor taxes ; every man capable of bearing arms 
 is already in the field or in reserve, and every man's 
 whole property is thrown into the public purse. It 
 is like Rome after the battle of Cannae." 
 
494 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 In the beginning of September a public meeting 
 was called by the Lord Provost in Glasgow, for the 
 purpose of setting on foot a subscription for the 
 relief of the unemployed through the failure of the 
 cotton supply from the effects of the American war. 
 The number of unemployed in that city amounted to 
 5000 wholly out of work, 9000 on half-time, out of 
 23,000 altogether engaged in that branch of manu- 
 facture. These numbers were trifling compared with 
 those in Lancashire, where above 100,000 were un- 
 employed ; but still they were considerable, and, 
 coupled with a general depression of all branches of 
 industry owing to the same calamitous contest, loud- 
 ly called for some general movement for their relief. 
 This was the more required in Scotland that in that 
 country, under the decision of the Court of Session 
 and House of Peers already noticed, the able-bodied, 
 if unable to find employment, had no claim on their 
 respective parishes, either on their own behalf or that 
 of their children. It is well known that the case is 
 different in England and Ireland, since at that very 
 time 100,000 able-bodied poor unemployed were re- 
 ceiving relief in Lancashire alone. The want of a 
 similar provision would have been still more strongly 
 felt in Glasgow, were it not that the parochial 
 board, on this as on former similar occasions, had 
 taken upon themselves to disregard the decision, 
 and give relief in urgent cases to those out of work. 
 The magistrates, too, during the spring and summer, 
 had very properly employed those out of work in 
 
1862.] SUBSCRIPTION FOR THE COTTON FAMINE. 495 
 
 forming the new Queen's Park in Glasgow, at a cost 
 of £8000 ; and as this sum was levied by assessment 
 under a special Act of Parliament, it was in effect a 
 local poor's-rate for the unemployed, disguised under 
 another name. 
 
 I was on this occasion intrusted with the first 
 resolution, and made as earnest an appeal as I could 
 on behalf of the distressed operatives. The success 
 of the meeting exceeded our most sanguine expec- 
 tations, and afforded a striking proof of the liber- 
 ality of the merchant princes of Glasgow. Though 
 the meeting had been called only by circulars sent 
 round a few days before, and the richer classes 
 were for the most part out of town, there was 
 £3850 subscribed in the room, and in a few days 
 the sum amounted to £6000. It did not reach 
 half the sum subscribed a few years before for 
 the Crimean Fund, which was over £40,000, — so 
 much more strongly are men moved by an " idea " 
 than by the dearest interests of their neighbours and 
 dependants. This meeting forcibly brought before 
 the minds of all the cotton famine, and the various 
 schemes which had been proposed on the platform 
 or by the press for its alleviation. On the day of 
 the meeting a report arrived that the American Con- 
 federates were about to lay a tax of 30 centimes on 
 the export of every pound of cotton. At a dinner- 
 party in Glasgow next day this was the subject of 
 earnest conversation, and it was generally approved 
 of as likely to afford that security to the growers of 
 
496 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. []862. 
 
 cotton in India or our other colonies, which alone 
 was requisite to cause them to raise ample supplies 
 for this country, and thus entirely emancipate us 
 from dependence on foreign countries. Upon this I 
 observed : " Now, is it not most extraordinary, when 
 the attention of the nation has been so long and 
 anxiously turned, under the j)ressure of so terrible a 
 necessity, to the means of obtaining an additional 
 cotton supply, no one should have ever proposed that 
 we should ourselves do what the Americans are to do, 
 and which you yourselves say would make us abso- 
 lutely safe from our Indian supply ? A penny a- 
 pound import duty on foreign cotton would yield 
 a considerable revenue to Government, and render 
 us absolutely independent of foreign supplies." 
 " Hush," they replied ; " there is no doubt it would ; 
 but we must not cheep on that : it ivould he going 
 back on free trade." 
 
 If this anecdote indicated how completely realised 
 capital had got the command of the country, and 
 how entirely it had succeeded in prostrating the 
 interests of labour, another circumstance connected 
 with the same meeting illustrated the same truth 
 in a still more striking manner. I had long been 
 impressed, as already mentioned, with the injustice 
 of leaving the Scotch unemployed poor without 
 legal relief while the English and Irish enjoyed 
 it, and I deemed this a favourable opportunity to 
 bring it prominently before the public in my speech 
 on the occasion. The boon for which I contended 
 
1862.] LEGAL RELIEF OP SCOTCH POOR. 497 
 
 on behalf of the -working classes in Scotland was of 
 incomparably more practical value to them, in a 
 commercial and manufacturing community subject 
 to commercial vicissitudes and monetary crises, than 
 all the projects of Parliamentary Eeform that ever 
 have been proposed. How, then, was it received on 
 this occasion, of all others the most favourable for its 
 reception, and the demonstration of its urgency and 
 necessity ? Why, it was received with resistance by 
 some, with coldness by nearly all. Mr Dalglish, 
 the Radical member for Glasgow, a very liberal and 
 public-spirited man, said, in seconding my motion, 
 " We must be careful to separate the question of 
 present voluntary charity from that of permanent 
 relief to the able-bodied out of work, which is a very 
 different question." This sentiment was applauded, 
 and the press next day for the most part took the 
 same view of the subject. The ' Herald ' and ' Daily 
 Mail,' the organs of the capitalists, strongly argued 
 against any change in the Scotch law in this par- 
 ticular ; and even the professed Eadical papers either 
 ignored the subject altogether, or gave it the most 
 lukewarm reception. This striking fact confirmed 
 me in the opinion that the Reform Bill had turned 
 out in this great commercial country entirely to the 
 advantage of realised capital and the trading classes ; 
 that the multiplication of votes in such a state of 
 society is only an addition to the forces by which 
 they are intrenched in the Legislature ; and that by 
 buying up the shares of newspapers, and thus obtain- 
 voL. n. 2 I 
 
498 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 ing influence over the press, tliey have acquired such 
 a command of public opinion among the working 
 classes as to disable the latter from seeing what is 
 for their real and lasting advantage. 
 
 This autumn, on occasion of the marriage of our 
 young and valued friend, Miss Lockhart of Lee 
 Castle, to Mr Seymour Fitzgerald, eldest son of Mr 
 S. Fitzgerald, M.P., we met Sir Hugh and Lady 
 Cairns at Lee Castle. The society and intimacy of 
 this very distinguished man, during the opportunities 
 for conversation which the festivities of a large party 
 in a country house afforded, confirmed me in the 
 high opinion I had formerly conceived of him when 
 meeting in London society. He told me a very 
 curious thing connected with the American war, 
 which was that, contrary to what was generally 
 supposed by the public, Lord Palmerston and Lord 
 John Eussell were supporters of the Federals in the 
 Cabinet, and Mr Gladstone was understood to be 
 the friend of the Confederates. He ascribed this 
 strange twist in the mind of the Premier, so directly 
 at variance with his well-known Conservative pre- 
 possessions, to the influence of Lord Shaftesbury, 
 and to dread of the Exeter Hall party and a reli- 
 gious cry. The side Lord J. Eussell took was easily 
 explained by his known predilection for democratic 
 government, and the fear of seeing it discredited 
 in the world by failure in the contest ; and Glad- 
 stone sympathised with insurgents, no matter who 
 or against whom. 
 
1862.J ME, MONTGOMERY MARTIN. 499 
 
 This autumn we had the pleasure of a visit of 
 some days at Possil House from my valued friend 
 Mr Montgomery Martin. As he was engaged in the 
 arduous task of editing the Duke of Wellington's 
 supplementary correspondence, embracing the whole 
 of it since 1810, and had had in consequence access 
 to all his papers of the most secret description, as well 
 as the rich collections of Lord Liverpool and Lord 
 Bathurst, especially in the important years from 
 1815 to 1822, his conversation was very interesting. 
 I was glad to find that he had discovered nothiug 
 that invalidated any of my statements. On the 
 vexed question of the surprise at the outset of the 
 Waterloo campaign, all he mentioned tended to con- 
 firm me in my opinion. He mentioned a curious 
 circumstance in regard to the present situation and 
 coming dangers of the country. This was, that 
 long after the Duke of Wellington's celebrated 
 letter to Sir John Burgoyne in 1847, which acci- 
 dentally got into the public papers, he had made 
 out a second minute even stronger than the first, 
 in which the increasing danger of the country from 
 the great armaments of the Emperor Napoleon were 
 clearly set forth. This minute the present Duke 
 showed to Prince Albert, who was so much struck 
 with it that he asked liberty to show it to Lord 
 Palmerston. The Premier in his turn was so much 
 impressed with the arguments it contained, that he 
 was still more confirmed in the views he had previ- 
 ously entertained in regard to the ruinous effect of 
 
500 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the former reductions in our defences, and the immin- 
 ent hazard the country would run if the danger were 
 not immediately removed. The Crimean war afford- 
 ed demonstration of the truth of these views, and 
 thence the vast addition to the naval defences, the 
 raising of the volunteers, and the restoration of our 
 defences to something like, in spite of all the efforts 
 of the " peace-at-any-price " party, what the increas- 
 ing dangers of the country required. 
 
 The defeat and capture of Garibaldi, of which 
 intelligence was received soon after, took me as 
 much by surprise as it did the rest of the country. 
 Judging from his at first unresisted progress and 
 rapid success, when opposed by the mingled cowar- 
 dice and treason of the Neapolitan army in 1859, I 
 had anticipated a similar result on this occasion, 
 and was astonished when a larger force than he had 
 had at his command on that occasion was defeated 
 and captured in half an hour by a determined charge 
 of an inferior body of Piedmontese Bersaglieri. A 
 little reflection, however, was sufficient to show 
 me that this was no more than might have been 
 expected; that the so-called "Italian Revolution" 
 was in reality nothing but the conquest of the centre 
 and south of the peninsula by the north, aided by 
 the forces of France, and that in the double defeat 
 of the Neapolitan forces, first by Garibaldi, and then 
 ivith him, was to be found a proof of the inability 
 of the Italian people standing alone to resist the 
 shock of the tramontane or cisalpine Powers. It 
 
1862.] DEFEAT OF GARIBALDI. 501 
 
 was painfully evident that Garibaldi had been de- 
 ceived and betrayed throughout by the Piedmon- 
 tese Government, or rather that that Government 
 had been compelled by external pressure to deceive 
 and betray him. That Garibaldi's second descent on 
 Sicily, like his first, had been done in secret collusion 
 with the Cabinet of Turin, could hardly admit of 
 doubt, for the royal forces by sea and land did little 
 more really than escort him to Catania and Reggio. 
 But the formation of a united Italian kingdom, 
 which might one day prove a troublesome neighbour 
 to France, was no part of the plan of the French 
 Emperor ; and therefore he no sooner saw the ex- 
 pedition likely to be attended with too much suc- 
 cess, than he threw off the mask and peremptorily 
 insisted on the Sardinian Government in good earnest 
 pursuing and destroying their former joint protege. 
 
 In the beginning of October Mrs Norton paid us 
 a visit at Fossil, and remained two days. We were 
 quite alone ; but we only on that account enjoyed 
 her conversation the more, as there was no distrac- 
 tion from others, and we could allow her to pour out 
 her vast stores of anecdote without interruption. I 
 appreciated on this occasion, even more than I had 
 formerly done, her great ability and the amount of 
 information on literary and abstract subjects which 
 she possessed. This was in an especial manner con- 
 spicuous in the long conversations we had in the 
 evenings at Fossil, and one day during a prolonged 
 visit to the cathedral of Glasgow, with the crypt 
 
502 AUTOBIOGKAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 and stained glass of which she was much pleased. 
 She was looking exceedingly well, and singularly 
 handsome for her years, when it is recollected she 
 was married in 1819, and could not now be less 
 than sixty years old. She gave the same account 
 as Sir Hugh Cairns had done of the strange trans- 
 position of parties in the Cabinet on the American 
 question, adding the remarkable Avords, " Gladstone 
 is Confederate to the backbone." She said she 
 had always thought Louis Napoleon a very able, 
 though a grave and silent man, little qualified to 
 shine in London society; and mentioned that she 
 was at a party at the Elys^e Bourbon, where he then 
 resided, the evening of the 1st December 1852, on 
 the eve of the cou]) d'etat of the 2d, and that he was 
 doing the honours, and attending to herself and 
 others apparently with the most perfect tranquil- 
 lity and unconcern. She spoke much of Lord Pal- 
 merston's anxiety about the national defences, espe- 
 cially his desire to increase the navy, and repeated 
 with reference to that circumstance an expression 
 of Sir Walter Ealeigh's, observing how singularly 
 applicable it was to these times: "The Scripture 
 says, ' Blessed are the peacemakers ; ' and so say I : 
 blessed indeed are the peacemakers; and therefore 
 I would build severity-fours." She said, how curi- 
 ous it was thus to see things come round, and old 
 sayings seem as if they were made but yesterday. 
 I remarked that the observations of Aristotle on the 
 Greek democracies were exactly applicable to the 
 
1862.] THE SANDYPORD PLACE MUEDEE. 503 
 
 American despotism at this time. To this she as- 
 sented, saying it was much against the Progress- 
 ists, -who thought things went in a straight line, 
 while she found they revolved in a circle. Though 
 capable of discussing the deepest questions, her 
 inclination led her to more evanescent topics : she 
 would much rather speak of persons than things ; 
 and seldom failed, if a general topic was introduced, 
 to make use of it to mention a personal anecdote. 
 She had in perfection real conversational talent, 
 which consists in touching on everything and wear- 
 ing out nothing. 
 
 A trial took place this autumn in Glasgow which 
 vehemently excited the public attention, and with 
 the fate of the prisoner in which I ultimately became 
 closely connected. On July 4, 1862, a shocking 
 murder was committed on a female servant in the 
 service of Mr Fleming, a respectable gentleman, in 
 Sandyford Place, Glasgow ; and at the same time a 
 small quantity of silver plate was abstracted. There 
 were no symptoms of housebreaking ; and the only 
 inmate in the house at the time was Mr Fleming's 
 father, — a hale, active old man, but eighty-seven 
 years of age. Suspicion of course fell upon him 
 in the first instance ; and as his conduct after the 
 murder had been extremely suspicious, he was ap- 
 prehended, and committed for further examination. 
 Before long, however, the plate was found to have 
 been pledged the day after the murder, at a pawn- 
 broker's in Glasgow, by a young woman called Jessie 
 
504 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. ,[l862. 
 
 M'Lachlan, who had formerly been a servant in the 
 house, and was a friend of the murdered woman. 
 She was apprehended and identified ; and a quantity 
 of bloody clothes — some of her own, some of the de- 
 ceased's — were traced and found in her possession 
 shortly after the murder. She was in consequence 
 brought to trial, and unanimously convicted of the 
 murder, on very strong circumstantial, but no direct 
 evidence, after an able but one-sided and unfeeling^ 
 charge from the judge who heard the case, Lord 
 Deas. 
 
 Before receiving sentence, the prisoner requested 
 her counsel to read to the court a written statement, 
 containing, as she said, a full and veracious account 
 of the affair. She then admitted all that the cir- 
 cumstantial evidence had inferred against her : and 
 farther confessed she had been in the house with the 
 deceased all night, and had seen her murdered ; but 
 she alleged it was done, not by her, but by the old 
 man, in a fit of passion at her, for having threatened 
 to divulge improper advances on his part. She ad- 
 mitted having pawned the plate ; but said it was 
 given her by the old man to do so, in order to give 
 the case the appearance of a robbery, and that he 
 swore her to secrecy, and gave her hush-money. 
 This statement bore the mark of truth ; and as it 
 coincided in a remarkable way with the evidence, 
 and explained much in the case which was other- 
 wise inexplicable, it made a prodigious impression, 
 and led to meetings in Glasgow and all parts of 
 
1862.] THE SANDYFORB PLACE MURDER. 505 
 
 Scotland, praying the Crown to stay execution, and 
 order farther inquiry. This request was acceded to 
 by Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary ; and the 
 investigation, which was also prayed for by the Lord 
 Provost of Glasgow and myself, was speedily com- 
 menced, and conducted partly before me, and partly 
 before Mr Young, afterwards Solicitor-General, who 
 was appointed. Commissioner by the Home Secretary 
 to conduct the investigation. 
 
 In my official situation, as the public officer who 
 had superintended the precognition against the ac- 
 cused, I deemed it better not to accede to Mr 
 Young's request, after he came to Glasgow, that I 
 would sit with him and conclude the inquiry. But 
 I wrote with great care a long memorial on the case, 
 both as it had come out in evidence at the trial, 
 and aa it was modified by what had subsequently 
 appeared before the Royal Commission. As I had 
 become convinced of the woman's innocence of the 
 murder, my memorial assumed the form of an elabo- 
 rate pleading in her favour. I gave it to Mr Young, 
 and he sent it, with his report, to the Home Secre- 
 tary. It was not without its effect ; for when the 
 agents for the prisoner went to Mr Waddington, the 
 chief under-secretary in the criminal department in 
 the Home Office, and a most able man, to, enforce 
 the woman's case, he said : " Gentlemen, you need 
 say nothing. I have read Sir Archibald's memorial : 
 it is unanswerable. The prisoner was an accidental 
 and constrained witness of the murder, but not an 
 
506 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 actor in it. She can never be hanged ; but as she 
 concealed and adopted it, she must be severely 
 punished." She was accordingly pardoned by the 
 Crown for the murder, on condition of suffering penal 
 servitude for life for her accession to the murder 
 after the fact. Thus the poor woman's life was 
 saved. And there is no event in my life to which 1 
 look back with more pleasure than the hand I had 
 in her deliverance; and that the best and most 
 elaborate law paper I ever wrote was composed in 
 my seventieth year, to shield a prisoner threatened 
 with death frgm what would in the circumstances 
 have been a judicial murder. 
 
 The result of this remarkable trial was much com- 
 mented on at the time by the Liberal and penny 
 press, as condemning the Scotch system of prelimi- 
 nary investigations in criminal cases with closed 
 doors, and testing the superiority of the English, by 
 coroner's inquest and public depositions, before the 
 committing magistrates. In my apprehension, the 
 logical conclusion was the reverse. If there were a 
 miscarriage of justice in the case, it was owing to 
 the unwonted and entire publicity given to the 
 whole investigation when it was going on before the 
 sheriff. Such was the public anxiety for intelligence, 
 that the newspapers bribed the .procurator-fiscal's 
 clerks to let them know what the witnesses were 
 saying ; and for a month together the papers were 
 daily filled with these details, accompanied by the 
 most violent declamations against the woman, as 
 
1862.] THE SANDYPORD PLACE MURDER. 507 
 
 each successive article of evidence was revealed. To 
 such a pitch did the public excitement on the subject 
 rise, that the editors of some of the daily papers told 
 my clerk, Mr Young, that their circulation since the 
 precognitions began to be published had risen from 
 10,000 to 50,000 a-day; and that if they could only 
 secure a Mrs M'Lachlan a month, they would soon 
 be in a situation to retire from business with hand- 
 some fortunes I I myself was obliged, when the 
 trial of the prisoner was fixed, to write a circular to 
 the editors requesting them to abstain from any far- 
 ther notice of the case ; as, if the incessant discus- 
 sion went on, the prisoner could never have a fair 
 trial. As it was, she had not a fair trial : the minds 
 of the jury were made up before they entered the 
 box. This was proved by their bringing in a verdict 
 in nineteen minutes, in a case where the evidence 
 had occupied three days. There was a miscarriage of 
 justice ; but it arose from the publicity of the pro- 
 ceedings, not their secrecy. A calm consideration 
 of the case would have led to a verdict of the theft 
 proven, but the murder not proven, — which was sub- 
 stantially that at which the Home Secretary arrived, 
 after the country had been convulsed on the subject, 
 and a great deal more evidence had been taken with 
 closed doors. 
 
 This painful case led to my reflecting seriously on 
 the vast increase of murders, especially of a secret or 
 domestic kind, which has taken place in both parts 
 of the island of late years. In the newspaper an- 
 
508 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 nouncing the conviction of Jessie M'Lachlan of 
 murder in Glasgow, on Sept. 20, 1862, was to be 
 found another conviction of murder at Dumbarton, 
 for which a plea of manslaughter was accepted ; a 
 murder of a wife by her husband in Hamilton ; the 
 execution of two men for murder in Liverpool ; and 
 four murders from the English newspapers. Nine per- 
 sons charged with, convicted of, or executed for mur- 
 der in one newspaper ! It is seldom that one now sees 
 less than two or three fresh murders in every paper 
 one takes up. The change in this respect is alarm- 
 ing and most melancholy. The increase in the 
 number of persons convicted of, or sentenced and 
 executed for murder, great as it is, during the last 
 five years, affords no measure of the real increase of 
 the crime ; for so numerous are the means of escape 
 now, from the humanity or timidity of juries in 
 capital cases, the critical objections sustained by the 
 courts of law, and the frequent pleas of insanity, 
 that not a third part of the murders really committed 
 lead to an expiation of the crime on the scaffold. If 
 persons charged with murder were now convicted 
 and hanged, as they were ten years ago, the execu- 
 tions would be five times greater for that crime than 
 they were at that period. 
 
 If these murder cases were hi rixa, or in pursu- 
 ance of attempts at robbery or burglary, they might 
 naturally be ascribed to the absurd and pernicious 
 substitution of penal servitude for transportation, in 
 pursuance of the economical views of the Govern- 
 
1862.] INCEKASE OF MURDER. _ 509 
 
 ment, who hope thereby to throw the chief expense 
 of crime oa the counties. But large as has been the 
 increase of this class of felonies — amounting to 43 
 per cent in two years— it is not in them that the 
 great majority of murders have occurred, which have 
 during the same period swelled in a still larger pro- 
 portion. The chief murders now are intra familiar es, 
 parents by children, children by parents, husbands 
 by wives, wives by husbands. A numerous class, 
 as might have been anticipated, has taken its rise 
 from irregular connections and jealousies ; and one, 
 hardly less numerous, from that extensive body of 
 men whom the chances of civilisation have so great 
 a tendency to increase, who brood over their real 
 or supposed wrongs to such a degree as to become 
 monomaniacs, and so wrapt up in self that they 
 lightly set at nought, under its impulses, the lives 
 of others. There seems much room for an amend- 
 ment of the law in many of these cases, espe- 
 cially the last, and for taking away the defence of 
 insanity, except where it is of long standing, and 
 is accompanied by a total aberration of reason, — 
 not the result of brooding over some selfish objects 
 in a revengeful spirit. 
 
 But after full allowance has been made for 
 those causes, some other and more powerful agent 
 must be sought for to account for the prodigious 
 multiplication in so short a time of the most atro- 
 cious of all crimes simultaneously with the most 
 widespread efi"orts to improve the minds and elevate 
 
510 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIE A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 the habits of the working classes in every part of the 
 country. Such a cause can be found in the corre- 
 sponding increase of the means of information to a 
 vastly wider circle than formerly, by means of the 
 penny press. The grand object of nearly all the 
 editors of, and writers in newspapers, being to mul- 
 tiply the copies they can sell, it is soon discovered 
 that nothing does this so quickly and effectually as 
 the report of murders, trials, executions, and other 
 similar horrors. " Sensation articles " being the 
 best passport to great sales, the writers in these 
 journals spare no pains or expense in getting up 
 accounts of them from all quarters, and presenting 
 them to the public, dressed up with the flowers of 
 rhetoric and the embellishments of fancy. Thus 
 the public, who are insatiable for such excitement, 
 become familiarised with such tales of horror ; and 
 crime loses its odious character by being so often 
 mixed up with the terrible, the interesting, and 
 the pathetic. The reading of so many murders 
 puts it into people's heads to commit them, — a 
 strange propensity, but which has been observed 
 whenever any unusual murder, with unwonted cir- 
 cumstances of horror, has been committed. A dis- 
 eased desire for notoriety and hero-worship seizes 
 the insane, and that much larger class who are so 
 intensely selfish that their excited feelings make 
 them half mad. I have had ample experience of 
 this peculiar propensity; for on every occasion after 
 being engaged in a celebrated trial, as that of Burke, in 
 
1862.] CONCLUSION. 511 
 
 1828 ; of the cotton-spinners, in 1838 ; of Madeleine 
 Smith, in 1859 ; and of Mrs M'Laclilan, in 1862, — I 
 received shoals of letters — some anonymous, some 
 not — offering farther evidence of the cases tried, or 
 similar crimes, and not a few threatening instant 
 death to myself if the injunctions of the writer were 
 not instantly complied with. How this dangerous 
 effect is to be avoided, and yet that publicity be 
 insured for criminal proceedings which is the only 
 security for their right administration, it is not easy 
 to say. But this much is certain, that it affords a 
 melancholy proof of the character of human nature, 
 and the inherent propensity in all to sin, that the 
 first effect of the extension of the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge to the great body of the people has been 
 an unprecedented increase in the greatest crime 
 which man can commit against man. 
 
 I here terminate for the present (17th September 
 1862), perhaps for ever, these Memoirs, which for the 
 last twenty years have at long intervals amused my 
 leisure hours. They record the story of a life which 
 in all respects, but above all in my domestic rela- 
 tions, has been singularly prosperous, and marked 
 by blessings for which I can never be sufficiently 
 grateful to the Author of all good — in expressing my 
 devout and humble thankfulness to Whom, I shall 
 most suitably conclude my labour. At the age of 
 seventy it is not likely that much worth recording 
 will remain in the short span of life yet allotted to 
 
512 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 me, and as my literary labours are closed, it is best 
 to conclude while still in the undiminished posses- 
 sion of my faculties, mental and physical. If I have 
 at all added to the stock of human knowledge, it 
 will be found in some part or other of the volumin- 
 ous works flowing from my pen which are already 
 before the world. 
 
 Before finally taking leave of the reader, there 
 are two observations which I deem it material to 
 make, and in which the young especially are deeply 
 interested. 
 
 The first is the importance early in life of fixing 
 on some one object to be the principal prize to which 
 effort is to be directed, and to prosecute it vigorously 
 and perseveriiigly, as long as health and life permit. 
 If we look around us in the world we shall see that, 
 more than genius, fortune, or natural advantages, 
 this is the great cause of success; and that the 
 absence of such a power of concentration is the 
 most frequent cause of failure. What that object 
 is to be, will of course depend on circumstances, 
 peculiarity of talent, and inherent inclination. With 
 some it is wealth, with some power, with some 
 literary fame, with others martial renown. But, 
 be it what it may, it is to perseverance in the 
 'pursuit, more than to natural abilities or fortune, 
 that ultimate success is to be ascribed. I have 
 been singularly prosperous in life, to a degree 
 beyond most of my college companions and early 
 friends; but yet, on a calm retrospect, I cannot 
 
1862.] CONCLUSION. 513 
 
 think either that my natural abilities or accidental 
 advantages were superior to many of theirs. I 
 ascribe the success I have met with in many ways 
 to nothing so much as to singleness of purpose and 
 perseverance, and in that I certainly was superior to 
 the generality of men. Ardent and impetuous in 
 every pursuit which attracted my fancy, there was 
 yet a method in it all, and all conduced to the great 
 end which I proposed to myself. That end was to 
 oppose the erroneous opinions which, since the 
 French Eevolution and in consequence of it, had, 
 as I conceived, overspread the world, in political, 
 economical, and social concerns. From the earliest 
 period that I can recollect, this was the aim to which 
 my efforts were chiefly directed. It was much the 
 same feeling which made Eousseau say that he resolved 
 early in life to oppose himself to all " les prejuges de 
 son si^cle." But there was this difference, that I 
 embraced the unpopular side and he the popular. I 
 rested on practice and experience, he on theory and 
 imagination. This turn of mind never forsook me. 
 It appeared in early youth, at the age of seventeen, 
 when I set myself to answer Malthus's Theory of 
 Population, then universally adopted by the political 
 economists of the age ; and fifty years afterwards, 
 when I undertook the vindication of Lord Castle- 
 reagh's memory, then the object of undeserved 
 obloquy with the vast majority of the community. 
 When I was a young man my friends said : " Archy 
 Alison is a clever young man, but he will never do 
 VOL. n. 2 K 
 
514 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 anything : he does nothing hut travel and dance." 
 It is true, during the first ten years of my manhood 
 I travelled and danced much, but I was not un- 
 mindful of more important things. In those travels 
 I collected the facts which were to form the basis of 
 my Theory of Population, and made many thousand 
 sketches of the scenes which were to be described in 
 my History ; and in the days preceding those dances 
 I was covering many hundred sheets with references 
 to historical works, to be worked into the extensive 
 compositions of that kind which I already had con- 
 templated. 
 
 When the number of my historical works, and the 
 research requisite in every page for their compilation, 
 is considered, it may seem somewhat surprising 
 how, even during a long life of almost unbroken 
 health, I was able to get through them all, more 
 especially when it is recollected that during the 
 whole time that their composition was going on I 
 was engaged in a laborious profession, and during 
 the last thirty years was charged with the duties of 
 the most onerous and responsible judicial situation in 
 Scotland, the duties of which I may say, without self- 
 delusion, were never either postponed or neglected. 
 De Witt's maxim that the true way to get through 
 business is to " do everything at its proper time, and 
 put everything in its proper place," will probably 
 be admitted by all who have been extensively en- 
 gaged in public or private affairs. But the singular 
 circumstance in my case is, that this immense mass 
 
1862.] CONCLUSION. 515 
 
 of work was got through without any detriment to my 
 health ; and that the composition of five-and-thirty 
 large volumes in less than as many years, simulta- 
 neously with the discharge of exhausting and con- 
 tinual judicial duties, has left me at the age of 
 seventy nearly as strong as I was at five-and-twenty.^ 
 The secret of this circumstance, which certainly is 
 unusual, is to be found, I am persuaded, in the 
 entire diversity of the objects which, nearly in 
 equal proportions, occupied my mind. Half of each 
 day was devoted to law and half to literature ; added 
 to which, our residence in the country compelled me 
 to walk six or eight miles daily. Either the law or 
 the literature singly would, I am persuaded, have 
 ruined my health or terminated my life, but the 
 two together saved both. The one was a rest to 
 the other, and called into activity entirely different 
 mental muscles ; it was like walking after riding or 
 driving, 
 
 I have carried this system of the division of labour 
 much more completely and systematically into effect 
 during the last twenty years than I did in the 
 preceding fifteen. After I had finished my first His- 
 tory in 1 842, 1 gave up writing after dinner, and for 
 the most part did nothing in the evening but read 
 works of imagination in different languages. During 
 
 1 A few (lays ago, on SeptemlDer 8, 1862, I walked from Fossil to 
 Hamilton and back, a distance of twenty miles, in five hours, without 
 feeling any unusual fatigue. There are few of her Majesty's Grena- 
 diers at twenty-five could say more. 
 
516^ AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 a few years in this way I went through the whole 
 Latin and Greek poets and historians — including 
 Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, J^lschylus, Thucydides, 
 and Xenophon — with far greater pleasure and admi- 
 ration than I had done when reading them for the 
 first time thirty years before. During the last ten 
 years that I have been master of German, I have read 
 in the same manner, in the evening, the whole of the 
 dramas and romances of Schiller, Goethe, Wieland, 
 Oehlenschlaeger, Korner, Klopstock, Werner, and all 
 the German lyrical poets, most of them three times 
 
 These observations will only interest those who, 
 like me, are engaged in a laborious profession, and 
 seek to lighten its fatigues by change of thought 
 and occupation. But there is another remark which 
 long life has taught me, in which all are interested. 
 We all hope to live long ; and although none will 
 deny the uncertainty of life, yet all act as if they 
 had a lease of existence for the longest period to 
 which it is ever extended. All will be interested, 
 therefore, in learning how, by one to whom nearly 
 all the excitements of life have been known, their 
 inevitable extinction by the lapse of time has been 
 borne. And my decided answer is, that I am of the 
 opinion which Cicero puts into the mouth of the elder 
 Cato, — that old age is the happiest period of life. It 
 is so, because we have then outlived the desires which 
 are at once the spring and the torment of former ex- 
 istence. In youth we live only in the future : " we 
 
1862.] CONCLUSION. 517 
 
 never are, but always to be blest." In middle life 
 we are alternately impelled by the passion for acqui- 
 sition, and depressed by the dread of losing : w^e are 
 engaged in a lasting game of hazard, attended by its 
 excitement and anxiety. In old age alone we are 
 masters of a treasure of which we cannot be deprived, 
 — "the only treasure we can call our own." The 
 pleasures of memory, and the retrospect of the varied 
 images which in an active life have floated before 
 the mind, compensate, and more than compensate, 
 for the alternate pleasures and cares of active life. 
 It is true that I must not judge of all by my own 
 state. I have been uncommonly fortunate in life ; 
 and, in my own family and domestic relations, 
 as a husband and a father, have been blessed far 
 beyond my deserts. But still, the causes I have 
 mentioned will, I am persuaded, make old age to 
 all, if contemplated calmly and borne with temper, 
 a period of serene and comparatively unruffled en- 
 joyment. " Happiness," says Paley, " is not given 
 exclusively to any one period of life : it may be 
 enjoyed by all. It is to be seen in the repose of the 
 old cat, as well as in the gambols of the young kit- 
 ten : in the arm-chair of old age, as well as in the 
 sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the 
 chase." ^ Even the decay of bodily or mental strength, 
 and the loss of friends which is so frequent in ad- 
 vanced years, become rather a blessing than a mis- 
 
 1 These words are quoted from memory, from Dugald Stewart's 
 lectures, heard fifty years ago. 
 
518 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SIR A. ALISON. [l862. 
 
 fortune. They loosen the ties which bind us to pres- 
 ent existence, and smooth the path which leads to 
 another. The departure even of the nearest and the 
 dearest is lightened by the reflection that it is now 
 only for a short period, — that our real life lies beyond 
 the grave. And even if all should leave us, our faith 
 teaches us to believe that 
 
 " A few short years of evil past, 
 We reach the happy shore, 
 Where death- divided friends at last 
 Shall meet, to part no more." 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE DEATH OF SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON. 
 {Blackwood's Magazine, July 1867.) 
 
 It is the lot of those who conduct periodicals such as 
 ours, to feel, from time to time, more than a common 
 share in the loss of writers whose repute is national, 
 or European, or world-wide. Brought often into 
 intimate relation with celebrated men, we become 
 bound to them by the double tie of literary connec- 
 tion and of personal friendship. Those who, for the 
 public, are but the shadows of great names, may be 
 to us tangible and near realities ; we may lose in 
 them, besides the author, the constant correspondent 
 and intimate associate ; and their fame is sometimes 
 so entwined with this Magazine, from which their 
 early efforts derived support, and to which their 
 talents lent lustre, " stealing and giving odour," that 
 our brightest pages become the monuments of the 
 great contributors whom we have lost. Less than 
 two years ago Aytoun died in his prime ; now, full 
 of years and ripe in fame, Alison has descended to 
 
520 APPENDIX. 
 
 the grave ; and, for both, there is added to our part 
 in that general sorrow which is felt when such men 
 leave us, the deeper mourning and sense of bereave- 
 ment which flow from our more than common ca- 
 lamity. 
 
 Nearly fifty years have elapsed since Alison sent 
 his earliest contributions to these pages. In 1819, 
 when in his twenty-eighth year, his first paper, " On 
 the Discovery of the Bones of Eobert Bruce," ap- 
 peared in this Magazine, which he continued, with 
 little intermission, up to seven or eight years ago, to 
 embellish with his powerful and popular pen. It 
 was in the interval between 1836 and 1856 that his 
 articles followed each other most rapidly. Their 
 subjects are widely diversified, though, as might be 
 supposed, politics and modern history are most fre- 
 quently discussed. Essays on Eeform — on the Fall 
 of Charles X., and of Louis Philippe — on Negro 
 Emancipation — on Irish AfFairs^on many commer- 
 cial and financial questions, and on Colonial Govern- 
 ment, mark the track of his thoughts in following 
 the great political events of his age. The lives or 
 the works of notable personages called forth reviews 
 of such diversity of subject, as proves that his sym- 
 pathies and range of thought extended far into the 
 past, including great men of many nations, and great 
 works in many languages. Homer and Virgil among 
 the ancients — Dante and Tasso in a later past — 
 Chateaubriand, Guizot, Sismondi, De Tocqueville, 
 Montesquieu, Mirabeau, and Madame de Stael 
 
APPENDIX. 521 
 
 among the moderns, are some of the subjects of 
 these ; while articles on the Greek Drama, the Roman 
 Republic, the Athenian Democracy, and the Crusades, 
 attest the variety of the channels into which his 
 speculations were directed. Written as they were in 
 the intervals of a busy professional career, which is 
 marked, too, by his standard work on the Criminal 
 Law of Scotland, they would of themselves have borne 
 ample testimony to the culture and industry of their 
 author ; but they formed only a small proportion of 
 the offspring of his prolific intellect. Many of these 
 papers were but offshoots from the important work 
 which is, and will long remain, identified with his 
 name, and which occupied so large a space in his 
 life. It was, he tells us, while visiting Paris during 
 its occupation by the Allies after the fall of Napoleon, 
 that the idea of writing the History of Europe from 
 the French Revolution took possession of him. Paris, 
 when he saw it, was still the Paris of the former 
 kings of Prance ; streets and palaces, and parks and 
 public buildings, were still the standing records of 
 the old and picturesque monarchy, suggesting its 
 traditions, its policy, its costume ; but the city was 
 thronged with the alien troops whose vast camps lay 
 all around it. It was the striking contrast between 
 that not remote past and the actual present which 
 led him to picture to himself so vividly the successive 
 and startling changes that had produced it, and in- 
 spired him with the desire to record in one narrative 
 the great events of the Revolution and the Empire. 
 
522 APPENDIX. 
 
 The downfall of the monarchy — the crimes and 
 horrors of the Eevolution — the victories of the Ee- 
 publican armies — the glories and final overthrow of 
 the Empire, — such was the rapid and extraordinary 
 course of events which, drawing the destinies of other 
 nations into its current, formed, with them, the sub- 
 ject of his brilliant plan. He tells us in his Preface 
 how high was his conception of the capabilities of this 
 theme. " A subject," he says, " so splendid in itself, 
 so full of political and military instruction, replete 
 with such great and heroic actions, adorned by so 
 many virtues, and darkened by so many crimes, 
 never yet fell to the lot of an historian." And we 
 learn from his Preface that he approached the great 
 task in a becoming spirit. " Inexorable and unbend- 
 ing in his opposition to false principles, it is the 
 duty of the historian of such times to be lenient and 
 considerate in his judgment of particular men." To 
 this just and lofty view of the duties of his vocation 
 he was absolutely faithful. Bringing to his task 
 very strong opinions of his own, and, in accordance 
 with them, judging rigorously all great national and 
 political questions, it is only when the actions of the 
 men whom he paints are ignoble or criminal that he 
 visits them with absolute condemnation, extenuating 
 mere errors, and setting down nought in malice. 
 Actuated by this candid and just spirit, he brought 
 also to his work an admiration amounting to enthu- 
 siasm for heroic effort, whether exhibited in states- 
 manship or war ; and the battle-pieces which abound 
 
APPENDIX. 523 
 
 in his narrative are touclied with a fire and vigour 
 which only a kindred feeling for those whose high 
 achievements he recounts could inspire. The Eev- 
 olutionary soldiers of France ; the great marshals 
 who upheld the despotism of Napoleon ; Suwaroff, 
 the faithful servant of the Czar ; and the Archduke 
 who covered Austria with his powerful shield, all 
 met with as just, as discriminating, and as warm 
 appreciation as their native historians could bestow, 
 and as our own generals could obtain from Alison. 
 Critics have objected to his style ; yet, if the art of 
 engaging the reader's attention, and sustaining it by 
 the vigour, spirit, and vivacity of the narrative be a 
 high merit, many popular and many great historians 
 must cede superiority of this kind to Sir Archibald. 
 He wrote, not certainly in the cold judicial style of 
 philosophical history, but with the warmth of one 
 who not only believed but felt all he uttered. And 
 there are long episodes in his work — those, for in- 
 stance, on' the American war of 1812, and on some 
 of our Indian campaigns — which are in themselves 
 complete and elaborate histories of those events, and 
 which give us most useful and interesting informa- 
 tion respecting the countries which were the scene of 
 them. It has been the trick of a part of the press, 
 whose cue it is to caricature Conservatism, to dispar- 
 age his History, questioning its accuracy, and sneering 
 at the principles it upholds. But the best testimony 
 to the candour, fidelity, and ability of his great work, 
 is in its enormous popularity. As he says himself 
 
524 APPENDIX. 
 
 of another writer, " No one ever commands, even for 
 a time, the suffrages of the multitude, without the 
 possession, in some respects at least, of remarkable 
 powers." Those suffrages were largely given to 
 Alison. His work, in its original and larger form, 
 obtaining that wide popularity which is attested by 
 its presence on the shelves of so many public and 
 private libraries, a people's edition was issued, and 
 met with a reception which proved how ineffectual 
 had been the malignity of his assailants. His popu- 
 larity, however, seemed only to exasperate those 
 whose dislike to his steady, consistent, honourable 
 Conservatism had already rendered them hostile, 
 and no great writer of our time has been more 
 consistently and unjustly disparaged by an extreme 
 section of the press than Sir Archibald. But we 
 will dwell no further on this topic in speaking of a 
 man whose character exhibited no more distinctive 
 feature than the large, generous, tolerant spirit in 
 which he viewed adverse opinion. 
 
 The same union of lofty principle and kindly feel- 
 ing which he evinced as an author marked his career 
 as a man. Mildness, firmness, fairness, and dignity, 
 distinguished his long and honoured administration 
 of the duties of Sheriff ; and the legal functionaries 
 who lately gave expression, in the Court over which 
 he had presided, to the loss which the tribunal had 
 sustained, bore eloquent testimony to the urbanity, 
 impartiality, and high ability which commanded the 
 respect and confidence alike of suitors and of advo- 
 
APPENDIX. 525 
 
 cates. Nor was his exhibition of these qualities 
 confined to the judicial bench. As a magistrate it 
 was more than once his lot to exercise his function 
 of asserter of the law in times of popular disturb- 
 ance ; when the same mixture of courage and con- 
 ciliation enabled him not only to retain, but even 
 to increase, his great popularity in Glasgow, while 
 firmly suppressing riot ; and the Tory Sheriff has 
 for at least a whole generation been the most pop- 
 ular citizen, as well as the foremost historian, in 
 Scotland. 
 
 Such, for a large part of the present century, has 
 been the useful, industrious, honourable, and hon- 
 oured public life of Sir Archibald Alison. In the 
 law, as well as in literature, his eminent services 
 were recognised and rewarded, and he was enabled 
 to devote the leisure which remained to him from 
 the duties of his office to the pursuit which he prose- 
 cuted with such signal success. Again and again, 
 after completing the portion of his arduous task 
 which he had made his immediate object, he started 
 afresh to continue it; and in the present year he 
 projected an addition which would have included 
 the Crimean war. With this warm and constant 
 interest in public affairs he united the finest domestic 
 tastes ; these were shared by a wife whose affec- 
 tionate devotion always lightened his labours and 
 cheered his home ; and we cannot better conclude 
 this memorial than with the following picture of his 
 old age and his end, drawn by one nearest to him in 
 
526 APPENDIX. 
 
 blood, and who was of those who stood round his 
 deathbed : — 
 
 "You ask for any of the characteristics of the 
 latter years of my father's life. The most remark- 
 able of them certainly was the extraordinary devel- 
 opment of his love for the beautiful, alike in nature, 
 literature, and art. To walk under the old trees at 
 Possil, or pace up and down the pretty flower-garden 
 there, was, to the last, one of his greatest enjoyments. 
 Every day he read works in English, French, Italian, 
 and German, generally of imagination, — and to the 
 higher branches of German literature he was perhaps 
 most devoted. His small but very beautiful collec- 
 tion of water-colour drawings used to afford him the 
 greatest pleasure ; and he often used to sit and gaze 
 for minutes together at the fine sketch of the 'Ruins 
 of Psestum ' by Williams. The loneliness and tran- 
 quillity of this picture seemed to exercise a singular 
 fascination over his mind. He used constantly to 
 say that he had found old age the happiest period of 
 life ; and those who saw the remarkable and almost 
 unearthly serenity of expression which marked his 
 latter years, will have been fully convinced that it 
 was so in his case. He had come to care little for 
 mixing in general or gay society, and his greatest 
 happiness was derived from his books and his own 
 domestic circle. 
 
 " Generally, living entirely alone with Lady Alison, 
 the almost only break in the even tenor of his life 
 was when his children or a few intimate friends 
 
APPENDIX. 527 
 
 gathered round his board. For some weeks before 
 his last illness, my father had been troubled with an 
 occasional cough and breathlessness, but so slight 
 was this that it never interrupted his official busi- 
 ness, and on Friday, the 10th May, he attended as 
 usual in the County Buildings, and appeared in the 
 most perfect health. On the morning of Saturday 
 the 11th, he was seized with a severe attack of 
 spasms in the throat. These recurred again with 
 great severity on the evening of the Monday follow- 
 ing, and with such terrible violence on the evening 
 of the ensuing Thursday, that the three medical men 
 who were in attendance on him united in opinion" 
 that in all probability he had not half an hour to 
 live. But the great natural strength of his consti- 
 tution here supervened ; he rallied, and the disease 
 changed its type ; the throat-spasms entirely ceased, 
 the cough and breathlessness greatly diminished, 
 and he slept much. His strength now gradually 
 and slowly sank, and at half-past eleven o'clock on 
 the evening of Thursday the 23d May, surrounded 
 by every member of his family, he peacefully sank 
 to rest. So calm was his end, that we could not tell 
 the exact moment of his death. During the whole of 
 his illness, when awake, he was perfectly conscious, 
 and the tranquillity and peace of mind which he ex- 
 hibited was, throughout, of the most striking nature. 
 The good servant had done his work, and was ready 
 and willing to go when his Master called him."^ 
 
 1 In the opinion of Dr Pierce Simpson, his constant medical at- 
 
528 APPENDIX. 
 
 The concourse of the citizens of Glasgow at his 
 funeral was a great proof of the respect and affection 
 with which he had inspired them. From Possil 
 gate (his residence, two miles from the town) to the 
 railway station, the whole way was lined with a 
 dense mass of people, estimated at from 100,000 to 
 150,000. Of these, who numbered half the working 
 population of the city, at least three-fourths were 
 artisans, mill-girls, and iron-foundry workers, swarthy 
 with toil. These were the attendants who, at the 
 sacrifice of some of their means of livelihood, as- 
 sembled to pay a last respect to the most unbending 
 Conservative in G-reat Britain. Such obsequies were 
 honourable both to the dead and the living. They 
 were a tribute to qualities the recognition of which 
 is a public virtue ; a tribute the more welcome as 
 rendered at a time when courage and consistency 
 seem almost out of date, and when there are many 
 signs that in the public men of the future we 
 are likely to feel more and more the want of the 
 manly and generous spirit which to the last ani- 
 mated Alison. 
 
 tendant from the first hour of his illness to the last, and also in that 
 of Professor Gairdner, his death was caused by " spasmodic cough and 
 difficulty of respiration, asthmatic in character, but probably depend- 
 ing upon structural changes at the root of the lungs." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aberdeek, Lord, i. 78, 310, 312, 
 314 ; ii. 22. 
 
 Aberdeen, Lady, i. 312. 
 
 Ailesbury, Marchioness of, ii. 275, 
 276, 292. 
 
 Ainsworth, Mr Harrison, i. 565. 
 
 Albert, H.E.H. Prince — see Con- 
 sort, H.R.H. Prince. 
 
 Alderson, Baron, ii. 57. 
 
 Alexander, Emperor, i. 78, 81, 93, 
 95 ; ii. 154. 
 
 Angouleme, Uucliesse d', i. 82. 
 
 Alison, Rev. Arcliibald (father), 
 i. 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 15, 21, 39, 43, 
 46, 63, 73, 104, 177, 241, 247, 
 291, 452, 454-456 ; ii. 285, 336. 
 
 Alison, Archibald (son) i. 237, 
 355, 363, 534, 555, 557, 579, 
 591, 605 ; ii. 60, 110, 111, 116, 
 120-127, 131, 132-136, 145, 156, 
 164, 170, 171, 175, 180, 204-211, 
 216-220, 228, 229, 259, 262, 264, 
 289, 360, 388, 392, 394, 398, 
 401, 409, 413, 414, 430. 
 
 Alison, Archy Fergusson (grand- 
 son), ii. 486. 
 
 Alison, Dorothea (mother), i. 3, 
 5, 15, 20, 64, 177, 291, 292. 
 
 Alison, Elizabeth (sister), i. 63, 
 176. 
 
 Alison, Elizabeth Glenoairn 
 (wife), i. 231, 232, 235, 237, 
 240, 251, 282, 291, 293, 297, 
 306, 318, 321, 3,32, 334, 341, 
 346, 359, 363, 400, 413, 417, 
 455, 468, 479, 481, 495, 522, 
 545, 554, 565, 587, 600, 603 ; ii. 
 4, 7, 11, 46, 48, 51, 52, 54, 66, 
 97, 110, 117, 119, 133, 140, 142, 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 151, 165, 169, 172, 175, 176, 
 181, 208, 210, 219, 220, 228, 
 233, 257, 259, 264, 285, 292, 
 318, 321, 322, 326, 342, 3.50, 
 351, 415, 452. 
 
 Alison, Mrs (danghter-in-law), 
 ii. 228-230, 259, 260, 262, 264, 
 430. 
 
 Alison, Patrick, i. 2. 
 
 Alison, William Pulteney (bro- 
 ther), i. 14, 23, 26, 47, 60, 62, 
 73, 94, 112, 218, 230, 243, 291, 
 455, 457, 459, 461, 467 ; ii. 260, 
 261, 326. 
 
 Alison, Frederick Montagi; (son), 
 i. 595 ; ii. 110, 116, 120, 129, 
 130, 132, 135, 161, 164, 168, 
 169, 171, 172, 178, 180, 204- 
 211, 252, 253, 259, 319, 325, 
 326, 335, 454, 480. 
 
 Alison, Isabella Frances Cath- 
 erine (daughter) — see Dormer, 
 Hon. Mrs. 
 
 Alison, Margaret (sister) — see 
 Burge, Mrs. 
 
 Alison, Montagu (sister) — see 
 Gerard, Mrs. 
 
 AUoway, Lord, ii. 106, 149. 
 
 Anderson, Mr David, of Moredun, 
 i. 55, 73, 115. 
 
 Anderson, Mr Samuel, i. 73. 
 
 Anderson, Lord, i. 135. 
 
 Anglesej', Marquis of, ii. 62. 
 
 Anson, General, ii. 328. 
 
 Antrim, Countess of, ii. 23. 
 
 ArdmiUan, Lord, ii. 146, 148, 149, 
 226. 
 
 Argyll, Duchess of, i, 508, 509 ; 
 ii. 139, 150, 164. 
 
 2 L 
 
530 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of. i. 508, 510, 511 ; 
 
 ii. 57, 138, 139, 143, 150, 366. 
 Avmytage, Sir Edward, i. 565. 
 Arnold, ii. 358, .361. 
 Arthur, Mr, i. 378. 
 Ashlev, Lord — see Shaftesbury, 
 
 Earl of. 
 Ashlej', Lady — see Shaftesbury, 
 
 Countess of. 
 Athole, Duke of, ii. 314, 316. 
 Aumale, Due d', ii. 154. 
 Austria, Emperor of, i. 82, 95. 
 Aveland, Lord, i. 56. 
 Aytoun, Professor W. E., i. 585, 
 
 587 ; ii. 35, 47, 49, 51, 54. 
 
 Baden, Princess Marie of — see 
 
 Douglas, Marchioness of. 
 Baillie, Dr Matthew, i. 4. 
 Baird, Sir David, ii. 168, 169, 
 
 226, 229. 
 Ballantyne, Mr, the Edinburgh 
 
 publisher, i. 130. 
 Bancroft (American historian), i. 
 
 513 ; ii. 70, 71. 
 Bath, Lady, i. 19. 
 Bathurst, Earl of, ii. 189, 226, 
 
 499. 
 Beauregard, ii. 489. 
 Beckford, Mr, of Fonthill, ii. 73. 
 Belhaven, Lady, i. 603 ; ii. 66, 75. 
 Belhaven, Lord, i. 358, 531, 603 ; 
 
 ii. 66, 75, 214, 330, 418. 
 Bell, Mr Glassford, ii. 81. 
 Bentinck, Hon. Mr, ii. 455. 
 Bernadotte, ii. 154. 
 Biggar, Mr Henry, i. 55. 
 Bigotins, Madame, i. 85. 
 Bilman, Lady, i. 19. 
 Black, Mr James, ii. 228. 
 Black, Miss — see Alison, Mrs. 
 Black, Mrs, ii. 229. 
 Blackwood, Mr John, i. 585 ; ii. 
 
 35, 409. 
 Blackwood, Mr Robert, i. 313 ; ii. 
 
 35. 
 Blackwood, Mr AVilliam, i. 303, 
 
 313, 480, 541, 542, 547, 550, 
 
 552, 557, 563, 599; ii. 1, 35, 
 
 318. 
 Blair, Sir David, i. 239. 
 Blantyre, Lord, i. 508. 
 Blantyre, Lady, i. 508. 
 
 Blessington, Lady, i. 143. 
 Blucher, i. 78 ; ii. 154. 
 Borgo, Pozzo di, i. 78. 
 Borthwick of Crookston, i. 37. 
 Boyle, Lord Chief-Justice, i. 313 ; 
 
 ii. 47. 
 Braokley, Lord, i. 565. 
 Breadalbane, Marquis of, i. 359, 
 
 466 ; ii. 279. 
 Breadalbane, Marchioness of, i. 
 
 467. 
 Brewster, Sir David, i. 113 ; ii. 
 
 140, 141, 146. 
 Bridgeman, Dr, i. 595. 
 Bright, Mr John, ii. 14, 401, 404, 
 
 423, 448. 
 Brougham, Lord, i. 289, 582 ; ii. 
 
 283-285, 288, 445. 
 Brown, Dr, i. 41. 
 Brown, Mungo, i. 55. 
 Brown, Mr, i. 488. 
 Brownlow, Lord, i. 56. 
 Bruce, Lady Augusta, ii. 324. 
 Brunnow, Baron, i. 562 ; ii. 75. 
 Buccleuch, Duke of, i. 359, 468 ; 
 
 ii. 178, 185-187. 
 Buccleuch, Duchess of, i. 468, 
 
 561 ; ii. 186, 187. 
 Buchan, Earl of, i. 553. 
 Buchanan, Colonel, of Drum- 
 
 pellier, ii. 214. 
 
 Buckland, the geologist, i. 223. 
 
 Buckle, Mr, ii. 484. 
 
 Bulwer, Sir Edward — see Lytton, 
 Sir E. Bulwer. 
 
 Bulwer, Sir Henry, ii. 53, 176. 
 
 Bunsen, Chevalier, ii. 62, 63, 75. 
 
 Burge, Mrs (sister), i. 32, 53, 
 104. 
 
 Burge, William (brother-in-law), 
 i. 63. 
 
 Burghersh, Lady, i. 441, 
 
 Burghersh, Lord — see Westmore- 
 land, Earl of. 
 
 Burgoyne, Sir John, ii. 499. 
 
 Burke, i. 272, 561 ; ii. 34, 65, 372. 
 
 Burns, Robert (poet), i. 517 ; ii. 
 238. 
 
 Burns, Colonel, ii. 238, 239. 
 
 Bute, Lord, i. 545. 
 
 Byron, Lady, i. 141 ; ii. 24. 
 
 Byron, Lord, i. 141, 143, 192, 
 
 562 ; ii. 5, 385. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 531 
 
 Cairns, Sir Hugli (Earl), ii. 178, 
 
 221, 222, 498,'502. 
 Cairns, Lady, ii. 228, 498. 
 Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duoliess 
 
 of, ii. 104, 111, 209. 
 Cambridge, H.R.H. the Duke of, 
 
 ii. 15, 48, 49, 50, 55, 101, 177, 
 
 454. 
 Cambridge, H.E.H. Princess Mary 
 
 of — see Teck, H.R.H. Duchess 
 
 of. 
 Camden, Lady, ii. 292. 
 Cameron, General Sir Duncan, ii. 
 
 124. 
 Campbell, Thomas (poet), i. 31, 
 
 33; ii. 34. 
 Campbell, General, of Lochnell, i. 
 
 363. 
 Campbell, Sir Colin — see Clyde, 
 
 Lord. 
 Campbell of Blythswood, i. 358, 
 
 365. 
 Campbell, Lady, ii. 267. 
 Campbell, Sir A., of Qarscube, i. 
 
 358 ; ii. 267. 
 Campbell, Sir John, i. 364. 
 Campbell, Sir James, ii. 218, 283. 
 Campbell, Mr and Mrs, ii. 430, 
 
 433. 
 Canning, Lady, i. 391. 
 Canning, Sir Stratford — see Red- 
 
 cliflfe. Lord Stratford de. 
 Canning, Mr, ii. 154, 373. 
 Can ova, i. 161. 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of — see 
 
 Howley, Dr. 
 Cardigan, Earl of, ii. 119, 120. 
 Carlisle, Earl of, ii. 64, 172. 
 Carlyle, i. 413. 
 Carry & Hart, Messrs, i. 519. 
 Castlereagh, Viscount, i. 78, 154 ; 
 
 ii. 22, 24, 104, 251, 154, 189, 
 
 226, 254, 255, 256, 318, 319, 
 
 332, 341, 342, 356, 421, 449, 
 
 513. 
 Cathcart, Earl, i. 4, 77, 358. 
 Cathcart, Sir George, i. 78. 
 Cathcart, Ladies, i. 443. 
 Cayley, Mr, ii. 11, 12, 157. 
 Chalmers, Dr, i. 443, 445, 446, 
 
 447, 459. 
 Charles, Archduke, ii. 314. 
 Charles X., ii. 39. 
 
 Charlotte, H.R.H. Princess, i. 441. 
 Charteris, Lady Eleanor, i. 110, 
 
 603. 
 Charteris, Lady Katherine — see 
 
 Stamford, Lady. 
 Chateaubriand, ii. 154, 232. 
 Chernicheff, General, i. 77, 93. 
 Christopher, Mr, i. 562, 589. 
 Christopher, Lady Mary, i. 562, 
 
 589. 
 Churchill, Lord A., ii. 54. 
 Clanricarde, Marquis of, ii. 176. 
 Clerk, William, i. 196. 
 Clerk, John, of Eldin, i. 277, 
 
 290. 
 Clerk, Sir George, of Penicuik, i. 
 
 278. 
 Cleveland, Duke of, ii. 26, 155. 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, ii. 26. 
 Clouston, Lord Provost of Glas- 
 gow, ii. 310. 
 Clyde, Lord, ii. 120, 121, 124, 
 
 128, 134-136, 145, 161-165, 167- 
 
 172, 179, 180, 184, 204-211, 
 
 216, 219, 220, 229, 252, 253, 
 
 272, 326, 328, 335, 341, 454, 
 
 479, 480. 
 Cobden, Mr, i. 566; ii. 14, 401, 
 
 404, 423. 
 Cochrane, ilr Baillie, of Laming- 
 
 ton, ii. 32, 139, 177, 189. 
 Cochrane, Mrs Baillie, ii. 139, 
 
 177. 
 Cockburn, Lord, i. 125, 127, 219, 
 
 279, 338, 399 ; ii. 34, 331. 
 Cookrell, Mr (architect), i. 219. 
 Coigny, Due de, i. 587 ; ii. 145, 
 
 146. 
 Colonsay, Lord Justice- General, 
 
 i. 134, 335, 337, 397, 461 ; ii. 
 
 87, 214. 
 Colquhoun of Killermont, i. 358, 
 
 568, 569. 
 Colquhoun, Mrs, i. 568. 
 Consort, H.R.H. Prince, i. 609, 
 
 611 ; ii. 27, 62, 157, 276-279, 
 
 341, 353, 499. 
 Corehouse, Lord, i. 48, 125, 249, 
 
 290; ii. 149,331. 
 Coxe, Archdeacon, ii. 3. 
 Craig, Mr, i. 27. 
 Cranstoun, G. — see Corehouse, 
 
 Lord. 
 
532 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Crawford, Mr, ii. 67. 
 Crichton, Sir William, i. 94. 
 Croker, Mr J. W., i. 314, 317, 333, 
 
 362, 519 ; ii. 236, 254. 
 Croly, Dr, ii. 57, 272, 273. 
 Cruikshank, i. 566. 
 Gumming, Rev. Dr, ii. 329, 330. 
 Cunningham, Mr, ii. 322. 
 
 D , Madame, i. 500. 
 
 Daer, Lord, i. 19. 
 
 Dalglish, Mr, ii. 488, 497. 
 
 Dalkeith, Lord, ii. 177. 
 
 Daly, Father, ii. 314. 
 
 Damitz, Grolman, i. 501. 
 
 Davy, Lady, i. 161. 
 
 Davj', Sir Humphry, i. 161. 
 
 Deoazes, Due, ii. 177. 
 
 Delancy, Lady, i. 110. 
 
 Delancy, Sir William, i. 110. 
 
 Denmark, Crown - Piince of, i. 
 530, 531. 
 
 Derby, Emma, Countess of, ii. 48, 
 55, 177. 
 
 Derby, 14th Earl of, i. 414, 415, 
 511, 562, 602; ii. 34, 46, 47-50, 
 52, 55, 58, 134, 139, 159, 160, 
 165, 166, 177, 223, 232, 268, 
 270, 278, 283, 306, 365, 373, 
 408, 447, 450. 
 
 Dick, Sir Robert, i. 23. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, i. 567, 568; ii. 
 237. 
 
 Dickens, Mrs, i. 568. 
 
 Diebitch, General, i. 467. 
 
 Disraeli, Benjamin, ii. 48, 49, 54, 
 58, 68, 69, 102, 165, 176, 177, 
 232, 274, 275, 332, 342, 408, 
 447, 450. 
 
 Disraeli, Mrs, ii. 54. 
 
 Dolby, Madame, ii. 461. 
 
 Don, Sir Alexander, i. 198, 597. 
 
 Don, Lady — see Wallace, IjaAj. 
 
 Doolan, Dennis, i. 470, 473, 478. 
 
 Dormer, Hon. James Charle- 
 magne (son-in-law), ii. 335, 
 352, 468. 
 
 Dormer, Hon. Mrs (daughter), i. 
 306, 532, 558, 587 ; ii. 59, 97, 
 104, 108, 185, 257, 258, 260, 
 262-264, 285, 335, 352, 468. 
 
 Dormer, Lady, ii. 336. 
 
 Dormer, Lord, ii. 335, 468. 
 
 Douglas, Miss, ii. 431. 
 
 Douglas, Sir John, ii. 334. 
 
 Douglas, General, Sir Howard, i. 
 520, 522, 523, 556. 
 
 Douglas, Mr Campbell, ii. 430. 
 
 Douglas, Marquis of — see Hamil- 
 ton, nth Duke of. 
 
 Douglas, Marchioness of — see Ham- 
 ilton, Princess Marie, Duchess 
 of 
 
 Douglas, General, of Rosehall, i. 
 488. 
 
 Douro, Marchioness of, ii. 46. 
 
 Drummond, Messrs, i. 289. 
 
 Drummond, Mr H., i. 336. 
 
 Drummond, Dr, ii. 415. 
 
 Duchatel, M., i. 588. 
 
 Duff, General, i. 611. 
 
 Duft; Mrs, i. 611. 
 
 Uunbar, Mr George (afterwards 
 Professor), i. 23. 
 
 Dunbar, Mrs, ii. 263. 
 
 Duncombe, Mrs, ii. 54, 166. 
 
 Eastlake, Sir Charles, ii. 444. 
 Edgeworth, Mr, i. 224. 
 Edgeworth, Mr Henry, i. 224. 
 Edgeworth, Miss Maria, i. 223, 
 
 225. 
 Edwards, Sir J., Bart., ii. 156. 
 Eglinton, Earl of, i. 448, 450, 511, 
 
 517, 600, 601 ; ii. 30-32, 35, 47, 
 
 49, 50, 54, 153, 155, 165, 336- 
 
 340, 353, 450. 
 Eglinton, Theresa, Lady, ii. 32. 
 Elcho, Lady, ii. 55. 
 Elcho, Lord, ii. 55. 
 Eldin, Lord, ii. 149. 
 Eldon, Lord Chancellor, i. 278. 
 Elgin, Earl of, ii. 5, 382, 385. 
 Ellesmere, Earl of, i. 565. 
 EUice, Mr, ii. 372. 
 Erskine, Lord Chancellor, i. 553. 
 Erskine, Henry, i. 553. 
 Essex, Earl of, ii. 338. 
 Este, Madlle. d'— «ce Wilde, Lady. 
 Esterhazy, Princess, ii. 21. 
 Evans, Harper, i. 18. 
 
 EA32D, i. 20, 101. 
 Eaithfull, Miss, ii. 446. 
 Faucit, Miss Helen — see Martin, 
 Lady. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 533 
 
 Fergusson, Right Hon. Robert 
 Cutlar, of Craigdarroch, ii. 105, 
 106, 107. 
 
 Fergusson, Robert Cutlar (son-in- 
 law), ii. 104, 108, 217, 258-260, 
 262, 263. 
 
 Fergusson, Mrs (daughter) — see 
 Dormer, Hon. Mrs. 
 
 Fergusson, Sir James, ii. 226, 345- 
 347. 
 
 Fielding, Copley, ii. 57. 
 
 Finlay, Kirkman, i. 344, 443. 
 
 Fisher, Mr, W.S., i. 383. 
 
 Fitzgerald, Mr Seymour, ii. 498. 
 
 Fitzherbert, Mrs, ii. 324. 
 
 Fleming, Colonel, i. 498. 
 
 Fleming, Mr, ii. 503. 
 
 Forbes, William, i. 62, 529. 
 
 Forbes, John, of Blackford, i. 62. 
 
 Forbes, Mrs John, i. 62. 
 
 Formes, ii. 457. 
 
 Forster, A.D.C. to Lord Ctyde, ii. 
 252. 
 
 Fouche, i. 83, 500. 
 
 Foy, General, ii. 45. 
 
 Fraser, Colonel, ii. 324. 
 
 Fraser, Hon. Miss, ii. 324. 
 
 Frondeville, Marquis de, i. 79, 
 82. 
 
 FuUerton, Lord, ii. 149. 
 
 Gainsborough, ii. 267. 
 
 Galbraith, Lord Provost of Glas- 
 gow, ii. 192, 219, 295, 309. 
 
 GaUgnani, M., i. 514. 
 
 Gallait (artist), ii. 439. 
 
 Garibaldi, ii. 396, 500, 501. 
 
 Gartshore, Captain Murray, i. 520, 
 564. 
 
 Gartshore, Mrs Murray, i. 520, 
 521, 523, 564. 
 
 George IV., His Majesty, i. 214, 
 219. 
 
 Georges, Madame, i. 99. 
 
 Gerard, Miss, i. 453. 
 
 Gerard, Dr, i. 51. 
 
 Gerard, John, Lieut.-Colonel, i. 
 51, 176. 
 
 Gerard, Mrs (sister), i. 25, 32, 51, 
 176. 
 
 Gibson, Mr (the artist), ii. 468. 
 
 Gillespie, Dr, ii. 262. 
 
 Gillies, Lord, i. 276; ii. 149. 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, i. 413 ; 
 
 ii. 226-228, 498, 502. 
 Glasgow, Lord, i. 450. 
 Glasgow, Lord Provost of, i. 531 ; 
 
 ii. 183, 353. 
 Gloucester, Duchess of, i. 521. 
 Gordon, Duke of — tiee Richmond, 
 
 Duke of. 
 Gordon, W., Adniiral, i. 311. 
 Gordon, Lady Isabella, i. 553 ; ii. 
 
 181. 
 Gordon, Mr, of Aikenllead, i. 553. 
 Gortschakoff, ii. 129. 
 Gough, Viscount, ii. 15, 33, 327, 
 
 328. 
 Gough, Viscountess, ii. 33. 
 Goupe Freres, ii. 468. 
 Gower, Lad}' Elizabeth — see Ar- 
 gyll, Duchess of. 
 Gower, Lady Evelyn — see Blan- 
 
 tyre. Lady. 
 Graham, Sir James, i. 414, 442, 
 
 443, 489 ; ii. 449. 
 Graham, Lady, i. 442. 
 Grant, General Sir Patrick, ii. 33, 
 
 327-329. 
 Grant, Lady, ii. 328. 
 Grant, Hon. Lady, ii. 328. 
 Grant, Sir Hope, ii. 334. 
 Grant, Mr Francis, i. 183. 
 Grantley, Lord, ii. 76. 
 Greenock, Lord, i. 78. 
 Gregory, Mr William, i. 5. 
 Gregory, Dr John, i. 2, 5, 285. 
 Gregory, Dr James, i. 6, 285. 
 Gregory, James (mathematician), 
 
 i. 3, 5, 29 ; ii. 285. 
 Gregory, Mrs, i. 247. 
 Grey, Lady, ii. 452. 
 Grey, Earl, i. 611, 612 ; ii. 450. 
 Grey, Sir George, i. 583, 584; ii. 
 
 505. 
 Grosvenor, Lady Constance, ii. 
 
 442. 
 Quizot, ii. 232. 
 Guyamont, Marquis, ii. 232. 
 
 Hall, Sir James, i. 110, 223; ii. 
 
 142. 
 Hall, Miss Magdalene — see De- 
 
 lancy. Lady. 
 Hall, Miss Helen, i. 110. 
 Hall, Miss Fanny, i. 110. 
 
534 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hall, Captain Basil, i. 139, 140, 
 143, 161, 171, 241. 
 
 Hall, Sir John, i. 467. 
 
 Hall, Lady, i. 467. 
 
 Hallam, Henry (historian), i. 241, 
 413, 414, 562; ii. 55-64, 6.5- 
 68. 
 
 Hamilton, 10th Duke of, i. 358, 
 433, 468, 487, 492, 507, 508, 525, 
 603; ii. 71-74. 
 
 Hamilton, 1 1th Duke of, i. 358, 
 443, 507, 525, 603 ; ii. 144, 146, 
 173, 192, 292, 340,418, 453. 
 
 Hamilton, Princess Marie, Duch- 
 ess of, i. 292, 507, 508, 603, 604. 
 
 Hamilton, SusanEuphemia, Duch- 
 ess of, i. 508 ; ii. 73. 
 
 Hamley, Colonel, i. 502. 
 
 Handel, ii. 460. 
 
 Hardinge, Viscount, ii. 13, 15, 18, 
 55, I'OI, 118, 134. 
 
 Hardinge, Viscountess, ii. 14. 
 
 Harper, Messrs, i. 513. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, ii. 385. 
 
 Hay, Lord John, ii. 281. 
 
 Heathoote, Gilbert — see Aveland, 
 Lord. 
 
 Hemans, Mrs, i. 281, 282; ii. 147. 
 
 Henning, Mr, i. 48. 
 
 Herbert, Lord, of Lea, ii. 15, 16. 
 
 Herbert, Sydney — see Herbert, 
 Lord of Lea. 
 
 Hibbert, Nathaniel, i. 56, 139. 
 
 Hill, Lord, ii. 62. 
 
 Holland, Lord, ii. 331. 
 
 Home, Miss, i. 459. 
 
 Hope, John, Lord Justice-Clerk, 
 i. 55, 112, 134, 183, 185, 186, 
 
 " 188, 189, 190, 209, 216, 220, 
 2.54, 333; ii. 86, 87, 88, 215, 
 216, 223. 
 
 Hope, Mr, ii. 179. 
 
 Hope, Dr, i. 50. 
 
 Hopetoun, Lady, i. 184. 
 
 Horner, Francis, i. 113. 
 
 Horwood, Miss, i. 532, 534. 
 
 Howley, Mrs, i. 560. 
 
 Howley, Dr, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, i. 466, 558, 561 ; ii. 62. 
 
 Humboldt, Count, i. 78. 
 
 Hume, Baron, i. 224 ; ii. 258. 
 
 Hume, David (historian), ii. 259. 
 
 Hume, Mrs Macdonald, ii. 258. 
 
 Hunt & Roskell, Messrs, ii. 467. 
 Hyett, Mr W. H., of Painswick, i. 
 56, 101, 566. 
 
 Infanta of Spain, i. 590. 
 
 Inglis, Dr, ii. 223. 
 
 Inglis, Lord Justice-Clerk, ii. 216, 
 
 221, 22.3, 224. 
 Inglis, Sir E., ii. 57, 69. 
 Innes, Mr Gilbert, of Stow, i. 40. 
 Innes, Mr William Mitchell, i. 
 
 40. 
 Irving — see Newton, Lord. 
 Irving, Edward, i. 37 ; ii. 5. 
 
 Jackson, Dr, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 
 i. 561. 
 Jackson, Colonel, i. 497. 
 Jackson, " Stonewall," ii. 489, 490. 
 Jacobi, Professor, i. 467. 
 Jamieson, Eobert, i. 199, 200. 
 Jebb, Sir Joshua, ii. 446. 
 Jeffrey, Francis (afterwards Lord), 
 
 i. 33, 125, 127, 129, 130, 137, 
 
 161, 192, 196, 224, 281, 290, 
 
 292, 3.38, 410, 456, 515 ; ii. 34, 
 
 148, 331. 
 Jellachich, i. 599. 
 Jenkinson — see Liverprjol, Lord. 
 Jephson, Dr, i. 488. 
 Jersey, 5th Earl of, ii. 19, 21, 
 
 177, 232. 
 Jersey, 6th Earl of, ii. 232, 281. 
 Jersey, Julia, Countess of, ii. 281, 
 
 282, 440. 
 Jersey, Sarah, Countess of, ii. 1 9, 
 
 21, 55, 157, 177, 189, 232, 274, 
 
 455. 
 Johnston, Mr (the geographer), i. 
 
 553 ; ii. 347. 
 Jomini, General, i. 484, 501. 
 Jones, Captain, i. 497. 
 Jones, Sir William, i. 4. 
 
 Kean, Mr and Mrs Charles, ii. 
 458. 
 
 Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, Attorney-Gen- 
 eral, ii. 178, 221. 
 
 Kemble, John, i. 67, 86, 99. 
 
 Kent, H.R.H. the Duchess of, ii. 
 277, 321. 
 
 Kinnaird, Hon. Mr, ii. 283, 287, 
 289. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 535 
 
 Lamartine, i. 588-590. 
 
 Landseer, Sir E., ii. 57, 438, 
 444. 
 
 Lansdowne, Marquis of, i. 523, 
 524 ; ii. 331. 
 
 Lauder (the painter), i. 480. 
 
 Lawrence, Sir John, ii. 18, 271, 
 272, 283. 
 
 Learmonth, Mr, i. 327. 
 
 Leeds, Duke of, ii. 59. 
 
 Leeds, Duchess of,, ii. 59. 
 
 Leopold, Prince, of Saxe-Coburg, 
 i. 441. 
 
 Leslie, Professor, i. 35, 38. 
 
 Lewis, Mr Frankland, i. 414, 
 562. 
 
 Lincoln, Lady, i. 508. 
 
 Lind, Miss Jenny, i. 85. 
 
 Lindsay, Lady CharJotte, i. 414. 
 
 Linning, Mr Michael, i. 219. 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, i. 15 ; ii. 154, 
 226, 499. 
 
 Lockhart, J. G., i. 129, 134, 183, 
 190, 191, 214, 317, 467, 519. 
 
 Lockhart, Miss, ii. 498. 
 
 Lockhart, Lady Macdonald, ii. 
 220-222, 253, 268. 
 
 Lockhart, Sir Norman, i. 494 ; ii. 
 2.53. 
 
 London, Bishop of, ii. 62. 
 
 Londonderry, Charles, 3d Mar- 
 Cjuis of, i. 73, 448, 450, 570 ; ii. 
 22-24, 62, 103, 104, 151, 254- 
 256, 318, 319, 342, 356. 
 
 Londonderry, Frances Anne, Mar- 
 chioness of, i. 450, 452, 561 ; ii. 
 22-26, 68, 103, 151-15.5, 172, 
 221, 224, 254, 259, 275, 342, 
 347, 348, 350, 351. 
 
 Londonderry, Robert, 2d Mar- 
 quis of — see Castlereagli, Vis- 
 count. 
 
 Longfellow, ii. 147. 
 
 Longley, Dr, Archbishop of Yorli, 
 ii. 224, 225, 259. 
 
 Lothian, Ladj', i. 468. 
 
 Lothian, Lord, ii. 468. 
 
 Loudon, Lord, i. 467. 
 
 Loughborough, Lord, ii. 177, 319. 
 
 Louis XVIIL, i. 80, 82, 83. 
 
 Louis Philippe, i. 588, 592 ; ii. 39, 
 154, 406. 
 
 Lovat, Lord, i. 46 / . 
 
 Lovat, ]Master of, ii. 324. 
 Lovelace, Lady, i. 562. 
 Lushington, Dr, i. 290. 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, i. 290. 
 Lvtton, Sir Edward Bulwer, i. 
 "585, 587 ; ii. 49, 50-54, 68, 98- 
 
 101, 174-176, 2.32, 237, 271, 
 
 291, 332, 342. 
 Lyveden, Lad}', ii. 325. 
 Lyveden, Lord, ii. 325. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, i. 515, 519, 529 ; 
 
 ii. 7, 57, 64-69, 148, 237, 331, 
 
 499. 
 Macdonald, Messrs, ii. 212. 
 Macfarlane, Principal, Glasgow 
 
 University, i. 546, 611. 
 Mackenzie, Mr Forbes, ii. 46, 306. 
 Mackenzie, Sir George, of Coul, 
 
 ii. 325. 
 Mackenzie, Lord, i. 107, 134. 
 Mackintosh, Sir .James, i. 130, 
 
 161 ; ii. 34. 
 Macleod, i. 387, 397. 
 Macniahon, GeTieral, ii. 125. 
 Macnab, Sir Allan, i. 593. 
 Maconochie, Lord Advocate, i. 
 
 213. 
 M'Coll, Rev. Mr, ii. 295, 296, 309- 
 
 312. 
 M'CuUoch, Mr, i. 138. 
 M'Hardy, James, ii. 322. 
 M'Hardy, Miss — see Merry, Mr.^. 
 M'Lachlan, Jessie, ii. 503. 
 M'Lellan, General, ii. 491, 492. 
 M'Leod, Mr J. Macphersoii, i. 37. 
 M'Xeill, Duncan — see Colonsaj', 
 
 Lord. 
 M'Neill of Colonsay, i. 337. 
 M'Neill, Lady, i. 467. 
 M'Neill, Sir John, i. 467. 
 Mahon, Lady, ii. 64. 
 Mahon, Lord, i. 519 ; ii. 57, 64. 
 
 Major , i. 497. 
 
 Malcolm of Poltalloch, i. 363. 
 Malmesbury, Earl of, ii. 54. 
 Malmesbury, Countess of, ii. 218. 
 Manchester, Duchess of, ii. 165, 
 
 166, 442. 
 Manchester, Duke of, ii. 165. 
 Manners, Lord John, ii. 178, 455. 
 Marie, Princess, of Baden — see 
 
 Hamilton, Duchess of. 
 
536 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Mario, ii. 457. 
 
 Marlborough; Duchess of, ii. 342. 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, i. 563 ; ii. 
 
 2, 3. 
 Marochetti, Baron, ii. 57. 
 Marryatt, Captain, i. 344. 
 Mars, Mademoiselle, i. 86, 87. 
 ilartin, Dr, ii. 220. 
 Martin, Lady, i. 532-534, 536, 
 
 537, 554 ; ii. 459. 
 ilartin, Mr Montgomery, i. 570 ; 
 
 ii. 266, 499. 
 Martineau, Miss Harriet, i. 346. 
 Mason, Mr, ii. 488. 
 Maxwell, Sir John, of Pollock, i. 
 
 610 ; ii. 4, 5, 11, 219, 265, 333, 
 
 334. 
 Maxwell, Lady Matilda, i. 45. 
 Maxwell, Sir W., i. 531. 
 Mayor, Lord, of London (1852), 
 
 ii. 62. 
 Meadowbank, Lord, i. 314. 
 Medwyn, Lord, i. 337, 399. 
 Melville, Lord, i. 313, 461. 
 Melville, Mr Whyte, ii. 336. 
 Menzies, Justice, i. 134, 214. 
 Merry, Mr James, of Belladrum, 
 
 ii. 182, 322, 326. 
 Merry, Mrs, ii. 182, 322, 326. 
 Metternich, Prince, i. 78, 500 ; 
 
 ii. 154, 2.32. 
 Milaradowitch, i. 77. 
 Milbanke, Mr, ii. 24. 
 Miller, Captain, i. 383, 384, 492, 
 
 497. 
 Miller, General, i. 242. 
 Milman, Dean, ii. 330, 331. 
 Milman, Mrs, ii. 330. 
 ililne, Mr David, i. 287, 459. 
 Milne, Sir David, i. 287. 
 Milnes, Mr Monckton, i. 413 ; ii. 
 
 64, 146-148, 239. 
 Mitchell, George, i. 40. 
 Mitchell, Mrs, i. 40. 
 Moncreiff, Lord Advocate, i. 125, 
 
 338 ; ii. 79, 149, 215, 283, 287, 
 
 288. 
 Montague, Mrs, i. 5, 6, 7, 292. 
 Montaignac, Count, i. 74. 
 Montebello, Duchess of, i. 589. 
 Montebello, Duke of, i. 589. 
 Monteith, Alexander Earle, i. 131, 
 
 310. 
 
 Montpensier, Due de, i. 589. 
 Montrose, Duke of, i. 413, 569 ; 
 
 ii. 31, 32, 145, 15.5, 187, 188, 
 
 192, 226. 
 Montrose, Duchess of, ii. 1 14, 188, 
 
 442. 
 Moore, Thomas (poet), i. 198, 
 
 199 ; ii. 331. 
 Morrison, Mr, ii. 264. 
 ilorrison, Mr Mitford, ii. 216. 
 Mostyn, Ladj', ii. 324. 
 Murchison, Sir Roderick, i. 329 ; 
 
 ii. 49, 51, 140-143, 146, 226. 
 Murdoch, i. 382. 
 Murdoch, Rev. Dr, ii. 294. 
 Murray, Mr, ii. 351. 
 Murray, Mr (publisher), i. 142. 
 ^furray, John, Lord Advocate, i. 
 
 125, 388, 397, 400. 
 Murray, Sir George, i. 595 ; ii. 3. 
 Murray, Sir Patrick, of Ochter- 
 
 tyre, i. 520. 
 Murray, Hon. Charles, ii. 382. 
 
 Nairne, j\Ir, i. 7. 
 
 Xapier, Mr (shipbuilder), ii. 285, 
 
 286. 
 Napier, Colonel, i. 269. 
 Napier, Macvey, i. 125, 138. 
 Napier, Sir Charles, ii. 390. 
 Napoleon I., Emperor of the 
 
 French, i. 80, 82, 93, 98, 563 ; 
 
 ii. 3, 53, 154, 314, 361, 428. 
 Napoleon III., Emperor of the 
 
 French, i. 442 ; ii. 16, 37, 53, 
 
 76, 173, 174, 275, 292, 359, 361, 
 394, 400, 423, 424, 502. 
 
 Nesselrode, Count, i. 78 ; ii. 154. 
 Newcastle, Duke of, ii. 155, 173. 
 Newman, Cardinal, ii. 470. 
 Newton, Lord, i. 55. 
 Ney, Marshal, i. 83. 
 Nicholas, Grand Duke, i. 562. 
 Nish, Mr, i. 384. 
 Normanby, Lord, i. 477. 
 Norton, Hon. George, ii. 76. 
 Norton, Hon. Mrs, i. 450 ; ii. 76, 
 
 77, 146, 171, 226, 228, 285, 292, 
 501. 
 
 Oatley, Mr, i. 14. 
 O'Connell, Daniel, i. 401, 409- 
 411 ; ii. 69. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 537 
 
 O'Connor, Arthur, ii. 106. 
 O'Connor, Feargus, i. 582. 
 Oldham, Rev. Mr, ii. 229. 
 O'Neil, Miss, i. 99. 
 Orr, Sir Andrew, ii. 66, 168, 218. 
 Orsiui, ii. 275. 
 Oswald, Mr, i. 603. 
 Oswald, Lady Louisa, i. 60.3. 
 
 Pahlan, i. 77. 
 
 Pakington, Sir John, ii. 48, 49, 
 
 51, 268-270, 283, 285-287, 447. 
 Palmerston, Viscount, i. 19 ; ii. 
 
 34, 157-160, 278, 352, 365, 373, 
 
 390, 391, 403, 449, 469, 498, 
 
 499, 502. 
 Panmure, Lord, ii. 181. 
 Park, Mr, ii. 265. 
 Parke, General, ii. 135. 
 Parma, Prince of, i. 603, 604. 
 Parma, Princess of, i. 603, 604. 
 Parr, Dr, i. 226, 241. 
 Patterson, Mr E. H., ii. 342, 
 
 370. 
 Peel, Lady EmUy, ii. 232, 281. 
 Peel, Sir Robert, i. 127, 314, 335, 
 
 364, 365, 411, 442, 538, 541, 
 
 543, 545, 547, 549, 550, 555, 
 
 595 ; ii. 41, 281-283, 404. 
 Peel, Sir William, ii. 253. 
 Perceval, Mr, ii. 449. 
 Petit, M., i. 514. 
 Pillans, Professor, i. 125. 
 Pitmilly, Lord, i. 459. 
 Pitt, ii. 332, 341, 372. 
 Phillpotts, Dr, Bishop of Exeter, 
 
 i. 561. 
 Platoff, Count, i. 77, 93. 
 Playfair, Mr John, i. 8, 40. 
 Playfair, Mr W. H., i. 125, 219. 
 Portarlington, Lady, ii. 342. 
 Prescott (historian), ii. 150, 151. 
 Pringle, Mr Alexander, of Yair, i. 
 
 55, 113, 135, 139. 
 Prussia, H.M. King of, i. 81, 82, 
 
 95 ; ii. 326. 
 Prussia, H.M. Queen of, ii. 326. 
 Pulteney, Sir William, i. 7, 8, 16, 
 
 19, 22. 
 
 QuBENSBERRY, Duke of, ii. 186. 
 Radetzcky, i. 599. 
 
 Rae, Sir W., i. 213, 219, 254, 
 
 294, 307, 313, 333, 335, 443, 
 
 503. 
 Raveiisworth, Lord, ii. 342, 352. 
 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, ii. 140, 
 
 143, 146, 226. 
 Reay, James, i. 290. 
 Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de, i. 
 
 391, 414, 562, 589 ; ii. 292, 
 
 435. 
 Redding, Patrick, i. 470, 473. 
 Reid, Dr, i. 3, 4, 529. 
 Reventlow, Count, i. 530, 531. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, i. 144, 146, 
 
 159 ; ii. 438. 
 Richmond, Duchess of, i. 600, 
 
 602 ; ii. 48. 
 Richmond, Duke of, i. 600, 602 ; 
 
 ii. 48. 
 Ridley, i. 399. 
 Ridley, General, i. 576. 
 Robertson, Lord, i. 134, 329, 397. 
 Robinson, Miss Rose, i. 333. 
 Rogers, ii. 331. 
 Rollin, Ledru, i. 589. 
 Ross V. Ross, i. 289. 
 Royal, H.R.H. Princess, of Eng- 
 land, ii. 326, 455. 
 Russell, Lord John, i. 424, 442 ; 
 
 ii. 12, 190, 391, 431, 434, 498. 
 Russell, Sir William, ii. 253. 
 Rutherfurd, Lord, i. 54, 126, 249, 
 
 280, 331. 
 Ruthven, Lord, i. 359. 
 Rutland, Duke of, ii. 165, 177. 
 
 Saoken, Coimt, i. 93. 
 
 St Albans, Duchess of, i. 467. 
 
 St Albans, Duke of, i. 467. 
 
 St Germans, Countess of, ii. 188. 
 
 St Germans, Earl of, ii. 188. 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, ii. 165. 
 
 Salmond, Mr, i. 383. 
 
 Salomons, Mr Daniel, ii. 165, 166. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, i. 33, 129, 132, 
 142, 191, 192, 196, 224, 265, 
 287, 393, 500, 610; ii. 97, 98, 
 332, 342. 
 
 Schwarzenberg, ii. 154. 
 
 Seaton, Lord, ii. 62. 
 
 Sedgwick, Professor, i. 329. 
 
 Seymour, Lady, i. 448, 450. 
 
 Seymour, Lord, i. 450. 
 
5 38 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Shaflesbuiy, Countess of, i. 439, 
 
 440 ; ii. 64. 
 Shaftesbury, Earl of, i. 400, 408, 
 
 439, 440 ; ii. 64, 431, 469, 498. 
 Shelley, Lady, ii. 181. 
 Shepherd, Lord Chief Baron, i. 
 
 195, 196, 295. 
 Shrew.sbury, 17th Earl of, ii. 55. 
 Shrewsbury, 18th Earl of, ii. 
 
 177. 
 Shuttleworth, Sir John Kay-, ii. 
 
 283, 289. 
 Siborne, Captain, i. 501. 
 Siddon.?, Mrs, i. 66, 87 ; ii. 267. 
 Simpson, General, ii. 125, 128, 
 
 129, 162. 
 Skene, Mr James, of Rubislaw, i. 
 
 114. 
 Skene, Mr Andrew, i. 199, 204. 
 Smart, Captain, ii. 310. 
 Smith, Adam, i. 4, 24, 504 ; ii. 
 
 34, 349. 
 Smith, John, i. 378, 397. 
 Smith, Sheriff, ii. 82. 
 Smith, Sydney, i. 515, 519 ; ii. 
 
 148, 331. 
 Smith, Mrs Vernon — see Lyveden, 
 
 Lad3^ 
 Smith, Vernon — see Lyveden, 
 
 Lord. 
 Somerset, Lord Fitzroy, i. 605. 
 Somerset, Lord Granville, i. 400. 
 Southey, Robert (poet), i. 187, 192, 
 
 519. 
 Spiers, Mrs, ii. 173, 319. 
 Spiers, Mr, of Elderslie, ii. 319. 
 Stamibrd, Lady, i. 110, 603. 
 Stamford, Lord, i. 110. 
 Stanhope, Lord, ii. 65, 283. 
 Stanley, Lady Emma — see Talbot, 
 
 Lady Enrma. 
 Stanley, Lord — see Derby, 14th 
 
 Earl of. 
 Stanley, Lord, ii. 48, 50, 221, 342, 
 
 365. 
 Steele, SherilT, ii. 82. 
 Steell (the sculptor), i. 456. 
 Stein, Mr John, i. 197. 
 Stein, Miss — see Wallace, Lady. 
 Sterling, Sir Anthony, ii. 162, 
 
 168, 171. 
 Sterling, Colonel — see Sterling, Sir 
 
 Anthony. 
 
 Stewart, Mr Andrew, i. 7. 
 Stewart, Mr, of Murdieston, ii. 
 
 104. 
 Stewart, Baillie, i. 572-574, 577, 
 
 578. 
 Stewart, Sir Charles — see London- 
 derry, Charles, 3d Marquis of. 
 Stewart, Dugald, i. 2, 4, 8, 19, 
 
 40, 47, 50 ; ii. 385. 
 Stewart, Dr Matthew, i. 4. 
 Stewart, Sir Michael, 6th Bart., 
 
 ii. 188. 
 Stewart, Sir Michael Shaw, 7th 
 
 Bart., ii. 139, 188. 
 Stewart, Mrs, i. 48. 
 Stewart, Lady Octavia Shaw, ii. 
 
 139, 188. 
 Stewart, Mr Vandeleur, ii. 342, 
 
 350. 
 Stirling, Mr, of Keir, ii. 76, 149, 
 
 219, 226. 
 Strathern, Sheriff, ii. 82. 
 Strickland, Miss Agnes, ii. 6, 7. 
 Stuart, Lady Louisa, i. 19. 
 Sutherland, Duchess of, i. 359, 
 
 508, 509, 561 ; ii. 55, 139. 
 Sutheiland, Duke of, i. 508. 
 Swinton, Mr A. C, i. 397. 
 
 Talbot, Lady Emma, ii. 55, 177. 
 Talbot, Lord — see Shrewsbury, 
 
 18th Earl of. 
 Talfourd, Mr Sergeant, i. 130. 
 Talleyrand, i. 83 ; ii. 154. 
 Talma, i. 86, 99. 
 Taylor, Colonel, ii. 338. 
 Teck, H. R. H. Princess Mary, 
 
 Duchess of, ii. 104, 177, 276, 
 
 454. 
 Teignmouth, Lord, i. 467. 
 Telford, Mr Thomas (engiireer), 
 
 i. 9, 15, 16, 31, 33, 40, 187. 
 Tempest- Vane, Sir Harry, ii. 23. 
 Thanet, Lord, ii. 106. 
 Thomson, Mr James, i. 567, 596. 
 Thomson, Sheriff Robert, i. 54. 
 Thomson, Mr Thomas, i. 125. 
 Titiens, Maddle., ii. 457, 461. 
 Tocqueville, De, ii. 358, 361. 
 Tolly, Barclay de. General, i. 77, 
 
 9.3. 
 Tree, Miss Helen, ii. 459. 
 Troubridge, Sir Thomas, ii. 118. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Truro, Lady, i. 442 ; ii. 222. 
 Truro, Lord Chancellor, ii. 222. 
 Turner, ii. 437, 438, 452. 
 Tytler, Mr A. Fraser, i. 111. 
 Tytler, Colonel, i. 231. 
 Tytler, Miss Jane Ann — see Grant, 
 
 Lady. 
 Tytler, Mrs, i. 232. 
 Tytler, Patrick Fraser, historian 
 
 of Scotland, i. 29, 55, 57, 73, 
 
 134, 183, 232. 
 Tytler, Mr William Fraser, of 
 
 Aldonrie, ii. 326. 
 
 Vane, Countess, ii. 156. 
 Vane, Earl, ii. 342, 350. 
 Vane, Lord Adolphus, ii. 342, 
 
 343, 345-350. 
 Vane, Lady Susan, ii. 342, 351. 
 Veitch, Sheriff-suhstitute, i. 360. 
 Vernon, Hon. Mr, ii. 325. 
 Vernon, Hon. Mrs, ii. 325. 
 Victoria, Her Majesty Queen, i. 
 
 487, 580, 590, 608-614 ; ii. 22, 55, 
 
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 274, 276-278, 321, 326, 334, 
 
 354, 451. 
 Villiers, Lady — see Jersey, Julia, 
 
 Countess of. 
 Villiers, Lady Clementina, ii. 19- 
 
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 Walpole, Mrs, ii. 55. 
 Warren, Samuel, ii. 49. 
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 267. 
 Westmoreland, Earl of, i. 439, 441, 
 
 450; ii. 155, 232. 
 Whewell, i. 329, 413; ii. 140, 141, 
 
 146, 148. 
 Whigham, Mr Rohert (afterwards 
 
 Sherifl), i. 134. 
 Whiteside, Mr, ii. 48, 156, 157, 
 
 177, 221, 222, 340, 342. 
 Wilde, Mr Sergeant — see Truro, 
 
 Lord. 
 Wilde, Lady — see Truro, Lady. 
 Wilson, J., Professor, i. 129, 134, 
 
 192-194, 195, 313, 517, 519. 
 Winchester, Lord, ii. 177. 
 Windischgratz, i. 599. 
 Woodhouselee, Lord, i. 29, 232. 
 Woronzoff, i. 77. 
 Worsley, Sir William, of Hoving- 
 
 hani Hall, ii. 13. 
 Wylie, Sir James, i. 77, 94. 
 
 York, Archhishop of, ii. 470. 
 Young, Mr P. T., i. 481, 571 ; ii. 
 
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 Young, Mr, ii. 505. 
 
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